Twice as many fans engage on Military Facebook pages than pages from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) according to new reports from DK Web Consulting. Surprised? Let’s explore.
Key Findings
To benchmark government Facebook use, DK Web Consulting looked at 16 Military and 66 HHS agency Facebook pages to provide insight on how social media efforts compare across government.
Military Agencies:
Health Agencies:
What This Means for You
Automated vs. Manual Updates
In both the military and the health pages, the third-party tool most used to manage the page was Hootsuite. Military pages were also more likely to use a third-party tool than health pages and military pages tend to have more fans and overall engagement. Coincidence? Maybe/Maybe not.
Before you register for Hootsuite know this: Hubspot and others have found that the use of third-party tools can actually make your posts have a lower Edgerank in Facebook, meaning less people see them. Pages using Hootsuite probably showed stronger in the benchmarking study due to having a savvier, more informed and collaborative team working on the effort–not necessarily due to the use of Hootsuite itself. Success is due to thinking beyond the tool.
Talking About This vs. Engagement Per Post
The study found that military pages had twice the number of people engaged in their overall page. However, it also found that health pages had more engagement per post. So which metric do you measure? Both (if resources allow since one is automatically reported by Facebook and the other collected manually).
What matters–is that you algin both metrics to the right goals and objectives. For example, with healthfinder.gov’s Facebook page, we looked at “talking about this” as an overall engagement metric. For us, we tended to have 7% of fans talking about the page which is five percentage points higher than the average HHS Facebook page (1.9%) which extended the exposure and influence of our messages. We also looked at engagement per post because sometimes it correlated directly to participation in healthfinder.gov’s weekly health challenge. The challenge with its individual posts helped us gauge attitudes, knowledge and intentions around certain preventive health behaviors. Engagement per post would also matter if you posed a poll and wanted to gauge responses, asked fans a particular question, used promoted posts or want to illicit a specific action. As your college professor would say, “it depends.”
During the Week vs. Weekend Posts
The Military pages had more engagement overall and more of their pages posted on the weekends. While bitly advises not to post on Facebook during the weekend, there could be a correlation to explore here (as peak times for posting on social media often conflict by source).
Resources
]]>Does Facebook help us feel more connected—or alone?
A recent set of studies found a paradox in Facebook psychology. The studies looked to answer the question: Does using Facebook help us feel more connected, or not? The results may surprise you.
The research was actually conducted through four different yet connected studies. The first study found that frequent Facebook usage relates to both increased connection–as well as increased feelings of disconnection. The second study found that disconnection motivates greater Facebook usage as a coping strategy as greater usage leads to greater connection (yes, this seems odd given the first study’s results).
The third study deprived participants of Facebook use for 48 hours. While feelings of connection decreased, the feeling of disconnection was unaffected. However, those who felt more disconnected actually engaged in increased Facebook use during a second 48-hour period.
In the fourth study, participants set a goal to reduce their use of Facebook. In setting this goal and working to achieve it, greater disconnection was felt. Those that had this feeling performed worse in achieving their goal.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Who has the best self esteem of them all?
Another study conducted by researchers at Cornell found that Facebook usage actually leads to increased self-esteem. “Facebook can show a positive version of ourselves,” associate professor Jeffrey Hancock told CNN. “We’re not saying that it’s a deceptive version of self, but it’s a positive one.”
Hancock is the co-author of a report titled, “Mirror, Mirror On My Facebook Wall: Effects of Exposure to Facebook on Self-Esteem” that was published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. The study put 63 students in a university computer lab. Some computers were turned off with a mirror in front of it—while others were turned on showing the student’s Facebook page.
For three minutes, participants either stared at themselves in a mirror or reviewed their Facebook profile. When time was up, students were given a questionnaire to measure their self-esteem. The students who had been reviewing their Facebook profile gave more positive feedback than the others. The participants that edited their Facebook profile actually gave themselves the highest marks.
“For many people, there’s an automatic assumption that the internet is bad,” Hancock is quoted saying in an article published by CNN. “This is one of the first studies to show that there’s a psychological benefit of Facebook.”
Is the grass really greener?
Another study supports this finding as it found that those who like themselves tend to share more of themselves through social networks. And, that those more active on social networks tend to think more highly of themselves.
At the same time, another set of research published this past January, found that Facebook reinforces the idea that “the grass is always greener” and that everyone else is happier and better off than you. This research “suggests that people may think they are more alone in their emotional difficulties than they really are.” Not exactly a recipe for great self-esteem…
What does this mean for us?
Given the mixed results already discussed, we know research has also found that Facebook and social networking can help increase connectedness among certain communities–especially when it comes to our health. This post is in no way meant to be a down-with-Facebook rant. More so, here’s the take-away for us: Have a self-awareness of the good and the bad impact Facebook may have on you, to your community and in your work. Knowing and understanding the positive impact technology can have as well as its potentially harmful effects is a part of digital literacy. For those working in public Health, it’s an awareness we need to consider.
BONUS: BJ Fogg’s Psychology of Facebook class is on my need-to-do list.
Do you know of additional research that looks into the psychology of Facebook? Please share!
flickr credit: Jason A. Samfield
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What about you? What good info have you read lately? Please provide the link in the comments so we can all check it out. Also–if you’re in love with your Google Reader like me, here’s my public profile. Let’s connect.
flickr credit: Benimoto
]]>I’m not one to put things into boxes and draw hard boundaries, but at first I liked this concept. It’s simple. It’s easy. But, after pondering for a second, I got to thinking: is it relevant? We all know the Web is an evolving beast, which is why I think today’s best Web sites pull the best components from each of these three “types” to creates a stronger vehicle.
Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean that Web sites don’t need to focus. In the world of the Web, I’m seeing the concept of “focusing” becoming increasingly important. For example, these Web sites have focus:
But Wikipedia is also a community of editors working together to create a service. Facebook has its own marketplace where transactions are worked out and don’t forget Facebook advertising or monetary exchange through Facebook applications such as Causes. Amazon–though primarily transactional–encourages us to give reviews, rate its products, create gift lists and in essence, build community around the purchases we make. Marinate on that thought for a second and then take this statement into consideration:
Considering current evolutions of the Web and comments such as Shel’s, I’m thinking the text books may need some updating. Web sites still need to focus, but at the same time, they need to add value to the end-consumer, provide products or services or action steps, while also building community. Just take a look around–the sites that we are all using everyday are Web sites that can serve multiple functions. So, get creative. Just because you have a ton of content you have to share, there are ways to not only “inform” people of the content, but also ways to generate actions, make the content interactive and build community. Thus, I answer “all of the above.”
What do you think? What’s your take? Is building a Web site easy as 1, 2, or 3?
flickr credit: Andreanna
]]>For many Gen-Yers and young professionals, Facebook started out as a social network. Then, high-schoolers were allowed in. Now, understandably, more and more people are joining that range in age – and in relationship to you. Point in case:
Thus, with Facebook going from social status —> professional network, it begs the question, what are the new the rules of thumb for one’s Facebook account? So I asked followers on Twitter. The results:
No matter what you prefer, it’s best to adopt a strategy early, be wise, cautious and careful. Even those that believed in full access agreed that in the past year, they’ve tweaked their their own personal guidelines. i.e. Adopting the self-policy that one must meet someone in their professional network in person before they cozy up on Facebook.
For me, currently, I adopt a mix between the full access and the limited profile. This is largely for one reasons:
Some other guidelines friends mentioned through my Twitter survey. Don’t post:
What’s your Facebook Professionalism Policy? or, what do you think of mine?
photo credit: Flickr, Amit Gupta (from Newsweek article)
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