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Comparing Engagement Rates of Facebook Pages in Different Industries
Facebook is about engaging with your audience. When fans engage, they are interacting with your posts through liking, commenting or sharing. It’s how your message gets out and how you cultivate a community of people who look forward to seeing your posts. So, knowing your engagement rate is one metric to watch.
Studies have indicated that the average engagement rate for Pages is about 2%. That gives us a start to analyze our own Pages but it’s how your own industry is doing that will create your benchmark. So, how is your Page doing compared to others in your own industry? Here is how to figure it out.
From your personal home page in Facebook, type in a search term. If I were looking for law firm Pages/Places to compare against my own law firm page, I’d type law firm or law or lawyers. Next, click the magnifying glass and then Pages or Places on the left. The difference between Pages and Places are that Places have a physical address in them and include a map to the location and other information. For this calculation, both Pages and Places act the same.
Search Facebook
Now that you have found an assortment of Pages or Places in your category, pick a sampling, some that have a large fan base and some with smaller fan bases. The numbers you need are under the Timeline cover; number of likes and number talking about this.
Engagement Rate Figures – # of likes and # talking about this
The easiest way to compare them is with a spreadsheet although it’s easy enough to figure out with pen and paper as well 
. In this example I recorded the name of the Pages, category, fan count and talking about this number. The formula to use is dividing the fan count number into the smaller ‘talking about this’ number. In the example below, I was pleased to discover that my client law firm Page is enjoying a 4.4% engagement rate while the sampling of other law firms were much lower at 1% or less.
Compare Engagement Rates from Various Pages in your Industry
I hope you’ve enjoyed this tip from FBSmarty
Michelle Fontaine
FBSmarty
Social Media by Michelle
I know some of you don’t want to hear that you need to write to be successful. But, to reach your customers where they are, you need to be where they are, and that is largely on Facebook.
Sure, you can just write little 400 character tidbits directly on Facebook, or 140 characters on Twitter. You can pass on other people’s content through links. But the power happens when you link to your own original interesting content. Then you invite your fans and email subscribers to read it. Not only can they link through to your blog, but your postings become sharable (postings not linked to something do not have the ‘share’ link so fans cannot share it with their friends).
Competition isn’t what it used to be. It’s not companies selling what you sell. Now, your competitors are businesses vying for the time and attention of the same target audience you are, and the largest playground, by far, is Facebook.
If you don’t prove you are an authority in your field and write about that expertise, you will not reach your audience where they are spending an average of 55 minutes a day. If your target audience is a young demographic, then that number is significantly higher! And, also, the fastest growing Facebook audience are baby boomers.
So, Convince me. What are the Benefits?
- Regular Blogging increases traffic to websites by 55%.
- Highly successful businesses blog regularly.
- Search engine optimization. It’s an easy way to enhance search engine ratings. You can create inbound links to your own website either within the blog or in your signature. Getting good quality inbound links to your website is one of the most important ways that search engines rate your website. It’s been the Holy Grail for some time. Be sure to utilize your important keywords in your blog, the same ones that are on your website.
- Blogs have like buttons. A major shift is happening right now. Likes are becoming more important in every way than Links. When you think about it, the most important measurement for any technology is what people personally do and likes are personally clicked on by individuals. According to Nick ONeill, “… the Facebook like button has completely reduced the friction for the common user to vote for content. … the reduction of friction will result in the like replacing the link.. It won’t be immediate but it also won’t take too long”.
- It’s free. Blog sites such as Word Press are free.
- You can reuse your content several ways.
OK, But Who Has the Time?
- Who has the time? Well, maybe your competition does!
- According to a survey by Social Media Examiner of over 2000 marketers, businesses are spending 6-10 hours a week managing their Facebook page (which includes blogging), and this time spent results in a reduction of 27% of marketing costs in other areas. Sounds worth finding the time to me!
- Re-priortizing your time in this social age can have great advantages.
I don’t know what to write about! That’s just not true.
- If you can’t convince people to purchase your product or service, then you are doomed as a business. When you’re talking to a prospect, watch when the ‘aha’ moment happens, when they start to ask questions, when they become engaged. Make a note of what you were taking about and what questions they were asking! That’s your next blog!
- A common challenge is sitting down in front of a keyboard and typing something. It’s writer’s block. One of the things I do is have an ongoing Word document where I ‘shove’ thoughts. It’s my way of brainstorming. If you’re not in front of a computer as much as I am, keep a voice recorder. Some of my best brainstorms come when I’m driving! Or call your phone and leave a message to yourself.
