Which Social Media Platform?

When choosing a social media platform for a company, it can be very overwhelming.  There are a plethora of social media platforms and each has its own unique features and characteristics.  When choosing a platform, it is important to research your target audience to determine which platform is the best for your audience.  It is also important to decide how you want to use social media for your company.  Some thing that needs to be considered is whether the company is focused on creating content or creating conversations. Another thing to consider is what is the company’s end goal with social media? What do they want to share? Below are some basic facts and demographics about the most popular social media sites.

Each of these six social media platforms has millions and even billions of users and each have their own features.  Although I think it is good to focus on one platform, I think it is also just as important to have an active presence on other platforms.  Just because your target audience is primarily on one social media site does not mean there will not be customers or followers on other sites.  It is also easy now to post content on multiple platforms at the same time. Through the use of social media management systems you can have all your social media pages on one site.  It is easy to create one post and share to however many sites you wish to share it on.  You can also post content on multiple sites at the same time from the actual social media site.  For instance, you can Instagram a picture and also have it shared on Facebook and Twitter.  With one post, you are creating content on three social media sites and reaching three different audiences. Another advantage to having multiple social media sites, besides reaching a broader audience, is that it will help your search engine optimization. According to Frasco, 2013, “But the days of easily measuring your SEO strategy are long gone. It's no longer about building X amount of links and creating Y amount of optimized content pages on your website. These old approaches to getting search engine attention are very static. The new strategy is about being dynamic, engaged, and interactive within your marketplace. Social media is the only place you can make that happen.” Not only does it help with your branding to be present and active on social media, but it also helps with your SEO.

Content vs. Conversation

When trying to determine which social media platform to use it is important to determine if it is more important to create content or create conversations.  Greenburg, 2009, says “The reality is, if you aren’t already generating a fair amount of content, it will be difficult to keep up any sort of cadence and maintain your content promise. Plus, most e-commerce marketers’ websites are specifically geared towards conversion.” It is important to create good content to have a successful social media page.  “Have something to say. Say it often. Be interesting. Sound familiar? This is essentially the content publishing model. By incorporating content development into your existing marketing calendar and production process, you can turn social marketing into an asset,” (Greenburg, 2009).

For years, content is king has been the outlook on creating content for the web, but author and activist Cory Doctorow says “Conversation is King, content is just something to talk about,” (Novak, 2010).  When you start to think about what he is saying, it makes sense as to why people are attracted to and frequently use social media. “ ‘Content is just something to talk about’ puts human interaction at the centre of the picture. And it explains the rise of social media on the web, the growth of multi-user games on all platforms, and the persistence of people meeting in real life, and not just in ‘cyberspace’. Content without conversation is just broadcasting, or just advertising. It goes to the listener/reader/viewer/visitor... and stops there,” (Novak, 2010).  The great thing about social media is that conversations can be created from content and it can spread like word of mouth advertising.  Novak, 2010, says, “I see the truth of this all the time on my social platforms of choice: Twitter and Facebook. Users are constantly sending out little bits of information, but the fun really doesn’t start unless those morsels are taken up by someone else and responded to, passed along, or even ‘liked’. And for that to happen, there has to be a conversation starter somewhere in the message.”

It is up to the company to decide if they are more concerned with content or conversation.  Some platforms like Pinterest and Instagram are more about creating content, while platforms like Facebook and Twitter are more focused on creating a conversation.  It is extremely hard to have a conversation on Instagram.  Instagram is more focused on posting pictures or videos and Pinterest is more about users pinning and sharing pins.  Facebook and Twitter are more about creating conversations with content.  These two sites are also places customers can go to start a conversation that does not have to be started by the brand.

Although I believe it is important to create conversations, I think it is equally as important to have great content.  Once you create your business social media page, you can test which posts get the most interaction and conversations started.  For instance, at my company, our followers love “Throwback Thursday.”  Although I did not original create “throwback Thursday,” I use it as a way to post old pictures and tag freelancers.  These pictures always get conversations started, and they are also a great way to get ready for an upcoming event.  We have a couple events that happen annually and by posting an old picture of the event from the 90s, it really gets people excited for this year’s event.  I also have people asking me to find old pictures from old shoots or find pictures of old equipment.  This is just one way to find content that works well and creates conversations with your followers. 

References

Frasco, S. (2013, November 9). Social media is critical to your SEO. Socialmediatoday.com Retrieved from http://socialmediatoday.com/stephaniefrasco/1901891/6-reasons-social-media-critical-your-seo

Greenberg, M. (2009, October 20). Content is king of social marketing. MultichannelMerchant.com. Retrieved from http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/1020-content-social-marketing/

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king

Repeat Visitors: Why do they matter?

Repeat visitors is an important metric to measure for visitor characterization. A repeat visitor can be defined as the number of unique visitors with activity consisting of two or more visits to a site during a reporting period.  According to Kaushik, 2010, repeat visitors can be measured through tracking first party cookies.  “First party cookies are also rejected a lot less because much of the internet does not work if you don’t accept first-party cookies.  Email providers such as hotmail.com or gmail.com, ecommerce websites such as amazon.com or crutchfield.com, banks or even blogging platforms all require you to accept first party cookies.”   

