Facebook Posts Cheat Sheet

I've been writing about the best times to post on Facebook and Twitter here for a few years, and as we get more granular data we continue to determine what works best when it comes to posts from a brand (don't forget, every artist is a brand). Buddy Media just released a study of over 18,000 Facebook pages from the world's biggest brands to determine the following "cheat sheet" for wall posts.

• Posts between 8PM and 7AM get 14% higher interaction because they present fans with content when they're the least busy.

• Posts published on the weekend get a 14% higher interaction rate than during the week.

• Post only once or twice a day. Brands that post more see 19% less interaction.

• Keep it short. Posts of 80 characters or fewer receive 23% more interaction.

• Use photos. Posts with photo attachments receive 39% more interaction than posts without.

• Be careful with video attachments. Video attachments receive fewer likes, views and shares than average.

• Call to actions work. When fans are asked to like a post, they do so at 3 times the rate than when they're not asked. The also comment at a rate more than 3 times times the norm. When asked to share a post, they're 7 times more likely to do so.

• Long URLs work better. Always include a URL including a link to your product, but use a long URL since it receives a 16% higher interaction rate.

• Use questions to drive comments, but be sure to place the questions at the end of the post. Posts with questions have 92% more comments.

• Experiment with emoticons. In some cases, emoticons can provide as much as 52% higher interaction, while in other cases, the interaction can be lower than average. :D and :P have the highest interaction rates.

These are all fascinating data points and worth considering before any post. You can download the full report here.

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The Latest "Best Time" To Tweet And Post

Sometimes getting solid data about anything online is such a moving target. There's a lot of different studies and none of them may correlate. A new study by the URL shortening service Bit.ly has some new info on the best time to tweet in order to gain more responses, and the best time to post on Facebook in order to get more Likes. Here's what they found:

Twitter

• The most clickthroughs come between 1 to 3PM EST Monday through Thursday.

• Not much happens after 8PM weeknights, or 3PM on Friday.

• The lifetime of a typical tweet is 2.8 hours.

• Peak traffic time is from 9AM to 3PM EST Monday through Thursday. That doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get more responses, since there's already a lot more competition for attention.

Facebook

• The highest clickthroughs come at 3PM EST on Wednesday, with links posted from 1 to 4PM getting the highest average clickthroughs.

• Links after 8PM and before 8AM struggle for attention.

• Facebook traffic starts at about 9AM, but Bit.ly suggests waiting until 11AM to post.

• Facebook traffic begins to fade after 4PM.

Now just to show you how some of these studies differ, previous studies by Dan Zarrella and Vitrue have found that the best time for Facebook posts were 8AM, 11AM and 4PM EST, while the best time for tweets is 11AM, 3PM and 8PM EST.


Just to go a bit further, Buddy Media did a study a month earlier and discovered the following about Facebook:

• Brands that posted outside of business hours had 20% higher engagement than between 10AM and 4PM.

• Thursday and Friday got the best engagement, while Monday and Saturday had the worst.

• Posts with questions have a 15% higher engagement rate. A question starting with the word "would" gets the most engagement, followed by "where," "when," and "should." "Why" gets the least engagement.

So like with much of the stats that we see online, you have to take these things with a grain of salt and see what works best for every specific application. The only thing that they all have in common is that posting or tweeting at the top of the hour (i.e. 8AM), is a lot more effective than anything else. At least that's something solid.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.

5 Rules For Facebook Engagement

A new white paper about Facebook engagement from a research site called Buddy Media Platform had some very interesting points gathered in a recent survey. The report is called Strategies For Effective Facebook Wallposts: A Statistical Review and can be downloaded for free.

5 Rules for Facebook engagement that came from the study are:

  1. Keep your posts short and sweet. Posts of 80 characters or less have 27% higher engagement rates.

  2. Think twice before using URL shorteners. Engagement rates are 3 times higher using full-length URLs.

  3. Post when people are listening. Posts outside of business hours (10AM to 4PM EST) have a 20% higher engagement rate.

  4. Some days are better than others. Engagement rates are 18% higher on Thursday and Friday than the other days of the week, but Saturday and especially Sunday are good too. This can vary by industry though.

  5. Avoid the noise of Monday. There's too much going on after the weekend.

If you're posting to keep in touch with your friends or to let them know what you're doing, then this data is of no consequence to you. But if you're posting strategically to promote your brand, then follow the above for better fan engagement.
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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on music, engineering and production tips and tricks.