Maryland Social Media

Social Media Monday (Vol. 6, No. 3)

November 9, 2015

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill. – Buddha

Choosing words is the life blood of what we do as social media and communication experts. Every word is painstakingly crafted into a sentence, post, or tweet to ensure we convey our message in as concise of a manner as possible while still providing the “umph” needed for true staying power. Isn’t this such an easy job?

This week we will continue our review of social media applications by diving into the best practices for using Facebook.

Top Story

Facebook has changed a lot over the last few years. Updates have changed the look while trying to maintain its feel and dominance within social media. As a social media expert you need to be up to date with Facebook’s ever changing landscape. Below are some interesting facts about Facebook and who is really using the platform.

Facebook Facts:

Facts about Facebook
1. Over 1.49 billion monthly active Facebook users
2. 968 million people log onto Facebook daily
3. On average, the Like and Share Buttons are viewed across almost 10 million websites daily
4. Age 25 to 34, at 29.7% of users, is the most common age demographic
5. Facebook users are more trusting than other social media users
6. Highest traffic occurs mid-week between 1 to 3 pm, but engagement is higher on Thursday and Friday
7. One in five page views in the United States occurs on Facebook
8. Facebook has more monthly active users than WhatsApp (500 million), Twitter (284 million) and Instagram (200 million)—combined
9. Average time spent per Facebook visit is 20 minutes
10. Facebook users are much more politically engaged than most people

Demographics (% online adults using Facebook)
Men	66%
Women	77%
White, Non- Hispanic	70%
Black, Non- Hispanic	67%
Hispanic	75%
18-29	82%
30-64	72%
65+	48%
High school or less	71%
College+	72%

Pew Research Center’s Internet Research

Be Consistent!

As we said last week one of the biggest issues facing most State agencies is the lack of consistency in their social media behavior. Even though last week focused on Twitter and this week is all about Facebook it does not change the need for consistent posting. With Twitter its believed that 1 -3 tweets per day is the minimum standard, but with Facebook things are different. Due to the diversity of the user base and the way in which they engage with Facebook there isn’t a definitive answer. You should look at your followers’ age, online interests, gender, and so on to determine when and how you should engage with your users. Regardless of how often you post be consistent. If it is once a hour, day, week, or eon make sure you’re being consistent so your followers know what to expect from your account.

There are several ways of looking at the data to come up with a schedule that fits within your bandwidth, but also meets your followers needs and expectations for your agency Facebook page. Hubspot did some research to answer the question of “how much is enough”. They put up a lot of data and the basic findings are not too shocking. Hubspot boils down the research by saying, “Don’t overwhelm your customers with content on Facebook, and be selective about what you’re publishing.” We never said this was a complicated process but we have said that you should be creative. So with those “selective posts” use your creativity to show what makes your agency interesting. But above all else, remember to be consistent.

Be Insightful

Beyond the double meaning of this section title you should be utilizing Facebook Page Insights. Facebook provides this monitoring tool for free so you can track user interaction on your Facebook page. Insights can be used by all admins on your account to help you track your users and better understand page performance.

This is something you should be looking at on a fairly regular basis to be sure you are getting the results you would expect from your account. The results you might track, or the goals you’ve set for your account, could be clicks, number of users, comments, or reach. All of this will allow you to see how your content is getting consumed and disseminated over your user base thus measuring engagement.

Get Engaged

Engagement is the name of the game in social media. With every post we should be asking ourselves “Is this going to get their attention?”. If so we are engaging with the followers and if not, well then we are missing the point of our jobs as social media aficionados. We do understand that there are time when news has to be disseminated via social media, but even then try to ask a question when posting an article.

With Facebook engagement can be done several ways. You can ask questions and post interesting pictures or articles requesting feedback from your community.

Short questions not only allow you to see how your followers think and feel, which can help in content development, but it is an easy way for followers to get involved. A short questions for Natural Resources might be:

What is the best park in the state?

This type of question allows followers to quickly answer without writing several paragraphs, and can provide basic market research. This information could be captured then turned into a multiple week blog about the best parks in Maryland. From there other social media could be used for a survey and then a “winner” announced for best park in Maryland.

Pictures are always a great way to get engagement. Several agency are leveraging pictures on Facebook and doing a great job. But we suggest that you pair the picture with a question, a funny caption contest, or ask people if they know where the picture was taken. All of these could be used to get people involved and again be extended to other social media platforms.

The point is you should try engaging with each post to get your followers involved.

Stay Relevant

Your fans are following you because they are interested in your agency. Do not waste their time posting videos of baby goats jumping off of cows unless you’re Agriculture.

With that said don’t be so rigid to only post 100% about your agency. Share content or posts from other Facebook accounts that tie into your agency. Sharing content from other Facebook accounts is a way to connect with others and can show your understanding of the market. Sharing outside posts with your own thoughts is an easy way to stay relevant, get engagement, and stay consistent with your message.

For example, if you are Commerce and want to promote heading to Ocean City in the winter share posts about Winterfest Bay Lights from the OC Facebook page. This is your chance to connect with your fans and create a larger community, so make those good connections.

Relevant content is what you will need to help grow your base.

Plan Ahead

All marketing campaigns on or offline should always be part of the plan—and Facebook is no different. You should work Facebook and all other social media into your marketing plan. By working them together you will be able to leverage the reach of Facebook marketing into your offline plans and track results using online analytic tools.

Posting current events and being able to react to issues is very important, but planning releases to your followers according to a schedule will help you deliver the most effective posts for meet your agency’s goals online.

Tips for Leveraging Social Media

Review your social media accounts and find your most popular messages either on Twitter or Facebook, something that excited you and your followers, and then use them to to create a riveting blog post. Every blog post doesn’t need to be 5 paragraphs long; you don’t even have to write four paragraphs. But by using a social media post that excited your followers you are able to build out a blog post that should easily create additional engagement.

Have you every blogged from a great social media post?