As the owners of an Orlando social media firm, my business partner Shalyn Dever and I get asked to speak to groups all over Florida and beyond. We love talking about our passion — social media.
If you’re new to social media, it can be overwhelming. There are several social networking platforms, with new ones cropping up every day.
Take Pinterest, for example. We’ve recently given two presentations about Pinterest, and our team’s blog posts about Pinterest have generated lots of shares and subsequent traffic.
Ashley & Shalyn with business owners after a Pinterest presentation at the UCF Incubator in Winter Springs
Though we presented the topic to two different groups within a month of each other, we had to make significant updates to the presentation with the launch of Pinterest’s own analytics a few weeks ago.
Just last week our client, Hoverfly Technologies, ignited a social media firestorm when video clips of its aerial robot demonstration for the Golf Channel went viral on Twitter’s new platform, Vine.
I know what you’re thinking … “Vine? I can’t even keep up with Twitter … I’m late to social media! How can I keep up with this?”
First of all, know that even social media strategists don’t know everything because our industry evolves every day. Though Facebook wasn’t the first social network, it was arguably the first to usher in the social revolution we know today – and it was only founded in 2004.
Instead of viewing social media as a missed bus you’re sprinting after, think of it as a party that’s just getting good. Welcome, we’re glad you could make it!
The social media party is just getting started!
Second, know that you don’t HAVE to be everywhere. This is not about keepin’ up with the Joneses.
Instead of signing up for every platform just because, focus on what’s right for your organization.
Shalyn and I always say that’s it’s about quality, not quantity.
It’s better to pick one or two platforms that make sense for you and have a strong presence on these, rather than have mediocre, barely-filled out profiles on every platform that simply collect dust. Yawn.
Just as you would approach any marketing strategy, think of your target market first. Who do you want to reach? Once you know who they are, now ask yourself where these folks hang out.
The answer to that question should guide your decisions as to what platforms to join. For example, if your market is women, you gotta be on Pinterest. Do you own a B2B company? Then LinkedIn should be your BFF.
Once you pick your platforms and set up your optimized profiles, we recommend doing some listening first. One of my favorite analogies is that social media is like a cocktail party.
Social media is like a cocktail party; listen first, then join in.
You wouldn’t just barge in, break up circles of attendees and start babbling … much less shouting self-promotions.
Instead, you’d come in, scan the room, maybe find a friend your two, observe and listen to the conversation and then join in.
“But what do I say?” you may ask. Again, thinking about Marketing 101 … who matters most? Your target market.
It’s ALL about them, and what they care about. Remember, the point of social media is that it is a way to create conversation. Social media is a dialogue, not a monologue, or worse, a broadcast.
You should talk to and with your target market. You should give them lots of useful info. Yes, when you get on a social media, you have your own profile and you fill it with it info about yourself, but in reality, good social media is others-focused.
How many people do you know who only talk about themselves and how fabulous they are? What do you think about them? … My point exactly. 
You may have heard about the 70-20-10 rule in business, social learning, etc. It’s also relevant to social media.
- 70% of your updates should be valuable content that’s laser focused on your customers’ needs.
- 20% of your updates should be about sharing your followers’ content with others. Most social networks are about reciprocity … Scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Share my update, later I will share yours, too.
- Only 10% of your updates should be about your company, your specials and promotions.
Mind you, these guidelines are mostly relative to your posts, but remember that social media is about dialogue so you should be commenting, chatting and connecting with your fans and followers to truly create a community and build loyalty.
“But how much should I post and when?” you may ask. Social media platforms are fluid, streams of content.
Think of the baggage claim conveyor belts at the airports. The bags go around and around, but if you don’t look out at the right time, you might miss your bag.
Social streams are like continually moving conveyor belts. Are you putting enough content out so that your followers see it at the right time?
Similarly, you must continually offer relevant, useful updates on social media to increase the probability of your fans and followers seeing your brand in their newsfeeds.
Bit.ly, a popular link-shortening services, calculates a half life: the amount of time at which a link will receive half of the clicks it will ever receive after it’s reached its peak.
