Advertising legend Howard Gossage once said, “Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.”
When we think about a lot of modern-day Facebook content, it’s pretty ad-laden. But just like with any medium, there are those who break through the noise every day.
So what makes a good Facebook post?
Why do some brands’ content seem to have more success and take off more than others?
With recent changes to Facebook’s algorithms it takes more than randomly throwing up cat photos to get a rise out of your network. Though, never underestimate a good cat photo.
Social Fresh uses Expion to monitor the most engaging posts from the past week on Facebook. Out of all the big brands we monitor, we call out at least three Fresh Facebook Posts to feature here.
1. Bud Light
Bud Light is the perfect example of being funny on Facebook. In this post you can see they have created an image of a tree full of beer to have some fun with their fans. This is absolutely impossible, but incredibly funny and sharable at the same time.
Looking closer, they’re keeping it simple with one line “You’ll never believe what we found” leaving it up to the reader to appreciate the absurdity in the image. Language is no obstacle here, as the photo speaks for itself.
2. Food and Wine Magazine
Food and Wine Magazine makes use of a photo and a link to drive people to their contest microsite to enter. The vertical-oriented pic gives solid space in the timeline and they have chose to keep the label facing towards the reader.
This is unique because looking at the comments attached to the shares, people aren’t just sharing simply because there is a contest, they’re sharing because they like the glasses, the brand of wine (Elsa Bianchi), or the arrangement of the picture.
The magazine is constantly showcasing fine wine from around the globe in their posts, and wine enthusiasts regularly share the images with friends. Including a photo with contest links in the caption is a smart way to gain more reach from that one post, instead of forcing a photo detailing every last bit of the contest.
3. Juicy Juice
Moms usually buy juice, not kids. So for the childhood brand of Juicy Juice, they have to figure out a way to be valuable to the social moms who go buy their products. When you represent childhood development, people will see through your BS pretty quickly, so Juicy Juice has stuck to creating inspiring moments on Facebook between moms everywhere
This post has no quote, no tag, just a custom-designed image of a notepad with the Benjamin Franklin quote “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
It invites sharing because fans can simple share a photo with a large quote, and even though Juicy Juice was smart to brand their graphic, it isn’t overbearing.
Inspirational quotes are very popular, and as you see in the comments choosing a historical quote brings people of all backgrounds together to talk about the context in which they themselves heard that same quote. That nostalgic feeling is rather powerful on a network based on individual emotion and expression like Facebook.
Bonus! Hot 104.5
This week I had to include a bonus photo, because this took off.
Hot 104.5 is an FM radio station in Knoxville, TN. With just under 25,000 likes they post a healthy dose of wild off-beat photos, news and more. They shared this post about at around Noon EST, and by 5pm when I saw it, it had accumulated more than 1,400 shares, 2,000 comments, and 160,000 likes!
This simple meme-style graphic is pure nostalgic, showcasing the epic trio of Chance, Shadow and Sassy from Disney’s cult hit Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, and asking fans to hit Like if they remember that amazing trio. Once again like with Juicy Juice they didn’t include any caption, just let the photo speak for itself. People share to their walls hoping their network will remember the movie as well, and the snowball takes off.
Facebook is undergoing a visual revolution and while photos can be insanely viral and benefit your page in terms of reach and awareness, you need to experiment with different images, styles and copy to find which reach your audience the best way.
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Data provided by Expion, a social software company. Expion provides scalable enterprise-grade software to listen, content plan, publish, moderate, analyze, govern and share content on Facebook and other social channels across thousands of users.