It has been a long time since October 2013, when we first realized the best way to deliver to our customers all of the marketing trivia they crave… in Corgi-wrapped packages, of course!

Since then, Friday Fun Facts have become our weekly tradition. Our amazing Customer Success team posts a new selection of marketing tips — and an adorable new Corgi GIF — within the TrackMaven app each Friday for all of our customers to enjoy.

From making the most of the changes to Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm to creating the perfectly colored Pinterest Pin, these last sixteen Friday Fun Facts have covered more ground than the Corgi in Fact #26. (We recommend you check him out!)

So, back by popular demand, we proudly present our second installation of Friday Fun Facts!

Friday Fun Fact #13:

This one is all about optimizing Pinterest pins. After studying 30 visual characteristics, Curalate has found which types of images prompt the most interactions on Pinterest. Here’s what works:

• Be Colorful:

  The images that are repinned most have multiple dominant colors, 3.25 times more than images with one dominant color.

• Red over Blue:

  Red, orange, and brown images are repinned at double the rate of blue images.

• Watch your Brightness/Saturation:

  Both very dark and very light images are not repinned as often as images with medium brightness, which are repinned 20 times more than mostly black images, and 8 times more than mostly white images. Additionally, 50% saturated images are repinned 10 times more than completely desaturated images, and 4 times more than 100% saturated images.

• Limit Whitespace:

  Images with less than 30% whitespace are repinned the most, although repins can suffer a 4 times drop when containing 40% or more background.

This little gal seems to get the idea . . .

Friday Fun Fact #14:

Don’t let the Facebook updates catch you off guard! Facebook has also changed its formula for displaying text posts from brand pages, essentially separating them from status updates from friends. As a result, text posts from pages will be less distributed. The good news is, just a few changes in your posting style can keep your interactions up.

• Diversify your Content:

  Since text status updates are being deemphasized in the newsfeed, there is no better time to mix up the format of your content. Adding images to your content will not only catch the eye (and interactions), but also give it a leg-up over text posts. Posts with videos (especially Instagram videos) also seem to be favored by the algorithm changes, and now autoplay on both desktop and mobile News Feeds.

• Share Links (the right way):

  We’ve mentioned this before, but Facebook points out that many page administrators simply paste links into their posts, classifying the post as a text status in Facebook’s algorithms. Using the link share tool will mitigate this, emphasizing the post with a rich preview of the link’s content, while prioritizing it over page statuses.

• (Maybe) Spend Some Money:

  Even more so than links and videos, Facebook loves ad money. You can get a leg up in the feed rankings by spending a few dollars to sponsor one or two of your more popular posts, driving engagement.

Friday Fun Fact #15:

You might be hesitant to try using GIFs (like this little guy!) but we promise it’ll be worthwhile!

Here are some things to keep in mind when creating a GIF for your post.

• Be Concise:

  Using too many (or too long) GIFs can make your emails or posts slow to load, and can distract from the rest of your content. If your email is over 40Kb, then it’s time to pull back on the GIFs.

• Have a Purpose:

  While using a GIF can liven up a boring email, if they aren’t tied into your product/service, they can be distracting and unnecessary. Use GIFs to highlight important information in your campaign, demo your software, or share a customer’s story.

• Test Your Creation:

  Once your GIF has been embedded, it’s important to know how it will come out on mobile and desktop email clients. You can use a service like Litmus to preview your HTML code on a variety of devices.

In case you’re keen to get started, you can make gifs with Giffing Tool, imgflip, gifmaker, and Picasion, all of which are free apps at the basic-feature level.

Friday Fun Fact #16:

Instagram’s still-young video feature has been steadily gaining traction with users, and according to Ad Week, 40% of the most shared videos on Instagram were created for marketing purposes. In a recent study by L2, 72% of the 250 “prestige brands” they investigated actively post videos on Instagram. If you’re confused (like this little guy) on how to take advantage of Instagram videos in your marketing, this week’s Friday Fun Fact is going to be a relief.

• Tell a story:

  Instagram is a great tool for sharing the experiences of the people engaging with your brand and the how it fits into their lifestyle. Compile customer photos and clips to your product in everyday use.

• Make it personal:

  Make your followers feel special with a taste behind the scenes, showing the people behind it. A clip of your office hard at work or goofing off can go a long way to humanize your brand, and give it personality.

