To figure out how to get more organic traffic, we looked over 50,000 social media posts from the previous 12 months. Here’s What We Discovered. We Analyzed 50,000 Social Media Posts from the Previous 12 Months. Here’s What We Discovered.
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and every other social media platform you can think of all do the same thing at some point.
Are you able to figure out what it is?
Their algorithms are tweaked to reduce reach and sharing. That implies unless you start promoting, you won’t get as much visitors from them.
But, even with their algorithm adjustments, surely there’s a way to garner the most traffic from each social network?
To discover out, we looked at over 50,000 social media posts from 10 different industries that shared material.
The postings reviewed were some of the most shared on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest in the previous 12 months and included a link to industry-related content, according to BuzzSumo. We couldn’t acquire enough information from other social media platforms.
Which industries did we investigate?
Despite the fact that there are other industries, we concentrated on the following ten, which accounted for the majority of posts and social media activity. This allowed us to give more information about how to increase organic social traffic.
The following are the ten industries that we investigated:
• Business
• E-commerce
• Fashion
• Food
• Health
- News
• Politics
• Sports
• Technology
• Travel
Social Media Engagement in Each Industry Over the Last 12 Months (Analysis #1)
The first graph illustrates the total social media interaction for each industry’s content over the last 12 months. This is the grand total, not the average for the month.
The most engaging posts were those connected to the news, followed by sports, and finally politics.
It’s worth noticing that business and e-commerce-related social media posts garnered almost little engagement, which could indicate some trends in both areas.
We looked at the average engagement statistics for each article rather than the total to ensure the data wasn’t distorted or biased.
For the most part, the outcomes were comparable, but there was one notable exception. Even though News received the greatest total social media engagement, when it came to average engagement per post, Politics came in second.
But, as everyone knows, politics should not be discussed at the dinner table. To put it another way, you don’t want to divide your audience.
Including news-related topics in your content, regardless of your business, could be a terrific approach to increase engagement and traffic.
If you own a music-related website, for example, you might try to break news or post about it in your blog, such as when Apple bought Beats by Dre a few years ago. If the deal happened today, Apple would make sure to cover it on their blog and then promote it on their social media channels to increase engagement.
If you were a business-related website, you could talk about the Beats by Dre acquisition from your point of view. Even if you aren’t the first to mention it, you may explain why they made the decision and provide your top five forecasts for the following five years.
Let’s imagine you’re the owner of a travel-related website. You might discuss the quarantining limits that each country has and how they are altered on a monthly or even weekly basis.
There are always possibilities to tie in the news, which can lead to greater social engagement and more organic traffic to your website, regardless of what business you’re in.
Analysis #2: What Type of Content Works Best on Social Media Networks?
What Kind of Content Performs Best on Social Media Networks?
We also looked at which industries had the most shares on each social network just for fun.
The following are the average Facebook shares for each industry:
And here is what the data looks like for Twitter.
And Pinterest… It should come as no surprise that news-related content is preferred on Facebook and Twitter. Pinterest, on the other hand, favors visual material, therefore businesses like fashion, travel and even food fared better.
Find ways to tie in News-related themes or events to your content, as I discussed earlier if you want to attract more traffic from Facebook and Twitter. It can help you gain traction even if you aren’t in the industry.
However, if you want to increase your Pinterest traffic, concentrate on visual content.
None of this is very eye-opening. So we dug a little deeper to find what kind of material was most popular on these sites. Infographics, I believe, would perform best because they are easy to share and generate links to.
Surprisingly, infographics performed the worst in terms of social media engagement.
On the other hand, I never expected “why” blogs and “interview”-based posts to perform so well.
Everyone loves lists like “The 7 advantages of green tea,” so list-based material is almost a given.
Consider topics like “why isn’t there an eclipse every month” or “why don’t people wear white after Labor Day” when considering the attraction of why-based postings. People like to hear from people who interest them in interviews. For example, if you were able to secure an interview with corporate leaders such as Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, athletes such as LeBron James or Cristiano Ronaldo, or even political figures who are currently trending, you can bet it would receive a lot of social shares.
