Between GDPR updates and falling reach on Facebook, marketers are in a tailspin. Now more than ever, we need to know what types of posts draw attention on Facebook, and we need to build our strategies around them.

For those used to thinking in terms of tactics and tricks, this news may come as a relief: Relax, love and humanity are the keys! Those two big ideas need to be communicated in conversational marketing using words that resonate with your audience.

In this post, we will look at the power of conversation and the words that audiences love to read.

You’ll learn how to maximize the power of conversational marketing:

Social media is more about the Return on Conversation (ROC) and less about the Return on Investment (ROI). Brooke B. Sellas

And, if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll agree that the key to ongoing successful social strategy has always been a focus on engagement. Facebook’s algorithm changes simply reinforce the need for quality content.

The future of content sharing is quality content and it is essential that you build your authority and reputation as a trusted and informative site. Steve Rayson

Conversational Marketing: The Antidote To Declining Reach

I did my undergraduate honors thesis on successful connection, or conversation, strategies on social media.

My research focused on the Social Penetration Theory, also known as the Onion Theory. Basically, in the 60s, two social psychologists said that humans build relationships based on the disclosures they make to one another.

If I want to get to know you, I will disclose information about myself in an attempt to get you to disclose information about yourself.

As the psychologists dug deeper, they realized that not all disclosures are created equal. We actually have four levels of disclosure:

• Clichés
• Facts
• Opinions
• Feelings

As you can imagine, as we get to know someone, we move from each of the four stages until we get to deeper and deeper levels of understanding someone.

As you can also imagine, most social media interactions from brands sit at levels one and two (clichés and facts).

My thesis looked at social media interactions and attempted to ask this question: Do deeper disclosures, like opinions and feelings, lead to deeper interactions for brands and their communities?

The short answer? Yes.

Clichés Are Getting Clobbered  

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what low-end or cliché conversational marketing looks like.

• For clichés, think memes or quotes overlaid on pretty pictures
• For facts, look at nearly any blog post being shared on social media and you’ll get something like, “Great content takes a lot of careful thinking. Read our post on blah blah blah by clicking below …”

I’m not saying you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but these type of posts resoundingly receive low engagement or no engagement on social.

As Buzzsumo’s 2018 Content Trends Report showed, the vast increase in content on social media means that there’s greater competition for engagement.

The report goes on to highlight the content type that hasn’t seen a dip in shares or engagement: quality content. Conversational marketing, because of its depth and the discussions it initiates, fits this category.

Quality social media posts, whether it was during my thesis study in 2009 or today in 2018, often use deeper disclosures like opinions and feelings to obtain a Return On Conversation.

Using feeling-type questions will take you far.

• What’s your belief when it comes to [topic]?
• What do you think about [topic]?
• How does [your product/brand] make you feel?
• Do you value [products or services similar to yours]?

If you want to remain relevant on social media today, you’ll need to think harder about the conversations you’re having.

If you only share cliché quotes and memes, your engagement will be cliché. If you only present the facts, you’ll likely only receive factual information in return.

But if you use conversational marketing to tout opinions and ask for feelings, you may very well receive opinions, feelings, and deeper-level disclosures from your online communities.

LOVE Fuels Conversational Marketing

In looking at quality social media posts that entice some of those deeper disclosures, I’ve noticed a trend with the word LOVE.

Subaru has used it for years. Take a look at their recent Facebook Video and how they use the word LOVE.

DSW is another big brand famous for using the word love in its advertising and social media posts. Look how they combine the word (or heart emoji for the word) love and behind-the-scenes content of their employees giving back (to cats and dogs, no less!).

That’s one post that combines a deeper-level disclosure, animals, a behind-the-scenes photo, AND branding both from the Facebook Page itself and with the t-shirts the employees wore in the pic. Whew!

If marketers would open up their eyes and really look, they’d see cues everywhere trying to entice more conversational marketing with the deepest disclosure (feelings).

See the most engaging “love” content

For example, on Facebook, every post has an option for “Feeling/Activity” and little expressive emojis that go with it.

We seem to have forgotten that tribes are created and sustained around conversation. And good conversation at that.

Words That Work

Other than love, what ways can you use social to speak out?

Words that usually work with conversational marketing are things like,

• Passionate (“if you’re as passionate about [topic] as we are, tell your friends!)
• Agree (do you agree …?)
• Think (tell us what you think about …)
• Feel (tell us how you feel about …)
• Support (show your support by …)
• Story (what’s your story with [product/service])
• Improve (how could we improve [topic]?)
• Hear (we want to HEAR from YOU!)
• YOU (and way less I, me, and we)

And, according to a recent report by Sprout Social, 66% of consumers say it’s important for brands to take public stands on social and political issues. And more than half (58%) are open to this happening on social media.

In other words, people want to “see” the human on the other side of their screen. They want to connect with another person, not some logo or mission statement.

As Mark Schaefer so eloquently states it,

“The most human companies will win.” — Mark Schaefer

Have We Forgotten To Be Human?

Lastly, I wonder if we marketers have forgotten to be human. It seems kinda crazy that marketers have to tell other marketers to act like a human being.

Have we gotten so lost down the rabbit hole of algorithms, clickbait, and gaming the system that we’ve forgotten that our main goal is to connect?

To converse? To be social?

I started my company, B Squared Media, over six years ago with a mantra of “Think Conversation, Not Campaign.”

It quickly became our tagline.

It’s funny to me that now I’m having to use our tagline as a gentle reminder that our goals are really to reach out and touch someone.

We can get all fancy and call it “conversational marketing” or “social media marketing” but at end of the day it’s just one person connecting with another. And that shouldn’t be rocket science.

With more than a billion users across the world, it’s probably fair to say that, no matter what market your company is in, your leads and customers are on Facebook.

And, yes, this has proven true even for B2B.

So, it should go without saying that your company needs a presence on Facebook in 2019.

The question is, how do you set yourself up for success? How can you create the most shared articles on Facebook?

The 5 Most Important Goals for Facebook Marketing in 2019

It’s going to take some work, but if you understand which goals are most important for Facebook marketing in 2019, you’ll have a much easier time turning the world’s most popular social media platform into your new favorite lead-generation channel.

Here are the five goals to set for your business this year.

1. Stay Committed to Regularly Posting

Companies that regularly create the most shared articles on Facebook and enjoy the revenues that kind of success can create all have one thing in common: they post regularly.

Fortunately, that doesn’t mean dozens of times a day.

According to Facebook-authority, Louise Myers, “At a minimum, you should post to your Facebook Pages 3 times per week.”

That’s doable, right?

Better still, not everything you share needs to be original content from your company’s website. In the next section, I’ll share a super-easy tip for making even more of the content you’ve already created.

For now, one simple way to meet that three-day-a-week goal is with curated content. In short, this means that you can share other companies’ posts with your audience (obviously, provided it’s not from a competitor).

That said, don’t just share the link and call it a day. Add your own two cents, as well. This way, you’re not just sharing valuable content with your audience, you’re still keeping yourself in the picture. If you can find a way to add some extra value to the article by adding it to your post, even better.

