One thing that frustrates executives and entrepreneurs about content marketing is the uncertainty about what content is genuinely effective (engaging) and what is noise that no one is paying attention to. This is especially a concern when you are paying employees, agencies or contractors to create content for your company; how do you know if it’s working? Please take three minutes to review a few points below and we will help you determine whether ANY blog or social media post (published by you or a competitor) scored an A+ or a solid C or when you might need a content marketing tutor.
- Measuring Engagement: We are admittedly guilty of overusing the “E” word but when it comes to digital media we have several tools to tell whether a website, video, podcast, advertisement, blog post or tweet is truly engaging an audience. The simplest metrics include dwell times, click-thru rates and, ultimately, lead/sale conversions. But for blog and social media posts, your mission should be to get your target audience to react: “Like”, “Share” and “Comment” on each post your company publishes – the more the better.
- Impressions: For our simple equation we need to know how many unique people your post has reached. For blog posts and most social media, we like to keep our time window short – no more than seven days. Yes, three months from now someone might stumble upon your blog post, but in most cases, 90%+ of attention to your content will come within the first 24-48 hours. To keep things simple, we are going to say your most recent LinkedIn post reached 1,000 people in the past seven days. All social media channels provide simple reporting on Impressions (or Reach) and the Analytics package on your website will tell you how many people actually visited your blog post last week, last month or in the past year. Some would be happy with 1,000 views on their LinkedIn post, but we really want some reaction for our posts – some return for our efforts (and expense).
- Reactions: The fuel that drives social media, organically at least, is audience reaction. When someone clicks “Like” on your Facebook post or “Comments” on your LinkedIn post, consider that credibility fuel that social platforms recognize and reward. The more people reacting to your post with Likes, Loves, Comments and Shares, the greater the increase in impressions (or exposure) your post gets, to more of your audience. Again – to keep things simple – let’s say your same LinkedIn post that received 1,000 views, also received three Likes, one Comment and one Share. Collectively, we are just going to call this FIVE total reactions. You could rate or rank these reaction types individually, if so desired, but again – we are keeping it simple today: Five post reactions divided into 1,000 post impressions gives you an “Engagement Rate” of 0.5%. In our book, that’s a failing grade – time to go back to school!
What is a good social media Engagement Rate? Results will vary by industry and audience, but double digits, 10% or better, should be your goal to strive for. Middle, single digits show average content engagement, but if your content has an Engagement Rate consistently less than 1%, week after week and month and month, it’s time to revisit your content calendars and social strategy to review what your target audience is genuinely interested in and will react to.
Now is the time – break out that red felt tip pen and see how well your most recent Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blog posts have done in 2017. Then watch our three minute explainer video about the benefits of content marketing and social media as it relates to franchise development. And feel free to contact us if you need to improve your content marketing GPA!
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