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Fran Stephenson December 15, 2013 Leave a Comment

When Should I Post on Facebook – The DIY Version

This is one of the most frequently asked questions by my clients.  And one for which many seem to want a simple answer, like 2 p.m. on Wednesday.

A year ago, some social media consultants firmly stated that 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. was the ideal time to post on Facebook. Some even have specific posting rules, like this blog post which urges you to “post on the 9s” – 9 a.m. and 9 p.m.

The real answer used to be far more complicated for small organizations who are managing Facebook pages without the benefit of scheduling and analysis tools, but now you can do it yourself and, if you take some time to test and analyze, can find out which posts get the best results when your fans are online.

This is easier now with one of the enhancements on your Facebook Insights for Company Pages.  If you have a Company Page with 50 or more fans, you can see a chart like the one below by going to View Insights, then click on the Posts tab.

Example 1: New Fan Page

facebookchartsmallpage

This chart shows a new page which has just reached 50 fans.  It tells you which day of the week most of its fans are online and the second part of the graph shows the times which they are online.  If you hover over a day of the week, you get an additional line of information which tells you the activity for that specific day.  For this little page, the times of the week when most of the fans are online are:

Monday, 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Wednesday, noon and 3-6 p.m.

Friday, 3-6 p.m.

Example 2: Established Company Page

facebookchartlargepage

The second chart shows a larger page with more than 1,000 fans. For this page, the most number of fans are online during these days and times:

Wednesday, 4 – 9 p.m.

Friday, 3 – 9 p.m.

Saturday, 9 a.m. – 9 p.m.

These two pages have no “optimum posting times” in common. That’s why the Insights are so valuable. So if you are a doing your social media campaigns without benefit of fancy tools, try posting during those times and see if you are getting a better reach.  To really test your theory, drop the stats for each post into a spreadsheet and you might even narrow it down further. But keep in mind that optimum posting times are not set in stone. The best day of the week or time of day can change from one month to the next. So what is the best time to post on YOUR Facebook page?

Filed Under: Social Strategy Tagged With: Best times to post on Facebook, Facebook, social strategy

Fran Stephenson November 13, 2013 2 Comments

Using the New “Pages to Watch” Function on Facebook

Pages to Watch Function selection box on Facebook. Are you using the new “Pages to Watch” function on FB? I just started using it this week and have added it into the box of several pages which I administer on Facebook.  I’m surprised to see very little about this new function on Pages, but I did find this post which identifies some of its features.

It has been rolling out to brands selectively since July  , but I only saw it appear in my pages this past week.

I am still exploring this function, but here’s what I see so far.

What I like about this function is that it’s a quick snapshot of activity by the “competition,” but only against one metric: number of fans. The second thing I like about this function is that it keeps the competition top of mind. If your measurements include regular benchmarks against the competition, this gives you a quick snapshot of who is growing fans and who is shrinking fans.

So far, though, its usefulness seems really limited.

On Pages to Watch, you don’t get anPages to Watch Selection box ything BUT the total number of fans added or eliminated from the page. Assuming you are a smart communicator who is measuring more than just fans, it doesn’t give insight into the engagement levels of your competition.

The second problem I see is that the statistics on Pages to Watch are not integrated into any other page data, so they might be dead end data.

The third issue I have is with its clunky functionality.  When adding pages into the search box, some pages which I wanted to add were blocked and others that were of no interest to my brands at all were highly ranked suggestions. It also forces you to add 5 pages, so if you only want to add three, you’re stuck. I added pages that I really don’t care to monitor just to get it up and running.

In true Facebook fashion, it’s anyone’s guess as to what Facebook intends to do with this function.  So go try it on your Company Pages. I would love to hear what you find out about how it works for your brand.

