The Basics of Facebook Marketing [SLIDESHOW]

Is your small business just getting started with Facebook marketing? Or, are you looking to fine tune your existing efforts? Check out our slideshow presentation on Facebook Marketing: The Basics of Content, Tactics and Engagement.

TRANSCRIPT

1. FACEBOOK MARKETING
Content, Tactics & Engagement: The Basics

2. HOW OFTEN SHOULD I POST?

• A recent study (by SimplyMeasured) found that engagement doesn’t appear to be closely tied to the average number of daily posts
  • This suggests there is not hard and fast rule for how frequent brands should post
  • However, the average brand posts 1.5 times/day (based on the Top 100 brands on Facebook)
• More important than the number of times brands post is the effectiveness of their content
• The key is to ensure that engagement per post remains high

3. TO HELP GET STARTED WITH POSTING THE MOST ENGAGING CONTENT POSSIBLE, START WITH TIMING … YOUR FACEBOOK INSIGHTS ARE A VERY POWERFUL MARKETING TOOL.

4. HOW OFTEN DO YOU POST ON FACEBOOK? WHAT TIME DO YOU POST ON FACEBOOK? DO YOU USE ANY TOOLS TO HELP YOU DETERMINE HOW OFTEN AND AT WHAT TIMES YOU SHOULD POST ON FACEBOOK?

5. WHAT’S UP WITH FACEBOOK #HASHTAGS?

• Facebook rolled out clickable hashtags on June 12th, 2013
• Since its release, brands have been incorporating hashtags into their posts
  • By the end of June, hashtag usage increased to nearly 20% of all posts
• Posts containing hashtags have not been proven to increase engagement
  • Perform at the same level as posts without hashtags
  • This suggests that people aren’t yet discovering posts via their hashtags
• This may change as more brands integrate hashtags into their posts and users become more familiar with discovering content through hashtags

6. HAVE YOU EXPERIMENTED WITH FACEBOOK HASHTAGS?

7. TOP PERFORMING CONTENT

• In general, there are five types of content:
  • Video
  • Photo
  • Status
  • Link
  • Question

8. THE POWER OF VISUAL CONTENT

• Visual content is the primary driver of engagement on Facebook
• Photos account for 74% of brand posts and receive 95% of total engagement (based on SimplyMeasured’s Study of Top Brands)
  • Photos are by far the most engaging type of content
• After photos, videos are the second most engaging content type
• Together, photos and videos make up more than 80% of brand posts

9. STATUS UPDATES

• Although status updates trail visual content, they rank third in terms of engagement
• The longer a status is, the less engagement it typically receives
• If a status is too short, however, it may not be long enough to capture your readers’ attention or provide the necessary context to drive engagement
• The sweet spot for an engaging status update is between 50-99 characters Post Engagement (by characters)

10. WHAT TYPES OF CONTENT DO YOU POST ON YOUR BRAND’S PAGE? HAVE YOU NOTICED A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE IN VISUAL POSTS VS. TEXT STATUS UPDATES? WHAT TYPE OF CONTENT DO YOU THINK DOES THE BEST JOB OF ENGAGING YOUR FANS?

11. HOW MUCH SHOULD MY PAGE BE GROWING?

• The top brands average 5.5% monthly fan growth
• The majority of brands, however, average only 1% to 2% monthly growth
• Remember, this metric is worth noting, but definitely not as important as engagement.

12. HOW MUCH DOES YOUR FAN PAGE GROW EVERY MONTH?

13. TRACKING YOUR FACEBOOK POSTS IN GOOGLE ANALYTICS

• Google Analytics provides a tool called a “URL builder” which can turn the links you post on Facebook into campaigns that can be tracked
  • https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10338 67?hl=en&ref_topic=1032998
• After Google Analytics outputs your new URL, you can shorten it using sites such as bit.ly
  • https://bitly.com/

14. HAVE YOU FOUND ANY OTHER USEFUL TOOLS TO TRACK YOUR POSTS?

15. SIMPLY MEASURED FREE REPORTS

• Facebook
  • Competitive Analysis
  • Fan Page Report
  • Insights Report
  • Content Analysis
• Also have reports for Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Vine and Pinterest (coming soon)
• Includes reports on general social traffic and traffic sources