One of the things that we probably don’t think about when it comes to social media marketing is testing. We might attribute it to online advertising or even email marketing, but do we really need to make testing a priority for when we use Twitter, Facebook or YouTube? According to the panel on A/B testing for social media panel at the most recent Social Media Marketing Conference here in San Francisco, several experts in testing and analytics took the stage to educate the audience on how more effective their social media engagement could be if they applied the A/B testing methodology.
Hosted by experts like Hiten Shah from KISSmetrics, Dan Martell of Flowtown and Chase McMichaels from Infinigraph, this 40 minute panel discussion dived in-depth into why testing is so crucial. So what exactly is A/B testing? We might better know it as split test social media which is basically experimenting. According to Martell, in using this split test methodology, the point is for companies to come up with different ideas that they think will work and then try different approaches to see which results in a better outcome. Of course you shouldn’t just throw anything at it to see what sticks. Rather, Shah believes that you should figure out what the strategy is. This is the key.
A few things that companies should probably think about when talking in terms of strategy include:
- Where is your audience or target located? Where do they congregate?
- Do you need to think about what time of day you’re planning on launching your campaign – is timing everything?
- What is the call to action you’d like people to undertake?
- How will you test or measure the success of your campaign?
- What’s your stated goal/objective?
All of the above are great strategies and once you’ve figured these things out, you should then work on your tactical plan…and this is probably where your split testing will come into play. If you’re using Twitter, you should try and see which time of the day you get better results. One example given during the panel was Guy Kawasaki – he repeats the same tweet at least four times a day, but at different intervals. Which time of the day does it get the most retweets or clicks? McMichaels told the crowd that companies need to be aware of time zones and this is probably Kawasaki’s method towards getting people to notice what he is tweeting. Apparently tweeting early in the morning will get the attention of people who are just getting around to reading various posts. He also says that Wednesdays and Thursdays are good days to drop new tweets.
Once you’ve started pushing out information and content through different channels, Shah wants to remind people that they should create custom URLs in order to find out which campaign garners the most attention. Bit.ly was specifically mentioned as that will allow you to create your own unique Bit.ly link name and provide you with the analytics you need to test and review how successful a specific program is. But let’s not put all your eggs in one basket. In fact, make sure that you leverage Google Analytics as another option as well. McMichaels suggests that you employ tracking pixels on whatever network you’re using, if applicable and possible. This analytics will really give you the path and the demographics you need to help properly test which program is better.
At the end of the day, you should really look at what programs are working and which aren’t. The smart and efficient way wouldn’t be to let programs run constantly without you looking at the results it generated. And testing doesn’t have to mean that you cut off a program. It could mean that you should adjust your strategy accordingly so that you’re not wasting money.
Image Credit: lm913 / sxc.hu
Brought to you by Network Solutions®
