No longer can a social media marketer create a business page on Facebook, invite followers and expect business to happen like it used to, things have changed drastically.

Attending a webinar by Heather Mansfield of Nonprofit Tech for Good is always an enlightening experience and recommended even if you aren’t a nonprofit or work for one. Her webinars are easy to understand practical points which aid in understanding social media management best practices across the board.

The latest webinar touched on the science of social media and what we know from data collected over the years about what works best on each platform. Understanding the ever-changing algorithms of Facebook marketing for business pages can be daunting and confusing, but Heather explained practices to be using now, that is until Facebook changes again!

Some of the key points discussed in the recent webinar included the following:

Stats

Study the insights, but not so much attention to the “reach,” engagement is much more important to your overall campaign. As we all know, Facebook has limited a post’s reach unless you wish to pay for boosting or an ad, however, the engagement of your audience is what will most likely affect your bottom line in terms of clicks, likes and further exposure no matter how large or small the number of followers.

Additionally, the best measure of the effectiveness of posting on Facebook should reflect in your website’s stats. This is where you will see where your traffic is coming from use the information to support your decision making process for future campaigns.

How to post for best results

According to the research presented in the webinar we want to be posting items that will trigger the best response from readers.

Images which include animals or nature scenes seem to generate the most engagement. All images should be named or titled to best show up in search engines and lead back to you or your company. Images can either be uploaded and used on their own, or generated by your link, and they should always be sized properly to the platform being used.

Links should be used alternately with images. Always post a link with an image that leads back to the source of an article or post.  By alternating you can see which works better by how much engagement each brings to your post.

Timing is another aspect that should be studied for best results. According to the information in the webinar, posting every 2 days on Facebook pages is best and by using the scheduling tool available you can free up your time. It seems if you post too often the reach of your posts are lessened by Facebook’s algorithm and not showing up in feeds. The number 1 reason supporters unlike a page is because of too many posts. More is not always better!

If you are posting as a company, or a nonprofit, every 5th post should be an “ask.” This means that you don’t always want to be asking for a donation, or selling your product or services, but rather mix it into posts that are relevant and from sources other than your own.

The best time to post is historically the lunch hour when everyone is checking their Facebook feeds. Also, Saturday is one of the best days as there are more readers available, so don’t forget the weekends.

Commentary should be limited to 55 characters (not words) or less for best engagement results. Refrain from long explanations or paragraphs which won’t be read by the majority of those who see your post. Keep it simple and to the point. If you give away all the information, there’s no reason to click-through to read the rest.

Lastly, an important point that I personally took away is NEVER post from a third-party source such as Hootesuite or Buffer. Always post directly to your Facebook page for best results.

I learned a lot about Twitter, LinkedIn and all the other popular social media platforms as well, so stay tuned for an expanded version of those lessons!

Once again, if you’re looking for exceptional information on social media best practices, especially for nonprofits, make a date to attend a webinar with Heather Mansfield!

For a FREE personal consultation and assessment, contact us for an appointment.  Phone:  843.808.0859 or Email:  contact@imaginepublicity.com