The Anatomy of a Perfect Facebook Post

Posted on Categories Social Media

When it comes to Facebook, there is no one-size-fits-all type of formula that is going to work for everyone; however, there are simple things that you can do to improve your results no matter what type of business you have.  We are going to cover "The Anatomy of a Perfect Facebook Post" in this article to give you an edge and build more engagement with your fans.

 

What Makes a perfect Facebook post and why?

  1. Always include a photo!
    • Many studies show the drastic increase in impressions, CTR and engagement when posts include an image.
    • Extra Tip: Include a square image to ensure a uniform look on all devices and so that they aren’t cropped on your page or in the newsfeed.
  2. Add text on the image.
    • This is easily done in a photo editing software.  Add just a few words for added effect.
    • If you’re advertising or promoting your posts, don’t cover more than 20% of your photo with text to stay within guidelines.
  3. Brand your photos
    • As your photos are viewed and shared, let your brand have a bigger impact by adding a logo to the actual image.
  4. Use a Call to action ON the photo
    • Don’t let this take away from your image but a simple arrow or call-to-action can increase your CTR and engagement.
  5. Extremely short text when possible – 10 words or less!
    • Ok, 10 words or less sounds extremely short and it’s not always feasible but as a rule of thumb, just cut out any text that is not absolutely necessary.
  6. Call to action in the text
    • If you ask people to “LIKE” & “SHARE” they’re much more likely to do it!  Don’t over use it, but work it in every once in a while.
  7. Use a link and take the extra step to make it short and trackable.
    • There are many services out there that help you create short trackable links such as bit.ly. For further tracking with multiple campaigns, I will sometimes use the Google URL Builder (which helps Google Analytics tracking) and then shorten that link inside of Bit.ly. Utilize this to track what is working!

 

Timing is everything!

Everything above is focused on maximizing your engagement which will also increase the affinity your brand has to your audience.  Another very important element is timing:

“The average post reaches 15% of a brand’s fans and only stays in a newsfeed for 3 hours.” – Tweet this Stat

With that in mind, if your audience is more engaged at night, find out the right time when they are most likely to like/comment/share your posts.  Some of the pages that we manage have success at 3pm, some at 8am on a Saturday and some at 8pm during the week.  Do your own testing, look at your Facebook Insights and find the sweet spot.

 

What’s the most important thing to remember?

Engagement is key in social media.  If people don’t care enough about what you are posting to “Like, Comment, or Share”; then you need to reevaluate.  Always keep your audience engaged!

 

We previously contributed this blog to the VRMA Insights Blog.  Educating yourself on the effective ways to leverage these tools is the first step to success – and there’s no better place than #VRMA2013. Don’t miss the 50+ Seminars in Nashville, TN as the VRMA tradeshow travels to Opryland for the biggest show of the year. This specific topic will be covered on Tuesday morning at 10am by the @InterCoastal Net Designs team.