Remember when Facebook timeline came in? It was the at time that everyone was raving about Pinterest and Instagram. It was all about images, visual visual visual. All brand Facebook page posts went from plain text to always having an image.
Why did social media managers do this? Rich media was more heavily weighted by Edgerank, we were told, we thought, we saw evidence for it. Every single brand changed their strategy, almost without thinking, and every post contained an accompanying image.
Now we're seeing organic reach crashing, clearly Edgerank has changed, but everyone is still posting images almost exclusively. Why is that?
Looking at brand pages I've seen that text updates or link updates often get more reach than photo updates these days (almost twice as much).
This should lead people who manage corporate Facebook pages to ask 2 key questions when planning or posting content:
1. "What am I doing?"
You're posting on Facebook, you're sending a Tweet. Nope. You're trying to sell your products to your potential customers, you're resolving customer complaints to retain them as customers. Think about the goals and strategy not the tactic. If you don't remember your goals then you'll lose your way and your audience (this is the importance of a really decent social media manager!). Constantly look for ways to achieve your goals in a better more effective way, this will translate into tactics. You should be able to say: "I am ____ to _____"
2. "Why am I doing this?"
"I'm adding an image because it gets more organic reach." More organic reach than what? You haven't tested that theory for over a year. Test things. What works for another brand may not work for you. Assumptions and theories age and get outdated and can't be applied to everyone in the same way. There is no universal best time to tweet, the best time is whenever whoever you are targeting is wherever you are targeting them and when they are in the mood to do whatever it is you're trying to get them to do. In the word's of Winnie the Pooh: "Think, Think, Think". You should be able to say: "I am ____ because _____"