The graph above illustrates which content type was used the most by each industry, in case you were curious. You can see how the news industry produces a lot of why-related content, but other businesses, such as business and e-commerce, do not.
You may utilize this information to identify gaps and capitalize on the content types that are most likely to drive visitors to your industry.
Analysis #3: The Relationship Between Total Engagement and Total Shares of Each Industry
Some content is widely shared, while others receive a lot of interaction in the form of comments and likes. However, just because a piece of content receives a lot of comments doesn’t indicate people like it and want to share it with their friends. The more shares a piece of content receives, the more likely it is to receive more traffic.
This is plainly shown in the graph above for each industry. If you publish contentious content, such as political or sports-related content with a large number of ardent supporters and detractors, engagement alone will not result in increased traffic (it can but not always).
For example, suppose I wrote an article about “Why the Los Angeles Lakers Will Win the NBA Championship.” People who support any of the other 29 NBA teams will scream at me about how I’m wrong and how their club has a better chance of winning.
Social media engagement is excellent, but it can only go you so far. That is why the purpose of this research is to determine how to use social media sites to generate more organic traffic to your website rather than just “interaction.”News clearly is the winner on both fronts if you look at the chart above. So, again, try to tie it into your content wherever possible.
If you look at the graph above, you can see that news is obviously the victor on both fronts. So, whenever feasible, attempt to incorporate it into your material.
Analysis #4: How Long Should Your Content Be And When Should You Share It?
We thought it would be interesting to look at how long your articles should be and when you should share them to receive the greatest social traffic for the following analysis.
Did you know that the average article on Google’s first page has 1,447 words?
It used to be around 3,000 words, then dropped to the low 2,000s, and today stands at 1,447.
We wanted to see how lengthy content should be on social media to get the most shares. Let’s start with the average word count per industry for the 50,000 most shared articles.
They are, as you can see, quite short. Extremely brief (700 words or less for most industries).
Most words were found in the categories of e-commerce and business. However, according to the previous figures I showed, both of these industries had the lowest number of total engagements and total shares.
Despite the fact that Google favors long-form publications, users on social media prefer shorter posts. When looking at the articles that people like to share (not like, but share), it’s evident that they prefer shorter articles.
In this study, more than 90% of all content items posted on social media were fewer than 2,000 words long.
It’s much more difficult to get someone to actively share an item than it is to merely click the “like” button. Keep in mind that the same article might be shared several times.
When it comes to releasing and promoting your content, not every day is the same. It also differs depending on the industry.
Wednesdays are the most popular days for consumers to engage with the material, followed by Thursdays and Tuesdays.
It isn’t that straightforward, though. Because each sector is distinct, releasing content on Wednesday will not guarantee success.
I understand that the graph above is difficult to read because News dominates the results. As a result, here’s a version without News.
If you’re in the “Food” industry, you can advertise your material on Wednesday, but you’ll also do well on Friday, despite the fact that other industries don’t work as well on that day.
Analysis #5: Most Common Type of Facebook Reaction for Each Industry
We were able to pull the most popular Facebook reactions for this one, which was a lot of fun.
The type of Facebook reaction (Angry, Haha, Love, Sad, Wow) that people had for postings relating to each industry is depicted in this graph. Facebook responses are the platform’s next generation of “likes.”
The significant conclusion is that “Haha” and “Love” were the two most frequent sorts of reply across all industries.
“Love” was the most popular reaction across all industries, with the exception of news and politics, where “Haha” was the most popular reaction.
Create content that transmits the emotion of “love” or makes people giggle if you want your content to succeed. Those are the two types of responses that people are most eager to offer.
Conclusion
The charts above revealed a number of intriguing insights.
If you want to succeed on social media, the most important takeaway for me was to generate why-based content and write short pieces.
In general, you should:
• connect content to current events
• write content that explains why things are the way they are, or conduct interviews with well-known people
• Instead of 2,000+ word articles, produce shorter postings of 700 words or less to publish on social media.
• To gain the highest attention, advertise your content on Wednesday (for most industries).
• generate content that appeals to people’s emotions of love or laughter
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