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eelgibbortech-blog · 8 years ago

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Like many news stories of late, this one started with a tweet from the president. On September 27, Trump fired off an accusation that Facebook had always been against him. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded later that day with his own post, writing: “Trump says Facebook is against him. Liberals say we helped Trump. Both sides are upset about ideas and content they don’t like. That’s what running a platform for all ideas looks like.”

Both of them are wrong.

Over time, social networks start to develop their own reputations based on generalizations about who uses each network and what they tend to share. LinkedIn is tailored for the wealthy professional. Twitter serves witty media figures. Even if these interpretations have some truth to them, it’s hard to back them up or refute them. Look no further than Facebook, which has become a homebase for conspiracy theorists, great aunts, politically active friends from college, and over 2 billion people in between. At this point, users can portray Facebook any way that suits them.

But are these stereotypes really accurate?

Using Newswhip, a new social media monitoring platform, I was able to analyze the top-performing links since September 1 across four major social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. My goal was to dig deep and examine if our general preconceptions about social media networks were correct.

Does one political party dominate Facebook? Is Twitter a media echo chamber? Has LinkedIn become the best place for thought leadership? And is Pinterest really free of any controversial content? Read on to find out.

Facebook: Do liberal or conservative outlets reign supreme?

Plenty of people get their news from social media. According to Pew research, 45 percent of all U.S. adults do so via Facebook. The issue, though, is how one defines “news.” While both sides of the aisle continue to be upset about bias and favoritism, Newswhip data suggests content from conservative media outlets is more popular on Facebook than content from liberal outfits.

Since September 1, thirteen stories generated at least 1 million Facebook interactions; five came from conservative sites, one came from a liberal site, and the remainder lacked any overt political affiliation.

Facebook has no systemic bias against Trump or conservative content. It’s also clear that Facebook isn’t surfacing all ideas with equal weight, contrary to what Zuckerberg implied in his post last month. This may not be intentional, but the platform’s algorithm and user demographics have allowed fringe right-wing sites like Conservative Tribune and American Military News to go viral over established news outlets.

As TechCrunch writer Natasha Lomas points out, “Facebook’s business benefits from increased user engagement, and made-up stories that play to people’s prejudices and/or contain wild, socially divisive claims have been shown to be able to clock up far more Facebook views than factual reports of actual news.”

Takeaway: All users should be wary of filter bubbles. But judging by this data, the biggest filter bubbles are shaded red.

Twitter: Is it really a media echo chamber?

Until I looked in Newswhip to see which stories generated the most tweets, I had never heard of the Korean boy band BTS. Secretly, though, they’re the biggest thing on Twitter right now. Of the top eight links with the most shares on Twitter, five are about BTS. The top result, which has received almost 400,000 tweets, is just a link to the group’s album on Apple Music. I’m no K-pop scholar, so I’ll leave the BTS analysis to someone more qualified. But from a social media lens, the unusual results can tell us a lot about Twitter: The platform has a deep identity crisis.

Twitter has always struggled to find its niche. While all other major social networks constantly grow, Twitter actually lost 2 million active users earlier this summer. After the announcement, Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser wrote, “We’re not overly concerned by this trend, as we have always believed Twitter to be a niche platform.”

Niche is the key word there. Twitter is definitely a place where media professionals can pat themselves on the back while complaining about the death of journalism. It’s where high-quality stories from major publications like The Atlantic, the BBC, and The New York Times regularly take off. But the platform has also been co-opted by trolls, bots, propaganda machines, and the guy in the Oval Office.

These forces are all competing for a finite amount of attention among the 150 million or so daily active users. As a result, a number of different communities have emerged. If you have something interesting to say to a particular community, then there’s potential here. It’s just hard to pinpoint which niches are primed to grow, which is why there’s room for K-pop sensations to thrive. And GoFundMe pages. And a GIF of a Google Doodle.

Takeaway: Twitter has become a niche platform, which limits the ability of brands and publishers to go viral if their content doesn’t fall under certain categories or focus on certain topics.

LinkedIn: The true home for thought leadership?

LinkedIn has always had the potential to be a powerful content-sharing platform, but it’s never been able to compete with Facebook. It’s currently the social platform best known for thought leadership, which still counts for something. As the go-to center for professional advice and commentary, LinkedIn has reserves of evergreen content that attract a high-earning audience.

Per Newswhip, the top-performing stories have close to 50,000 shares. Some offer a lot of tips and tricks for the workplace. You can get insights about job interviews and life goals. There’s also an emphasis on hearing from executives, which presumably can give you a roadmap for how to be a successful leader. (There’s a little news mixed in, like this Forbes piece about Michael Dell’s hurricane Harvey relief fund, which was shared over 43,000 times.)

