Whether owning a small or large business, when looking to expand your reach and visibility, content marketing becomes a prominent topic.
Nowadays, the extensiveness of your digital reaching scope is a defining factor to your business growth. By producing quality content and understanding how to place it strategically, digital channels may be used greatly to your advantage, consequently leading to an invariable increase in visitors. So how exactly do we make use of this tool?
In this article, you will discover yet another key to unlocking higher levels of marketing. Let’s dive into what exactly is content engagement, what you can measure, how to apply it, and ultimately, effectively optimize it!
What Is Content Engagement?
Content engagement refers to how users interact with a certain type of viewed material. In marketing, this can be efficiently used to track the relevance of what you make available to your audience. Depending on how viewers interact, specifically calculated signals are then sent to Google or an internal website, defining the overall relevance of your user’s experience.
Content engagement is available in many forms, and all social media platforms hold a direct approach with this concept. On Instagram, for example, users may interact by following, liking, sharing or commenting on a post. Further engagement may take place through polls on stories or activity in IGTV.
Looking at it from a business perspective, this can be noted as a direct form of brand communication; it can be utilized as a viable method to track customer interest and satisfaction. Furthermore, such statistics are absolutely relevant in certain social media algorithms, as they indicate whether the content will be suggested continuously to a new audience.
Beyond social media interactions, content engagement can also be applied directly on your website. For instance, users may click on a link or comment on a blog post, if that is made available on your platform.
Of course, your strategy will always depend on personalized focus and goals, making certain engagement approaches of higher relevance than others. Regardless of the channel choice, the idea is to generate a successful form of interaction between you and your audience.
To understand more about how you can use visual triggers and emotions to create an impactful connection with your viewers, check out our latest blog post on visual storytelling
How To Measure Content Engagement
Social media platforms such as Instagram, Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter typically have their own tracking mechanisms, so you may have to familiarize yourself with each tool specifically. You may find out your follower count, accounts reached, content interactions, and view a detailed progress report of all incoming activities.
Here is how you can track activities within your website:
Pages Per Session
Go to: Google Analytics → Audience → Overview
This tool informs you of how many pages the average user visits during a single session on your website.
Acknowledging these numbers will help clarify whether your readers are finding desired answers, and whether your content captivates those users to continue browsing for more.
Through Google Analytics, you can also find out the exact amount of time a user spent on your web page, whether it was a few seconds, minutes, or even hours! This gives a clear indication of whether or not your content is compelling, and you might wish to make some adjustments depending on the outcome.
Another useful KPI of Google Analytics is the bounce and exit rate. Though the reasons for leaving a website can be diverse, an unusually high exit rate may suggest failure of engagement, whilst the goal is to maintain a high level of interest. When that is the case, the user instead willingly absorbs several pages of material consecutively.
Wondering how you could make that possible? Then keep on reading.
Evergreen Content: How To Make It Last
Optimize Your Strategy
If your page calls for optimization, simply ask yourself which areas of the material could be conveyed more directly and usefully to the readers. Perhaps it would benefit from a more humorous tone? In order to optimize, you must know your audience particularly and carefully formulate a buyer’s persona. What they are pleasurably seeking for? What kind of material is ideal for my target audience? Create accordingly.
Call To Actions, or CTA’s are also an important concept. As high quality content strengthens your CTA’S, make sure to include these in every page of your website, displaying a clear and compelling direction towards any relevant links or buttons.
Through Google Analytics, it is possible to track how far down a user scrolls on any specific page, so if the results state users are not scrolling all the way to the bottom, you might wish to place your CTA’s sooner, or higher up. That way you can guarantee that regardless of the scrolling rate, your CTA’S will be clearly visible, reachable, and serving your business expansion. Of course, a poor scrolling rate also suggests the content should be adjusted with an aim at maximum engagement potential.
As with any marketing technique, A/B testing is a crucial determining factor to any desired adjustment. The results can be taken as clear guidelines towards a more efficient direction.
Through a successful brand identity, you can build long lasting, valuable trust. Interactive content such as quizzes and polls may also be helpful in the optimization of your strategy. After all, the idea is to communicate and gather feedback as directly as possible, as your audience is the ultimate driving factor of a victorious growth.
Good Marketing and Customer Service: How To Do It Right
By Julia Arguello Busch – Ninja Partners