I’m not a good writer.
- OK, that could be true. Maybe you weren’t the stellar grammar student in school, maybe spelling isn’t your strength.
- Do your best, then run it through spell and grammar check.
- Finally, recruit a friend or family member that ‘has your back’ and run your draft by them to finish it up.
- Even if it means hiring someone to take that last few minutes to shine you up, it’s worth it.
OK, I’m convinced. Help me start.
- Commit. Don’t dip a toe in the water, jump in and really give this a go.
- Write regularly – draw a line in the sand. Say, I WILL write once a week and publish it on ___day. I blog and publish on Mondays. I’d love to blog more but I am a staff of one.
- But writing once a week IS doable. Aim for 350 words. That’s less than one page double-spaced. Longer is fine if it’s really interesting or chunked up into easily digested bullets or outlines such as this blog.
- Choose where to blog. I use WordPress.com. It’s free, fairly easy to set-up. Start somewhere.
- Once you have your blog published, use a tool to get it onto your Facebook page. I use networkedblogs.com. It’s free and will create a custom link called ‘blog’ off your Facebook business page. Do not, however, have it auto-publish to your Wall. While that sounds very convenient, it’s better for your EdgeRank (Facebook’s determination of how engaged you are) if you post the URL to your blog on your wall yourself rather than use a 3rd party app.
So, prove to me this works
FB Smartys Blog views by week show consistent rise.
It takes time. Be consistent. Blog popularity can be grown through being searchable, through linking to previous blogs, to writing enewsletters pointing to blogs, to getting others to reference your blog. The above chart shows that views of the blogs I write are increasing substantially over time. When you increase your ‘library’ of blogs, this should happen!
Hoping I’ve helped you move past your concerns and that you’re just a bit excited about the future and the impact your writing will have on it!
We are considering offering blogging workshops on-site in our Douglas classroom soon. Brainstorming and writing in a group. If this is interesting to you, let me know and I’ll put you on our notification list. To be sure you get all our notices, simply opt-in to our enewsletter list on our home page.
Warm Regards,
Michelle Fontaine
FB Smarty
www.fbsmarty.com
facebook.com/fbsmarty
Here are three recent examples of spinning negativity into optimism for your business and a special thank you to a former FB Smarty student.
1. Facebook and Customer Service
The largest sounding board for happy or unhappy customers is Facebook! By using Facebook’s Ad Configurator, you can easily see how many people are in your target audience without spending a penny. Your customers and prospects are on Facebook! How do you manage that?
People are going to say what they want to say and, as businesses, we need to stay on top of this. Two quick things to note: (1) Facebook now notifies us when someone comments on our Wall or tags us on Facebook, giving us a real opportunity to quickly address their concerns or delete their spam. Use deleting wisely. If it’s a valid concern it’s better to address it right on the wall or recognize the person and then take it off-line. (2) Setting up Google Alerts will often alert you whenever someone mentions your business name.
2. Bring your own situations to Facebook… spin them!
What are the odds? Two English accent radio spots run concurrently.
Mrs. Bridges Pantry
Facebook is your very own PR network and those tentacles can spread far. We’ve just had an unsatisfactory radio experience and we’re spinning it!
Our very first 30 second radio commercial ran on WORC-FM last week. Although we were happy with the ad, and happy with our choice of an English accent, we were surprised and unhappy that WORC-FM chose to run it adjacent to another English ad, thus watering down the effect of our ad (we believe). So, what did we do?
Well, we went to visit Mrs. Bridges Pantry. We enjoyed a delightful lunch, browsed their very British gift store and got to know owner Pam a bit. By ‘liking’ each other’s Facebook Page and by posting this picture, we might well reach people who heard the concurrent English ads and get them to think about them a bit more! In case you missed it here is our commercial. And here is where you can visit Mrs. Bridges Pantry.
3. Enews Issues – In case you missed it - Converting Personal Profiles to Business Pages
Last week, we had email issues with our own email system. In addition, last week’s enewsletter which is sent out by MailChimp through their own ISPs and has nothing to do with ours, experienced a 75% less than usual open rate! They could not explain it. Odd. I’m contemplating moving to Constant Contact or another service. But, maybe that gremlin will go away this week. We’ll see.
