Current estimates suggest that by 2013 half of the U.S. population will have a Facebook account. And according to Citi Investment, Facebook now accounts for 16 percent of time spent online.
But despite its ubiquity among consumers, marketers are still finding the best approach to posting content to their brand pages. This is understandable as Facebook is the first engagement platform marketers have dealt with after only having access to broadcast channels in the past.
Even marketers that have established their Social Brand℠, and identified the type of content that their target audience will connect with, can optimize their approach to posting content.
Buddy Media analyzed user engagement from nearly 100 of the world’s largest and most prestigious retail brands measuring the number of ‘likes, the number of comments and the overall fan base of the brand.
The study offers a number of best practices for brands wanting to increase user engagement on Facebook. This is the first of a two-part addressing these best practices. Today, I’ll look at timing, frequency and the optimum length for posts. Next I’ll review the best practices related to post content, structure and offers.
Post When Customers Are Listening (Not when you’re in the office) – Sure, most of us sneak a peek at Facebook during the workday (website traffic doesn’t lie), but if you want to see 20 percent lifts in user engagement post between 8 pm and 7 am. And remember, when you’re in your warm pajamas getting settled in at 8 pm on the East Coast, those on Pacific Time are fighting traffic on their evening commute. Keep this in mind, particularly if your brand is strong on the West Coast. Using a publishing tool to schedule posts automatically during work hours can help overcome this obstacle. If you do use a publishing tool, be certain someone can access it at all times and cancel posts that might seem insensitive in the event of breaking news about a major event or disaster.
Post When Customers Are Engaged – When are your consumers thinking about your brand? When do your customers decide to visit your store or purchase your product or service? If you have sales data by day of week, what does it tell you about consumer engagement? Is the decision to buy made on the same day or in advance? For retailers, the study revealed that Wednesday was the best day of the week for retail brands to post on Facebook, while Friday was the worst day. On average fan engagement was 8 percent higher than average on Wednesday and 6 percent below average for posts made on Friday.
Limit Posts to Two a Day No More Than Four Days a Week – When it comes to posts; it is quality, not quantity that counts. Most of us can name that one friend on Facebook that abuses us with endless top ten lists, pet pictures and videos of their favorite singer. Don’t the same rules apply to brands? Engagement rates are 40 perceent higher when there are less than three posts a day from the brand. When only one or two posts are made these posts receive 32 percent higher ‘like’ rates and 73 percent higher comment rates. It’s said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and this is true of posts as well. In the study, posting one to four times during the week produced 71 percent higher engagement than five or more posts during the week.
Keeping Posts Short and Simple – Americans are busy people, between careers, families, activities and our favorite TV shows it’s amazing we have time to Facebook? Thankfully, we do find the time but remember that customers have short attention spans. The study concluded that posts with 80 characters or less had 66 percent higher engagement than longer posts and posts with 40 characters or less had 86 percent higher engagement. Likewise, status-only posts had 94 percent higher engagement on average followed by posts containing a single photo. To avoid user tune out stay away from posts that provide a status with a link or a link with a thumbnail. Posted videos also did not yield strong engagement results and should be used with caution by brands.
In the spirit of keeping it short and simple, I’ll conclude this discussion of Facebook best practices surrounding timing, frequency and length of posts. In the coming days, I’ll review the best practices related to post content, structure and offers offered in Buddy Media’s review of nearly 100 retail Facebook pages.
:: By Kirby Thornton, Director of Consumer Insights
When Kirby isn’t working on primary research for Empower’s clients, he can be found checking the latest research on new media and every now and then updating his Facebook status.
Image originally uploaded by Hubspot
