Facebook introduced the “People Talking about This” metric a few months ago.

Initially, many were skeptical of how useful it would be.

As it turns out, it’s actually one of the best metrics you can use to gauge your Facebook marketing.

This one number tells you how effective your marketing is on a weekly basis. And it’s the key to virally growing your Facebook fan page.

Why?

Your “Viral Reach” is closely tied to how many people are “Talking about You”.

So the more people that “talk about you”, the more your Facebook page will virally grow on its own.

But there’s a huge problem. Something is stopping you.

What’s stopping you from virally growing your Facebook fan page?

EdgeRank.

Facebook EdgeRank 101

The truth is that it doesn’t matter how many fans your page has. This is a harsh reality for your social media plan.

If you don’t have engagement, then people will never see your updates.

Facebook’s EdgeRank is an algorithm that determines how many of your Facebook fans will actually see any updates.

It’s made up of three parts:

1. User Affinity

The first part measures each individual user’s engagement level with your page.

The more times a user Likes, comments, views, or responds to a question on your page, the more likely they will receive updates.

2. Status Weight

Facebook wants users to stay on their site as long as possible. So they give more credit to these types of updates.

Video is given the most, followed by photos, links, and then regular status updates.

3. Freshness

As a rule of thumb, most people have seen your status update within 4 hours.

So updating at consistent intervals and at the right time of day can pay off tremendously.

But be careful. Posting more frequently than once every four hours can actually hurt you in the long run.

How Do You Defeat EdgeRank?

The key to defeating EdgeRank, is by increasing your user engagement on each update.

Here are some simple tips that you can start doing today.

Use a Personal Tone.

Address your fans casually and be personal. Think about what your users are interested in, and use the vocabulary they would use.

Always put your audience’s needs first. If you’re posting a link to an article you just wrote, then specifically ask them “What they think about X”, or “Do you like X or Y better?”.

Always use a Call-to-Action.

You should always have a specific objective behind each status update. Don’t just ramble or post garbage… this isn’t Twitter.

If you want your users to take some action, then ask them to!

So try saying, “Tell me what you think”, or “Like this update if you like X.

Spark an emotional response and debate.

People will feel compelled to respond when they have some deep interest.

The easiet topics that spark debate are sex, religion and politics. But I would urge you to avoid these for obvious reasons.

Instead, use current news stories or pop culture references. These inspire the same interest level, without the headaches and arguments.

Post during peak hours.

Finally, look at your Facebook Insights to determine when your best updates (in terms of Total Views) were posted.

If you can’t find any patterns or clues, then you can’t go wrong with the following schedule:

• Early Morning (7am – 9am)
• End of Work (5pm – 7pm)
• Late Night (11pm – 1am)

Facebook use peaks during these time periods, and you’ll have a better chance of exposing your content to more people.

Using these marketing tips will help you immediately increase engagement.

And when you increase engagement on a daily basis, then you’ll begin to virally grow your Facebook fan page.

The more people you get “talking about you” each week, then the better chance you have of meeting your marketing goals.