We uncovered a new migration tool to convert Personal Pages to Business Pages. If you’re in the situation where you have built a personal profile for business use, you should really read this blog. It allows you to convert all those friends over to fans and then you can take advantage of many additional business tools which personal profiles cannot. Here’s the blog you might have missed last week.
Finally, a big Thank You to Paul S. Robertson Photography
Lyn Garlett, of Paul S. Robertson Photography, is a former student of the FB Smarty Facebook for Business Course. Here Lyn and Paul explain how they’ve implemented some of the new tactics they learned.
Remember, your Facebook presence, just as your website presence, can be either an efficient strength or a time-sucker. Make yours a strength! The next 6-week Facebook for Business course starts April 12th.
Michelle Fontaine
FB Smarty - Like us
About Michelle Fontaine
The number 1 ingredient to promote your expertise in social networks, enewsletters and blogs is content! It’s also one of the biggest challenges people have. What do you write about? How do you find the time to write? How do you know it will be worth it?
Here is the process I’ve developed for FB Smarty to write once and use it multiple times. Perhaps it’s one you can adopt or use as your own starting point.
Step 1 – Start with a blog
What is your business focus?
The success of your business depends on you knowing your customer and target audience. Write about what you believe they will find interesting and important. I understand the challenges of small business, I struggle with them myself.
Content is key but consistency is right up there too!
Many professional bloggers recommend writing 2-3 times a week. For me, it’s one main blog a week which publishes on Monday. That content is then reused, or ‘repurposed’, for an enewsletter and Facebook postings. I also post other types of things on Facebook every day. My Facebook Page is also synchronized to my Twitter account.
Start once a week and, over time, you’ll have archives and people expecting to see your content at a certain time during the week!
Credible, quality content is important. Use spell-check, check your links, reference people and articles correctly. I work on a draft and then refine it, adding the references and links last. I might have a point to make and then find a reference to refer that point to. It’s excellent to be able to link back to previous blogs you’ve written.
One other trick that works for me is I print out the final piece and go over it as a hard copy before publishing. It’s amazing how many times things are caught in this last step. I’m not perfect and grammar errors and typos still get through at times. I don’t beat myself up for it but try harder next time. One good thing about our web areas is the ability to go back and make corrections and updates. Content lives a very long time on the web!
The magic question often asked is how long should blogs be?
The general consensus from blog pros I’ve read about is ‘it depends’ on what you are writing and how much you have to say about it, but I keep hearing that 350 words is fine and 1500 words is fine as long as it’s quality content. Also, if you do write a long blog, consider breaking it into 2 or 3 segments. People have short attentions spans, as we know.
Another point often made by pro bloggers is ‘mix it up’, add photos, videos, mp3 audio.
Ways to publish to your Facebook Business Page
Set your blog up to auto-publish to a custom Page on your Facebook Page. Many authorities, including Mari Smith, recommends and uses networkedblogs.com. However, don’t have it publish to your Facebook wall, just to the Blog link on your Page. The reason for that will be explained in a bit.
You can also import a blog into the Facebook Notes.
According to Facebook Help,
1. Access your Page manager here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/manage/
2. Go to your Page and click “Edit Page” beneath the Page profile picture.
3. Select “Applications” and next to “Notes” please click “Go to Application.”
4. On the bottom left hand side of the page select “Edit Import Settings”
The Essentials
Your blog should also include a clear company name, your tag line, your signature links and ways for your readers to share the content. That’s a big subject to cover but wanted to bring it forward here.
Here’s a tip. Look at your blog from a brand new reader’s view. In 2 seconds can this new reader tell… Who (who are you?), What (What’s in it for me?), and Why (Why should I read this?) .
Step 2 – From that blog, create your enewsletter
Not everyone is on Facebook (I know, hard to believe!), but every business uses email and expect their email inbox to bring them what they need to know to keep up. Enewsletters serve a great purpose when the right match is made. The goal is to slowly draw the reader into your blog and then have them respond to your call to action.
Defining Call to Actions
Take all the italicized text in the next paragraph and put your own in!
My call to action is to acquire students for my Facebook for Business courses and other workshops, seminars put on by FB Smarty and also to acquire web design clients. Positioning myself as an authority, and convincing them, is the key. I know my target audience has the need so my reason for writing is to get them to come to me for guidance and internet needs..
