David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

Simple Social Media Posts Work Great

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Facebook Insights about our Post

You can read tons of blog posts, articles, and books (including mine!) about what to post on social media.

But sometimes, tried-and-true – and simple – works great.

What do I mean? Here’s an example from my library. We regularly post a simple question on our Facebook Page: “What are you reading?”

That’s all we ask. No image with it. Just 4 simple words.

Guess what? Those posts get a TON of interaction! Look at the screenshot included in this post. Our “what are you reading” post from June 5 received:

  • 201 Comments
  • 19 Likes
  • 1 Share
  • 2 Loves
  • 652 Engagements
  • 5186 People Reached
  • Ok, also 4 Hide Posts and 2 Hide All Posts (probably because those people interacted with the post, and then their phones blew up with activity).

What’s going on here? I think it’s pretty simple, and involves two things:

  1. It’s on-brand.
  2. We are talking to book lovers.

On brand: This post is definitely on-brand for us. We are, after all, a library. So it makes a lot of sense for us to … say … post about books once in awhile, right?

Talking to book lovers: When we post to our Facebook Page, we are starting conversations with people who chose to click Like on our Page. They chose to follow their local library, and (hopefully) to see some content and have some interaction with us. We don’t have to convince this group that they’ll be interested in what we do – they know that, and want to share what they are reading. Pretty cool!

One other thing going on here. When we ask “What are you reading?” we also end up with a great list of books that our local community is currently reading. That gives US some great content that we can re-use as needed. We can turn it into blog posts, book lists in Bibliocommons, or book lists in our print or enewsletters that we send to customers.

All done with 4 simple words.

How Engaging is Your Website?

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I just read Rising to the Challenge: Re-Envisioning Public Libraries, by the Aspen Institute.

On page 15, they talked about the library as place. I was struck by this:

The library as it exists within virtual space must be considered as a wholly independent but highly integrated experience; that is, the library’s virtual presence must be as engaging as its physical space and fully serve the library’s mission built around equitable access, learning and civic development.

Wow. Did you catch that? ” … as engaging as its physical space…” and “fully serve the library’s mission …”

Are we there yet? Look around your building, your service points, your programs. Your most popular stuff. Then look at your digital spaces.

Are we there yet? I don’t think so.

Pic by Quinn Dombrowski

The Drop in Facebook Reach – Is it a Big Deal?

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What’s the deal with Facebook’s recent drop in Reach? I’ve been reading about it and I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Read on to find out why!

What exactly IS Facebook Reach, and what happened to it? Facebook Reach is a number that reflects how many people saw your Facebook post. Facebook changed something in their algorithm, and Facebook Reach (more specifically, Organic Reach – reach not generated through Facebook Ads) seems to have dropped. Dramatically. Some Facebook Page owners have seen a 40% or more drop in Organic Reach.

Bummer!

Why is Facebook messing with Reach? Facebook is trying to keep their customers interested. To do that, they are constantly tweaking what can be seen on the Facebook News Feed. When you log into your Facebook account, you are dropped into your News Feed, and you see the Top Stories view (you can toggle to the Most Recent view, which provides all stories).

The Top Stories view automatically sorts through your News Feed, finds the stories that you would most likely be interested in, and presents those to you rather than showing you everything.

Here’s what Facebook says they’ve done (from Brian Boland, who leads the Ads Product Marketing team at Facebook):

Rather than showing people all possible content, News Feed is designed to show each person on Facebook the content that’s most relevant to them. Of the 1,500+ stories a person might see whenever they log onto Facebook, News Feed displays approximately 300. To choose which stories to show, News Feed ranks each possible story (from more to less important) by looking at thousands of factors relative to each person.

Over the past year, we’ve made some key changes to improve how News Feed chooses content:

  • We’ve gotten better at showing high-quality content
  • And we’ve cleaned up News Feed spam

As a result of these changes, News Feed is becoming more engaging, even as the amount of content being shared on Facebook continues to grow.

