How to Post Strategic Status Updates
If you are looking to use social media to market your company, brand, product, or service, you need to understand the dynamics of how people communicate on social networks. The majority of messages posted to social networks can contain text, images or video – and often text is kept short and sweet. Most people gravitate toward messages of a personal nature, usually from people they know. Most people notice and respond to personal posts versus commercial ones.
If your company is building a presence on social networks like Facebook, you must learn the art of crafting strategic, engaging, and effective content. Regularly broadcasting promotional messages can quickly kill conversations and turn people off. Be more social by posting useful information, asking questions, and initiating conversations with or responding to your online community.
In addition to publishing posts, conversations can happen on social networks in the comments made on posts as well as on other people’s comments. Stimulating conversations within comments is a way to build better relationships with people following your Page including your customers and prospects. If you are engaging in Social Media Marketing, you want your posts to be strategic, engaging and effective.
What makes a post strategic?
Think and plan before you post. Keep your business and marketing objectives in mind. For example, why do you have a Facebook Page in the first place? Branding? Customer service? Sales? All of the above? Each objective presents distinctly different messaging approaches.
What makes a post engaging?
Know your audience and get them to interact with you through your posts. On Facebook, you can measure general engagement in a number of ways. Someone “Liking” your post is the least meaningful because clicking “Like” takes little thought or effort, but getting “Likes” is helpful to organically boost the visibility of your posts. Two clear ways to know that you've created an engaging post are the number of comments on each update and the number of times people have shared your posts with others. Engaging posts use visuals to attract attention and the quality of the content can generate conversations.
What makes a post effective?
Establish actions you want people interacting with your posts to take through direct calls to action. Sign up for your newsletter? Inquire about hiring you? Buy a product? The main way to measure the effectiveness of your post is how many actual actions it stimulates. The more your updates are shared, the more chances you have for organic brand exposure and achieving business goals. Posts that “convert” or result in an action of some kind usually require that people click on a link you’ve included in your post then taking another step. Make sure you are linking to places where the actions are obvious and easy for people to participate.
Effective posts help drive traffic to places where people can more directly interact with your company. Understand that Facebook does not want you to send people away from Facebook so you may have more response to your calls to action by linking to pages within Facebook or by paying to boost your post. Also check your Page Insights
As the administrator of your Page, you can track and measure post effectiveness using Page Insights where you can see metrics, including:
Actions on Page – Clicks on your contact information and call to action button.
Page Views – Number of times people viewed your Page whether they are logged into Facebook or not.
Page Previews – Number of times people hover over your Page name or profile picture to see a preview of your Page content.
Page Likes – The number of Likes your Page has received by new people broken down by paid (through advertising) and unpaid (organic).
Reach – Total number of people who were shown your posts broken down by total, organic and promotions.
Recommendations – Number of times people recommend your Page to others on Facebook.
Post Engagements – Number of times people have engaged directly with your posts through likes, comments and shares, etc.
Video– Total number of times your videos have been viewed for more than three seconds, broken down by total, paid and non-paid.
Page Followers – The number of new people who have followed your page broken down by paid and non-paid. Following is more important than just Liking a Page. They are expressly saying they want to see your content.
There is no single magic formula for effective posts on Facebook Pages. Trying too hard to follow a formula could eliminate the natural rhythms of conversation and online community building. Be receptive, responsive, respectful, and get to know your audience, and you'll be off to a good start.