Facebook Admins Can Now Create Unpublished Posts On Their Page

Facebook administrators now have the option to create unpublished posts in the compose box on their page, instead of having to create them using Facebook’s Power Editor or the ads API.

Unpublished posts are hidden from the news feeds of a page’s fans. Instead, administrators can target specific groups of fans with unpublished posts by promoting them using adverts.

To create an unpublished post on their page, administrators first have to click on the tiny clock symbol to the bottom left of the status box. An option to “+ Add year” will then appear – an option administrators should take. After an admin has selected a year, a tick box will appear beneath, ticking this box will allow them to “Hide [the post] from [their fans’] news feed”.

With unpublished posts, administrators can experiment with different targeting options without inundating their fans’ news feeds with unwanted content. In fact, by targeting certain users with posts, based on their interests, brand loyalty, age, gender and location, page administrators can ensure more engagement with the content they create.

For example, a cinema chain could create an unpublished post to advertise a new horror film to fans of horror, then create a different one to promote an action film in the news feeds of action film fans, or a car company could advertise a people carrier to a family man, then advertise a roadster to a bachelor.

When news feed unpublished posts were introduced to the Power Editor and the ads API earlier this year, Facebook PMD AdParlor, who had been experimenting with unpublished posts, released some revelatory results. In one of AdParlor’s campaigns, the average click-through rate of unpublished post ads was 57% higher than that of organic post ads, while the cost per sign up was $0.65 less.

Although the new unpublished posts tick box is a bit hard to find, it makes unpublished posts more accessible and simpler to create.

Have you used unpublished posts to promote your business’ Facebook page? Do they work?       

70% Of Brand Engagement On Pinterest User-Driven, Study Reveals

A recent study conducted by “Digitas, the top integrated global brand agency, and Curalate, the only marketing and analytics suite forPinterest and Instagram”, has revealed some startling Pinterest engagement statistics, the most surprising of which is that 70% of brand engagement on Pinterest is apparently generated by users, compared to only 30% by brands.
Over the course of a month, between March 15th and April 15th, Curalate collated and analysed “almost 10 million pins, repins, comments, likes, and keywords” from more than 120 automotive, electronics, and fashion/retail brands. Researchers then determined which pins were “Top Images” based on the number of times they had been pinned and repinned.

Top brands within the fashion/retail industry are the most successful at driving engagement on Pinterest, with their pins getting an average of 46 repins from the active Pinterest community. Average users who pin fashion/retail images, on the other hand, are getting around 6 repins. This stat is even more surprising when you consider that 82% of the fashion/retail images on Pinterest are pinned by the community.

A similar percentage, 75%, of automotive images are pinned by the community. However, vehicle brands are only averaging a measly 3 repins on every pin, compared to the 10 repins the community is getting. The study puts this deficit down to the fact that most automotive websites use Flash, making it difficult for the community to pin content. This, however, doesn’t explain why the images they are managing to pin are getting such low engagement figures. Apu Gulpta, Curalate’s CEO, encourages car manufacturers to work on their Pinterest strategy:

Aspirational products such as cars should do well on Pinterest. It's unfortunate to see the auto industry stuck in first gear. The industry needs to leverage the heritage of their brands to tell compelling visual stories that create emotional connections with consumers. Additionally, while automotive websites may not discard Flash anytime soon, some straightforward changes make these sites shareable, now.

In the electronics industry, roughly the same amount of pins are generated by brands as those generated by the community, with a 47/53 percentage split. User-generated pins are still getting the most engagement, however, receiving an average of 14 repins compared to the average 5 repins brand pins are getting. At the time of the study, the digital health trend was in full flow, with many pinners talking about calorie tracking devices.

The study has also revealed the best days and times for each industry to pin, referring to companies in the Eastern Time zone: for fashion/retail companies the best time is 3:00PM while the best day is Friday; for automotive companies the best time is 12:00PM while, again, the best day is Friday; for electronics companies the best time is 10PM while the best day is Monday. Digitas’ Senior VP of Social, Mobile and Content Lead, Jordan Bitterman, extols Pinterest in his closing comments:

Brands need to go forth and pin. This study reveals the opportunity for brands to drive the conversation on visual platforms like Pinterest. By leveraging rich consumer insight, brands can take the guess-work out of their visual content strategy, and share the types of images their audience wants to see.

Of course, the findings of this study aren’t definite, but the study’s methodology was extremely concise and complete, taking into account 10 million individual examples of activity on Pinterest. Hopefully, someone will reveal the best times to pin outside the Eastern Time zone soon.

Do you agree with the findings of this study? How do you think automotive brands can increase engagement on Pinterest?

5 Things Top Brands on Facebook are Doing

Being in charge of a brand’s social media image can be a big task. Many times people in this position are responsible for creating the content, understanding the community, and curating material that will enhance the social experience of your fans. But it doesn’t stop there, there’s strategy and the big picture to consider as well as a keen sense of knowing what is happening around you, right now. Since social media is a relatively new means of communication and has recently developed into part of many brands’ marketing strategy, it’s no wonder there’s still a lot of questions surrounding the topic. What yields the best results, who are the leaders in the field, and how does one produce an effective social media presence?

