By Mike Stiles

How about engagement that lasts?

As if getting someone to come to and “Like” your brand page isn’t a big enough challenge, stats show only around 2% of Fans who Like a Page ever return, even once. 2%! With friends like these, who needs casual acquaintances?

So, it becomes more important than ever for brands to get their content to show up on users’ news feeds so it will get seen and hopefully engaged with. Who knows? Enough good content and it may actually inspire a return visit one day.

Do you know your “Edge Rank“? Whether or not your content shows up on your Fans’ news feeds has to do with a mysterious X-Files kinda thing called “Edge Rank,” an algorithm of Facebook’s that determines what shows up on any given user’s wall. To see your content, someone has to have “Liked” your Page, and they not only have to engage (meaning like, share or comment on your posts), they have to engage you to a certain degree more than they engage other Pages they’ve “Liked.” Otherwise you get bumped off the list.

Marketers don’t like to hear such things, but for the most part, there isn’t an effective way to manipulate your Edge Rank. It’s not something that’s entirely under your control. However, there are a few things you can do or keep in mind to increase your odds of showing up on walls.

• ***Your “affinity score” has to do with how connected you are with an individual Fan. If the Fan likes your posts, or comments on them or shares them, the affinity score goes up and the algorithm assumes that Fan wants to see your posts. Whatever method you can use to encourage readers to comment, like or share your posts, get to it. If you can encourage them to go visit your actual Page again, that will pay off big time in affinity scoring.
• ***It’s generally accepted that posts with video or images get more engagement, and are therefore worth more than text or link-only posts. Make sure you’re multimedia.
• ***Posts have a crazy-short shelf life. If something doesn’t get seen and acted upon fairly soon after you post it, it’s doubtful people will scroll far enough back in their news feeds to catch it. You’ve got to post several times a day.
• ***Any marketing you can do that complements your social marketing efforts and drives people to visit, or revisit your Fan Page is going to do you a world of good. Make sure your campaigns and marketing efforts are nicely integrated.
• ***One comment on a post is great. Multiple Fans commenting back and forth on your post is bliss. Do whatever you can do to get your Fans conversing or debating amongst themselves.

As always, there simply is no way around the best path to engagement, creating and posting content that’s good. Your first gut-check should be, “Knowing how fast I blow through my own news feed, would I pause at, respond or react to this?” Certain kinds of content cry out for interaction, like the polls, deals, quizzes and games that tabs modules can offer. It’s a party and you’re the host. Don’t just hand guests a flat beer and say, “Hope you have fun.”