How is "my popularity" calculated?

The first thing to note about your popularity score is that it is a comparative value and not a personal value.  In other words, your score represents your position within the IM faceplate community and therefore this can change up and down over time based on the dynamics of the community.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you see your popularity scrore go down, it doesn't mean you have done anything wrong, it just means that some other members have passed you in popularity.  Instead of letting it get you down, let it inspire you to do more to increase your own popularity and take back your position ... or better yet, improve on it!

The second important thing to note about popularity is that it is a measure of your popularity and NOT simply your activity.  So, even though one member may be very active, they might have a lower popularity than a member that is less active but has a lot of followers and is getting lots of likes on their articles and posts.  Remember, it's not an activity meter, it's a popularity meter and as such it needs to reflect how popular you are in the network ... which is why things like followers and "likes" play a large role in the calculation.

So, does this mean that being active doesn't matter when it comes to popularity?  Absolutely not!  In fact, as you will see, most of the things that affect your popularity will only happen if you are active.  Members with a high popularity that stop being active, will likely see their popularity score drop over time because people will stop following someone that is not active and with no new content (articles and posts), there is nothing for members to "like".  So, being active is still essential to a high popularity.

Now for some details. All faceplates are ranked based on a popularity score which is determined using a few key factors.  Although the algorithm used is quite complex, the following things will impact your popularity score

• your facepoints
• the TOTAL number of people following you (newer followers carry more weight)
• the "likes" you have received on your articles, comments, and posts
• the average number of unique visits you get to your faceplate

Based on the above factors, we generate your popularity value and compare this value to that of all the other faceplates.  Your resulting rank among the other faceplates is then converted to a popularity score out of 100, which is also represented by the green bar.

If your popularity score is 50 (the green bar is half full), then you are in the middle of the pack and approximately half of all the other faceplates are more popular than yours.  But not to worry, because there are several things you can do to increase your popularity.

To get your popularity scrore moving up, you could try the following ...

1. get a few more people to your faceplate (get your link out there!)
2. increase your facepoints by increasing your activity
3. post in the discussion groups - when someone "likes" your post, this will help with your popularity score
4. write some new articles - once again ... getting "likes" will really help your score

So, how do you get more followers?

Well, simply by doing the four things listed above, your followers will naturally increase.  You see, the more active you are in posting things, the more your name, faceplate, and LINK is out there for people to click on and check out.  So don't worry about the followers, just make the effort to get involved and noticed ... the followers will come naturally!

What is your popularity used for?

Well, there are places throughout the site where we showcase faceplates and components of them, such as spotlights ... and your popularity score will play a factor in the likelyhood that your faceplate/spotlight is displayed in the more prominent positions.

In other words ... a higher popularity should translate into more exposure for your faceplate over time.