Choosing the Right Social Media

No company can afford to ignore social media. As social media users grow to the billions, and widespread internet and mobile usage continues to flourish, there’s never been a better time for a company to adapt to social media or optimize their current profiles. While some social media channels seem fleeting, or unlikely to adapt, each current channel offers not only social exposure but also advertising purposes. 

When looking at your company’s website analytics, one of the most important statistics available is where your traffic is coming from. Guess what? Social media platforms can drive traffic to your site. A successful social media, regardless of the platform, can provide your company with high-quality customers and clients who are interested in what you offer or find your information useful. To determine the best social media channels for any company, they must first ask the most basic but most direct question: where are my customers? 

Facebook

In 2018, Facebook had over 2.2 Billion active users (Sehl, 2018). That’s billion, with a ‘B.’ The demographics for Facebook are fairly widespread when compared to other social media. Even in the ages 65+ category, 41% of polled users in the Pew Research Center survey had a Facebook. The numbers only climb from there, with the highest percentage (82%) falling in the age range 25-29 (Sehl, 2018). A higher percentage of college educated individuals had Facebook accounts, as well as those making more than $75,000 a year and living in urban areas. So if you had to hitch your wagon to only one social media, more than likely, Facebook is the clear winner. 

Facebook launched ‘Facebook Local’ and ‘Facebook Places’ to help users find more information about things near them, like restaurants or shops (Porter, 2018). Given the high number of users on Facebook, a more convenient and very useful search engine within Facebook can allow for businesses to also stand out there in addition to standard search engines like Google or Bing. Facebook is already working on this, so I would expect in the near future that Facebook’s searches will only continue to grow in value to their users. 

One of the best parts of Facebook is the social and conversational aspect. Your company’s post can be shared - it can go viral! Friends of friends of those who like your brand on Facebook are the exposed to your content. If they like what they see, they’ll follow your page. This isn’t wholly unique to Facebook, but given the incredible amount of users on Facebook, the majority of your clients and customers will at the very minimum be Facebook users. Facebook added reactions to their posts in recent years, which also allows users to quickly express their initial reactions to your content. If you get lots of ‘loves’ and ‘wows’ - you might be doing something right. 

Twitter

In the first quarter of 2018, there were 336 Million active Twitter users (Tien, 2018). Millennials and Gen. Z are again the most avid users on Twitter, with 40% of people ages 18-29 using the site. Only 27% of people ages 30-49 use Twitter, and only 19% of those aged 50-64 use Twitter. Twitter demographics follow the same route as most of the other social media channels, with college educated, urban living individuals using the app the most (Sehl, 2018). Twitter was originally created to mimic a sort of SMS text, but to all your friends or ‘followers’ (Carlson, 2011). That’s why tweets were short and had a character limit. Through the years, the platform has evolved to include videos, photos, and even an extended character limit. 

Twitter is a great platform for the ‘now’ moments. Live updates, exclusive deals, quick news - these are all perfectly suited for this browsing social media. Whereas Facebook emphasizes relationships and sharing, Twitter is focused more on the pieces of the conversation. Facebook eventually overshadowed Twitter, however, with 336 Million users, Twitter should not be disregarded. For any kind of news site, whether it’s a magazine or a newspaper, Twitter is the perfect platform to post your content multiple ways and even run advertising. It’s also a much easier way for your content to get picked up by influencers or celebrities. Many politicians, celebrities, and important societal figures have Twitter accounts they manage themselves. More so than with a Facebook page, your company or you as yourself have a better chance of creating a tie with someone of importance on Twitter. 

Instagram

The expression ‘Do it for the ‘gram!’ is not lost on the 1 Billion active users on the platform (Worthy, 2018). Users under 35 make up 70% of Instagram’s users, with the highest percentages in the 18-34 age range (Worthy, 2018). Instagram offers a mostly visual experience for its users, with pictures and videos being the primary source of content. Captions are hidden after a certain length and videos in the main newsfeed are confined to one minute or less. The premise on Instagram is more to show it rather than to say it. Instagram also does not offer ‘hot links’ within the photo’s description, making it more challenging for brands to send people to the right part of their website. 

In recent years, Instagram has added the ability to link portions of stories, save those stories to ‘highlights’ which outlive the 24 hour life cycle of the story, IGTV to feature longer videos, and shopping tabs on photos. Last week, Instagram opened their in-app purchasing functionality for more than 20 companies, allowing for users to pay securely through the app itself (Adams, 2019). If all goes well, we can expect this to become the norm for all compliant companies in the coming years. For a retail store and travel destination, there is no better home than Instagram if your clients fit the demographics. 

