Social Photos Generate More Engagement: New Research

#1: Photos Are Worth a Million Likes

Photos are the primary type of content posted and shared on Facebook. According to March 2014 research published on eMarketer, photos accounted for 75% of content posted by Facebook pages worldwide.

Photos are the main type of content posted by Facebook pages.

From a user’s perspective, photos are also the most engaging type of content on Facebook, with a whopping 87% interaction rate from fans! No other post type received more than a 4% interaction rate.

Photos receive the highest interaction from Facebook users.

Key Takeaway

Posting photos on Facebook is the best way to get more attention from your fans because images are easier to consume than text. However, be aware that not all photos are created equal. Not only must you share high-quality photos, you must alsoshare photos that interest your target audience.

If you haven’t done so already, start to increase the number of high-quality images that you post on your Facebook page. And of course, don’t forget toinclude relevant links with your images, to ensure that you’re sending all that traffic back to your website. Take note of the following:

• Only post images that you have created or that you have a right to publish.
• Mix up different types of images (e.g., banners, infographics, photos, memes, etc.).
• Take impromptu photos on your smartphone and post them in real time.
• Post “Caption This” photos – post a funny picture on your page and ask fans to offer their best caption for the photo.
• Avoid “selfies” unless you’re posing with a celebrity.

One last thing, it may be worth your while to hire a designer or a visual content creator as part of your social media team.

#2: Photos Get More Retweets

People don’t engage equally with every tweet. Research by Media Blog, which analyzed the content of over 2 million tweets sent by thousands of users over the course of a month, shows that adding a photo URL to your tweet can boost retweets by an impressive 35%.

Photos can boost retweets by 35%!

Key Takeaway

Just like Facebook, Twitter engagement can be boosted with photos. Only this time, you’re posting the image URL. Otherwise, here are some new tips to get more engagement from your Twitter photos:

• Tag people in a photo – Tagging other users makes conversation easy and sharing more likely. You can tag up to 10 people (tagging doesn’t affect the 140-character count on a tweet).
• Share up to four photos in a single tweet – This is a relatively new feature on Twitter, which allows you to upload multiple photos and automatically create a collage using your iPhone, Android device or straight from Twitter.com. For this to work, you need to download the latest Twitter app.

#3: Comments and Shares Outrank Likes

Comments and shares are beginning to overtake likes on Facebook, showing that brands are getting better at engaging with fans.

According to the Social Intelligence Report Q1 2014 by Adobe Digital Index, Facebook comments are up 16% compared to the same time last year, and up 40% compared to the same time last quarter. The report also shows that likes have actually gone down from 82% (Q1, 2013) to 78% (Q1, 2014).

Fans are commenting more on Facebook pages.

Key Takeaway

Since comments from fans require more time and effort than simply clicking Like, this trend shows that marketers are becoming rather savvy about fan engagement. Fans must be finding content posted by pages interesting enough to invest time and thought into their interactions.

If you’re seeing more comments on your page, keep up the good work! But don’t stop adapting. Find different ways for fans to see your content, even via paid posts if necessary.

Since Facebook introduced its new comments feature in March 2013, you and your fans are able to reply directly to specific comments on your page. This creates a conversation thread, which ties relevant conversations together.

Be sure to reply to ALL comments from your fans, and to like every commentfrom every user in two ways – as yourself, and as the page. Not only will the user get a notification about the like, which may spur more comments, but it’ll also create a “Ticker” story about your Facebook page.

#4: Fridays Rule on Facebook

More research published in the Social Intelligence Report indicates that brands are targeting Facebook users on Fridays because that’s the day with the highest engagement rates. For example:

• 17% of all comments occur on Fridays.
• 16% of likes occur on Fridays.
• 16% of shares occur on Fridays.
• Sunday is the least likely day to receive a comment on a post.

