The Anatomy of a Great Social Post

With the importance of social media in connecting with your audience, how do you get the most out of your social posts? As a team that loves using data, we're here to bring you some of the best of the data around this topic.

Twitter

Let's start with what the data says about tweets. You're working with 140 characters, so make all of them work for you. Based on research from Twitter, we know brands can make an impact. 60% of users have made a purchase from an SMB based on something they saw on Twitter, with 86% planning to purchase in the future. So how do you get seen? Let's start with the content. Studies show that you want more active verbiage, along with superlatives. In other words, use your verbs. Most importantly, don't be shy with inclusive terms, like "we" or "you." Below is a list of the words most likely to be in the more viral and shareable tweets.

If you're wanting to increase the number of your tweets that get retweeted, you want to aim for 120 characters in your tweets. Tweets between 100-115 characters are 34% more likely to be retweeted, with a significant drop-off once you hit 120 characters.

Going beyond just length, you want to include hashtags. Tweets with one or more hashtags are 55% more likely to be retweeted (but you should probably stick to just one hashtag.) While it makes sense that tweets with images are more likely to be retweeted, what may surprise you is the source matters. Tweets with images natively uploaded to Twitter are nearly twice as likely to be retweeted, while using Facebook or Instagram as your image source saw a decrease in retweets. What about timing? Twitter engagement for B2C brands is 17% higher on Saturday and Sunday compared to weekdays, while B2B brands should focus on weekdays, seeing 14% more engagement than weekends. Retweets are the highest around 5pm EST, but if you're looking at CTR, noon and 6pm EST are your best bets.

Facebook

Moving onto Facebook, data can maximise how much your posts are seen. Again, length matters. With length, it seems you want to go either short or long. If your end game is increasing shares, go for very long posts. Time of day also factors in. Posts around 6pm EST tend to gain the most shares, with 8pm EST being peak posting time for optimal likes. Unsurprisingly, photos still reign in the medium category, followed by video.

Our behaviour on Facebook has been found to be linked to certain emotions. So, you want your content to ring true to one of those. The main reasons people like a brand on the platform is to support it, get a coupon or discount, receive updates and participate in contests. Knowing that should help you tailor your content. But going beyond that -- we know why people share brand content.

Now, that we have the data, let's use it to create better content. And don't forget we're here if you want to monitor it on a regular basis and get better insights.

Nicky Yates Published on September 22, 2015 8:22 pm