by Fronetics | Jul 8, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media
By creating and distributing valuable and relevant content in a strategic and consistent manner you create demand for your products and services and drive profitable customer action. That being said, while content is king, content doesn’t go far (actually it goes nowhere) without distribution. For content to be successful for your business you need to do more than create content – you need to distribute content. Moreover, the content needs to be delivered consistently over time, at the right time, and in the right place.
Wise words by BuzzFeed’s Jonathan Perelman: “Content is king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants.”
So how often should you distribute content via social media? While it is important to find the balance that is right for your business, here is what we have found to be effective and what we recommend:
12 to18 per day
Twitter
Business users should aim to tweet 12 to 18 times per day, not including replies and retweets. Twitter is likely the only social media network where it’s acceptable to push content out to followers with heavy frequency, but Twitter doesn’t filter users news feeds in the same way that Facebook does, so the lifespan of a tweet is only around 15 minutes. To get the most out of your content, try repurposing or repackaging it and publishing it multiple times a day. This strategy ensures your content goes farther and gains more exposure. Use social tools like HubSpot or Sprout Social to schedule posts at different times throughout the day as publishing content ahead of time frees up your time to respond and engage with users in real time.
1 time per day
Facebook
Companies generally find that posting 1 time per day is their sweet spot for most social media networks. Facebook’s algorithm determines what content is shown to each user, so it’s likely that your followers won’t see everything your business posts. Ensuring that your Facebook posts offer high quality content will work heavily in your favor as users who engage with your content are likely to see your posts with greater frequency. And your content lasts longer on Facebook; according to wisemetrics, a Facebook post reaches 75% of its potential engagement in 5 hours. A median tweet reaches this 75% mark in less than 3hrs. Be cognizant though of posting too frequently on this network; Social Bakers reviewed the Facebook posting habits of several large brands and found a correlation between increased posts (defined as more than 3 per day) and the loss of page likes.
Instagram
As with Facebook, businesses posting to Instagram should aim to publish content once per day. The caveat with Instagram is that posts shouldn’t exceed more than one per day. Unlike other wordy social networks like Facebook and Twitter, Instagram is the place for your company to convey its brand with images. A recent study by Forrester found that Instagram users were 58 times more likely to like, comment, or share a brand’s post than Facebook users and 120 times more likely than Twitter users. With more than 300 million active users, businesses that have found a way to leverage Instagram are boosting brand engagement and growing its customer base at an incredible rate, most with only one post per day.
LinkedIn
Because office workers not only take a break from their offices on weekends, but also from LinkedIn, companies should aim to post content once per day during the workweek. In fact, in a guide published by the social network itself, ideal posting frequency for businesses is 20 times per month. Beyond posts published by your company once per day, individual users from your business should be encouraged to engage frequently with peers in activities such as asking and answering questions with LinkedIn’s Group feature. To provide the most value for your LinkedIn followers, content should be less promotional, and more heavily focused on industry-wide trends and insight.
Google+
Companies tend to find that for Google+, once per day postings generate the most value. With the social network’s obvious search engine connection, user engagement on Google+ might not be as high as say, Twitter or LinkedIn, but there are anecdotal reports that maintaining active company profiles allows content to be indexed quicker on Google. Research shows five times as many people read a Google+ headline rather than the actual content, so spend some time crafting great headlines that succulently convey your company’s message.
At the end of the day, optimal posting frequency for your company rests heavily on the type of audience it wants to reach; experiment with different posting frequencies and let your own analysis be your guide. There’s a fine line between annoying your social followers and providing value. Maintaining a dynamic and fluid posting strategy will ensure that your social efforts drive followers to action, rather than drive them away.
Fronetics Strategic Advisors is a leading management consulting firm. Our firm works with companies to identify and execute strategies for growth and value creation.
Whether it is a wholesale food distributor seeking guidance on how to define and execute corporate strategy; a telematics firm needing high quality content on a consistent basis; a real estate firm looking for a marketing partner; or a supply chain firm in need of interim management, our clients rely on Fronetics to help them navigate through critical junctures, meet their toughest challenges, and take advantage of opportunities. We deliver high-impact results.
We advise and work with companies on their most critical issues and opportunities: strategy, marketing, organization, talent acquisition, performance management, and M&A support.
We have deep expertise and a proven track record in a broad range of industries including: supply chain, real estate, software, and logistics.
by Fronetics | Jun 15, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Data/Analytics, Marketing
It’s impossible not to recognize that the business world is changing. Whether it’s the fall of the travel agent as people migrate towards online booking, or the irrelevance of the compact disc as Spotify and iTunes changed the music industry, or how advertising is done. Outbound marketing, such as print ads, TV ads, banner ads, trade shows, telemarketing, and direct mail are no longer what consumers are requiring. According to Forbes, many brands are moving their advertising budgets from television to online videos. The Content Marketing Institute reports that 8 out of 10 people identify themselves as blog readers, and 23% of all time spent online is spent on social media sites. With the rise of the blog, companies have gotten smart about how to reach their current and potential consumers.