• Keep it pretty:

  Above all else, Instagram is a community that values beautiful images, an idea that applies also applies to videos. Instagram suggests that brands “find beauty everywhere,” and videos can help. Create artful video from an assembly line in action, showing rare visuals that can be associated with your brand.

Friday Fun Fact #17:

A popular tool for driving traffic to brand Facebook and Twitter pages is contests. If we unwrap this week’s Friday Fun Fact (see what we did there?) these three tips will help take your social media contest to the next level.

• Pick the right contest:

  Contests can range from a simple sweepstakes to caption contests submissions or full blown media submissions. Videos, photos, or writing can work as content for your page in the future, while lower bar of entry contests will rope in more users.

• Be clear and concise:

  Being vague about rules or prizes of the contest will impede the spread of your contest and turn off potential entrants. Keep your rules simple, and make sure you have the rewards completely nailed down before you open the contest up to your followers.

• Promote it just right:

  Regularly posting about your contest is important, but be careful to avoid spam levels of promotion by posting at significant times like the last week of your contest. If applicable, attach examples of contest entries to diversify your posts.

Friday Fun Fact #18:

This is actually a selfie of us every Friday.

Facebook recently updated their Page algorithm to reward companies that tag other company Pages in their updates. On the 24th they announced that when a company tags another company in their update it has the potential to be on the news feed of the tagged companies Fans, not just the feed of the company that posted the update. Potential is a keyword here as Facebook tries to select the most popular content to surface in news feeds. Practically, this update is huge as it presents a great opportunity for brands to spread their reach to new audiences just by identifying how their business aligns with others in the marketplace.

P.S. Here are more great insights about how you should handle other recent Facebook algorithm changes!

Friday Fun Fact #19:

We hit the ground running (or rolling) with this week’s Friday Fun Fact. Here are some quick tips on maximizing retweets on Twitter straight from our Retweet Report!

• Keep your links in the right place:

  Putting your link 90% of the way through your tweet will get you 33% more retweets on average than elsewhere.

• Make it pretty:

  We found that adding pictures to your tweets, making use of the new visual preview on Twitter, gives you a 250% higher chance on average to score retweets than without a visual.

• The power of punctuation!!!!!!!!!:

  Tweets with 6 exclamation points receive on average 42% more retweets than using 1 exclamation point, while up to 9 exclamation points will produce 130% more retweets on average

Friday Fun Fact #20:

The right subject line is never easy in email marketing, but this week’s Friday Fun Fact is designed to help catch your audience’s attention!

• Get the length just right:

  Retention Science says that subject lines with between 6-10 words have the highest open rates of about 21%, while 0-5 words following with 16% and 11-15 words with a 14% open rate.

• 52% of emails have 11-15 word subject lines,

  which is not preferred considering 35% of emails are read on mobile devices that can only display five or six words in a subject line.

• Make it personal:

  In the same study, Retention Science found that adding the recipients first name to the subject line increased open rates by 2.6%.

• The pop-culture boost:

  Including a film title or song lyric into your subject line led to an open rate of 26.2% on average, compared to a 15.8% open rate.

Friday Fun Fact #21:

This Fun Fact stemmed from findings from our recent analysis of 96,000 emails.

• Send Day:

  The most common send day for marketing emails is Thursday. Tuesday is a close runner up. Comparatively few marketing emails are dispatched on Saturday and Sunday.

• Time of Day:

  The bulk of emails are sent between 11 AM and 12 PM ET, but there’s also a slight peak right after business hours between 4 PM and 5 PM ET.

• Subject Lines:

  Although question marks have been proven to boost email open rates, only 5% of emails use them. Exclamation points are also woefully underutilized. Subject lines have gotten stale!

So, unlike our groundbreaking findings about the effect of CAPITALIZATION on Twitter engagement, or the use of precisely #five #hashtags on Instagram, there’s not much exciting going on with email marketing these days!

So be like this little fellow: be bold and take a leap into something new!

Friday Fun Fact #22:

At TrackMaven, we try to help our customers make sure they getting the most out of the TrackMaven app, and maybe even introduce them to some new features along the way! This FFF is about Easter Eggs in our new Visualizer feature that might surprise you… like this little fellow!

Here’s a quick diagram:

1. Period View:

   You can change the delineation of data points and the view of your graph from Day toWeek or Month by selecting the D, W, or M options at the top right.

