Monthly Archives: February 2023

Post Content

Facebook engagement is something marketers shouldn’t overlook when crafting a social media strategy. Facebook engagement can expand organic reach and place your brand higher in Facebook’s News Feed. Your brand can also reach your audience’s extended network through likes, comments, and shares.

But what is Facebook engagement, and how can you boost your brand’s engagement to reach a broader audience? Here’s everything marketers need to know.

What is Facebook engagement?

How to Increase Facebook Engagement

1. Post interesting, entertaining, and valuable content.
2. Post when your audience is most active.
3. Post consistently.
4. Ask questions.
5. Respond to followers.
6. Use Facebook Reels.
7. Go live.
8. Focus on User Generated Content (UGC).
9. Create engaging Facebook Stories.
10. Add a Call-to-Action button.

If you’re a page admin, you can track Facebook engagement by viewing engagement metrics under Page Insights. According to Meta, Page Insights is a tool for brands, businesses, and public figures to:

Learn what posts their audiences engage with
Track total likes and other metrics to see what audiences like and why
See the page’s total reach and analyze how many people saw/engaged with the post

However, you can also measure engagement by using a simple formula. Just take the number of engaged users, divide it by the total page reach, and multiply the result by 100.

So, let’s say your Facebook post received 10 likes, 5 comments, and 5 shares. If that post reached 1,000 people, your engagement rate would be 2%. According to recent research, the median engagement rate on Facebook is 0.07%.

Marketers should aim for at least a 5% engagement rate to build an authentic community on the platform and remain competitive in their market.

How to Increase Facebook Engagement

Now you know how to track and measure engagement. Now, let’s explore the ways you can boost your Facebook engagement.

1. Post interesting, entertaining, and valuable content.

Your audience will not want to interact with your content if it always reads like a sales pitch. Instead, opt to create educational, helpful, and entertaining content. For example, outdoor clothing and equipment company L.L. Bean often posts fun educational videos such as “Skiing Tips for Beginners” to delight users. The video below shows viewers how to get comfortable on cross-country skis quickly.

Image source

This video may inspire consumers to start skiing and turn to L.L. Bean for the necessary equipment.

What We Like: Educational videos like this help brands to be seen as an authoritative, expert voice in their market. Even better, it allows brands to show their products in use without coming across as an ad.

2. Post when your audience is most active.

Page Insights has a tab called “When Your Fans are Online.” The tab shows when your followers are most active on your page. Once you find out when they’re most active, you can start scheduling your posts to upload when they’re likely to get the most engagement.

What We Like: The feature takes some guesswork out of finding the most optimal time to post, and you can be sure your best posts won’t go to waste by uploading them too soon or too late.

3. Post consistently.

No one wants to engage with a dead account. To show your account is active, post consistently to boost your engagement — but how often should you post content to Facebook? We recommend posting two to five times per week and no more than once a day.

Facebook prioritizes fresh content and doesn’t want to overload someone’s feed with just one company. When you post too often, especially more than once a day, you’ll diminish your ROI — and your posts will get less engagement.

Pro Tip: If your posts are consistently bringing in high engagement, then you can test out posting more frequently. As long as your audience shows a great deal of interest in your content, Facebook will prioritize your page in its News Feed.

4. Ask questions.

Questions encourage users to comment, and more comments lead to high engagement. You can ask users to leave a comment about their favorite product from your brand. You can also ask them why they started following you or why they like your company. You can even ask users what kind of content they’d like to see from you, and then give them what they want.

On its Facebook page, Burger King asked users to name their sourdough starter.

Pro Tip: Include a video, an eye-catching graphic, or a poll to make your questions stand out on users’ News Feeds.

5. Respond to followers.

Social media users love to know there is an actual human behind a brand’s account who sees and appreciates their interaction. Be sure to answer questions, thank followers for their interactions, and be a source of information when a follower needs help understanding a product or service.

What We Like: Responding to comments helps brands build a stronger bond with their followers, and they’ll want to engage with your content more — especially if they know there is someone behind the account who can answer questions.

6. Use Facebook Reels.

Use Reels to start a challenge, give a behind-the-scenes look at your brand, or educate your audience.

Facebook Reels are steadily increasing in popularity among users.According to Meta, over 140 billion Reels are played daily across Facebook apps as of October 2022. That’s a more than 50% increase from May 2022.

