How to Increase Feedback on Your Brand’s Facebook Page – Take a Hint From Journalists

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Facebook recently released a study on how journalists can better enhance their engagement with followers on Facebook, using data taken from their own analytics from journalists’ Facebook Pages.

The study also revealed some best practices in using Facebook as a journalist, some of which brands can apply to the management of their own Facebook Pages:

• Posts that include a question or call to action received the highest amount of feedback – getting 2X more comments and 64% more feedback (comments + likes) overall than an average post
• Personal analysis is effective: Posts that included the analysis and reflections had 20% more clickthroughs than that of an average post
• Images work: Photos received 50% more likes than non-photo posts, and links that included a thumbnail image in the link preview received 65% more likes and 50% more comments than posts that did not include images
• Meaty posts get more feedback via comments and likes. The analysis showed that four-line postings received a 30% increase in feedback over average posts and five-line postings showed a 60% increase in feedback over average posts. However, these may have lower click through rates because some users have a habit of skimming past a dense block of text.
• Interestingly enough, Facebook’s analysis also found that one-liners could potentially generate a maximum feedback up to 15X higher than the average post, but on average did not generate more feedback then the four-line or five-line postings as described in the bullet point above. This means both short and long posts can yield results but meatier posts on average generate more feedback overall.
• Best times to post: Between 7 and 8 a.m. (40% traffic spike), between 10 and 11 a.m. (40% traffic spike) and between 4 and 5 p.m. (100% traffic spike)

Our Singapore office was curious as to whether this study held true in their country specifically. We did a quick analysis of the postings by Straits Times Technology Reporter Chua Hian Hou, Channel NewsAsia Anchor Timothy Go, and Straits Times Green Reporter Jessica Cheam, to see if any of their posts which followed the above-mentioned best practices managed to receive higher feedback.

The methodology used in the analysis was to calculate the average number of feedback for posts from the past three months on each of these journalists’ Facebook pages, measured against the average feedback on posts in the same time period which included the following characteristics:

• Questions
• Images / Photos / Videos
• Personal analysis
• 4-or-5-line postings
• Posted between 7– 8 a.m., 10–11 a.m. or 4–5 p.m.

The Facebook study findings certainly did match what we found through our quick survey. An analysis of Hian Hou’s Facebook page showed that asking questions, adding personal analysis and increasing the length of postings all managed to increase the feedback rate by 96%, 46% and 25% respectively. Interestingly enough, feedback actually decreased by 4.7% for posts which were shared between 7 and 8 a.m., 10 and 11 a.m. or 4 and 5 p.m.

Analyzing Timothy Go’s post feedback for posts containing images as well videos showed that these posts had feedback rates at least 39% higher than the average.

We also looked at Jessica Cheam’s Facebook page which showed similar insights to the above and provided us with an additional finding: postings about Jessica’s personal life such as photos from her travels increased feedback by a whopping 417% as compared to the average posts. Therefore, perhaps brands should consider showing a personal side on their Facebook Pages through engaging a community manager – it seems fans prefer to engage with a real person rather than a corporate logo.

One point from the study to be aware of is that the days of the week in which the study noted that pages garnered the most traffic – Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday – may be less generalizable to brands because of the cultural norm of reading news on weekends.

The study focuses a lot on posting strategies to increase feedback. One of the main reasons why feedback in the form of comments and likes is important is because it is believed that by getting more feedback on its posts, Pages improve their EdgeRank — the algorithm that determines how prominent a post is in a user’s news feed. By courting feedback, Pages can increase the number of users that see their posts. Hence, brands looking for greater exposure should certainly look at ways of getting more feedback from fans.

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