Content Marketing and Social Media

Since social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter made their debut in the last decade, many companies have adjusted their marketing mix to include them. Most companies can no longer thrive with a website as their only online tool. Unfortunately, there are many businesses that do not have the expertise or the resources to manage a social media presence. It is easy to think that these companies are the local mom-and-pop shops or other small businesses, but there are also multimillion dollar organizations that have not yet grasped the social media mindset. However, it should not matter whether a company is local or global, small or large, it should at least adopt a few social media platforms to assist with their content marketing efforts.


The familiar adage “content is king” is an important characteristic of social media use and content marketing. “Content marketing is more about the creation and distribution of content that attracts, acquires, and engages your customers and prospects” (Miller, 2014). Businesses that regularly update their websites, generate white papers, participate in speaker panels, conduct workshops, or publish print materials like brochures or magazines, are already producing content. By reusing some of the content of a white paper, for example, a business can adapt portions of it to create a special blog post, a short video demonstration, or a message post for Twitter or Facebook. The lesson to takeaway here is that "social marketing efforts need to be driven by content, not vice versa."

Some marketers disagree with the idea that content is what drives social marketing. Novak, for example, firmly believes that conversation is king and content is just something to talk about. The basis behind this idea is that the content being shared on social media needs to be interesting or engaging enough for people to want to comment on or share it. According to Novak "content without conversation is just broadcasting, or advertising." Either way, both arguments stress the importance of producing engaging and valuable content. Once a business has this content, they can begin integrating it across various marketing media, to include social media platforms.
 
One of the biggest challenges for companies with little to no resources or social media expertise is choosing the right social media platforms in which to engage. Levy recommends for companies to choose the social platform or platforms that will have the best potential of reaching their customers. AARP, the Association of American Retired Persons, is one such organization that has discovered Facebook to be the preferred social media site among their members. However, long before AARP learned this, they dabbled in social media without much knowledge of it. The national nonprofit has come a long way since then, and their story is a successful one.
 
AARP is a renowned membership organization that advocates Congress for issues concerning the well-being and financial health of their core membership, which consists of adults aged 50 and over. They started using social media in 2009, along with thousands of other organizations, by creating accounts on Facebook and Twitter. The intent was to broaden their communication and engagement efforts with their core membership audience and potential members.
 
According to Abramovich, in the beginning, AARP did not have a social media strategy or anyone devoted solely to practicing it. In 2010, the small social budget was spent on sending marketing staff to conferences to learn more about social media. Finally, in 2011:
 
AARP began to shape its social media strategy. It was experimenting, making mistakes, and learning from them. It realized that links, although somewhat “engaging” in terms of getting people to interact with a post, [were not] the best means of really making an impression on consumers. Videos and photos — anything visual — [had] been found to make a bigger impact in terms of interactions.
 
AARP also conducted research among their members in order to determine their level of comfort with technology, the Internet, and social media. Findings from the study showed "approximately one-quarter of all those 50 plus use social media websites (27%) with Facebook being by far the most popular (23%)."
 
Armed with this knowledge, AARP decided that social media was worth investing in and built its social strategy around content. In 2011, the organization hired a managing editor for the company blog, five community managers, and their first-ever social media chief.
 
Facebook, which has proven to be the most successful platform for AARP, is where they have their most extensive presence. Last year, AARP reported having 70 to 80 Facebook pages, which consist of individual pages for their 53 local offices, as well as specialty pages for members interested solely in advocacy or stories and news in Spanish. The primary AARP Facebook page has over 1 million likes.
 
Aside from Facebook, official AARP profiles and pages can be found on Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Google+, Instagram, and Flickr. The organization even has their own Social Media Training Center on their website. The training center serves as a public resource for members and potential members to learn the basics of social media and blogging. Subject matter includes "Using Instagram to Share your Point of View" and "Learning How to Listen on Twitter.". There is even a link to a discussion group encouraging members to share what about texting, tweeting, Facebook, and other “new technology” is frustrating to them and why.
 
DeMers predicts that while investing time and resources into a social media strategy was a necessity in 2013, it will become a ‘must have’ in 2014. Even if a company does not have the resources or a set social strategy, they should make an attempt. Chances are, the company already has valuable content to share. They just need to find a few social sites where they can expand their reach and conversation. "It's hard to be on all platforms, so choose the three that best meet your needs and monitor ... them closely. Social media only works if you stay involved.” That is what AARP did, and they have seen their social success soar.

They Came. They Saw. They Did Something. The Importance of Conversions.

Image from www.webseoanalytics.com

Digital marketers know that great websites cause people to take action.  When a website visitor requests more information, buys a product, downloads a white paper, applies for membership, or all of the above, they are taking action.  Those actions are also called outcomes, goals, or, in a web analytic term, conversions.

According to Digital Analytics Association (formerly known as the Web Analytics Association, conversions are calculated by counting the number of times a desired outcome was accomplished.

