Tag: #content marketing

Gaining followers and like on Facebook is a delicate balance of content, imagery, offers, and timing. Master this balance and opportunities for increased traffic, engagement will present themselves. New followers and likes will follow.

So, with Facebook what are some of the best times to publish content? The easy answer is “depends on the audience,” but typically we recommend:

• Between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
• And on Saturday and Sunday between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m.

However – One thing that many don’t take into consideration is tracking. Tracking is a key part of this process which many users don’t take advantage of. Too many social media posts are made and then are forgotten about only to be left out there to get a few organic likes. You should always track results using data taken from Facebook’s Page Insights, or other social media measurement tools. You may find that your best posting times differ from the times we’ve shared because of a different audience, need, or service you offer.

Facebook boast a whopping 1.65 billion monthly active users. It is the largest social media site in the world. It has a complex, ever-changing algorithm that can one day be mastered only to have to be relearned the next. There are a few basic factors that the News Feed ranking takes into account. When deciding whether to serve a piece of content to a user, the algorithm considers:

• Who posted it
• What type of content it is
• When it was posted
• What interactions it has

Do Your Best to Post Quality Content

Facebook’s algorithm really comes down to quality. Sharing quality content is essential to not only being shown in News Feed, but having your content appear higher in users’ feeds.

Best practices in regards to quality:

• Share high-quality content whenever possible
• If you’re sharing links to articles or blog posts on your website, ensure that they’re quality content that readers will want to spend time with
• Aim to be informative (in whatever way that makes sense for your business and your industry)
• When you share videos, aim to choose ones that will resonate with your audience
• Don’t reuse content from ads for organic Page posts as these posts will likely receive less organic distribution
• Don’t be spammy
• An extension of Facebook’s preference for quality content is its ongoing aversion to spammy content.

Best practices to avoid being spammy:

• Be particular about what you share and avoid content that doesn’t look reputable (such as content that could turn out to be a viral hoax)
• Avoid clickbait tactics, such as overly exaggerated headlines or ones that withhold key information
• Avoid encouraging users to take a particular action when they view a post—such as encouraging lots of clicks
• Don’t like-bait (publish posts that explicitly ask users to like, comment, or share the post)
• When looking for content to share, watch out for frequently circulated content (photos or videos that have been uploaded to Facebook over and over again) as that’s considered spammy behavior
• Avoid spammy links, such as stories that use inaccurate language or formatting to try to trick people into clicking through to a website that only contains ads or a combination of frequently circulated content and ads
• Avoid sharing overly promotional posts as posts that solely push people to buy a product, install an app, take part in a promotion or enter sweepstakes without adding any additional context—these posts will likely receive less organic distribution
• If you have a third party app, ensure that share settings are set up so that users take an explicit action to share, rather than share implicitly as explicitly shared stories are prioritized over implicitly shared ones

General Advice

Post quality content. Avoid being spammy. What else? There are a few other things to pay attention to when using Facebook for your brand.

General best practices for Facebook Pages:

• Post about timely topics (when it makes sense for your brand to do so)
• If it makes sense for your brand, give live video a try—when a Page is broadcasting, its video is more likely to appear higher in News Feed
• When relevant, tag other Pages in your posts because they may then be seen by a new audience (users who follow the tagged Page)
• Avoid publishing pure text posts—instead focus on sharing rich media such as links, photos, and video
• Make sure your Page profile is complete (yup, that matters to how Facebook assesses your Page)

One of the best ways to stay on the Facebook algorithm’s good side is to follow best practices offered by the network itself. Facebook’s media hub offers an on-going series of posts on best practices covering topics such as clickbait and live video.

Content – Long and Short Copy: Predictions for the Future

One of the longest standing debates in marketing is over what’s better — long or short copy.

The followers of the short copy gospel say that people don’t like to read, especially in the modern age, so there’s no reason to write long copy. They believe that long sales letters and web pages will get ignored and never be read. Instead, it’s better to use pictures and graphics to get customers’ attention.

The long copy faithful, on the other hand, believe that copy is the secret to any sales success. More copy to them means more sales.

Yes, These are both generalizations, but they summarize succinctly the two different schools of copy length. So who’s right?

David Ogilvy is probably the most famous advertising personality there is. He not only built the agency he founded, Ogilvy & Mather, into one of the biggest and most successful in the world, but he also wrote two popular books on the subject: Confessions of an Advertising Man in 1963 and Ogilvy on Advertising in 1983.

In Confessions, he had the following to say on the subject of long copy:

“There is a universal belief in lay circles that people won’t read long copy. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Claude Hopkins once wrote five pages of solid text for Schlitz beer. In a few months, Schlitz moved up from fifth place to first. I once wrote a page of solid text for Good Luck Margarine, with most gratifying results. 

Every advertisement should be a complete sales pitch for your product. It is unrealistic to assume that consumers will read a series of advertisements for the same product. You should shoot the works in every advertisement, on the assumption that it is the only chance you will ever have to sell your product to the reader—now or never. 

Says Dr. Charles Edwards of the Graduate School of Retailing, at New York University, “the more facts you tell, the more you sell. An advertisement’s chance for success invariably increases as the number of pertinent merchandise facts included in the advertisement increases.”

In a later chapter, Ogilvy puts an exclamation point on his argument:

“Long copy sells more than short copy, particularly when you are asking the reader to spend a lot of money. Only amateurs use short copy.”

 Content is moving beyond a 500-word blog post. Consumers and B2B buyers simply want more depth and value than short content can provide. Even if your 500-word post does attract significant traffic, it has an inherently short life span.

Orbitmedia’s yearly blogging survey shows that the most successful bloggers are spending more time creating longer posts. The average length of a typical blog post has risen from 808 in 2014 to 1,142 in 2017.

These longer posts are attracting more audience attention. The percentage of bloggers reporting “strong results” goes up steadily with the average word count of their posts:

While short blog posts still can serve a marketing purpose — attracting subscribers, promoting thought leadership — the most successful will re-evaluate short-form content as the basic unit of content marketing. Ungated long-form content is vital to meeting audience expectations.

 Content marketing is long overdue for a radical redesign, and all signs indicate the next iteration is already in progress. What content is, what forms it can take, how we amplify and measure it — these fundamental aspects of the discipline are all up for debate. It’s up to all of us to stay flexible, stay up-to-date, and most importantly, keep listening to what the audience says it needs.