This has been a relevant question that’s been asked time and again – How do I track the success of my social media campaign? Should you be looking at the amount of engagement received or the reach with regards to impressions.
It is however all dependent on your original goal or even goals. Often having both Impressions and Engagement as a goal is necessary for a campaign to be successful. If it is for instance a new product launch, your goal should start off with being Impressions (CPI – Cost Per Impression) and then later on, moving over to setting Engagement (CPC – Cost Per Click) as a goal.
An Impression goal will make sure that you create brand awareness and elevate the visibility of your brand. Automatically once you’ve established that, if your content is relevant, it will move over to a relationship and dialogue building goal which generates engagement.
An established brand will note that a lot of the engagement happens as part of Customer Care. The Sprout Social Q2 2016 Index discovered social media is the most preferred channel for customers to engage with brands. Therefore, it is crucial that you respond and reply to messages under 4 hours to keep customers happy and satisfied.
Here are 5 tips to increase your engagement:
1. Keep it short
According to studies done it’s been determined that brands who use less words in their messages generates more engagement. Keep it to the point and rather keep the main message hosted on your company Blog or Newsroom. The click through to read more automatically generates more engagement.
2. Don’t forget about the key ingredient – stay SOCIAL on Social Media
Brands often focus too much on putting content out there, that they forget to interact with their main influencers and customers. This gives you the opportunity to build relationships and establishes good faith with your followers.
3. Create Brand Awareness
Make sure you share relevant content that resonates with your audience. Often curating content from key influencers is just as worthwhile as creating your own content. This will increase your following as well as shares, which automatically increases your visibility.
4. Show them the Company heartbeat
Openness goes a long way on social. Show them a glimpse of what’s happening behind the scenes, this plays a large role in building trust within your community. This doesn’t have to be formal content, the more “human” the content is that you share the better. Make short videos at events, take photos when you have some fun at the office, anything really that portrays the culture of the company will do great.
5. Respond to negative and positive feedback
What better way to end a day than receiving a compliment from a happy customer? However, the value of turning a negative complaint into a happy customer has a far better effect on your community than you realise. See it as an opportunity to improve and respond to it as quickly as possible.
Wherever your business is in its life cycle or the size of your digital budget it is always important to consider both measurements. Somewhere along the way you will establish trends that in future will be a key indication of whether you should focus more on Impressions or Engagement.