Keep in mind, you can use BuzzSumo to find the most shared articles on Facebook specific to your industry. This will give you a better idea of which topics will get the most engagement from your audience.

2. Start Investing in Lots of Videos

Back in January, I posted my findings after we reviewed 777 million Facebook posts. One of the most important insights was that videos are easily the most effective form of content on the site.

Again, the good news is that you don’t need to go overboard to create them. The data shows that three-to-five minutes is optimal for Facebook videos.

I would also recommend you thinking about repurposing some old content. As you only need to make your videos a few minutes, you can even use them to introduce some of your older blog posts, what they have to offer your followers, and why that impact is so important. Then, link back to the specific post for some added traffic.

3. Focus on Segmentation for Your Ads

If you’re using Facebook to market your company, you should definitely be using Facebook Ads.

However, far too many companies have been happy with bare-minimum results from this investment.

ADD ANDREA VAHL QUOTE>LINK

That stops this year.

No more running the same ad over and over, even if it’s been “successful” in the past.

In 2019, you need to do some experimenting and create separate segments, so your ads are hyper-focused on leads and customers based on their previous actions.

Here are the eight different custom audiences you should definitely target this year according to Facebook expert, Andrea Vahl:

• “All of your Website visitors
• Website visitors of a certain page on your website or category of pages
• Website visitors of people who have spent a certain time on your site
• People who have viewed more than 10 seconds (or maybe 25% or 50%) of your videos or a group of videos
• All of your email subscribers
• Customers (either by email or by the Purchase Standard Event)
• Customers who have purchased multiple times from you
• People who have engaged with your Facebook Page”

Target as many of these verticals that apply, including specific audiences within each one, so you’re no longer casting a wide net. Instead, your ads are laser-focused.

4. Tailor Your Content to What You Know Is Working Best

When Buffer teamed with us to analyze 777,367,063 Facebook posts, they made two important discoveries about what users seem to like best from content:

• “The most common reactions to top Facebook video posts are LOVE and HAHA
• Inspirational, funny, and practical content generates the most engagement”

Let that serve as a foundation to help you create the most shared articles on Facebook for your market. No matter what the topic is, try to find a way you can position it as inspirational, humorous, or practical. Remember, you can use your actual post to reframe the context around another company’s article.

For example, if I shared that Buffer post, I might highlight a success story I enjoyed from using the insights in that article. Now, it’s even more inspirational.

5. Conduct Regular Audits of Your Results

Finally, every few months, go back to see which of your posts did best on Facebook. At first, it might simply be when you repost some of the most shared articles on Facebook. That’s fine. Keep engagement going by using our Facebook influencer tool to keep tabs on what is working best across your industry.

At the same time, take cues from their success – as well as your own – so your editorial calendar reflects what’s working best with your market.

Keep in mind that every industry is going to be different, as well. So, while the goals above should give you confidence in your initial direction, you’ll most likely need to make some minor adjustments here and there. Maybe your market loves funny posts more than inspirational ones. Perhaps, they want more than three posts a week.

Whatever the case, regular reviews will show you how to proceed.

How to Create Some of the Most Shared Articles on Facebook

Need help regularly creating popular posts?

Want to keep tabs on what your competitors are doing?

We have the answer. Leverage the power of BuzzSumo and you’ll have a much easier time achieving those five goals in 2019.

No matter what industry your company is in, your market is most likely on Facebook. They’re most likely on it a lot, too.

So, if you’re not currently leveraging the world’s largest social media platform for all it’s worth, there’s probably a pretty good reason for that.

If you’re like most people, it’s simple: There’s just not enough time in the day.

4 Daily Tasks That Will Dramatically Increase Your Company’s Facebook Engagement

Facebook has become such an important platform for marketing that many people’s full-time job title is “Facebook Marketer.”

It’s for good reason, too.

As Search Engine Journal’s Lisa D. Jenkins describes it, “Never before have businesses been able to reach their customer base so easily, and on so intimate a level.”

Nonetheless, most of us don’t have that kind of time on our hands. We’re already juggling multiple priorities, which makes it easy for something like Facebook marketing – despite its potential – to fall by the wayside.

Fortunately, you can actually see incredible results on this platform by committing to just one task a day. Here are four examples of how our Facebook Analyzer tool can immediately improve your engagement without crowding your current schedule.

1. Determine the Best Possible Time to Post on Facebook

One of the biggest differences when it comes to publishing blog posts and publishing social media posts is that, when it comes to the latter, time is a critical factor.

Whether you publish a blog post on Sunday or Tuesday, noon or midnight, doesn’t really matter all that much. It won’t have any effect on the blog post’s rankings or the organic traffic it generates.

On the other hand, if you don’t post at optimal times on social media platforms like Facebook, your engagement will suffer tremendously. Your market either sees them, or they don’t.

So, one daily task for yourself could be determining when that optimal time is. Our own research into Facebook engagement found that posts do best when they’re published between 9pm and 11pm EST on Sundays.

That’s a great place to start, but you could also make it a daily task to follow up on your posts and try a few other times out, too.

The best way to do this is by using our Facebook Analyzer tool to look at when your competitors see the best results. Search by their pages, and you’ll find when their posts hit peak engagement. Then, experiment with some of these times, check back once a day, and find what works best for your followers.

Once you’ve successfully used the Facebook Analyzer tool to pin down the best time for your company’s posts, they’ll immediately enjoy greater engagement.

2. Keep Tabs on What Kind of Content Is Doing Best

Now that you know what time your market prefers to see your Facebook posts, the next step is to determine what kind of content they enjoy most, too.

Again, this is fairly simple to do with our Facebook Analyzer tool. It could easily become a daily task that requires very little time yet is able to multiply your current strategy’s ROI.

Let’s say you run a graphic design agency.

You could start with the most basic of search terms, “graphic design”:

Next, click on “Analysis”, and scroll down to see how different types of content perform:

As you can see, the big winners are infographics and lists. Furthermore, though video may not prove especially popular on your other platforms, it does have fans on Facebook.

3. Schedule Your Facebook Posts for the Week

Using the Facebook Analyzer tool, you should have no problem coming up with a calendar for your social media posts. You’ll know what kind of content to post and – just as important – when you should post it.

Still, after you used the tool to look into your competitors’ practices, you might have found that they keep a pretty ambitious schedule. Maybe they post multiple times a day and multiple days a week.

Do you have that kind of time available in your schedule?

If not, this is when you should use a tool like Buffer. This user-friendly platform will allow you to schedule all of your Facebook posts beforehand, so they post automatically without any further action on your part.

For example, before you leave the office on Friday, you could go in and schedule every post by day-and-time for the following week. That’s a simple task that won’t take long at all, no matter how many posts you decide is right.

While you continue to use the Facebook Analyzer to monitor the best times for posting, you might discover a new opportunity. Maybe a time that your competitors chose is actually a dud.

Whatever the case, you can just jump into Buffer, quickly reschedule posts and have them all change well beforehand. It beats trying to remember a new schedule for manually posting.

