Companies like Zappos are using Facebook brand pages to increase market share.
Zappos is known for its customer service, and giving a little insight into the inner workings of the corporation is a great way to ‘humanize’ the brand on Facebook.
Like Zappos many companies have also discovered that Facebook brand pages have become a key part of their online marketing effort. What you post on your Facebook Wall and how you post plays a crucial role in attracting and engaging fans and prospective customers on those Facebook pages.
To maximize your engagements on Facebook your posts should be short and sweet. Posts that are between 80 characters or less had, on average, a 27% higher engagement rate than those with more than 80 characters.
This factoid makes Twitter’s 140-character limit on tweets seem long.
Also full-length URLs in posts had three times higher engagement than ones using a URL-shortener like Bit.ly.
When it comes to what day or days of the week are best to post, research shows interaction in the form of comments and ‘Likes’ around posts peaked on Thursday and Friday. This coincides with recent Facebook data indicating that the “Happiness Index” on the social network spikes by 10% on Friday.
Saturday and Sunday were also found to be among the “happiest” days of the week, making weekend posting for many companies a good idea.
Engagement rates dipped 3.5% below average for posts published Monday through Wednesday and fell 18% on Saturday, a sharp contrast to the 18% gain on Thursday and Friday.
The vast majority of brand page posts are made during the work week. But interaction rates can vary according to industry. Sunday, for instance, is good for automotive, retail and sports-related companies, while midweek is better for food and beverage brands.
Looking at time of day, engagement rates are 20% higher than average outside of normal business hours, although most posts (60%) go up between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
By posting within business hours, brands miss the critical opportunity to get the visibility they need for maximum engagement. Schedule posts to appear early in the morning or late at night. Don’t publish simply because you’re in front of your computer.
Also taking a few steps out of “corporate speak” is a nice change of pace for your Facebook fans as well. Adding a little humor, a funny photo, a joke, a silly experience will, humanize your brand and make your fans want to interact and participate in the conversation.
Marketers should be direct in asking users for “Likes” and comments and place questions at the end of a post to increase the chances of getting a response. Posts ending with a question have a 15% higher engagement rate.
Interrogative keywords like “how,” “who,” “what” and “when” are useful for driving interaction, but “why,” not so much. “‘Why’ has both the lowest ‘Like’ and comment rates and may be perceived as intrusive and/or challenging,” according to the report.
Using Facebook Wall posts to promote contests and sweepstakes has become a familiar marketing tactic on Facebook. Avoid the hard sell in favor of a softer approach; using promotional keywords like “winner” and “events” rather than the more direct terms “contest” or “coupon.” If you can have a contest, just don’t call it a “contest.”
Ask specific questions – The last thing your fans want to do is homework. Asking your fans what we can do to cut down carbon emissions might get comments from your biggest fans, but most of them would just skip to the next item in their news feed. Specificity will get more comments.
Ask yes or no questions – Yes or no: Are you more likely to answer “yes or no” questions, or open-ended ones that require time and attention?
Ask timely questions – Are you staying home or traveling this holiday?
Ask edgy questions Green Peace does a great job with this by asking questions like “Do you live near a nuclear power plant?”
Ask true or false questions – This type of question works really well for historical societies. Always begin these questions with “True or False“. Fans will be more likely to answer if they know that a simple answer is all that’s required.
Ask questions about a photo – Share a photo and ask your fans to comment. For example, an animal rights org could post a photo and ask “What’s wrong with this picture?”
Ask poll questions – Facebook’s new “Questions” feature makes it easy to create polls on your Page. Plus, there’s a good chance they’ll create more awareness about your Page then a simple wall post.
Ask fun questions – Don’t be afraid to go off topic with your fans. It will remind them that you’re just like them, and will help establish a more human connection with them. For example, “What’s your family’s favorite vacation spot?”
Ask directly – If your Facebook Page is new, or if it’s been in a coma for months, getting any kind of response from fans can be difficult. If that’s the case with your Page, try asking specific fans that you know personally to comment on a post. You’ll get a good response if you tell them that you think they’d offer value and insight around a particular conversation.
Ask preference questions – When you were in college, did you prefer essay questions or multiple choice questions?
Ask who’s attending an event – You can pose this question to fans located near an upcoming event. Share a link to your Facebook Event.
Ask those who attended the event to share a favorite moment – For example if you’re a national organization that helped an event in Chicago, you can target an update to those attendees asking to share their impressions. This will mainly get responses from your core fans, but will give less active fans a deeper look at your organization’s culture.
Ask for tips – This one works well if your organization works with families. Asking for tips on how to get kids out of bed earlier would leverage shared experiences among your Facebook fans.
Ask humanistic questions – This works especially well if your organization deals with a disease or syndrome. For example, The Brain Aneurysm Foundation launched their Page simply by asking: “When you were first recovering from a brain aneurysm, what gave you the most hope?”
Ask fill in the blank questions – Another way to make less work for your Facebook fans is to use “fill in the blank” questions. When you ask these, always begin with “Fill in the blank:” Your fans will be more likely to answer a question if they know what’s expected. And everybody knows how “fill in the blank questions” work.
Reply and pay attention, people skills 101. Acknowledge when someone answers a question. When your fans answer questions, comment back and deepen the conversation.
What’s your #1 tip for getting comments on your Facebook Page?
About SOS eMarketing
SOS eMarketing creates engaging experiences for customers in the digital world. For more information about topics in this article, contact SOS eMarketing about YouTube Marketing, Mobil Media Marketing, luxury marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, and branding, integrated eMarketing:
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David Schwartz
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