Let me begin by saying that I am almost completely ignorant about social network marketing (I believe that’s the term). I know my way around PPC, SEO, squeeze pages and other forms of marketing but the social type has always alluded me. Recently, I decided to run a test on a small niche specific Facebook page. At the time of this post it had a little over 3,000 ‘likes’.
Oh yea: it’s not difficult to get thousands of ‘likes’. Go to YouTube and search for a video to show you how. I’m sure you can find three or four decent tutorials. I might even create a case study about it in the future. For now, lets stick with the test I ran. Check out this video:
Facebook Marketing: The simple, the clever and the shocking!
A caveat here, my finds are just that; MINE. Your niche audience on your page might respond differently than mine. I urge you to always test and see what results you’ll come up with. Here is how I went about it:
- First thing I did was to find out when people on Facebook shared the most. After reading several reputable articles on the subject I reached the conclusion that people are most active on Facebook on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at around 3 pm.
- Second, I decided to post memes since those seem to go viral the most.
- Third, I selected three different types of niche related memes. A simple one that just had the niche name in the image. A clever one that made the target audience think and perhaps chuckle. And a shocking one that commands attention but might ruffle a few feathers.
I selected the three memes above and I scheduled them to post automatically on the days and times specified.
I wanted to see which meme would get the most shares, likes, comments and post reach.
What Happened?
Well, I figured that the shocking one would get the most shares and likes because of the content’s nature. I was wrong! Here are my findings:
- The Simple meme did terribly with only one ‘like’ and a post reach of 260. There were no comments or shares.
- The Clever meme did very well with 113 ‘likes’ and a post reach of 1,594. It also got two comments but zero shares.
- The Shocking meme did okay with a modest 16 ‘likes’ and a post reach of 503. It also received three comments and one share.
Surprisingly, the clever one beat out the other memes by a lot! “The clever meme wins!” Well, not so fast. I’m starting to think that it wasn’t so much the meme but the time that it went up. I’m staring to think that the magic hour on Facebook is on Wednesday and WEDNESDAY ALONE at 3 pm.
Of course I’m going to test that idea and update this post with more results.
Side Note: I went all out shocking with the baby shower cake image. As you can see it commands all types of attention. The funny thing is, I didn’t lose any page ‘likes’. I thought for sure I’d lose some. Also, nobody posted any pissed off comments. I don’t know how I feel about that. All I can tell you is, don’t be afraid to push the envelope from time to time. Like they say, you don’t know until you try.
The Viral Factor – Hunting The Cool
Of course we want as much control over our marketing efforts as possible and to a large extent we can influence the outcome. Our job is to understand past trends, proven strategies and to provide quality content.
We test to see what converts best and we let go of poor performers then we test again against our best performers. However, there is that X factor that we have no control over. You know, that ‘thing’ that can shoot off like a rocket and captivate the masses, that ‘cool thing’.
I urge you to focus on what you have control over; the what, when and where. Test those factors and let the data tell you what’s cool and what converts best.
I have to remind myself of the same thing because I also let emotions cloud my judgement when results don’t go my way.
Little Unknown Take- a-Ways
I also got other little nuggets of useful information that I want to share with you. Along with the memes, I also scheduled other pieces of content to go live minutes after the memes. Here is what I learned.
- Facebook Videos – Not videos that you uploaded on YouTube then post on Facebook. I’m talking about videos that you uploaded and posted on Facebook. These videos had a huge post reach compared to images and articles from outside the network. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much user interaction in the way of comments, shares and ‘likes’. The important point is, Facebook likes there content in-house!
- Brand – In the future, I’m going to put my domain in the meme for branding purposes.
- Host The Meme – Even though the meme is outside Facebook and on your site. It doesn’t matter because it’s all about how many times your users ‘like’ and share your content/meme. Just remember to schedule your content to go live at the time specified – Wednesday at 3 pm.
These are just the little things I learned when testing for viral content.
Updates Coming…
Again, I’m new at this viral marketing stuff. There is still more testing to do. I still have a few more weeks of scheduled posts. I’m going to alternate simple, clever and shocking memes on Wednesdays at 3 pm to see if that’s the reason why I got so many ‘likes’ and such a large post reach. Perhaps it’s not that specific meme and it’s more about that magic hour.
If you have any ideas and tests you’d like me to try then please let me know in the comments section below or you can contact me here.
Don’t forget to share this content if you found it useful or informative! I’ll be updating soon, thanks and have a good one!