Pro Tip: Always film your Reels vertically. And if you don’t always have time to create a new Reel from scratch, repurpose your Instagram Reels to upload on Facebook.

7. Go live.

Facebook Live videos receive the highest engagement on the platform, so it helps to include live broadcasts in your social media strategy. Facebook Live can be used to:

Host live Q&As
Host live fundraisers
Broadcast breaking news
Give a behind-the-scenes tour of the company and processes

For example, Pinky Ma’s Cakes, Cookies & Candy hosted a Facebook Live showing viewers how to make cupcake bouquets.

What We Like: Facebook Live allows viewers and hosts to communicate in real-time, which builds trust between brands and followers.

8. Focus on User Generated Content (UGC).

You can encourage followers to send in photos or videos of themselves using your product for a chance to be featured on your platform. For instance, accessory brand Cluse encouraged followers to submit pictures of themselves wearing the brand’s watches to be featured on Cluse’s lookbook page. All followers had to do was include #Cluse in their posts.

Though the campaign took place on Instagram, the same can be done on Facebook.

Image source

What We Like: Audience’s like to feel like they’re a part of the conversation, and user-generated content does exactly that and encourages participation.

9. Create engaging Facebook Stories.

With over 300 million people watching Facebook Stories each day, Facebook Stories is an excellent opportunity to connect with your audience and boost engagement. In fact, we found that 70% of consumers prefer Facebook Stories over Snapchat and Instagram stories.

One way you can use Facebook Stories is to make important announcements. In the example below, the punk band Dropkick Murphys used Facebook Stories to announce an upcoming festival performance.

You can also add links to your Instagram stories. In the same example, the band included a link to the festival where their followers can purchase tickets.

Pro Tip: Include links to your website or product to encourage your audience to purchase.

10. Add a Call-to-Action button.

A call-to-action button can generate engagement beyond likes, comments, and shares. Add a CTA button to:

Book an appointment.
Contact your business through Facebook messenger.
Join your Facebook group.
Shop on your website.

In the example below, Ipsy’s Facebook page includes a call-to-action button encouraging followers to sign up for their monthly subscription service.

What We Like: Not only does a CTA button boost engagement, but it can also generate more leads by encouraging your audience to take action.

Over 200 million businesses use Facebook, so making your brand stand out on the platform can seem daunting. However, you’ll be able to find and delight your audience on Facebook by using the above tactics to boost engagement. The more engagement your page gets, the more Facebook will push your content to the right people.

When you visit the App Store or Google Play and search “social media,” there are hundreds of apps to choose from. But, as the pool of social platforms grows, will any of them really change the game for marketers this year?

In our Social Media Trends Survey, we asked 1,000+ social media marketers about the social media platforms they’ll use in 2023, and we’ve compiled the data for you to discover below.

2023 Social Media Trends

The hottest social media trends in 2023 are short-form video and live streaming. Short-form video was also the top format social media marketers use, and it has the highest ROI. This isn’t a surprise, as platforms like TikTok are only growing in popularity as time goes on.

Understanding what other marketers are doing and leveraging social media trends early on gives you the time to pick up on what works, setting you ahead of competitors that wait to see how a format works and performs before using it themselves.

To help you stay on the cutting edge of social media, we’ve compiled a list of key platforms and features you should have on your radar this year — they’ve all jumped in usage and user base.

Social Media Platforms Marketers Should Watch in 2023

Social media platform usage among social media marketers in the U.S. changed from 2021 to 2022. Specifically, the use of Instagram (+35% YoY), TikTok (+15% YoY), and Facebook (+12% YoY).

1. Instagram

Instagram is the platform social media marketers expect to grow the most in 2023, and they say it has the most accurate algorithm and offers brands the best potential to grow their audience.

Instagram will also grow with first-time users, with 36% of social media marketers not using it yet planning to try it out in 2023.

Increased investments in Instagram are in line with the trend of social selling, as marketers say the app offers the best ROI for selling products directly on an app, and consumers say it has the best in-app shopping experience.

2. TikTok

As mentioned, short-form video is one of the most popular, top-performing, and highest ROI trends. Given this, it’s no surprise that TikTok usage has increased YoY as it caters to short-form videos. Marketers reported that TikTok offers the second-highest potential to grow audiences in 2023.

TikTok is a great platform for reaching Gen Z, as our consumer trends survey found that 62% of the generation uses TikTok, and it’s also the platform it spends the most time on.

