800 million posts can be wrong. That is how many Facebook posts were generated by companies large and small all over the world. BuzzSumo analyzed all of them and came up with some very interesting results.
- Videos were most likely to be shared. Okay, maybe we knew that. Those hilarious thirty second clips of cats dancing in the mirror and father/daughter wedding dances just had to be seen by everyone we knew.
- Generally speaking, images, videos and questions were more engaging than statement posts or any other post type for that matter. Who can’t help but want to answer a question?
- Sunday was the best engagement day of the week. That would make sense as that seems to be the traditional “down” day, giving people more time to scroll as they relaxed or during commercials of the football game.
- Short posts performed better than long posts. As a matter of fact, posts under 50 characters performed the best, playing to our short attention spans and need to know RIGHT NOW.
- Images posted directly to Facebook had better engagement than those posted to Facebook through Instagram. This is interesting, given the amount of money Facebook paid for Instagram, but Instagram pulls in a younger demographic than is on or has an interest in Facebook too.
- Links to longer articles outside of Facebook did really well. Such links performed better than links to shorter content, meaning people are still willing to be entertained or moved if you have something to say.
- The fewer public posts in the news feed, the higher the engagement. When people have less to choose from, they spend more time on what is available to them.
All of this means that Facebook is a viable engagement option still, and those posts that take the characteristics of what has made these kinds of posts successful should be built into your marketing strategy for the immediate future.