YouTube

As the second most used social media platform, YouTube boasts 1.9 Billion active users who watch a billion hours of video a day (Cooper, 2019). Basically every single Gen. Z person users YouTube, with an astonishing 96% of respondents having an account. What’s interesting is that more than half of all people, of all ages, use YouTube. That includes more than 51% of those ages 75 and older. More than 70% of views from YouTube are on mobile, and YouTube was the top app in iOS for 2018 (Cooper, 2019). 

YouTube is a video platform, plain and simple. Unlike the other social media platforms, there isn’t a variance. Today’s YouTube is a combination of music videos, beauty tutorials, DIY tutorials, and essentially anything else you’re looking to learn or experience. Watch things to do at a vacation resort or learn how to change the oil in your car. With such high user rates, YouTube is also a great place for advertising if your target audience is on YouTube. 

Pinterest

About 250 Million people use Pinterest each month, with 77.4 Million of those users being American (Cooper, 2019). According to comScore, Pinterest reaches 83% of all women ages 25-54 in the Untied States, despite only 41% of women reporting they have accounts (Cooper, 2019). Where did the gap come from? Google Search Images. That’s right - Pinterest extends far beyond the walls of the platform. Women in that age range are deemed ‘deciders’ because they’re responsible for 80% of household buying and account for more than 50% of the wealth in America (Carp, 2018). 

Another fun fact that Hootsuite found was that Pinterest users were twice as likely to say their time on the platform was well spent (Cooper, 2019). So, essentially, Pinterest is a happy place for those who make almost all of the the household purchasing in the United States. Pinterest is used for a variety of things, including inspiration, organization, and planning. A shocking 85% of users reported they use Pinterest to plan ‘life moments,’ including weddings, new homes, and vacations (Cooper, 2019). Pinterest also allows for cleverly disguised advertising that can help promote your company or product during searches. 

Implementing a Social Media Plan: Railey Vacations

To decide what is really going to work, the marketer needs to really understand their audience and target markets. I’m going to use Deep Creek Lake based vacation rental company Railey Vacations as my example. Railey Vacations offers more than 400 rental homes, townhomes, condos, and wedding venues in Maryland’s most scenic hidden gem - Deep Creek Lake. Deep Creek is truly a four season resort area, boasting more snow than many places in Alaska, and a temperate summer climate that let’s you beat the city heat and enjoy the low humidity in the mountains.

As a vacation/travel oriented company, Railey Vacations is trying to attract renters to rent their properties. For insurance and legal reasons, renters are required to be 25 or older to sign the contract. Does this mean YouTube is out? Not necessarily. YouTube does dominate for Gen. Z, however, user rates are still incredibly high for all other age groups. What better way to showcase a vacation rental property or possibly wedding venue than with video? Imagine getting a bird’s eye view of nearby attractions or fun things to do the area. A healthy and well established YouTube channel could also offer the opportunity to create mini-series that showcase area attractions in addition to the properties. 

Another social media Railey Vacations should heavily implement is Pinterest. As I mentioned previously, Pinterest is used to plan life events! In fact, 50% of Pinterest users reported using the platform to help plan their vacations. Sharing easy recipe ideas, scenic photos, attraction photos, and more will allow for users to plan their dream vacation.

The final platform I think Railey Vacations should heavily focus on is Instagram. As a purely visual platform, Instagram is perfect for creating that Wanderlust feeling, especially for a vacation destination. With more than 400 properties and 10,000+ renters each each, there’s ample content to make an incredible Instagram page. It’s also a great platform to advertise on for Railey Vacations because a stunning ad photo will catch the user’s attention and prompt them to explore more. Need a vacation? We all do. 

All of that being said, having a great Facebook page is a must for any business that has a larger age range. While it doesn’t have to be the primary source of great content, Facebook does have its rightful place in the digital world. I do not believe that one social media fits all in today’s world. There is no one platform that can satisfy everyone. I believe that offering exclusive and different content on multiple channels is the best way to effective market your business in tailored ways that fit that platform’s audience best. 

Content vs. Conversation

Without conversation, content is just that, it’s content. For it to truly have an impact, there needs to be a conversation. Social media has allowed for that to easily happen. A news article about a supreme court trial will result in thousands of shares, comments, and reactions. A reporters words have started a conversation with a larger audience. Catherine Novak wrote a fantastic blog on this subject that I urge you all to read. Even in 2010, almost a decade ago, the shift had started.

