Does posting relevant & branded images on Facebook really matter?
We know that fans engage with the majority of their content via their Facebook newsfeed & a great way to capture their attention in an already busy newsfeed is to optimize your images.
How can this get me results? 
That’s a great question, and one I plan to answer in this week’s “Best Facebook Pages” blog post. This week we are going to be analysing & looking at how Legendary Whitetails have used effective content creation & branding strategies to help increase their page interactions.
We will also break down their key successes — highlighting strategies you can implement today to help achieve similar success on your pages.
What industry they are in?
The Legendary Whitetails page is in the Gifts & Apparel industry focusing on gifts & gear for white-tailed deer hunters & their families.
See related post: Discover How Animals Australia Achieves 80% Engagement
When was the page created?
The Facebook page was created back in March 2009.
How many fans do they have?
At the present time, the Facebook page has a total of 895,905 fans.
How many new fans are they getting daily
The Legendary Whitetails page is getting on average 293.9 fans a day.
How often do they post?
The Legendary Whitetails page posts 3 times a day on average.
% of fans engaged
The Legendary Whitetails page has a total of 53,841 interactions on the page with over 12,000 fans engaged, giving them an engagement rate of 6%.
4 reasons why Legendary Whitetails are seeing results through branding
1) Creating well-branded images
According to a recent study by Social Bakers, which looked at over 30,000 Facebook pages, 75% of brands still get the most engagement from photos. Now it’s important to remember that this does not mean you should suddenly switch to only posting photos. Continue to vary the types of content on your page, ensuring that posts with photos are part of your overall content plan.
Photos still prove to be a great way to grab your fans’ attention & engage them on Facebook ~ Click To Tweet
Here is a great example of how Legendary Whitetails have used eye-catching branded images to increase engagement on their page.
As we can see from the example below, there are a few main factors that have helped the post receive a large amount of shares & likes. Let’s take a look at why this post has achieved the success it has.
2) Clever use of their logo within the image
When sharing your images on Facebook – or any social network, it’s important to brand your images first ~ Click To Tweet
Branding not only helps build brand recognition, it also helps credit your image when being shared. The example below used by Legendary Whitetails shows how they have made clever use of their logo within the image when sharing their desired quote. When placing your logo within an image, the logo does not always have to be the main focus — having a smaller logo in the corner will work just as well.
In addition to the logo, to help build traffic to the site they have also placed their URL within the image. This is a great way for those that enjoy your content to find out more about what your business has to offer. As we can see, the URL is placed at the bottom of the image & not endorsed in a spam-like manner. If fans want to find out more about what the brand does, the URL acts as a great go-to resource.
Lastly, the quote chosen fits the theme of their target audience. As a result, we can see the post has gained over 500 shares. It’s another great example of how researching the right type of content can have great results.
2) Posting timely & fun content
Whether you run your own Facebook page or manage pages for clients, one of the many challenges of running a successful Facebook page is posting the right type of content.
So how do you know what to post?
Well, we talked about how researching the right type of content for your audience can be a great way to increase your page’s engagement.
Being social is more than just engaging your fans. It means showing your brand’s personality ~ Click to Tweet.
One of the many ways you can keep your content organised after researching is to simply create a content calendar that houses all your top picks. When planning your content calendar, another great way to show your brand’s personality is to use humour & show off the fun side of your brand. This isn’t something you want to over-post on the page — however, posting fun themed posts around the holiday seasons, events or even picking a day of the week can be a great way to showcase your brand’s lighter side.
Below shows how Legendary Whitetails have used this concept to create their #FridayFunnies theme. As you can see, not only does the image stand out & show the brand’s lighter side, it has also chosen to base the humour around a current song that has gotten a lot of attention. By creating content that suits their theme & audience, it has allowed them to engage many more fans than they would have by just posting about the artist in question. This, combined with a short catchy status update, helps this post to stand out.
3) Posting high quality images of their products
When deciding on what items to purchase, there are two main factors that help influence our buying decisions. Those two factors are:
* Reviews – be it from friends, family or via the brands official website
* The product image – Does the product look good, do you like the colours & does it appear to have all the features?
