how to win on facebook 8 lessons learned from analyzing 1 billion posts
TRANSCRIPT
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=e… 1/14
Blog Start Here Consulting University Contact
How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons LearnedFrom Analyzing 1 Billion Postsby NEIL PATEL on FEBRUARY 5, 2016
If you want to know what works when it comes to marketing, you need to study the competition.
This includes the tough competition, but the weak competition as well.
By doing this, you can determine why the best succeed, and why the others fail in their efforts.
To do so effectively, you need to look at one particular area of interest.
The BuzzSumo team decided to compile as much data as possible on marketing on Facebook,and then complete an indepth analysis.
Overall, they analyzed over 1 billion Facebook posts and came up with findings that will changethe way you market on Facebook.
They were kind enough to share their data with me, and allow me to walk you through it.
I’ll break down the findings, and let you know exactly how you should use them.
But first…
Why Facebook? Why not any one of the hundreds of other social networks?
While it would be worth analyzing other networks as well, Facebook is the place to start due toits size.
As of the start of 2016, Facebook has 1.59 billion active users per month. That’s over 20% of theglobal population.
This means that customers for just about every imaginable business are on Facebook.
Free Course: "Double Your Trafficin 30 Days" + Secret Bonus
(Valued at $300)
This amazing coursewill teach you, step bystep, how to double ifnot triple your trafficover the next 30 days.
Fill out the form below tostart your FREE Course
Yes, Let's Start The Free Course
100% Privacy. I will never spam you!
About Neil Patel
Neil Patel is the cofounder of Crazy Egg and HelloBar. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM,HP and Viacom grow their revenue. The Wall StreetJournal calls him a top influencer on the web,Forbes says he is one of the top 10 onlinemarketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says hecreated one of the 100 most brilliant companies inthe world. He was recognized as a top 100entrepreneur under the age of 30 by PresidentObama and one of the top 100 entrepreneurs underthe age of 35 by the United Nations. Neil has alsobeen awarded Congressional Recognition from theUnited States House of Representatives. Continuereading
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=e… 2/14
Finally, no other social site drives even close to as much referral traffic as Facebook. It’s a uniqueplatform because users are more than willing to click on links to visit content on outside websites(like yours).
Okay, so we have the right network, and a ton of data.
Let’s look at the findings.
1. The best time to post isn’t when you think it isWhen you make posts on Facebook, they are shown to some users that have already “liked” orfollowed your page.
The exact number (or percentage) will depend on your organic reach.
Your organic reach is determined by a bunch of different factors. The most important ones arethe amount of engagement you get on your posts, as well as how much competition there is fromother posts.
Competition is a crucial factor. If there are tons of posts made from friends and other pages auser has liked made around the same time, Facebook can only show so many of them. The morecompetition, the less likely yours will be shown.
Intuitively, it makes sense to post when the most users are online, which is during the day. Thatway, a greater percentage of your followers could potentially be exposed to your posts.
But the BuzzSumo analysis actually found the complete opposite.
The red line in the following graph represents your competition; the amount of other posts beingmade around the same time.
Guides Current Hits All Time
Search
To search, type and hit enter
Hire me to speak
I speak at over 25 conferences per year onentrepreneurship and Internet marketing. Beforeyou hire me, there are a few things you need toknow. Click here to find out what they are.
Subscribe
Even if you don't visit my site on a regular basis,
The Beginner's Guide to Online Marketing
The Advanced Guide to SEO
The Advanced Guide to Content Marketing
The Advanced Guide to Link Building
The Complete Guide to Building Your BlogAudience
The Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking
The Definitive Guide to ConversionOptimization
The Definitive Guide to Landing PageOptimization
The Definitive Guide to MarketingAutomation
The Definitive Guide to Copywriting
The Complete Guide to UnderstandingConsumer Psychology
The Complete Guide to Building YourPersonal Brand
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=e… 3/14
The blue line shows you the engagement that posts receive at different times in the day.Engagement includes commenting, sharing, and liking posts.
The pattern is extremely clear.
Posts get the most engagement when the total amount of posts is at its lowest.
Conversely, there’s too much competition during peak times (during the day), which leads to lowengagement.
