A 2010 study from Vitrue, a social relationship management platform provider,  offers some insight into what it calls “ The Anatomy of a
Facebook Post.”

The research is based on more than 32,000 Facebook posts representing a wide range of clients and 42.6 million Facebook fans over about a four-month period.

Engagement is measured by comments, likes and shares/divided by the number of fans for a particular stream or page. Data was also analyzed for  two subsets: consumer package goods and quick serve restaurants.

Here are the key take-aways:

1. Use an Image

Image posts scored highest. They scored 22% higher than video posts and 55% higher than text posts.  Image posts received 54% more engagement than text posts.

2. Don’t Miss Fridays

Overall, fans engage more on Fridays than any other day, and least on Sundays. Friday posts were  just 7% more effective than Mondays, but  67% higher than  Sunday.  The most effective post day varies by industry.  Wednesday proved best for quick service restaurants, while  Thursday was highest among consumer package goods companies.

3. Consider a Morning Post

Posts made before noon achieved 65% higher engagement among fans. This same  true for consumer products goods, but for quick service restaurants, the opposite was true.

Thanks to Vitrue for providing information to help better engage fans on Facebook. You can download the full report here.  Give these strategies a try and let us know how they work for you.

If you like this, you might also like:” How to Measure Social Media Using Benchmarks.”