Given its status as the world’s largest social network, Facebook is one of the most important and common
ways people share content with their friends on the Web. As such, it represents an amazingly large audience for your off-Facebook content. Even when you’re creating content outside of Facebook on your own site, you should strive to encourage sharing. Cross-promoting content and driving traffic from your website to your Facebook Page (and vice versa) is an important part of a Facebook marketing strategy. This chapter demonstrates how you can promote your blog and website content so that it gets shared on Facebook.
Least Shared Words
If you’re used to writing for Twitter, the most important thing to remember is that you’re dealing with a much more mainstream audience on Facebook. Topics that entice your typical social media geek won’t
even raise a Facebook user’s eyebrow. Avoid writing about every new iPhone app, Google’s every move, or the latest social media fad. Of course, if something genuinely newsworthy (and applicable to the nongeek masses) happens in these spaces, then feel free to write about it—just don’t do it every day.
While people might be interested in reading reviews of products they’re thinking of buying, they’re not very likely to share those reviews with their Facebook friends. It also appears that Facebook users aren’t big fans of controversial Company-A-versus-Company-B comparisons.
The practice of meta mentions, in which a user talks about Twitter in a tweet or about Facebook on Facebook itself, produces mixed results. Articles mentioning both Twitter and Facebook did pretty well on Twitter. On Facebook, however, articles about Twitter did very poorly, but writing about Facebook itself performed much better. People who are using Facebook are likely to have at least a passing interest in it and probably have some friends who are interested as well. Content about or mentioning Facebook gets shared pretty well across the site itself.
Again, keep in mind that Facebook users are, by and large, not social media geeks, so avoid consistently writing about social media itself. To that end, for content about Facebook to be shared far and wide, it is best to keep it simple and not dive too far into technical comparisons.
Most Shared Words
As is the case practically everywhere else on the Web, users aren’t that interested in hearing about you on Facebook; they want to read about themselves. When writing for Facebook, tell the reader how your article can help her do something, and use the word “you.” Articles with titles like “Top 10 Ways You Can Get Rich” are bound to do well.
The topics and stories you hear mentioned on the nightly news or see on the covers of popular magazines
are good things to write about, including political issues and celebrity gossip your audience has heard of. Facebook users also appear to appreciate deeper looks at issues. When the words “how” and “why” occur in article titles, those stories do better, on average, on Facebook. TV, radio, and any number of news websites deliver the 15-second sound bite; if you can get behind a story and tell the reader why or how it happened, he might be interested.
Facebook posts can be much longer than a tweet and also allow for formatting. Shorter posts are easier to read and share, but lengthy posts may draw more attention. Experiment with the Notes application and attaching links or images to your Page updates.
Digits
When you do make lists, use the digit version of the number. For a variety of reasons, digits work well in
almost every context online. Our research has shown that stories that include numbers in their titles tend
to be shared more than stories that don’t. Users aren’t so interested in reading generalities; they want specifics, and there’s not much more specific than a number. Financial stories should include dollar amounts; environmental disaster stories should include specific figures on, say, the gallons of oil spilled; sports stories should include scores. Any time you can figure out a way to include a relevant digit, do it. In a slightly contradictory finding, we noticed that stories about numbers in general tended to be shared slightly less. This metric includes all numbers, digits or not. Mainstream audiences don’t want to read many data-heavy and intensive stories, but when they do read these type of stories, they want specifics.
Linguistic Content
Using two linguistic analysis algorithms developed by academic researchers—the Regressive Imagery
Dictionary (RID) and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)—we were able to investigate cognitive
and emotional content of links shared on Facebook. The most shared type of content isn’t very surprising when you remember that Facebook started with (and is still very popular among) college kids. Facebook users like sharing stories about sex. If you’re feeling daring, go ahead and try to write something scandalous. For most marketers, however, this isn’t the most practical advice.
The Power of Positivity
We were initially somewhat surprised to find that positive stories did much better than negative ones, but after we thought about it a bit, it made sense. There is no lack of negative news stories in the media, and most people aren’t going on Facebook to get depressed. They’re there to socialize with their friends, and that usually means feeling good, not bad. Try to write positive stories as much as you can, and when you have to cover something negative, try adding an upbeat, hopeful spin.
Try a Teaching Moment
Two other types of content that tended to perform well in our study are constructive and educational content. These are articles that teach readers something, either about the world around them or how to actually accomplish something. Remember that a good way to title an article like this is to specifically state that the article will teach the reader (“you”) something.
Video
Just like their offline mainstream counterparts, many Facebook users like watching videos. Another bit
of research we conducted found that articles that announced they contained a video were shared more
than those that didn’t. In another testament to the differences between the Facebook and
Twitter audiences, those same stories tended to get retweeted less. This is likely due in part to the fact
that Facebook has a feature that pulls the video content of a posted link and embeds the video (where it
can) directly into users’ feeds. You can take advantage of this by either producing your own videos and
uploading them to YouTube or by simply embedding videos related to your article.
Parts of Speech
One of the best books about writing is a short tome called The Elements of Style, but most people know
it by its two authors’ names: Strunk and White. It contains a series of rules, essays, and exhortations
about proper grammar and style, and teaches many great lessons, especially about the importance of
direct and terse language. Nowhere are those lessons more valuable than on the Web. Browsing users
are bombarded with far more articles than they could ever hope to read, and most of those stories are
laden with superlatives and bombastic claims. Not only are we overloaded with information, but we’re
becoming numb to the most shocking stuff. The adjective and the adverb are the main weapons abused
by the spam-headline and tabloid-style blog writers. When we looked at the parts-of-speech content
of stories shared on Facebook, we found that modifiers in headlines tend to bode poorly for the performance of an article.
