Increase Facebook Engagement with Images

The Webmaster Info Spot has been on a roll lately with informative posts on using/editing photos. To cap off the unofficial series, I wanted to share this good-to-know tidbit of Facebook advice:

Posts with images will receive higher engagement than posts without.

AllFacebook.com did some research, and they discovered that “images have been the No.1 driver of engagement on a page since timeline launched.” That means that images beat out links, videos and text-only status updates for the top spot. And this means that images catch the eye of your Facebook fans more than anything else.

“Posts including a photo album or a picture can generate two times more engagement than other post types,” reports AllFacebook.com

Video Formats… What Works and What Doesn’t

Videos make a great addition to your Region website and can make it more entertaining and educational (and possibly educational) for your visitors. The National Office has a YouTube channel with videos available for Regions to put on their websites.

YouTube videos are easy to embed on your website. All you need to do is go to the video and click on the embed link. Copy the code and paste it where you want it on your website.

If you would like to use your own videos that are not on YouTube, you might want to follow some of these guidelines:

File Format – There are some common file formats that work universally for the most part. MOV (or Quicktime) files work in any browser and on any iPhone or iPad. FLV is a good format for the web, as it loads quickly and tends to have smaller file sizes. It, however, does not work on iPhone and iPad, so if your audience includes users on these devices, I would opt for another format. MP4 is another QuickTime format that works on all devices and browsers.

SUPER Simple Photo Editing

For the more experienced Webmaster, you probably have a photo editing tool/software that you know and love. For those on the more inexperienced side, like myself, (I try to stick to writing, editing and social media), we need a simple, easy-to-use photo editor that can get the basic things done quickly.

If I ever need to quickly edit a photo for a Facebook post, inclusion in an e-newsletter, etc., I usually hop on

Choosing the Right Images for your Website

Images say a lot about a website and we want to make sure you use the right kind of images to get the mission and vision of AYSO out to your Regions.

Images can be difficult to come across, especially when you have to worry about permissions and copyrights. We discourage using images from google, since you can’t show any sort of ownership or rights for that image. Here are some places to find appropriate images and guidelines to use when choosing photos:

Use Your Own Images

If you’re using your own images, make sure they are lit properly and well composed (meaning that people aren’t cut off in the images, and they aren’t oddly lopsided) and don't have any names or contain anything offensive (ex: no alcohol, tobacco, weapons, etc.). Please try to follow our Safe Haven guidelines to make sure the photos are appropriate for AYSO. If faces appear in the images, make sure that you have a release from each person in the images so you don’t get in trouble for posting their picture on the website. To make this part easier, you could have every parent sign a release form for themselves and their child when they register or before they play their first game. It will assure you that every person in the photos have a release signed.

Planning Social Media Promotions for 2014

As you know, AYSO turns 50 next year, and the National Office is busily getting ready for the celebration and all its festivities. 

Have you started thinking of ways to modify your Region's website and social media presence on our Golden Anniversary? Here a couple easy ideas:

Hop on the “Mobile Friendly” Bandwagon

Many people are short on time these days and tend to do their websurfing on their phones or tablets. You want to make sure that your site looks good and is easily accessible on a mobile phone or tablet, especially with the thousands of young parents in AYSO.

You can easily make a separate style sheet that is mobile friendly for your Region website. This style sheet would reduce the use of images and adjust the width to that of whatever device the user is using to surf your site. If this is the route you’d like to take with your website, you can view a full list of tips here.

Brand New Facebook Tools Now Available

The AYSO National Office wants to help make running your Region's Facebook page as fun and easy-to-manage as possible, so we've added a new section to AYSO's Region Toolkit called Facebook Tools.

Featured in the new section are tools to make your Region's Facebook page interesting, interactive and consistent with AYSO's national branding campaigns.

It includes...