EXPERT TALKS
What do you think are the
best strategies to grow our
online presence on social
media networks?
If it were only that easy … What
works for me is caring for my
audience - students, readers,
peers, followers and (potential)
clients alike. We are talking about
social networking after all, so it’s
all about relationships. I may not
have the largest total reach, but
I must be doing something right
since I am already recognized as
an influencer in my niche. :-)
Just as in real life building honest
relationships takes time, so
my advice is to start early and
concentrate on personal and
authentic communication. Be
sure you make an excellent first
impression since you only have
the one chance. Offer topnotch products and services, be
sympathetic and look good (I
don’t necessarily mean yourself
but your online and social
media presence including all the
content you create and share).
You have a strong presence
on Twitter, what actionable
tips you can recommend to
our readers how to be more
active and engaged on this
channel?
I have an average engagement
rate of round about 1.5 % which
is amazing compared to big
brands that only reach 0.07 %
according to Social Bakers.
Visual Contenting
But I am a personal brand, or in
this instance just a person. Read
my answer above again and you
can guess my recommendation
on how to improve your Twitter
efforts:
• Focus on building
relationships instead of just
growing the numbers.
• Engage with your followers
and endorse their feedback.
I for example include tweets
in some of my blog posts, but
very rarely embed Facebook
or Google+ posts. With time
my readers realize that I make
Twitter a priority and so they
start reaching out to me
there, too. Just make it worth
their while to follow you (and
that also includes sharing
your best content)!
• Oh and one more thing:
Go easy on automation. Of
course you can schedule
posts with Buffer, promote
new blog posts with Zapier/
IFTTT but forget about the
many growth tools“. Pick
out the people you want to
follow manually and say hello
when you do so. That’s how
to start a conversation ...
How can we leverage this
channel to develop/grow
our business/services?
I already stated one of the
opportunities: Collect direct
feedback from your followers.
Use it to improve your product
and services, to optimize
your website and the user’s
experience or to generate new
content ideas.
Furthermore Twitter can be a
good source of traffic for your
website, especially when other
people share your content and
multiply your potential reach. Pay
close attention to new visitors
you gain and track whether they
bounce or convert. Again, traffic
is not a matter of numbers but a
matter of quality. You can learn
a lot about your web design or
content structure by looking at
your Google Analytics data.
Last but not least I received quite
a few business offers through
Twitter just like this interview. I
pick these opportunities wisely
and try to make the best of
them.
What roles do you think visual
elements play in our content
marketing/social media
strategy and how they can
help bring more success to
our content marketing/social
media campaigns?
The fact that 90 % of the
information transmitted to our
brain is visual and we actually
process visual information
a whole lot faster than text
(roughly 60,000 times faster)
is enough to emphasize the
importance of visuals to our
content strategy.