“Content without conversation is just broadcasting, or just advertising. It goes to the listener/reader/viewer/visitor... and stops there. If the sender is lucky, it may lodge as a piece of information in the receiver's consciousness, and they may act on it someday. If the sender is luckier, or perhaps more engaging, it may be something that the receiver wants to talk about. And then the message gets a whole new burst of energy. The energy behind the message is what gives it meaning, and a life of its own. That happens because we humans like to communicate with each other. Thus the conversation begins.” - Catherine Novak, 2010.

Read the full article here. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/why-conversation-not-content-king

To me, conversation is essentially engagement as you see it on social media. If no one is reading or sharing your blog, was it successful? Your web analytics may say yes. There were 150 page views. But most people want to know their content is useful. Social media has allowed for some form of validation with that. Kaushik touches on this with his own blogging experiences and what he calls ‘personal ROI’ (Kaushik, 2009). Using metrics and analytics within Twitter, Kaushik can see what content is audience responded to through retweets and replies. Using this information, adjustments can be made to create more desirable content (Kaushik, 2009). Desirable content is anything that improves or strengthens your brand. You have to think that every share and comment is helping to do just that. 

References

Adams, P. (2019, March 19). Instagram Launches In-App Checkout for 20 Major Brands. Marketing Dive. Retrieved from: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/instagram-launches-in-app-checkout-with-20-major-brands/550809/

Carlson, N. (2011, April 13). The Real History of Twitter. Business Insider. Retrieved from: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-twitter-was-founded-2011-4

Carp, T. (2018, March 13). How to Connect with The Deciders. Pinterest. Retrieved from: https://business.pinterest.com/en/blog/how-to-connect-with-the-deciders

Cooper, P. (2019, January 22). 22 YouTube Stats that Matter to Marketers in 2019. Hootsuite. Retrieved from: https://blog.hootsuite.com/youtube-stats-marketers/

Cooper, P. (2019, February 27). 23 Pinterest Stats that Matter to Marketers in 2019. Hootsuite. Retrieved from: https://blog.hootsuite.com/pinterest-statistics-for-business/

Kaushik, A. (2009). Web Analytics 2.0 The Art of Online Accountability & Science of Customer Centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Porter, A. (2018, February 16). Why Facebook is the Next Big Player in Local Search. Forbes. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/02/16/why-facebook-is-the-next-big-player-in-local-search/#448c79389c9b

Sehl, K. (2018, May 28). All the Facebook Demographics that Matter to Marketers. Hootsuite. Retrieved from: https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-demographics/

Tien, S. (2018, June 26). Top Twitter Demographics that Matter to Social Media Marketers. Hootsuite. Retrieved from: https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-demographics/

Worthy, P. (2018, September 26). Top Instagram Demographics That Matter to Social Media Marketers. Hootsuite. Retrieved from: https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-demographics/

Foundational | Metric Categories

Managing a website is an important task for any business. With web analytics properly set up on your site, you now have access to a wealth of information in regards to your site. Some of the most important stats you’ll discover, and some of the easiest ways to track your site’s health and progress, are those categorized as ‘foundational’ dimensions and metrics. Foundational dimensions and metrics are those most basic to your site, including pages, page views, visits/sessions, unique visitors, and events. These metrics offer an instant yet informative look into your site. 

The Key Players

Visits and visitors are perhaps two of the most important metrics you’ll discover. Many calculations and other metrics incorporate visitors and visits to provide better, more detailed data (Kaushik, 2009). Visits, more commonly referred to as ‘sessions,’ are the number of times someone came to your site. All analytic tools are different, but visits is generally the number of times your site was viewed, and will contain an overlap of repeat visitors. That’s where unique visitors comes into play. Unique visitors uses the assigned, secret client ID number stored as a cookie on a person’s browser to map that person’s journey (Rosche, 2016). The unique visitors metric gives a better overall picture of how many actual people visited your site versus the number of times your site was visited. There are still loopholes that may over count unique visitors, because cookies are assigned to a person’s browser, not themselves, so switching from Chrome on your work computer to Safari on your home computer will result in two identifiers and two user IDs even though it could be the same person (Rosche, 2016). Nevertheless, both of these statistics are great for gauging the immediate traffic to your website and can be easily measured over time to see progress or lack thereof. 