Readability
Stay away from flowery language. The information you’re presenting should be strong enough to shine
through a simple and direct headline. Of course, there are exceptions: certain niches online, most notably
photography and design, have been successful using adjectives like “stunning” and “amazing,” but
use these with caution. Reading
slightly higher) required reading abilities to understand than tweets that were not retweeted. But when
we used readability metrics to look at stories shared on Facebook, we found a very different situation.
As the complexity and education level required to read a story increased, the number of times it was
shared on Facebook decreased. Once your article is much tougher than grade-school level, you should
expect it to be shared far fewer times than it would have been had it been written at a lower level. Make
your headlines and articles simple, direct, and easy to read.
Social Plug-ins
Facebook offers a number of features, called social plug-ins, that you can add to your site to integrate
your content with Facebook. The three most useful are the Share button, the Like button, and the Activity Feed.
The Share Button
The Share button is the oldest of the three features and the most common. It is a piece of JavaScript
code that you copy and paste (http://developers.facebook.com/docs/share) onto your site to create a
button displaying the number of times that Page has been shared on Facebook. This also allows visitors
to share it themselves with one click. The button can be shown as a link, but we recommend not using
this version. Facebook gives you the option to include the share count on the button or not. Including
the count is the best option, as it not only draws more attention to the button, but also adds a form of
social proof to your content, prominently displaying how many other people liked your work.
Customizing the Share button
When you add the Share button code, Facebook presents you with options to customize it. The Above Button and Inline With Button options for positioning the included counter essentially determine the size and orientation of the button. Selecting to display the count above means that Share will generally be shown as a larger, vertical button, whereas selecting inline makes it much smaller and horizontal. The larger count-above button works best on single content Pages, such as permalink Pages on a blog, while the count-inline style is best on Pages with multiple pieces of content displayed, as on a blog home page. Conveniently, when at least one person has shared your content, the countabove button matches the size and the layout of the popular Twitter buttons, meaning the two can (and should) be displayed together. There is a small issue with the button that causes it to be displayed in a much smaller version when there are no shares yet. If you’re displaying both the Tweet and Share buttons together, they may look a little funny when your content is first published, before anyone has liked it. If you are implementing the Share button in a content management system (like a blog), you’ll probably want to pass certain values to the button dynamically. You do this by inputting values into the JavaScript code that is pasted into your site.
The Like Button
Facebook’s Like button is similar in implementation to the Share button, but adds functionality (http://
developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like). Adding the Like button requires you to copy and
paste JavaScript code. Once the button is on your page, it shows how many people have liked your
content, while also allowing visitors to like it with one click. Unlike Share, this button appears in only a
small, horizontal version.
The Like button takes the social proof aspect of the Share button to an entirely new level: if a user’s
friends like your content before she views your Page, the button can show her the names and images of
those friends.
Customizing the Like button
When you set up your Like button, Facebook offers you two versions: standard and button count. The
button count version resembles the inline Like button in size and layout and may be used to replace it.
The standard version is the most common and recognizable version. Although you have the option to
Show Faces or not, you should choose to show them. Facebook also enables you to change the verb
displayed on the button: you can select either Like or Recommend from the drop-down menu. In most
cases, Like is preferred and the most common, but in certain circumstances (such as a specific product
page), you may want to experiment with showing Recommend.
Finally, Facebook asks you to provide a maximum width for the button as well as a color scheme and a
font. The width should be determined by how much space you have available in your layout, and the font
by the dominant font on your site. We recommend sticking with the default color scheme—light—because
it includes the colors and shades most common to Facebook. As with the Share button, you may want to pass certain values to the Like button dynamically. To do so, simply input values into the JavaScript code that is pasted into your site.
Like or Share?
The Like button includes many of the benefits of the Share button in that it allows your visitors to post
your content to Facebook with a single click, and it shows readers how many people have also liked or
shared your content. There are some trade-offs between the two buttons, though. While the Like button
has the large advantage of showing visitors exactly which of their friends have liked your content, it is
much smaller than the Share button, and therefore, may attract less attention.
The Activity and Recommendations Feeds
The third type of social plug-in Facebook offers you to cross-promote your content are the feeds:
Activity and Recommendations. Both are narrow boxes that display content from your site that a visitor may be specifically interested in. The Recommendations feed contains content suggested by Facebook based on overall activity, while the Activity feed shows your readers the content from your domain that their friends have liked. The Activity plug-in includes an option to display Recommendations, so we advise that you use it to get the benefit of both. When you’re setting up your Activity feed plug-in, Facebook asks several questions related to the design of the feed box, including font, border color, height, and width. As with the Like button, your choices here are dependent on the space available in your site’s design. Stick to the default light color scheme, because it is the most similar to Facebook itself. To install an Activity feed plug-in on your site, copy and paste the JavaScript code provided by Facebook (http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/activity). There is really no reason to change values dynamically.
Summary
When you think of Facebook marketing, you probably think first about interacting with users on Facebook.com itself. The truth is that there is a lot of Facebook activity that occurs on external websites,
so you should spend some time thinking about how to integrate your content that lives outside of Facebook into the social network itself.
We’ve done a lot of research to help you learn how to write for Facebook. It’s most important to write
simply, plainly, and for a mainstream audience. This includes both the topics you choose and the language you use to write about them. Remember, writing for Facebook can be very different than writing
for the social media enthusiasts on Twitter.
To better share your content, Facebook offers a range of social plug-ins that enable you to leverage certain features of Facebook from your site. They’re simple to integrate and provide great social value to
your readers, so take advantage of them.
