A lot has changed in the world of Facebook over the last two years. Shoot, a lot has changed in the world of Facebook over the last two months! It seems every time you log on something has been tweaked, twitched, or swapped out. Between the Edgerank roll out and the removal of page activity from users’ tickers, it is more and more difficult for posts to make it into newsfeeds. We’ve all seen a dip in engagement. Who isn’t bummed out when after crafting the perfect promotional post you discover it was only seen by a fraction of the people who actually like your page?

After all, if engagement is the Holy Grail, we’ve got to get our posts in front of eyes that will engage.

All these changes mean that we as marketers and promoters need to work smarter and more strategically.

If I had a dollar for every piece or post I’ve seen suggesting that including a picture or video will increase your views I wouldn’t have to worry about engagement at all. But here’s a little secret we’ve discovered about our clients’ pages: it isn’t true.

For our authors, other types of posts are much more likely to make it into their customers’ newsfeeds. Today we’re sharing what kind.

1. Pure Text Posts: Posts with nothing but text are pay dirt. They routinely preform the best for our clients. Not only is the “people saw this post” number much higher than any other type of post, they typically generate the most engagement.

2. Text + a Link: Posts that include a shortened link perform next best for our clients. When scheduling these posts be sure to remove the link box that automatically appears when a link is added to the status update.

3. Picture (with or without a link): The fact that picture posts fall 3rd on this list continues to confound our team. We’re all drawn to pretty pictures in our newsfeed and we’ve all seen the countless sources suggesting we add pictures to our posts. But time and time again, picture posts – both with and without links attached – preform less successfully than pure text posts for our clients. It’s “a puzzlement.”

4. Link Posts: These posts are what automatically appear when a link is added to a status update. They are fully customizable and are visually appealing. We have recently been given the power to upload our own pictures to these posts and we’ve always been able to edit the link’s title or description. The one downside for our clients? Very few eyes see them.

5. Shared Link/Post: We hesitate to share this item because the last thing we want to do is discourage sharing the content of others. But it seems when a page shares the post of another page those are least likely to be seen. It’s counterintuitive, but it’s true. We wonder why on earth engagement with other pages is buried? It’s “social” media at its best! What is more confusing though is that if ANY type of post is actually shared by another user its visibility improves exponentially. So while the person who shares your post may not get many views, your original post gets more views. It’s confounding.

Facebook is a for-profit business. To guarantee your posts be seen by a greater number of users promoting or boosting them is your best bet. But if you’re like us, taking advantage of organic views is important too. We encourage you to test our suggestions and see if they work on your page!

 

We want to hear from you! Tell Us… Do these observations mirror what you’re seeing happen on your Facebook page?  What types of posts earn you the highest visibility and the most engagement?