This level of engagement puts LinkedIn well below Facebook and somewhat behind Twitter and Pinterest. The way the platform functions has led to an unusual dilemma. All users have the option of publishing content natively, which could cannibalize the impact of an external article or video link. Richard Branson, for instance, posts some of his musings directly to LinkedIn but links to others published on the Virgin website. Bill Gates does the same thing, alternating between LinkedIn and his personal blog. You get the sense that influencers aren’t sure when to share natively and when to link to an external website.

All social networks want to prioritize native content since it keeps users engaged inside their walls. But when Facebook ramped up Instant Articles, it did so with a monetization model. In addition to selling ads, Facebook made it clear that news publishers were the intended users of Instant Articles. On LinkedIn, individuals just publish native blog posts.

For now, there’s arguably more upside for influencer posts than articles from media companies. Publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN use LinkedIn to distribute their content, but they mostly include links related to business news, the economy, and personal finance. Compare that to Facebook or Twitter, where the same publications can post everything they create and generate higher engagement. Until that dynamic changes, LinkedIn will continue to be a more powerful tool for thought leadership than for typical content distribution.

Takeaway: LinkedIn is a great platform for established influencers to communicate with an audience. But media companies and brands may have better luck elsewhere if traffic and engagement are their top goals.

Pinterest: Is it the only social network free of controversy?

In September, Pinterest officially crossed the 200 million monthly users mark–a nice milestone for a social platform that has seen consistent growth in mobile searches and international users. Pinterest now boasts a bigger user base than Twitter and LinkedIn. What’s really remarkable about these upward trends is Pinterest has been able to drive increased engagement while avoiding almost all controversial content.

The top pins of September and early October include links to student awards, tips on painting your kitchen, and lots of recipes for everything from red velvet cheesecake to cinnamon sugar pumpkin bread. Eleven pieces of content had at least 40,000 pins, and 27 links had at least 25,000 pins.

If there’s any nit to pick here, it’s that Pinterest is a home for content that looks and sounds the same. It’s confined to a few main categories without much variance. For example, a lot of the successful food bloggers use a similar tone to introduce their recipes. Same goes for the high-quality photography and short videos of their food. So it’s hard to tell what makes one recipe get more engagement over another. As a result, it might be harder for a newcomer to thrive on Pinterest over the sites that already have a loyal audience.

But in a polarized social media landscape, Pinterest has emerged as a safe space, where recipes for pumpkin bread and apple pie doughnuts can overpower any slanted coverage of the NFL’s national anthem protests.

Takeaway: Even if you know what you’re going to get, it’s nice that there’s a place you can go online to look at hot cakes instead of hot takes.

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swelldomains · 8 years ago

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Why Design and User Experience Come Before Link Building

This is not a mistaken diatribe about exactly how layout and individual experience are more vital ranking elements than links. Certainly, constructing sufficient of the right type of links could still out perform drained high quality junk. That said, we're basically with Google's Matt Cutts on the web link build fixation:

" A great deal of people assume concerning just how do I develop much more web links, and also they don't think of the grander, global picture ... you obtain also concentrated on internet search engine ... If you take a look at the history of sites that have done really well ... you can take anywhere from Instagram to Course, also Twitter, there's an amazing application called Yardsale, and exactly what those men attempt to do is they make layout a basic piece of why their website is useful to go to ... If you truly obtain that sweet area of something engaging, where the layout is truly great, where the customer experience simply flows, you would certainly be amazed just what does it cost? growth as well as web traffic as well as traction you could obtain as an outcome."

No, not also Matt Cutts is stating that customer experience as well as design are a lot more important ranking elements compared to web links below. He's just aiming out that the most successful websites online placed a lot effort into design as well as individual encounter that they couldn't care much less regarding internet search engine, due to the fact that they're mosting likely to stay successful with or without rankings.

We 'd like to specify on why we believe design as well as customer experience ought to always come before link building, thinking you're anything besides a spin and shed associate sales autoblogger.

Conversion price optimization brings permanent outcomes for all web traffic sources

For the huge bulk of websites on the internet, it's a lot easier to double your conversion price than it is to increase your website traffic by constructing web links. Obviously, this isn't real for a site that's currently maximized for design as well as user experience, however a lot of websites haven't done that.

Link build enhances efficiency in the online search engine, but CRO enhances efficiency throughout the board. Despite where the traffic is originating from, paid or earned, if you place customer experience first, you enhance the lifetime value of each visitor.

Now, some people will certainly argue that CRO as well as individual experience are 2 different things. There's some truth to that, however I believe it takes serious creativity to believe that they typically aren't intimately connected.

The far better the customer encounter, the far better your conversion rate. Clean, user-friendly, purposeful style undoubtedly does the exact same. Unbounce would not have written an excellent e-book called Conversion Centered Style if it really did not. Here are the takeaways they need to share, as well as we cannot allow however discover ourselves responding in agreement with:

Encapsulation - Strategies made use of to draw the individual's eye towards the content that is most likely to convert.

