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3 Free Tools to Turn Your Status Idea into a Viral Facebook Photo

Posted 25 September, 2012
3_Free_Tools_to_Turn_Your_Status_Idea_into_a_Viral_Facebook_Photo-ls 

Do you know what the hardest thing about being a Social Media Manager is?

(besides the existential terror of realizing you've achieved everything in life worth achieving -- I mean, you can only cruise around your personal marina on a gold-plated jet ski with Victoria's Secret models hanging from the creases in your 6-pack abs for so long)

No, the hardest thing about being a Social Media Manager is accepting the fact that community engagement is a game of small victories.

Got something great to post?

That's nice.

Expect between 0.5% and 2% of your fans to actually respond.

 

But that's only if you suck, right?

No. That's if you're really face-meltingly awesome.

In the social media world, getting 2% of your fans to respond is akin to getting a lavender-scented back rub from the President of the United States.

That's because achieving fan engagement is kind of like eating a bowl of raw eggs with a fork -- a whole lot of work for very little reward.

So make it easy on yourself!

Do what works

Post photos.

interaction

[via Momentus Media]

It's no secret that sharing photos is the biggest Facebook trend in 2012, with everyone and their dog posting the best theories about how you should do it and why you should do it.

Most experts agree that photos get more engagement because of their easily digestible appeal and their ability to elicit an immediate emotional response.

What the experts fail to mention, however, is that photos are also the most likely medium to display the face of Robert Pattinson.

 

We can't give all the credit to boobs, though. Even when one is a Twilight star.

The reason photos get more engagement is because Facebook has engineered a natural bias to rank them higher. EdgeRank favors high quality media, and photos are exactly that.

That means if you post a photo -- or even an image of text -- then you'll probably get 120-200% more interaction than with the text alone.

The Tools

So how do you turn a great text or status idea in shareable and (hopefully) viral photo?

Try these tools:

1) someecards.com

  • for e-cards

 

 
And yes, almost none of these make sense (because they don't have to).

 

2) imgflip.com

  • for easy meme or pie chart creators (used three times in this post)

3) Jing

  • to easily grab, edit and share anything which appears on your display (used daily by us)

These 3 tools pretty much render Photoshop obsolete. And best of all, they're free.

Use them to say what you want to say -- but via the image medium. Flex your creative muscles and fit your status idea (or one of ours!) into an already-established and highly shareable photo meme.

But if you do it, do it right.

 

Let's experiment

Here's my hypothesis: if you post 5 text-based posts to a fan page this week, and then next week post 5 similar text-based posts -- but this time as e-card photos -- then the e-card posts will generate much higher like, comment and click rates.

In fact, I bet if you post five text-based posts this week, then post screenshots of those posts next week, then even the screenshots will get higher engagement rates than the original text-based posts.

What do you think?

Is it a good strategy to post your text statuses as photos on Facebook?

Would you be willing to test my hypothesis?

Let us know in the comments!

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