Ask any digital marketer whether she has heard the phrase 'Engage the Conversation' and she will likely stare at you cross-eyed. That's because engagement has become the go to term spoken by social media and online marketing pros trying to explain how to best leverage Twitter, Facebook and Email to drive customer growth. It has a nice ring to it and it makes sense. Social media helps existing and potential customers familiarize themselves with your brand. But when you're shooting out tweets and Facebook posts into an increasingly populated social environment, your important messaging can get lost in social space. Yes, people are talking but they may not be listening. To get the most out of your social media and email campaigns, your best bet is to hit users when they are coming up for air. Here are several social and email best practices to help you engage the downtown and maximize your voice:
Tweet Often and Retweet Later
A performance-based online marketing program relies on continuous testing to improve results. If social media is truly to become a viable performance channel, shouldn't it be exposed to the same scrutiny? The more you tweet, the more you can test and measure follower engagement. You can determine what you are doing right and what needs fixing.
Now think about the way you start your day. You probably tweet early in morning while sipping coffee and eating a bagel. But according to a webinar given by Hubspot, twitter engagement via the retweet is at its peak later in the day. Less is more. With fewer people active on Twitter, more attention can be paid to your tweets. And if you're tweeting something worth tweeting about, awareness will grow and spread.
Sharing is Caring on Facebook
Everyone is obsessed with likes. More likes! We need more likes! Take a step back. Breathe in and out. Likes are an important component in effectively leveraging Facebook but likes are not the same as tweets. It is easier to overwhelm followers on Facebook with content. If you are accustomed to posting numerous times in one day, it would be wise to slow your efforts and post every couple of days, especially later in the week. This will make it easier to find users who are otherwise turned off by too much content. And that's where that little bit about sharing comes in.
Facebook users who spend their Monday through Friday nestled in social media-hating corporate offices have less time during the day and weeknights to check their page. This makes the weekend premium real estate for social media marketers looking to drive messaging. Not coincidentally, sharing rises dramatically on Saturday and Sunday. Again, by posting later in the week you are hitting your audience in downtime when they aren't being bombarded with messaging. As is the case with tweets in downtime, if the message is strong users will show love by sharing it with the masses.
Email is Best Served with Morning Coffee
Instead of tweeting with your bagel and coffee, launch your email marketing campaign with them instead. But the earlier you start brewing, the better the results are likely to be. Delivering messages in the wee small hours of the morning is a sound best practice; the rationale being that these emails will be at the top of your target's inbox. Also, open rates are higher on weekend mornings. Users are sipping their java and increasing your click-throughs because they are not being consumed by a flood of messages.
Send More Email. Email is Your Friend
Like tweets, don't be afraid to send users lots and lots of email. The more email you send, the more you can test performance. By sending emails earlier and more often, you can wean out uninterested customers streamlining your strategy and driving better conversion rates.
The Downtime is the Right Time
Believe me - no one is underestimating the power of social media and email to acquire customers. But with great power... well, you know the rest. Proceeding with caution and putting yourself in the user's seat will maximize campaign success. How many tweets do you get each day? How many posts hit you're your Facebook page? How many emails flood your inbox? It's impossible to get to all of them when they keep storming the gates. But the ones that find you in a moment of quiet, ones with attractive messages are the ones most likely to get you to read and act. Apply that thinking to your next campaign. Get down with downtime. It might send your profits on an upswing.
