Does posting memes assist to extend site visitors to your web site?

It is a key query, which actually pertains to every kind of partaking social media posts – as a result of whereas most of these trending updates very clearly garner Likes and feedback, do they really profit the stats that basically matter to your enterprise?

I imply, Likes and followers are nice, however what you want is conversions, relative to what which means for your enterprise. For SMT, we’re working to get as many individuals to learn our posts as doable, and as you’ve probably observed, we’ve not too long ago been attempting out memes as a strategy to enhance engagement, and see what that will get us on this respect.

So what have we discovered? Right here’s a fast overview of the preliminary outcomes of our meme experiment.

First, a fast little bit of background…

We’re all the time seeking to strive new issues, and take a look at out the newest tendencies and processes, and never simply because it would assist us generate extra site visitors and construct group, but additionally, as a result of that’s what we write about. If we’re going to jot down about it, we have to know and perceive it as a lot as doable, with a purpose to be sure that what we’re speaking is appropriate, and is smart for our viewers.

On this respect, we’re all the time testing new approaches, apps, instruments, and so on.

When it comes to posting, final yr, we tried out polls on Twitter and LinkedIn, and query posts on Fb, to see if they might assist drive extra engagement. And so they undoubtedly did – most of these audience-prompting updates garnered a heap of Likes and feedback. However once we cross-checked this towards Google Analytics monitoring, we didn’t see a giant uptick in periods or customers visiting the location.

That’s to not say that these aren’t helpful, however they weren’t shifting the needle in any vital approach on our key metrics. On the similar time, too many polls can get annoying. In our expertise, they’re an fascinating device to make use of, carefully, however not an enormous driver of our final goals.

But, on the similar time, our social site visitors, like all platforms, tends to have ups and downs – and in a down interval this yr, we determined to strive one thing new to clean up the feed and provides our viewers one thing else to interact with, and perhaps lighten the temper somewhat on the similar time.

Enter memes

The inspiration on this occasion got here from SEMRush, who’ve additionally examined out memes as a method to spice up engagement, and construct group.

SEMRush’s expertise noticed them considerably enhance their social engagement by posting well timed, on-trend, area of interest memes. So we thought we’d give it a strive, to see if that helps drive extra curiosity in our articles.

Step one, after all, is creating related, partaking memes. Which isn’t all the time simple. Lots of our memes by no means made it out of take a look at part, with some clearly failing when seen within the templates.

Some that we’ve posted additionally haven’t linked in the best way that we’d hoped.

However that is the sport – when you’re going to put up memes, you’re going to have hits and duds, and also you simply need to reside with it. I think about it’s the identical as a comic, among the jokes work, some don’t. However ideally, extra of them get amusing than not.

Which, fortunately, our memes have.

On common, the memes that we’ve posted are producing round 135 Likes on Fb, which has helped them generate considerably extra attain than our common put up, whereas they’re additionally performing robust on each Twitter and LinkedIn.

And so they’re enjoyable. The way in which I view them is just like the comedian part of the standard newspaper, a light-hearted second between the information updates and informational parts.

The elevated engagement clearly has some advantages in boosting algorithmic attain (if individuals interact with considered one of your posts, the algorithm is extra more likely to present them extra), in addition to constructing group across the SMT model. However the important thing query is – ‘do they really get extra individuals clicking by to the location?’

Outcomes

In our case, when evaluating our total social media efficiency towards the earlier 3 months earlier than we began posting memes, we’ve seen a 12% enhance in periods from social, and a 16% enhance in customers.

That’s not an enormous shift, however once you’re working with the ebbs and flows of referral site visitors, in addition to modifications in analytics on account of shifting knowledge rules, any enhance is constructive, and a double-digit leap is certainly well worth the effort.

That is solely round a month of information, so it’s not definitive, and there are additionally different elements to contemplate that might affect the outcomes. However the numbers, to this point, counsel that it’s value sticking with – and as famous, it’s enjoyable too, including somewhat extra relatability to our presence, as opposed simply the newest information.

A couple of different notes:

• Some commenters are going to take your memes actually, irrespective of it’s that you just put up. There’ll all the time be a few feedback like ‘properly, really, the fact is that…’ Sure. We all know. These aren’t meant to be literal, they’re a second of light-heartedness in amongst our common, advertising strategy-focused information updates.
• We’ve discovered that extra normal memes work higher than trending ones. A few memes the place we’ve tried to faucet into information occasions, just like the modifications to Twitter verification, haven’t executed in addition to jokes about extra widespread social media advertising experiences. This additionally, after all, pertains to the memes themselves, and whether or not they’re really humorous, however in a number of examples, trending matters haven’t been as large a success.
• Each meme is a little bit of a threat. You’re looking for commonalities together with your viewers, and a few issues that you just may assume are widespread may not resonate. That you must know your area of interest, and know your group, which takes some experimentation – and a number of analysis (I’ve been writing about social media tendencies for eight years)
• One man on LinkedIn retains saying that he’s envious that we’re in a position to get these memes accepted by administration. For those who don’t know, SMT is an editorial crew of two (2) individuals. Approval, on this sense, isn’t precisely a barrier.
• Does it take a very long time to give you them? Not likely. We often do them in batches or round 10 at a time, then schedule them out on totally different days/instances throughout FB, Twitter and LinkedIn. We will make 10 or so in, perhaps, a few hours, as soon as each week and a half or so. Not a serious dedication.
• We’re at present scheduling round one meme a day on every platform, once more, taking that newspaper comedian strategy. Perhaps we miss a day right here and there, however that’s the overall intention, as one thing to maintain that engagement flowing, and maintain the leisure worth up.

Look, it’s not essentially a stroll within the park to maintain developing with humorous memes – and it could be that we run out of concepts at some stage and abruptly it turns into much more troublesome. It’s additionally not for everybody. Arising with a (comparatively) intelligent joke that matches a meme template doesn’t all the time come simple, and there are days once you simply don’t have it, irrespective of how onerous you stare on the display screen.

However for a minor time dedication, it does appear, no less than at this stage, like this can be a great way to assist interact your viewers, which may additionally drive direct site visitors advantages.

We’ll put up one other overview of our meme expertise three months in.