Does the Facebook Timeline Increase or Decrease Engagement?

The rules of marketing are changing. Before the rise of the social web, marketing was about synchronous messaging.

It was about shouting your brand from the roof tops in a one way conversation.

The louder you shouted (the more dollars you spent on mass media) the more money you made.

In essence it was simple.

Today it is a two way conversation with a variety of multimedia on a multitude of global social networks, that starts with engaging the customer with content that involves interaction of some type and then selling the product or service.

In the past engagement was very hard to measure because media was a one way conversation whether that was television, radio  or print.

Today you can instantly see in real time if the content you publish or marketing message you promote is working as you view people liking, sharing or commenting online on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

Engagement Starts with One Click

Facebook has made the first engagement easy to spot as the ubiquitous “like” being the first indication of your brands touch point and resonance with a fan.

After that the relationship becomes deeper as content is shared with friends and comments are left on the Timeline. The more time and effort displayed by the prospect indicates the building and budding relationship.

Facebook has recently  changed the way  brands interacted with their fans online by totally revamping the new user interface for Facebook and renamed it “Timeline”.

It provides a larger canvas for photos and images and a larger cover photo to showcase a businesses brand along with many other features and functions.

Is the  Facebook Timeline Increasing Engagement?

When the timeline was announced, the screaming of users and brands was deafening as they had to rebuild their Facebook marketing strategies and learn to navigate the new user interface.

Generally no one likes change!

A new study by Sotrender (an online tool for analysis, reporting and optimisation of Facebook), provides some interesting clues as to whether the new Facebook Timeline is working well for business and brands.

What Metrics Haven’t Changed

The study revealed after analyzing 130 biggest UK company profiles and almost 5 thousand posts that the following metrics didn’t change.

None of the following metrics changed significantly in the after-Timeline period:

• page posts per day
• content type distribution
• percent of engaged users per fanpage
• average number of likes, comments and posts per active user
• average response (likes and comments) per post
• cross-page engagement (percent of page’s engaged fans also engaged on other pages)

They discovered that two things had changed significantly.

What Has Changed

The study by Sotrender discovered these two statistically significant changes.

#1. Posts live Longer

Before the timeline’s introduction, users made half of their comments in less than one hour. Now the posts half life has extended to 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Also 80% of all comments are made in 8 hours and 30 minutes (2 hours more than before Timeline.)

Takeaway

If company writes too often, the new posts may cannibalize users engagement of the previous ones.

#2. Bigger Engagement

The other change that was noticeable was that the Facebook timeline has increased growth in post engagement by 13%.

Prior to Timeline the average post stimulated the activity of 158 fans. This has now increased to 179.

Takeaway

Don’t stop providing regular multimedia updates to your business Facebook page timeline. It has increased indeed increased engagement.

What About You?

Have you found the new Timeline increasing or decreasing engagement on your Facebook page?

Have you changed how often you update your business Facebook page?

How have you adapted to the changes?

More Reading

• Is the New Facebook Timeline a Failure in Design?
• How To Take Your Company’s Facebook Fan Page from Zero to 40,000 Fans
• The Top 10 Brands on Facebook and What You Can Learn from them to Grow your Fans [Plus Infographic]
• Starbucks And The 4 Keys To Social Media Engagement
• The World’s 10 Most Popular Company Facebook Pages
• 20 Interesting Facts, Figures and Statistics Revealed by Facebook

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