Boosting Social Media Engagement

New York | March 19–23, 2012 | #sesny

Boosting Social Media
Engagement

John Shehata
@JShehata
2012

@JShehata | John Shehata
1

Boosting Facebook EdgeRank Engagement | #sesny
New York | March 19–23, 2012

FACT

The Average Page’s Posts Are
Seen by less than 16% of Its Fans*

* comScore, March 2011
@JShehata | John Shehata 2


Facebook Algorithm (EdgeRank)
Your Fans See the People and Pages They Interact With

• New friends and newly liked pages are shown to you for a while, but if you don’t
interact with them, you will stop seeing posts from them.

• Facebook shows you posts from friends and pages whose posts you have liked or
commented on in the recent past.

• If you don’t get your fans to like and comment on your posts, they’ll stop seeing
them.



Boosting Engagement is the best
FREE Social Media Strategy



Why Focus on Engagement?

EdgeRank determines where
(and whether) your stories
appear in your fans’ news feed



• Relationship between • Every content • a newer item is
user and brand object has a more likely to
different weight: appear than an
• Based on many (Photo > Link > older item
factors (frequency of Status)
contact, frequency of • With this in mind it
FB logins, likes, is important to
• Every Action has a
comments, shares, different weight: consider the timing
etc) of your posts.
(Comments > Likes >
Clicks)
• If the user had an
affinity to interact with
• Comments have 4X
your content in the the weight of Likes*
past, you have a high
affinity with this user * A study by EdgeRank.com



FYI: Comments VS. Likes
• Feel Good, Positive, Funny News

• Bad News



When fans no longer see your posts,
it’s much harder to get them back.
– Never stop engaging your fans.
– Some of Your Fans are Unreachable Forever



Metrics



How to Boost
Facebook Engagement?



The New Social Metric

With facebook EdgeRank you
need to Focus on fans
engagement not fans count

i.e. Never buy fans


21 tips for Facebook
Engagement



21 tips for Facebook engagement
1. Post simple, concise, and short updates
• Posts with 80 characters garnered 27% more engagement than posts
that were more than 80 characters (BuddyMedia Study)

• Posts 100 - 250 characters (less than 3 lines of text) see about 60% more
likes, comments and shares than posts greater than 250 characters. (internal
Facebook studies)



2. Ask Questions
Posts with a question or call to action from a journalist received the most feedback, with twice the
comments as the average post and 64% more feedback overall. Despite their effectiveness, only 10% of
posts on journalists’ pages were questions.



The best questions are open-ended, not yes-or-no, answers. The goal is to
get your fans talking.
• “What do you think about…?”
• “My ideal work day includes ______________. Fill in the blank and tell us!”
• “If you could change one thing about …, what would it be?”
• “What’s your favorite thing about…?”
• “What ________ products do you like?”
• “Do you have trouble finding products for…?”
• “Do you buy _______ online?”
• “Are you ready to…?”

Fill-in-the-blank posts generate about 90% more engagement than the average text post.



3. Share Stories with thumbnail photos
Photos drew 50% more “likes” than non-photo posts;
journalists who shared links with thumbnail images got 65%
more likes and 50% more comments than posts without
images.



Refresh Facebook Cache
http://bit.ly/fbcache




4. Post Photos
- Include a short link back to
the story or the photo
gallery
- Photo Galleries: Post few
pics not all
- Must have caption and/or
call to action.
Posts including a photo
album, a picture or a video
generate about 180%, 120%,
and 100% more engagement
than the average post,
respectively.(facebook
internal study)



Include the word
“Video” – Edit the title
5. Post Videos if needed

Now videos can be
playable directly in
facebook



6. Tweak Headlines
– Make them interesting …



7. Use Clear Call to Actions in your Posts (tell users what you
want them to do)
• To get likes,
– say “Click like if…” and keep the second part simple.

– Choose something that you’re pretty sure most of your fans like.

• To get comments,
– ask a question or say, “Tell us in the comments below…” followed by whatever you want to know.

• To get clicks
– say, “Click this link…” and tell them why.

