3 Facebook Best Practices That Disney+ Just Isn’t Following

After my last post listing all the ways that Disney+ was slaying the game on Facebook, it must be surprising to see a critical follow-up. There are definitely many praises to sing about the brand’s marketing strategy but as I was observing their account, I couldn’t help but notice that some of the most important best practices were completely being ignored. 

Posting great photos and having engaging captions is always a plus, but without the following three tactics, your efforts could possibly go underappreciated or, even worse, unnoticed:

1. Scheduling Posts

For major brands like Disney+, scheduling posts can be a great way to get around having to manually upload content every day, especially when there are multiple platforms to manage. According to “7 steps to an effective Facebook marketing strategy” by Sprout Social, it is highly encouraged to ensure brands are posting at the best times for engagement and staying on top of their content schedule. At first, I thought Disney+ might have been scheduling their posts, as the first few days I observed had very similar posting times. However, they started to fluctuate so wildly that I realized that it was highly improbable that they’re posts were being scheduled. 

This is an issue for many reasons. First off, consistency is important for engagement. When users know how many times you’ll post and when they can expect to hear you, you’ll  increase the likelihood of them seeking out your content and engaging with it. Another issue is that the lack of schedule causes gaps in the upload schedule. One of the days that I observed Disney+’s social media account, there was no post at all! I scrolled back a few weeks and this had never happened previously. Perhaps there was a legitimate reason for not posting or maybe whoever was in charge of their Facebook forgot! Point is, because they never schedule their posts ahead of time, we’ll never know.

2. Post Frequency

Similar to the previous best practice, the time and frequency of posts is very important to success on any social media platform. One of the first best practices we learned was best times to post. The time that you decide to send out your social media post can be just as crucial as what is in the post when it comes to user engagement. According to Sprout Social’s article “Best Times to Post on Social Media,” Wednesday at 11am and 1pm are the best times to upload content on Facebook. Brands can also expect consistent engagement between 9am and 3pm on the weekdays. Though, in the beginning Disney+ would adhere to these suggested time frames, as the week went on they would post as early as 8 a.m. and as late as 9 p.m.! A few times they would send posts minutes apart from each other, which would cause the first post to have significantly more engagement than the second, even if the second post was one that would traditionally get more engagement (i.e. a photo vs. a video).

There were also some days when the brand would only post once and then other days when they would post upwards of five times. Sometimes this was justified (i.e. the increase of posts closer to the weekend, when people would be more likely to stream) but the lack of consistency may be a turn off for users who weren’t expecting their feed to suddenly be spammed with Disney+ content after several days of one or two posts. 

3. Responding to Comments

This is the biggest sin that Disney+ commits as a brand: THEY NEVER RESPOND TO COMMENTS! According to “7 Steps to an Effective Facebook Marketing Strategy” by Sprout Social, engaging with users is highly encouraged to increase engagement on posts. This doesn’t even need to be in response to negative comments but it can also be a like on the first few comments, responses to questions or thanking users for sharing their positive comments on your page. Disney+ has a leg up on other brands due to the goodwill and nostalgia they have built up from the decades of Disney content, and still they can’t be bothered to even leave a heart emoji or a “thank you” on a comment that is praising their content.

The negative comments also can’t be ignored. Because Disney+ does not respond to comments, this leaves hundreds of negative reviews and customer service complaints under their posts. There are sometimes entire posts with nothing but negative comments, all of which go unanswered. If someone is leaving hate comments about a show, the fans may step in to defend its honor, but no one is going to step up to the plate to argue against someone who had a rude interaction with a Disney+ customer service rep. Leaving comments unanswered not only decreases engagement but may leave a bad taste in the mouth of a potential customer.

Are You Making These Mistakes?

Even big brands like Disney+ can drop the ball with their marketing strategy every once in a while, so it’s always important to take a step back and evaluate which best practices you’re missing out on. Do you follow all of these best practices? Or are there some that you feel are unnecessary? Let me know what you think in the comments below!