Web analyst Paul, blogs about the importance of repeat visitors for any type of website. “No matter what your website exists for repeat visits is always a good thing. For instance, if you’re selling something, if guests visit your site repeatedly that probably means that they like the products that you have to offer and are going to convert. If you are a content site, repeat visits mean you have a loyal set of readers, if you are a lead generating site, repeats would eventually lead to higher number of leads,” (“What drives repeat,” 2010).

Martell, 2011, says “If you think that your niche or particular product can’t benefit from repeat traffic you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter if you’re promoting homemade candles, kitchen barstools, infrared cameras, or accounting services you need to develop a relationship with your visitors that creates opportunities for multiple exposures of your offers.” Below, Martell gives 5 tips to increase repeat visitors to your website.

1.     RSS to e-mail- This system will crawl your website and send email notifications to customers when new content is available on the site.

2.     Spreading the word- Create a voice for your website as a deeper dimension to the visit.  You can create audio clips such as podcasts, or I would think videos are also a great way to get people back to your website.

3.     Keep your blog buzzing- Use a company blog to put out information and to get customers to interact with you.  By posting a question at the end of the blog, users can come back and comment and have conversations with you.

4.     Chat forums- Chat forums are a way for people to share stories and create a community to the website.

5.     Keep your hand in the game- Don’t just look for automated marketing.  Build on the relationship with your repeat visitors by providing a personal touch.

At my company we rent video and audio production equipment and we are always getting in new products. When thinking about my company website, these tips are really helpful to me.  We always have new products in our rental catalog and I don’t think people always see them.  These tips are helpful ways for me to get more repeat visitors to keep coming back to our page to see what new products we have in the rental catalog.

Do you have any tips on how to get more repeat visitors?

References

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability & science of customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing.

Martell, R. (2011). 5 strategies to create repeat visits and improve sales opportunities. Retrieved from http://www.expand2web.com/blog/5-strategies-to-create-repeats-visits/

“What drives repeat visits?” (2010). Retrieved from http://webanalyticssimplified.blogspot.com/2010/06/what-drives-repeat-visits.html

Customer Engagement: The Most Important Measurements

According to Kaushik, 2010, the Merriam-Webster dictionary says engagement can be defined as tending to draw favorable attention or interest.  “We should all try to create website experiences that draw favorable attention or interest.  The challenge in the context of measurement is ‘favorable attention or interest is incredibly hard’—if not impossible—to measure,” (Kaushik, 2010).  Although engagement can be difficult to truly measure, there are some metrics that can help identify engagement such as page exit ratio, single page visits, bounce rate, page views per visit, conversion, conversion rate, hit/service request and impressions. 

Milanovic, 2013 says “customer engagement is a very real and important topic, and the more engaged your buyers are with your business and brand, the more likely they are to keep coming back to you in the future. Not only that, but loyal customers place much larger orders, keep their accounts longer (even if you have customer service mishaps), and tend to refer their friends and colleagues.” Engagement is extremely important to create loyalty and keep your customers interested in what you have to say and even what you have to sell.  You have to keep in mind the 80/20 rule, that 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your clients. Milanovic gives 5 ways to measure engagement on your website.

1.     The amount of time being spent on the site or individual pages- Getting people to your page is easy, but it’s keeping them there that can be a challenge. By measuring how much time is spent on your website or a certain section of your website, you can gage how interested your audience truly is in your products.

2.     Social media following and retention- There are a lot of ways to get likes and follows, but it is important to retain your followers and hold their attention.

3.     Responses to your blog posts and other content- Getting your audience to read your blog is one thing, but getting them to post comments or respond is another.  Blog posts are where conversations can start and customers can be fully engaged.

4.     Referrals, Re-Tweets and social sharing- If someone comments on material, they are interested, but if they share it, it shows they see enough value in it to share it to their family and friends.  By sharing content, it is like they are giving their personal stamp of approval.

5.     Sale opportunities- This is usually the last indicator of customer engagement, but if new sales opportunities are being generated at a regular rate, and your prices are not the lowest, you are obviously doing fine with customer engagement.

In today’s digital marketing world, people tend to focus more on web traffic or returning customers, but they do not always measure levels of customer engagement.  Customer engagement can be more important for a business long-term success.  Traffic is not the best number, but rather engagement and this relates back to the 80/20 rule.  Although it is important to get customers to your website, it is more important to keep them there and keep them engaged.

Do you have any other tips to keep your audience/customers engaged?

Reference:

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web analytics 2.0: The art of online accountability & science of customer centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing.

Milanovic, R. (2013). 5 ways to measure engagement on your business website. Retrieved from http://kayakonlinemarketing.com/blog/bid/187362/5-Ways-to-Measure-Engagement-on-Your-Business-Website