If you’ve been taught to write strong calls to action and you’ve put that training to good use, good for you! Except, you shouldn’t expect that training to pay off on Facebook. Not if a case study published by Chad Wittman at Moz is any indication.
Wittman concluded that an algorithm change made by Facebook just before Christmas has resulted in 7 new insights. These include:
- Marketers should focus on engagement
- It’s important to understand why fans click the Like button
- Don’t use strong calls to action
- Likewise, avoid memes
- Analyze your outbound links thoroughly
- Post more frequently
- Post content at different times of the day and test your results
Some of this is a given (focus on engagement, for instance), but some of it also strikingly surprising. No calls to action?
According to Wittman’s study, Facebook’s algorithm specifically targets posts where engagement was requested, and those posts are now being shown less often in users’ news feeds. That’s important to know, especially if you share a lot of posts with strong calls to action.
Instead, focus on status updates that don’t directly ask for user engagement. If you do that, you are more likely to see an increase in engagement. Wittmann lays this out logically in his study.
In all social media, it’s important to study reach and engagement and to understand the platform.