4. Audit Your Company’s Facebook Strategy

Finally, nothing will improve your online marketing efforts like a good content audit. This definitely applies to your Facebook posts, too.

That’s why another simple task can be looking back at your past week or month of Facebook posts. Which ones earned the most engagement? Which ones fell flat?

By reviewing these posts, you’ll gain even better insights into what kind of content to post and when as it relates to your unique market.

Again, our Facebook Analyzer makes this extremely easy to do. Platforms like Buffer will give you analytics at a glance, as well.

To give your audit an actionable frame of reference, run your main competitors through our tool. For example, if we competed against Buffer, we could quickly discover what kinds of numbers they saw during the last month of Facebook posts.

Their Facebook posts saw an average of 21 engagements:

Most of them happened on Monday:

These would be good benchmarks for judging our own success and showing where we have room to improve.

Get Busy – but Not Too Busy – with Our Facebook Analyzer Tool

Turning Facebook into one of your company’s best lead generation tools doesn’t require working late hours.

As you just saw, all you need is our Facebook Analyzer tool. Sign up for BuzzSumo today, and we’ll give you a free week to see for yourself.

“Sharing is caring.”

We were all taught this as children, but when it comes to Facebook marketing, sharing is one of the most important results your posts can possibly achieve. It means other people are helping to market your company – absolutely free.

That’s one of the reasons we created our Facebook Analyzer tool: so, you never have to leave your content’s shareability to chance.

4 Steps to Use Our Facebook Analyzer to Increase Your Posts’ Shares

Driving more shares isn’t just great for gaining more attention on Facebook, either. More shares can also mean more organic traffic from search engines, too. As Sharon Hurley Hall explains, “…there’s plenty of evidence that social signals such as likes and shares ARE related to your ranking.”

So, a social media strategy that focuses on shares will impact SEO, too.

We designed our Facebook Analyzer tool to give users all the information they need for these kinds of powerful posting strategies, while still making it incredibly easy to quickly utilize. So, while the interface is extremely user-friendly, it’s actually tapping into a database of more than two billion Facebook posts with two million more being added every single day.

That’s why no Facebook marketing strategy should be without it.

Here are the foursimple steps you can take to add it to yours in no time.

1. Decide What Topics You Want to Research

You can use the Facebook analyzer tool to dive into any topic relevant to your industry simply by typing in a relevant keyword that describes it.

If you’ve already been posting on Facebook for some time, you probably have a fairly good idea of which topics are doing best. So, you could start with subcategories for those to get a better sense of what you should be posting about for even more shares.

However, let’s say you’re just starting out. Your company works in cyber security, so you’d begin with that search term in the Facebook Analyzer. Under Analysis, you’d find:

With just one simple search, we already have a lot of information to work with. In fact, if all you did was run that initial search, and then use this report to shape your posting strategy going forward, you’d probably be in great shape.

Still, we can use the Facebook Analyzer tool to better build this strategy for increased engagement.

2. Discover What Type of Content Earns the Most Shares

Success on Facebook takes more than just knowing which topics your market likes most. It takes understanding how they want to consume that information, too. If you don’t present it just the way they like, you probably have a competitor who would be more than happy to do so.

Right below the two line charts, you’ll find, “Average Engagements per Post Type”:

For our purposes, we only care about the green graphs, as they represent shares.

Considering how popular Facebook giveaways have become, perhaps it’s not surprising to see how well they’re doing in the cybersecurity industry.

But as you’re just starting out, maybe you’re also running a little lean, too. In that case, the next best type of post for Facebook is video. Again, this might not be too surprising. Facebook video ads do exceptionally well on the platform.

That would be the logical place to start with your Facebook posts, then.

Fortunately, we can do a lot more than just recognize that videos do well for the cyber security industry.

3. Drill Down into the Details About Popular Types of Content

To begin this next step, choose the status type you want to research further. In this case, it’s video:

Facebook Analyzer’s report looks very different now:

This shows us a lot of helpful information we can use when creating our posts.

For one thing, we have a brand-new benchmark. Videos receive an average of 90 engagements in the cyber security industry. That’s quite a bit more than the average for all content types (70), so that’s good information to have. Otherwise, we would have set our sights too low and then been disappointed once we reached them.

We can also see that our posts will stand the best chance of more shares if we include at least 300 words. Compared to the other four options, shares really take off at that point. They’re actually double the amount of what we’d expect at 250-300 words, so, again, this is extremely valuable data.

The same dramatic contrast exists for the best days to post, as well.

On Saturdays, videos about “cybersecurity” receive 42 shares, on average. That is a lot more than any other day. Second place is Friday with 14. Third place is Sunday with 13. Fourth is Tuesday with 12. Combined they don’t equal the average for Saturday, despite the fact that many marketers would assume that weekends would be the worst possible time to post about business topics.

Finally, the best time to post videos for maximum shares is at 7pm UTC.

This chart also shows something very interesting because the most average shares don’t correspond with the most average likes, which takes place at noon. If you assumed that the two would share the same best time for posting, you might settle for smaller amounts of shares simply because you assume noon is the best time to post.

By using our Facebook Analyzer tool, you’d have proof that you could actually do much better simply by taking the same post and publishing it later.

4. Check Out Some of the Most-Shared Posts

Finally, click over to “Search” and take a look at what some of the best-performing Facebook posts for your industry are about:

All you have to do at this point is to take the information you’ve gathered from the last three steps and use it to create posts similar to those that are already doing well.

Add these types of posts to your Facebook strategy and watch your shares take off.

Boost Shares Immediately Using Our Facebook Analyzer Tool

The simplest way to earn more shares with each and every one of your Facebook posts is by looking at what’s already working.

With our Facebook Analyzer tool, you can do this in a matter of minutes. Give it a try with a free seven-day trial of BuzzSumo and start creating more shareable posts right away.

One of the biggest questions on all marketers’ minds in 2018 was, “How do we get more Facebook engagement for our brand?” With this guide, we aim to help you unlock that answer with data insights from one of our most significant Facebook data studies yet.

As you know, at BuzzSumo we love discovering insights from big data. This year we’ve decided again to dig deep into the king of social networks, Facebook, and see what insights we could gather to help businesses just like yours.

We looked at 777 Million Facebook posts to find the most engaging pages, brands, and videos for 2018.

Facebook reach continues to drop across the board for businesses. Everyone is clamoring to unlock the “secrets” to successful content on Facebook. Study after study has proven that one of the most significant factors in Facebook’s ranking algorithm is engagement.

If your Facebook posts get more engagement, they’re going to be more highly favored in the algorithm, thereby increasing your reach. Increased organic reach means you have to spend fewer ad dollars to reach your target audience.

So how can you craft posts that generate engagement?

In this article, we’ll reveal our findings and then give you some actionable steps to gather insights specific to your business.

