Facebook is still the largest social media platform for content marketers, but a new study published by marketing agency Ignite shows that even the most experienced brands can find it difficult to create content that reaches a wide target audience and spurs engagement.
Ignite read over 18,000 posts published by 30 brands last year to figure out which methods work on Facebook and which don’t. The general takeaway is that visual resources such as images and video are the best formats, but only in moderation with a nuanced strategy that caters towards consumer preferences and business goals.
Customised and personalised content has been an emerging trend in recent months, so it is no surprise that the report notes that each post should inform social strategy. Posts with breath-taking images generate the most likes, slightly ahead of link posts, which direct users to news and articles on a brand’s corporate website.
While photo posts on Facebook earn the most likes, video posts see a significantly greater proportion of shares and comments. However, the results flip around when taking average fan reach into account, as photo posts reach 2.5 per cent of followers (up from 1.6 per cent in 2015), while video posts reach 1.4 per cent. Meanwhile, link posts reach 2.2 per cent.
The report also found that organic posts of any kind reach a greater number of users on Facebook during the second half of the calendar year. Finally, CPG brands see the most reach with link content, while retail brands have the highest median organic reach overall with video posts.
“Given Facebook’s recent focus on video content, it isn’t surprising that video posts typically reach a larger percentage of fans than link and photo posts…[but video content] is not for generating likes, comments or shares,” Ignite’s Director of Metrics and Analytics, Ryan Sweeney, said.
He added: “Marketers should also keep in mind the objective of each post and how it ladders up to their social strategy and business objectives. If they want to reach more than 2.5 per cent of fans or followers as well as a larger audience, they will need to invest in paid promotion on their social channels.”
