Our little start-up social media start-up GoFISHn is pretty busy on its large Facebook Page (171,000 fans, 87,000 monthly actives, 11 million monthly post views). Throughout the day we re-post the best of new posts on GoFISHn to our Facebook page and let her rip -- we often see hundreds of likes and dozens of comments on that GoFISHn post in a matter of an hour or two. That simple cross-posting routine drives about 30% of the visits to GoFISHn in a given month.
Given that, you would think we know a lot about the art of posting to Facebook to get the best possible response. And you'd be right, sort of. We *think* we know, and of course we have strong opinions! But the truth is that until recently we never did a careful, data-driven study. This summer we dug in with the help of two talented students, a Fordham economics undergraduate, Chelsey Mitchell, and a high school student, Joseph Desmond, to pull a month's worth of data to see what works.
What we wanted to know were the answers to some basic questions. For example, what is the optimal number of page posts per day? What's the best day of the week and time of day to post? What types of post and subject matter do best? And what approach to the lead-in text for the post works best?
All this is important because it's hard to reach Fans, given way timing and Facebook Edge Rank come into play. A recent comScore and Facebook joint report that if a major brand posts once a day for a week on its Facebook Page, the brand is likely to reach only 22% of its fans over the week.
Clearly what you post and how you post are critical. At GoFISHn and its sister site, GoHUNTn, we are looking for one three possible outcomes from a given post -- either traffic to our sites, Edge Rank boost, or a combination of the two. In short, strong Edge Rank means more fans see you post in their news feed, and that increases the chance of a click through to our site.
The analysis we did this summer tried to find some simple correlations between either clicks through to our sites or enagement within Facebook -- post views, comments, likes. There are still lots of research to be done on what makes a strong Facebook post, but we came up with a few strong outcomes.
Our study looked at the 300+ posts we made on our Facebook Page in the month of June 2011. In our data set, we collected data on the the following attributes:
- Facebook Posts per day
- Day of the week
- Hour of day
- Post subject matter
- Post media type (images, video, etc.)
- Post lead-in (Text in Facebook composer to introduce a link.)
We attempted to find correlations between these factors and
- Click-thru and pageviews on GoFISHn
- Postviews within Facebook
- Likes
- Comments
Here is what we found.
What's the optimal number of posts per day?
We looked at this one from the standpoint click-thru to GoFISHn. Was there a point of diminishing returns, or irritating fans? Our gut told us that we could get away with as many posts as we wanted, as long as they were really great posts.
The data showed that we posted between an average of ten times a day in June, and the progression of click-thrus to GoFISHn, likes and comments was a pretty linear progression up to ten.
After ten, the results became erratic. Resultant traffic to GoFISHn per post bounced around a lot, as did likes and comments. More posts brought more of everything, but the average performance definitely suffered, as rule.
Our interpretation: Fans started to skip past our posts a certain point. We did not see a spike in fans dropping the page on those days, just a decline in average click-thrus per post. Gut vs. Numbers: Our gut-driven was pretty well informed. Ten posts per day is pretty much the optimal number for GoFISHn fans.
What are the best days to post?
In this analysis, we wanted to find out which day of the week was best to post, which we assessed based on the number of post views, likes and comments per post. Our gut told us Monday was tops and it was downhill from there. We were wrong. For likes and post views, Monday is good, numbers dip a bit on Tuesday and Wednesday, and post views and likes steadily increase starting Thursday (back to Monday's level), Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Comments barely change throughout the week.
We guess this pattern reflects the work week. Monday is a big day to get caught up, and Tuesday Wednesday are serious work days. Kick back starts Thursday and Friday (more time on Facebook!!) and then the weekend arrives. We now try to post more torward the end of the week and on weekends, assuming we're not out fishing.
What is the best time of day to post?
To answer this question we looked at post views per post. Our experience was that evenings were best, and were at least partly correct. What found one surprise. Monday morning, and only Monday morning, is really good between 7 and 9 a.m. Is it that frantic check-in at the computer before rushing off for a new work week?
Weekdays between 9 am and 1 pm are flat but start to climb steadily from the afternoon through the evening, smoothly up and to the right in a gentle slope.
Again, our guess is that this pattern reflects the work day. Fans are busiest in the morning and start to tune back into their personal lives after lunch and once they get home.
What type of post content works best?
Facebook allows you to post links, photos, video, status updates and polls. Is there one type that draws better than the others? We know that photos work best, especially if the photo is uploaded to Facebook and only slightly less effective if Facebook picks up a thumbnail from a GoFIShn link post. We based this one on impressions, likes, and comments.
Our expectations were confirmed: GoFISHn photo galleries outperformed on post views and comments, but not likes. GoFIShn stories were a close second, but they usually have a thumbnail image as well, so they are indistinguishable for a photo gallery to the Facebook user. Videos and polls were significantly lower in impressions, though not comments or likes. Just guessing, but that may reflect the time it takes to engage -- videos in particular are not as quick a glancing at a photo gallery or a post.
What type of lead-in to a post works best?
This may be the most subjective assessment of all, but it's important: what sort of language in a post triggers the most impressions, likes and comments? We categorized the June posts into four categories:
- Compliment ("Awesome fish...")
- Directive ("Watch this..Pray for these people, Tell us what you think...")
- Question ("Would you like to catch this lunker?")
- Statement ("That's a trip we want to take..")
We looked at how the post views, likes and comments sorted out. On post views, the question lead-in barely nosed out the compliment and the statement, and also generated the most likes and comments. Questions, obviously, elicit responses. The directive was the weakest on almost every count, perhaps because people don't like to be told what to do. Curiously the compliment did well on all counts except Likes, where it lagged badly. I guess if the lead-in text offers a compliment, then there's not much point in liking the post.
What type of fishing content works best?
This may not be of much help to non-fishing sites, but we broke down the types of posts we do into the follow categories:
- Big fish catches
- Fishing ingeneral
- Weird stuff
- Gear
- Nature - Biology
- Funny
- Crime
- Fishing competitions
- GoFISHn product news
- Famous People
- Conservation
- Injuries/Death
- TV shows
There are some posts that just defy description, like the Russian woman scientist and yoga enthusiast who swims in the buff with beluga whales in the arctic (honest!), but for the most part our posts fall into these categories.
On post views, it was pretty much a tie among all the categories except TV shows, which lagged a bit. In terms of likes, however, the clear-cut winner was nothing new to us: "big fish" which you can see on GoFISHn, really do rack up the "likes." Big fish, especially records, are what anglers are all about. The Facebook "like" becomes a "high-five" for the happy angler.
On the comments front, however, there was a lot of variability among subject but two stood out for especially high comments: "crime" and "famous people." Celebrities need no introduction, and we blog about them anytime we can just to catch the Google traffic. Crime is not a surprise because we've long seen a powerful response to anything involving bad actors. Our fans love to hoot at folks who've been arrested, whether it's poaching, driving a boat under the influence, assault, theft or whatever the fishing blotter has to report.
That's what we learned, and to the extent possible we've this knowledge to work. -Ned Desmond
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