Crafting the perfect Facebook post is like an art form. It takes skill and research to know what to do and when to do it. Once you figure out the formula for success, you will realize just how well your Facebook page aids in the growth of your business.
Here are some guidelines to follow that will help you create a Facebook post that will get people talking and sharing:
- Don’t get too wordy. Twitter caps your characters out at 140, but believe it or not, the ideal Facebook post contains a lot less words than that! 40 characters is the sweet spot on Facebook but if you stick to less than 80, you’re still doing ok. We know, that sounds super short. According to studies, posts around the 40 character mark receive 86% higher engagement than lengthier posts. So try to keep it short and catchy.
- Pose questions. Posts asking questions are likely to get higher engagement. The good news is that when you pose a question, you can still get high engagement if you run around 120 characters. This gives you a little more play room than your standard post of 40 words.
- Use Emoticons. Believe it or not, people tend to respond really well when posts use emoticons. Be cautious when you use them because you want it to still fit within your company’s tone of voice. If you don’t think emoticons are a good fit for your image, skip them.
- Post Pictures, pictures, pictures. Posts that include pictures get excellent engagement. Make sure the picture you select is a good representation of the content you are sharing as well as your company. Studies have shown photo posts get 53% more likes, 104% more comments, and 84% more clicks than posts without images.
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- Watch your timing. It’s beneficial to post at the right time on Facebook. You can use your Facebook Insights to see what time your fans are largely online and plan your posts out accordingly.
- Start a contest. Everyone loves to win something, or to think they have a chance at winning. Running a contest is likely to engage fans because they will all want a chance to win the prize.
- See how it looks on mobile. Most people are checking Facebook via their smartphone so it’s important that your posts look great on there as well. When you schedule a post, you can see the desktop version along with the mobile version. Make sure both are satisfactory before running the post.
- Think of your audience. What would they want to see? What interests them? What problem are they looking to solve? These are all great questions that you should ask yourself before creating a post. If it doesn’t interest them, they won’t engage.
- Promote your products only 1/5th of the time. That’s right. Your fans don’t want to be inundated with your pitches to buy your product. They will start to feel that you don’t want to engage with them and that you are only looking to make a buck. A good rule of thumb to follow is only post something self-promoting (a product, sale, etc) every 5th post. That means 4 out of the 5 posts should be something that relates to your business but that isn’t asking them to buy your product or visit you during your sale. You don’t want them to be put off and unfollow you.
Are you close to crafting the perfect Facebook post? Let me know what did (and did not) work for you by heading over to my Facebook page. Looking forward to the discussion!