Do you ever feel like your marketing message isn’t being heard, particularly on social channels? It’s no surprise – one leading source cites an average engagement rate of 1% on Facebook as successful. Facebook itself captures an engagement rate below one percent – currently at .07%. On Twitter, Promoted Tweets have a one to three percent average engagement rate according to Twitter’s advertising blog. It’s not hard to feel like your message is lost in the mix.
The brands who are succeeding on social channels have one thing in common – highly engaging content. Marketers have an opportunity to cut through the noise – and deliver our messages through engaging content. In our new white paper, Five Killer Strategies to Dominate Social Media’s Big 3: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, we define five strategies to increase brand awareness and lead generation across the big 3 social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. But arguably the most important strategy of all five is this one: boosting fan engagement with quality content.
What kind of content is best?
The key here is to develop a strategy that allows you to post creative, non-promotional content. Your fans and followers pay attention to powerful content, but the forms can vary. In all mediums, successful content can be funny, emotional, controversial, empathetic – aim for striking a chord with your followers. Above all, be genuine – post that which is in line with your brand voice, but relevant to your audience.
Foster Fan Engagement on Facebook
On Facebook, successful engagement can expose your brand to the friends of your followers. The key to this is creating engaging content which becomes popular, either organically or through Sponsored Stories, which then shows on the News Feeds of your followers and their friends.
Rules of Thumb on Facebook:
- Publish at least once daily.
- Check the engagement statistics – the number of Likes and comments are visible. Those with significant traction are pushed into other fans’ News Feeds.
- Write content in a way that is proven to engage fans – ask questions, or solicit opinions.
- The richer the media, the deeper the engagement: Fans are more likely to respond to videos, photos, or links than posts without them.
- Apply the 80/20 rule – 80% of your content should be non-promotional. Strive to publish interesting, engaging content. Be helpful!
In 2008, Starbucks claimed a mere 200,000 fans. In less than 4 years, Starbucks has grown to be arguably one of the most successful brands on Facebook, with over 29 million ‘Likes’ on their main page. One of the secrets to their success is the employment of the 80/20 rule. Starbucks mixes promotional posts (20%) with more general content (80%). In May of 2012, posts included promotional content for their Frappuccino Happy Hour campaign, alongside less-promotional posts, like a ‘Thank a Teacher’ post. The post is seasonally appropriate as May marks the end of school for many. Likes for this post are over 21,000 – it clearly struck a chord.
Another cool use of Facebook: KLM Airlines has a program called ‘Meet and Seat‘ which allows travelling passengers to view the Facebook and LinkedIn profiles of other opted-in passengers, potentially making valuable connections on the plane.
Foster Fan Engagement on Twitter
Engagement on Twitter can spread the reach of posts exponentially, potentially exposing your content to hundreds of new people. Monitor and analyze successful content by studying tweets with high numbers of retweets and comments.
MLB Fan Cave, a world in which nine hand-picked baseball fans live and watch every baseball game, has a near constant stream of engagement. The Dwellers are competing to be named the number one fan at the end of the season. MLB players, celebrities and musicians visit the Fan Cave to create videos and other content that is distributed via their Twitter and Facebook channels. Fans of the MLB Fan Cave tweet to the Cave Dwellers and visit the Cave for tours. For its part, the MLB Fan Cave runs promotions, contests, and baseball updates.
Foster Fan Engagement on YouTube
Not to sound like a broken record, but content here is king. Nothing will create more engagement than publishing creative content.
- Explore funny, unique or interesting ways to present your brand.
- Don’t be overly promotional, but display different product use cases. Show visitors how to get the most out of your products.
- Keep videos short and break longer ones into a series to keep engagement levels high.
- Create playlists around common themes and ideas.
Blendtec, maker of professional-grade blenders, has created an incredibly well received series called, ‘Will it blend?‘ where founder Tom Dickson puts uncommonly blended items into his blender. He has attempted to blend iPhones, a skeleton, super glue, paintballs and more – to the tune of nearly 200 million views on YouTube. The company also has tapped one fan, Corey Vidal, who created an interactive ‘Will it Blend?‘ series wherein viewers choose the items to blend.
For even more strategies and examples, download our white paper Five Killer Strategies to Dominate Social Media’s Big 3: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Marketers, we want to know what works for you! What content engagement strategy has been most successful for your brand? Tell us at @AwarenessTips.
Mike Lewis
@bostonmike