The conclusion from this data is to post between 9 and 11 PM in the timezone that most of yourfollowers lives in.
BuzzSumo mainly looked at U.S. pages, but you can apply the findings for any timezone.
Why? Because they tested it for another country – France.
They found that posts made between 11 PM and midnight had the highest average engagement(240.06 shares). Likewise, posts made from 10 AM until noon performed the worst.
Almost identical trends.
2. Certain types of posts perform over 5 timesbetter than othersThere are 6 main types of posts you can make on your page as a business:
1. Questions2. Image posts3. Videos4. Links5. Giveaways6. Coupons/Discounts
As part of the analysis, BuzzSumo looked at the performance of each type. Note thatinteractions means the same thing as engagement (total number of likes, shares, comments).
you can get the latest posts delivered to you forfree via RSS or Email:
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=e… 4/14
There’s one type of content that isn’t on the graph that actually performs better than all of them.
No, I didn’t lie to you before, there are only 6 main types. But there are a few different subtypesof each of the types.
Most importantly, the BuzzSumo team dug in different types of question posts, and foundsomething huge.
Question posts combined with images resulted in an average of 616.70 interactions. However,questions posts that were only text only received 144.45 interactions (terrible).
Finally, the analysis didn’t just look at the total number of engagements. It also included thebreakdown by each type of engagement (comments, likes, and shares).
There’s a few interesting points of notes on that graph:
videos get the highest number of average shares (83.87)giveaways get the highest number of average comments (33.91)
While the high number of comments is interesting, keep in mind that comments are usuallyrequired to enter giveaways, and are almost always low quality.
A more practical analysis would need to look at the average length of comments for each posttype (maybe an idea for a future research project for BuzzSumo).
Overall, we can make the conclusion that images and videos perform best when it comes tooverall interaction, while videos are best if you’re looking for shares in particular.
Additionally, combining questions with images (or videos) will yield the best results; do so
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=e… 5/14
whenever possible.
3. Sunday is a special day, especially forbusinesses on FacebookNot all your posts will be as important as others.
You’re going to want to make sure that important posts (like links to your website or productannouncements) are as optimized as possible, so that as many people see them as possible.
We’ve already determined a time range when you should post, but we haven’t looked at the bestday.
The analysis revealed that posts on weekdays all receive nearly the same amount of interactions(on average).
However, posts on the weekend receive a significant amount more:
Sunday is the best day to post, with an average of 401.75 interactions, followed by Saturday at365.30 interactions.
The research didn’t reveal the reasons why this happens, but you can take your own guess.Perhaps people use Facebook more on weekends, or businesses don’t post as often (lesscompetition).
Regardless, you now know that posts on Saturday and Sunday will get more engagement thanthe weekdays. Save your important posts for the weekend.
4. The optimal length of articles for Facebook usersis…If you’re using Facebook as a business, you’re going to be linking to your content (you better be).
And as I mentioned at the beginning, most Facebook users are happy to consume content onother websites.
However, it turns out they have a preference for this content.
BuzzSumo found a strong correlation between the performance of a Facebook post and thelength of the article that is being linked to.
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=e… 6/14
As you can see, when a post linked to a short article (of under 1,000 words), it received thefewest number of interactions (171.65).
Posts that included 1,0002,000 word articles performed the best (277.37 interactions), followedclosely by 2,0003,000 word articles (274.06).
The most interesting finding to me is that posts with articles of over 3,000 words performedabout 18% worse than the other indepth articles (225.02 interactions).
Since I use Facebook heavily for Quick Sprout, and most of my posts fall into this final category,I might not be getting the most out of Facebook.
This post (that you’re reading) falls under 3,000 words, do you like it better?
The bottom line is that Facebook users enjoy indepth posts, but they also don’t want to spendhours reading one. Keep your posts between 1,0003,000 words when possible.
5. Users aren’t on Facebook to readThere are 2 main components to a Facebook post.
There’s the description of the post (the blurb you type), as well as any link or media you attach.
It turns out that the shorter your description, the better the post will do.
It’s clear that posts with 050 characters (that’s about 010 words usually) get the mostinteractions by far (411.16).
