Community fun is a good way to engage on Facebook.
Wanda Murren, Managing Editor/Digital Media at The Evening Sun in Hanover, Pa., reports on the success of the post shown above:
I think we’ve broken some sort of world record with our FB post yesterday previewing the Treat’s season opening. OK, maybe not a world record, but it’s almost certainly an ES record. I remember some big reactions, but nothing like this. We were amazed all day long at how the numbers were taking off.
I’d like to thank Arlene for bringing up the big event in conversation, and Marc for immediately suggesting we should post that.
As of right now (and I’ll type fast, because it’s still growing) we’ve had 541 likes, 301 shares, 92 comments, and 30,912 people have seen the post.
To put that in perspective, we generally consider a post pretty successful if 3,500 to 4,000 people see it. So these numbers are off the chart.
Also, we gained about 64 new followers over the past day to hit our current 6,022 (I think we were at 5,958 yesterday morning when I checked. I remember thinking we’d probably hit 6,000 in another week or two.)
I think our biggest takeaway from this is that — thankfully — it’s not only fatals and controversy that get a big reaction. We also had a pretty good response to Tuesday’s post about the pouring rain, specifically asking, What’s going on where you are….. People continued to answer that question all day long.
So, Hanover loves food and weather. And they have plenty to say about it. We’ll certainly keep that in mind.
Thanks to Wanda for sharing that. It underscores some points I’m made here before:
- Photos get better engagement than merely updates.
- Questions prompt conversation and sharing.
- You don’t have to use a link in every post (though this success didn’t drive traffic immediately to the Sun’s website, the engagement will approve the visibility of subsequent posts that do include links).
And the main point, though, is that your Facebook fans enjoy fun. Post news and serious stuff, absolutely. But invite your community to join some fun conversations, too.
Other posts on Facebook engagement:
More strong engagement on remember-when photos
‘Remember when?’ photos have great engagement potential
Correction on AP photos: Newsrooms don’t have rights to post them on Facebook
Jeff Edelstein’s Sandy engagement shows how to use Facebook during a big story
Facebook engagement tips already working for Register Citizen, Middletown Press
Facebook news-feed changes mean newsrooms need new engagement strategies
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