In order to learn from the best and most experienced, it’s interesting to review what other brands in the space are including in their social media plans. Thanks to this recent post on the most popular brands on Facebook, I started investigating some of these brand’s Facebook Pages and Timelines. I gathered that there must be some similarities between these five brands’ strategy as there is only so many different options you have on Facebook. For my research, I took a look at the Facebook Pages of Converse, Coca-Cola, Disney, Red Bull, and MTV.

After a detailed look at these Pages, it was apparent that there were some definite consistencies between them. These consistencies are likely what help them retain an active and enthusiastic community without bordering on too overwhelming or boring.

1. Photos - The most commonly shared piece of information on these brands’ Facebook Pages were photos. Across all five pages, photos were the top choice for content. Most times photos were accompanied by text describing the image or in Disney and MTV’s case, sharing a famous quote from one of their movies or television shows.

2. “Highlight” - Many of the brands are using the “highlight” option to call attention to certain posts on their Timeline. The highlight feature was rolled out at the time of the timeline transition and didn’t see much attention. However these brands, especially Coca Cola, are taking full advantage and highlighting anything from events to photos or on-going campaigns. While the highlight feature doesn’t add much value to the post itself, it does drastically change the look of a brand’s Timeline and can make it look more interesting when scrolling through.

3. Timing - If you work in social media, you’re probably aware of the posting “sweet spot.” Depending on your community, there is a number of posts per day that will garner the most engagement without receiving negative feedback. This negative feedback refers to unlikes, hiding posts, unsubscribing from the page, etc. According to Facebook’s Edgerank, that number is typically between one and four posts a day. These brands realize this and typically post on average twice a day with the exception of MTV who averages four posts a day.

4. Variety - While photos were the post of choice, most pages also shared links, videos, and polls. Having a variety of entertaining content is what helps these brands succeed. Disney posts images from their animated movies, scenes from their theme parks, video trailers of upcoming releases, and popular quotes from their films. For someone following Disney, each day is different and will strike a different chord.

5. Call for user generated content - To engage fans and continue to offer exciting new content these brands call for help from their fans. Converse does this incredibly well by asking fans to share photos of their Chuck Taylors. In their most recent campaign, Show Us Yours Summertime, fans self-submit photos of their shoes and a summertime activity. Converse chooses a selection of the submissions and posts the images to their Timeline. How cool would it be to be featured on your favorite brand’s Page?

If you are just now starting to plan out your social media strategy or are in full swing, take a minute to review your page. Do you follow these brands’ posting approach? Are you posting too often and worried about your negative feedback? If so, Viralheat Facebook Analytics can make understanding your negative feedback simple. If you aren’t using these techniques, maybe it’s time to try them out and see how your community reacts. Any way you look at it, social media is a learn by doing field and with constant changes, strategy and plans will need adapt in order to stay current.

Measuring Social Media Effectiveness & Engagement

Using social media effectively, specifically for business, is not merely a popularity game – at least not anymore. At first, that was how we (business owners, marketers, communicators, etc.) measured the effectiveness of our efforts on sites like Twitter, Facebook and the like.

These days are gone – or they should be. No more “spray and pray”. No more throwing information, media like photos and video out on the Web and *hoping* someone looks at it, like your target audience.
Testing and measuring are all part of evaluating the effectiveness of a program. This goes for marketing, communications or public relations, advertising, etc. So why would we not do it with social media? If we aren’t tracking engagement or online interactions, sharing, retweeting, etc. how can we really know what’s going on with our brands online, our consumers online, etc.? We can’t.

If you aren’t tracking or monitoring your online engagement yet, start now.

Having trouble convincing your boss this is a valid path to take in communicating on behalf of the company? Track your efforts for 30 days and present it to them. Numbers, data and trends don’t lie. You can do this.

There are a myriad of tools available to help track what’s happening on your/your business’ social network. Some of them can be quite pricey and are generally set up for larger organizations. Don’t be discouraged though! You can do this on your own, without the cost.

We don’t just want to measure how many fans or followers we have, but what we are doing with them. It doesn’t matter if your company Facebook page has 2,000 “likes” or “fans”, if none of them are commenting, liking, posting or sharing with you. They could have hidden the page from their stream or just tuned out. By measuring you’ll know!

All you need is Excel and some of the backend data readily available as admins on your various social media accounts. Set up the spreadsheet with the far left column as the account platforms. Starting from top to bottom you’ll list them all – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, Vimeo, LinkedIn, etc. You can even include the company blog if you have access to that.

Then, across the top row you’ll plug in your measurement categories. These should include some or all of these, or at least a close variation:
- Audience (This is fans, followers, subscribers, readers, etc. depending on the platform)
- Activity (This is what YOU’VE done – posts, comments, uploads, etc. during the given measurement timeframe)
- Engagement (Here’s where we start getting some real information – user comments, likes, linkbacks, shares, conversations or DMs on Twitter, mentions, RTs, etc.)
- Web Traffic (Available from your site tracking system – think Google Analytics – How many visitors to your Website came from each platform?)
- Lead Generation (What the bosses care about. Connect with your sales team or incoming call coordinator to start tracking where customers come from. DON’T accept “internet” – ask them to be more specific as to which page, if possible.)

Armed with information, you can now make decisions as to which platforms works best for your company, what areas might need improvement or where they may be an opportunity.

Start tracking, testing and measuring today. Your effectiveness is guaranteed to improve.