Filed Under: Social Strategy Tagged With: brands on Facebook, Pages to Watch Function on Facebook, social media measurement

Fran Stephenson October 23, 2013 3 Comments

Double Up Your Social Media Content

Question_-2

If your organization has gotten into a good social media routine, monitoring channels, posting content regularly and seeing results, maybe it’s time to double up on your content output.

What do I mean by doubling up? If you’ve been posting two to three times per week on your channels, try doubling your output for a specified time period to see what effect this can have on your engagement and followers.

Here are three recent examples from my client channels.

Increasing Twitter Action

A health care client went from posting 2-3 times per week on Twitter.  When that schedule was adjusted to a daily posting schedule, the results were immediate. In the chart below, you can see the difference in activity from one month to the next.

 

Twitter

Clicks

Mentions

RTs

New Followers

Month 1

51

20

13

7

Month 2

215

39

20

50

Facebook Contest

A nonprofit client doubled their content output during a Facebook voting contest, which really changed their footprint during and after the contest. The table below shows the regular Facebook insights from that time period. The contest was held in Weeks 3-6. Notice the halo effect in week 7. If you compare week 8 with week 1, the page had a significantly higher reach overall.

 

Timeframe

New Likes

Talking About

Weekly Reach

Week 1

6

12

297

Week 2

2

23

580

Week 3

10

69

944

Week 4

19

65

993

Week 5

4

107

817

Week 6

59

124

13554

Week 7

37

78

14248

Week 8

7

56

1551

 

Double Posting on Facebook

A local brand accelerated their Facebook posting schedule to twice per day due to a large number of events during a holiday period.  Prior to doubling up, their average monthly engagement was 7%. During the accelerated posting month, their engagement rate soared to 17%.  They also gained fans and over the next few months, their engagement rates were 11-12%.

Think how you might double up your social media posting schedule but more importantly, see what happens to your channel and analyze the results.

Filed Under: Social Strategy Tagged With: social media content, social media measurement, social strategy, Step In Communicaiton

Fran Stephenson December 4, 2012 Leave a Comment

What Does Your Facebook Insight Chart Say About You?

You are, of course, looking deeply at your Facebook insights to see how your fans are interacting with your organization, and analyzing what content resonates with your community. But you can make some instant observations by looking at that little chart which is nestled just above the cover photo and between the “New Likes” and “Page Tips” section.

If you are managing more than one page, this is a quick benchmark to see how your pages stack up against one another.

As a refresher, the purple circles along the bottom of the chart represents posting frequency by the page owner.  The green trend line above it represents actions taken by fans. This includes liking the page, or a post on the page, sharing something from the page or commenting on the page. The blue trend line above that is what Facebook calls Reach.  It’s a complicated Facebook formula but basically take your fans and multiply it by how many people they are connected with or have “friended” on Facebook and you get a sense of the magnitude.

Here are some samples from client pages I have managed with some observations I used to examine next steps with the client.

On a Roll

This chart shows an organization with frequent FB contributions

This organization is doing well with creating frequent posts and interacting with their fan base.  Their fan base is engaged.

Hiccup

Chart Showing Glitch in Facebook Activity

This organization may have been on a roll, but recently had some kind of hiccup with their content strategy. Go back to the date to see what suddenly changed and see if it can inform better decision-making in the future.

Abandoned

This chart shows that a page has been abandoned

Someone gave up on this page. It happens to many organizations. Usually it means the page owner got reassigned or too busy to keep the home fires burning.

Smokin’ Hot

This chart shows an organization that is doing powerful FB content

This organization is burning up the charts with strong content and continuous growth.

Burnout

This chart shows a FB page with infrequent postings

This little chart shows how easy it is to reverse the “on a roll” trend.

 

Have you seen a page like one of these? Did it help you make new decisions? I use this short exercise once or twice a month to see where I need to look next for insight.