You’ll learn:

• The best type of Facebook post
• The best time to post on Facebook
• The best day to post on Facebook
• Optimal length for Facebook video
• The most common reactions to Facebook videos
• What motivates people to engage with Facebook posts
• The most engaging Facebook pages of the year
• How to analyze Facebook posts for your industry and competitors

Key Findings: General Post Insights

Below you’ll find the highlights of our data analysis. Each section is broken down by some of the most important questions marketers have been asking about Facebook engagement.

Remember that what works for the majority of posts is a useful starting point, but there’s no substitute for testing and measuring your own results. Brian Peters, Strategic Partnerships Manager for Buffer, summarizes this well:

Over the years, we’ve learned that the best way to reach our audiences on Facebook is to study the data, experiment constantly, be open to learning, and take a growth mindset.

–Brian Peters, Buffer.com

What Type of Post Gets the Most Facebook Engagement?

As with previous years, the most engaging type of Facebook post in 2018 is video. It’s not even a close call — video dominates based on average engagement rate.

Video dominance isn’t surprising, says Jenn Hermann, award-winning Instagram blogger at Jenn’s Trends.

“At the beginning of 2018, Facebook announced they wanted to focus on ‘meaningful interactions.’  And video, when viewed for any significant duration of time, is considered to be meaningful,” Jenn says.

“It means someone has stopped what they were otherwise doing to watch that piece of content. It’s deliberate and intentional. And it usually results in comments and/or shares with others – thereby adding to the level of meaningfulness. So, it’s not surprising that video continues to get better engagement over other post types.”

You can see that engagement clearly below.

Video posts get at least 59% more engagement than other post types. Although photos are widely accepted by marketers to be one of the most successful post types, video outperformed photos by 73%.

It’s clear that if you want the greatest potential Facebook engagement, you should be investing in video content. We will talk in more depth about video later in this article. (You can skip to it right now if you’d like).

If you are overwhelmed by the thought of creating video for Facebook, it’s good to remember that engagement is the goal, not necessarily quantity.

Mari Smith, Facebook Marketing Expert, makes a strong case for thinking on multiple levels about engagement.

“Rather than increasing the volume of your Facebook posts to try and get more reach and engagement,” Mari says. “Instead, publish fewer posts and focus on the ROI of each individual post. My recommended content type ratio for 2019 is 70% video posts, 20% image posts and 10% link posts. Video and image posts can still include links and CTAs.”

“Plus, keep in mind that all engagement doesn’t have to be public,” Mari says. “Integrate a Messenger chatbot on your Facebook page and encourage your audience to message you on both Facebook and Instagram in organic and paid posts. It takes 7 to 13+ touches to generate a viable sales lead, so let your automated messaging take care of several of those touches for you.”

When thinking about images, keep in mind that sizing them correctly for each network is a key part of the process. This guide can help! It has everything you need for sizing images for different parts of Facebook and other social networks.

What’s the best time to post for Facebook engagement?

Now, most marketers know that this question is a tough one to generalize. Every target audience is different, and therefore these global numbers may not work for you. However, it doesn’t hurt to look at them and use them as a starting point if you have no other data.

Posts published between 9pm-11pm EST seem to perform the best. Try saving some of your best content for those hours and see how they perform against other hours of the day. Your audience may be different, so be sure to consider their daily routines and cater to the times when they may be surfing their social feeds.

Below is a list of the most optimal times to post based on the average engagement:

[su_spoiler title=”PRO TIP:” style=”fancy” anchor=”Results”]Another option for narrowing the times that are most successful in your industry is to find the times that your competitors get the most engagement. The Facebook Analyzer let’s you search by page and see peak engagement as well as useful details about post frequency.

Analysis of Hubspot Facebook Page engagement by time of day.

[su_button url=”https://app.buzzsumo.com/research/facebook/analyze?num_days=365&buzzsumo_status_type=1,2,3,4,5,6,7&sort=total_interactions&limit&is_fb_username_search&username=hubspot” background=”#416d93″ size=”5″ center=”yes” icon=”icon: facebook-official”]Facebook Analysis[/su_button] [/su_spoiler]

What is the best day to post on Facebook?

Again, this may differ depending on your audience. However, the results could show why your Friday posts haven’t been performing as well as your Monday posts.

According to this data, Sunday is the best day to post for Facebook Engagement.

Many businesses take the weekends off and therefore may be choosing to only post Monday through Friday. According to our data, that might be a mistake!

Perhaps try taking one of your scheduled Thursday or Friday posts and moving them to Saturday and Sunday to see how they perform. You might be surprised at how well they do!

What is the optimal length of a Facebook text post?

We all know that long-form content is king when it comes to SEO, but it’s quite the opposite when it comes to Facebook. Brevity is the clear winner for Facebook posts.

If you want the best chance of engagement, keep your Facebook posts no longer than 50 characters. This makes sense — Facebook consumption is extremely passive, and attention spans are short. You need to be able to grab people’s attention quickly and effectively if you want to be noticed.

And, as always, test these general findings with your specific audience and industry.

Key Findings: All About Video

With Facebook’s big push on video content this past year, we wanted to have a breakdown of insights gleaned from the top performing videos of 2018. We’ve analyzed everything from video length, average interactions, most common interactions, and performance of video vs. other formats.

What is the optimal length of a Facebook video?

Facebook’s maximum video length is 240 Minutes (4hrs), with a max file size of 4 GB.

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to produce videos that long.

Our data shows that the optimal length of a Facebook video is between 3 and 5 minutes.

We pulled data on videos up to 20 minutes long, but everything after 10 minutes is relatively similar in average engagements.

Now, it’s worth noting that if you break it down in 20-second intervals (yes, we love data that much) you can see a significant spike in the 180-200 second range (3:00-3:20 minutes). The average engagement jumps from 986 to 2,009!

So if you want to be specific, I suppose you could say the optimal length of a Facebook video is between 3:00 and 3:20. ?

If your video is longer than three minutes, make sure that you include CTA’s and brand identification early, before the four-minute mark.

“Shorter, more frequent bits of video content is how consumers prefer to share with each other. No wonder that Facebook encourages us as marketers to do the same,” says Dennis Yu, of Blitzmetrics.

Michael Stelzner from Social Media Examiner tied the same concept toward the trend to spend less time on Facebook.

Want even more impact from your video posts?

What are the most common reactions to Facebook videos?

The reaction from Facebook users to different videos provides great insight for brands who want to create engaging content.

The most common reactions to Facebook Videos this year were:

Love, as it turns out, is the most powerful emotion, driving 46% of reactions. Second to love is the “HaHa” reaction, which would coincide with the success of humorous videos circulating.

What motivates people to engage with a Facebook post?

The range of emotional reactions to Facebook video makes sense when you think about the nature of Facebook. It’s a platform where people connect with their family and friends, often around shared interests.

In 2011, a study by the New York Times found that people shared information online for five primary reasons. They are worth quoting directly here, and we are convinced from our data that they still apply. People share information online:

• to delight others with valuable & entertaining content
• to identify and present ourselves to others,
• to foster relationships,
• for self-fulfillment,
• for spreading the word about issues, products & brands

The key to Facebook engagement in any marketing strategy is to focus on offering value. Mari Smith suggests that the goal should be to “Edutain” your audience — teaching them something useful, something that relates to a niche in which you are an expert, and to do it in an enjoyable way.