The number of interactions a post get go down as the number of characters in a post increase.
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=e… 7/14
The simple takeaway is to make your descriptions of posts as short as possible. Leave anydetailed explanations in the content that you link to instead.
6. Whatever you do, don’t post YouTube videosAs we saw earlier, videos get a good amount of engagement on Facebook (and the most shares).
However, there’s a certain type of video post that far exceeds the others.
There are 2 popular options:
Embed YouTube video:Directly upload/embed a video on Facebook:
You wouldn’t think there’d be a big difference, but the results from BuzzSumo’s analysis showedotherwise:
When it comes to the number of interactions that video posts get, embedding a YouTube videoonly gets an average of 140.75 interactions, a fraction of the 951.48 interactions that directembed videos get.
You might suspect that there’s not a sufficient sample size of directly uploaded videos onFacebook, but BuzzSumo accounted for that.
For this particular segment of the analysis, they analyzed over 53 million YouTube video posts,but also over 25 million direct embed posts. While that’s not as many, it’s a great sample size.
The bottom line is that if you make video posts on Facebook, take the time to upload the sourcevideo onto Facebook itself.
When you’re making a post, click the “upload photos/video” tab at the top of the text area, thenchoose the file from your computer. Then fill out the options like adding the title.
7. Facebook users like InstagramFacebook integrates nicely with other social networks.
If you use Instagram as well, you can check the Facebook option while posting a photo and itwill also be posted to Facebook.
It looks like a normal Facebook picture post, with a small difference of saying (“fromInstagram”).
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=e… 8/14
You wouldn’t think this would make a difference, but the analysis proved otherwise.
Pictures that are posted on Facebook through Instagram received 23% more interactions thanimages uploaded directly on Facebook.
I honestly don’t know why this happens (theories welcome in comments), but the data is clear.
If you’re posting pictures on Facebook, and also use Instagram, use the post to Facebook optionthat Instagram offers.
8. The effect of hashtags probably isn’t what youexpectedThe final big area of the massive analysis looked at the effect of including hashtags in posts.
You know what hashtags are, right? Any tag that is preceded by a “#” is a hashtag (e.g.#QuickSproutisgreat, #GamesofThrones).
In the past, hashtags almost always improve the amount of engagement that you get on mostnetworks.
Well, the research says otherwise on Facebook:
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=e… 9/14
Tweet
You can’t argue with data: Posts without hashtags received 34% more interactions than postswith hashtags.
Unless you have a specific reason to include a hashtag, leave them off your Facebook posts.
Don’t apply these findings until you read thisThere’s one key thing that you need to remember to apply these findings effectively.
Understand that these findings are correlations. They look at the average effect of differentvariables.
What this means is that the findings are best practices.
If your audience behaves significantly different than the average audience, your optimalFacebook posts may look different.
These findings are great starting points, but they may or may not be right for you. Start byimplementing them, but then test other options as well to confirm if they are the best or not.
If you need help to do that, read through my guide to optimization.
ConclusionLet me quickly summarize the 8 best practices that came from BuzzSumo’s research:
1. The best time to post is between 10 PM and Midnight of your audience’s local time2. Posts with questions and images get the most engagement3. The best day to post is on Sunday4. Posts that link to articles between 1,0003,000 words get the most interaction5. Short post descriptions get by far the most interaction6. Directly embedded videos get over 6x the interaction of YouTube videos7. Images posted through Instagram get a 23% boost in engagement8. Posts with hashtags get less interaction than posts without hashtags
These are all backed by an insane amount of data, and are great best practices to follow for yourFacebook marketing.
If you have any questions about the findings or research, leave me a comment as usual below.
If you want to break through to real profits online, you need some serious firepower.
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=… 10/14
For a limited time I’m sharing some select tips and tricks Amazon, Microsoft, NBC &
Hewlett Packard paid thousands of dollars per hour for, FREE.
The step by step guide to monster traffic generation
The howto guide for increasing conversions on your website
7 Cashflow killers your analytics tools are hiding from you
100% privacy, I will never spam you!
