Improving interaction with Oxfam's Facebook page

16. Writing for Facebook: General principles • Have a call to call to action – like, share, comment • Always consider length on mobile. Doesn’t have to be short, but if can be summarised in first sentence then all the better. • Most-shared and most-liked posts tend to either: 1) reflect values of person interacting with them 2) timed to something going on in the outside world / news event 3) containing shocking / surprising info

Editor's Notes

We judge the success of a Facebook post by how much interaction it receives – likes, shares, comments Here’s an example that received a lot of likes
Over time we’ve discovered that posts which match people’s values do well. People share things because it reflects what they stand for in some way. On social media, people present a specific view of themselves – a way in which they would like to be seen by others. That said, it doesn’t always work, like in this example. Arguably the copy / style here is similar to the last example, so why is it that this received substantially less shares and likes?
This is another example about shared values – note the use of ‘we believe’ and ‘we’re determined to ’make it happen
This image macro was saying something new – it contained a stat, a v powerful one, that people weren’t aware of before
A couple of examples from 350.org – they Facebook posts are good so worth following Here the key part of the quote from Kofi is ‘we need a global grassroots movement that tackles climate change’ – again this reflects people’s values back onto themselves, because the reason they’re part of the 350.org FB page is because they’re ALREADY part of a grassroots movement.
Note length of text on mobile – all the more need to keep copy short
Upworthy have done some great stuff recently with getting their audience to share content They’ve grown to more than 5 million facebook fans, after only starting up in April 2012!
Innocent’s FB posts are also interesting. They share a lot of content that isn’t related to what they do, yet is entertaining. I don’t think Oxfam should copy this exactly, but I think it raises an interesting point about our posts – should we always link to Oxfam content only? Or should it be our mission to find and share interesting stuff that fits with our values, much like UpWorthy have done?
The main reason that people are on social media, particularly Facebook, is for entertainment. Here are a few more examples that have a message / meaning, but are still entertaining.
Back to Upworthy’s growth
The way they encourage interaction is through a ‘curiosity gap’ – see their page for some examples
Upworthy’s magic formula for a successful post – the point here is that you never quite know what’s going to take off. It often takes a bit of luck for something to truly go viral.

Improving interaction with Oxfam's Facebook page

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Improving interaction with Oxfam's Facebook page

Editor's Notes