Choosing the Right Social Media for Your Brand

Jumping online and starting social media accounts on every currently popular platform is easy, but it doesn’t always make sense. Picking and choosing where to showcase a business is necessary for a few reasons; namely doing it well, reaching your intended audience, and meeting the goals of your marketing plan.

Scott Levy author and social media guru explains it well, “most people and companies can't be amazing on every platform; that takes a huge amount of bandwidth and resources. Instead of having a sub-par representation in a lot of places, be awesome on a few of them (Levy, 2013).”

Obviously the different platforms are good for different things and different types of businesses. This graphic offers a starting point for seeing the purpose of each social media outlet and also learning the limitations of each.

(Accion Marketing and Sales, 2015)

Accion, an online lending service and business blogger, created the chart above and they also offer some insight on getting to a place where you can choose what sites are right for you. To get started take a step back from the computer and make a plan:

First, determine your audience. Write a detailed description of your typical customer. How old are they? What gender? How much money do they make? Did they go to school? What are their hobbies and interests?

Next, choose your goals. Are you trying to make sales? Build a relationship? Provide customer support? Network? Show off your beautiful products?

Finally, find your audience. Once you have a clear picture of who your customer is and what you want them to do you will need to locate them online. Are your ideal users super-young Instagrammers or are they an older group predominately interacting with brands on Facebook (Accion Marketing and Sales, 2015)?

Facebook

Facebook is clearly the most popular social media outlet with 1.3 billion users (Accion Marketing and Sales, 2015) and all businesses, brands, and personalities should probably have a page to represent them (except maybe brands that have more detractors than fans, like toxic waste plants or mass-murderers). Facebook is a great place for building an audience, telling a story, and creating a group of loyal and engaged consumers for whatever product you are selling (Levy, 2013).

As you can see on the graphic from Sprout Social, Facebook really has a great mix of everyone; men and women, old and young, rich and poor, educated and non-educated.

(Jackson, 2015)

Facebook Con: Because organic reach is hard to come by on Facebook it can be expensive to get your content in front of your intended audience. (Schaefer, 2015).

Twitter

Twitter has a much smaller and more targeted customer base than Facebook, again Sprout Social does a great job of outlining this in graphic form. Users are younger, wealthier, and more educated (Jackson, 2015). Twitter is a good tool for businesses to reach out and speak to people directly. It also provides a platform for those who have a constant flow of information to share including “breaking news, updates, questions for your followers, or if you want opinions now or even need to announce a recall (Levy, 2013).” Twitter is also a popular site for celebrities or public figures to share their thoughts and opinions on topics.

(Jackson, 2015)

Twitter Con: Tweets have a much shorter lifespan than posts on other sites. It can take a lot of time, energy, and effort to keep up with the continuous flow of conversation happening on the site. Successful Twitter accounts require constant monitoring and multiple posts per day (Jackson, 2015). From personal experience, I also think Twitter is better for larger, more national businesses than smaller ones. Because there is so much conversation happening it is hard to find a hyper local and connected audience.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a super-visual, very easy to use site that is full of female users. The site also has a large number of users with more disposable income (Singh, 2015). Pinterest is a great choice for industries that are highly-visual, for instance “if you focus on wedding planning, travel destinations, interior decorating, fashion or foods (Levy, 2013).”

Pinterest is also really good at driving customers to a website (Schaefer, 2015) and selling products; shoppers who come to a site from Pinterest have been tracked to spend 10% more than shoppers from other sites (Comcowich, 2014).

(Singh, 2015)

Pinterest Con: Pinterest can be tough for brands that target men because there are so few actually using the site. Because the site is built so much on sharing content from other sources the original sharer can easily get lost (Comcowich, 2014). Using the site regularly you often find pins of items you want to buy, items you want to make, or patterns you want to replicate that are simply missing or point to bad links.

Instagram

Instagram is still fairly new, but it is the fastest growing social site. The space is also highly-visual making it an excellent choice for celebrities, fashion brands, crafters, designers, and other industries that have goods to show off. It also has 50 times the engagement rate of Facebook and has become the social media channel of choice for many young users. It is very mobile friendly, a pro for brands trying to reach markets that are connected to their devices.

(Singh, 2015)

Instagram Con: Instagram still makes it tough for users to share content, plus you can’t include links in the comment areas of photos making it tough to drive sales or website traffic (Comcowich, 2014).

LinkedIn

LinkedIn users are highly educated, mostly urban, and wealthy (Singh, 2015). Recently the site has grown beyond a place to just a place to post your resume and see what your college classmates are up to; they are now all about networking and their updated platform allows users to create a blog for their business and publish information and articles with their connections (Schaefer, 2015).

(Singh, 2015)

LinkedIn Con: LinkedIn is nice for business influencers, CEOs, and even individuals, but may not be productive for small business owners.

Google+

”Google+ is the most mysterious of all the platforms. Is it vital and vibrant? Or, is it a desolate ghost town? The answer is, both.” Google+ is good at creating communities centered around a subject (Schaefer, 2015).” Some also feel the SEO powers of Google+ are too strong pass up, especially for small businesses (Steeves).

