If you have made the decision to start using Facebook for your business, there are certainly a few common questions that come up. How often you should post to your company Facebook page? When is the best time to post to Facebook? What type of Facebook posts should you be using?
While there are no hard and fast rules, there are factors to consider to make the choices best suited for your business.
Depending on what type of business you have and what your target audience expects, your Facebook strategy will differ. When you’re planning out your posting schedule, you should keep in mind that the average Facebook post stays in the news feed for between 3 and 6 hours.
This means if you post three different things in one morning, you are going to be taking over the newsfeed of your audience and giving them more of a reason to unsubscribe from your page rather than wanting to hear what you have to say.
If you feel that you have an abundance of content to be sharing and your audience is interacting with you, then my suggestion would be to post once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once in the evening.
To be considered active on Facebook, I would suggest starting by posting at least 3 times a week minimum, otherwise I don’t know that you will see any kind of return on your Facebook page.
Just as how often you post will vary depending on your business and your audience, the best time will also vary. Some demographics spend a lot of time going on Facebook while they are in the office. Other demographics go on Facebook at night when they are relaxing watching TV after dinner. Of course there are people that check up on Facebook every half hour on their phone. And there are people who log in to Facebook every week or so.
The more visual your Facebook posts, the more activity you will see around your page. Photos are the most interacted with of the Facebook posting styles, with videos second and links third. The only time I would recommend posting just text would be if you are putting out important news that is communicated in less than three sentences. Otherwise it should be a blog post on your website shared with a link.
Want to make your links stand out more? Instead of sharing just a link, post a photo and put the link in the text of the Facebook post. Although Facebook automatically generates a small thumbnail of the page you are posting a link to, if you post an image instead it will be larger and be more eye catching.
When you get started with Facebook, start posting at the time you think your audience is most online. From there, you can check your Facebook Insights to see how many people are seeing your posts and when they are getting the most interaction.
You can also see what types of posts your fans are reacting to the most. Maybe the most people are seeing images but links are being clicked the most without them (or vice versa).
Your Facebook strategy isn’t set in stone. Keep track of what’s working, when it’s working and how it’s working. Based on your observations you can make adjustments that make your Facebook presence more efficient.
If you have a lot of questions about getting started with Facebook for your business, we offer per hour social media consulting. Feel free to contact us and see if we would be a good fit to work together!
What were your experiences getting started with Facebook for your business? How do you see the most activity on your company’s Facebook page? Leave your experiences in the comments.