3. Facebook

Data shows that Facebook usage significantly increased in 2022, so it’s worth watching in 2023. Especially so given that the top trend for 2023 is investing in social media communities, and Facebook is the best platform for doing so.

4. Live Audio Platforms

Live audio chat rooms are the media format gaining the most steam in 2023, and 23% of marketers are planning to leverage them for the first time this year. Among social media marketers as a whole, Facebook Live Audio is the most popular platform (12% say they’ve invested in it).

Facebook Live Audio is also the most popular live audio platform leveraged by social media marketers who already use live audio, followed by Twitter Spaces.

This makes sense, as 80% of Gen Z consumers, a demographic steadily growing into its purchasing power, enjoy audio content because they can express their individuality and explore different sides of their personalities.

What Platforms Are Losing Steam?

According to the data, the platform with the most significant drop in usage is Twitter, with a -17% YoY change. Twitch has fallen in use, too (-30% YoY), but it had the second-lowest investment among social media marketers in 2021.

Platforms like Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces rose in popularity in 2020 during the beginning of the pandemic, but they have slowed in their growth and usage as other live audio platforms have grown.

For example, Clubhouse was one of the top emerging platforms/features that social media marketers noted investing in in our 2022 Social Media Trends Report, but the 2023 report found that, among all social media marketers, Clubhouse is 5th on the list in terms of investments.

How To Determine Which Social Media Platforms Are Worth the Investment

Marketers determine which social media platforms are worth investing in based on their potential for lead generation, audience reach, and the potential to drive traffic to your website.

A platform’s potential for building an active social media community around a brand is high on the list this year, which aligns with 90% of social media marketers saying that building an active social media community is crucial to a successful strategy in 2023.

Should you follow the social media trends of 2023?

Consumer behavior changes quickly in the digital space, and businesses that adapt to social media trends can see success.

If you keep an eye on this kind of marketing research and tailor it to your target audience, you can craft a stellar social media plan that drives awareness and shows your brand in a creative light.

Remember, every trend won’t work to achieve your goals, so don’t venture into this new social media landscape without the most up-to-date data.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Post Content

Creating content isn’t always a walk in the park. (In fact, it can sometimes feel more like trying to swim against the current.)

While other parts of business and marketing are becoming increasingly automated, content creation is still a very manual job.

That being said, there are plenty of tools out there to make creating content much easier.

Below, you’ll find a list of 36 fantastic tools and resources to help you research, write, edit, and design content more easily. (You’ll notice there are a lot of design tools in here — that’s because visual content is often the part of the content creation process where people get the most nervous and frustrated. So don’t worry, we’ve got a ton in there for you.)

Let’s get started.

36 Free Tools & Resources to Make Content Creation Easier

For Researchers

1) Google Drive Research Tool

Google recently added a tool to Drive that allows you to conduct Google searches without ever leaving your Drive window. All you have to do is click “Tools” from the menu bar and choose “Research” from the dropdown menu.

2) Site:search

This is a handy Google hack I use every day. Basically, it allows you to do a Google search that’s limited to a particular website.

For example, if I wanted to search HubSpot’s blog for marketing resources so I can cite one of our old blog posts, I’d do a site:search for blog.hubspot.com with the search term marketing resources. The formula for site search is site:samplewebsite.com [search query]. So my example would be site:blog.hubspot.com marketing resources.

3) Google Webmaster Tools

Doing SEO and keyword research? Your marketing software should be able to help. But if it can’t (or you’d like to augment your data), Google’s Webmaster Tools can be a great help. You can check things like the number of indexed pages on your website, submit your site to Google so you’re getting crawled and indexed, and even disavow bad inbound links. It also can give you information on search queries that have a large volume of impressions but low clickthrough rate.

Within Google Webmaster Tools, go to “Your site on the web” and choose “Search queries.” You’ll see a table showing a search query, impressions, clicks, and clickthrough rate (CTR). Comparing this data to your other analytics data can help uncover some opportunities.

4) Percentage Change Calculator

I can’t even begin to tell you how useful this little calculator is when looking for and analyzing data. Ever want to know the percentage change of two values without having to remember the formula? Simply enter the two values into this calculator, and it’ll spit out the percentage change. Trust me, you’ll want to bookmark this one.

