Does posting memes assist to extend visitors to your web site?
This can be a key query, which actually pertains to all types of participating social media posts – as a result of whereas most of these trending updates very clearly garner Likes and feedback, do they really profit the stats that basically matter to what you are promoting?
I imply, Likes and followers are nice, however what you want is conversions, relative to what meaning for what you are promoting. For SMT, we’re working to get as many individuals to learn our posts as attainable, and as you’ve possible observed, we’ve not too long ago been attempting out memes as a strategy to enhance engagement, and see what that will get us on this respect.
So what have we discovered? Right here’s a fast overview of the preliminary outcomes of our meme experiment.
First, a fast little bit of background…
We’re at all times trying to strive new issues, and take a look at out the newest developments and processes, and never simply because it’d assist us generate extra visitors and construct neighborhood, but additionally, as a result of that’s what we write about. If we’re going to write down about it, we have to know and perceive it as a lot as attainable, to be able to be certain that what we’re speaking is appropriate, and is sensible for our viewers.
On this respect, we’re at all times testing new approaches, apps, instruments, and so on.
When it comes to posting, final yr, we tried out polls on Twitter and LinkedIn, and query posts on Fb, to see if they might assist drive extra engagement. They usually positively did – most of these audience-prompting updates garnered a heap of Likes and feedback. However once we cross-checked this in opposition to Google Analytics monitoring, we didn’t see an enormous uptick in periods or customers visiting the positioning.
That’s to not say that these aren’t helpful, however they weren’t shifting the needle in any vital manner on our key metrics. On the similar time, too many polls can get annoying. In our expertise, they’re an attention-grabbing instrument to make use of, carefully, however not a large driver of our final goals.
But, on the similar time, our social visitors, like all platforms, tends to have ups and downs – and in a down interval this yr, we determined to strive one thing new to clean up the feed and provides our viewers one thing else to interact with, and perhaps lighten the temper slightly on the similar time.
Enter memes
The inspiration on this occasion got here from SEMRush, who’ve additionally examined out memes as a method to spice up engagement, and construct neighborhood.
SEMRush’s expertise noticed them considerably enhance their social engagement by posting well timed, on-trend, area of interest memes. So we thought we’d give it a strive, to see if that helps drive extra curiosity in our articles.
Step one, in fact, is creating related, participating memes. Which isn’t at all times straightforward. A lot of our memes by no means made it out of take a look at part, with some clearly failing when seen within the templates.
Some that we’ve posted additionally haven’t linked in the best way that we’d hoped.
However that is the sport – when you’re going to publish memes, you’re going to have hits and duds, and also you simply need to dwell with it. I think about it’s the identical as a comic, a few of the jokes work, some don’t. However ideally, extra of them get fun than not.
Which, fortunately, our memes have.
On common, the memes that we’ve posted are producing round 135 Likes on Fb, which has helped them generate considerably extra attain than our common publish, whereas they’re additionally performing robust on each Twitter and LinkedIn.
They usually’re enjoyable. The way in which I view them is just like the comedian part of the standard newspaper, a light-hearted second between the information updates and informational parts.
The elevated engagement clearly has some advantages in boosting algorithmic attain (if folks interact with one among your posts, the algorithm is extra more likely to present them extra), in addition to constructing neighborhood across the SMT model. However the important thing query is – ‘do they really get extra folks clicking by means of to the positioning?’
Outcomes
In our case, when evaluating our total social media efficiency in opposition to the earlier 3 months earlier than we began posting memes, we’ve seen a 12% enhance in periods from social, and a 16% enhance in customers.
That’s not a large shift, however if you’re working with the ebbs and flows of referral visitors, in addition to modifications in analytics because of shifting information rules, any enhance is optimistic, and a double-digit soar is unquestionably well worth the effort.
That is solely round a month of knowledge, so it’s not definitive, and there are additionally different elements to contemplate that would affect the outcomes. However the numbers, to date, counsel that it’s value sticking with – and as famous, it’s enjoyable too, including slightly extra relatability to our presence, as opposed simply the newest information.
Just a few different notes:
- Some commenters are going to take your memes actually, irrespective of it’s that you just publish. There’ll at all times be a few feedback like ‘properly, truly, the truth is that…’ Sure. We all know. These will not be meant to be literal, they’re a second of light-heartedness in amongst our common, advertising and marketing strategy-focused information updates.
- We’ve discovered that extra normal memes work higher than trending ones. A few memes the place we’ve tried to faucet into information occasions, just like the modifications to Twitter verification, haven’t achieved in addition to jokes about extra widespread social media advertising and marketing experiences. This additionally, in fact, pertains to the memes themselves, and whether or not they’re truly humorous, however in a number of examples, trending subjects haven’t been as massive a success.
- Each meme is a little bit of a threat. You’re looking for commonalities together with your viewers, and a few issues that you just would possibly suppose are widespread won’t resonate. You should know your area of interest, and know your neighborhood, which takes some experimentation – and lots of analysis (I’ve been writing about social media developments for eight years)
- One man on LinkedIn retains saying that he’s envious that we’re capable of get these memes authorised by administration. For people who don’t know, SMT is an editorial group of two (2) folks. Approval, on this sense, isn’t precisely a barrier.
- Does it take a very long time to provide you with them? Not likely. We often do them in batches or round 10 at a time, then schedule them out on totally different days/instances throughout FB, Twitter and LinkedIn. We will make 10 or so in, perhaps, a few hours, as soon as each week and a half or so. Not a significant dedication.
- We’re at present scheduling round one meme a day on every platform, once more, taking that newspaper comedian method. Perhaps we miss a day right here and there, however that’s the overall goal, as one thing to maintain that engagement flowing, and preserve the leisure worth up.
Look, it’s not essentially a stroll within the park to maintain developing with humorous memes – and it might be that we run out of concepts at some stage and abruptly it turns into much more troublesome. It’s additionally not for everybody. Developing with a (comparatively) intelligent joke that matches a meme template doesn’t at all times come straightforward, and there are days if you simply don’t have it, irrespective of how arduous you stare on the display.
However for a minor time dedication, it does appear, at the least at this stage, like this can be a great way to assist interact your viewers, which may additionally drive direct visitors advantages.
We’ll publish one other overview of our meme expertise three months in.