Contrast and also Shade - Contrasting shades attract the eye as well as are more probable to urge a click.

Directional Hints - Use irregular angles to point individuals with possible arguments and after that to your call-to-action.

Whitespace - Do not overwhelm the user with mess, and give web page components area to breathe.

Urgency and also Deficiency - Develop a sensation of restricted time and also limited supply (under the appropriate scenarios)

Try Before You Get - Let users scrutinize your product prior to repayment to develop count on and also display self-confidence in the product.

Social Proof - Show that have been pleased with the item to construct depend on. Specifically, when feasible, the social evidence of individuals that happen to be just like the user is most effective.

We also like Unbounce's 36 reality examples of converting touchdown web pages to obtain a feel for what jobs as well as exactly what does not.

At the same time, we agree with Stephen of Conversion Factory and what he's said at Moz. The largest pitch in your conversion rate truly do start with customer encounter, not layout. Beginning with the inquiry "why typically aren't customers converting?" When you expression it this way, it begins to sound unusual to address it by stating "due to the fact that our button is the incorrect color."

Start by believing like the consumer, then start establishing Crazy Egg warm maps to identify exactly how they act, employing customer screening from areas like UserTesting.com, utilizing Survey Ape to check non-behavioral assumptions, and also establishing your split tests. Emphasis many of your attention on a handful of metrics that truly matter, only bothering with the various other metrics if you find a significant correlation. (In some cases a dramatic boost in your microconversion rate has no influence on your general conversion price.)

You could discover just as much from your large losers as your huge champions. A touchdown web page that does especially badly can additionally tell you how you can reverse points and obtain a big win.

Put simply, find out why customers aren't transforming, and fix it. Do not make complex the process.

User experience produces repeat customers

Experience has actually educated most marketing professionals to identify that it's really tough to catch a consumer that habitually provides their cash to among your competitors. Habits die hard. It's a lot more essential to retain your existing client base compared to it is to obtain new customers. Spin and also melt methods only help businesses that sell a single sort of item that only has to be acquired once.

If you intend to remain in business lengthy term, it's nearly constantly better to keep those clients, create a brand-new item, and also offer to them once more than to concentrate specifically on acquiring new customers.

Even if this isn't your strategy, repeat visitors are more probable to maintain you in mind as well as advise your brand to a friend.

How can you build repeat brows through? Well, we maintain coming back to tools and communities due to the fact that of their incredible power. For instance, we love what Blue Water fountain Media did for Smarties, which expanded the Facebook Follower count from 900 to over 40,000 as well as significantly improved their repeat visitor matter. They did this by providing customers an immersive, interactive, gamified experience.

The capacity for web link earning below is unavoidable. Smarties made a Multimedia Award and also obtained included in SmartBlogs.

NASDAQ, on the other hand, decided to expand its repeat site visitor matter by developing a strong, tight-knit indigenous neighborhood (PDF web link). They integrated the capacity to price stocks, personalize web content, view articles that satisfy user-defined criteria, sight activity walls, and also make use of various other social elements. They got 3,000 registers within 6 weeks as well as saw a renovation in repeat visitor count.

Think of the websites that you go to greater than when and also that you browse to directly without making use of the online search engine. What kinds of websites are these? Probabilities are, you don't just visit them, you use them and interact with them. This is where excessive emphasis on "content" as it is currently defined by the sector can really be a bad thing.

Content is fixed, but tools and areas are not. They are naturally engaging. They take the customer out of the passive, hypnotic state that they would certainly obtain from a tv, and into the energetic state of mind. The even more control the customer feels over their very own experience, the much more remarkable that encounter becomes.

This is why one of the most effective sites online are all about doing.

Give your users something to do, and also repeat gos to will certainly follow.

Earned popularity is always better compared to made popularity

We suggest a number of traits when we state this.

From a pure ranking perspective, it's constantly better to have a really popular site compared to it is to have a huge, marketer-placed web link profile. Truly prominent websites produce all-natural link profiles and also thus continue to be more or less protected from Google algorithm updates and also information refreshes. Manufactured web link profiles usually leave patterns, as well as when they do not, even more job is included compared to in bring in a truly all-natural profile.

This goes past rankings. Earned appeal indicates that you have a consumer base that in fact appreciates just what you do and also wants to advise you to a close friend. It suggests that it's mosting likely to take a great deal of help a rival to take your customers away, as well as it means that consumers will seem like they naturally opted to associate with you, which benefits conversions and also retention.

In this sense, produced appeal in the kind of ad acquisitions and other types of disruption advertising and marketing has drawbacks. It makes customers seem like they were pushed into an acquisition, they may really feel cheated afterward, and they are less most likely to become repeat customers or to recommend your solutions to others.