It can be easy for us to slip into our marketer mode when we plan Facebook posts for our brands. But, keeping our consumer preferences in mind is a powerful way to ensure our posts are engaging.

Here’s a little test:

Look at your own Facebook home page. What did you share in the last three months?

If you are like me, you will find personal memories and life events. And, an occasional funny or helpful link from a brand.

If you are like my husband, you will find personal memories and life events, with an occasional funny or helpful link AND  an occasional link to a political editorial.

When using Facebook, people are curating an image of themselves. There’s not much room for boring, unhelpful posts. People want to highlight their sense of humor and opinions. They want to share helpful information, and they want to inspire or entertain others. @susancmoeller

For marketers, a well-developed strategy for Facebook engagement will include posts of many different types, with various purposes. Ideally, your Facebook strategy will be fully integrated with your marketing plan, not just a separate project with unrelated goals. In other words, you don’t want to post just to get a bigger Facebook audience. A bigger Facebook audience needs to fit into your overall marketing plan. For example, you could plan to nurture your Facebook audience to subscribe to your email list, visit your site, try your product, etc.

Calls-to-action help clarify for your audience what the next step should be. They invite the audience to move closer to your goal for them.

Here’s an explicit call to action from AgoraPulse. It uses the Sign Up button available from Facebook.

And, this post from TailwindApp offers value by suggesting that three types of accounts should (and can be) claimed on Pinterest. The Call to Action doesn’t need to be any more explicit here because the post itself builds a case for clicking the link.

Audience nurture for Facebook engagement should also include posts that are simply helpful. You don’t want to exhaust people with endless asks for more of their time, attention, or money.

Here’s an example from Mari Smith’s Facebook page. She posted about a Facebook security breach that may have allowed unauthorized access to photos from timelines, and she includes some great advice the types of pictures to avoid posting online.

In an earlier study, we looked at 100 million video posts, to find the most engaging topics.

These topics are still well represented in the top video posts of the year.

Pages with the most Facebook Engagement for 2018

So what pages, businesses, and brands generated the most engagement in 2018? We looked at the top 500 posts and live videos from this year, and the following pages had the most appearances throughout the list.

The top 500 posts we’ve analyzed here represent nearly 1 Billion total engagements in 2018. 

We’ve included some commentary to help make this list more actionable for pages of all types. Buffer has a great analysis of additional influential Facebook pages. 

Top Facebook Pages

First on the list is Strive Masiyiwa, a Public Figure, who managed to get 34 posts in the top 500. The total engagements across all posts were a whopping 63,142,841. 

Masiyiwa is the CEO of EconetWireless and a philanthropist. His posts provide a great example of how a C-suite level executive can create  Facebook engagement.

His posts are also an exception to the video first rule. Many of them are mini-blog posts, and they seem to focus on Masiyima’s vision for Africa. In this sense, they reflect reason number five from the New York Times study:

People share content to raise awareness about an issue.

Coming in second was the Funniest Family Moments page–a purely entertainment driven page. The page managed to have 22 posts in the top 500, garnering a total of 51,546,121 total engagements.

This page also features babies and animals in many of its posts.

Most marketers won’t be able to focus on making only funny videos, but the success of this page is a powerful reminder to keep entertainment in mind as you craft your Facebook posts.

Next up was Facebook Watch page Jay Shetty whose posts appeared 12 times in the top 500. These posts (all video) totaled up to 32,274,622 engagements.

Jay’s posts align very clearly with the idea of sharing for self-fulfillment, as well as to foster relationships and share helpful information about building relationships.

Some of his more successful posts are over the top emotion-grabbing mini-narratives.

To apply this tactic outside of a self-help arena, remember that audiences want to connect on an emotional level. Often our stories provide a business-friendly way to do that.

Here’s an example from Facebook Marketing Expert Andrea Vahl:

She describes a serious life event — losing her job — raises the emotional stakes by talking about her young child and traces her path forward; offering inspiration for others in a similar situation.

“When you can talk about your struggles and your story, people can relate more to you and you can inspire others. Don’t be afraid to share a more personal side of your business.” Andrea Vahl, Facebook Marketing Consultant and Speaker

The Dodo — a media publisher — appeared on the list 12 times also, gathering up 21,783,203 total engagements. Given Facebook users’ preference for videos about animals, it’s not surprising that the Dodo’s 4005 animal-centric, heartwarming posts this year have performed well.

Coming up next on this list was People Are Awesome with 9 appearances yet a very close total number of engagements to the previous page. People Are Awesome’s posts totaled 21,061,836 engagements.

First Media Blossom was next on the list 9 times as well. They garnered less engagement, however, with 18,628,714.

The focus of the page is clever DIY and life hacks.

Even if our businesses have nothing to do with lifestyle or decor, we can take advantage of our audience’s desire to learn new things or simplify complex tasks and boost our Facebook engagement in the process.

Consider a step-by-step breakdown of a process that solves a problem for your audience.

Here’s an example from Razor Social that helps to answer the question, “How can I improve search ranking for an older post?”

To encourage Facebook engagement, ask yourself if you can “show” your audience something, instead of simply “telling” them something.

For example, in this post, Aaron Orendorff teaches his audience a lot about an effective welcome letter.

But, he does it with an engaging show and tell approach.

Everyone’s favorite Prince of Bel Air, Will Smith came in next on the list with 7 total appearances in the top 500 Facebook posts. Total engagements across these posts were 10,805,104.

Tying in appearances with Will Smith is the LADbible page — an entertainment site — with 7 appearances also. The total engagement across these appearances was very close at 10,774,847.

Next on the list comes In The Know Innovation, a Facebook Watch page by AOL. They managed to make 6 appearances totaling 10,717,623 engagements.

Last on our top 10 list was Food Media/Publishing site Twisted. This page managed to get 5 posts in the top 500 gathering a total of 8,805,122 engagements.

Observations on the Posts from the Top Pages

One overwhelmingly clear lesson learned from observing these top pages and their posts was that video is king on Facebook.

Out of all 10 of the pages mentioned above, 9/10 had a video as their most engaging post. Looking at all the posts from top pages, there is a small mix of image and text posts as well. However, video is the top format by a significant margin.

If your brand wants to make a splash on Facebook in 2019, video is the way to go. — Dustin Stout

These pages also align well with the topics that people are most interested in engaging with on Facebook. And, they usually tap into the emotional reactions that people express most on Facebook.

The six-step Facebook analysis process

Now, all this analysis is great, but the one problem with it is that it’s so broad. As a business, you want to know how to analyze trends pertaining to your industry so you can use them to your advantage.

To help you boost your reach on Facebook, we’ve come up with a six-step process to discover insight you can use. Actionable insight is the key to unlocking your organic (and paid) reach potential on Facebook. Here’s how to get it with BuzzSumo’s Facebook Analyzer.

