In today’s world, social media is where everyone gets their news, picks up on the latest trends and find entertainment. Facebook is one of the more popular social networking sites that allows users to keep in touch with friends, share photos and become a part of an online community.

Because there are so many users on Facebook, it is also a popular place for media and magazines to engage and find new fans. Rod Authority is no different than other media sources that you see involved in social media. We love to share ourselves with our fans.

It is pretty difficult to put so much of yourself and your material out into the public. Some things work well and then… some things don’t. We get to hear it when things go south – trust us, we hear it – but when things go well, we have a tendency to take it for granted.

This simple car guy bed we posted up late in January turned into fan gold for us. In a social media site where large reach is usually paid for, we manage to get decent reach by viral sharing from our fans. Even the one Ford guy with the angry emoticon on the right.

We decided to take a look at the top five posts on Facebook for this year to see what did well with our audience. These may surprise you because they surprised us.

The Best Facebook Post In 2016 … So Far

One of the coolest things about a Facebook fanpage is the insights tab at the top of the page. This tab opens up the door to all the wonderful data about your fanpage and each post. For example, the Chevrolet pickup bed post that has the best reach for the Rod Authority fanpage in 2016, actually reached 651,120 people and was treated to 40,743 reactions, comments and shares.

From all of that data we could also see that the post received way more likes on shared posts (22,359) than the original post (6,660). Reactions ranged from 17 fans that loved the post, 5 fans that selected the HaHa reaction, another 5 that registered the Wow reaction to the one Ford guy that registered the angry reaction.

Another surprising stat from this post was: Of the 3,691 comments on this post, 3,393 were comments made on the shared post. The bottom line seemed to indicate that our post was far more successful for our fans than it was for us. We’ll take that.

This cool photo of welded pipe fittings was simply a nice picture that we added a B.S. comment to, never expecting it to get almost a half-million people reach. This just goes to prove that we need to be smart asses more often.

The Weld Porn Post

Our post of the awesome weld job on some pipe fittings did very well with the reach when 478,551 people viewed the photo, and 20,362 fans reacted to the post. There were substantially more comments on the shared post than on the fanpage, which makes us wonder… what did your friends say?

Another lame attempt at humor that turned into to viewer gold.

Theft Device

Our third most popular post this year involves another attempt at humor. We shared a post from a Toronto radio station’s fanpage (don’t ask how we found that media source). Interestingly, we saw more comments on our fanpage than comments on the post once it was shared. The same was true with “likes.” The bottom line with a shared post from another source seems to be the massive reach that the post registers.  In this case, the post reached 142,373 fans.

This simple COE truck post reached more people than we imagined it could. First, the paint job is a faux patina paint that never goes over well with our audience. Second, there is a golf cart in the background. Our fans generally don’t do the golf cart, cars under the EZ up, guys in beach chairs with member’s only jackets and blue blocker sunglasses. This post reaching 134,456 with 7,406 post clicks was a surprise.

Reach Is Everything

The fourth most popular Facebook post we’ve made in the first month and a half of the new year concerns a cab over engine truck and our question regarding what should be done with it. The data shows that 1,365 comments were made on this post, which is impressive, with 1,036 comments made on the post once it was shared by our fans.

These numbers are pretty impressive, which makes us happy, but when you actually go to the comments and read what was written, the fans almost all agreed that nothing should be done to this vintage warrior.  Most fans failed to see that the patina was man-made.

This is just funny. We don’t care who you are… this is funny.

Dirty Hookers And A Tranny

The fifth most popular post this year was another attempt at humor with a degree of double entendre attached. Risque posts can either go over very well or go very wrong. In this case, it seemed to be alright.

If you think these Facebook posts were entertaining and fun, you should keep an eye out for what we have planned for the rest of the year. We plan on having some more fun, a few high caliber photo shots from the events that we are at, and maybe a contest or two. We’d love to hear what our fans would like to see us post on Facebook. Please feel free to leave your comments below.