Last September, Facebook debuted the ‘Subscribe‘ feature as a way for journalists to allow people to subscribe to their public updates on Facebook. Yesterday Facebook released some data to show how well the new program is working for writers and other media figures.
What’s that’s got to do with you? A lot actually. The takeaways from the study apply to ALL marketers and brands on Facebook, even ones not using the Subscribe feature.
Here’s what boosts engagement, according to Facebook’s own data:
- Ask questions. In an earlier study, Facebook found that posts that sought a response received 64 percent more engagement (comments, likes, and shares).
- Share interesting links—and be sure to add your $0.02. When reporters include analysis with the links, those links receive 20 percent more referral clicks on average.
- Issue a call to action. Posts with a call to action (e.g. “read my link,” “check out my blog post”) receive 37 percent more engagement than an average post.
- Be funny. Humor in posts can yield a 1.5x increase in likes and almost 5x increase in shares.
- Show, don’t tell. Posts with photos receive 50 percent more likes than posts without photos.
- Highlight fans. Facebook reports that reader shout-outs can increase in feedback by as much as 400 percent.
Read more: How Journalists Are Using Facebook Subscribe | Facebook.com
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Here are the latest articles we’ve saved to our Instapaper account:
- How to Become an Effective CEO: Chief Emotions Officer | FourHourWorkweek.com
- In Tech, Starting Up by Failing | NYTimes.com
- Successful Sales Management: Trust Me, I’m a Salesman | Steve Reeves
- Why Brands Like Puma and GE Are Flocking to Instagram | AdAge.com
- How to Write a Thank-You Note That Matters | Inc.com
- A Word to the Resourceful | PaulGraham.com
- 97 Ideas for Building a Valuable Platform | ChrisBrogan.com
- Open Rate Madnezz | BenSettle.com
- Progress Killer #3: Don’t Try to Go it Alone | Copyblogger.com
- A 10-Step Diagnostic for Your Small Business | NYTimes.com
Don’t use Instapaper yet? Get it here.
According to Copyblogger, it’s good manners.
Look at the people whose businesses do well over the long run, and you’ll find people who are good at getting along with other people.
They might be opinionated, brash, or outspoken. (They might also be quiet, reserved, and introverted.) But they know how to make connections, and they know how to take care of their friends.
So true. Paul Graham made a similar point last week.
See also: How to Write a Thank-You Note That Matters | Inc.com
A couple of weeks ago, we blogged about how to create killer landing pages that convert visitors into new customers. We listed some tried-and-true elements that seasoned copywriters have used for decades (in sales letters and then later in landing pages) to drive engagement and boost sales. One of them was to use “liberal amounts of text formatting, esp. bold, italics and ALL CAPS.”
We’ll say it again: use liberal amounts of text formatting, esp. bold, italics and ALL CAPS.
Maybe you’re skeptical that something as simple as text formatting can make you more persuasive. Well, don’t take it from us. Take it from Science. In 1969, the psychologist Robert Zajonc published an article summarizing his experiments in how people react to the presentation of words. After showing his subjects an assortment of made-up words—kardirga, saricik, biwonjni, for example—Zajonc found that people attribute positive connotations to words that are repeated more frequently and set in boldfaced type. Zajonc dubbed this phenomenon the mere exposure effect.
Zajonc’s research has seen renewed popularity recently with the publication of Daniel Kahneman’s new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. (Nobel-winner Kahneman was one of the first economists to look at economic phenomena through the lens of human psychology, creating the field known as behavioral economics.) Here’s an excerpt from Slate.com’s review of Kahneman’s new book:
Psychologists have devised other ways to make a message more persuasive. “You should first maximize legibility,” says Daniel Kahneman, who describes the Zajonc experiment in Thinking, Fast and Slow, a compendium of his thought and work. Faced with two false statements, side-by-side, he explains, readers are more likely to believe the one that’s typed out in boldface. More advice: “Do not use complex language where simpler language will do,” and “in addition to making your message simple, try to make it memorable.” These factors combine to produce a feeling of “cognitive ease” that lulls our vigilant, more rational selves into a stupor. It’s an old story, and one that’s been told many times before. It even has a name: Psychologists call it the illusion of truth.
Faced with two false statements, side-by-side, readers are more likely to believe the one that’s typed out in boldface. (See what I did there? I used repetition as a rhetorical device.)
Now look, I’m not suggesting that you pack your landing pages or whatever with false statements and baseless hyperbole. That would unethical. But I am suggesting that you use text formatting to reinforce your messaging and bolster your argument. That would be smart.
Read more: The Effect Effect | Slate.com
Mike Lacher recounts an epic tale ‘in which I fix my girlfriend’s grandparents’ wifi and am hailed as a conquering hero.’
Lo, in the twilight days of the second year of the second decade of the third millennium did a great darkness descend over the wireless internet connectivity of the people of 276 Ferndale Street in the North-Central lands of Iowa. For many years, the gentlefolk of these lands basked in a wireless network overflowing with speed and ample internet, flowing like a river into their Compaq Presario. Many happy days did the people spend checking Hotmail and reading USAToday.com.
But then one gray morning did Internet Explorer 6 no longer load The Google. Refresh was clicked, again and again, but still did Internet Explorer 6 not load The Google.
Continue reading at McSweeneys.net…
Paul Graham, founder of the startup boot camp Y Combinator, has noticed a pattern among the most successful entrepreneurs he’s worked with—they’re all resourceful and easy to talk to; the unsuccessful ones, in his experience, require constant hand-holding and are hard to talk to.
In much the same way that all you have to do is give the right sort of founder a one line intro to a VC, and he’ll chase down the money. That’s the connection. Understanding all the implications—even the inconvenient implications—of what someone tells you is a subset of resourcefulness. It’s conversational resourcefulness.
Like real world resourcefulness, conversational resourcefulness often means doing things you don’t want to. Chasing down all the implications of what’s said to you can sometimes lead to uncomfortable conclusions. The best word to describe the failure to do so is probably “denial,” though that seems a bit too narrow. A better way to describe the situation would be to say that the unsuccessful founders had the sort of conservatism that comes from weakness. They traversed idea space as gingerly as a very old person traverses the physical world.