1. Search for the most successful posts
2. Ask what they have in common
3. Apply and Evaluate
4. Adjust
5. Analyze Facebook engagement for competitors’ pages
6. Adjust Facebook strategy to reflect your analysis

1. Search for Successful Posts

There are three categories of posts you should scrutinize: posts that relate to your industry and keywords; your competitors’ posts; and your posts.

For example, I used the Facebook Analyzer to find the top posts about the topic “Exams.”

I’ve added a filter which limits my results to only those posts in English.

BuzzSumo defines engagement based on the total of interactions (shares, likes, and comments), but there is also an option to filter by the type of engagement you are most interested in.

2. Ask Questions

The next step would probably be more accurately described as analysis, but I find it more helpful to approach the task as a set of questions. What do I see? How are the posts alike? How are they different?

In this phase, I want to discover what, if anything, these successful posts have in common. In the “exams” search above, 2 of the top 5 posts are clearly looking to amuse audiences and the remaining three have more of an inspiring tone.

Skimming the results is tempting. However, slowing down to notice creates big dividends.

For example, here are the results for a search for Halloween:

I looked carefully and found that posts about costumes, party foods, and holiday decor got the most engagement. That’s pretty much what you would expect for any holiday, however. So the information is not that helpful.

To find more useful results, narrow these types of searches based on the big picture categories. For example, with Halloween, I can change my search parameters to “Halloween costumes” or “Halloween decorations.”

Here are the results for my search for “Halloween decor.”

Now, I can quickly identify two themes: DIY decorations, and close-ups of Halloween decor.

Once you’ve done your quick evaluation of the successful posts, click on “Analyze.”

At a glance, BuzzSumo shows you the most popular type of post, the most popular post length in characters, and the day and time when people interacted most with posts about the topic.

All of this is just an exercise in wasting time if I don’t draw some conclusions I can use.

I need to step back and ask:

• What did I learn?
• What will I try?

In other words, I need to apply the insights and test to see if they hold true for my audience.

3. Apply and Evaluate

With exams, I can see that success stories engage the audience at a high level.

If I sell a product that helps people to study better, or offers revision resources, I can tap into a preference for inspiring content and post about the people who have used my product and succeeded.

Data-driven insights tell us where to start. Continuous evaluation tells us how to proceed.

BuzzSumo helps makes both tasks easier.

Use data from the Facebook Analyzer to complement the insights available from Facebook for pages you manage.

4. Facebook Analysis of Your Facebook Page

For example, when I search for the most engaging posts at the BuzzSumo Facebook page, it’s clear that our blog posts get the most attention:

However, I also notice that some posts of others’ content show up in the results.

We have high Facebook Engagement for a collaborative live broadcast and for a link to a comprehensive guide to SEO published by Brian Dean.

The takeaway:

Don’t be afraid to give away coveted Facebook real estate.

Sometimes, promoting others is the best way to encourage audience growth, and it helps your followers realize that you aren’t just using their time and attention to promote yourself.

5. Analyze Facebook Engagement for Competitor’s Pages

Another great way to use the page search feature in BuzzSumo is to evaluate what is working for your competitors’ or industry leading pages.

Unlike Facebook, BuzzSumo makes the same insights you can access for your own page available for your competitors’ pages.

Knowing what works for them, analyzing that information to tease out actionable insights, and applying the principles to see if your audience responds is a best practice for competitor intelligence.

Your research can be simple.

Searching, asking, and making a note of the analysis provided by BuzzSumo for individual pages.

Alternatively, the research can be more complex, drawing comparisons between several competing pages and your page.

For example, This spreadsheet compares a new beauty industry passion page to other established beauty companies’ Facebook pages.

I used data from BuzzSumo, along with a free word cloud and text analysis tool to determine the words and phrases used most often in the highly engaging posts.

I also used BuzzSumo to determine the post categories that got the most interactions and evaluated each of them, asking myself what message they contained, what their focus was, and if there was a call to action.

Categorizing the results helped me to see patterns and differences in emphasis for the pages.

I used the BuzzSumo Analysis tool to find and compare interaction levels with the pages for different time periods.

I also compared the best day and time for interactions with each company’s posts.

At the end of the process, I was able to draw conclusions about each of the pages I studied.

For example, here’s the summary for the Mary Kay Facebook page:

The interaction data confirmed that this is the strongest page of those I evaluated, and the summary gave me great insights I can use in developing my posting strategy.

Because I was able to gather the same types of summaries for the other company pages, I can also target posts from the passion page to lookalike audiences that fit the style of my posts.

None of this analysis was overly complicated. It just took an intentional effort to find relevant data, ask myself what the similarities and differences were, and make some strategic decisions based on those insights.

The final step in the process is even more straightforward.

6. Adjust Facebook Strategy to Reflect Your Analysis

If a particular insight drawn from your Facebook analysis doesn’t generate results for your audience, change it up. To be fair, it’s worth testing each type of post more than once, but if you consistently get poor results, don’t be afraid to change your strategy.

Your own experiences form the next round of data available to you, and you can begin the Facebook analysis process again.

Closing Thoughts

In the coming year, we anticipate that we’ll continue to see heavy trends toward video content. Facebook has made it clear that they’re putting a lot of resources into its video platform.

Although reports have shown low video retention that could change quickly if they attract more popular creators to create longer form videos.

So take some time to do your own Facebook engagement analysis. Hopefully, our 6-step process makes it a bit easier for you to start taking action. Moreover, if you ever need any help utilizing BuzzSumo, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team.

Do you have any predictions for 2019 and what it holds for Facebook engagement? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

What happened to the Facebook Algorithm?

In May 2015 Facebook made a change to their newsfeed algorithm to ‘balance content from friends and pages’. Nobody was to know at the time, but this was the start of a new age of social media and content engagement.

In 2015 Facebook was driving increasingly higher engagement and traffic for publishers, brands, marketers and news outlets. The May 2015 newsfeed adjustment and the many subsequent changes to the Facebook Algorithm, listed below, put this trend into reverse. The chart below from Shareaholic demonstrates very clearly the rise and fall of Facebook as a traffic source for publishers.

This is the story of Facebook’s algorithm changes and the consequences for content marketers.

It’s a story that continues to unfold. The most recent newsfeed changes in 2018, particularly promoting stories from ‘trustworthy’ sources, are changing the dynamics of Facebook reach and engagement again. This report on the Facebook Algorithm from 2015 to the present details the changes and helps readers understand the current marketing context.

The Old World Of Facebook Engagement

From 2012 to 2015 publishers increasingly recognised the ability of Facebook to drive engagement with their content and to drive traffic from the social platform to their own sites. Many publishers quickly learned about the type of posts that resonated with people and the type of posts that went viral on the network. For example:

Viral quizzes

This Playbuzz quiz What Country in the World Best Fits Your Personality? had over 8.5m Facebook engagements (likes, shares and comments).

Listicle posts

This BuzzFeed list post 26 Pictures That Will Make You Re-Evaluate Your Entire Existence had over 2.5m Facebook engagements.

