By Emma Fitzpatrick
Did you know that almost half of checking account customers between the ages of 18 and 34 discovered new retail banking options on mobile devices? That’s what Accenture found during research commissioned by Facebook. Specifically, those younger consumers said that the Facebook family of apps was the most popular digital destination for them to learn about retail banking products.Not only is social media a common way for that age group to discover new banking products, but 78 percent agreed that they want to see more content on social media for financial products and services. Specifically, nearly 25 percent want content that makes their lives easier and helps them better understand their finances.
In short, your younger customers are ready to respond to your content on social media—if it’s done right. To relay your message in the best way possible, read on and learn proven tips on how to create high-performing content on Facebook.
What do people want our bank to be talking about on social?
After analyzing more than 777 million Facebook posts, Buffer and BuzzSumo zeroed in on the top 500 most popular posts to share what separated the good from the great content on Facebook.
The most successful Facebook content fell into three buckets: inspirational, funny, or practical. Of those categories, inspirational content generated the most reactions, comments, and shares—which also makes it the content type that leads to the most organic reach. As noted in previous posts, Facebook heavily weights engagement in the company’s News Feed algorithm.
Those content groups also align closely with the most common reactions people give to Facebook posts. Love is the most common reaction, followed by haha, wow, angry, and sad.
What content type (links, images, or videos) currently performs best on Facebook?
In the same Buffer study, more than 81 percent of the top 500 Facebook posts were videos. Only 18 percent of the top posts were images—and links accounted for a scant 0.2 percent of the top 500.
While video represents the most successful content on Facebook, this content type also performs well on average. Video posts get at least 59 percent more engagement than other types of content.
How can I create better videos on Facebook?
If your bank is interested in creating more video for Facebook, you may optimize your efforts by considering these data-driven insights.
After studying more than 9 million video posts from Facebook pages in 25 different categories, social media benchmarking and analytics firm SocialInsider found that the following elements lead to higher engagement.
- Video frequency – The Facebook pages for most brand categories—health, clothing, food and beverage—post between zero and two videos each week. The average across all categories skews higher overall, though—at 2.5 videos per week—as pages for TV channels, broadcasting networks and other media outlets post more than four videos each week.
- Video length – Videos between two and five minutes were best for engaging viewers.
- Video orientation – Videos shot and uploaded vertically have the highest level of engagement, followed by videos shot in landscape, and finally square-formatted videos.
- Live video – Even though people spend three times more time watching Facebook Live videos than pre-recorded videos, only 11 percent of brands have used the format. For pages with fewer than 10,000 fans, live videos have nearly twice the amount of engagement. However, for pages with more than 100,000 fans, the engagement rate on Facebook Live videos is actually lower than pre-recorded videos.
- Video description – Videos with a description containing more 300 characters had higher levels of engagement.
Facebook provides a video best practices checklist that incorporates tips and specs for improving video engagement on its platform.
Emma Fitzpatrick is a San Francisco-based freelance writer and marketer, whose specialties include content marketing, social media marketing, and short, snappy writing. Pick her brain at emma.l.fitzpatrick@gmail.com.
