As much as 92% of businesses say that social media is an important part of their digital marketing strategy, yet 55% of these businesses confess to not knowing if their social media marketing is effective[1]. Much of this confusion can be attributed to focusing on maintaining an online presence on too many social media platforms, not understanding one’s target audience, and not having a clear social media strategy identified and implemented. Much of this inability to tell if one is leveraging social media effectively also comes down to not understanding what makes social media content effective at driving traffic to one’s business website.
Powerful Content Compels Engagement
The most powerful social media content that you can publish leaves your audience feeling compelled to engage with that content. This can be seen in likes, shares, increase in followers, and direct traffic to your website from links clicked. To be compelling, content must grab a consumer’s attention. Text posts alone cannot do this, which is why it is important to include graphics, images, and video to your text posts. In fact, studies have found that utilizing video on social media can increase revenue 49% faster than the same marketing strategies that don’t use video. Lending further credence to the power of video, 51.9% of marketers worldwide say that video provides the best ROI.
One of the reasons why visual content such as video, infographics, and images are so powerful at converting traffic and building your audience is because of the ease in which they convey information. An infographic can quickly and succinctly convey all of the information of a 500 word blog post yet can be easily digested within just a few seconds. With video, more complex ideas can be broken down and explained in seconds, with a demonstration of the idea helping to support the point and better elicit audience trust in your brand.
As visual content is so much more easily digested, it is also more likely to be shared. This helps content to reach a broader audience, making for more powerful content that is more likely to result in a sale.
