Creating Effective and Engaging Facebook Content

[Christy_Loerzel]

I’ve written before about Facebook, and given that it has more than one billion active users and is the world’s largest social network, the opportunity for you as a partner is huge. Enticing potential customers with engaging content on Facebook can be a great way to build qualified leads and increase your firm’s revenues.

But what does effective social media content on Facebook look like? How can you craft compelling and interesting content for your Facebook page? In this post, I share a few tips and best practices on increasing reach and engagement through Facebook.

Develop a company voice and content calendar
Find a voice that feels natural for your organization. If your firm were a person, what would “you” be like? Authoritative? Helpful? Humorous? Once you determine your organization’s voice, stick with it. A great example of a strong brand voice is the energy drink Red Bull. True to its nature, Red Bull’s social media marketing is full of energy, enthusiasm and adventure, as seen in its sponsorship of extreme sports athletes, promotion of amateur flying machine makers and stunts like daredevil Felix Baumgartner’s Red Bull Stratos jump from the edge of space.

Plan some of your main marketing campaigns and content postings in advance by building a content calendar covering the coming week or month. This will ensure that you can support upcoming sales promotions and keep up a regular frequency of posts—don’t forget to write them in your firm’s voice! Facebook’s best practices guide for Pages offers more tips on finding your voice.

Use graphics and images
Facebook is a visual platform and its newsfeed is organized so that images or photographs are positioned prominently. Take every opportunity to enhance your marketing and community messages with visuals. According to  marketing software provider HubSpot, posts with visual support (an image, photograph or infographic) result in a 50% higher rate of engagement via Likes, comments and/or shares.

Keep your posts short and to the pointWhile Facebook posts don’t have a short character limit like Twitter, don’t take that as a license to share lengthy posts. A report by the social media platform service Buddy Media found that Facebook posts of 80 characters or fewer have a 66% higher rate of engagement. Each of your posts should focus on conveying one idea or discrete piece of information. If you are trying to educate customers or prospects about your full suite of offerings or detailed information about your services, send readers to a page on your company’s website for more information.

Post when your customers are paying attention
One way to improve the reach and number of impression for your Facebook posts is to understand when your audience is actively using Facebook. A study by the link-shortening service bit.ly found that overall Facebook click-throughs are highest in the afternoons, peaking at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesdays. Experiment with the timing of your posts to find out when the best times to reach your audience may be.

Watch your page for opportunities to respond
One of the key strengths of social media marketing is that it enables two-way communication between you and your customers or prospects. When customers or other users comment on your wall or respond to your posts, try to respond as quickly as possible. According to a report from Edison Research, 42% of social media users expect a response within 60 minutes. If questions go unanswered, your fans may lose interest in your page and possibly your company.

I hope these tips and best practices help you with your own social media efforts on Facebook.

What techniques do you use in your social media marketing efforts? Let me know in the comments below!  And find Symantec Partners on Facebook at http://facebook.com/symantecpartners.

See the complete Symantec Partner Social Media Series.