Clickbait headlines

These headlines tease and withhold information from the reader. This Upworthy post 2 People Described The Same Person To A Forensic Artist And This Is What Happened had over 3m Facebook engagements.

Publishers and Facebook Traffic

The success of these publishers led many others to follow their example and create so-called viral content formats for Facebook. In 2015 Parse.ly reported that for their network (over two thousand publishers) referrals from Facebook surpassed referrals from Google.

Facebook as an advertising platform has an interest in keeping people on the platform for as long as possible rather than acting as a referral source for publishers. It also wants to be a community platform that promotes discussion and engagement rather than being a repository of viral clickbait content. As such, we could have anticipated the changes that were coming. The announcement of the May 2015 newsfeed change to ‘balance content from pages and friends’ included a warning “in some cases, post reach and referral traffic could potentially decline.” The more cynical commentators argued this was to encourage publishers to pay for promotion of their content.

Moving To The New World: Changes to the Facebook Algorithm

Increasing Friends Posts and Demoting Publisher Posts

The decline in traffic referrals from the May 2015 change was immediate and significant. Facebook then made a further newsfeed change in June 2016 to ‘help make sure you don’t miss stories from your friends.’ In the announcement, at the very bottom, Facebook again noted “this update may cause reach and referral traffic to decline for some Pages.”

Demoting Clickbait Content

In August 2016 Facebook took aim at clickbait and viral content. They had previously made some newsfeed changes to reduce clickbait content back in 2014. In 2016, they took this further. This round of newsfeed changes was very specific. They targeted two headline types:

1. Headlines that withhold information. They gave the example “You’ll Never Believe Who Tripped and Fell on the Red Carpet…”
2. Headlines that exaggerate and create misleading expectations for the reader. They gave the example “Apples Are Actually Bad For You?!” as this misleads the reader (apples are only bad for you if you eat too many every day).

This time, Facebook commented that “Pages who rely on clickbait-style headlines should expect their distribution to decrease.” Then, in December 2017, Facebook also took aim at what it called “engagement bait”. In essence, they were demoting content that asked users to like, share or react with the post.

Promoting Quality and Informative Posts

The August 2016 newsfeed changes were made to prioritise informative posts. Facebook referenced their Feed Quality Program, global crowd-sourced surveys of tens of thousands of people per day that “look at each story in their feed and rank it on a scale of one to five — one being “really not informative” and five being “really informative.””

This concern with quality content has continued to be reflected in further newsfeed updates including one in May 2017 which lowered content with links to low-quality sites. These included sites “containing little substantive content” as well as sites with disruptive ads, shocking ads or malicious ads. This was reinforced in June 2017 with a change that demoted what Facebook considered to be spammy links to “low-quality content, sensationalism, and misinformation.”

Lower Facebook Traffic Referrals

The combination of newsfeed changes over the last three years has changed the profile of referrals to publishers. The latest data from Parse.ly is as follows.

As it stands in June 2018, Facebook referrals have declined and currently, Google is sending almost twice as much traffic to publishers as Facebook.

These changes have hit sites hard that relied on Facebook referrals. The Financial Times has written extensively on the impact.

The impact has been far less marked for sites such as the Daily Mail where over 60% of traffic is direct.

The New World – Quality Wins?

Trust and Quality

In January 2018 Facebook made a series of very significant changes to the newsfeed. The background and context of these changes is important to understand.

There has been a sharp rise in the sharing of partisan political content. It appears that the more partisan the content the more it is shared by that particular political tribe. Often this content appeals to emotions such as anger.

There has also been a rise in non-traditional sources of media. In the case of politics according to Jim Waterson, formerly of BuzzFeed, 9 of the top 20 most shared stories about the U.K. 2017 election were from non-traditional media sources such as the blog Another Angry Voice.

Following the 2016 U.S. Presidential election – and other elections – there has been significant criticism of Facebook for promoting misleading or false stories. Trust in the news in general has fallen, but this is particularly true of news found on social media.

The Reuter’s Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University published its 2018 Digital News Report. This report found:

“Only 34% of people trust news they find in search engines and only 23% of people trust news they find in social media.” –Reuters Institute at Oxford University.

This is clearly a problem for platforms such as Facebook. The Reuters institute note that “the use of social media for news has started to fall”.

This context explains Facebook’s decision in January 2018 to prioritise news in the newsfeed from “publications that the community rates as trustworthy.” This has had an immediate and significant effect on the reach of content from different publications. There have been complaints from websites to the right of the political spectrum that they have been penalised disproportionately. There is some evidence for this. Rowland Manthorpe in Wired Magazine in May 2018 notes that engagement on right-wing sites has fallen by 29 percent over the last year, whereas daily engagement on left-wing sites has fallen by 9 percent.

Meaningful Engagement and Less Public Content

The other big change to the newsfeed in 2018, was to encourage meaningful interactions. In essence to promote content that provokes discussion and interactions. Facebook comment that this content might be “a post from a friend seeking advice, a friend asking for recommendations for a trip, or a news article or video prompting lots of discussion.”

They acknowledged that “showing more posts from friends and family and updates that spark conversation means we’ll show less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses” and “Pages may see their reach, video watch time and referral traffic decrease.”

Good News For Quality Sites?

Whilst overall Facebook engagement with public content has been declining, the recent changes could lead to higher reach and engagement for quality sites that are trusted by Facebook’s community groups.

I personally think people are more sensitive to sharing content that may be untrue or misleading. People I know shared the following image on Facebook in the run up to the U.S. Presidential election.

They were subsequently embarrassed to learn this was a made up fake quote. In a world of content overload and fake news people may be more likely to only share content from sites they trust.

It is just a single site, but it is interesting to see Facebook engagement with content from the Financial Times (FT.com) increasing over recent years.

Interestingly we have seen higher engagement with paywall content over the last year, which may again relate to perceptions of quality. Higher social sharing of paywall content is also counter-intuitive although many of the paywalled sites allow a number of free articles each week.

The Financial Times has reported that The New York Times is “more than halfway to its goal of doubling digital sales to $800m by 2020, thanks to surging online subscriptions.” The newspaper now has more than 2.6m digital subscribers and overall subscription revenue passed $1bn for the first time in 2017. Our BuzzSumo data also shows that total social engagements with New York Times content has increased over the last three years.

Implications For Content Marketers

Social networks, like Google, will continually tweak and change their algorithms. Marketers have to pay close attention to the regular announcements and react accordingly. In simple terms, if Facebook says it will demote content such as ‘what happened?’ headlines or posts that say ‘please share’ then you need to take note.

The old world when viral posts could get millions of Facebook engagements has gone. Viral headlines and content formats are also far less effective than they were three years ago. Headlines that exaggerate or withhold information can actually reduce the reach of your content.

The future of content sharing is quality content and it is essential that you build your authority and reputation as a trusted and informative site.

Social networks such as Facebook are places for engagement and discussion, and are likely to be less useful in future as a source of traffic referrals. Google has established itself as the dominant source for traffic referrals and paying attention to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has never been more important.

