Much has been written about the optimal time to post content to your followers on social networks. But what do we learn if ask where and how your name or keywords are mentioned the most by your users?
That user-centric approach was taken by mention to analyze one billion public company mentions, delivered to more than 200,000 clients across 145 countries from forums, news sites, Twitter, Facebook, even the deep web, in a wide range of industries. The result is a series of insights about “ The Who, What, Where & How of Communicating Online to Get More Mentions.”
Related: 10 Questions to Ask When Measuring Your Social Media ROI
Here are four tips gleaned from the report:
1. When to communicate. On average, Thursday sees the most company mentions (15.78%), followed closely by Tuesday (15.68%) and Wednesday (15.52%).
At 12.22% and 11.36% respectively, Saturday and Sunday see the fewest company mentions, presenting an opportunity that often goes unnoticed. This makes sense when you consider that most companies don’t have a plan in place for social networks and other platforms over the weekend. Plan ahead and develop a content strategy for sourcing and scheduling content throughout the workweek to be posted on Saturday and Sunday.
Since Thursday is the most crowded day when it comes to brands and companies being mentioned, don't focus too much effort on a day when it's hardest to be heard above the noise.
2. Who to communicate with. Only a little over 8% of your users have more than 500 followers. The other 91% of mentions may be coming from people with smaller reach, but they’re far in the majority and a powerful force of 1-to-1 connections.
Simply answering a tweet in less than an hour, and not just tweets directed to you but tweets about you, can prompt people to tweet about your level of service and your product. Speed, relevancy and charm can make the difference between a product with decent word-of-mouth and an awesome viral product. Go the extra mile. Not only will the person you help appreciate the effort, so will everyone else who finds out.
Related: 3 Innovative Ways Startups Are Driving Results Over Social Media 3. Where to communicate. Twitter dominates with over 66% of all mentions relating to brands and their content but that is good reason to develop a clear focus that includes other networks. Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses. To reach an audience that most are overlooking, combine services and create several slightly different brand voices for each. For instance, at Mention we discovered that our Instagram posts were viewed and liked way more than the rest of our posts on Facebook. Making our Instagram profile our team page gave an insider view of the company. We added real depth and openness to our brand that helps people discover the human side of the company. By constantly posting and analyzing the results of emerging channels, you'll identify opportunities like this and take advantage of them.
4. How to communicate. While a little over 64% of company mentions happen in English, that still leaves 36% of mentions happening in other languages. As the world continues to grow increasingly global, many people work and interact online in several languages, sometimes at once.
Don’t underestimate the importance of non-English mentions, especially when it comes to your ROI. It’s important to have a strategy for multilingual references to your brand on the web. With mention’s collaborative features, this is easier than you may think.
Even if you just send a kind “Thank you!” to everyone who mentions you, it’ll go a long way toward building the impression that your company is always there, always ready to help. This is an invaluable impression to nurture at the core of your company culture.
Improving your online communications will always be a work in progress. You will always learn more when you have the right data. By putting in place the right strategy that fits with your users, and analyzing where they’re mentioning you the most, you’ll quickly generate an important return on investment, just as more than 200,000 mention clients do.
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