– You can also put the short URL in the status update



Words ranked in order of their effectiveness at
converting Likes and comments.

Be sure to include your
call to action within the
first 90 characters.



“Click Like If…”
• Choose something that most of your fans would like.

• “Click like if you love…” (whatever applies to your niche).

• “Click like if you think….”

• “Click like if you’d love to have….”

• “Click like if you believe that….”

• “Click like if you want….”

“Click this link…”

• “Check out this blog post because…”; then tell them what the benefits of
reading it are.

• “Click here to get this discount now before it goes away!”

• “Check out our latest … ”; then make sure they know why they should
care.

Other:
• If you agree like, if you disagree comment


8. Give fans exclusive access to content, products, events, and
offers.
• Take fans behind the scenes of events and product launches to
make them feel special.
• Announce new products to fans before anywhere else
• Give fans early access to sales
• Post exclusive photos from events.



ExactTarget and CoTweet


9. Post Games and Trivia



10. Contests
Contest prizes should target your prospects, customers, audience



11. Interact with Fans



12. Incorporate current events, popular/trending/breaking
news in your updates

In the 6 weeks leading up to The Super Bowl and

on Super Bowl Sunday itself, brands that posted

content using the keywords “Super Bowl” saw a

60% increase in engagement! (Buddy Media Study)

posts mentioning Independence Day on July 4th

generated about 90% more engagement than all

posts published on that day. (Facebook Internal Study)



13. Post Follow Ups



14. Talk about facebook on facebook!



15. Address Controversial Topics (High Risk)



16. Bonus: Highlight Fans / Reward Engagement

fanpageapps.com
booshaka.com
my-top-fans.com



• Dunkin Donuts highlights fans with most interesting photos
each week in their facebook icon



17. Don’t Automate updates, Schedule instead



18. Cross Promote
Find other pages to push your content (Partners, vendors, deals, etc)



19. GeoTargeting
Check demographics on facebook insights
- Launch parties
- Local discounts
- etc



20. Be Relevant
Read comments and understand your audience and what they
do and don’t like



21. Don’t overwhelm
your fans



Reach Generator

http://on.fb.me/xZB6BT
• “Reach Generator guarantees that you reach 75% of your fans
each month and an estimated 50% of fans each week in
a simple, always-on way.”

• Fans will see your message as a sponsored story on the
right-hand side of their homepage or in their news feed
on desktop or mobile.



Posting Frequency
Post Regularly
• There’s no hard rule on many posts you should publish
– post at least 5 times a week to stay top of mind for fans.
• 80% engagement posts and then 20% sales posts
– If you’re not sure, start with one post per day, mostly engagement
oriented, and do one or two sales posts per week.
• On certain holidays, almost nobody is online
• Seasonal: Don’t stop posting for weeks or months (EdgeRank’s
time decay factor)



Optimal Posting Time
• Only you know what’s right for your business
• Use your Page Insights to figure out what’s working
– (for instance, try posting at different times of day and see when you get the most engagement).

• Facebook internal study found that restaurants post from 7am-12pm when people
are making plans for the day, while retailers post in the 8am-2pm window.
• User engagement with Facebook Pages is highest from 9-10pm and the 18-24
demographic is the most engaged during this time.



Timing

Figure out your
Weekends and
Nights Social
media strategy

Media: Weekends
Entertainment: Fri-Sun
Retail: Sunday
Fashion: Thursday
Food: Tuesday, Saturday



Be Timely
• Facebook Engagement has 3 peaks: 7am ET, 5pm ET and 11pm ET
• brands must adapt to their consumers’ schedules in order to optimize their
engagement (Playboy engagement peaks right after midnight)



Facts
• Most fans never return to a page after they like it.

• No more landing pages

• When fans create new posts on your Facebook page, other
fans don’t see them.



You must produce fresh,
relevant, high quality content if
you want ANY online tactic to
be successful.


New York | March 19–23, 2012 | #sesny

Thanks
John Shehata

@JShehata | John Shehata
47

Boosting Social Media Engagement

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