There are a few ways to post an update on Facebook.

This isn’t news in itself, but the way Facebook treats similar content shared under different types is worth looking closer at.

The question are start with was simply this: will I get more clicks on links shared as status updates or links shared as captions to photos?

Photos vs Status Updates
I had already tested status updates with and without the link preview removed and found that just the text + link worked the best.

Next I wanted to compare that plain text + link against the same text + link as a caption for a photo by toggling to the photo upload option before pasting it into the box.

A photo would look like this…

While a plain status would look like this…

Since April 1, 2014 I did 17 as a photo and 18 as a status update and here’s what I found.

My Goal: Clicks
Remember, my goal here is clicks so here’s what clicks (as reported by Bit.ly) looked like:

In the end, photos edged out status updates by about 3% or 1 click per post.

But there are a few other metrics worth looking at outside of that main goal, so let’s look at how those compared. If the bar goes above 0 it means that the photo performed better and the scale shows how much. If it goes below 0, status updates performed better.

Before you start posting links as photos just for comments, keep in mind the scale. Instead of 1/3 of a comment per post, the average was 1/2 a comment :) Not exactly overflowing with discussion on the ‘book, but again, my goal is clicks.

What was interesting was that both reach and total impressions were down about 25%, but even then clicks stayed high likely because the photo drew more attention to those posts.

Long Story Short
So, should we all post updates as pictures from here on out if the goal for that post is link clicks?

Well, it can’t hurt to try. On the scale of a large resort, 3% more clicks may translate to 20 or 30 more total visitors to your site which is definitely valuable. On my scale, may not be worth the time for most posts.

So there you have it.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.