Conversion data can reveal invaluable insights for companies that are using their websites to achieve online marketing goals.  Whether those goals are to obtain more leads, increase membership, or reduce calls to the customer care center, websites that result in an intended action benefit the business.

If 500 people downloaded a white paper from a company’s website, that number illustrates the total count of conversions.  However, if the company realizes that 10,000 unique visitors were on the website, but only 500 of them downloaded the white paper, those action-takers represent a 5 percent conversion rate.

Therefore, in this instance, conversion rate is defined as the websites’ outcomes divided  by unique visitors.

Markitekt, a conversion optimization agency, used heuristic analysis of web metrics and design testing to increase the conversion rate for a particular landing page on a professional truck drivers website.

TruckersReport offers an online job-finding service for truck drivers.  Their landing page is part of a conversion funnel which leads the truck driver through a few short steps, one which includes a sign-in section followed by a short online resume form.  This funnel was converting at a 12.1 percent conversion rate.    

In order to increase the conversion rate, Markitekt used a number of research methods to determine how to best improve the landing page in order to increase conversions.  They reviewed current page analytics, set up mouse tracking, recorded user sessions, and conducted an online audience survey.

The resulting data revealed that 50 percent of TruckersReport website traffic was originating from mobile devices, their existing landing page headline didn’t resonate with visitors, and the content wasn’t visually pleasing, which also lent to the impression that the company lacked credibility.

With these insights, Markitekt created a new landing page using responsive design, different images, and revised headline text.  The team conducted six multivariate tests including the success of a simple versus slightly more complex sign up form, different headline copy which incorporated words used by the survey participants, and the absence of a job match page that was meant to show visitors the progress of their online resume.

Each test result helped Markitekt with further testing, and the results of the testing were finally implemented.  The new landing page achieved a 21.7 percent conversation rate, which was an obvious improvement over the original 12.1 percent.

Conversions and conversion rates are important metrics for digital marketers to track because, as in the example above, adjustments to the way a particular conversion funnel or landing page performs can make the difference in achieving marketing goals.

For those companies that do not have the funds to hire an agency, Search Engine Journal offers up four tips to help immediately increase conversions: 

1. Explain the benefits
2. Collect customer feedback
3. Make your website easy to use
4. Contact visitors that abandon

What is Bounce Rate and Why Should You Care?

Snapshot of Bounce Rate Demystified by KissMetrics

When a visitor to a website is not engaged or does not find the information they seek, they will leave the website and find another one that will help them with their needs.

This is why bounce rate is an important metric for any SEO strategy and it is one metric which online marketers should understand.  Knowing a website’s bounce rate helps the marketer to measure the degree of engagement on that site.  

Simply defined, bounce rate is a ratio metric that shows the percentage of sessions on a website with only one page view.

Imagine a website has 100,000 visits, or sessions.  Of those visits, 30,000 visitors decide to click on one or more links within the website after they reached the landing page.  The other 70,000 visitors decide not to click any links from the landing page, and they eventually leave the website.

Those 70,000 visitors that did not click on any links represent the number of bounces from the website.  To get the bounce rate, one would need to divide the number of bounces by the number of visits.  Therefore, the bounce rate of the website is 70 percent.

The same calculation can be done for individual landing pages within a website in order to determine the bounce rate for those pages.

Tops Products, an e-commerce website that offers various office supplies, analyzed bounce rate to increase conversions on their website.

The company created a partnership with an automobile website that included multiple links to Tops Products’ bill of sale form.  The idea behind the referring URL was to get the visitors from the automobile site to purchase the bill of sale form from Tops Products’ site.

According to Jennifer Stagner, Tops Products’ technical support manager, the partnership was successful in substantially increasing traffic to their website.  However, despite this high inbound traffic count, Stagner noted the bounce rate was even higher.

For every 100 visitors clicking from the referring automobile website to Tops Products’ website, 82 visitors were immediately exiting the landing page.

Tops Products’ SEO team reviewed all ten of the referring links from the automobile website and was able to determine that the hyperlinks were directing visitors to a married living trust product instead of the bill of sale form.

To correct the links, the SEO team created 301 redirect links to reroute visitors to the intended product.  After a few weeks, Stagner reviewed Tops Products’ web analytics and noticed a dramatic, positive change.   There was a 39 percent bounce rate reduction and a 400 percent increase in conversation rates.

The Tops Products case study on bounce rate illustrates the importance of keeping track of this particular engagement metric.  Companies can create partnerships with other companies and drive traffic all day long to their own websites, but if visitors are not getting to the intended page, it can be detrimental for the SEO strategy.

Avinash Kaushik, author and digital marketing evangelist, recommends online marketers to measure bounce rate from their websites’ top referrers, as well as to measure the bounce rate for search keywords.  

In addition, it is also important to measure bounce rate for a websites’ top landing pages to be sure the content or call-to-action on that page synchronizes with the visitors’ needs.