How to Drive Clicks and Grow Your Business…Just Kidding. (#14)

An Ordinary Guy’s Lessons Learned in Boosting Web Presence.

Full disclosure: I’ve been doing experiments on you.  Don’t worry, it’s nothing sinister.  I’ve been shortening links I put on Facebook and Twitter, because then I can track how many times it’s been clicked on and when.  It’s all anonymous, but interesting nonetheless. 

As a guy beginning a career in data analysis, I believe that virtually all actions we take can be quantified, especially online.  Any company that is not collecting data, and learning or finding relationships in it, is missing out on ways to do better at what they’re doing.  So I track, and so can you!

Social media: you're doing something right.

When we’re being honest with ourselves, all behavior on social media is at least a bit narcissistic and self-centered.  If you didn’t care at all who saw and engaged with your updates, you would write a diary instead.  I try not get wrapped up in like-baiting. After all, social media is fun and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.  Yet, it would good to have a grasp on how people behave online if I ever go into marketing. In my job I will learn how to be statistically rigorous and all that jazz, but for now I’d just like to share my anecdotal findings about how/when/where I post.  Here they are:

1. Conciseness works.  I used to give a full opinion on the articles I tweet, barely staying under the character limit.  But, I’ve seen time and time again that less is more—if I just say “this is the future” or “a strong argument”, I’m more likely to be noticed in the feed.

                                               

2.  Headlines matter.  This may be obvious, but at least I’ve confirmed it myself that a call to action, with important words in the front, leads to more engagement.  There will be consequences if your content continually does not live up to its headline, but at the basic level you need something that drives another person to care.

3. Facebook accounts for at least 80% of my social reach and network.  My peers spend much, much more time here than Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, LinkedIn, or anywhere else.  An average article I post on Twitter gets 1-3 clicks, but on Facebook even silly stuff I put on Facebook gets more than this.  Of course, I’m not a Twitter or blogging star, and imagine this pattern would reverse if I made a greater effort to attract people I don’t know on these platforms.

4. A retweet, like, comment or +1 soon after posting significantly increases reach.  Facebook, Twitter and Google’s algorithms may be complex, but clearly engagement increases the amount of times your stuff pops up on a screen.  Not only this, social proof takes hold, and people want to be in on what others around them know about and have verified is good content.

Today (this was the basis for my post) I linked an article where people mined eHarmony data and found people look to date those quite like themselves, even if they say the opposite.  Pritika, a friend with a near-superhuman network of friends (Hi Pritz), commented one minute after I posted an article, saying “This is so interesting. thanks for sharing J.Lew”.  It was the perfect comment to get others interested. In fact, if I did social media for more than fun, I would agree with my partners to comment on each other’s content, because it works.  In a couple of hours I had over 70 clicks.  Another factor is the topic, which fits college students like: readable but also potentially informative stories. Ultimately, the goal is not to get clicks for their own sake but to tailor my stuff so that my friends enjoy my web presence.  No one likes the guy posting about Ayn Rand three times a day.

5. Don’t post at 2 in the morning. Even those who rarely use social media would agree yelling to someone is better than yelling to no one.  Wait until 11am for Facebook, and 1pm for Twitter.  I started posting my #MusicMondays updates (check out my blog post on this! Or not) at around 2 pm, as the internet tells me that is the peak of web traffic.  In time, I’ve learned my demographic is at least as active around 8 or 9.

6. I don’t like to engage in Facebook political wars, because I’m not 16.  But every once in a while, I ask people what they think about the news.  As a rule, if you want comments (or retweets, or whatever), you should ask for them.  As serendipity would have it, a post about the ACA earlier this year began a long discussion, bringing in the views of most of my different friend groups.  I returned to the computer that evening with shares and an absurd amount of clicks, probably my highest ever.  This is social media functioning well: content spread which inspires people to stop scrolling, to think and respond.  Or maybe I got lucky.

Let me know your thoughts.  Is casual analysis of your social media a waste of time?  Is there an easy way to do this more scientifically?  If it worth a few seconds of extra effort to post better stuff on average?