Here are a few other handy calculators:

3-Way Percentage Calculator – Calculates answers to these questions: What is X% of Y? X is what percent of Y? X is Y% of what?
Conversion Rate Calculator – Spits out a conversion rate when you enter the total visitor count during a specific time frame and the number of times during that time frame those visitors took a specific action.
A/B Test Calculator – Works for a basic scenario with two groups of people (A & B) who get to see one version of your website and for whom you track the number of conversions or goals (purchases, downloads, clickthroughs, etc.).
ROI Calculator – Analyzes your website’s monthly sales and lead generation efforts to determine ways in which marketing efforts can be optimized.

5) Atlas

Atlas is Quartz‘s data center, and it’s chock-full of graphs, charts, and data visualizations. You can search for almost any topic or keyword, and Atlas will have a graphic based on recent research data for you. This is a great tool to get background information on a topic you’re researching, or to find fresh data to use in a project you’re working on. Here’s a chart based on data from early 2016:

Source: Atlas

6) Search in a Giphy

You know that coworker who always seems to find the perfect animated GIFs for your social posts or internal chat client? With the free Giphy Chrome extension, you’ll be able to find great GIFs just as quickly.

To use the tool, all you have to do is open the extension in Chrome, search, choose a GIF, and drag and drop. So far, the tool works in Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, and more — and they’re constantly expanding support.

For Writers

7) Evernote

I use the free version of Evernote every single day. From to-do lists and research notes to writing entire chunks of articles, it’s proven helpful at every step of the writing and editing process.

One great feature? Its mobile, desktop, and web apps sync automatically as long as you have an internet connection. (And if you work offline, it’ll sync the next time you have internet.) Plus — and this is super important for content creators like us — it’s constantly saving and syncing your work automatically, making it a safe place to write and store ideas.

Use it to keep a running list of ideas, take notes, store inspiring articles or ebooks, or plan your editorial and social media publishing calendars.

8) Word2CleanHTML

If you like drafting blog posts in programs like Microsoft Word, Evernote, or Google Drive instead of your content management system (CMS), then this simple tool can be your best friend. Why? Because when you copy a document from Microsoft Office and paste it into your CMS, lots of little, weird formatting issues can crop up in your HTML.

Word2CleanHTML applies filters to fix all those things added into the HTML, resulting in well-formatted HTML you can paste directly into a web page CMS. Simply paste in your draft, click one button, and then copy the resulting HTML straight from the tool. When you paste that into your CMS (most will have buttons reading “HTML” or “</>” in their tool bar above your draft), it will appear nice and clean. No hair-pulling or swimming through code required.

9) WordCounter

There is no “right answer” for how long a blog post should be. As long as it serves its purpose — whether that’s thought leadership, driving leads, explaining a new concept, or something else — length doesn’t matter. But although we don’t recommend writing blog posts with a word count in mind, sometimes word count can come in handy. WordCounter works exactly the way you think it does: Paste in your content and it’ll spit out exactly how many words you have.

10) Cofftivity

According to a study out of the University of Chicago, “A moderate level of ambient noise is conducive to creative cognition.” In other words, being the tiniest bit distracted actually helps you be more creative. That’s why for many people, myself included, white noise helps promote focus.

There are a lot of white noise generators out there, but my favorite is Cofftivity. This particular one offers non-stop café background sounds at varying intensities, from “Morning Murmur” and “University Undertones” to “Lunchtime Lounge” and “Brazil Bistro.” It’s available on the web and as an app on iOS and Android.

11) & 12) Zerys & eLance

Need to start creating content but don’t have the bandwidth? We hear about this roadblock a lot. One way to get around it is by hiring freelancers from reputable marketplaces like Zerys or eLance. These resources give you access to skilled freelance writers who can write blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, and other pieces of written content for you.

13) HTML Hacks for Marketers

While this isn’t strictly a writing resource, basic coding knowledge is quickly becoming a must-have skill for the modern marketer — bloggers and written content creators included. But learning from scratch can be daunting. Where on earth do you start?

If you’re a total beginner, start with HTML Hacks for Marketers, which my colleagues at HubSpot created with Codeacademy. It’ll teach you quick but useful hacks anyone — regardless of coding knowledge — can use in their marketing. For example, you’ll learn how to make small changes to HTML like altering headers and spacing, creating text in block-quote form, and inserting social share links. My personal favorite is the hack to change font colors.

