The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing

2.1 : What Types of Content Perform Best on Social Media? 

2.2 : When Is The Best Time to Post On Social Media Platforms

2.3 : What Type Of Content Will Engage Your Target Audience

Every social media manager has been faced with the decision of when to post on social media, where to post it and most especially, what to post. While some brands go ahead to just post anything at anytime, more serious brands take their time to craft their social media messages because content matters.

The value of content you post on your social media platforms rely on some factors. Every social media manager and business has to understand the crucial role these factors play to the effectiveness of communication on social media. So what are these factors? They are what I call the 3Ws of social media posting.

The 3w's of social media posting simply has to do with the when, where and what to post on your social media platforms. Social media posts isn’t just about what you post, it’s also about where you post it and when you post it. In this session, I’m going to be sharing with you insights on the 3Ws of social media posting.

When it comes to content performance on social media, it’s really about the audience and what they want. No one wants to know how you got that “great” content idea while riding a bus and how you wrote it on your palms just so you wouldn’t forget. The bottom-line is if your content isn’t what the audience wants, it won’t fly. So what kinds of content perform best on social media?

Lists

According to a study by Buzzsumo, people love to share lists online. Lists perform well online because they break down complex information into bits that are easy to understand. Lists are also very quick to read. Lists perform so well on social media that they average about 21,000 shares every month.

How To’s

Remember that the major reason people go online in general is to search for information. This is one of the reasons why content that gives people information on how to do things perform well generally on social media. Another reason How to’s perform well is that they’re most likely to show up on search engines.

Videos

Videos are one of the top internet marketing trends that keep showing up in internet marketing trends every year. Given the very addictive nature of videos, it’s no wonder that it keeps making the list of best content on social media.

Infographics

Infographics are one of the media types with very high possibilities of going viral on social media. According to Slideshare, infographics have more possibility of going viral than presentations and documents. Infographics perform so well on social media because of their highly visual nature. Infographics also break down highly complex topics into understandable bits.

Interactive content

There’s a ton of content online. We are in an age of information overload and people are getting tired of it! This is one of the reasons why a lot of people are more interested in interactive content. They’re looking for content that isn’t just going to treat them like they’re zombies. They want content they can contribute to. That’s what interactive content is all about; a two way content that encourages the viewers to respond.

Emotive content

Emotive content is a type of content that taps into the emotional side of an audience. An emotive content can be for the purpose of inspiration or motivation. Emotive content seems to perform well because it cuts through the clutter of one dimensional content to actually address the needs of the audience.

Images

Images of course, also perform well on social media. Images are relevant and keep showing up on the list of content that perform well on social media. According to Brain Rules, when people hear information, they're likely to remember about 10% of it three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that information, people tend to retain 65% of the information three days later. Given the number of images that are shared on social media daily, your image has to be both relevant and of good quality to actually perform well on social media.

News

The fact that news is one of the best performing content on social media is really a no brainer. As I earlier mentioned, people are mostly online for information. So they’re likely to follow and share the posts of pages that give them new information.

User Generated Content

Just like reviews are one of the most viewed content on online, user generated content is also one of the highest performing content on social media. User generated content is information by your audience. The reason user generated content performs so well on social media is that customers are most likely to believe and share information from other customers.

Trying to find out the best time to post on social media generally is like trying the find out the best time for eating breakfast in the world. The fact remains that eating time and habits vary from one person to another; that is also exactly how posting on social media works. Posting time varies from one social media page to another. The truth is that there is no one “best time” for posting content on social media but again, there is no one best time for eating yet all over the world, there are three common eating times; morning, afternoon and night.

The little analysis shows that although best times to post vary from one social media page to another, there are some common best times to post. These times are common based on worldwide activity on various social media platforms.

Based on the research by CoSchedule Blog, here are some best times to post on various social media platforms:

The “Bestest” Time to post on All Social Media Platforms

Like I said, eating habits vary from person to person so also, best times to post vary from page to page. The best way to actually find out what I called the “bestest” time to post on your social media pages is by paying close attention to your social media analytics. Social media analytics will help you determine when your audiences are most active on your social media pages.

Companies that are successful at social media marketing go beyond writing content that is just average and stuffed with keywords to writing content that is informative, interesting and valuable. These companies focus not on their goals, but on the audience and what they want.

