Facebook’s Page updates feature, which let Page administrators send out messages to a Page’s fans, used to have laughable response rates. One test to a page with hundreds of thousands of fans previously resulted in less than 10 clicks. In other words: users simply were not responding to page updates. We’ve performed our own test and while our findings don’t show dramatic response rates, a 1.1 percent response rate in under 12 hours is a significant improvement over previous tests.
During a guest lecture to my social media marketing course earlier this week, Dave Kerpen of the kbuzz, suggested that the new design may have a greater impact on response rates. I decided to put Dave’s hypothesis to the test and so far the results are fairly positive. While traditional email marketing would have a much greater response rate, Facebook updates should no longer be ruled out as a way to contact your fans.
The response rate to our update is actually on par with the volume of traffic we get from an average post to the AllFacebook page stream based on the response rate we tested to one stream post yesterday. While the click through rate changes from post to post, it’s rare that you would receive an extremely high response rate to any update or stream post. While there are techniques to increase overall response rates, it’s important to know average response rates for comparison to other marketing channels.
Contrast this method with email marketing in which average opt-in email lists can have average response rates of 25 percent. It’s not a straight forward comparison however. Facebook Pages will attract responses from different fans from one stream updated to the next. In other words: you aren’t guaranteed to grab someone’s attention with Facebook Page updates. Does this mean that your company should avoid Facebook Pages?
Not at all! Facebook Pages combined with other marketing channels, like email, can prove to be extremely effective. Our Facebook Page drives upwards of 1,000 people a day to our website which is important to note. While an email letter to our more than 20,000 strong email lists would result in a greater response rate, we don’t send out daily emails so the comparison is like apples to oranges.
In conclusion Facebook Page updates are another great way for reaching out to fans. Since users are not sent email notifications about your Page updates you can afford to send updates more frequently without annoying users. As such, post updates in addition to stream posts in order to boost your response rates. Have you tested out click through rates on your own Facebook Page updates? What sort of response rate are you generating?
Update
The total response rate is now at approximately 3.63 percent.
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The only reason I saw your update was because of this post making me go and look
Comment by Roger — September 10, 2009 @ 6:42 am
Since you made these changes, I CAN'T delete any messages from my inbox and the updates.
Comment by Tina — September 12, 2009 @ 6:49 pm
I actually think the response is worse. Not only are people no longer encouraged to see the update on their homepage, right above their friend requests, event invites, etc., but now it's banished to the inbox, where I know many people leave all of their messages unread (especially the ones who get notifications to their emails instead of inbox only).
Comment by Lisa Jeffries — November 23, 2009 @ 4:28 pm
Are you sure we can send page update frequently without annoying them??
Comment by Leila — January 24, 2010 @ 9:29 pm
updates are pretty hidden! you have to open your inbox and then click on the folder updates. i think nobody see updates!
Comment by marco — January 28, 2010 @ 11:53 pm
my fan page updates go to 3000+, they used to create a huge response, NOW they have moved the updates under a new heading and no notice on the homepage the updates i send get virtually no response at all. Not a very good move and its now like a bulletin page on myspace. please facebook change it back to how it was!!
Comment by bill robinson — February 7, 2010 @ 6:36 pm
I have create a facebook page and I wonder how I can send a photo via page update?
I saw that i can write only a text and i can’t send a photo or a link. Is there a way??
Please help me
Comment by Athina — February 8, 2010 @ 11:13 am
I never realized their even was a section updates in my inbox till i read this. updates doen't work at all and will nerver be read, a shame that why many companies make a group or just a profile, this works better to reach your fans. facebook, do someting about it! we can't reach fans like this.
Comment by benjamin — August 30, 2010 @ 7:09 am
i was testing this feature on my pages and i found that im the only one who gets the updates to his inbox .i 've checked some of my page fans and they confirmed that they didn't get anything !! whats wrong with me ?
Comment by @Neamatalla — March 20, 2011 @ 11:04 am