Comments
Deepak Rana February 5, 2016 at 8:16 AM
Hello, Neil, Perfect analysis. Being a Facebook Fan page Admin for years, I can say you’ve all thelegitimate points.It’s important to understand your audience and their timing on Facebook. From evening toNight post engagement increases quite often.About Videos, I actually agree with the analysis. Direct embed videos get’s far better engagement.Nowadays, Gifs are also working like a charm.Anyways, great post. Got to learn many good things
REPLY
Mukesh Negi February 5, 2016 at 8:20 AM
Amazing analysis. Embed video has more interaction then YouTube video that is something newwhich i have to implement.
REPLY
Godlove February 5, 2016 at 8:26 AM
Facebook is known for its number of users.
2 billion since the last time I checked.
The target on facebook is that there are many noise.
What you want to do is to be consistence.
The big brand already have the market.
But facebook has a space for the patient.
I have been promoting a business on facebook for 5 years now so I know what I’m talking about.
REPLY
Your Name Your Email Address
ARE YOU DOINGYOUR SEO WRONG?
Enter your URL to find out
Log In With Google
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=… 11/14
Don Sturgill February 5, 2016 at 8:29 AM
Neil, your work is consistently first class. Kudos to you and your team.
REPLY
Amna Masood February 5, 2016 at 8:31 AM
very well written and elaborative. I especially liked the way you have explained cleanly with thevisualisations.
REPLY
Jesse Brede February 5, 2016 at 8:38 AM
Solid points. I’ve definitely seen that weekends can have a massive impact. Thanks for putting allthis together in such a clear and concise article.
REPLY
Lee Trends February 5, 2016 at 8:44 AM
Solid view on the stats related to Facebook here Neil.
Quick question about the videos,
would you download the youtube pics and then post them on FB since posting directly fromYouTube would give less interaction?
Maybe giving credit to them in the caption / description?
REPLY
Mai February 5, 2016 at 8:45 AM
Neil, you hit #4 right on the spot for me. i love the content you put out but sometimes they’rejust too long! Unless I’m at home at the end of the day, I just don’t have the time to read it. Thisblog post is just the perfect length. Thanks for insight.
REPLY
Andre February 5, 2016 at 8:48 AM
I wonder if these tips will work regardless of location, language, kind of fanpage, the industry?
REPLY
Stephan February 5, 2016 at 8:49 AM
Hi Neil,
I pretty like the format of this post. It’s not too long like other posts. More importantly, yousummarize the important facts in the conclusion. IMO, sometimes (often?) the complete readingof a Quicksprout post is needed to get all the important points.
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=… 12/14
Nice work !Stephan
REPLY
Pankaj February 5, 2016 at 8:57 AM
Hi Neil,
Another great post and I am working on Facebook as of now. As you said, I was already with myown brainstorming, posting at nights because that works far better. Also, I agree that posts onFacebook need to be shorter but the shared posts can be longer, it is important for the blog aswell as you mentioned many times earlier.
This is very helpful post and I am going to share it with few my friends now
REPLY
Dade February 5, 2016 at 9:03 AM
Neil,
Another awesome post. I do like this post size over the extremely longer versions. I think this sizeis easier to assimilate and retain as opposed to way longer versions. I like your quick summary aswell. Well written, succinct, right to the point. There is only one thing missing…a downloadguide on Best Practices for Facebook.
REPLY
Kenney February 5, 2016 at 9:11 AM
And that’s why I read your shiiiiz… Lol… Ok, so I don’t wanna toot your horn, but what the heckit’s Friday dang it… Rofl.. tooooot toot
I just took a snapshot of the: Conclusion 8 best practices… thanks for this. There were a numberof counterintuitive ideas I love… (i.e. upload straight to FB instead of “having” to do both,article post between 1,0002,000 [my honey hole], short descriptions on FB and not having todo a long article to presell visiting the blog post, and posting at night)
My BIG Aha & Take Away Test/Action: Also because of this I’d like to test something (at least formy main market: parents of high school athletes)… I wonder if doing FB Ads for a “late night”webby, that’s 30 minutes or so long, would have higher attendance and engagement?…
Anyhoo, have a amazing weekend… SuperBowl Party here I come oh, after I do my weekendFB post… Lol
Kenney
REPLY
joseph February 5, 2016 at 9:17 AM
Hey great post.
