How to Craft an Ideal Facebook Post
For some time now, marketers have been frustrated and confused by Facebook’s changing algorithms and their perceived effect on organic reach. According to Facebook, organic reach of around 16% is about right for business pages and it’s practically the same for individuals. But this number doesn’t really reflect the actual reach of your posts.
1. Build the right audience
First up, you need fans who are interested in what you have to say. Attracting fans who fit your target audience and can relate to your brand, products and services gives you the best possible chance of getting onto their newsfeeds and getting them engaged with you.
2. Really get to know them
Use Facebook insights to tell you more about who your fans are including demographic information and use information like when they’re most likely to be online and what they’re most likely to respond to. You’ll get the most in-depth analysis by exporting the data and manipulating it yourself but even the basic insights will hold valuable information.
3. Tailor your message
You have 90 characters or less to write a message that’s relevant to your fans and fits with your business and brand. Remember the goal is to encourage engagement with the right people. From a tactical perspective, keep these things in mind:If you’re going to use a link in your post, make sure you include it early on in your message (definitely within the first 90 characters), and shorten messy, long ones with bit.ly Facebook’s most recent algorithm adjustments now mean that tagging other businesses can help boost your reach (where relevant of course).
4. Tailor your visuals
Images on Facebook are the most shared of any media and asking a question about an image you post can amplify engagement. As well as crafting your words, the ideal Facebook post should have properly sized images. Image dimensions change quite often and there’s both desktop and mobile to consider. Images that are not the right size will be cropped or expanded to fit the space available.For desktop the standard Facebook image size is 400 x 400 pixels. Mobile is 618 x 6187 pixels.
You’ll get the best results across all devices if your image is better quality and you leave Facebook to scale a larger image for you. Using 1200 x 1200 pixel images is good practice. Also make sure your images are not complicated so they work well on a small screen.
5. Ask for engagement or response
Social media may have its own nuances but ultimately you’re doing it for the marketing not the chat. Every post you make should have a singular purpose – whether it’s engagement and shareability or some direct outcome like driving traffic to your site. This Call to Action (often referred to as simply CTA) is an important element of your post. It’s not enough to hope your audience does something after seeing your post – you actually need to ask them. The wording for your CTA should fit with your brand or you risk sounding too spammy. Keep in mind also that social media CTA’s are often more conversational than a CTA on a landing page or email campaign might be.
6. Be there to engage
Social media is social so you’re losing the benefit of it if you publish a post and then log out.Plan your post times around when your audience is online and make sure you have the time to be available to comment and respond.
7. Measure and hone
Evaluate the effectiveness of your posts so you know what’s getting the most interest and engagement with your fans. Using this insight, you can plan a conversation schedule that’s even more likely to get the engagement you want.
Social Media can be a powerful part of an overall Digital Marketing strategy. iFactory develops and integrates social media for a range of organisations that use social channels like Facebook to generate interest, awareness and leads. If you’d like to know how iFactory can make a fully integrated social and digital marketing strategy to generate results for your business, drop us a note or call us on 07 3844 0577.
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