Are you running any Facebook ads? Or do you plan to, in the near future?
Then this is for you.
It sure feels like every time we as marketers and business owners think we have our Facebook marketing strategy figured out, a major algorithm change is announced or a new tactic becomes the latest trend.
Over the years, we’ve learned that the best way to reach our audiences on Facebook is to study the data, experiment constantly, be open to learning, and take a growth mindset.
To help better understand the data, Buffer partner with BuzzSumo and analyzed more than 43 million posts from the top 20,000 brands on Facebook in one of the largest studies of 2018.
Let’s see what the main finding are.
Key findings from 43 million Facebook Business Page posts
Top Pages are posting a lot more
Overall Page engagement is declining
Engagement has dropped by more than 50% over the last 18 months.
Facebook engagement down for videos, images, and links
Images (not video) regularly receive the most engagement. However, average engagement per image dropped from 9,370 per post in Q1 2017 to just 3,454 per post in Q2 2018.
Posting 5 times per day resulted in highest overall engagement
The data showed that Facebook Business Pages that posted less than once a day had the highest engagement per post:
However, those that posted less than once per day had the lowest overall levels of engagement. As you increase frequency of posting overall levels of engagement rise, but only to a point.
Pages posting 5 times per day received an average of 2,466 engagements per post (a total of 12,330). Pages posting 10 or more times per day received an average of 1,202 engagements per post (a total of 12,020 engagements). In other words, posting 5 times per day appears to be the optimal Facebook posting frequency.
Top Page categories experienced 49-70% overall drop in engagement
Reasons why Facebook Business Page engagement is declining
- Increased competition
- Higher quality content
- The Facebook algorithm continues to evolve
- Prioritization of ad content in the News Feed
How to improve your Facebook marketing strategy today
- Consider the return on investment (ROI) of each Facebook post
- Tap into your audience’s top reasons for sharing online
- Optimize your content for mobile consumption
For details, especially on how to improve your Facebook marketing strategy, see the full article, linked below. Lots of good stuff there.
Facebook Marketing Strategy: What We Learned From 43 Million Facebook Posts
PS. To save time and to increase quality/quantity ratio of my time on the phone, I’ve deleted the Facebook app from my phone. It’s now only available on iPad. On desktop it’s also blocked. I guess I’m one of the reasons for decreased engagement.
