What makes a Facebook Post great? What makes Fans want to click, Like, share or comment on it? It’s part science and part art. And for every Facebook Page, and their respective Fanbase, it’s slightly different. Over the past week I analyzed some of the top Pages on Facebook to see what common characteristics the most successful Facebook posts have. In this slideshare I’ll show you the top 10 characteristics of an amazing Facebook post - and how you can utilize them.

1. 10 Characteristics
of Amazing
Facebook Posts

3. Table of Contents I
1 It’s short
It gives the user ONE thing to do2
3 It has a big image
4 It’s related to your business
It’s seasonally relevant5

4. Table of Contents II
6 It’s geo-targeted
It’s part of a great content schedule7
8 It asks a question
9 It makes Fans feel nostalgic
It makes Fans feel happy10

5. It’s short1

6. 1. It’s short
If your post is a wall of text, your Fans won’t take the
time to read any of it. Cut your messaging down to the
bone - right to the core of the idea. It may take a
paragraph to really explain the benefits, but unless its
short enough, nobody is going to even read it. Check
out this two-word post from Walmart (left).
My rule of thumb is to use Twitter’s 140 character
constraint. Not only does this force you to keep your
post short, but you can then easily make your
Facebook post a Tweet with a simple copy/paste.

7. It gives the user
ONE thing to do
2

8. 2. It gives the user ONE thing to do I
Many businesses make the mistake of including multiple
links or actions to take in a single post. This will force your
Fans to take in multiple ideas at once - and lead them to
not doing anything at all. You want to make it as simple as
possible. As my old hockey coach used to say: Keep it
simple stupid.
There are two main types of calls-to-action for
Facebook Posts:
1. Social CTAs: These include asking your Fans to Like,
share or comment on your post.
Walmart does an amazing job of creating fresh, innovative
Social CTAs. This post actually creates a participatory
mini-game by asking people to “Like” once they’ve solved
the puzzle. This creates engagement within a temporary
community directly around the post.

9. 2. It gives the user ONE thing to do II
2. Link CTAs: This is the basic CTA found all over the
web. Just a simple link to a landing page.
Getting people to click on anything and to leave the
News Feed is tough - but by providing a great
incentive it can be done. You can create this incentive
using one of two things:
1. Monetary Incentives: These include coupons and
contests.
2. Enticing Content: This is harder. The content
needs to be incredibly relevant to the Fan. But it
doesn’t mean it’s impossible! Optimize these posts by
writing enticing hooks.
This one from Lowe’s is perfect: People shopping at
Lowe’s are most likely do-it-yourself homeowners
without much building experience. This post shows
how to solve a common problem that is extremely
annoying:

10. It has a big image3

11. 3. It has a big image
Photo posts on Facebook receive 53% more
likes than the average post. And the bigger the
image, the more it will stand out.
Just like with your post text, the best images are
simple. Try to keep it to a single focal point with a
high-contrasting background. Oreo is famous for
creating these types of images using its own
cookies. Here’s a great one from last year’s “Talk
Like A Pirate Day”:
How big can an image be shown in the News
Feed?
Facebook caps image size at 403 x 403 px within
the Facebook News Feed. Any larger than that
and it will crop the image, only showing its full-
size when clicked on.

12. It’s related to
your business
4

13. 4. It’s related to your business
The best Facebook posts are not only engaging, but
they weave your business into the story you’re telling.
Always keep the conversation focused on your niche.
You don’t want to just promote your business of
course, but the jokes, knowledge and stories you share
need to be related to your business.
Here is a great example from Charmin. It’s focus is on
a rustically decorated restroom, not on their toilet paper
directly. But it gets people thinking about that aspect of
their life and how it can be made better with a custom
“throne”(which of course includes a roll of Charmin).

14. It’s seasonally
relevant
5

15. 5. It’s seasonally relevant
One of the easiest ways to make posts relevant to
their audience is to post about things and feelings
that occur naturally at different times of the year.
Think about the types of activities, food and type of
people that your Fans are thinking of at different
times.
Here are a few examples of seasonally relevant
posts:
1. Family members during the holidays
2. Friends during the summer
3. Piles of leaves in the fall
4. Resolutions at New Years
5. Flowers in the spring
This post from Target jumps on the season switch
from winter to spring - capitalizing on people’s joy in
having snow leave in favor of rain.

