WHY SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT

IS THE DOORWAY TO SUCCESS

Guest blogger Simon Zaku examines Social Media engagement in detail here and explains how you can improve your success rate with a few simple techniques.

 

SIMON ZAKU

 

I have a quick question for you…

Have you ever thought about whether you should focus your strengths on getting more traffic or getting more engagements?

I bet every brand on Twitter (or social media in general) has in one way or the other thought about that.

Maybe you’ve even seen or come across a few articles on this idea, just like this one. 

It’s an important question to ask because 24% of all companies surveyed don’t have a social media strategy.

Anyway, the short answer to this little debate is:

 

Engagement Wins Everytime!!

 

So, in this post I’m going to prove to you why your brand could really benefit by focusing on engagement.

…. and why that is so much better than simply counting the number of people that come to your website or blog.

 

So Why Should You Focus On Engagement? 

 

It sure feels like most brands are just counting traffic as a yardstick for measuring the success of their lead generation efforts.

However, in reality, the reverse is actually the case.

In a recent research, Ascend2 asked 294 marketing, sales and business professionals worldwide what their most important social media marketing strategy objectives were.

‘Increasing audience engagement’ emerged first with 64% of the votes.

Therefore, with so many brands wanting to increase audience engagement, you might be forgiven for asking the following questions

 

(Q) Why don’t they simply focus on getting more traffic?

(A)  Engagement is the key to getting that traffic 

 

Traffic is the end goal but interacting with users is usually always what what gets you there.

You need to be trusted by your community before your links get clicked.

…… and to become a trusted resource on Twitter, you need to interact with your audience.

With 6,000 tweets getting pumped out every second, it’s a tall order to get your content to “STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD” 

What your brand could do instead is engage directly with your audience. 

In a report from Socialbakers, it was found that increasing interactions and engagements with targeted audiences through social media correlates to an increase in website traffic.

 

More Interactions Equals Higher Traffic

 

Why does this work?

An amazing 76% of Twitter users feel much more positive about a brand when their tweets have been responded to.

What happens when they feel positive about your brand?

 

 

They Trust You.

They Check Your Links.

They Visit Your Website.

 

 

Think about this for a second.

Are you likely to click on a link in a tweet from someone you don’t know?

Or are you more likely to interact with someone you trust? 

 

What Do The Top Brands On Twitter Do? 

((Sharing The Success Stories)) 

@Starbucks 

 

@WholeFoods

 

 

 @Samsung

 

@Buffer 

 

 

What makes these brands successful on Twitter?

It’s simply because they respect and know the value of engagement and interactions on the platform.

They always post engaging tweets and always interact with users as fast as possible. 

This reminds us business owners that what consumers want is value (in form of content, coupons etc) and fast interactions (in form of tweet replies).

It’s obvious that consumers want value from the brands they follow.

You now know the importance of engaging with your target audience but how do you do that?

 

Where Do You Start?

 

Here are few proven strategies to get you started:

 

(1) Be Extremely Friendly With Your Tweets

 

When consumers get friendly brand interactions, they are more likely to recommend your brand or take action.

In a recent report by twitter, 76% of users who had a friendly interaction were likely to recommend the brand.

Of those who had an unfriendly interaction, 82% were unlikely to recommend the brand.

It’s clear that consumers want to be treated like humans, not robots.

 

(2) Use Lots & Lots Of Visuals 

 

One thing you’ll notice with the top twitter brands is that they always include images in their tweets.

Engaging images. It’s no news to brands that images in tweets give a 35% pump in retweets.

It was also found that when people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later.

However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later.

Use tools like Canva to create and design engaging images for your Twitter.

 

 

OK, over to you now, do you think brands should focus on engagements or traffic?

I’d love to hear what you think. 

 

TWEET THIS

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT IS THE DOORWAY TO SUCCESS

 

 

 

MEET SIMON ZAKU

www.SimonZaku.com

SIMON ZAKU

Simon Zaku is the founder of Ditch Social; More Time for Business (DSMTB), a Twitter management and marketing service aimed at helping businesses, brands, public figures, agencies and blogs build a twitter brand that matters through effective Twitter management.

He is obsessed with Twitter marketing and aims to remove the problem of ‘not having enough time for twitter’ through his professional Twitter management services.

You can find actionable Twitter management and marketing strategies on his website or why not grab his free eBook 

It will save you hours on your Twitter marketing.