How To Market On Facebook With Microblogs

Originally published on Linkedin on June 2, 2015 By Kyle Reyes.

Is microblogging on Facebook the key to cutting through all of the noise?
It seems as if everything is getting smaller this days.
Don’t believe me?  Look at a carton of ice cream.  Bet you still thought you were getting a half gallon, didn’t ya?
The whole concept of shortening things up created a multi-billion dollar player – Twitter.
So in an age where we seem to have more and more content out there for us to consume, is the answer in microblogs?
According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the average attention span of a human being has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds in 2013.  That, my friends, is shorter than the attention span of a goldfish.
If I still have your attention, let’s go back to the concept of the microblogs.
The goal of blogs – or any content marketing, for that matter – is to increase engagement, yes?  If we’re all in agreement on that, it’s safe to assume we’re all in agreement that the higher level of engagement…the better.
A number of websites have recently started talking about how it seems that simple status updates yield a higher level of engagement on personal pages than photos (but less than videos).  Many are asking whether it makes any sense – after all, photos are highly captivating, right?
Here’s my hypothesis: Facebook gives serious props to video, as it is easily monetized and helps them compete with YouTube.
Facebook then ranks status updates above photos not because it likes them better…but because it helps break up the newsfeed.  And marketers, for the past couple of years, have been preaching the need to put pictures with every single post.  As a result, status updates without pictures or map locators are harder to come by…and Facebook is giving a greater level of attention to those still playing old-school style.
Through a variety of A/B/C testing on our personal pages and business pages over the past several months, we’ve found that we’re definitely onto something.  Setting parameters of same times and days for different types of posts, we noticed that on personal pages (especially) status updates tend to perform exceedingly well, trailing behind video but coming in ahead of photos.
Could we be entirely wrong?  Of course.  But we ran over 100 test sets and found relatively consistent results.
What does this have to do with the concept of microblogs?
It’s simple, really – I’d argue that a status update is simply a very, very short blog – with the sole purpose of creating a high level of engagement.
While creative content teams all across the globe are battling to come up with the most snazzy meme, it sort of makes you wonder – are you overthinking things?
I’d love to know what you think.  Share your experiences in the comments below!
POSTED BY
Kyle Reyes is the President and Creative Director of The Silent Partner Marketing, New England’s #1 Marketing Agency. We’re a boutique marketing firm focused on helping businesses grow in an age of exploding technology. You can find him on Google+, Facebook and Twitter.