Geoffresh Inc. SEO Web Design

Only Posting On Social Media During Events and Holidays? You Are Missing The Lightning In Your Bottle.

Events can be powerful catalysts that can bring a business or brand increased levels of exposure and engagement.

But…for a short period of time. 

Don’t be surprised if you only capture users during eventful times and lose them soon after the events are over. Relying on events is not a full-proof strategy for your business to pick up its exposure and engagement.

Jumping on the bandwagon of an event creates short-term relevance.

You need to have social media running throughout the year, not just pick it up during holidays or events. 

Don’t believe it? 

We analyzed our own social performance during a particularly eventful month (June, 2015) to see if our posts related to the events were more influential than our own original posts (relating to our field).

We found that our own content was responsible for a 114% jump in impressions. We kicked butt in June with articles that were original and helpful, but we also excelled in creating inspiring and interesting content that spoke to more than just our business mission. 

Posts related to events only accounted for 37.41% of the impressions and 42.85% of the engagements we earned in June. Although the events brought in some more followers, which might have led to a jump in readership and other engagement, we had to have the goods to keep the new audience.

The Social Platform for Events

Twitter is where engagement around events is the highest and most active in the social media sphere, more so than Facebook. Twitter is where businesses and brands try to catch lightning in a bottle. If everything goes right, your business could get a flood of interest and inquiries if a tweet goes viral. However Twitter cautions:

Brands with an always-on approach have a greater share of voice than brands that use Twitter for major events only.

Looking at our social performance on Twitter in June, we observed that 65% of the impressions earned in that month were earned during a 5 day period (one sixth of the total days of the month).

When? Between June 21st and June 26th.

Why? Let’s see.

What types of events tend to help with going viral? 

Types of Events:

Sporting Events

Impressions began to sky rocket after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. No surprise, two of the top ten tweets with the highest engagement rate were regarding content about the Stanley Cup win.

Timing is an important factor in social media, and Geoffresh definitely seized the opportunity off the heels of the Black Hawk’s win. Although Blackhawk related tweets represented 28.65% of all earned impressions and 26.42% of earned engagements, there were two other events that also contributed to our performance.

 

Conferences and Niche Events

The two other events that we engaged in conversation were the Apple WWD and the Chase Mission Main Street Grant Contest. 

 

The Apple Event occurred June 8th, and earned Geoffresh 1,395 impressions, 7.53% of all impressions earned, but 10% of earned engagements.

The Chase Mission Main Street Grant Contest is a niche event that not a lot of people are tuned into unless they are a part of a small business or have family or friends with small businesses. This was reflected in our metrics as well. Tweets related to the contest accounted for 1.22% of all earned impressions and only 6.42% of all engagements. It was a unique opportunity to connect with other small businesses but not with people outside of the small business world. The contest officially ended June 19th.

Now what about content related to us? 

 

Inspiring Social Media Content 

One of our own tweets earned the most impressions in June.

We created an image with a quote and tweeted it on June 24th. Accounting for 25.11% of all impressions earned in June, the tweet seized 8.57% of all engagement earned in the month. Why was is so successful? Was it the time it was tweeted, was it the nature of the content, or was it something else?

You want to pay attention to when your followers are online and you can do that by paying attention to which posts receive the most action and look at the time you posted them. Another strategy that helps is using hashtags. You want to look for what hashtags are apart of the lexicon for the platform you’ve chosen. We used the hashtag #QuotesoftheDay, just one of many popular hashtags that people use on Twitter to kill time and get “inspired.” 

Events are inspiring and your own content can be too. There’s a reason that images with quotes are so popular, they’re personal in nature. A quote that relates to your business can open your business up to new customers or clients who feel the same as you. That’s not all. 

 

Working With Social Conversations

What also influenced our social performance in June was we also engaged in conversation with users. One conversation captured 1,312 impressions and 14 engagements in 50 minutes. 

With public conversations on social media, you want to be mindful of the language and tone you use. This conversation was related to technology, but it was in the wake of the Apple Event and the person we were chatting with is an influencer in the field. Timing was involved, so was the audience of the other person in the conversation, but so were the contents of the conversation. Keep the conversation clean, on-topic, and be authentic. You want to push the envelope just enough to keep it fresh and engaging. You never know when others will stumble upon your conversation in their timeline.

 

Utilizing Website SEO

The other great win for us was our article on search engine optimization in conjunction with our monthly internet marketing show episode.

The tweets related to the article and accompanying video actually had more to do with our performance towards the end of June than the Blackhawks win. In two days the tweets earned Geoffresh 4,648 impressions, 25.11% of all impressions earned in June. In comparison, tweets related to the Blackhawks win took 5 days to earn 5,302 impressions. Although only capturing half of the engagement that the Blackhawks tweets were able to capture, we were very pleased with the engagement our article and video achieved. 

The key here was SEO, thinking about the key phrases we used in our title for the article and episode. You want to do your research before you post content, making every assurance that it is easy to stumble upon. Also, video is the most engaging type of content. More businesses should consider investing in video because it adds another dimension to the user experience. Being able to get a sample of what it’s like to visit your shop or meet one of your employees gives them a chance to consider your business more than any other type of content. 

 

Final Thoughts on Social Media Strategy posting throughout the year.

What does it say about a brand or business that can only be relevant during big holidays or cultural and sporting events? It could mean there is a lack of effort in posting content on a more regular basis, or that there is something else missing. 

Need help with your Social Media Strategy? Be sure to contact us today to get started on you next successful social media campaign. 

Details
Written by: Stephanie Pyrzynski