Google doesn’t share a ton of data on their demographics, however the site is thought to skew more male than female and users tend to be younger, however income levels seem to be represented across the board. One thing to note is Google+’s large international presence which may be important to some users (Singh, 2015).

(Singh, 2015)

Google+ Con: Google+ doesn’t have a ton of users and it is hard to tell how many are active (Schaefer, 2015). Plus, it is hard to find a convincing reason to use a site that people are constantly assuming will die off soon.

Unless you are a giant company like Target or Starbucks, being on all platforms and doing a great job monitoring and engaging customers on each isn’t possible. Even though using Pinterest or Instagram might be fun, it doesn’t mean it is a smart choice for every company. A business can only commit to the channels it can keep up with or there is really no point. This makes going through the process of determining where value can be added necessary before posting anything. It is also a good exercise when new social sites comes on the scene because not everyone needs to jump on Snapchat or Periscope, especially if they are a bad fit.

References:

Accion Marketing and Sales. (2015, February 9). Choosing the Right Social Media Platform for Your Business. Retrieved January 31, 2016, from Accion: http://us.accion.org/business-resources/articles-videos/choosing-right-social-media-platform-your-business

Comcowich, W. J. (2014, May 9). Pinterest vs. Instagram: Pros and Cons for Brands. Retrieved January 31, 2016, from Cyber Alert: http://www.cyberalert.com/blog/index.php/pinterest-vs-instagram-pros-and-cons-for-brands/

Jackson, D. (2015, September 15). Facebook vs. Twitter: Which Is Best for Your Brand. Retrieved January 31, 2016, from Sprout Social: http://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-vs-twitter/

Levy, S. (2013, December 2). How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business. Retrieved January 31, 2016, from Entrepreneur: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230020

Schaefer, M. (2015). What are the best social media platforms for your business? Retrieved January 31, 2016, from Grow: http://www.businessesgrow.com/2015/06/01/best-social-media-platforms/

Singh, P. (2015, December 3). Understanding The Psychology Of Social Networks: The Secret Ingredient To Social Media Success. Retrieved January 31, 2016, from Blogging Wizard: http://www.bloggingwizard.com/psychology-of-social-networks/

Steeves, N. (n.d.). Pros and Cons of Google Plus for Small Businesses. Retrieved January 31, 2016, from Wishpond: http://corp.wishpond.com/google-plus-marketing-resources/pros-and-cons-of-google-plus-for-small-businesses/

Where Are All These People Coming From?

One important analytic that provides valuable insight to marketers is page referrer. Page referrer is a visit characterization analytic that determines where the user of your website came from in the first place. “When someone clicks on a hyperlink to go to a new page on a different website, [Google] Analytics tracks the click as a referral visit to the second site. The originating site is called a ‘referrer’ because it refers traffic from one place to the next (Bashara).”

Reviewing referral paths can “hold the key to the most popular tweets, influencers, and content for your business.” In Google Analytics this information tells you where most of your traffic is coming from, which has the potential to let you know if there is information on another site about your business, for instance an article, and also if campaigns you are running elsewhere on the Web are driving traffic to your page.  In this image you can see the majority of this website’s referrals come from stumbleupon.com, followed by Facebook.

(Kissmetrics)

To get a clear picture of the value of referral traffic you can’t just look at the source; it is also important to take into account bounce rate, new visitors, and time spent on the page from those referred users. In the example above if users from stumbleupon.com came to the website and then left quickly, but the Facebook users came, stayed for some time, and engaged while they were there, Facebook becomes a more valuable referral source for the website despite sending fewer users (Bashara).  

Knowing where your superstar users are coming from can help make marketing decisions a little easier, too. Knowing where your target customers are hanging out on the Internet can be tricky. There are so many websites, blogs, and social sites that cueing in on just a few to spend ad dollars on is difficult. Using referral analytics may help. If a website or blog already is already sending a large chunk of traffic to you this may mean that a lot of likeminded users can be found there. Advertising on the site may lead to new customers and ultimately more engagement on your site.

Looking at where traffic is coming from may also help with content creation for a site. For instance if a large chunk of users are coming Pinterest they may be in search of design-heavy, photo-rich content. But, if more users are reaching you from Twitter it may be wise to write shorter articles and use more pull-quotes in the design to help readers get to the point more quickly. Enabling users to quickly share content on their preferred platform is also key. Don’t bury the “Pin It” button if you are seeing tons of traffic on your site from Pinterest.

Referrals from other sites may also serve as opportunities; after all you are likely creating content for like-minded consumers if there is a constant flow of users back and forth. Consider partnerships, guest bloggers, or sponsored content to help enrich the relationship and make the most of the increased traffic (Wallace, 2013).

It’s clear that there are some straightforward ways to use referral traffic to your advantage and also some that require a little more thought, long-term review, and planning. No matter which you choose it seems like a worthwhile measure that should be reviewed fairly regularly in order to get a solid picture of who your online collaborators should be.