Bit.ly found the following:
The mean half life of a link on Twitter is 2.8 hours, on Facebook it’s 3.2 hours and via ‘direct’ sources (like email or IM clients) it’s 3.4 hours. So you can expect, on average, an extra 24 minutes of attention if you post on Facebook than if you post on Twitter … Links that originate from YouTube have a half life of 7.4 hours.
Think back about your target market. When are they most active? When do they respond the most? Marketing is an experiment; that’s why it’s essential to measure and track everything. You can see what works, what doesn’t, and then pivot quickly.
That said, every now and then thought-leaders in the social media world reveal their findings on best times to post on social media platforms. Firms like Buddy Media and RadiumOne’s Po.st have published their discoveries recently, and the info is definitely worth sharing.
7-9 a.m. is the best time to post on LinkedIn
9 a.m. is the time for the highest share count in the U.S.
9-11 a.m. is an active time on Google+, with a peak around 10 a.m.
10 a.m.- 12 p.m. is peak time for sharing content. Though sharing is big during this time, 9-11 a.m. is worst for clicks when sharing an article, some say because most people are busy at work … well, working.
12-2 p.m. is time garnering the most shares and highest click back rates
1-3 p.m. is the most active time for Twitter with a peak at 1 p.m., and also the highest time for click backs in the U.S. Remember that Tweeting during this time definitely means that more people will see your Tweet, but that your content is also competing against more messages. Tweeting earlier in the week is better than at the end of the week.
1-6 p.m. is a consistent time for sharing and click backs
1-5 p.m. is an active time on Facebook, with a peak at 5 p.m.
2-4 p.m. is an active time for Pinterest
5-6 p.m. is another active time for LinkedIn
8-10 p.m. is another peak sharing time
8 p.m. – 1 a.m. is another active time for Pinterest with a peak at 11 p.m.
Because Pinterest pinners are 97% women, I think 11 p.m. is a peak because that’s when the day is done, dishes are washed and the kiddies are in bed. (Where are the men? Check Google+, where 71% of the users are male. About 50% of Google+ users are 24 or younger.)
Keep in mind that these stats will be different for different time zones.
Days of the week:
Wednesday is the slowest day on Facebook with 7.4% lower interactions.
Thursday from 1-4 p.m. offers great post potential.
Just because your work week is Monday through Friday doesn’t mean that your social media should be confined to these days.
Saturday and Sunday offer some of the best opportunities in the week for Facebook. In fact, weekends get 69% higher interaction, yet only 11% of brands publish on weekends.
According to HubSpot, 12 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturdays are excellent times for Facebook engagement.
Thursday is an active day for clothing, fashion and other leisure brands.
Sunday is another strong day for leisure brands.
Monday is an active day for retail and technology.
Facebook & Twitter:
Less is more on Facebook, brands that post only 1-2 times a day get 19% more engagement.
Use photos whenever possible on Facebook and you can get a 39% higher than average interaction. Videos and links don’t get nearly as high engagement.
Have a health, beauty, or food or beverage brand? Use emoticons and you can get an increased interaction rate. The one below is the most effective:
Less is more — posts with 80 characters or less receive 23% higher interaction than longer posts.
The most effective calls to action on Facebook include these phrases:
- like
- caption this
- share
- yes or no
- thumbs-up, thumbs down
On Facebook, avoid these words:
- take
- click
- submit
- check
- shop
Ask and you shall receive. When fans are specifically asked to share a post, they react remarkably well with 7x more interaction. When fans are asked to like a post, they are 3x more likely to do so.
Post that use ‘win’ and ‘winner’ get more interaction, 68% and 45% respectively.
Posts that have ‘giveaway’ as a keyword get 42% higher interaction.
Because long URLs receive 16% higher interaction rates than shortened URLs, it is beneficial to use the display URL in your post. This gives your fans a heads-up as to where you are sending them.
Use questions to ignite engagement. Place the question at the end of the post, don’t bury it in the middle.
Using the ‘fill in the blank’ strategy, brands can receive 4x as many comments as those that don’t.
Also use ‘true or false’ questions to incite engagement.
What works for your organization? Have more questions about social media? Give us a call at 321-236-0083!
Image credits: David Domingo, Owen Jones, Sharla Sava
Category: Social Media Marketing
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