What 3 Content Types Drive the Most Interaction on Facebook?

Social media is evolving so quickly that it almost makes your head spin.

Google+ arrived on the scene only a few months ago and has quickly gathered nearly 50 million users, Twitter continues to grow past 200 million and Facebook continues to evolve both its personal profiles and company Fan pages.

The social web is the third phase of the Internet’s evolution which has followed the portal phase around 1995 (such as Yahoo and AOL) and search phase which commenced in earnest in the late 1990’s ( including Google and Bing).

One of the  fun parts of social media marketing is that it is still so new that you need to test things to see what does and doesn’t work.

Recently I have been experimenting with Facebook to see which type of content creates the most interaction with readers and what drives sharing.

This has been driven by some studies and research that I had discovered.

3 Research Results to Make you “Think”

Part of the reason I have held my own little Facebook “Science Lab”, has been these recent research and studies

1. How much sharing is done on Twitter
2. The 5 motivations for sharing content on social media
3. How to get 50% more impressions on your Facebook page

These made me start thinking, sit up and start my own experiment and trial, publishing and posting some different types of content on my Facebook “Page” to see what drives the most interaction.

Facebook has a tool that allows you to measure this content interaction called “Insights”

Four Ways to Measure Your Content Interaction

There is a  new version of Facebook “Insights” analytics tool, that allows you to monitor and measure in more depth, the effect of different post and content publishing, to see what does and doesn’t resonate with your fans.

1.Reach

The number of unique people who have seen the post for 28 days after you have published the post

2.Engaged Users

This includes the number of unique people who have engaged with your post (again over 28 days since posting). This includes any click on the post including link clicks and stories generated.

3.Talking About This

This measurement includes the number of unique people who have created a “story” from your page post.

Stories include any of these types of actions on your brands Facebook “page”

• Liking
• commenting on a post
• Sharing a post
• Answering a question
• RSVPing to an event

Virality

This measures the number of  unique people who have created a “story” from your page post as a percentage  of the number of unique people who have seen it.

Five Facebook Content Posting Experiments

Content on any media is what drives sharing and interaction. The better the content, the more it gets shared.

Also the type of content is also what generates nore sharing and interaction.

The five content types that I have recently tested on Facebook.

1. Photos
2. Questions or Survey
3. Posts from my blog
4. Quotes
5. Infographics

The Results

1. Top Four Facebook Updates for “Reach”

1. Photo with a reach of 1,030
2. Blog post with a reach of  938 (7 Ways to Protect Your Brand’s Online Reputation)
3. Blog post with a reach of 808 (Google+ Growth Explodes)
4. Quote with a reach of 808 – Steve Jobs exhortation to his staff and engineers to build not just good but “insanely great” products. “We’re here to put a dent in the universe“

2. Top Four Facebook Updates for “Engaged Users”

1. Photo with 52 engaged users
2. Blog post with 37 engaged viewers – 6 Fabulous Facebook Marketing Infographics
3. Blog post with 36 engaged users – 11 New Twitter Facts, Figures and Growth Statistics plus [INFOGRAPHIC]
4. Blog post with 36 Engaged users – How to Get 50% more Impressions on your Facebook Page

3. Top 4 Updates Ranked by “Talking About This”  Results

1. Quote – with 24 stories created “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
2. Quote –  with 18 stories created Steve Jobs exhortation to his staff and engineers to build not just good but “insanely great” products. “We’re here to put a dent in the universe“
3. Photo – with 15 stories created
4. Blog Post – with 12 stories created – 11 New Twitter Facts, Figures and Growth Statistics plus [INFOGRAPHIC]

4. Top 4 Updates by “Virality “

1. Quote with 3.2% virality- “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.” Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
2. Quote with 2.23% virality – Steve Jobs exhortation to his staff and engineers to build not just good but “insanely great” products. “We’re here to put a dent in the universe“
3. Blog post with 1.63% virality – 11 New Twitter Facts, Figures and Growth Statistics plus [INFOGRAPHIC]
4. Blog post with 1.61% – 6 Fabulous Facebook Marketing Infographics

It was also interesting to note that the photo still ranked in the the top 8 in this measurement!

What should be also considered is that I have only posted one photo and 3 quotes to Facebook, so this little experiment was rather revealing about the power of  quotes and photos for sharing and interaction.

Takeaways

Photos create a lot of interaction along with quotes. The other surprising result that I have noticed since experimenting with “Infographics” on my blog is the increased traffic to the blog and the high engagement and stories that it created on Facebook.

So consider these three top takeaways:

1. Include photos in your Facebook updates where you can
2. Add quotes where appropriate
3. Readers and viewers love Infographics

These all create more sharing and inteaction on your Facebook page and should be woven into your content mix along with good blog post articles.

What drives interaction on your Facebook page?

More Reading

• What Happens When You Master Social Media Content?
• Do Shared Links Last Longer on Twitter or Facebook
• How to Increase Your Blog Traffic by 55% with One Button
• 5 Motivations for Sharing Content
• 20 Ideas for Social Media Content that Engages
• Is it Better to Share on Google, Facebook or Twitter?
• 9 Questions to Ask your Customers When Creating Content

Image by ratterrell