“TGIF” seems to be the theme among Facebook users.

via

New Social Media Research That Could Change Your Strategy

#1: Users ‘Like’ Facebook for Social Logins

When logging onto sites with a social network ID, research by eMarketer shows that a majority of users (51%) prefer to log in using their Facebook credentials.

In fact, professionals across all industries favored Facebook. Only 28% of users log in with Google+. Facebook is also the preferred social login network ID for 63% of global mobile users.

Facebook login trumps all other social logins or registration requiring username and password.

Key Takeaways:

If you have a website that requires users to register, you should understand the concept of password fatigue. 92% of shoppers abandon a website rather than go through the process of recovering a lost or forgotten password. But if a website has a social login option, 65% of shoppers are more likely to return.

So if you have an ecommerce site and you let folks use Facebook to log in, then you already know their likes and interests. Use that information to personalize their experience:

• When they log into your website, offer them products that they actually like or have shown interest in to improve the chances of purchasing. In fact, one of the benefits of social login is that it limits the incidence of mistargeted ads.
• While they’re logged onto your site, they’re simultaneously logged onto Facebook, which means they can share a useful post or comment on a cool product. Make sure they find fresh, interesting, and shareworthy content every time they log in.
• Users want value in exchange for giving up their personal information on your site. So offer them premium content such as training videos, SlideShare presentations, free ebooks and how-to guides.
• To enhance brand interaction and social visibility, offer a community message board on your website that is only accessible to members who are logged in.

#2: Social Customer Care Demand Is Growing on Twitter

When it comes to social customer service (or social customer care), Twitter is becoming the place to be for consumers who want to reach out to brands. Research by Socialbakers indicates that 59.3% of customer questions are asked on Twitter, compared to 40.7% on Facebook.

Use Twitter rather than Facebook to address your customers’ concerns.

Key Takeaways:

Social media has conditioned consumers to get feedback fast. As a marketer, the risk of failing to meet this expectation can result in losing customers, getting a bad reputation or both.

• Twitter is especially fast-paced, so here are some tips to providing customer care on that platform:
• Train and empower your staff to respond promptly and directly to customers. If you can’t trust them to respond appropriately on behalf of the company, then you either have the wrong team or the wrong strategy.
• Don’t let customer complaints or questions go answered for over an hour. If you wait too long, the customer (or prospect) may decide to move on to a more responsive vendor.
• If you have to use your brand’s logo, try to personalize each response by signing each tweet with your name or Twitter handle.
• Don’t just monitor mentions of your brand’s name. Try to evaluate sentiments attached to those mentions. Tweets that include words like “not working,” “fail” or “poor experience” should be resolved immediately, and to the customer’s full satisfaction.
• Know when to jump into a conversation. Sometimes customers are just talking about your brand and don’t actually need your help or input.
• Decide how to prioritize inquiries. Should influencers get priority over urgent customer needs or will you use a first-come, first-served approach?

#3: Younger Audiences Are NOT Unfriending Facebook

There’s been a lot of talk lately about teens unfriending Facebook. Turns out it’s not quite true.

Facebook has indeed lost its exclusive grip on teens. Young audiences are flocking to more visual platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and Vine; however, these stats from eMarketer speak for themselves:

Teens and young audiences are still the largest demographic using Facebook.

Key Takeaways:

Like everybody else, teens and younger audiences have become multiple-platform users. That doesn’t mean they’re done with Facebook, it just means that their social interests are broadening.

Consider this: teens are particularly interested in image and video sharing. Sure, they can share images on Facebook, but they’re more comfortable on Snapchat and Instagram where there’s less drama—and parents are not present. So if your target audience includes teens and young audiences, don’t panic. Instead, try to enhance their experience by following these tips:

• Be everywhere. If teens are important to your business, follow them wherever they go. Create and distribute content across multiple platforms. Your brand will be more memorable for young audiences when they see your content across the board on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
• Be relevant. Teens live in an “egosystem,” so the only opinions that matter are their own and their friends’ opinions. So whether on or off of Facebook, engage them with stories and visuals that show how other teens like them are interacting with your brand.
• Make it about them. Be very subtle when promoting your product. Instead, focus on what THEY can get out of it. Sweet Frog of Catonsville, MD does this well:
  

  When reaching out to teens on Facebook, make it about them, not you.
• Above everything else, make sure ALL of your content is mobile-friendly.