I consistently put the link to youtube videos I make (as well as other stuff like directly embed)and you are absolutely right. Youtube views when directly linked in are way worse.
However, I also get a lot of views to youtube for that and I’m trying to grow that channel…Iwould lose a lot of views to youtube if I didn’t do that. Should I just stop do you thin/k?
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=… 13/14
REPLY
ChurchLife February 5, 2016 at 9:26 AM
1st class post as always Neil.I am going to try out some of your suggestions on my various sites.
REPLY
Selvakumar February 5, 2016 at 9:31 AM
I saw the images from Instagram on Facebook. What makes me to engage with it more is thisreason >Instagram is picture uploading site. So people will upload interesting images on it. Sowhen I see Instagram tag mentioned on post. I just think it is from a Instagram so it should havesomething interesting and I have to look at it. Facebook is general for all type of post. So lotpeople uplaod boring images and posts. But Instagram is special for photos. The one more thingis I don’t have account in Instagram. I am not even used it yet. I only know it is the site forsharing interesting images. So people who engage with Facebook post from Instagram might n’thave account on Instagram and might have interested to engage with it as it as from anotherplatform which they did not use and can look at it from Facebook.And another point is that the name Instagram may stuck in people mind while take small scrollover look at the post and the little stuck may make people to take little bit interest on thatimage.. In my thought, it is rare case to see post from Instagram on Facebook. Rare case alwaysmakes interest. If I see post regularly from Instagram on Facebook, my engagement with thatposts will become low day by day, and one day it will come from 100% to low.I don’t know what exactly people are using Instagram combining with Facebook in USA.And one more thing. If one man continuously see post, get bored and reduce his engagement,the post will get another new men attention.
REPLY
Dave February 5, 2016 at 9:35 AM
Hi Neil, great article and summary. I post a lot on groups (with a lot of success). But I do have aquestion. Is there a way to find out where most members of a group are from in order to figureout the time zone?
Thanks,
Dave
REPLY
Gulshan Kumar February 5, 2016 at 9:35 AM
I don’t have regret why I not use Facebook.In my case, I get good result from Twitter, The reasons are:1. Twitter is great platform to get traffic in comparison to wasting time in autopublishingFacebook page or sharing in groups. FB is good for meeting old school friends.. 2. On Twitter Hashtag works great even for new profile, on Facebook it simply do not performwell.3. On Facebook reaching in news feed of target audience takes more time than ranking onGoogle!4. Twitter has much more better security and support in comparison to Facebook. It has beenproved here.5. Facebook has some Privacy problem. Unlike this, see relation of Twitter and Google.6. Twitter feeds are showing in Google SERPs with complete description and link?Have you seen ever Facebook page post shows index frequently in Google SERPs?
REPLY
2/5/2016 How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts
http://www.quicksprout.com/2016/02/05/howtowinonfacebook8lessonslearnedfromanalyzing1billionposts/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=… 14/14
Copyright © by Quick Sprout, LLC Privacy Policy Terms of Service
Gaurav Gulati February 5, 2016 at 10:02 AM
Phenomenal job on the analysis, BuzzSumo and huge Thanks to Neil for Summarizing andsharing. This is probably by far THE BEST and MOST USEFUL post on FB for Businesses. I ‘dbeen trying to figure out strategies that work and been testing for my early stage B2C startuphttp://www.IRememba.com. However, this post gave me so much insight. Just pure gold!!
Thanks again for putting in the work. Shared on my twitter. Will be putting in the learnings towork soon. Cheers!
REPLY
Issa Cisse February 5, 2016 at 10:13 AM
Hi Neil
This is timely for me as I’m struggling to get traffic from FB. This analysis truly unveils thatmarketers including me have misconceptions about FB marketing. I have never imagined thatSunday is the best day to post.
Moreover Facebook and Instagram correlation is a nice finding. IMHO that enables FB fans toconnect to businesses on Instagram. I need to hear your opinion???Thanks for sharing
REPLY
Speak Your Mind
Name *
Email *
Website
Post Comment