2. Color Dot:

   Clicking the colored dot next to the name of a stream in the graph key will turn the corresponding line from solid to dashed.

3. Mute or Delete Streams:

   The eyeball icon at the right of each stream in the key can be used to hide a stream. The little garbage can takes the stream out of your graph altogether.

4. Edit Date Range:

   You can change the date range of your entire graph by selecting “Change All” above the key!

Friday Fun Fact #23:

This one is all about how to create more content for your brand!

• Strategy:

  CMI notes 44% of B2B marketers have a content strategy, 49% do not, and 6% are unsure. Which category do you fall into?

• Repurpose:

  Think about a successful blog post you just did or even a tweet that was engaging. You can create even more content from those pieces, so you can keep your creative powder dry! Also keep in mind, Tweets that include links (back to your blog!) are 86% more likely to be retweeted.

• Just Do It:

  There are tools like DRAFT to assist with this! Opening up a clean slate helps more than you think, so just get typing to get the words out!

Want to learn more? Head over to the Content Marketing section on our blog!

Friday Fun Fact #24:

Our alerts feature is now editable!! So, if you no longer care about brand X, or want to change the frequency of your alert, or the virality level triggering your alert, you can do that now!!! Just click the little pencil next to your existing alerts and you’ll be all set!

Friday Fun Fact #25:

You may have noticed that organic reach on Facebook has dropped significantly. In fact, there’s some research indicating that organic reach has dropped by half since October 2013. Three easy tips for mitigating against dipping organic reach are to:

• Share the Wealth:

  Tag other brands in your posts so you can reach their audience as well as yours.

• Share Links (the right way):

  Use the link share button rather than embedding (pasting) a link into your post.

• Mind the Time of Day:

  Post in very off-hours to benefit from the “late night infomercial effect.”

Friday Fun Fact #26:

If your blog editorial schedule has you running, this FFF is for you!

This week, our data and marketing team analyzed 1,167,426 blog posts to find out exactly what the best performing blog posts have in common. Their findings are great for content marketers, so without further ado, here are some tips from their research!

• Day of Week:

  Blog posts published on Saturday earn more social interactions than those published on any other day by a large margin. The second best day for earning interactions is Sunday.

• Time of Day:

  Content marketers publishing outside of working hours earn the most interactions per post.

• Title Length:

  The titles earning the most interactions were 60 characters long, which made them 50% longer than the most common title length (40 characters). Interestingly, having a title longer than 60 characters is found to be correlated with decreased engagement, so 60 is the optimal and the upper bound for length!

• Title Punctuation:

  Even though only about 5% of all posts analyzed included question marks in their titles, titles with a single question mark earned the highest percentage of total social shares (46.3%), which is more than twice the average! Two or more question marks have a negative effect. Exclamation marks help with engagement, but only when used very enthusiastically, with four in a row!!!!

Friday Fun Fact #27:

This FFF brings you even more ways to deal with the recent changes to Facebook’s News Feed algorithm:

• Harness the weight factor and post more photos:

  Posts of photos get 39% more engagement than other post types. They account for 93% of the most engaging posts on Facebook. Self- explanatory photos trend towards even higher engagement.

• Post regularly to work against decay:

  Ensuring new posts replace older ones on News Feeds.

• Keep posts short:

  Studies show that keeping posts below 250 characters can get you 60% more engagement.

• Target the End of the Week:

  Post on Thursdays and Fridays, when engagement rates are 18% higher compared to other weekdays.

As always, openness and authenticity, access, and positivity are key tenets in the most successful posts!

Friday Fun Fact #28:

Kowabunga! This FFF is all about creating effective LinkedIn updates:

• Create relevant, authentic, and short content:

  Posts that feel like spam will not get shared and could result in losing followers

• Entice with aesthetics:

  Using eye-catching visuals sets your content apart from others in your audience’s newsfeed

• Use Links:

  Including links boosts engagement by 45% and helps drive traffic back to your blog or website!

Interested in learning more LinkedIn best practices? Check out our blog post for the full story!

We hope you’ve enjoyed catching up on — or hopefully re-reading — our FFFs! Don’t forget to log into TrackMaven on Fridays for more helpful Corgi marketing tips. Happy Tracking!

Can’t get enough marketing data? Download our Colossal Content Marketing Report for more benchmarks and trends in content creation and engagement.