#4: Instagram Is the Fastest-Growing Site Globally

Facebook-owned Instagram may be the platform to watch closely, according to new research published on TechCrunch in January.

Active user base grew by 26% in the last six months of 2013. In addition, available data shows that Instagram had 90 million active users in January 2013. By January 2014, that number had doubled to 180 million active users.

Instagram is quickly becoming one of the most interesting places to be online.

Key Takeaways:

Users love Instagram because images are super-creative and interesting since users can choose filters after the photo has already been taken. But of course the best part is being able to instantly share those photos with a community of like-minded people.

Narketers can leverage Instagram to promote their brands. Some other tips:

• Make your followers famous on Instagram by acknowledging their photos and sharing them with your Facebook fans. Starbucks does this well! They even go as far as updating their Facebook cover with Instagram photos created by their fans.
  

  Nobody does it better than Starbucks when it comes to showing off their Instagram followers.
• Make videos. Instagram now has short video capability, which means you cancreate 15-second videos that capture the mood and lifestyle of your brand. For example, if you’re launching a new product, take a video of your staff members behind the scenes preparing for launch, or show the actual launch with excited customers waiting for the move that bus moment!
• Partner with other brands on Instagram. Whether you’re a small business or a big brand, you can leverage the relationships you have with other businesses by partnering to showcase each other’s photos. This works even better if your products are complementary.
• Ask questions about lifestyles. For example, if you’re a shoe store, ask followers what kind of outfit and accessories they would wear with a new line of boots.

via

New Facebook Marketing Research Shows What Works

#1: 78% of U.S. Facebook Users Are Mobile

Facebook is at the center of a sizable shift to mobile. In the U.S. alone, 78% of all Facebook users (just shy of 100 million people) logged into their Facebook accounts via mobile this year (TechCrunch).

Research from eMarketer predicts that this number will continue to grow and by 2017,154.7 million Americans will be using Facebook on their mobile devices.

The future of Facebook is in mobile.

Key Takeaways:

Mobile and social go hand in hand. If your target audience is in the U.S., you should follow Facebook’s lead and adapt a mobile-first strategy. Here are a few tips tooptimize your Facebook page for mobile users:

• Take a look at your Facebook page on your mobile device to see what others are seeing (Public view, not Admin view).
• Since the mobile experience doesn’t show your complete timeline, highlight your best content with a pinned post.
• Photos are the best-performing post types on Facebook, so be sure to add colorful, interesting images to all your posts, offers and ads.
• If you have a local business, encourage customers to check in on Facebook at your location (more on that later!). Mobile searchers tend to make local buying decisions (e.g., where to eat, where to shop, etc.). Recommendations and check-ins from mobile users’ friends appear first on their mobile devices, making it a fantastic tool for word-of-mouth marketing.

#2: Paid Ads Improve Reach and Post Performance

According to the 2013 Social Rich Media Benchmark Report (ShopIgniter), promoting your Facebook posts with a paid ad increases organic and viral reach significantly but reduces click-throughs.

This is true for all post types (video, offers, photos, links and questions) except status updates. In the case of status updates, unpaid posts have a much higher reach than paid posts.

Promoting Facebook posts with paid ads increases reach but reduces CTR.

Key Takeaways:

Paid ads make a big difference on Facebook—at least in terms of reach and impressions. But before you start investing in Facebook ads, think about your target audience, focus on your marketing goals and understand how different post types perform when they’re promoted with ads.

Paid ads are used for promotional content, which by default draws less engagement than non-promotional content. If you’re more interested in driving brand awareness or increasing your customer base, then by all means use paid ads because of their viral nature.

