Facebook’s strong suit has never been click-throughs. As a result, social media marketers have done everything in their power to boost the presence of links. Shorten the link – done! Post photos and include the link in the status/caption – done! Use a call-to-action in caps, e.g., CLICK HERE – done!

Doing one, two or all three has not yielded the sort of click-throughs that we see organically on Pinterest or Twitter. This has led to an earned click-through approach on platforms like Pinterest and a paid approach on Facebook.

However, the tables may be turning — links are finally getting some Facebook love. Last month, Facebook announced that posts with links are going to be 3x the size they have been in the past. Size matters in the newsfeed world, and this is a major visual upgrade. (Links will be going from 90 pixels by 90 pixels to 154 pixels by 154 pixels.)

The link summary is also getting a boost, as now you’re able to add more copy to the description. So, what does this mean for marketers?

Larger Photo Sizes On The Sites You Link To

You can’t ensure that all sites you link to have high quality images that are at least 154 pixels by 154 pixels or larger, but you can ensure that your owned sites do.

While the most recent update to Facebook’s Edge Rank weighs text posts greater than photos when it comes to reach, it’s still the post with the image that garners the higher engagement. Making sure that all photos on your site are high-res, eye-catching and — most importantly — on topic will help to ideally get your fans interested and garner more click-throughs.

Craft The Link Title & Description As Carefully As You Craft Your Post

Often times, people are in shock and awe when they find out that link titles and descriptions can be changed. And often times, they should be changed.

Every word counts, especially when you’re asking someone to move outside of Facebook. That’s the equivalent of asking someone to go out when they are sitting on the couch in their PJs with a warm cup of tea. You have to give them a really good reason to get up and go.

The metadata that is automatically pulled may not be compelling, catchy or on-point, and with the additional space being added, there’s no excuse not to update the copy. Just be careful. These titles and descriptions should be as thoughtfully written as the post copy that’s associated to the link.

Again, it’s incredibly difficult to get someone to click-through; so, be sure to take your time in crafting the right message.

What Next?

It remains to be seen whether the-bigger-the-better philosophy applies when it comes to click-throughs; but, Facebook’s recent move to draw more attention to links is most certainly a move in the right direction.

Now we can − with  Page Post Targeting. For the first time on the Facebook platform, sans advertisement, we have been given the chance to have a conversation with very distinct groups. This will allow brands to craft posts, utilize shared content and build engagement with key target markets, thus creating a more personal experience and − with any luck − a more social one.

Page Post Targeting

So what do you need to know about Page Post Targeting? Here’s a quick rundown of the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

Previously, Facebook posts have been written either to speak to the masses, to the largest demographic of Likers, or to fans a brand ideally would like to reach. The idea was to be very broadly appealing, so people could hopefully relate and engage with the content being posted. While those in the social media industry have done a good job at mastering the art of being relatable to a lot of different types of people, there are a handful of instances where Page Post Targeting comes in handy.

One such example is the case of cross-promoting social media platforms. It has become customary to use Facebook as a way to introduce other social platforms that your brand/company might be on. For instance, if you wanted to remind your fans on Facebook that they could also find you on Pinterest, it would be worthwhile to target that post toward women. This would allow you to engage with the right audience, and ultimately achieve more click-throughs and higher virality.

Additionally, Page Post Targeting gives you the opportunity to leverage the same piece of content in a myriad of ways.

Something like back-to-school time is a different experience for, let’s say, a college senior, a college freshman and a college student parent. Each demographic has different concerns, needs, and a different must-have item for the new school year. Creating copy that speaks to all three while utilizing that same back-to-school sale takes the content a step further and allows for a more personal experience with each individual.

The Bad

If you’re looking for a big bang of likes, shares and comments, Page Post Targeting is not the way to go. Remember, you are directing your message to a smaller group  (in some cases a much smaller group) of individuals.

This means total engagement will be lower, but virality has the potential to be higher than with standard posts. Now this lack of impressive engagement numbers shouldn’t be viewed as all bad. Remember that not every post will be appropriate for targeting, but the ones that are have a greater chance of making it into the newsfeeds of those folks you want to each. And, if done correctly, they will get them to take notice.

Page Post Targeting also requires an extra step. It’s important to note that regardless of who the post is targeted to, the message will still appear on the Facebook Timeline. Unlike geotargeting options, Page Post Targeting only affects newsfeeds and will not restrict visibility on the Page Timeline. A quick fix to avoid multiple messages is to showcase the most general one and hide the others.

The Ugly

Since the feature just rolled out in early August, targeting posts is not yet a seamless experience. Be prepared for the occasional hiccup. But don’t let it deter you from experimenting with this new feature. The key here is just to be a bit more vigilant and patient.

