Debunking The Mystery Of Fan Engagement
We’ve all heard that creating creative content on Facebook is key, but there is often more in the mix that effects fan and follower engagement on your social media platforms. Sometimes content you think will be a hit turns out to be ignored, while at others you're surprised by the amount of fan interaction that a post creates. From our experiences and some tips from various social media experts, here are some tips to help you debunk the mystery of creating engaging content on Facebook.
According to social media data expert Dan Zarrella, posts that receive the most “likes” and “shares” depend mostly on the type of content (photo, video, fill in the blanks, etc.) and the time of day they are posted. Content type and timing play the largest role in the amount of engagement they receive. From our own experience with clients, Zarella’s findings ring true. Although every page is different, typically posts later in the day bring about the most “likes”. Zarilla found that 8PM was the peak time for the 10,000 Facebook pages he surveyed, which seems congruent to our own findings with our pages.
Additionally, people react the most to highly visual pages and content. Photos are king when it comes to the amount of “likes”, “shares” and comments on a Facebook page. When working with social media for restaurants or clients that sell visually appealing products, photos give Facebook pages an extra edge (and give fans a craving for what they’re selling!). High quality photos are also important; if you wouldn’t “pin it” on Pinterest, then it unlikely anyone else will comment or like it on Facebook. Engaging text such as “fill in the blank” status’ and questions also increase fan interaction, and tend to be commented on more than other forms of content. Video content trails after photos and text, but according to various social media experts like Michael Steizner of “Social Media Examiner”, video- based social media interaction is expected to grow in 2012.
Keeping track of what content is most loved by your company’s fans and followers is vital to create content they will “like” again and again. If you don’t have social media software, keep a tally of the “likes”, “shares” and comments you receive in a week, and look back to see if there are patterns and similarities of your fan interaction. Keep your content fun, timely and visual, and you’ll see fan engagement continue to increase!
Posted by Brandon Lemke about 11 months, 4 weeks, 22 hours, 26 minutes ago...
What Gives Certain Businesses The Social Edge?
One of the most frequently asked questions I run into throughout the workweek is a fairly basic and complicated one at the same time. The question is, "What types of businesses see the most success on social media?" Over the last year I have been privileged enough to work with a large variety of businesses and companies in the Appleton and Fox Valley area on their social media platforms and efforts. When thinking about it, I have been able to break it down into what I believe are the three most influential factors in social media success around the Fox Cities. If you take a look at this list and think to yourself, my business does not have this, don't be discouraged. I personally believe that social media is important for EVERY business in some way, shape, or form.
1. You Must Be Flexible
Social media in itself is an extremely elastic industry. It seems like every other day, there is a new platform rising to the top, or the top platforms are completely changing how they operate. When you integrate something like an extensive Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn strategy into your marketing efforts, you must try to be as flexible as possible. This means being open to idea of adding social media activity to your main website. This also means the consideration of adding social media activity to your preexisting marketing efforts. For example, if you routinely attend trade shows, you should be willing to promote what we are doing online to people passing by your booth. Or, let's say you have TV ads routinely playing around the Appleton area. It would be a great idea to take an ad for a week and direct viewers to the special campaign we are running on Facebook and see how the participants rise. The more flexible you are, the more success you will see online. This segues nicely into the next point:
2. Companies With The Broadest Range of Other Marketing Efforts See the Most Success
It should be common knowledge that social media should not replace all other marketing efforts you have for your company. A common myth is that if you are there, people will find you. These days, you have to tell people to find you. With that being said, if your company has a wide variety of marketing efforts, it will see the largest growth opportunities online. If your company routinely attends trade shows, shows ads on TV, is placed on the radio, utilizes print marketing, etc., etc., social media activity for you could see a much higher rate of growth. I recently read an article saying that the Kangaroostaurant (a food truck that routinely drives and parks around the Fox Cities), doesn't have any other marketing efforts besides what they do via social media. You have to take that with a grain of salt considering the fact that their truck itself is a traveling billboard, and they routinely appear in the news. These are all forms of marketing and when looking at your own marketing efforts, you might need to step back and really think about all of the different marketing you are doing - you might not realize some of your opportunities.*
3. The Highest Foot Traffic Equals the Highest Web Traffic
Now, there are exceptions to this point left and right, but overall, the easiest companies to promote via social media are those that experience the highest amount of foot traffic. Employees are able to draw them into what we are doing online much easier if they continually see new people on a daily basis. For instance, without the help of external marketing, a popular bar will probably have more Facebook "likes" than a metal fabrication plant that's located off the beaten path.
