Facebook offers tips for media

Facebook developers studied 100 media sites to come up with a list of
useful tips for media to make the most out of the social networking
site, including how to drive growth, increase engagement and get data
about users.

Developer Justin Osofsky wrote on the Facebook blog:

“We recently set forth to learn how news organizations can best use Facebook to (1) drive growth in audience and traffic, (2) increase engagement, and (3) gain valuable customer insights.”

The tips include:

Traffic

The Like button

“Websites experienced 3-5x greater click-through rates on the Like button when they implemented the version that includes thumbnails of friends, enabled users to add comments (which 70% of top performing sites did), and placed the Like button at the top and bottom of articles and near visually exciting content like videos and graphics.”
 
Publishing articles using Pages and Like button connections

Facebook found that stories involving emotional topics, emotional debates and important sports event increased traffic by 2 to 3 times, the same rise occurs for stories that ask simple questions and require reader engagement, while posts in the early morning or late evening were read the most.

Engagement

Activity Feed and Recommendation plugins

These are most effective when placed above the fold as well as on multiple pages

Use Live Stream for live events

“The Live Stream box, as notably implemented by CNN for the Obama inauguration, can create engaging experiences on partner sites. For instance, during the World Cup, there were over 1.5 million status updates through the Live Stream box on media websites such as Univision, TF1, ESPN, Cuatro, RTVE, and Telecinco.”

Create timely Pages

When special events (i.e. World Cup) come up, create sub-pages with a special focus.

Facebook Insight

“Finally, media organizations can understand their customers better through Facebook Insights. For example, one major German news site found Insights to be particularly helpful when it was trying to engage a younger audience online. Insights helped them optimize and understand the activities that continued to engage this audience.”