Pages on your website are just that - all of the pages on your website available for Google to index. Pages are a dimension that then offer several metrics to give better reporting (Gianoglio, 2012). Page views, and unique page views, and metrics. These metrics allow for a marketer to see how many times each page has been views with the option to eliminate the duplicate users. Page views is becoming a more obsolete metric when compared to sessions (Kaushik, 2009). Unique page views offers a better insight in to how well a certain page is doing. If unique page views and overall page views are drastically different, it’s worth giving that page further review. It may be confusing users, causing them to keep returning to that page. It may also indicate that it’s an educational page that users are frequenting for good reasons (Van Den Berg, 2018). Another downfall to page views in our more modern times is that many rich-media website experiences, like embedded videos, may not generate a page view in your analytics (Kaushik, 2009). 

Events are a metric used to track specific actions. Events can further be narrowed down to unique events which eliminate any duplicate users. Events can be anything from a user clicking a button, adding something to their cart, checking out, or submitting a form (Mozilla, 2018). Events are useful in that they show definite action on your site and can be used later for specific ad targeting based on any events a user completed using Google Tag Manager (Martinez, 2018). For non-eCommerce sites, form completions or lead submissions may be the best way to gauge a page’s or website’s success with clients. 

Scope in Google Analytics 

With all of these metrics being so important, are you surprised to learn Google Analytics doesn’t display them all together? This is where ‘scope’ comes into play. Each dimension and metric fall within a scope, which are hit, user, sessions, and product. A hit is any action taken on the site, such as a page view or event. A session is made up of several hits, made by a user with a unique identifier. Google Analytics processes each hit separately, then once it’s gone through their filter, it assigns the hits to a session and the sessions to a user (Rosche, 2016). In one day, a user can have multiple sessions, hits, and products. 

So why is scope important? By keeping metrics organized by scope, Google Analytics can better show you the data you’re trying to see. Combining multiple scopes, especially hit and session scopes, can result in confusing data that may not give you the overall picture you were hoping for (Rosche, 2016). Instead of combing the dimension ‘pages’ with the metric ‘sessions,’ you would combine ‘pages’ with ‘unique page views’ to provide a report showing your top pages (West, 2015). 

Applying the Knowledge

As mentioned above, page views doesn’t always provide the best overall picture. It’s great to see how many people visited a page, but if they don’t do your intended action, did your site and business benefit? The best performing pages then are those with high traffic and high engagement. Using a metric like ‘average time on pages’ you can see which high traffic pages have above average times (Reeves, n.d.). This won’t include those who stayed on a page then exited, but, if they were on a page for a long time, then stayed on your site, it’s certainly an important statistic to see! 

Chartbeat CEO Tony Haile posted a great article on the changing perceptions of the web, and more importantly, the myths associated with the web. His first myth tackles page views. In a study by Chartbeat, they reported 55% spent fewer than 15 seconds actively on a page (Haile, 2014). This proves that page views may not by the best indicator. This study was from 2013/2014, so you can imagine it’s changed even more since then. 

References

Haile, T. (2014, March 9). What You Think You Know About the Web is Wrong. Time. Retrieved from: http://time.com/12933/what-you-think-you-know-about-the-web-is-wrong/

Gianoglio, J. (2012, December 20). Google Analytics Metrics & Dimensions. Bounteous. Retrieved from: https://www.bounteous.com/insights/2012/12/20/google-analytics-metrics-dimensions/

Reeves, C. (n.d.). My Favorite Analytics Report: 4 Steps to Find Your Most Important Pages. Fizzle. Retrieved from: https://fizzle.co/sparkline/favorite-analytics-report-4-steps-find-important-pages

Rosche, E. (2016, November 30). Understanding Scope in Google Analytics Reporting. Bounteous. Retrieved from: https://www.bounteous.com/insights/2016/11/30/understanding-scope-google-analytics-reporting/?ns=l

Van Der Berg, A. (2018, May 2). What are Pageviews in Google Analytics? Yoast. Retrieved from: https://yoast.com/what-are-pageviews-in-google-analytics/

Van Der Berg, A. (2018, April 10). What are Sessions in Google Analytics? Yoast. Retrieved from: https://yoast.com/sessions-in-google-analytics/

West, B. (2015, December 21). Common Reporting Pitfalls in Google Analytics. Bounteous. Retrieved from: https://www.bounteous.com/insights/2015/12/21/google-analytics-common-reporting-pitfalls/

Visit Characterizations | Metric Categories

When browsing online, each move you make, each button you click, and every page you view creates data that is sent to website managers. And while every user has a unique journey, many website designers and developers hope their site will funnel or channel the users into completely a specific goal. This can be anything from purchasing a product to signing up for updates. Finding out how users are accessing their site, where they come from, and the length of time of your site can provide a lot of insight for a marketer overseeing that website’s analytic data. The visit characteristics that make this journey include entry page, landing page, exit page, visit duration, referrer, page referrer, click-though, and click-through rate/ratio. All of these metrics and dimensions can be used to better understand the customer’s unique journey. 

