We just completed an analysis of 42,982 posts by 1,007 college and university pages. In a previous post, we examined some specific trends we found while analyzing the 500 most-engaging posts for the month.
In this post, we'll dig deeper into the numbers for all the October 2014 posts. We hope our analysis helps uncover some new insights for you, validates some hunches you may have had, and provides benchmarks for your own efforts.
To give you an anchor for the engagement scores that you'll see in our analysis, we've shared a few averages for all 42,892 posts we analyzed:
- Average Likes per 1,000 fans: 4.52
- Average Comments per 1,000 fans: 0.15
- Average Shares per 1,000 fans: 0.36
- Average Engagement Score: 5.55
Alumni Pages vs. The Rest
We recently updated our Facebook Page Directory to include categorization by audience (General, Admissions, and Alumni). We had long ago hypothesized about the potential for segmentation in engaging your audience. Your prospects likely want very different information from your Facebook Page than your alumni.
The engagement rates of alumni pages vs. general pages seems to support this hypothesis.
Weekend Posts Continue to Be Most Engaging
For the month of October, posts on Saturdays generated, by far, the most engagement. We believe the #1 reason for this is fairly straightforward… it's college football season. We also have a hunch that people have more time to check Facebook on the weekends, which is why posts on Sundays also tend to generate more engagement.
Photos Generate Most Likes, But Not Most Comments or Shares
Looking to get your audience to like your content, then definitely share a photo. They get liked at a much higher rate than any other type of post. However, on average, videos generate more shares, and text-only status posts generate more comments.
| Media Type | Engagement Score (# of Posts) | Likes / 1000 Fans | Comments / 1000 Fans | Shares/ 1000 Fans |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Photo | 7.08 23,396 posts | 5.96 | 0.19 | 0.37 |
| Link | 3.37 13,849 posts | 2.56 | 0.09 | 0.32 |
| Status | 4.07 3,096 posts | 3.23 | 0.21 | 0.21 |
| Video | 5.18 2,547 posts | 3.60 | 0.15 | 0.64 |
Engagement Score by Post Frequency
We grouped pages into tranches of 50 based on their post frequency so we could look at the relationship between post frequency and average engagement scores. The 50 pages that posted the most in October 2014 are in the 1-50 tranche, averaging 147 posts for the month. The next 50 most frequent posters are in 51-100, averaging 95 posts for the month. And so on.
As with past analyses, we again see a general trend that engagement score per post tends to increase as the frequency of posts decrease. We included a chart with the raw data as well as a graph on the engagement score by tranche, which makes this trend a bit more noticeable. The green line is the average number of posts for the school in the tranche and the blue bars are the average engagement scores per post for the schools in the tranche.
| Post Frequency Ranking | Engagement Score | Avg. Number of Posts | Avg. Number of Fans |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-50 | 3.456 | 147 | 50,579 |
| 51-100 | 4.281 | 95 | 59,378 |
| 101-150 | 4.830 | 76 | 43,336 |
| 151-200 | 4.466 | 65 | 70,384 |
| 201-250 | 5.888 | 58 | 59,850 |
| 251-300 | 4.405 | 51 | 120,152 |
| 301-350 | 6.120 | 46 | 32,015 |
| 351-400 | 6.352 | 42 | 61,945 |
| 401-450 | 7.455 | 38 | 23,075 |
| 451-500 | 5.417 | 35 | 66,371 |
| 501-550 | 7.273 | 32 | 40,498 |
| 551-600 | 7.255 | 30 | 51,327 |
| 601-650 | 6.079 | 28 | 73,737 |
| 651-700 | 7.694 | 25 | 18,215 |
| 701-750 | 7.375 | 22 | 22,274 |
| 751-800 | 9.780 | 20 | 24,610 |
| 801-850 | 9.834 | 16 | 21,490 |
| 851-900 | 7.947 | 13 | 15,117 |
| 901-950 | 11.231 | 10 | 10,008 |
| 951-1004 | 11.225 | 6 | 6,203 |
Most Engaging Pages for October 2014
Size Categories
- XX Large (75,000+ Facebook fans)
- X Large (20,000-74,999 Facebook fans)
- Large (10,000-19,999 Facebook fans)
- Medium (5,000-9,999 Facebook fans)
- Small (<5,000 Facebook fans)
XX Large (75,000+ Facebook fans)
