Oh, the regrets. Things happen. We start heading down the wrong direction and suddenly we find ourselves in a bad place. What am I talking about? Facebook pages. Most businesses have them. Most businesses are doing them wrong. Some have done them so wrong in the past that it’s better to start from scratch. As much pain as that may cause, the alternative is worse. The way that the EdgeRank algorithm works combined with the improved effectiveness of Facebook advertising make it necessary in some cases to dump a page and start over. Having too many low-quality Facebook fans can hurt your chances for…

When Google+ first rolled out their change, we called it “Twitteresque”. After exploring it further for the last couple of weeks, we believe that it’s actually better than Pinterest in many ways… and worse. One of the ways that it’s definitely better than Pinterest is in the display of large photos. The algorithm that drives the way that posts appear in your feed is beginning to reveal itself to be more complex than EdgeRank. It may have been that way all along but we never noticed because there wasn’t enough activity. In any case, it’s there now and we’re liking what we’re seeing. First, you’ll…

EdgeRank. It’s a mythical beast in many ways, not because it isn’t real but because it is very misunderstood by many. It’s one of those things that makes total sense once you get it but that can be very misleading before the light bulb ignites. The basic way to understand it in one sentence is this – when your content gets positive engagement, it can be seen by more people, but when it gets negative sentiment, it gets hidden. There is a science behind it but that’s not really necessary for success. When you post good content and the people that do get to see it interact in a positive manner, the chance that…

If you consider yourself even remotely interested in technology, you’ve heard the term “algorithm.” An algorithm is defined as a set of instructions for solving a problem or performing a task, and a quick look at history will reveal that humans have been using them for thousands of years – ever since the famed Greek mathematician Euclid devised a system for coming up with the greatest common factor of two numbers (a system which is still used by computers today!) These days, algorithms power some of the most important parts of our lives, including computer operating systems, internet and…

With several hundred signals that are read and processed by their search algorithm, we’ve always known that Google puts a tremendous amount of time, money, and effort into making their results match their users’ needs. Now, we have an idea of how much tweaking is done: a lot. Their “search scientists” test the changes they make in a sandbox environment to see how each change, twist, addition, and omission reacts to various searches and search types. “Just last year we launched over 500 changes to our algorithm so by some count we change our algorithm almost every day, almost twice over,” said Google…