Recent research by Buddy Media (a leading Facebook content management platform) found that URL shorteners can hinder engagement. URL shorteners, such as bit.ly and tinyurl.com, are extremely popular as they allow links to be shortened for ease of use on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter where every character is precious, they also allow the click through rates and in turn engagement to be monitored. Research however, suggests that engagement rates on the Facebook platform are three times higher for posts that use a full length URL, indicating that the use of short URLs negatively affect the user experience. This is likely because the indicators or sign posts that a user normally picks up from reading a full length URL are no longer available.
This is certainly food for thought for community managers, whose main aim is to drive engagement, however I feel this finding is not true of all social channels. Twitter for example has a 140 character update limit making short links a necessity. The data on which the report was based came from a sample of 200 Buddy clients whose activity on the platform was analysed for a two week period looking at comment rate, ‘Like’ rate and engagement rate (a combination of comment and ‘Like’ rate in relation to fan base size).
Key Findings
Post when people are listening
Social media is always on and Buddy Media’s analysis of the data set found that brands that posted outside of normal business hours had engagement rates approximately 20% higher than average.
This point may well be true of the data set that Buddy Media analysed but it does not mean that we should all start posting after hours – the learning to take away here is to discover when you community is most engaged, stay in touch with their behaviours and evolve as they evolve.
Ask questions at the end
Posts where the question appears that the end rather than at the beginning or the middle had 15% higher engagement rate.
Personally I think this is totally dependent upon whether the question is a call to action. If you are asking fans or followers to respond directly then this is true, otherwise I feel questions can be relevant at numerous points throughout a post.
Fans follow instructions well
Fans follow plain and simple calls to action best. If you want them to ‘Like’ your page, just ask.
The report found that the suggestion to ‘Like’ a post or page drove higher responses. Although this suggests fundamentally that we should keep things simple this action also requires the least amount of effort on the part of the fan and therefore doesn’t necessarily carry the same level of engagement as a ‘Comment’.
Final thoughts
Facebook and Twitter are two of the fastest growing two way communication platforms of all time and it is crucial that we understand what drives engagement via these channels in order to deliver positive ROI for our clients. The main point that stands out for me from this research is to keep things simple and always bring things back to the needs of the fans and followers, that way as their social media behaviours evolve we can continue to be in touch with their needs and continue to deliver the most relevant content via the right channels, thus driving maximum engagement for our clients.
consumer engagment, Facebook, Twitter
Your final thought hits the nail on the head – regardless of the technology, we first have to remember the consumer. Who are we trying to engage? And what are their needs/preferences? Don’t get caught up with the latest shiny object – remember the marketing fundamentals!