Once you’ve mastered these basic HTML skills, move on to Codeacademy’s free interactive courses. They found a way to make learning HTML and CSS actually fun — and you can go through each lesson at your own pace.

14) Blog Topic Generator

If you need to get to writing blog posts but aren’t sure of an angle or title to get your creativity moving, HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator can do the work for you. Simply enter a few keywords that your blog focuses on, and the Blog Topic Generator will produce a week’s worth of titles and topic ideas for you. It might not produce the final title of your blog post, but it helps get you thinking about creative new angles for topics you’ve written about before.

Here are the blog post titles I received when I entered “content,” “inbound marketing,” and “blogging”:

15) Blog Post Templates

All blog posts aren’t created equal, but we’ve found that there are steps you can take to make your posts comprehensive and shareable. With these blog post templates, we’ll walk you through an outline to write successful how-to, listicle, newsjack, and curation blog posts. Instead of starting from scratch, you’ll save time and, hopefully, nail your blog goals.

For Content Editors

16) Editorial Calendar Template

Creating a balanced editorial calendar can be tough, especially if you don’t have one centralized calendar that you and your team can refer to. To save you time and headache, we’ve created editorial calendar templates for Google Calendar, Google Sheets, and Excel that you can fill in and share with your team to start the next month or year off on the right foot.

17) & 18) Grammarly & Correctica

While human editors will be able to catch most grammatical errors, editing tools like Grammarly and Correctica are great tools for triple-checking before you press “publish” or “send.” Both free tools check for grammatical errors — and Grammarly even checks for plagiarism.

19) Hemingway App

Ernest Hemingway, admired for his succinct writing style, is the namesake for this handy editing app. Want to make your written content easier to read? Paste your content into this free web app, and it’ll assess your writing and identify opportunities to make it simpler.

My favorite features include identifying passive voice and hard-to-read sentences. Check out the right-hand side of the screenshot below, where the tool has summed up how readable my writing is with a grade. (Some room for improvement here.) Their suggestion to improve readability overall? Shoot for lower than a 10th grade reading level.

20) Headline Analyzer

Here’s a scary stat for you: Only 60% of people who click into an article end up reading past the headline. That makes your headline both the first and possibly the only chance for you to compel readers to keep reading — so it’s totally worth it to spend the extra few minutes coming up with a really good one.

What does a really good headline look like? The free tool Headline Analyzer by CoSchedule can tell you. It scores your headline quality and rates its ability to drive social shares, traffic, and SEO value. In my experience, its strength is helping you strengthen specific components of your title. For example, it reports on perceived sentiment and commonality of word types. It’ll even show you how it will appear in search results.

So although you should take these scores and grades with a grain of salt, you can use this to give your headlines a “once-over.” (And read this blog post to learn more about writing awesome headlines.)

For Designers

21) Nimbus Screenshot

This is another tool I use every day. Sure, you can capture a screenshot of your entire screen or part of your screen using the old keyboard shortcut method. But what if you want your screenshot to include stuff that’s not visible on your screen?

Nimbus Screenshot lets you capture the visible part of a web page, a selected area, a selected scroll (my personal favorite), the entire page, or the entire browser window — including everything below the fold.

Once you’ve taken the screenshot, you can crop, edit (like adding notes and callouts), and choose to print or save to your desktop or Google Drive.

22) Canva

If you like creating beautiful visual content in a really short amount of time, you’ll love Canva. The time and resources it takes to learn design, pay for design assets, and/or get inspired to create beauty from scratch can be really difficult when you’re staring at a long list of to-dos — but Canva offers a huge library of pre-made templates and assets that you can manipulate while also adding your own imagery.

Best of all, they have so many assets and graphics available for free that you won’t have to pay a cent if you don’t want to. If you want to use more “premium” assets and graphics found through their image search, they’ll charge you $1 for each. But there’s plenty of value for free.

Here’s an example of something you could make:

23) ThingLink

Ever wanted to make an image (or infographic) clickable? ThingLink lets you upload an image and add little icons to it that appear when a person hovers their cursor over the image. These icons allow users to visit links, watch videos, or read messages you’ve written. Plus, it’s easy to share: Users can easily embed ThingLink images. (Click here for step-by-step instructions.)

Below is part of a a clickable infographic from Thinglink my colleague Ginny Mineo created for another post: