3 Elements of a Perfect Facebook Post
Social media has become a big part of our lives. In order to stand out in a world where organic reach is all but gone, you’ll need to create social media posts with a perfect structure.
Facebook is the first place marketers go when they want to promote content, make announcements or start advertising campaigns. The potential for reach is practically limitless but we have to remember that organic reach is lower than ever.
To stand out, every post you create must be perfect. What does a perfect post look like? It’s time to find out.
Here are the 3 elements of a perfect Facebook post and these elements should always come together to form a cohesive whole that demands attention and earns engagement.
1. Visuals or video
Visual content is a MUST on social media. Check out these statistics on using images and video in your social media marketing:
- Posts with images on Facebook have 37 per cent more engagement than those that are only text.
- Articles with images get 94 per cent more views on average.
- Coloured visuals increase the user’s willingness to read content by 80 per cent, according to studies.
- Users who watch videos are 1.81 times more likely to convert than those who don’t.
For images, you should always look for relevant and high-quality options that use bright colours to catch the eye of the user. In terms of which images to use, you can use photos from free resources or you can take your own photos.
Remember that your images should somehow pertain to the post and the article or page it’s linking to. Consider the story that your image tells and how it ties into your brand’s culture.
Switching gears, you should also incorporate video into your posts on Facebook. You can use prerecorded content or you can also take advantage of Facebook Live to stream content instantly to your followers.
Here are some ways to incorporate video into your Facebook posts:
- Film tutorials where you explain how to use your product or service to solve a problem.
- Have fun and create something behind-the-scenes that shows off the culture of your brand.
- Turn your call-to-action into a video.
- Stream your next company event or fundraiser.
2. Links
Every post you publish on Facebook should have a link, though, it’s important to note that the platform has been cracking down on “click-bait”, which tries to lure people in with a vague headline.
You can combine a link with a photo or make a link post on its own. The link post pulls metadata from the page itself that you’re linking to. This usually grabs the meta description and a picture from the page to display in your final post.
You can make one of these by simply pasting your link into the status window. Facebook should pull the metadata for you, at which point you can remove the link and write your own quick introduction. Once you’ve started a blog and created posts with these elements, this is how you will promote them on social media.
In terms of your written introduction, some have reported that less text works better but other studies have shown that 80+ words in your post will earn twice as much engagement. In your specific case, it’s best to try both options and see which one garners more engagement from your audience.
3. Perfect timing
The final ingredient of the perfect Facebook post is timing. You could have the greatest content and image known to humanity but if you don’t post at the right day and time, you could easily be buried by other content.
Research has shown that 75 per cent of your engagement happens within the first 5 hours after a post is published. That means, you need to time this window to incorporate the time when your audience is online.
Specific times vary based on your industry or business but there are several different studies that show some common windows of opportunity. The best times to start with would be Thursdays and Fridays between 1 pm and 3 pm. You can expand from there depending on your results as you continue to test what works.