It’s important to remember that, in most cases, there’s no one approach that’s right for everyone – not with Facebook posts or Facebook features.

So, if you’re a brand/company that has one distinct target market, and you have built a Facebook fan base that stays true to that market, then Page Post Targeting may not be the best option. But for those that have multiple markets on and off Facebook, and are interested in targeting campaigns and experimenting with social media marketing – this update is for you!

Now “no one” may be a bit extreme, but if only 3% to 6% of your posts are reaching your Facebook community, that sound is just not loud enough.

It’s been suggested that the recent addition of this data is meant to illustrate how many people brands are not reaching, thus prompting marketers to consider Facebook’s Reach Generator.

The Reach Generator, which sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, guarantees that you’ll reach 75% of your fans each month and an estimated 50% of your fans each week.

Although I believe that the investment in Facebook advertising is a worthwhile one, I also believe that it’s vital to put your best post forward to boost your reach organically.

There’s no reason not to follow best practices before jumping into paid media. After all, you should be doing all you can to organically improve your reach and penetration into your community’s newsfeeds before leveraging paid media.

Here are a few tips and tricks to keep front-of-mind to grow your content from a whisper that only a few people can hear, to a dialogue that many people participate in.

Variety

Social Media is a marketing channel that mimics real life, and while there is comfort in consistency, no one wants the same dinner each night or the same song to listen to over and over again.

I can guarantee that even your favorite meal or song will get old after a while. Your community wants to see the best your brand has to offer, and that means variety. An on-brand inspirational quote one day, a fill in the blank the next, and a promo on another all work together to keep your community engaged and responsive.

Remember no one watches their favorite television show because it’s the same episode each time. The story line moves and evolves — so should your social media posts. The more people liking, sharing and commenting on your content the more your posts will show up in their newsfeed, and in turn, multiply your reach.

Simplicity

Is everything you want to say in the first 90 characters of your post? No? Time to make it simpler! People wander off if your message is too long, too complicated, or just too much.

In order to keep the community participating, you need to offer straightforward calls-to-action such as a request to click like, share or comment. Additionally, while it’s great to ask questions, remember to keep it simple. Questions that prompt quick and easy one word answers are always more engaging than those that require a lot of energy to think about.

While 7 hours and 9 minutes each month on average are spent on Facebook, remember as a brand you’re fighting for that newsfeed attention. The shorter, sweeter and more to the point your post is, the greater the chance that a community member will read it and engage with the content.

Photography

Need to add a bit of color, context or creativity to your content? Don’t rely on words — try pictures. It’s clear Facebook is investing in photography, and you should be too.  Time and time again we see pictures doing incredibly well when it comes to shares and likes. A visual is sometimes all you need to engage your audience.

Like anything else, don’t oversaturate your community with photos (see Variety above), but including a compelling picture more regularly will boost both engagement and reach.

It’s safe to bet that Facebook has evolved into the hub of your social media marketing, and the announcement of Timeline for Pages may make it even more central. It is the place where your content, stories, and communication live as well as thrive. But chances are good that your company may also have a Twitter account, a YouTube account, and now you may be exploring Pinterest, Spotify, Instagram, Tumblr, Google+, and the list goes on. So what can you do to make sure these channels are connected and, more importantly, have some sort of relationship?

First the disclaimer: not all channels will integrate seamlessly nor does it make sense for all channels to play well in the sandbox together. However, it’s important to explore the possible connections and opportunities.

Pinterest

These days you can’t go far without hearing about Pinterest. Mainstream media outlets are writing about it, and as the fastest growing site ever, the chances are good that you’re thinking about how to use it to market to consumers. For those that have begun to utilize the power of the “pin” it’s important to consider how to leverage that on Facebook.

The simple act of cross promoting is always a great first step. Create a well-crafted status with a link to your Pinterest account and let your Facebook fans know where to find you. Looking to take that one step further? With Facebook Timeline you are given the option to pin (not to be confused with Pinterest’s act of pinning) the status to the top of the Page. So regardless of what other content you post, that link to Pinterest will always remain front and center until another piece of content is pinned to the top of your Facebook Page.

Sadly, the seamless integration a user gets between Pinterest and their Facebook Timeline isn’t offered in Pages. Additionally, what you pin on Pinterest won’t show up in the News Feed or on your Page’s Timeline unless you purposefully put it there. Since Pinterest centers around visuals and rich imagery, a good workaround is to create an album on Facebook that corresponds to your Pinterest, and update it consistently — offering a “best of Pinterest”. This not only presents a great visual but also cross-promotes and adds content.

