There is no doubt that Facebook has become an integral part of many people’s days. Close to 500 million pairs of eyes spend an average of 55 minutes per day engaging with friends, brands and games on Facebook. A typical user “Likes” approximately four brand Pages per month, according to the social network itself. Doing the math, that means a user who has spent a year on Facebook is likely following around 50 brand Pages. Add all of their friends’ updates and posts to the mix, and a user’s news feed can quickly become a proverbial traffic jam. For brands, your messaging can easily get lost in those streams. The key for brands that are looking to maximize their exposure is to create posts that stand out from the rest. News feed optimization is becoming the new SEO, so let’s take a look at a couple ways to help.

The Facebook stream is a very visual space. Brands need to think of their posts as interactive billboards. Before you post, ask yourself what you can do to draw eyeballs to your post. Take these tips into consideration:

1) Use a simple, visible thumbnail to represent your brand. Your brand’s thumbnail image appears in a user’s stream with every post, so it should clearly convey who you are. Many brands use a default profile image up that looks great on their Page, but do not account for how the image will be represented in the smaller thumbnail size. Your brand’s thumbnail should look its best on the wall, be recognizable and shouldn’t cut off parts of your logo.

2) Employ media in your posts. When we say media, we’re talking about images, video, audio, etc. At the very least, attach a compelling image with every post to help convey its message as much as possible. Use images that don’t contain text because it won’t be legible once they are resized to appear in a user’s stream. Similar the brand’s thumbnail, think about what this image will look like in a user’s stream.

3) Image size matters. Few brands think about this, but the easiest way to get your posts noticed is to associate a larger image with your post. Images associated with your post are rendered in a space up to 90 x 90 pixels, with an emphasis on scaling the image to be 90 pixels wide. To take maximum advantage of the real estate Facebook affords you, try to use the largest possible image you have available.

4) Ask questions. The easiest way to create engagement through posting is to simply ask questions when making a post. Try asking questions in a few posts if you aren’t already and see if the number of fans’ “Likes” and comments increase.

5) Text-only posts should be used rarely. We suggest having 95% of your posts contain media. Why? Text-only posts are less likely to catch a user’s eyes in a crowded stream. As a general rule, a text-only post probably makes the most sense when you aren’t looking for much engagement (e.g. making a post to say “Thank You” to all your fans).

Up until now, we’ve talked about the low-hanging fruit that every brand can do right now. If you really want to stand out from the crowd, it’s time to step up your game and take it to the next level.

6) DIY engagement. One of the great things about Facebook is that users don’t need to go out to discover content. It comes to them via their news feeds. Also, the popularity of custom applications on Facebook cannot be denied. We’ve built a ton of them ourselves and continue to receive requests for them. But we asked ourselves if there is a way to bring the engagement of custom applications to the news feed where users could more easily participate. We placed lighter applications built for the Facebook Wall, and found that they generate 110 times more reach from fans than applications housed within a Tab.

We introduced Wall Apps to our Social Relationship Manager as a way for brands to easily engage their fans in the news feed. Wall Apps allow brands to easily create and customize engaging apps such as coupons, polls, slideshows, and audio/video playlists amongst others. They’re visually appealing while offering your fans a phenomenal user experience in their own stream. Vitrue provides an easy-to-use interface that allows you to create and monitor your apps instantly. That means that you can create engaging posts more often and offer your fan base a variety of post options.

If you are looking to stand out in the crowded Facebook news feed, the key is to make your posts more visually appealing, while offering content that users want to engage with. We’ve given you some best practices for building more visually appealing posts. When you are ready to take the next step, Vitrue SRM Wall Apps can help take you to the next level.