Because of these changes, some Facebook Pages have experienced a drop in Engagement and Reach, because Facebook is effectively hiding posts from those Facebook Pages.

What does this mean for a library’s Facebook Page?

Should you stop using Facebook? Um, no. According to Pew Internet, 57% of American Adults are on Facebook. And that percentage is still growing. That’s still a majority of your community – your customers – on a social platform that you can use. For Free.

Should you just pay for ads? Advertising is a good thing if you do it well. Advertising on Facebook is cheap, and can have a quick response (i.e., people actually click over to your site from a Facebook ad – go figure). So yes – experiment with Facebook ads to see if it works for you. Just remember that ads aren’t the only way to use Facebook. It’s just one strategy.

Should I worry about the drop in Facebook Reach? No. Instead, focus on creating better content and making it into your Facebook Fan’s “top 300” posts on their News Feed. Because that’s the real problem. The reason some posts don’t make it into the News Feed is simple – Facebook users don’t find that content engaging, and ignore it. Then, Facebook helps them continue to ignore it.

If you don’t improve your content to make it into the top 300 posts, your Fans will ignore you (with Facebook’s help), and your content won’t appear in their News Feed.

Here’s a simple Facebook formula to remember: useful content = more engagement = better Reach.

Read more about the drop in Facebook Reach:

Image by Johanna

Improve your Twitter Engagement

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Twitter recently posted an interesting article on their blog – What fuels a Tweet’s engagement? Good read!

They did a study of over 2 million tweets, and discovered that there are a few simple things that help increase Retweets. These include:

  • Adding a photo – averaged a 35% boost in Retweets
  • Adding a video – averaged a 28% boost in Retweets
  • Including a quote – averaged a 19% boost in Retweets
  • Including a number, of all things – averaged a 17% bump in Retweets
  • Including a hashtag – averaged a 16% boost in Retweets

In the world of Twitter, Retweets = engagement with your content. People find it interesting, so they share it with their friends via a Retweet. So make sure to walk around your library once in awhile, take a smartphone photo, and include that photo with your tweet (or a video, quote, number, or hashtag).

Then see what happens!

Follow me on Twitter!

Twitter logo from Twitter

 

Engaging People via Twitter

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Twitter recently created a new best practices site – check it out at media.twitter.com. There’s some really useful info there, but you have to wade through it a bit to find the good tidbits.

I did the wading for you – here’s the good stuff!

Best Practices on Engaging people via Twitter:

  • Use @mentions. This makes it more likely that people will find your conversation and join in.
  • Include photos and videos. Inserting media into tweets makes them more likely to get favorited and retweeted. Tweets with photos get 1.5x the number of Retweets compared to the average Tweet, and 2.3x the number of favorites.
  • Tweet regularly. Twitter users like to see conversations. Set a schedule if you need a reminder to Tweet.
  • Hold a Q & A live tweet session. This can be a fun way to involve other Twitter users.
  • Find conversations. Listen for people talking about you, and join in if it makes sense.
  • Use Hashtags. Picking the right hashtag is a great way to reach more readers and make your Tweet a part of a larger conversation. Including a hashtag can double engagement for individual journalists and boost it 1.5x for news organizations, for example. So in our industry, it can’t hurt either, right?
  • Show what happens “behind the scenes.” A fun way to connect with followers is to show them what happens behind the scenes.
  • Use a call to action and a hashtag together. specially for things like live tweeting, events, or a Q&A session
  • Vine videos are useful, too. Vine videos drive high engagement (Retweets and favorites).

And an interesting tip. Are you familiar with this command – .@ (a @reply command with a period?)? I wasn’t. Here’s what it does: Tweets that have a period (.) before the @reply are meant to be seen by all of a user’s followers, not just those who follow both the sender and receiver. Twitter calls a normal @reply narrowcasting, and a .@reply broadcasting. Interesting!

Are you successfully connecting with customers through Twitter? I’d love to hear about it! Share in the comments. Thanks! Oh, and feel free to follow me on Twitter too, while you’re at it 🙂

Photo by Maryland GovPics