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I use Buffer (a post scheduling app) frequently and recently came across a post on their blog by Ash Read with Facebook tips and tricks. Upon reading, I realized several of these had practical applications to our book marketing efforts. Here are my top 5 tips:

Tip #1: Images Posted Via Instagram Receive More Engagement

A Buzzsumo study of over 1 billion Facebook posts from 3 million brand pages found that images posted to Facebook via Instagram receive more engagement than natively published images:

facebook-image-engagement

This is particularly interesting, as often, cross-posting from one platform to another, results in less engagement. However, since Instagram is now owned by Facebook, Facebook may be making Instagram posts more visible in the timeline.

Tip #2: Posts With Hashtags Receive Less Engagement

Buzzsumo’s study also discovered that posts on Facebook that include a hashtag receive less engagement than those without hashtags, as illustrated in the below graph:

hashtag-engagement

Hashtags have become a default way to categorize content across Twitter and Instagram, but not made much impact on Facebook. This also highlights the importance of sharing a different message across each social media platform. For example, here’s how Ash might share the same post on Twitter and Facebook:

Share on Buffer

Tip #3: Save Links For Later

While browsing your Facebook Newsfeed, you may spot something that grabs your attention. Perhaps, even one that would potentially look great on your author Page or Group. However, you may not immediately have time to read a post or watch a video.

If you’re even in this situation, Facebook has a really neat feature allowing you to save a link to come back to later. Here’s a snapshot of Ash’s saved content:

facebook-saved

If you see something in your timeline that you’d like to save for later, you can click on the drop-down menu in the top right corner and click ‘Save Link.’

Here’s how it looks on desktop:

save link

And on mobile:

saved-image

To find your saved posts again you can head to https://www.facebook.com/saved/ and on mobile tap ‘More’ from the navigation and then you should see an option for Saved:

saved-mobile

Tip #4: Almost Half Of Facebook’s Users Are Mobile Only

Facebook now boasts more than 1.5 billion users, more than 1 billion of which use the service daily. What’s even more interesting is that nearly half, around 46%, of Facebook’s users never log in to the desktop site and use Facebook only on mobile devices.

Screen Shot 2016-02-11 at 12.01.08

Will we soon hit the tipping point where the majority of Facebook users are mobile-only? Perhaps we’re already there. This means you must use eye-grabbing, easy-to-read, image-based content to reach your audience. Be particularly careful with captions. Many mobile users read in places where they can’t hear your audio. This makes it even more important that you use them!

Tip #5: Facebook’s Audience Is Growing Up In Western Markets

Facebook was founded in 2004, and as its twelfth birthday approaches, it’s not just the social network that has matured. So have its users – in Western markets, at least.

As AdWeek reports:

Millennials make up a smaller share of Facebook’s users in Western markets than in developing nations. In the U.S., for instance, there are 17 percent more people over the age of 40 using the social network than their younger counterparts. Additionally, 33 percent of Facebook’s audience is under age 30. By comparison, in India and Indonesia, 75 percent of its users are millennials or younger.

As the majority of readers are older, you can tweak your marketing to appeal to the over-40 age group (depending on your genre, of course). If so, Facebook can be a big part of your marketing efforts. However, it may be less suitable for, say, YA works.