This isn't really to say that PPC, show ads, and press advertising and marketing as a whole do not have benefits of their very own. They most certainly function much faster, as well as in today's age of targeted marketing, they are excellent for catching hot leads. Yet these consumers are fickle unless you could likewise earn their trust. Those revenues could be momentary, unless you invest them back into more long-term advertising and marketing strategies.

I'll claim this. I believe this sector is guilty of drawing a fabricated line in between incoming and also outbound methods, as well as though we borrow this terminology, it is very important to bear in mind that all of this pushes a continuum. You can use outbound techniques to earn popularity.

User encounter is where count on is made. It may take place on your website, your social presence, or your e-mail checklist. The location is not as important as the experience.

Yes, natural links do happen

It's kind of impressive exactly how frequently particular sectors of the SEO community like to suggest on this factor. If you reside in the fat-head of extremely competitive, word-for-word keyword phrase matched search terms, then indeed, you're going to see a lot of unnatural links. And also indeed, sites that utilize them are still ranking. We don't live in a dream world where that's not the reality of the situation.

But if you consider the web link chart of the internet at large, and a lot of the real industry thought-leaders, that's not what you're mosting likely to see.

Just have a look at the link profile of virtually any kind of page on Cracked.com. Split discussed 5 scientific factors a zombie apocalypse might in fact take place, it made them links from 434 domain names, as well as it got discussed in Smithsonian Publication. That's how most links on the internet happen.

Or consider the link account for OMGpop's Draw Something. They produced an application with excellent user experience, and they grabbed web links from Gigaom, The Verge, ReadWrite, TechCrunch, The New york city Times, and an overall of 606 domain names. They didn't email these people and also request web links. They became newsworthy.

We're not suggesting against guest messages or web link build outreach. We do it. It functions. We're simply stating that when Google says you could attract links by developing a memorable user encounter, they're not blowing smoke.

When you do it right, it additionally happens to function much faster.

Design and customer experience can be gauged and also examined with verifiable results

This is a big one for us.

We will not argue with that link build creates real and also quantifiable outcomes. It is, however, a lot more difficult to separate the scrap and wasted initiatives from the important things that really play a vital part in the formula. We understand that Moz domain authority associates relatively well with rankings, as well as we recognize support text and also web page significance have some impact, yet it's essentially impossible to divide the folklore from the real ranking factors. You could gauge the success of projects, yet it's difficult to get rid of thrown away effort.

Design and customer experience, on the various other hand, are readily determined and testable at a moment's notice. You could rapidly compare 2 touchdown web pages as well as locate out which one produces one of the most conversions, which one is a lot more user-friendly to users, which one maintains people on the website much longer, and so on.

It's not that hard to gauge techniques are pointless. That's a really naïve, by the publications way to think concerning advertising. And also slowly, gradually, you definitely could remove some of the squandered initiatives from your link structure technique. Instinct could go a long way as well as I'm not mosting likely to refute it. A lot more innovative and also innovative measurement strategies are also available, which is why it's worth having a statistician onboard if you could manage it.

All that stated, difficult numbers as well as proven results are alluring to customers, and also the capacity to test and improve methods swiftly and also easily without requiring to backtrack is priceless.

The means individuals engage with your website and its layout coincides means that influencers are going to connect with it. If you're optimizing for individuals, you're additionally enhancing for outreach. A web page or tool that wows users is going to wow the individuals who can connect to you. It's a lot easier to just direct an influencer to something impressive than to make use of hand-waving voodoo to convince them to link.

How's that for a quantifiable, testable Search Engine Optimization strategy?

The most successful websites on the internet put design and customer experience first

If you in fact have a look at the highest possible rankings websites on the internet, you'll note that virtually every one of them (Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, WordPress, Adobe, Blogspot, etc.) are devices and also neighborhoods that individuals would certainly maintain making use of if Google entirely removed away their rankings.

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eelgibbortech-blog · 8 years ago

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Does Facebook Have a Liberal or Conservative Bias? And Answers to Other Big Social Media Questions

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Both of them are wrong.

But are these stereotypes really accurate?

Facebook: Do liberal or conservative outlets reign supreme?

Takeaway: All users should be wary of filter bubbles. But judging by this data, the biggest filter bubbles are shaded red.

Twitter: Is it really a media echo chamber?

Takeaway: Twitter has become a niche platform, which limits the ability of brands and publishers to go viral if their content doesn’t fall under certain categories or focus on certain topics.

LinkedIn: The true home for thought leadership?

Pinterest: Is it the only social network free of controversy?

Takeaway: Even if you know what you’re going to get, it’s nice that there’s a place you can go online to look at hot cakes instead of hot takes.

Image by iStockphoto

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