Note, like I said before, don't let this discourage you if you feel your business doesn't fall into these three categories. BConnected, LLC will work with any business around the Fox Valley/Fox Cities looking for help on tackling their social media but it is important to know these things before heading into the venture. If your company fits right into all three of these, there are many things we can do for you right away. Also, if you can think of any company around the area that fits well with these three points, help us out and let us know! Until our next post, keep on keepin' on!
*image courtesy of FOX 11
Posted by Brad Cebulski about 1 year, 1 week, 3 days, 9 hours, 22 minutes ago...
Synchronizing Your Efforts – Local Social Synergy
When small businesses read article after article regarding social media and the success stories other businesses have, the task to re-create that can be fairly daunting. Often times, the success stories and examples you read about are those of large, already-successful companies who have achieved the implementation of social media marketing into their pre-existing marketing plans. But how can a small business make the most of their setup to achieve the best results right from the get-go without spending a mint on multiple Internet service outlets? My proposal is this: make sure your online presence can tackle many different tasks at one time.
For example, if you build a blog into your website (much like the blog you are reading right now), it can improve many different challenges many marketers run into. See the following:
Improve Search Engine Optimization
Search engines are constantly looking for fresh content from sites that relevant. Every time you put together a new blog post, that is new material that search engines can pick up and direct search results back to your main website. Search engines also feed off of the amount of times a link directs back to your site. By building a thriving community around your blog that values the sharable content you publish, you are potentially having an entire group of people help you with your SEO. The content published on a blog-by-blog basis can also be focused. Do some simple keyword research to find out what words and keywords people are searching for the most in your industry and develop blog posts aimed at those keywords. This ensures that you are improving your SEO for popular topics and putting you where the fish are.
Create Valuable Content
Many small businesses have an entire library of valuable content (pictures, graphics, videos, articles, etc.) that they don’t know what to do with. With a blog built into your website, you now have an outlet. Let’s say you sponsor a local event that hundreds of people showed up for – you could write a short blog post describing the event and pull in an entire album of photos so people can have inside look at the event (and back to the SEO point, you can give these photos alt tags and titles loaded with keywords).
Drive Traffic
With the emergence of social media outlets outside of blogging, it is important to have a destination for all of the traffic created on various social media platforms. This is where the social synergy comes into play. Social media platforms like Pinterest, Facebook, and Linkedin are great tools for generating buzz and traffic – but you have to have a destination for your traffic. Your blog can serve as the hub of your content and that destination. Once your audience has arrived at its destination, they are free to stay awhile and check out everything else your business is made of and has to offer. Let’s go back to the photos you posted from the event you sponsored:
• Connect with the people at the event on Twitter and provide them with a link where they can check out photos.
• Post these photos on Pinterest and drive already-interested traffic back to your blog.
• Encourage your blog followers to share the post with their friends if they were there.
• Give your fans on Facebook an inside look of your company and provide them a link to the blog post so they can see pics and a description of the event (no one wants to read a Facebook status update if there are too many words).
The Internet landscape is continually changing and it’s important for small businesses to improve their effectiveness of their efforts. The best way to do this is to put a system in place that accomplishes many different tasks. Creating an interactive blog (with capabilities of liking, commenting, and sharing) within your website can do just that. It can be a hub of creative content, drive traffic, and improve search engine results for your website all at once if done right.
If you found this article to be of value what-so-ever, please share it on Facebook, Tweet about it, post it on LinkedIn or anything closely related to that. I would be eternally grateful - Thanks!
Posted by Brad Cebulski about 1 year, 1 month, 3 weeks, 4 days, 2 hours ago...
