Let’s talk about a few social media terms and what they mean to us. First, let’s start with the term platform. Linkedin, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are all good examples of social networking platforms. There’s also Snapchat, Reddit, TikTok, and Pintrest too. In fact, as of right now, there are over 200 social networking platforms online! That’s a lot to choose from. Your business can benefit from a specific platform’s unique community of followers.
Your online audience likes your page because they want to learn more about your business or organization. They also follow you because of your content. Content is simply what you’ve posted to your social networking platforms. But there’s no such thing as simple content.
Content is key!
It’s creative, inventive, compelling, and lures your online audience into wanting to learn more about you. Content is art. Content is storytelling. Content is…well, it’s everything. Once you’ve posted your content to your business page, you’ll see the results – the number of reactions, comments or shares.
You’ll also see the reach and the engagement. You can view this information a little differently on each social networking platform and through the analytics or insights pages. These are the numbers that tell you if your posts are gaining momentum. (But, we’ll write more about analytics in an upcoming blog post).
Let’s talk now about what reach and engagement or interactions mean in a general sense. On your platform’s insights page, you’ll be able to see what your engagement (or interactions), and reach are. Reach is the number of people who have the potential to come across your posts.
Think of it like this. You’re in a crowd of people. A lot of people. The crowd also consists of people who like and follow your page. You stand up on a box and start speaking into a megaphone. So do others – other pages so to speak.
You have to remember that the crowd of people have exceptionally short attention spans. 8 Seconds to be exact. Did you know that a gold fish has an attention span of 9 seconds? We’ll share more about capturing a person’s attention at another time.
Let’s go back to that crowd – the number of people who happen to either glance at you and/or turn and look at you while you’re speaking is your REACH. Reach is your post’s potential for interactions and engagement.
Speaking of engagement, let’s talk about what that means in social media terms. Engagement is how people interact with your post. So, let’s go back to that box you’re standing on in that crowd of people. You finish talking into that megaphone and wait. Some people in that crowd will react to your information. They may give you a thumbs up (or other reactions). They might say something back to you by commenting. They might like or dislike what you’ve said so much that they share it with their friends. Engagement is what people do with your content.
Remember your content, and your story is unique. You have something only you can offer to the online media world.
We all want our business related posts to become popular through likes comments and shares. We want the information we’re putting out there to be seen by potential customers. But remember, it’s more important that you like your content; that you believe in what you are creating and sharing with the online world. The more you enjoy creating your content, the greater the possibility that others will find enjoyment in it as well.