16. It’s geo-targeted6

17. 6. It’s geo-targeted I
Facebook now allows for much of the
same targeting on posts as it does for Ads.
This means you can target posts to Fans
based on age, gender, location and
interests. You can do this by clicking the
Target icon on the post creator on your
Facebook Page.
Targeting based on location is one of my
favorites, as it allows you to focus on city-
specific items, which is sufficient enough to
create highly relevant posts. This includes
local sports teams, festivals,
neighbourhoods and schools.

18. 6. It’s geo-targeted II
Post by Intel targeting the Bay Area.
If you have a multilingual audience you can even
target based on language. Walmart utilizes this by
making regular updates in Spanish that are targeted
only at their Spanish-speaking audience.

19. It’s part of a great
content schedule
7

20. 7. It’s part of a great content schedule I
No matter how great your post is, if its not part of a great content schedule, it won’t be successful.
A certain level of engagement needs to be sustained to ensure your posts are seen. This is due to
Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm, which determines how many people see your Page’s posts.
Facebook gives 4 main signals to focus on when optimizing your posts to be seen more:
1. How often your Fans interact with your Page
2. The number of likes, shares and comments a post receives from the world at large and from
user’s friends in particular.
3. How much your Fans have interacted with this type of post from your Page in the past.
4. Whether or not your Fans and other people across Facebook are hiding or reporting a given
post.
As you can see from those signals, the amount of engagement your Fans have had with you in the
past directly impacts their likelihood of even seeing your post in their News Feed.

21. 7. It’s part of a great content schedule II
How often should you post?
An optimal Facebook content schedule includes 3 posts per day - this is the most you can do
without being annoying to your Fans. It maximizes the amount of Fans who see a post from you in
a given day. But remember that quality trumps quantity. As you read above, unless people are
engaging with your posts, Facebook won’t keep showing them every update. So keep them
relevant and engaging.

22. It asks a question8

23. 8. It asks a question I
Questions are what Facebook is built for:
Two-way communication between you and
your Fans.
IMHO there are two preferred types of
questions to ask:
1. Questions that your Fans have, and
want your expert opinion on:
Here is a great post from Mari Smith,
asking people a question that they can
answer in the comments section of the
post.

24. 8. It asks a question I
2. Questions that ask people for their opinion or
about an experience:
People love to talk about themselves - especially on
a Facebook Page they trust and engage with
regularly. Give people the opportunity to give their
opinion, brag or complain about a problem. These
types of personal responses engage both the writer
and community. But be careful to moderate these
comment threads carefully. If the topic is at all
contentious, it’s easy for an argument to occur. So
always be monitoring to mediate.
This post from Home Depot is a great example. It
gives people a forum to vent about one of the most
common problems - household cleanliness.

25. It makes Fans
feel nostalgic
9

26. 9. It makes Fans feel nostalgic
Even if the thing you’re remembering was not the best at the time, like the Lowe’s example below, it’s
fun to reminisce and think about what it was like back in the day. It will give people an opening to
comment about their memories from that time period or how thankful they are now that a certain
fashion has gone out of style.
Here are 3 more ways to create Facebook posts that tap into people’s nostalgia:
1. Ask people how certain activities are different for kids these days than they were when they were
that age (think technological advancements)
2. Ask people what their favorite (TV show, song, book, etc.) was when they were a kid
3. Post a photo of an old/obsolete product and ask people to name what it is

27. It makes Fans
feel happy
10

28. 10. It makes Fans feel happy
If you’ve seen the 2012 film “No”, you know that the
most powerful concept is happiness. The idea of
happiness has the ability to propel people to do
anything - even vote against an oppressive dictator.
Coca Cola embraces this idea throughout its entire
marketing strategy, including its Facebook Page.
Most of its posts are centered around doing some
fun while drinking a Coke.

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