Measure The Success of Your Content Online

We all post content online and it’s a great idea to do that, but please remember to measure the success of that content.

Success, by the way, does not have to mean people ‘read your content’, in fact unless they tell us they have actually read it how would we know? Remember, opening an email with content added does not necessarily mean someone has ‘read’ that content. Sharing content online is the same.

Showcase Your Brand

I am talking about showcasing your brand as well as sharing your expertise by writing great content. Obviously we would all be very happy to think people read all of the content we post online. I know a certain percentage of people read my content due to the follow up emails, messages or phone calls I receive. That is a great way to measure my success.

Let’s take an example from a recent post I shared on LinkedIn, it was what I call a ‘throwaway’ in the sense it was not my quote, but I liked it so much I wanted to share it and to motivate others. It did not offer anything of my expertise, I was not selling by sharing the quote, as such, but I was showcasing something that obviously touched people’s emotions. When I checked LinkedIn today I noticed that I had had 73 ‘views’ on that update. That means that 73 people had noticed something I had posted on line.

If you take a look at the bottom of the graphic you will see only one person actually liked the post, even though 73 ‘viewed’ the post.

The question to ask yourself is, was it worth posting something that only got views, versus comments. This is the reason I suggest you measure the success of your posts online, to keep track of what kind of interest people are taking in your posts. Even with just one like for my post I have captured the interest of 73 people, which in essence means to me 73 people are aware of who I am, my brand and that for me is a good result.

Sharing Photos of Other People

Here is an example of a photo I shared on LinkedIn, which I posted on other social media sites also. I posted a photo of myself with two other people at an event I was invited to. This gave me visibility, as well as the other two people in my post. This will encourage the people I included in the post who were in the photo to share my post also, which offers me an entirely different viewing audience.

 

 

I believe that we worry too much about what people should be doing when checking out our content. We can’t make anyone take action, we can influence them to, but it depends what the content is, and why you want them to do something for you. Every time we pose a call to action it means someone has to do something, which in turn means we are asking them to do extra work. It might only be a click here and a click there for them to check out our website, or our information package, but it takes time.

My thought process about sharing content is to know why you are sharing certain content, what place does it have in your business strategy. Once you have identified that you can then work on what you want or need from that particular post. Here are a couple of reasons I share content on line:

  • Showcase my brand, become a recognized brand.
  • Share tips, advice, articles to help others.
  • Identify the different demographics interested in my posts.
  • Share my expertise.
  • Motivate people to take action.

The problem arises when we are not checking our posts on a regular basis to see who is reading them, liking them, commenting on them or sharing them. If we post content and forget about it we are wasting our time and our marketing budget. At the end of the year we might look back and tell ourselves posting content is a waste of time because no one is interested, when in fact we have no idea.

A couple of things we are hoping people will do when we post content:

  • Like our post. This means the person who liked our post is making it obvious to others, and they may follow suit.
  • Comment on our post. When someone comments it gives us a chance to say Thank You, and this opens up the communication, an opportunity to build a relationship.
  • Shares our post. By sharing our post the connections of the person who shared it will be more open to checking our posts out and this enables us more exposure.

Engagement on line can be tricky, especially today when most people are worried about privacy and may not want to offer their thoughts, opinions, or even ideas. But, those people who do want to engage on line are the people we want to reach out to and get to know better.

Think about everything you post online and follow my simple tips above, and of course, please let me know what you think of this post today, that will help me also, thanks. I love hearing your thoughts and ideas.