4 Lessons From the Biggest Brands on Facebook

By: Drew Neisser, Social Media Explorer

February 14, 2017

Even with the plethora of competing social media platforms available, Facebook is still a great channel for brands seeking extensive reach and engagement. However, with Facebook’s constant algorithm changes, tightening rules and ever-evolving features, brands may have a tough time figuring it out.

It can’t hurt to learn from the best, right? We imagine that’s what the team behind Quintly, a professional social media analytics platform, was thinking when they analyzed the habits of the 30 biggest companies on Facebook. The study revealed interesting trends about content, fans and engagement on the Facebook pages of major brands like WhatsApp, Starbucks and Nike.

After parsing through the results ourselves, here are some major takeaways to help other brands make the most of their Facebook presence.

Use Video

The fact is that Facebook’s algorithm prefers video. The platform gives preferential treatment to videos by giving them twice the reach of photo posts. Facebook Live videos are also boosted through push notifications and higher placement in newsfeeds. The most successful brands on Facebook definitely know this—Quintly found that these companies put up significantly more video posts than photo posts. Start incorporating video into your social media marketing strategy if you haven’t already. If you need some inspiration, click here to watch some of the best Facebook 360 brand videos.

There Is Still Room to Grow

It’s no secret the social media landscape is pretty tumultuous these days, but Facebook seems to be doing just fine. In fact, the most popular Facebook company profiles are getting even more popular. The average brand page gained about 344,000 new fans in the first half of 2016. This trend suggests that Facebook hasn’t reached its saturation point and is still a thriving social platform. As your marketing team tests out different social media channels, continue to maintain a strong brand presence on Facebook while it’s still growing.

Make Sure Your Social Team Can Handle It

When brands were hit with a sudden surge in fan engagement in April 2016, their social media teams were definitely not prepared. Quintly found that during this time, most customer questions went unanswered. When social support did respond, it took them much longer than usual. This is very concerning when you consider that more and more customers expect support from a brands’ social accounts. To maintain customer satisfaction, your social support team should be ready to handle unusual jumps in inquiries. Study your own brand’s user posting patterns so you know what to expect in the future, and consider integrating automated customer support to handle basic questions.

Looking for a deep dive into all things social? Check out the full program and speaker roster for The Social Shake-Up, which will be held May 22-24, 2017 in Atlanta. Brand communicators from Coca-Cola, Dunkin’ Donuts, the Atlanta Hawks, Arby’s and many more will speak on a breadth of topics from content marketing to measurement to Snapchat strategy.

There Is No Right Amount to Post

Finally we come to the great social media marketing debate: How often should you post? You might be surprised to learn the top brands have extremely diverse posting habits on Facebook. On one end of the spectrum, WhatsApp rarely posts, while on the other end, MTV posts about 67.41 times a day. Don’t let that last number scare you. The average number of daily posts across the biggest brands is much more reasonable at 1.2. These brands also gradually decreased their posting frequency over the course of the year. These findings suggest there isn’t a magical number of posts that will bring your brand Facebook success. Experiment to see what is possible and what works for your brand page and learn from your results.

Drew Neisser is the publisher of Social Media Explorer and founder/CEO of New York City-based agency Renegade. For more insightful content, check out the Top 10 Social Media blog socialmediaexplorer.com and follow us on Twitter @smxplorer.