References:

Bashara, R. (n.d.). What Is Referral Traffic in Google Analytics? Retrieved January 24, 2016, from Chron Small Business: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/referral-traffic-google-analytics-53168.html

Kissmetrics. (n.d.). What You Can Learn from Referral Paths in Google Analytics. Retrieved January 24, 2016, from Kissmetrics Blog: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/referral-paths-in-google-analytics/

Wallace, T. (2013, November 27). 4 Ways to Optimize Your Referral Traffic. Retrieved January 24, 2016, from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2013/11/27/referrals-metrics/#Ol5ew_pSRaqX

Bounce Back – Is a High Bounce Rate a Big Deal?

Bounce Rate is an interesting engagement metric because there is a little controversy over whether or not it is important to watch.  

Google Analytics describes bounce rate as the “the percentage of single-page sessions (i.e. sessions in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page).”  

Kissmetrics created this graphic to show how GA measures bounce rate. Bounce rate is measured by taking the total number of single page visits divided by the total number of entries to a page. As you can see, it notes that Google takes bounce rate into account when determining page rank for your website.

(Coren)

From what I can tell, a high bounce rate is considered a negative. If someone lands on a page on your website and immediately wants to leave you’ve done something wrong. This could be bad page design, slow loading time, or a complete lack of relevant info for the user (Google). As analytics expert Avinash Kaushik describes it, “I came, I puked, I left (Kaushik, 2010).”

However, we may need to consider that the reason someone left a page soon after they arrived is that they found what they came for. For instance store hours, a contact phone number, or an address.

Personally, I can say that I can see how my company website would have issues with high bounce rate because of the way it is set up. Having multiple locations in different cities we offer landing pages for each, so with a specific Google search of “CompleteCare Wildwood hours” you will pull up these results:

Clicking on the main link will take you to the Wildwood landing page and reveal hours, address, fax number, and more. If this is what you are looking for, you don’t have to go any further and you can leave the site. In our case, if a customer finds the site and visits a location we have met the intended goal of our page.

Aside from the reason I noted above, there are other explanations for why bounce rate might be higher for some sites and they aren’t all bad. Sites with blog posts (people read one page and move on), those that see a lot of referral traffic from other places like Twitter (people looking for small amounts of content only), and those who get a lot of mobile hits (especially for sites that aren’t mobile optimized) may all see higher bounce rates.

If bounce rate has left you feeling bad about your site, there are some other analytics that might help you get a better picture for what is really happening when someone visits. Try checking out:

Average time spent on a page – are visitors taking time to take in content from your page once they arrive?

Landing pages – are people bouncing from blog posts or informational landing pages like the one above, if so you might not have an issue. If they are jumping ship after visiting your homepage it might be something to address (Vonsydow, 2014).

Of course, if you just can’t get over having a site with a high bounce rate there are ways to get the number lower. Here are a few ideas that seem fairly easy to implement:

·        

• Sart by evaluating where people are bouncing and why. Is your site loading too slowly? Do your homepages and landing pages look professional and representative of your message or are they sloppy and disheveled leaving users running from the mess?
• Other basic solutions may be adding more links to pages and in your content. For instance, we are currently working on a website redesign for the company and we will incorporate buttons on each page that meet the goals we want to a visit; schedule an appointment, visit the patient portal, etc.
• Improving bounce rate may also be possible by adding more information about a product or service; customer testimonials, photos or videos of people using the product, guides to usage, and more.
• You can also incorporate content on your sidebars to peak reader interest and have them dive deeper. Maybe a section about your business or links to blog articles similar to the current post.
• If bounce rate and time spent on the page are both off, content likely needs to be improved. Compare content on poorly performing pages with those that do well and see what can be done better. Do you need more pictures, video content, or exciting topics (Kissmetrics, 2011)?

Bounce rate may not be important to everyone, but one thing it does is remind us all is to take an extra look at our pages and determine if they could be better and how. What things can we do to make people want to go further, stay longer, and complete the goals we set out for them.

References:

Coren, Y. (n.d.). Google Analytics Bounce Rate (actually) Demystified. Retrieved January 24, 2016, from Analytcs Ninja: http://www.analytics-ninja.com/blog/2012/06/google-analytics-bounce-rate-demystified.html

Google. (n.d.). Google Support. Retrieved January 23, 2016, from Bounce Rate: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1009409?hl=en

Kaushik, A. (2010). Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity. Indianapolis: Wiley.

Kissmetrics. (2011). What You Can Learn from Bounce Rate & How to Improve It. Retrieved January 24, 2016, from Kissmetrics Blog: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/what-you-can-learn-from-bounce-rate-how-to-improve-it/

Vonsydow, E. (2014, March 31). Why Bounce Rate Isn’t The End All. Retrieved January 24, 2016, from Bop Design: https://www.bopdesign.com/bop-blog/2014/03/bounce-rate-isnt-end/