But if you’re trying to build your email list (you’ll need folks to click through to a landing page), then paying to promote the post might be a waste of cash, according to the research. And don’t forget, whenever you want people to click, give them lots of images!

#3: Negative Feedback Hurts Conversion

Facebook doesn’t have a Dislike button. However, users can show their aversion toward your content by hiding it from their news feed.

More research from ShopIgniter shows that negative feedback—which includes the following actions by users: Hide Post, Hide All Posts, Report as Spam, Unlike Page—increases (hurts conversion) the more you add paid media to your posts.

Negative feedback increases as paid ads are applied to most post types.

The chart shows the negative feedback rate for paid and organic Facebook posts. Longer bars are bad as they indicate higher negative feedback.

Key Takeaways:

• For most post types except links, negative feedback increases when paid ads are used.
• As far as paid posts go, notes are most disliked (hardly anyone uses them anyway), followed by video.
• Although photos are popular on Facebook, not all photos are created equal. As a marketer, you should know exactly what your audience’s preferences areby posting photos they will enjoy, like and share. If you’re not sure, do some A/B split tests with various images to find out.
• The ‘Question’ is king—You can’t go wrong with asking questions on Facebook. At best you’ll get lots of responses, and at the very worst you’ll get little or no negative feedback.
• Surprisingly, Facebook Offers generate less negative feedback than links! That’s because everyone likes a good deal, even if it ‘interrupts’ your news feed through an ad.
• The best thing to do is mix up your posts. Try both paid and unpaid versions of the same post type. At the end of the day, only your Page Insights can tell you what will work for you and what will not.

#4: Facebook Hashtags Are NOT Working

According to EdgeRank Checker, Facebook hashtags have done nothing to help with additional exposure for your brand. In fact the opposite is true.

The research indicates that posts with hashtags are not only less likely to go viral, but also make people less likely to engage with the content.

Facebook hashtags could actually be hurting, not helping, your brand.

Key Takeaways:

EdgeRank doesn’t tell us why Facebook hashtags are failing. We only know that people are not clicking them. Here are some possibilities:

First, for a lot of people, hashtags feel out of place on Facebook. There’s even a Facebook page called “This is not Twitter. Hashtags don’t work here” where 15,000 fans are making a strong case that what works on one platform doesn’t necessarily work on another. They argue that hashtags on Facebook “interrupt the flow of communication and people tend to abuse them.”

Second is perception. Before the official launch of hashtags in June of this year, people or brands who used hashtags on Facebook were perceived to be clueless. Other users figured they didn’t understand how to use Facebook. There have also been complaints that status updates with hashtags are nothing more than automated posts created by lazy marketers on Twitter.

So based on the research, if you want your fans and their friends to share yourFacebook posts, you may want to avoid using hashtags or at least do a lot of your own testing to see if they’re helping or hurting your brand.

#5: And the Highest CTR Goes to… Sponsored Check-in Stories!

Sponsored check-in stories, where users are shown an ad in their news feed for a place they previously checked in, received by far the highest click-through rate (CTR) among all ad types and sponsored stories.

The Facebook Ads Benchmark Report (Salesforce) shows that at 3.2%, this CTR is even higher than sponsored like stories, which are very popular with marketers.

Average CTR of sponsored check-in stories trumps all other ad types.

Key Takeaways:

Sponsored check-in stories are used to reach your fans’ friends on their news feed. High CTRs could be indicative of peer influence. When a Facebook user sees (on her news feed) that her friend has checked into a particular store, she’ll be curious to learn more about that location and will probably click through for more information.

As the owner of that business, you want to encourage more people to take the same action, so you’ll pay to highlight the original action of checking in.

So if you’re thinking about building a local fan base, engaging and rewarding customers, or reaching your customers’ friends, why not design a campaign around the check-in stories that your customers are generating? Fair warning—sponsored check-in stories are very expensive (in terms of cost per impression or CPM), but the investment could be worth it if more customers come to your store and buy your products. It’s something to think about!

via