Here is a recap of the first three tips we talked about in our last post:

1. Be Where Your Readers Are
2. Engage
3. Don’t Try to Be Everywhere

Did we mention, engage?  How about data? Did we talk about data?  Well, we’ve mentioned it, for sure.

TIP #4

Get Neck Deep in Data

The thing is, many of the key tips for success in social media require that you really wade into the data you have available to you and act on it. There is no question that data helps you make informed choices about how you interact with your audience.

Need to build your context to engage readers, lead them deeper into your site and into your sales funnel? Look at the data for what your readers are reading, commenting and sharing, where they going next, when and how ...

Need to be where your readers are?  Look at the data. It will tell you what social media channels deliver traffic AND where you’ll find potential customers.

Need to engage with your readers? Again, look at the data. It will tell you who is engaging with what – comments, polls, surveys - when and how. 

As you read on, you will see how valuable “operationalized” data can be to a successful social media strategy. Remember that there is a fair amount of science to using deep data, but there is also art in the interpretation and application of the knowledge to effective marketing and editorial. 

But it’s not just about looking at the data that is there. You need to continuously generate relevant data. So, try things out with social media. Don’t hesitate. Do it rapidly and find your weaknesses (messaging, platform, audience) in order to hone in on what works best. Ask questions like:

What does our audience do once they are on our site?

When you see what they do, you can tap into that knowledge and use if for product development and business growth? Which leads to:

TIP #5

Be Relevant and Diverse

Social media is not just about the “LIKES” or “FOLLOWERS.” It must be rooted in the performance of any marketing campaign and your business goals.

Create relevant content for your audience, not for you. Sounds obvious, right? Well, social media can be really fun—it’s a social thing! But it’s important to remember that you are using it for business and it’s about what you can do for your audience.

• Share content, not just your own, but relevant content that would interest your readers as well.
• Limit your marketing messages to a small percentage of your overall content strategy.
• Social media affects a variety of content and potential revenue streams: events, articles, subscriptions/memberships, buyers guides, data, white papers, etc. Use that to your advantage. For readers, it is only about how valuable and relevant it is to them, on any channel. Give them a diversity of choices for meaningful, ongoing engagement.

TIP #6

Mix Up Post Types and Increase Your Base

That doesn’t mean that every social media post or update will result in traffic. But that’s not the purpose of every post. That probably seems strange to you. Why post something that doesn’t result in traffic? Because it can result in followers. Posting a basic status or interesting photos and even other related stories and statuses can result in a rising tide of followers, which will increase engagement on posts that do result in traffic.

When the school is bigger, there are more fish to hook.

Put another way: the more people follow you, the more people read your stuff, share with others and the more traffic you get. Sharing has a potential exponential effect on traffic.

We’ve found, with multiple accounts, that on an average post we can expect about 1/3 of the readers to actually see it and somewhere around 10% to share it.

This means if you have 500 likes, you usually get somewhere in the neighborhood of 175-180 views on each post. Now, consider the math: when you start closing in on 2000 likes, the number of views exceeds your number of followers. Because, once enough people share it, you begin reaching beyond the scope of your followers who have seen it and that number starts multiplying through their individual channels. 

That’s pretty cool. We’ve got a few more tips. Stay tuned.

Part I of this post.

Part III of this post.

* Thank you Greg Henderson and Abe Zarran for sharing your insight on social media. As ePublishing Solutions Managers, they are busy guys. They help us to stay on the cutting edge of the technology, while managing client accounts, providing ongoing consulting to our clients and acting as your point of contact to our design and development teams.