| Rank | School | Engagement Score | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO) | 15.273 65 posts | |
| 2 | Georgia Tech (Atlanta, GA) | 14.173 25 posts | |
| 3 | West Virginia University (Morgantown, WV) | 11.374 60 posts | |
| 4 | Texas A&M University (College Station, TX) | 10.780 31 posts | |
| 5 | Mississippi State University (Starkville, MS) | 10.040 150 posts | |
| 6 | University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA) | 9.930 42 posts | |
| 7 | Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI) | 9.654 50 posts | |
| 8 | Georgetown University (Washington, DC) | 9.569 44 posts | |
| 9 | Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR) | 8.516 15 posts | |
| 10 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Champaign, IL) | 8.445 36 posts |
X Large (20,000-74,999 Facebook fans)
| Rank | School | Engagement Score | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Siena College (Loudonville, NY) | 58.874 4 posts | |
| 2 | The University of Arizona Alumni Association (Tucson, AZ) | 30.901 44 posts | |
| 3 | South Dakota State University (Brookings, SD) | 30.554 20 posts | |
| 4 | Berry College (Mount Berry, GA) | 25.677 26 posts | |
| 5 | Ohio University Alumni Association (Athens, OH) | 25.018 21 posts | |
| 6 | Ole Miss Alumni Association (Oxford, MS) | 23.696 59 posts | |
| 7 | Abilene Christian University (Abilene, TX) | 23.217 10 posts | |
| 8 | Soka University of America (Aliso Viejo, CA) | 23.118 83 posts | |
| 9 | Stanford Alumni (Stanford, CA) | 22.528 22 posts | |
| 10 | Purdue Alumni (West Lafayette, IN) | 22.095 32 posts |
Large (10,000-19,999 Facebook fans)
| Rank | School | Engagement Score | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taylor University (Upland, IN) | 43.165 9 posts | |
| 2 | Susquehanna University (Selinsgrove, PA) | 42.689 15 posts | |
| 3 | Trinity University (San Antonio, TX) | 29.489 15 posts | |
| 4 | University of the South (Sewanee, TN) | 29.430 32 posts | |
| 5 | SUNY Oswego (Oswego, NY) | 25.990 31 posts | |
| 6 | Union College (Schenectady, NY) | 25.405 31 posts | |
| 7 | Luther College (Decorah, IA) | 23.177 36 posts | |
| 8 | St. Olaf College (Northfield, MN) | 22.140 28 posts | |
| 9 | St. Lawrence University (Canton, NY) | 21.266 42 posts | |
| 10 | Heidelberg University (Tiffin, OH) | 19.815 25 posts |
Medium (5,000-9,999 Facebook fans)
| Rank | School | Engagement Score | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mount St. Joseph University (Cincinnati, OH) | 61.395 20 posts | |
| 2 | Buena Vista University (Storm Lake, IA) | 59.872 8 posts | |
| 3 | Marquette University Alumni Association (Milwaukee, WI) | 50.624 16 posts | |
| 4 | DePauw University (Greencastle, IN) | 28.447 9 posts | |
| 5 | College of Charleston Alumni (Charleston, SC) | 27.033 12 posts | |
| 6 | KU Alumni Association (Lawrence, KS) | 25.295 25 posts | |
| 7 | Bethel University (Saint Paul, MN) | 23.200 11 posts | |
| 8 | Covenant College (Lookout Mountain, GA) | 22.331 9 posts | |
| 9 | Hollins University (Roanoke, VA) | 21.903 47 posts | |
| 10 | Transylvania University (Lexington, KY) | 19.049 54 posts |
Small (<5,000 Facebook fans)
| Rank | School | Engagement Score | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Saint Francis University Alumni Association (Loretto, PA) | 71.422 3 posts | |
| 2 | Grambling University National Alumni Association - GUNAA (Grambling, LA) | 67.508 30 posts | |
| 3 | Morgan State University National Alumni Association (Baltimore, MD) | 65.897 2 posts | |
| 4 | Biola University Crowell School Of Business (La Mirada, CA) | 58.656 8 posts | |
| 5 | McNeese State University Alumni Association (Lake Charles, LA) | 52.541 2 posts | |
| 6 | Jackson State University National Alumni Association, Inc. (Jackson, MS) | 37.399 60 posts | |
| 7 | South Dakota State University Alumni Association (Brookings, SD) | 35.423 19 posts | |
| 8 | University of Idaho Alumni Association (Moscow, ID) | 29.107 23 posts | |
| 9 | Presbyterian College Alumni (Clinton, SC) | 28.937 12 posts | |
| 10 | Alabama A&M University Alumni Network (Normal, AL) | 28.723 15 posts |