When buying a product online rather than in-store, you don’t have the added benefit of looking at the product up close & examining it through touch or even asking the store questions directly. This is exactly why it is important for brands who are selling via social media to make sure they include a source for the user to find out more information on the product & that the image used is of high quality to give the fan the best indication of how the product would appear when purchased.
When showcasing your products on Facebook be sure to include both a URL (tracked) & a high quality image ~ Click To Tweet
Legendary Whitetails have used these two factors when promoting their latest items on their page. As we can see from the post below, they have used a clear, high-resolution image to showcase their product range — which in this case is a pair of shorts. Combined with the high quality image they have also used a short status update with a link to let fans know where they can find out more information & also purchase the product.
Lastly, tracking the links is a great way to keep track of how well your posts are performing & how much traffic your posts have sent back to the site. There are many free tools that help achieve this, including the following, which are two of the most popular:
* Bit.ly
* Google URL Shortener
4) Using the correct tone of voice
Speaking to your audience on Facebook is exactly like having a conversation in real life – you must ensure you use right tone of voice ~ Click To Tweet
What do we mean by tone of voice?
Tone of voice is the manner in which you speak to your intended audience. Just like in person, when talking to different audiences on Facebook you want to ensure you are speaking in a manner that appeals to them.
An example would be a finance business compared to a chocolate manufacturer. In order to successfully reach out to both target audiences, you would change the language used when speaking to each one. One of the main reasons you would do this is because you know that using financial jargon would not apply or appeal to the chocolate manufacturing page at all.
If you manage a page or run your own, it’s important you establish a consistent tone of voice with your audience to help build rapport & to also allow your audience to familiarise themselves with the way in which you deliver content.
The post below shows how Legendary Whitetails use a more relaxed, light-hearted tone of voice to appeal to their fans. A great way to help you decide on the tone of voice to use is to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. This will help you picture what tone of voice you would like to hear from the brand, allowing you to structure your messages accordingly. If you are managing a page or many pages, a great way to ensure everyone posting is in the same boat is to create “Tone of Voice” guidelines for each page. This would be a simple document that helps your admins identify how the brand would respond in different scenarios, allowing you to maintain consistency even with multiple page admins.
How they compare against the “big guys”?
When auditing the performance of a Facebook page, we always find it interesting to compare it head to head against the big brands competing in their space. We selected 3 brands that compete in outdoor and hunting category:
This is how the benchmark looks like (using Agorapulse’s built-in Facebook competitors benchmarking tool):
Legendary Whittails, while not being backed by an existing audience (like Hunting magazine or HuntingLife.com) or having a significant existing client base (like Midway USA or Remington Arms) has been very succesful at attracting a very significant audience (almost 1M fans) and getting incredibly high engagement from that audience (4.7% is among the best scores we’ve seen so far).
If they could maintain a higher post frequency (like Hunting magazine) or improve their content to get more engagement (like HuntingLife.com, sky would be the limit!). They should definitely check the content strategies of the leaders in that space (Hunting Magazine and HuntingLife.com) to get even better results.
What could they do to improve?
The page is doing a great job at engaging their community & branding — however, here are a few tweaks they could make to help give them the edge:
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- Test out different types of content e.g. Video, text-based updates
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- Posts appear to be spaced out (consistency when posting) e.g. daily, twice a day etc.
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- Make use of all 3 featured apps instead of featuring the number of likes
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- With nearly 1 million fans, this would be a great opportunity to utilize email marketing for the brand & incorporate this within their content
What are the key takeaways you can apply to your page?
Now that we’ve gone through & broken down the key ways Legendary Whitetails are seeing results on their page, here are a few key actions you can take today to help optimise your Facebook fanpage for better engagement & Facebook success using branding:
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- Research your Facebook content before sharing
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- Show consistency when posting to Facebook
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- Brand images with your logo & URL where applicable
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- Use high quality images when showcasing your products/services
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- Use the correct tone of voice suitable for your audience
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- Experiment with text post length to see how your audience engages
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- When using URLs in a post be sure to track them to help monitor results
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- Don’t be afraid to showcase your sense of humour
It’s important that you remain consistent with branding your posts on Facebook. If this means sticking to a particular colour theme or using your logo in a certain colour then this is something you want to consider to help build familiarity with your fans & across your other social channels.
