Creating The Most Effective Facebook Content Strategies
1. Creating the Most Effective Facebook Content Strategies An in-depth analysis that dispels the myths and informs best practices in the creation of effective engagement strategies
2. The purpose of this study is to answer the question… “How do I create the most engaging content strategies in my social media plan.”
3. Executive Summary Key Findings: Facebook posting engagement rates are on the decline, with an average engagement per thousand of 0.79 There is no significant impact of time of day or day of week on posting effectiveness As a Fan Base grows, expect engagement rates to decline The optimal post frequency is 6-8 posts per week Posts with under 11 words performed the best
4. Executive Summary Recommended Actions: Create an engagement strategy that keeps posts relevant and engages the user (i.e.: questions, clear messaging) Set benchmarks for posting performance, with an expected outcome of various types of posts (remember, not all posts will over perform so a balanced approach is key) Implement tools to help the scheduling and deployment of posts Post when it is relevant to your target audience and when you have something interesting to say Experiment - test, analyze, learn and test again
5. Methodology This analysis is based on an ongoing study that has amassed over 97,000 wall posts across 333 Facebook Pages of many Fortune 500 brands. Data analyzed was collected from August 2010 to June 2011. About Syncapse Founded in 2007, Syncapse Corp. has quickly become a global technology leader in social media management by delivering solutions that empower brands and agencies to build, manage and measure their digital customer relationships. A member of Facebook’s Preferred Developer Consultant program, the Syncapse Platform has connected brands with millions of consumers globally, delivered tens of millions of dollars in earned media value and has been recognized as one of the top social technology providers for brand marketers.
6. Engagement Per Thousand (EPM) = the response rate to a Facebook post EPM = (Like + Comments/Fan Base)*1000
7. Engagement is on the decline Observation: The global EPM benchmark has steadily declined consistently to 0.79, normalized to account for seasonal posting schedules
8. Time of day doesn’t matter, timeliness does Observation: The only relevant fluctuation in time of day is early morning, +13% above industry average – time of day only matters if the time will have a significant impact on the relevance of the content
9. The day doesn’t drive engagement, relevance does Observation: Day of week of a post did not have a statistically significant impact on response, but interestingly there is a massive reduction in brand generated posts on weekends
10. Post frequently, as long as you have something to say Observation: The optimal number of posts ranges from 6-8 per week
11. As the fan base increases, engagement declines Observation: Higher engagement occurs as pages go through growth stages, but as the fan base increases, EPM declines
12. Be brief Observation: The greatest EPM is achieved with posts that contain less than 11 words, but interesting, longer posts perform almost as well
13. Dissecting a great post The post below achieved a 5.37, well above the industry average of 0.79 Key Learning: On first glance, this post may not be perceived as being a post that would produce positive results with Netflix 1.5M plus fan base This product announcement has a great conversational tone and offers multiple linking opportunities to drive the user to the movie section to order Multiple movies mentioned provides a broader opportunity Although a longer post, the clear call to action of ‘liking’ creates obvious potential for the post to appear in newsfeeds
14. Conclusions Keep it simple Simple concise posts outperform. Keep it relevant If the post is relevant to the audience at the time it is posted, that will create the best engagement. Consider using creative means to manufacture relevance or the tie to the time/day the post is made. Benchmark and learn Create standards around performance management and continue to experiment and learn from results.