If your business works well on social media, and you don’t have a Facebook Group, then you could be missing out!

Groups offer powerful new features, including the ability to ask questions when someone joins the group. I used this to capture more than 1000 email addresses. More importantly, Facebook Groups offer additional audience insights if the group has more than 250 people. No other social media platform even comes close to providing this much information, and it’s even better than what’s provided by a Facebook Page.

Aside from the generic reporting already provided by a Facebook Page (tracking membership performance trends, determining peak interaction days/times, keeping track of demographic and location data etc…) there is one report in particular that is GOLD for any marketer .

In this article I explain how you can use this data for a killer content marketing strategy.

You’re kidding… my content marketing strategy writes itself?

Yes, that’s exactly what the Top Posts component of the Engagement Report does – and it’s pretty spectacular! The report shows you which posts delivered the most engagement (comments, likes, and views) from the last 28 days.

I’ve blocked out the majority of the text because a lot of it is quite personal for this particular group, although I’ve left two questions from members interested in gastric bypass surgery.

The report is like seeing into the mind of your customer. This is particularly interesting, because this data can’t be produced this cleanly on any other social media platform. Let me explain:

Facebook groups are a forum for discussion and sharing ideas. Facebook has the most active users out of any social media, creating the highest potential for statistical significance due to sample size.

Also, the accuracy of the data is a huge factor. The fact that each comment is coming from a real person (not hiding behind a username/alias on a forum) means that the conversation is far more authentic.

Here are two content marketing ideas for using the information within the example above:

1. Question:
   One group member asked, “I am 8 days past gastric sleeve survery. Can I have grape juice? Apple Juice?”Content Strategy Idea:
   Create a blog article targeted at those who are 8 days post weight loss surgery, and answer the question about whether they are able to have different types of juices. This article can then be linked on the group to provide an answer to the question, and as reference material for future members.
2. Question:
   Another member asked, “What is your favorite brand (of) protein bar?”Content Strategy Idea:
   Develop an article recommending different protein bar brands that are suitable for after weight loss surgery. If the client also has an ecommerce store that stocks a suitable option, a call-to-action within the article to purchase on the website will work well here.

That’s all well and good… although can this data be replicated?

I decided to do some outreach to see if I could get access to the ‘Top Posts’ report within other groups by private messaging group admins. I had some difficulty in convincing them that I wasn’t going to use the data for evil (because I wasn’t a part of their community), although I managed to gain access to some extremely valuable reports:

Group Name : We Love Craft Beer – Australia

Admin: Nigel Ayling

Question:  “What do you class as your local?”

Content Strategy Idea: If I had a craft beer business, I would create a blog article on the website titled: ‘What I class as my local’. This would be an opinion piece, and as a bonus writing help, I would use the content within the comments (118 of them) to develop a rounded discussion of what a ‘local’ drinking spot actually is.

Group Name : Synthesizers and Drum Machines
Admin: Todd Smith

Question: “Who is your favorite synthesizer wizard?”

*Content Strategy Idea: Again, assuming I owned a synthesiser import business… I would use this information to create a piece of content that was focused on musicians that I considered pioneers of the synthesiser sound. The article could be titled: ‘10 synthesiser wizards that have pioneered the sound’. The blog would have the Disqus plugin enabled, allowing blog visitors to have add their opinions on-site.

Bonus influencer tip:
This approach would also create a natural opportunity to reach out to expert muscisians, industry insiders, and equipment providers, to get their opinion. Those mentioned in the article could be tagged in posts as well.

To get started, find Facebook groups within your industry that have the audience you’re looking to attract. Then, use the publicly available information to identify the admin of the group and reach out.

Here’s the best idea you’ll hear all week : Go out and find a group that you’d love to get these insights from. All you’ll need to do is befriend an admin and ask to see their analytics. I spent 20 minutes reaching out to the admins above and look what I was able to get.

Many admins are interested in growing the size of their group, so offering to include a link to the group page in your article is a good way to thank them for their help.

Can I find these types of insights, without being given access by an admin?

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to access the Analytics of a group if an admin doesn’t feel comfortable in passing this information on. This may be because they are concerned about the confidentiality of their members, or perhaps they own a business attached to the group that you may be competing with.

You can also take the long view and begin your own group. It will provide these types of insights for you on an ongoing basis.

If you already have an established business and have a good following on your Facebook page, then it will be simple to direct your following to join the conversation on your group.

Begin by looking to see what groups already exist in your content area. Search Facebook and select “Groups” to filter results.

If your initial group idea is already taken, consider providing a group for a smaller subset of the audience.

For example, there are many content marketing groups on Facebook, but only one for Women in Content Marketing

In the synthesizer example, you might consider a local angle –synthesizer experts in Manhattan, Australia, or the UK. Whatever works!

You can use Facebook’s free targeting option to determine how large a potential audience is.

Simply begin a post on any Facebook page, then click the targeting option. Type your main topic in as a interest, and Facebook will auto suggest variations of that term, and tell you how many users are interested in it.

Are Facebook Groups the Only Option For Customer Insights?

The Facebook Group strategy I have outlined here is a variation of what Lee Odden describes
as the “Be The Best Answer” approach to customer questions.

If you’ve spent some time doing outreach to admins and haven’t had any success, and you are still waiting for your own group to take off, there are other options for identifying questions, including BuzzSumo’s new Question Analyzer tool.

With the tool, you’re able to find the same type of insights as you would in a Facebook group, but these come from various forums, ecommerce sites, Q&A sites, and even Reddit.

Let’s use the Synthesizer import business as an example, and see what our findings are.

The first step is to use key terms that might be part of the question, and submit as the input within the Question Analyzer search field. Because we’re trying to produce the same output as the Synthesizer Facebook group example above, let’s broadly use the terms “synth artist” which should hopefully provide enough results, so we can quickly locate our answer.

Upon submitting my search, I’m presented with 86 questions which have been sourced from industry-specific sites like DIY Audio, Vinyl Collective, and Psy News. The list itself is helpful as it’s focused on a very specific niche, and I might not have found them on my own.

While sifting through the questions, I look for specifics I can use in my content or terms that I can use to craft more searches.

I found an ideal question located at the bottom of the first page of BuzzSumo’s results:

Again, I’ve struck gold in my search for content marketing mastery.

It’s now your time to shine by creating content that is scientifically proven to perform well. Use the ‘applications’ provided above to build an engaged community and direct them to your call-to-action!

Final thoughts…

Creating a community around your business is without a doubt the smartest approach for success on social media. Not only will it fuel your business operations, it will result in more longevity to your brand which doesn’t just depend on the product.
I’ve seen the combination of a Facebook group and BuzzSumo’s Question Analyzer work time and time again for content marketing success. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this approach and what obstacles you can see in putting together this framework for your own business.

Brodie Clark is an SEO Specialist at one of Melbourne’s leading SEO agencies, Optimising. Brodie has held both in-house and agency roles in Australia, developing digital strategy for a wide range of clients. When he isn’t in the office, you can find him writing on his personal blog over at BrodieClark.com.