Best Practices

Last Saturday, I gave a Facebook Page session at Podcamp Topeka 2012. Part of that presentation included current best practices for posting content to a Facebook Page. Here are those best practices in bullet points:

Call to action – you need to tell people to do things like comment, like, and share. Include the call to action in the first 90 characters of your post.
Get to the point – 250 characters or less is best. Shorter posts get 60% more interaction than longer posts.
Ask for short responses, fill-in-the-blank responses, etc – i.e., “Who’s your favorite author?” This type of question post gets 90% more interaction than other types of text-based posts.
Pin important posts, so it stays at the top of your Page longer
Be casual (and appropriate). A conversational tone will attract more interaction.
Use images. More people comment, Like, and Share posts with images.
Post consistently. At least five times a week to stay on top-of-mind for fans.
Post the same types of content on the same day of the week. Example – book review Mondays. This helps fans know what to expect from you.
Give fans access to exclusive information or content. Yet another way to drive interest and engagement to a Facebook Page.
Find your optimal time to post. This will vary by organization.

Want to know more about current Facebook best practices? Check out Best Practices for your Page and Media Strategy by Facebook.

photo by Simon Q

Tagged as: best practices, facebook, facebook page

8 comments

I just finished reading Best Practice Guide: Marketing on Facebook. You might find it interesting, too – the guide has some great ideas for using Facebook as a marketing campaign tool. In fact, many of the suggestions would also work for other online social tools (think Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr, etc).

Here’s what you’ll find in the guide:

For starters, they describe what they call The Facebook Ecosystem, which includes three parts: Build, Engage, and Amplify:
- Build – duh. Building your presence in that tool. creating a Facebook Page. Creating a Twitter account. Etc. Gotta start here.
- Engage – use touch points, like the Facebook like button to start connecting with your fans. Also use the status update box to directly connect through conversations
- Amplify – on Facebook, you need to be in your fans news feed. You can use Facebook ads and sponsored stories to help you do that.

After that, the Guide discusses what they call Facebook by Objective - basically seven ways to use Facebook for your business. Each objective includes some interesting ideas on how to connect to your customers and grow your organization. The Objectives include:

Foster product development and innovation
Generate awareness
Drive preference and differentiation
Increase traffic and sales
Build loyalty and deepen relationships
Amplify recommendation and word of mouth
Gain insights

And guess what? With just a bit of tweaking, each of these ideas can work for libraries! So go read it, download it, etc … and share any cool ideas or library campaigns you create!

The F image … found at the ReadWrite Web

Tagged as: best practices, facebook, marketing