Instagram

What Pinterest lacks in Page integration Instagram picks up. Instagram is a photo sharing application that allows users to take a photo, apply a digital filter, then share it to a variety of social networking platforms, including Instagram’s own stream. As it’s currently only available on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, it becomes even more important to connect the photos you take via Instagram with your Facebook Page, to allow for additional engagement. Instagram’s integration with Facebook gives you the option to push your photos directly to the Page’s wall. Once you take the photo and craft copy as a Facebook Admin, you have the ability to post it to your Page’s wall. Given Facebook’s push to emphasize stories and content over tabs, as evidenced by Timeline, Instagram is a great way to incorporate content in a visually appealing way.

Want to give the photo a spotlight? In Timeline you can star the story to make it wider — having the entire picture show on screen.

Tumblr

Tumblr is a great alternative to a traditional blog and has seen quite a following in the fashion/retail and media industry.  Similarly to Pinterest, there is no simple way to connect your Tumblr with your Facebook Page the way a user can. However, if you can’t bring the social platform to Facebook you bring Facebook to the platform! Ann Taylor is an example of a company doing a great job of integrating Facebook and Tumblr.

Directly on the top left of their Tumblr there’s a call to action to join them on Facebook. Scroll down a bit more and you’ll notice a widget on the right hand side with another call-to-action to “Like” their Page and a showcase of their latest status updates.

As mentioned above, there’s always the ability to cross promote. Have a great entry on Tumblr that you want to share it on Facebook? Share away! Just be sure to avoid using Facebook as an RSS feed. Use the hub of your social networks to highlight the others — not as a place to dump everything and anything.

Everything Else

With Facebook and the industry at large evolving at breakneck speed, it becomes even more critical to step back and evaluate your social media platform strategy. At the end of the day a consumer, fan, prospect wants a clean, simple, fun and engaging experience, and as such, you will need to assess how each of these platforms link up — even at the very basic level.

In January, Facebook rolled out Sponsored Stories in users’ News Feeds and called them Featured Stories. Now marketers can promote user activity, including posts from their page, a user’s friend liking a page or post, and a user’s friend checking into a place, playing a game or using an app.  Users only see Featured Stories in their News Feed if they are already connected to the page or through their friends’ activity. In other words, individuals will not see posts that wouldn’t pop up organically.

Not only does this mean a possible foray into mobile advertising (remember the Ticker and Sponsored Stories/Ad column, which have been the current ad locations, haven’t been included in the Facebook mobile webpage or app) but it also means that Facebook is putting a stake in the ground by emphasizing content and their Open Graph over traditional Facebook advertising. So what does this mean for marketers? It means the time has come for Facebook advertising to (gulp!) take the plunge and commit to Facebook content.

The Secret: Loop In Your Social Media Team

When was the last time you ran a Facebook ad or Sponsored Story and tapped into the knowledge of your community manager(s) or the individuals overseeing, monitoring, creating content and building the strategy for your social media platforms?

Your community manager, social media director, and/or social media strategist is sitting on a wealth of knowledge about your consumers, customers and fans. Not only are they closely tied to the data, metrics and analytics, but they are also the daily touch points for your fans. Inviting them to share that knowledge will shed an incredible amount of insight onto who your fans are, what content they like to engage with, and what’s important to them.

They Know Your Top Audience And Your Best Content

Knowing your audience is the cornerstone to any great advertising campaign. Delving deep into the numbers, the research, the hard data and heavy statistics offers a fantastic amount of information to build a campaign. However in social media, particularly Facebook, you can take this a step further from knowing your audience through data to knowing your audience through interaction. Engaging your day-to-day social media team will allow you to know who’s behind the demographic data — names, faces, relationships, super users and your biggest advocates — thus identifying what content will speak best to your audience and their connections.

The success of integrating Facebook content with advertising lies in the fact that it complements how users are already interacting with Facebook — to keep up-to-date on individuals and brands in their network, not to interact with ad copy. A test done by TBG Digital showed that Facebook’s Sponsored Stories ad units received a 46 percent higher click-through rate, a 20 percent lower cost-per-click, and an 18 percent lower cost-per-fan than Facebook’s standard ad units.

Additionally, Facebook has not been one to lay low when it comes to marrying content with advertising. Aside from effectively bringing Sponsored Stories into the Ticker (without a major backlash) and now integrating these ads into the News Feed, Mark Zuckerberg has stated in “The Facebook Effect” that “The basic idea is that ads should be content. They need to be essentially just organic information that people are producing on the site.”

As Facebook continues to stress Sponsored Stories, Featured Stories and what we can only assume will be additional advertising features that center on social content, it becomes essential to tap into your Social Media Team. Their dedicated focus on content will heighten engagement, traffic, and ROI from your advertising. When it comes to understanding what resonates with your audience look no further than to those who are optimizing your social media content, strategy and editorial calendar day in and day out. By taking a more holistic approach you will be able to garner valuable information that can and should be leveraged in any Facebook media campaign.