Facebook: Are Facebook pages the new list? Tips for Effective Fan Engagement
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A study was performed by Momentus Media in 2011 on the top 20,000 Facebook pages and their posts. The study focused on fan engagement and interaction. We'll summarize some of their findings in this article.
Why is this important, you ask? If you are at all interested in the most effective practices in engaging your fans and/or growing your fan-base, these findings will be invaluable. A lot of people, for instance, communicate with their fans when it's most convenient for them. As the the study shows, however, there are certain times of day when posts engage fans the most -- and these don't necessarily coincide with what's convenient for the poster. With Facebook restricting the reach of each post to only 16% of your fanbase by default, making sure your posts go out at the most effective times is crucial. This and other little gems like this will be summarized below.
GEM #1: When to post to get the most fan engagement -- Apparently, the answer is off-hours and on weekends.
GEM #2: Keep posting as much as you want but reserve special stuff for the first 5 posts.
GEM #3: Don't be bashful -- ask folks to "Like" and/or "Comment"
GEM #4: 50% of fan engagement clicks happen within 1 hour of posting
The SWAG.IO team
monetize your Facebook pages with the SWAG.IO platform: Swagmatic on Facebook | Facebook
learn more about what we do: Swag.io
Why is this important, you ask? If you are at all interested in the most effective practices in engaging your fans and/or growing your fan-base, these findings will be invaluable. A lot of people, for instance, communicate with their fans when it's most convenient for them. As the the study shows, however, there are certain times of day when posts engage fans the most -- and these don't necessarily coincide with what's convenient for the poster. With Facebook restricting the reach of each post to only 16% of your fanbase by default, making sure your posts go out at the most effective times is crucial. This and other little gems like this will be summarized below.
GEM #1: When to post to get the most fan engagement -- Apparently, the answer is off-hours and on weekends.
The study found that fanpage admins post the most on Thursday and the least during the weekends. Interestingly enough, fan post engagement was found to be the least on Thursday and the highest on the weekends.
Similarly, most fanpage admins post between the hours of 9am-4pm EST (6am-1pm PST). Fans, however, engage with posts the most after 6pm PST (i.e., during off-hours).
GEM #2: Keep posting as much as you want but reserve special stuff for the first 5 posts.
The more you post on a given day, the more cumulative fan engagement you will get. Having said this, the first 5 posts will garner the most fan interaction per post. So schedule your posts accordingly.
GEM #3: Don't be bashful -- ask folks to "Like" and/or "Comment"
Posts asking fans to "Like" and/or "Comment" on the post material get double the interaction rate of posts that don't. More interaction translates to more virality (when a fan likes your post, his/her friends see that like. Same with comments).
GEM #4: 50% of fan engagement clicks happen within 1 hour of posting
... and 90% of clicks happen within 9 hours of the post. Net is, time your posts appropriately to ensure you get the most clicks possible (also see GEM #1).And that's it for now. Happy Selling!
The SWAG.IO team
monetize your Facebook pages with the SWAG.IO platform: Swagmatic on Facebook | Facebook
learn more about what we do: Swag.io