Entry Page

The entry page is just that - the page a user entered into your site through, subsequently beginning their session. The entry page is different from the home page in that a user can come to your site through several means and methods. In a marketer’s perfect world, the user would also start at the homepage, and would use the website as intended. This way of thinking is becoming and more outdated as search engines and key word searches start users deep within your site on a specific page (Kaushik, 2009). Using a service like Google Analytics can help you determine where and how users end up on certain pages. This may prompt you then as the marketer to add a form or push for a conversion on a high traffic page (Saeed, 2019). 

Landing Page

The landing page is usually a page in which the user is meant to start their journey. Landing pages are often specific pages on your site that create the user timeline and journey you wish, usually resulting in a conversion of some kind. Google Analytics provides the data showing the top landing pages on your site. You can then further narrow down these results by conversion rate or engagement to see which pages are providing your business with the most action (Saeed, 2019). Must like with entry pages, landing pages can offer insight into the customer’s journey once they’re on your site and how to make the most out of high performing pages (Saeed, 2019). 

Exit Page

The entry page marks where the users session beings, the exit page signifies when the user leaves. The exit page is the last page the user viewed in their session (Sentance, 2016). The exit page dimension is important for marketers to see because it shows exactly where users are choosing to leave their site. If a page in the middle of a transaction journey, like checking out their online cart, has a high exit rate, it may show a problem with the page’s format or call to action. It also gives you the marketer and web developer the opportunity to improve those pages. 

Referrers

  The referrer dimension is important to understand because it shows exactly how people find your site if not through direct search. Referring sites can include social media like Facebook or Twitter, other websites, advertising platforms, and more. Once in Google Analytics, you can even view more information from referral sites and pages to see which tweets or pages are sending the most traffic (Hines, n.d.) 

Click-Through Rate

Click-throughs are basically the clicks your ad or page received. The number of clicks divided by the number of impressions gives you the click-through rate. Click-through rates are important to look at because more than likely, someone seeing your ad or page isn’t enough, you expect action. A low click-through rate can show what ads, pages, or call to actions need spruced up to allow for higher conversions. Boosting your website’s overall ranking on Google can greatly aide in a high click-through rate (Patel, n.d.). Web guru Neil Patel offers a few steps to improve organic click-through rates, including better meta-titles and meta-descriptions, researching long-tail keywords, and using descriptive URL paths (Patel, n.d.). 

Putting it all Together

Each of these dimensions and metrics work together to form the overall health of your site and quite literally characterizes each user’s visit. Optimizing your site and your ads will create a better overall experience for users (Brianna, 2018). This is especially true for those finding your website for the first time. A user may begin their journey with a key word search in a search engine website like Google. If your page is optimized and performing well, it should show up high in organic rankings. If you’ve taken the time to write great meta-titles and meta-descriptions, the user will click your link to access the information they’re looking for. If you page is what you promised, meaning the content they’re looking for they’ll find on your page, then the user will most likely stay on that page and navigate further through your site. If the page doesn’t contain what they needed, they’ll leave, which results in a bounce. Google can penalize pages with high bounce rates for certain key words (Brianna, 2018). 

By studying each of these metrics and dimensions within Google Analytics, you can better understand the user’s journey to your site and on your site. From there, you’ll have a great place to start to see what pages need extra attention or where you could be focusing for high profits. 

References

Brianna. (2018, June, 28). What is CTR? Understanding Click Through Rate. Lyfe Marketing. Retrieved from: https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/what-is-ctr-click-through-rate/

Hines, K. (n.d.) What You Can Learn from Referral Paths in Google Analytics. Retrieved from: https://neilpatel.com/blog/referral-paths-in-google-analytics/

Kaushik, A. (2009). Web Analytics 2.0 The Art of Online Accountability & Science of Customer Centricity. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Patel, N. (n.d). 13 Ways to Improve Your Organic Click-Through Rate. Retrieved from: https://neilpatel.com/blog/improve-organic-click-rate/

Saeed, S. (2019, January 2). How to Identify Your High Converting Landing Pages in Google Analytics. Monster Insights. Retrieved from: https://www.monsterinsights.com/how-to-identify-your-high-converting-landing-pages-in-google-analytics/

Sentance, R. (2016, April 11). Google Analytics: A Guide to Confusing Terms. Retrieved from: https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/04/11/google-analytics-a-guide-to-confusing-terms/#exitpage