You have probably read a ton of articles about how to optimize your Facebook content. Most offer decent information but there seems to be a sea of sameness when it comes to advice on how to craft the "perfect" Facebook post. I came across a pretty cool and detailed study from
TrackMaven which dug pretty deep into the data behind some of the optimizations you can make to ensure that your posts on Facebook are making the most impact. In this study, TrackMaven analyzed 1.5 million Facebook posts from approximately 6,000 different brand pages to tease out what kind of posts were making Facebook users engage the most.
Some of the insights are fairly basic, while others are actually pretty surprising:
- Posts on Facebook with 80 words or more nab 2x more engagement than shorter posts
- Posts that contain images get an average of 37% more engagement than text only posts
- Posting content after work hours (5pm-1am EST) will get 11% more engagement than content posted during the usual work hours (8am-5pm)
- A majority of content is published to Facebook during the week, however weekend posts get more engagement
- Posts published on Sunday get 25% more engagement than during the middle of the week
- Comments account for 5% and Shares account for 8%
- 87% of all engagement actions on Facebook are Likes
- Hashtags actually make a difference! Posts with hashtags get 60% more engagement than those that don't
- Using exclamation points in posts convey a positive feeling and boost engagement 2.7X than boring old posts with a period at the end
- Asking questions can get you 23% more engagement than simply making a statement.
I appreciate this study and the insights it provides, however we have to keep in mind that studies like this usually take a look at a large amount of Facebook pages without taking into consideration industry, branding or context. Just because this a study says something might work for a majority of the pages it analyzed doesn't necessarily mean it will work for your specific page. It's very important that Facebook Admins understand that each page has its own culture and experience, therefore there isn't a one size fits all method to consistently get engagement. The above information is great to reference when trying to calibrate your efforts, however at the end of the day you have to do what works the best for your individual page. Keep an eye on your data!
How does this study compare to others you have seen? Leave your feedback in the comment section!