EdgeRank… Why Everyone Should Know About It
There have been many changes with Facebook over the last couple months and my clients and colleagues have been asking about how the changes will affect posts, effectiveness, and their specific pages. While there have been many changes aesthetically, the most noteworthy (and drawing the most attention) is the change to the Facebook News Feed and what is being featured in it. Basically Facebook took the initiative to change what you see when you log on – which I don’t blame them. Their goal now is to only show you the news that is deemed “important” to you, based on your previous interactions with people on Facebook, how long ago it was posted, and what type of media it is.
Facebook now has a fairly simple algorithm it uses to decide on whether or not your story is going to show up in your followers’ News Feeds. The end result your post gets from this algorithm is considered its “EdgeRank.” When you sign in to Facebook, the post that has the highest “EdgeRank” for you will show up first in your News Feed – thus you only see posts that are deemed “important” to you. In it’s simplest form it is very easy to understand and see how it makes sense. As stated before, the masterminds at Facebook have figured out that what makes an update important to you is based on what type of update it is (EdgeWeight), your previous connection with the source (Affinity), and how long ago it was posted (Recency). Affinity x EdgeWeight x Recency = EdgeRank. It is important to note that Affinity goes down over time unless consistent connections are being made (views, likes, comments, clicks, etc, etc).
EdgeRank is a fairly simply concept but extremely important to understand.
The importance of understanding this is also easy to comprehend. You want your status updates, photos, and videos to be seen as many of your followers as possible. If you don’t have a high EdgeRank, your fans and followers simply will not see your updates unless they choose to scroll down their News Feed for a while or you choose to pour more money into Facebook Advertising (yes, you can target people that already like your page with Facebook Ads to promote whatever it is you wish to promote).
So, what does this mean for businesses and how they use social media? First of all, it means that more extensive and careful monitoring of posts will be needed. Second of all, this means that if you are not active on your page, your EdgeRank will slowly decrease and when you eventually decide to use it no one will see what you are doing. And lastly, this means that you need to work on increasing your EdgeRank immediately prior to having something important released. For instance – if you wish to tell all of your followers about a Facebook exclusive deal for a limited time only, you should put some conversation-provoking material out for a few days leading up to the release of the promotion. This ensures that you will reach as many of your fans and followers as possible without having to spend any more money on Facebook Advertising.
Any and all feedback is encouraged so please feel free to add your thoughts, comments, questions, concerns, and banter below. Also if you like what you are reading please put your email address in on this blog to get updates when they are published! Get ahold of me instantly through Twitter! Just tweet @bradcebulski and let me know what you think.
Posted by Brad Cebulski about 1 year, 6 months, 1 week, 4 days, 23 hours, 54 minutes ago...
Social Media Trend/Myth
Often times I am asked about typical sights and practices regarding social media and business. For instance a potential client will say, “What do you typically see that works or being a challenge?” So, I have been noticing the same topic and recurring things when working with different clients in regards to getting people drawn to and involved on your site(s). It’s simple – your social media marketing is only as successful as your actions are in person. The more you interact with people in person, the more likely they are to check you out online.
What do I mean by this? I mean that it is incredibly hard to have a social media marketing campaign be successful (for business) without providing some sort of content from outside of the internet. This includes any sort of interaction between you and customers, the community, and events. There is a myth circulating that if you hire someone who knows what they are doing, then your business will explode on the internet. It doesn’t quite work like that. If you aren’t doing anything outside of the internet, what are you going to promote on the internet that is interactive, and provides value to followers?
It’s one thing having a slick page on Facebook, but how do you get people there exactly? Besides spending money on online advertising, you must incorporate all of your social media practices into your interactions with people outside of the internet. This ensures that your potential clients/customers are driven to connect with you whether you interact with you online or in person.
Not only will BConnected, LLC manage the online activity for you, but we will consult with you on how you can implement social media techniques into your business practices outside of the internet. Give me a call or shoot me an email if you have any questions about driving people to your social media platforms.
Posted by Brad Cebulski about 1 year, 8 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 16 hours, 46 minutes ago...
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