NetworkEvangelist.com

Tips for More Effective (and visible) Facebook posts

Posts made between 8 PM and 7 AM receive 20% more user engagement.
On Wednesdays, fan engagement is 8% above average.
Posting one to two times per day produces 40% higher user engagement.
Posting one to four times per week produces 71% higher user engagement.
Posts with 80 characters or less receive 66% higher engagement. Very concise posts – those between one and 40 characters – generate highest engagement.
Ask questions to spark dialogue – “question” Posts generate Comment rates double that of “non-question” Posts.
Fill in the blank Posts receive 9 times more Comments than other Posts.
Offer fans “$ off” and coupons. Posts containing these offer-related keywords receive the highest engagement.
Avoid complicated Wall Posts. Status-only Posts receive 94 % higher than average engagement

Great tips from “Writing Effective Facebook Posts” by @BigSea

A few I liked:

Dedicate time to answering questions from customers, potential customers and people first learning about the brand.
Give their employees a unique voice and the permission to connect to others.
Push back the curtain to give their audience a better understanding of how things work, why they work that way, and what the company believes.
Don’t take social media too seriously, but are too smart to view it as a joke.
Give us “the why” to go along with their social media calls to action.

I usually don’t expect much value from these posts but this is excellent advice

Focus on the fundamentals:

How do we help them talk? - Look for things that make it easier, more fun, or more rewarding to pass your stuff on to a friend
How do we help them tell more people? - Look for the opportunities to multiply the conversation
How do we help the word of mouth last? - Exploring ways to help the word of mouth keep going

Social Mouths shares this excellent post that takes solid theory and applies it to practical and actionable advice