Since there is no one type of content that will suit every audience, I’m going to be sharing with you common features that all engaging content have.

Some tips for creating content that will engage your target audiences include:

Know Your Audience

The focus of every engaging content is the audience. If you want to engage your audience with your content, then you have to know who they are. So before you take out time to write content that your audience will not find useful, focus on finding out who your audience really are. Knowing your audience is beyond just getting information on their demographics and interests. The information you get from studying your audience should guide you on the tone and style to use while writing for your audience. Furthermore, be sure to find out exactly what your audience needs and be sure that you content addresses just that.

Research

With Google ever at our command, research has never been easier. Research is one of the most meticulous aspects of writing engaging content. However, research always proves it self in terms of the value it brings to your audience. There are countless numbers of content out there and a lot of them are crap! The reason for this is that many people are more interested in getting content out than actually writing content that is packed with value. Don’t just create content because you have to have them on your social media pages. That’s a fast way to turn your social media followers from active to passive. In-depth research is the only way to actually offer you audience great content and keep them highly engaged. There are people I just can’t get myself to unfollow because of the rare, valuable content they share on their platforms.

Optimize

No one will know if you’ve written a great content if they don’t actually get to read it. This is one of the major reasons why optimization is a key factor for writing engaging content. You have to pay attention to using the right keywords and hashtags when writing content for social media.

Be Unique

I know how tempting it is to look at how great your competitor’s content is doing and want to basically re-write the content they post. However, that will only earn you a few more followers on you page and definitely not die hard followers. I follow very few people on social media and one of the major reason I follow those few people is because of their unique approach to content. They don’t post what every other person on social media is posting. They take a unique approach to talking about what every other person is talking about. So if you’re looking to get your audience engaged, be yourself!

Create Actionable posts

This is another way to get your audience engaged. You don’t just want to throw a block of content to your followers on social media. Make your content come alive by creating more actionable content. Include relevant phrases in your posts that make your audience take action. The way to test how actionable your posts are is by reviewing comments on your post. Do your followers talk about the content you’ve written? Do they ask questions? Do they make contributions? Actionable content gets your audience to take action immediately.

Edit

This one is simple; you either edit or lose your followers fast. I acknowledge that with how fast people want information on social media, there is bound to be some editing oops. However, it becomes a huge problem when it’s a regular occurrence. You posts can’t be engaging if your audiences have a hard time understanding exactly what message you’re trying to pass.

3.1 : What Is Social Media ROI?

3.2 : Why Measuring ROI Is Important

3.3 : How To Track Social Media Engagement

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What’s the use of spending resources on doing social media if you have no way of knowing how it benefits your business? Proving the power of social media helps you understand exactly what you’re getting out of social media. Proving the power of social media has to do with analyzing, measuring and reporting on every part of a brand’s social media strategy and activity, and clearly stating the impact it has on the brand.

Proving the power of social media is highly beneficial for any business. By proving the power of social media, you can find out exactly how well your social media efforts are working. Proving the power of social media helps you avoid wasting your resources on futile social media activities. This activity will help you gain new insights into your business and see opportunities that are available. Moreover, proving the power of social media helps address the issue of ROI on your social media investment.

A lot has been said about social media ROI. In fact there has been a lot of debate as to what exactly social media ROI is and isn’t. The reason for this is that when it comes to social media ROI, things are not quite as they seem. Unlike a blog where you can simply track traffic and comments, social media has so many metrics that cannot be totally measured. Also a blog that lets you see exactly how much you’re making, it’s not the same with social media. You can’t say for sure how much a Facebook post or a tweet generated for you brand.

A survey by Convince & Convert showed that about 41% of companies have no idea whether or not their social media efforts are actually paying off. I believe that one of the reasons for this is because most of these companies don’t even know what to measure on social media. A lot of them are more concerned about numbers; number of followers, number of likes, number of shares or number of comments. However, social media ROI is beyond just these metrics.

So what is social media ROI? There are a thousand and one definitions out there about social media ROI. However, I personally define social media ROI as the relationship between the amount or money and resources spent on social media activities of a brand and the returns that brand gets as a result of these activities in comparison to the objectives of that brand. So your social media ROI would be how much you’re getting out of your social media efforts in comparison to resources invested and the objectives you have.

