Components of a Facebook Post

    Chapter 4 is all about marketing with Facebook. It touches on how to set up a Facebook page, building an audience and components of a Facebook post. Today, I will be discussing components of a Facebook post. There are some vital things businesses are failing to do when it comes to creating a Facebook post including text, a call-to-action link, photos, videos or gifs and hashtags. These can sometimes make or break one's Facebook presence, if not done properly.

    Although it may not seem like a big deal, the length of one's text can determine if a reader stays with you or continues scrolling past your post. When writing a post, keeping it shorter is not necessarily a bad thing. If you continue to write a lengthy post, it may get cut off in the view of the reader, forcing them to have to click to read more and often many don't like to take the extra step. Short and simple is the best way to go, just not too short, ranging around 140 characters or less. One thing you can include in your text is a call-to-action link. A call-to-action link can be used when asking for donations for one's cause or even just redirecting one's readers to another posting. There are two ways one can include a call-to-action link in an effective matter. One can leave a link within the text of the Facebook post or include a built-in Facebook link. When leaving the link within the text, you are essentially telling your readers to "click here" for more. With including the link with a built-in Facebook link, you can copy and paste a link into the post and Facebook will recognize the source, pulling up a picture to emphasize the link. Speaking of pictures, let's touch on our next topic of pictures, videos and gifs.

  "A picture is worth a thousand words" is very true when it comes to Facebook posts. When uploading a post without a picture, it fails to draw in the reader, however, with a picture you are catching their eye and they want to learn more. Now just adding pictures is not going to automatically enhance your post, one needs to make sure the image(s) they're uploading are good in quality on any device a potential reader may be viewing on. This also applies to videos and gifs being posted. Many videos are watched without sound before the viewer clicks to expand the video, so businesses need to make sure they're including captions on their videos to allow viewers to understand before expanding the video. On the flip side, gifs are meant to be soundless funny clips on a loop to help quickly grab the attention of your viewers. Lastly, hashtags are meant to be links relating to the post hidden within the caption. For example, #blessed would allow viewers to click the hashtag and the post would then pull up other posts using the same hashtag. Hashtags can be anywhere in the post, but try to avoid too many hashtags as it can be confusing and overwhelming for the reader.

    Chapter 4 highlights many key points for Facebook posts. Businesses planning on using the Facebook platform should give this chapter a read to learn the key components. Stay tuned for next week to keep learning how to improve your media platforms!