Brandon Sauls
Educating yourself on the effective ways to leverage these tools is the first step to success — and there’s no better place than #VRMA2013. Don’t miss the 50-plus educational sessions in Nashville, TN at next month's VRMA Annual Conference. This specific topic will be covered on Tuesday morning at 11 a.m. by the @InterCoastal Net Designs team.
What makes a perfect Facebook post and why?
1) Always include a photo!
Many studies show the drastic increase in impressions, CTR and engagement when posts include an image.
Extra Tip: Include a square image to ensure a uniform look on all devices and so that they aren’t cropped on your page or in the newsfeed.
2) Add text on the image.
This is easily done in a photo editing software. Add just a few words for added effect.
If you’re advertising or promoting your posts, don’t cover more than 20 percent of your photo with text to stay within guidelines.
3) Brand your photos.
As your photos are viewed and shared, let your brand have a bigger impact by adding a logo to the actual image.
Use a call to action ON the photo. Don’t let this take away from your image but a simple arrow or call-to-action can increase your CTR and engagement.
5) Extremely short text when possible – 10 words or less!
Okay, 10 words or less sounds extremely short and it’s not always feasible--but as a rule of thumb, just cut out any text that is not absolutely necessary.
6) Call to action in the text
If you ask people to "LIKE” & "SHARE” they’re much more likely to do it! Don’t over use it, but work it in every once in a while.
7) Use a link and take the extra step to make it short and trackable.
There are many services out there that help you create short trackable links such as bit.ly. For further tracking with multiple campaigns, try the Google URL Builder (which helps Google Analytics tracking) and then shorten that link inside of Bit.ly. Utilize this to track what is working.
Timing is everything!
Everything above is focused on maximizing your engagement which will also increase the affinity your brand has to your audience.
Another very important element is timing:
"The average post reaches 15 percent of a brand’s fans and only stays in a newsfeed for 3 hours.” Tweet this Stat
With that in mind, if your audience is more engaged at night, find out the right time when they are most likely to like/comment/share your posts. Some of the pages that we manage have success at 3 p.m., some at 8 a.m. on a Saturday and some at 8 p.m during the week. Do your own testing, look at your Facebook Insights and find the sweet spot.
What’s the most important thing to remember?
Engagement is key in social media. If people don’t care enough about what you are posting to "Like, Comment, or Share” then you need to reevaluate. Always keep your audience engaged!
When it comes to social media, don’t over complicate things. This is just an outline of a few tips that will help your posts reach more people, but be sure to do your own testing to see what works best for your audience.
Please share with us in the comments what you would like to hear more about in regards to Social Media:
- How to start from your social media presence from zero
- How to relaunch a stagnant social presence
- The Next Step — How to grow from 10,000 to 100,000 fans on Facebook?
Join the conversation on Twitter by mentioning @VRMA or @InterCoastal with questions on this topic and join us at #VRMA2013 in Nashville in October!