In the B2B world things are changing, too, with many executives wanting to gain information through other mediums. The Content Marketing Institute also reports that a majority (80%) of business decision-makers prefer to get information from articles rather than through advertisements.
We know that inbound marketing is effective in garnering consumers’ attention. It’s aligned with a generation of people who want to be educated about the products they’re buying and who are willing to search for those products online. Even with all of this known, it’s important to ask: what is the ROI when it comes to content marketing?
According to Search Engine Journal, inbound leads cost 60% less than outbound leads. In the Harvard Business Review article, How to Profit from “Lean Advertising”, the shoe company DC Shoes is profiled as a model for inbound marketing. In an industry where star athletes are profiled in big-production advertisements via TV commercials, billboards, and magazine ads, the skateboard shoe company decided to take a different route. According to the 2013 HBS article, “Over the past four years they have gotten more than 180 million views—and in 2011 alone, sales jumped 15%. One was YouTube’s most-shared video of 2011; another garnered a million views in its first 24 hours. Paying online media for this type of exposure would cost upward of $5 million.”
Like any new tack in business decisions, relying on case studies from other businesses is helpful, but cost needs to be considered. In order to calculate ROI the cost of content marketing needs to be assessed:
- salaries (if going in-house)
- marketing agency or contractor services
- additional overhead
- distribution costs
- design and publication software
After those costs have been calculated, the next step is to subtract that number from the revenue generated. The Guardian has put forth its simple content marketing ROI calculator:
(Revenue Generated – Cost of Content Marketing) / Cost of Content Marketing = ROI
According to the newspaper, “A simple calculation could say that you drove 1000 visits through a piece of content, and Google Ads would have cost £1 per click, e.g. £1000 to equal the same. If the content only cost £500, you have a saving!”
But with most seemingly simple things, there’s complexity underneath. Dig deeper and ask more questions. Is the money you’re spending on inbound marketing deterring other, less obvious, costs? Would it have cost you more through outbound marketing methods to achieve that same level of visibility than through inbound marketing solutions? Is inbound marketing bringing in customers or closing a deal more quickly than alternative methods (time is money, after all)? Is inbound marketing cutting down the need for staffing in other areas, such as support staff to manage inquiries or support calls?
Some incalculable values from inbound marketing, like consumer preferences, content intelligence, customer relationship strategies, and branding can be hard to tie to a number, but over time you will see that your ROI will become more clear to you as you generate leads, turn leads into customers, and see the result in the form of money gained (American dollars or British pounds!).
by Jennifer Hart Yim | Jun 11, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing
This is a guest post written by Thijs Messelaar. Thijs has more than 15 years’ experience writing, developing content, and informing marketing strategy for various clients, including high tech, higher education, and highly-rated restaurants.
The best content marketing feels like a great story.
In fact, in many ways content marketing gets the most results because it IS a great story. It captures your imagination. It challenges you. It asks for your trust. And, if it’s truly tops, the payoff is big.
In order to get results from your content, a solid content marketing strategy must be in place. No doubt about it. Simply just creating incredible content and walking away from it probably isn’t going to get you what you want.
Key Content Marketing Channels
Content marketing requires a careful scientific approach in order to get results. Content needs to be curated, cajoled, packaged, posted, pruned, repurposed, prettified, shared, shorn, shifted, pushed out, and run up the flagpole.
To get results from your content, your content will have to be created for and/or distributed through key marketing channels like these:
- Your website assets
- Blog
- Landing pages
- Case studies
- Team (clout)
- Accolades and awards
- Resources
- Videos
- Surveys and quizzes
- Infographics
- E-books
- White papers
- Email
- SEO (onsite)/SEM (AdWords)
- Apps
- Social media (organic)
- Retargeted ads (web and social media)
- Social media ads, promoted posts, offers
- Webinars, trainings, and mini-courses
- Podcasts (audio and video)
You need to organize and optimize your sales pipeline by identifying your goals, audience, and your content marketing channels. And like a good scientist, you’ll have to analyze your results and revise your approach, over and again and again.
Examining all aspects of your content marketing strategy – creation, distribution, engagement – on your content marketing ROI is essential.
The Magic of Content Marketing
But without producing the most interesting, the most useful, the most delicious writing, design and ideas to place in these various channels, your content marketing will be dead in the water.
Great content marketing moves you to do something new and unfamiliar. Or it makes you understand something familiar in a new way. And like a really good story, you want to share good content with everyone. It’s affirming (or reaffirming) and engaging and makes you feel its magic. The magic of content marketing that gets results may be found in the sense of clear authority it imparts.
