Tips from commercial sector on Facebook engagement
Virtually every nonprofit has a Facebook page and most are probably still experimenting with content, metrics or both.
There is some interesting research (from a Sept 2011 report from Buddy Media, NYC) on what works and what doesn’t to drive retail couponing on Facebook. This is all about getting clicks, which is an outcome any non-profit can appreciate if trying to drive action. In the “no duh” category, the high level finding is,
- To keep it simple.
- Less obvious, post it late (in the day) and somewhere in-between on the obvious scale,
- Tell consumers exactly what they are getting.
As support for the first recommendation, there is a strong negative correlation between post length and engagement. Specifically, wall posts of fewer than 80 characters receive 66% higher engagement than longer posts with posts between 1 and 40 characters garnering the highest engagement. This empirically derived insight is coming none too soon since only 5% of retail brands have posts of optimum length.
As to time of day, overnight posts (between 8pm and 7am) drive 20 percent more engagement with more likes and comments than those posted between 8am and 7pm. Again, the retail sector (and I’d bet non-profit too) appear to have this formula all wrong with 89% of posts made during the workday hours.
Behavioral Science Q & A
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