It has been said that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
And when it comes to social media strategy in late 2013, imitation might not only be flattering. In fact, it could also be fattening for your business’ coffers and “Q rating.”
With that in mind, let’s go ahead and aggressively “imitate,” say, the Huffington Post (or HuffPo for short). In fact, why don’t we just go ahead and steal it away from them, shall we?
Now, we’re not advocating that you “case” HuffPo’s media (including social media) strategy and flat-out steal it while they’re not looking. What we are suggesting is that you take some time to thoroughly examine the site itself. And be sure to take some deep breaths while you navigate its many layers and lairs.
After even a rudimentary analysis, what you’ll soon discover is that the HuffPo does pretty much whatever it can to get more page views. In fact, you’d find the same thing to be true if you took a close look at other successful, ad-based, revenue-driven sites.
They post tons of original content (some of it good, some of it not-so-good). They implement in-depth and intense PR methods. They utilize organic and paid media. Whatever it takes to rack up more page views, they’ll go ahead and do it. Often without hesitation or second thought.
And for good reason. These page views translate directly into impressions – impressions that they then turn around and sell to advertisers. Put simply, if these kinds of sites don’t get the traffic, then they don’t get the revenue. And if that kind of hard luck keeps up for too long, they don’t get to stay in business. And nobody wants to go out of business.
Furthermore, the higher the quality of the visitor generating all of those page views, the more these sites can charge for the impressions – in the form of CPMs (short for cost per thousand impressions). While the KPI (aka Key Performance Indicator) for these types of sites is revenue-per-visitor, and/or page views, the page views and their quality are still vitally important parts of the equation here.
When it comes to your own social media efforts on behalf of your own brand and business, you could stand to learn from this aggressive, ambitious and outgoing business model.
At this point, you might be asking, “How so?” Well, just like ad-based, revenue-driven sites, you’re trying to get high-quality page views – and high-quality viewers and “followers” – for your brand’s social media pages. On the ever-popular and endlessly active social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, these quality page views take the form of quality fans and followers.
However, unlike with ad-based, revenue-oriented sites, you have the extra, added bonus of these fans and followers willingly signing up to be consistently updated and entertained by your posts, photos, offers and all manners of Tweets. And the more time and energy (and less money, regardless of what some other “experts” out there might try to tell and sell you about paying for followers) you spend building up real customers and fans of your brand, the higher quality your fan and follower base will be.
Now think about just how cool that is for a moment.
Websites like The Huffington Post usually have to con you into signing up for a daily, weekly or monthly newsletter to get you to come back and pay a return visit. But with social media, you just have to post or Tweet consistently, and, provided they’re paying attention and really following you, your audience will see what you’re pushing that day – perhaps even in that very moment.
It’s a bit like an entertainer having a captive and alert audience ready and willing to enjoy their talents, as opposed to having to go out on the street corner with a sign that says, “Will Sing & Dance For Food.”/p>
Of course, the next question becomes, “What will I do to continually entertain, inform and provide value to my audience and clients?”
There are many answers to that question. And here at Amplitude Digital, we can help you find an answer – or set of answers – that works best for your business and your audience.
In the meantime, feel free to download our informative ebooks on using social media in general and Twitter in particular to build your brand’s presence in the ever-shifting online environment. And we do mean free, as there is absolutely no cost to you to download and dig into these ebooks right now.
And don’t forget to spend a little time at The Huffington Post. You can even tell them we sent you there. And find out if they’re really listening to their readers. As well as what they’re willing to do to get you to come back for more…