Filed Under: Social Strategy Tagged With: content strategy, Facebook insights, Step In Communication

Fran Stephenson November 27, 2012 4 Comments

Myths about Digital Natives-On My Mind

Blogging discussion in class on the Day of Archaeology
I hear it at least once a week.  A grandiose statement about how savvy twenty-somethings are and that they are the experts in exploring and using technology. I interact with that generation every week at the college level, and see a different type of native. In the past two years, I have had students who:

  • Did not know how to upload a document into an online dropbox;
  • Have never read a blog
  • Have only used Facebook, Reddit and YouTube
  • Are afraid to use an online learning system or take an online class

I don’t want to make a similar grandiose statement to say that all twenty-somethings are digitally averse, but it’s clear to me that we should not make assumptions either way and use every opportunity to share the rush that comes from learning something new in the digital universe.

Conversely, my students have also taught me about what’s important to them in their digital lives.

This has broad implications for school systems, for employers AND for students.  It’s not about your age. It’s not about whether you are a Boomer or Gen whatever, it’s about teaching the next generation to learn by exploring.

Photo by Anthro 136k on Flickr. Published under Creative Commons license.

Filed Under: Social Strategy Tagged With: digital natives, learning, Step In Communication

Fran Stephenson February 13, 2012 1 Comment

Confessions of a Contest Entrant

I was certain I would get a phone call last month to say that I had won the contest.  Not just any contest, but the Williams-Sonoma, Real Simple Holiday Sweepstakes Extravaganza or something like that.

The prize was awesome. A $5000 gift card to shop at Williams-Sonoma.  There were so many things I needed for my kitchen, I was a sure winner.  (After nearly 20 years of marriage, the pots and pans are sad looking and not all our dishes match anymore.  And the towels….don’t get me started!)

Enter daily to win, the online form explained.  Excellent.  So each morning for nearly 30 days, I would open the bookmarked form and record my entry.  There was only one problem with this strategy — every time you entered, you had to fill out an entire entry form.  All of it.  Name, address, city, state, zip, e-mail, opt-in, submit.

Are you kidding me?  That’s a lot of work, but okay, in this case, I persevered.
It was a fun diversion each morning, thinking of how I would spend the gift card.  I even went so far as to go onto the Williams-Sonoma web site to look at their dishes and pots and pans.

Can you hear their digital marketing team cheering in the background?

Williams-Sonoma Contest Form

Not all Contest Forms are Alike!

So, congratulations to the Williams-Sonoma marketing team.  I was completely sucked in.

Earlier last year, I was equally sucked in to a contest sponsored by Southwest Airlines called Let ‘Em Fly and Win where each day you had one roll of the dice and if you got one of the published Yahtzee dice combos you got a bajillion frequent flyer miles.

“This is fabulous,” I thought.  With our son about to go off to college, this would certainly lighten the damage of all those college trips on our pocketbook.  Like the Williams-Sonoma contest, you could enter daily to win.  So I did.  Every day for 30 days.  There was one key difference between the two contests.  After you entered all your information on the form on the first day, on subsequent days, you only had to enter your email address to roll the dice.

Brilliant.

Not once did I get a combination worthy of frequent flier miles, but it certainly got me thinking about what makes a great online contest.

There’s only two things you need to have a great online contest.  First, you need a great prize.  Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the value of a contest prize is determined by the participant.  If your fans, friends or network perceive the prize to be of value, then it is.  For others, it might be a gift card or an iPad.  Frequent flyer miles and kitchen equipment were my motivators — I can confess without blushing that these prizes were sweet enough to motivate me.

The second component of a successful contest – keep it simple.  Too many form fields or requirements will drive entries away.  If the prize for the kitchen equipment was, say $500, I may not have gone through the trouble each day to fill out the form.  Except I REALLY need new dishes.

The Southwest Airlines contest was far easier. And Fun.  Like going to Vegas, without the smoke-filled casinos.

Great prize.  Simple entry.  That’s the key to a good contest.

What types of contest prizes motivate you?

Filed Under: Social Strategy Tagged With: contests, marketing, online contests, strategy

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