Friday – In the morning

It doesn’t get much more direct than that, now does it? Worst Days – Saturday and Sunday. Best type of post? Photo. Now go forth and post away!

Should You Have a Facebook Page?

Facebook is a great platform in which to engage your audience, whether that audience is a congregation, an existing client  base, or a consumer who ‘Likes’ your company. Many pastors and leaders have asked me why they should be on Facebook. There are a variety of reasons to be on Facebook but the one that should prompt you to logon is that Facebook is where the conversation is occuring. If you want to know what people are talking about, especially if you are a local organization, then this is the place to do it.

I highly recommend that if you own a business, pastor a church, or lead an organization, that your organization have a Facebook page, as opposed to a group. This is what Facebook has to say about the Pages and Groups: “Pages can only be created to represent a real organization. Groups can be created by anyone and about any topic, as a space for people to share their opinions and interest in that subject. ”

Information posted by a Page admin appears in the News Feed for any who have ‘liked’ the page. Group information is only available by visiting  the group. As a Group admin, you can message your group but once the number in your group is over 5,000 that ability is restricted. Page admins can send updates to fans of the page.

Who’s On Facebook?

According to Mashable, the average Facebook user clocks the ‘Like’ button 19 times, writes 25 comments, becomes a fan of two pages, is a member of 12 groups and spends 55 minutes on Facebook daily. Facebook claims over 500 million users and over 35% of those are in the United States - that’s roughly 62% of the US population. The percentage of those over the age of 13 that use Facebook is even higher.

More About When and What to Post

I recently read a white paper, “The Anatomy of a Facebook Post”, by a leading social media management company, Vitrue. The white paper addressed three key factors:

• Post Effectiveness by Post Type
• Post Effectiveness by Day of Week
• Post Effectiveness by Time of Day

There were not big difference in each of the key factors. For instance, Friday is the best day to post but Tuesday and Wednesday were not far behind and neither was Monday or Thursday. The weekends definitely were far behind the weekdays. Think about why – many of you are in front of a computer 5 days a week and more and more we’re disconnecting on weekends or we’re just using our mobile devices.

Best Post Type – Image as opposed to text only or a video. The video takes time to engage. Pictures take almost no time to click and look at it.

Time of Day – Before noon. According to Vitrue’s study, there is 65% more engagement for posts made in the morning. This would definitely fit into my day. When I get to my desk and drink a cup of coffee, I quickly scan emails, respond to the urgent and The Ox, and then open Facebook.

For the Finisher

If you have a Facebook account, you might be the person in your organization who is the social media guru. Chat with your colleagues and your boss informally about how you might interact with your clients, customers, or congregation via Facebook. What’s your purpose in being there? What do you hope to accomplish? Once you decide to create a Page, take a look at the pages of similar organizations and see what they do. Take a note of what’s compelling, trivial, weird, and just plain stupid. (Hint: Do the compelling stuff. Don’t copy the stupid stuff – If you’re anything like me, you’ll do enough stupid stuff on your own.)

Decide who the Page Admins will be and who will be responsible for responding to posts on your wall. Create a great Facebook graphic and get started.

What about you? Do your Facebook habits fit into the findings above? Does any of this information surprise you?