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"This post originally appeared on the Buffer blog.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIf you\u2019ve been struggling with Facebook lately for your brand page, don\u2019t think you\u2019re alone.\r\n\r\nBetween\u00A0changes to the layout of brand pages, News Feed\u00A0algorithm adjustments, and countless other\u00A0tweaks and changes, marketers are constantly on their toes anticipating what\u2019s coming next.\r\n\r\nA current issue that many are facing is the decline of a post\u2019s\u00A0organic reach. Marketers have had their organic reach\u00A0cut by more than half\u00A0with their Page\u2019s published posts.\r\n\r\nThis change\u00A0is caused by\u00A0a deeper underlying issue\u2014the competition to get seen on a fan\u2019s News Feed is higher than ever. At any given point a user logs into the Facebook platform, there are\u00A0more than 1,500 posts\u00A0that user could be shown.\r\n\r\nIn short, Facebook wants to bring the\u00A0best quality content to users\u2019 Feeds. Luckily, quality content is\u00A0what all of us want to create!\u00A0So rather than give up on the world\u2019s largest and most popular social media platform, you can simply\u00A0shift focus from what\u2019s going on your brand pages to how to get your Facebook post seen on our fans\u2019 News Feed.\r\n\r\nTrackMaven analyzed 5,804 Facebook pages (each with a minimum of 1,000 Page Likes) spanning a total combined 1,578,006 posts to\u00A0determine the attributes of the most impactful Facebook interactions.\r\n\r\nThese are the top five\u00A0most effective strategies for landing on a user\u2019s News Feed, according to our data.\r\n1. Schedule for more engagement\r\nA marketer has a never-ending queue of tasks, which makes it essential to know the\u00A0most effective times to post to social media.\r\n\r\nIn order to land a spot on a user\u2019s Facebook News Feed, try shifting your scheduling strategy from posting during the most popular times in the workweek to the most effective times.\r\n\r\nFor example, although most of the work marketers put in happens Monday-Friday, the magic actually happens during the weekend. Posts on Sundays receive 2.72 interactions and are 25 more effective than a post on Wednesday.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nStudying time of day showed some similarly\u00A0counterintuitive\u00A0data. Posting during the weekday (particularly\u00A0during lunch) is most popular (All the data to follow is based on Eastern Standard Time):\r\n\r\nBut posts published after hours (from 5 p.m.-1 a.m.) gain the highest average of interactions on average.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nBoth of these findings support the\u00A0late night infomercial effect: When there\u2019s little else on, you\u2019re more likely to watch an infomercial. When there\u2019s little else being posted, your posts are more likely to stand out.\r\n2. Get visual: Images receive 37\u00A0percent\u00A0more interactions\r\nIt\u2019s a fact: the brain\u00A0processes visuals\u00A060,000 times faster than text.\r\n\r\nFacebook became the largest host of online photos in 2011, and it\u2019s still a prime spot for visual content. 88% of the Facebook posts we studied are images, and they receive 37 percent more average interactions than those without photos. So\u00A0stay visual!\r\n\r\n\r\n3. Punctuate your posts: Try an exclamation point\r\nPunctuation is often times considered an afterthought. However, punctuation can convey the kind of\u00A0emotional value\u00A0that helps\u00A0brands connect at a more human level. For example, we found that using exclamation points in a post correlates with more engagement.\r\n\r\nAn exclamation mark isn\u2019t commonly used on Facebook\u201471.17\u00A0percent\u00A0posts studied did not use them. But the posts that do use them\u00A0see 2.7 times more engagement on average.\r\n\r\nHow many do you need? Overall, we found a positive correlation between post effectiveness and number of exclamation points. (A post with\u00A07 exclamation marks receives 7.84 interactions on average.\u00A0Now that\u2019s something to get excited about!)\r\n\r\n\r\n4. Add hashtags for 60\u00A0percent\u00A0more engagement\r\nOn any social network that offers hashtags, it\u2019s\u00A0generally a good idea to use them. They\u2019re a relatively new development on Facebook, which introduced hashtags in\u00A02013\u00A0to correspond with trending topics\u00A0and to guide\u00A0users to\u00A0news and content on specific topics.\r\n\r\nFewer than 1 in 6 posts we studied contained hashtags, but those that include at least one saw 60\u00A0percent\u00A0greater engagement results than those without.\r\n\r\nHow many hashtags gets you the best results? We found that post effectiveness is positively correlated with increasing hashtag use. Although posts with 1 or 2 hashtags did better than those with 3 or 4, posts that used a number of hashtags beyond 4 saw extraordinary engagement, peaking at 5.41 interactions per post at 7 hashtags.\r\n\r\n\r\n5.\u00A0Write longer posts: 80-89 words is best for engagement\r\nThe 140 characters on Twitter limit the message a marketer can craft and optimize, but it\u2019s much different for Facebook. With a \u201Climit\u201D of more than 60,000 characters, you could get carried away. But since the competition is high, as a marketer it\u2019s important to optimize your messaging to the right amount of words.\r\n\r\nAbout 33 percent of posts we looked at had a word count of 10-19 words and the majority (57.21 percent) kept their message short, at less than 20 words.\r\n\r\nBut our data showed a positive correlation between word count and post effectiveness. More specifically, posts of 80-89 words got 2 times as much engagement, topping out at 6.19 average interactions per post.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSurprising, right? One possible theory behind the increased effectiveness of longer posts is that they benefit from the intrigue of Facebook\u2019s \u201CContinue Reading\u201D link.\r\n\r\nAccording to psychology and behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely, our brains have a tendency to shift our preferences towards things we invest energy into\u2014a theory known as the\u00A0IKEA effect. Users could be more likely to interact with these longer posts because\u00A0they\u2019ve invested more time in reading them, just like the way you love your IKEA furniture because you\u2019re invested in it from building it yourself.\r\nRecap\r\nLanding on a Facebook user\u2019s News Feed is every\u00A0marketer\u2019s priority now.\r\n\r\nTo increase your chances of getting there, first create the highest quality content for your audience. Then try experimenting with these strategies on your own posts and see what your own data tells you.\r\n\r\nWhat strategies have worked best for you when it comes to increasing your Facebook organic reach? I\u2019d love to hear about them in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2014/06/27/5-data-driven-ways-get-facebook-posts-seen/>