But the magic of a great story is something intangible. It comes from a true place within you (your soul, let’s say) – and connects with your audience (their souls).
But much of the best content marketing is built on novel, engaging, social, physical, and emotional experiences – not solely on rote data analysis.
Douglas Van Praet advances this relatively controversial take on current marketing practices. “We need to generate smiles, tears, or goose bumps—not significant differences correlated at the 95% confidence interval! These are the things that […] data tabulations will never capture, but they are also the things that make us buy brands,” he writes.
Likewise, these key content marketing attributes are also the essential characteristics of our most favorite and enduring stories.
If yours is merely content created for the sake of just churning more content – that is, if you don’t care much for what you’re writing about – your audience won’t care much either. It will curdle the moment they consume it.
Without moving your audience emotionally, you won’t have excited them intellectually, you won’t have made them care about you or gained their valuable (and venerable) trust. And surely your audience won’t hold your story “near-and-dear” to their hearts in a way that compels them to retell it to everyone and anyone who will listen.
The overall result? Well, poor results from your content marketing and ultimately a weakening of your brand’s standing.
Start your content creation from the soul by being yourself and talking about what you love. You’ll make connections and grow your audience just as the best storytellers have always done.
In the end, you’ll succeed with content marketing in ways you never might have imagined possible – and feel good doing it.
That in itself will be a story worth telling.
by Fronetics | Feb 25, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Answering the invariable question: “How often should I blog?”
“How often should I blog?” is a question we often get asked. The simple answer is: as often as possible so long as each post is valuable and as long as the quality doesn’t slip. Most people don’t like this response and push for something more tangible.
Research shows that blogging more frequently gets results
Research conducted by HubSpot found that companies with 51-100 pages on their website generate 48% more traffic than those with 1-50 pages. If you blog regularly your business could reach that 51 page threshold in less than one year.
HubSpot also found that companies who publish at least 15 blog posts per month get 5 times more traffic than those companies who don’t blog. Think this stat applies to big businesses? HubSpot found that small businesses with between 1 and 10 employees see the largest gains by posting more often.
Another reason to publish more often than less often: companies nearly double their sales leads by increasing blogging frequency from 3-5 times per month to 6-8 times per month.
Evidence shows that blogging more frequently gets results
At Fronetics we have seen these results first hand. To improve ranking, drive traffic, and increase leads we suggested that a client increase the number of blog posts published each week. The client was skeptical that increasing the blogging frequency would make a difference, especially to a company within the supply chain industry; however, they decided to give it a try. Within one month traffic increased by 23%, sales leads doubled, and the client landed a new customer.
Try increasing your blogging frequency for one month. Track your KPIs and assess whether increasing the blogging frequency is right for your business.
No matter how often you publish blog content make sure that your content retains these three elements:
- Consistent
- Quality
- Valuable
Fronetics Strategic Advisors is a management consulting firm focused on inbound marketing and strategy. We create and execute results-oriented programs for growth and value creation. Unlike other firms, our approach is data driven. We know ROI is important, so we track and measure results to drive success.
by Fronetics | Feb 25, 2015 | Blog, Content Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Answering the invariable question: “How often should I blog?”
“How often should I blog?” is a question we often get asked. The simple answer is: as often as possible so long as each post is valuable and as long as the quality doesn’t slip. Most people don’t like this response and push for something more tangible.
Research shows that blogging more frequently gets results
Research conducted by HubSpot found that companies with 51-100 pages on their website generate 48% more traffic than those with 1-50 pages. If you blog regularly your business could reach that 51 page threshold in less than one year.
HubSpot also found that companies who publish at least 15 blog posts per month get 5 times more traffic than those companies who don’t blog. Think this stat applies to big businesses? HubSpot found that small businesses with between 1 and 10 employees see the largest gains by posting more often.
Another reason to publish more often than less often: companies nearly double their sales leads by increasing blogging frequency from 3-5 times per month to 6-8 times per month.
Evidence shows that blogging more frequently gets results
At Fronetics we have seen these results first hand. To improve ranking, drive traffic, and increase leads we suggested that a client increase the number of blog posts published each week. The client was skeptical that increasing the blogging frequency would make a difference, especially to a company within the supply chain industry; however, they decided to give it a try. Within one month traffic increased by 23%, sales leads doubled, and the client landed a new customer.
Try increasing your blogging frequency for one month. Track your KPIs and assess whether increasing the blogging frequency is right for your business.
No matter how often you publish blog content make sure that your content retains these three elements:
- Consistent
- Quality
- Valuable
Fronetics Strategic Advisors is a management consulting firm focused on inbound marketing and strategy. We create and execute results-oriented programs for growth and value creation. Unlike other firms, our approach is data driven. We know ROI is important, so we track and measure results to drive success.
