Facebook's maturation as a marketing tool in the past year or two has led to the vast majority of brands and businesses looking to establish pages within the Facebook community as a means of pushing their own brand awareness and more importantly engaging with the most relevant consumers.
However possessing a large community and successfully engaging its users don't necessarily come hand in hand. It is nonsensical to work hard to acquire more fans of a brand on Facebook only to offer very little content through your page, and this is where the art of the Facebook post comes into play.
Much research has been done into the anatomy of the perfect Facebook post, but obviously there are different factors involved for different brands and their pages. Think, what does your brand do? What does it offer? Why have these fans opted into the community? Hiring a social media agency will only get a page part of the way; it is the understanding of what fans want that is most important.
Take a business that makes and sells sweets or candy. Any Facebook users who are part of its Facebook page are more than likely there because they like candy. They want to see all of the new sweets that are being developed by that particular brand. This logic should be applied to the majority of the posts that go onto the brand's Facebook wall; show them what they want to see through images, and give them the information that will constantly remind them of why they are a fan and why they like to eat candy. Research from Vitrue highlighted that imagery creates around 22% more engagement that video and 54% more than text based Facebook posts, and in the case of the majority of consumer brands, images of their favourite products is more likely to tick their boxes for an engaging post than anything else.
This is not to say that this is a rule to be applied to all pages, only a general observation of Facebook posts in general. A converse view would be to think about a Facebook page focused on a specific TV show. In this case, viewers are also fans of the content produced by the show, but are more likely to be engaged by video clips of the show, or indeed text based updates focused around specific quotes and comments from the actors involved. Great examples of this are the pages for "House" and "The Wire". House always offers its fans a glimpse into life backstage, as well as information on season premieres, and sneak peeks at new episodes. The Wire, arguably one of the best TV shows ever made, frequently posts quotes from its episodes, and despite being purely text based, these posts have the potential to drive huge amounts of feedback and interaction. Although the series has now finished, it is the memorable quotes that live on with the audience, and It is this content that provokes the biggest response with fans of the production.
Although there are many pages that will undoubtedly have diverse interests in mind, such as pages with a necessity to cross-promote others (for example due to partnerships or sponsorship deals), the principle remains the same. Just like any good act, administrators of Facebook pages should do their utmost to listen to the members of the community, take note of what they feedback to the most, and give them what they want. That way, it will always remind them exactly why they love a brand so much. Hiring a social media agency or online PR specialist will only get a page part of the way, it is the understanding of what fans want that is most important.