Optimizing for Today's Marketplace
Social media has become more than a place to post photos of friends or catch up with long-distance family members. Social networks now lead you to where real business is being done. Today's online marketplace is fast paced and constantly changing, with best practices centered on analytics reporting and measurable traffic results. Content marketing and content optimization allow companies from all sectors, including the biotechnology and life sciences, to compete worldwide for online visitors. While much has been written on optimizing content for Google search results on individual company webpages and websites, the same theories and principles hold true for social media content.
Facebook Optimization
Social media networks have come a long way in the development of tools for businesses, with Facebook making one of the most notable investments in analytics tracking and reporting. Whereas Facebook business pages used to be little more than glorified personal accounts, today they are dedicated marketing tools complete with a robust backend reporting system. Businesses are now able to monitor much more than Likes. Understanding how total visitors, reach, impressions, and interaction data all correspond is a daunting task. However, just as business content managers have learned to optimize for Google search results, social media managers should learn to optimize Facebook content as well.
At OffWhite, we spend alot of time reviewing social media information, best practices, and analytics data to ensure our clients are using the appropriate strategies to reach their target markets. Through our review, we have identified three main items that most companies do not do well in terms of optimizing their Facebook presence.
- Not using photos: “A picture is worth a thousand words” is a common phrase that still rings true for online content, especially social content. Facebook allows you to easily upload photos, tag “friends”, leave comments, and post to your wall, all of which can help to increase the reach of your posts.
- Inactivity: Being active on social media is the single best method of attracting additional buzz and interactions. Posting relevant information and status updates 3-5 times a week is an appropriate level for a business. Posting much more than that can seem bothersome and may cause you to lose hard-earned “Likes”.
- Using an unprofessional tone: Facebook is a social network and therefore is a forum where businesses can interact on a more personal level with their customers. This is not a license to post as freely as if you were an individual. All content postings should be professional in nature, well written, and pertinent to your audience. Encourage interaction and position your company as an authority in the industry, offering to answer questions or providing best practice suggestions.
By focusing on fixing these three issues, businesses can drive more visitors to their websites and increase the ROI on their existing social media program.
Today's social media networks are becoming powerful marketing tools with integrated reporting capabilities and broad professional reach. Businesses in a variety of industries can benefit from creating an additional touch point with their customers on any of the major social networks.
Is your social media program working for you? To learn more about how OffWhite can build a program that works for you, contact Bill White at 800-606-1610.
