Indelibuzz

This blog is a bit more basic than most of the social marketing topics we write about. However, it’s something we get asked about all the time. Here’s the two-part question: How can I tell how well the posts I’m writing on Facebook are doing for my brand? What can we do to make them better?

The answer to the first part, thanks to Facebook, is really very easy. All you have to do is click on ‘Insights’ on the left hand side of your FB page. (You’ll need to be a page administrator, of course, to do this.) The very first page that opens shows an activity graph at the top. That’s helpful to spot trends, but the more useful and detailed information is below. There you’ll find everything you’ve written about on your Facebook wall for the past month. Here’s the data that follows:

1) REACH: The number of unique people who’ve seen your post.
2) ENGAGED USERS: The number of unique people who’ve clicked on your post. You can also drill down further here to get a pie chart that shows you how many other people clicked on the post once it was shared. Reach is good of course, but engaged users are really what you’re after.
3) TALKING ABOUT THIS: The number of unique people who’ve created a story from your post. Stories are created when someone likes, comments on, or shares your post; answers a question, or shares an event. Naturally, these are also very valuable because they reveal all-important engagement.
4. VIRALITY: (Is this really a word?) This is more of an equation. It’s the percentage of people who’ve created a story from your post – out of the total number of unique people who’ve seen it. If you’re in a hurry, this is the most important figure to check. The reason is, any time you have high virality, you also have a strong number of engaged users.

OK, that was painless right? Now on to the second part of the question. How can you make your wall posts better? The important thing here is to use what you’ve learned from your prior posts. Which ones are getting the most engagement? Why is that? Are there certain elements that cause people to pass the information along? Essentially what you want to do is analyze the data that Facebook gives you (at no cost) to determine what kind of posts will do well in the days and weeks to come.

No matter how you slice it, the day to day content that you provide on your brand’s Facebook wall is very important to your community. If it’s mostly self-serving and self-promoting you’ll turn people off. If it captures some type of emotion, it will do exceptionally well. If it’s entertaining or funny (or both) that may well be the best of all.

Do you need other tactics to succeed in social? Yes, there’s no doubt about it. But wall posts are the glue that holds everything together, and makes your evangelists feel they’re important and appreciated. It’s important not just to listen and post, but to learn from the past and do it as well as you can.