Facebook Images - High Engagement, Low Reach

Recently I uploaded a post which contained a recipe and a photo (after all it's fairly common knowledge that images help increase engagement). The post did well garnering more than 100 shares and 200 likes. Yet, something interesting happened. The next day I posted on the same page a post that contained no photo. The text-only post reached twice as many people as the popular recipe post, even though it had far less engagement. I tested the text-only approach again on a different page and received the same results.So why does a post without a photo almost double your reach instantly?  Here's one guess - the post without an image shows up in the news ticker on Facebook. When you upload a post with a photo the Facebook ticker simply reads: "(insert page name) posted a photo" versus the actual text of your post. If people don't click on the news ticker, and Facebook decides not to serve up your post because of its newsfeed algorithm, your reach may remain low.

I'm a believer in images, especially interesting, eye-catching photos, but lately, I'm also a believer in occasionally throwing in a few text-only posts. They help increase your reach, and in a newsfeed that is now flooded with photos, can help you to actually stand out. Go figure...what's old is new. That's the thing about social, it constantly pushes you to test, try and reinvent yourself in order to keep your place in the newsfeed.

What have you done to reinvent your content lately?

Back to Basics - Thanks EdgeRank

There's been quite a bit of buzz about Facebook's tweaks to EdgeRank. Are less people seeing your content? Is it all just a big scheme to get more ad dollars? Should your company jump ship to Google + where it is safe?While we may never know the answers to all of our pressing Facebook questions, I can tell you this...If you do the basics you'll be able to ride out any EdgeRank craziness.

Think of it in terms of weight loss, if you want to lose weight eat less calories and stay active. I know it sounds waaaay too simple, but I've seen it work. When it comes to Facebook you also need to do the basics to stay in the game - post regularly, post engaging content, interact with fans and buy advertising from time to time to get fans re-engaged or to draw in new fans.

In the meantime, Facebook will fumble, tweak and hopefully come up with a solution that makes both fans and brands happy. Your role as a page owner is to do the best you can to ride it out and keep fans engaged.

From Likes to Engagement - New Facebook Insights

Facebook is prompting us all to get our heads out of the - I wanna be popular - mindset, by forcing companies to pay equal, if not more, attention to engagement metrics as to “likes.”The new insights page offers more in-depth engagement metrics if you want to dig around, but the feature ”XX people are talking about this” may be one of the most useful new metrics rolled out. The Talking About metric lives directly under the number of fans on the left hand side of the page and is not only available to page admins but to any Facebook user. So what makes this metric so useful?

The Talking About metric is an easy way to keep tabs on engagement. Start to know the percentage of fans who are “talking about” your page every week versus total fan numbers. I’ve found most pages live in the 1 – 3% range when they aren’t running ads. Set goals for yourself and tweak content when this percentage starts to dip.

It’s also an easy way to spy on your competitors. Let’s admit it, it may seem childish but at some point we all develop a case of fan envy when it comes to competitors’ pages. Sure your competitors may have more fans, especially if they’ve invested in Facebook ads in the past, but do they have as high engagement when you look at the Talking About metric vs Total Fan base? Now that you can view the “Talking About” metric on any page use it as a benchmark to see how your community is performing against others and then tweak.

The Talking About metric is an easy way to spot good ideas.If a page has high engagement rates (# of People Talking About / Total Fans) see what types of content they are posting and what ideas you may be able to borrow when building your own content calendar. Are their posts shorter? Are they using the Questions function more often? More photos than you typically use?

Facebook is trying to ease us into the idea of quality over quantity. Sure it doesn’t hurt to have a large fan base – more potential for exposure via the newsfeed – but a community with a high engagement rate could lead to more word of mouth exposure (friends seeing friends’ activity on a brand post) as well as a chance to create deeper connections and loyalty (brand and fan interacting versus just brand posting). So don’t dismiss the Talking About metric and try for a week or two focusing on engagement versus total fan base numbers. It won’t be easy – we all want to be popular – but it may be worth it in the long run.

Different Levels of Twitter Engagement

Twitter takes time. While running a client's handle I've found myself neglecting my own, yes, I'm on the brink of becoming a Lurker, and that led me to think about the wide range of engagement on Twitter.The Lurker: You can usually spot this one as they have an egg-shaped profile pic, no bio and usually under 10 tweets. There are a lot of Lurkers on Twitter. Lurkers can be valuable to some though because they are often there to listen.

Lazy Man's Twitter: You can spot this one a mile away. They have tied their Facebook account to their Twitter, they tend to only pump out their messages and rarely retweet or respond to anyone. Twitter has basically become their firehose. I'd take a Lurker over a Lazy Man any day. These types of Twitterers probably won't do you much good because they aren't in it to be an active participant in the Twittersphere, they are really in it for themselves.

Actively Engaged: This person is following others and being followed. They share relevant links, retweet others and reach out. In other words they play nicely on Twitter. These are gems. Follow them and interact with them. These folks can potentially help you spread your message, if it is one worth sharing, and raise awareness about you with their own followers.

Overly Engaged: These tweeters may appear way too often in your stream of tweets. You can probably recognize these people as the ones you contemplate unfollowing at least once a week. Their heart is in the right place, but they just don't know when to stop. Perhaps they're suffering from a bit of loneliness in the offline world? While irritating at times, these tweeters live to tweet and will most likely engage with you and provide an enlightening nugget from time to time. One out of every 100 tweets has got to be somewhat good right?

Did I miss a bucket? More importantly where do you see yourself along this engagement spectrum?

7 tips for raising engagement rates on Facebook

There is nothing more disheartening than putting up a post and then checking your insights to see there was little or no response. They've come, they've fanned you and they've stuck around so you know they like you a little, even if they aren't responding. The key question is how do you jumpstart a like to a love? Since social media allows you to test and re-test try these tips and watch to see what happens.1. Look at the frequency of your posting. Too many posts may dissuade people from feeling the urgent need to respond. Why like this post when I know ten more are just around the corner?

2. Check yourself. Look at the content of your post. Is it something that is important to you and your organization only or is it something that your fans would find amusing or useful?

3. Look at the previous posts. When was engagement the highest? What types of topics got your fan base talking? The good thing about social is people will tell you what they like. It's your job to take notice.

4. Look at the length of your post. Time and time again, I've found the shorter the post, the higher the engagement.

5. Look at the wall posts generated by fans that aren't in response to a post you put up. What questions are they asking? What pictures are they posting? What topics are they starting without you even prompting them? These proactive posts will give you insight into what types of things your audience wants to talk about.

6. Look at the time of day you post. Test a few different times and see if engagement levels change. Maybe your fans are more apt to check Facebook on their lunch hour.

7. Finally, are you setting yourself up for engagement? Are your posts asking for people's responses or are they just telling them info. Not every post has to end with a question, but you should give people a nudge to participate from time to time. "Happy Thanksgiving" is very different from "What are you looking forward to eating the most this Thanksgiving?"

Here's to seeing more action on your insights page, and remember they like you, they already said they like you, so chin up.