Enewsletters should be short and concise. Entice your subscribers to click-through to your blog to learn more on the subject of the enewsletter. Put a Call to Action somewhere in the enewsletter, perhaps the bottom or right narrow column. Keep the content the main focus and the CTA as a sub-focus.
Building your Enews subscriber opt-in list should be one of your main CTAs no matter what marketing you’re doing. I collect emails through an opt-in form on our website and on our custom Facebook page. I also ask for them at trade shows and networking groups.
Utilize the reporting and statistics options of your enews carrier
We highly suggest you use a service and not try to do it yourself. MailChimp and Constant Contact are two good options. We use Mail Chimp. Here are some of the things we learn from our enews stats.
Analyze the Time of Day and Day you Send vs. the Open Rate
Because FB Smarty’s Facebook for Business tips are geared to business owners, my instinct tells me Monday is a good day to send these out. Not over the weekend and not towards the end of the week, but at the beginning when people are more business focused and, at a time of day when they might be getting that second cup of coffee and taking a short break.
Personally, I try to never book appointments on Monday or leave the office. It’s my get-ahead day, my plow into the week day. I spend time catching up on new tools, read my research mentor’s blogs and postings, etc. So, when I decided to use Mondays am the day I publish, and also 10:00a.m., it was based on my own personal experience, but I’m not foolish enough to rely only on that. So, starting from that day and time, I test my theory.
Mail Chimp, our current mail service, allows easy testing of enewsletters through their A/B process. They send out your letter at two different times to segments of your list and compare them. For this chart, I had a Friday and a Sunday included but they did so poorly, I decided simply to compare times on Mondays vs. Open Rates.
According to this chart, you can see that 10:00 a.m. on Mondays gives us the best Open Rate, while earlier and later in the day the rate drops off significantly. If your subject is not business oriented, this might not apply.
FB Smarty's business tips seem to be opened more at 10:00a.m. on Mondays over earlier or later in the day.
Embed your Enews Archives
Follow your enews vendor’s instructions and get the embed code for your enews archives. These are widgets you can embed in your website and in your custom Facebook Pages. Widgets are great because they are basically set up and forget!
Step 3 – Post to Facebook
Time to Share on Facebook and other social networks
Post to your Facebook Business wall. It does not have to be posted on Monday, later in the week is fine but try to be consistent with that as well. Write a post using 400 or fewer characters and link your blog link. The link can be shortened through a blog shortener like bit.ly.
Did you know that the only way a post has the ‘share’ button under it is if it is linked to something? Once you publish it on your wall, it goes out to your fan’s newsfeeds based on Facebook’s engagement algorithm. Your fans will have the option to ‘share’ it with their friends.
Automated postings are convenient but be aware
The reason we recommend that you have networkedblog.com post only to your blog link and not the wall is that Facebook gives more weight, through its EdgeRank algorithms, to manually typed posts rather than automated posts. More weight means more likely your fans will see your postings.
If you have a Twitter account set up, you can also have Facebook post to Twitter for you. That means the first 140 characters of your Facebook Post will post to Twitter.
Next Steps – Define your Own Process and Start!!
Get that white board out. Draw up a calendar. Write down ideas for blogs. Go to WordPress.com and set up a free account. Now, start! Don’t worry about being perfect, you’ll get better…. just do it!
Our process revolves around the weekly blog and how to ‘re’purpose that content! Do you have a process for creating content? Ideas you’d like to share?
Michelle Fontaine
FBSmarty – Facebook for Business
Web – Facebook
Facebook EdgeRank determines if your Page posts will even be seen!
Rebecca asks – “”Can you explain what this means, from your email yesterday – “without engagement, your postings will not be seen by your fans.”"
Thanks for the question Rebecca. Facebook has an algorithm, similar to Google’s. Depending on how strong your ratings are determines if your post gets into your fan’s newsfeed. Two of those items are (1) how many ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ you’ve received from that person and (2) the newness of the post. Here’s a link to a more detailed explanation.
Facebook tries to determine what would most interest people and presents that to them. So, if you don’t work on engagement with your fans, it is likely they don’t even see your posts! Engagement requires dedication and smart techniques, which we try to pass on to you in many ways.
If you would like to receive our weekly tips from FBSmarty as Rebecca does, head on over here and opt-in. They come out every Monday and focus on tips for business. You can opt-in right here.
Michelle Fontaine
FB Smarty
P.S. Our next 6-week Facebook for Business course starts Feb 23rd. Details about the course can be found here