Buddy Media, a company that provides a "social media platform" for Facebook marketing, recently released a free white paper titled Strategies for Effective Facebook Wall Posts: A Statistical Review. The report is based on Facebook posts made over a two week period by 200 users of the Buddy Media Platform described as the "world's largest brands" in industries including entertainment, media, retail and fashion. See also their client list.

Lessons For Music Marketers:

Though this report clearly is shared to attract attention to their services, the sharing of such data in this form is exceptionally useful for music marketers who want to move beyond hunches and what's worked so far. This report focuses on engagement rates based on considering "fan base size" in relationship to the number of comments and the number of "likes".

Some of the findings with an emphasis on industries most relevant to music marketers:

• Shorter posts increased engagement. 27% higher engagement was seen for posts between 1 and 80 characters.
• Full-length URLs trumped shortened URLs. Engagement was 3 times higher for posts using full-length URLs.
• Posts outside of regular business hours, identified as 10 am to 4 pm EST in this study, saw engagement rates 20% higher than the overall average.
• Engagement with posts peaked on Thursday and Friday however peak usage also varied by industry.
• For the Entertainment Industry: peak engagement was Friday through Sunday.
• For Media: peak engagement was Saturday and Sunday. Mondays were found to be extra noisy and a bad time to post.
• For Retailers: Sunday's were huge while Fridays were weak.
• For the Fashion Industry: Thursdays were the big day while Friday through Sunday showed a big drop.
• Additional tips include:
• When asking a question, questions that appeared at the end of the post rather than earlier had an engagement rate that was 15% higher.
• "Where", "When", "Should" and, especially, "Would" were the most effective question keywords showing higher engagement than "How", "Who", "What", "Did", and, especially, "Why".

More generally this report indicates that trying different approaches and paying close and systematic attention to what works can have a big payoff. The researchers note at numerous points that the factors that caused higher engagement were used less often than approaches that led to lower engagement. But given that variations were found across industries, you should consider taking a close look at your current patterns before trying out new approaches. That way you can have a better sense of what's improving and what's unique about your situation.

For more industry-specific information and explanations by Buddy Media's researchers of why people may be engaging in these patterns see Strategies for Effective Facebook Wall Posts: A Statistical Review. For additional free white papers see Buddy Media: Resources.

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger whose current projects include Weekly Hip Hop Albums and All World Dance.