Saying that measuring social media ROI is important is nothing short of a rude understatement. The reason for this is that without knowledge of your social media ROI, you’re basically pouring water into a basket. Measuring your social media ROI is almost as important as running your business itself.

Better Understanding Of Your Business

Measuring your social media ROI gives you a more solid understanding of your business especially in terms of operation, financial capability and even relationship with customers.

Understand Your Results

Like I earlier mentioned, social media ROI isn’t cast in stone. Social media ROI means different thing to different businesses. Measuring your social media ROI will help you better understand your own social media results. It would also help you to clearly define exactly what social media ROI means for your business.

Determine The Best Platform

The fact is that your organization is bound to perform better on one social media platform than others. Measuring your social media ROI across platforms will help you determine exactly which social media platform gives you the best return on investment.

Measure How Your Business Is Meeting Up With Its Objectives

I assume that every smart brand has an objective set out before ever going into social media marketing. Measuring your ROI on social media helps you identify exactly how your social media efforts measures up to your social media objectives.

Identify Business Challenges and Opportunities

Identifying the challenges and opportunities of a brand is one of the vital ways to improve the business and make it more profitable. Measuring your social media ROI will help you identify loopholes in your business and also maximize the opportunities available.

Serve Customers Better

By measuring your social media ROI, you’ll discover what works and what doesn’t. By determining what works for your brand, you can commit more money to the things that actually satisfy your customers.

Save Resources

Many businesses waste a ton of resources on social media everyday because they either don’t know it’s important to measure their social media ROI or they simply ignore it. The thing is that if your don’t measure the returns your efforts and investment in social media is giving you, you’re going to end up wasting resources on activities that aren’t beneficial to your brand and probably ignore the ones which are.

Engagement on social media is a key metric for determining how well a brand is performing on social media. According to Hootsuite, “Engagement metrics showcase audience action, which is important for social media health and growth”. Engagement shows how well you content is performing on social media and how well your audience are connecting with your brand on social media.

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Despite the fact that these platforms have different metrics for measuring social media engagement, there are general steps to take when tracking engagement on social media.

Use Analytics

Virtually every social media platforms comes equipped with an inbuilt analytic tool that helps you know exactly what the activity is on your social media page. If you’re looking to track engagement accurately on your social media pages, then you should pay close attention to the results of these analytics. Whether you’re using Facebook or Twitter dashboard to check engagement on social media, you have to pay attention to your analytics especially in relation to content or time.

Analyze Actions On Page

What actions are being taken on your social media pages? Are people leaving comments? Are they liking or sharing your posts? One way of know exactly how well or how much your audience is engaging with your brand on social media is by analyzing the actions taken on your social media pages.

Review Key Metrics

Like I earlier mentioned, every social media platform is equipped with some basic metrics for measuring engagement. Some basic key metrics for tracking engagement on social media include likes, comments and shares. You can review these key metrics according to number or quality. I advice basing your metrics review on quality. The reason for this is that your post could be liked by people who didn’t even read or aren’t interested in your brand as a whole. When you review key metrics by quality, you’re able to identify likes, shares and comments that really matter to your brand.

Analyze Comments

It’s not enough to just review key metrics. You also have to spending time analyzing the comments on your social media pages if you want to track engagement effectively. Comments reveal a lot about how your audiences are connecting with your content on social media. These content could even reveal other opportunities for creating even more engaging content. Spend time reviewing the comments on your social media pages if you want to get a more in-depth view on audience engagement.

Analyze Time Spent On Page

Another way to track engagement on your social media pages is by tracking the time visitors to your page spend. The best way to go about this is to review the average time your audience spends on a specific post. So instead of just getting a general report on time spent on your pages, you can focus on identifying the best performing content by focusing on analyzing time spent on each post

Carry Out Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis is another great way to track engagement on social media. A lot of social media managers are unaware of the term sentiment analysis and how much it means to social media. What is sentiment analysis? According to BrandWatch “Sentiment analysis – otherwise known as opinion mining – is a much bandied about but often misunderstood term.

In essence, it is the process of determining the emotional tone behind a series of words, used to gain an understanding of the attitudes, opinions and emotions expressed within an online mention.” Sentiment analysis takes your behind surface engagement tracking to an in-depth engagement analysis that lets you see not just what how your audiences are reacting, but also why they reacting in a specific way.