With the aftershock of Facebook’s now infamous user study still being felt, the social media gatekeeper is showing no signs of losing relevancy for the public, or the steadfast PR pro. And if one thing can be extracted from the aforementioned debacle, it’s this: It’s all about knowing your audience.
As editor-in-chief of Intel’s Digital Newsroom, Jennifer Lashua makes it her business to know all she can about her brand's audience on Facebook and on other social platforms. Lashua analyzes Intel Corp.'s global audience on social media and the brand-journalism site iQ in an effort to constantly create engaging content.
These efforts pay off: Intel's Facebook page generated almost 400,000 unique engagements in the seven days preceding this article, and has accumulated 25.4 million likes overall.
Lashua, who will be sharing takeaways from her experiences with brand storytelling on Facebook at PR News’ Social Media 20/20 Summit in San Francisco on Aug. 12, offers a few thoughts on keeping your audience at the forefront of your Facebook strategy and on the value of paid amplification on Facebook.
Brands should think less about the message they want to communicate and more about the mindset of the audience that will being consuming it. Ask yourself:
—Where are they when they're seeing the branded content?
—What else is likely to be on their feeds at the same time?
—How can you make your brand's content stand out, yet also be contextual and relevant to the person viewing it?
Post on Facebook as often as your audience responds to it to avoid bombarding your fans. Keep in mind the following:
—Given that unpaid reach on Facebook is now down to 1% or less, you’re very unlikely to overwhelm your fans with your brand’s content.
—If your audience is global, feel free to to post the same thing once at 3 p.m. and again at 3 a.m., but take into account that the vast majority of your audience will see neither post unless you're promoting it.
—Another approach is to only post when you have a media budget to amplify the message. Creating great content is costly. You may want to consider reserving your content creation budgets only for posts that will be amplified via paid advertising.
Join PR News for the Social Media 20/20 Summit on Aug. 12, in San Francisco.
Follow Jen: @runningjen, or Intel: @Intel