If you’re looking for some helpful hints on how to better engage the visitors at your website, who better to consult than one of the most interactive websites on the planet — Facebook.
Sure, it’s great to get traffic to your website. But it’s kind of a waste of time, money and effort if visitors aren’t compelled to take any action when they arrive at your site.
This week Facebook released a report regarding the various elements it has identified that promote user interaction online. Here are the highlights:
- Be assertive. Ask your visitor a question or provide them a call to action.
Facebook’s findings showed that only 10% of the posts they monitored contained a question. Amazingly, however, the posts that did ask a question got twice as many comments from readers. - People like pictures.
Facebook reports that the number of “likes” you’ll receive as well as comments will increase by 50% if you include a picture with your post. - Timing is definitely a factor.
The day of the week as well as the time of day your article is posted affects audience interaction. Posts that appeared on Thurs, Fri, Sat and Sun had the most reader engagement (Sunday was the highest). Referral clicks (i.e. readers clicking links in your post) were 85% higher on Saturday than the average post. Facebook also noticed that readers were more active in the early morning (7-8am), late in the workday (4-5pm) and late at night (moderate spikes at midnight and 2am).
Obviously Facebook knows a thing or two about online interaction with visitors at their site, and they have a huge amount of data to back up their conclusions.
So don’t reinvent the wheel. Take advantage of their findings and put them to use on your site right away to improve the interaction with the visitors.
If you’d like more detailed info about Facebook’s findings, here’s the link:
Study: How People Are Engaging Journalists on Facebook & Best Practices
