Eeny, Meeny, Miny Memes and Videos
Remember when memes were the social media content type that received viral distribution? If I hadn’t seen the latest meme being discussed among my friend group, I felt like I was missing out. It was a joyous time when memes became inside jokes and you couldn’t join the fun if you weren’t actively enjoying them on social media.
Well, now that the popularity of memes has died down a bit, the rotation of hilarious and trendy videos has gained popularity on social platforms. Globally, videos will make up 80% of all online traffic by 2021. Prerecorded or live, video is the future, and social platforms are ready. Applications like Snapchat and TikTok are overflowing with video snippets that viewers can enjoy for hours at a time. Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter don’t want to feel left out of the social media video era and have each developed their own versions of video posting.
While I enjoy consuming video posts, I am not a frequent video sharer. Since I have started a personal interest profile project for my social media management class, I have been experimenting with incorporating video into my posting strategy. My chosen Instagram profile topic is all things books, featuring me and my cat. Initially, to get my feet wet, I posted an animated picture on my Instagram Stories to update my audience on a book I had recently finished reading. Of my 51 followers, 10 viewed my content.
Then I decided to post another animated picture on my Instagram story, asking my audience for help with choosing the next book I should read. I gave them two options I was considering and included a poll to allow them to choose. The fact that I only received one voter opinion from the 6 people who viewed my post leads me to my next point.
The time of day that you choose to post your video or image matters because without interaction from your audience, you can never accomplish your marketing goals. By posting when your fans are most likely to be browsing social media, you maximize the chances that your content shows up first in their news feed — and that means more organic reach. Since my goal at the moment is building brand awareness for my profile page, my motivation for posting is to connect with my audience while attracting new people to my page. So, to post while my audience is offline is not only pointless, but wasteful. Content wasting is a shame and a crime in this industry.
Optimal social media posting times are difficult to pinpoint; they’re constantly changing and truly depend on your unique audience. However, existing data can be a helpful starting point. To change my plight, I could use one of the many general guides for ideal social media posting to help me find the ideal posting time for my audience. Then I would be able to analyze my results after a month or so of publishing to see just what time my audience engages with my content the most.
For example, an Instagram posting guide might tell me that the best time to post on Instagram is 1PM and 5PM. I could schedule all my posts for that month at either of those times to see which posts get the most views, likes, comments, and reach. From there I can further adjust my posting times to better align with a time when the majority of my audience seems to be active online.
While finding the most beneficial content publishing time is something I could figure out through trial and error over time, there are also online tools to help me post my content wisely. One I have recently discovered is called Later. They offer many different features to help their clients grow their brand by planning and scheduling content. This scheduling feature allows their clients to optimize each post by providing them with insights on when their audience is most active. Social media marketers only have to drag and drop their content into the optimal time slots provided.
Although it’s easy to get discouraged when my content does not receive the warm welcome I expect it to, I refuse to give up. No profile worth its weight of engaging followers on Instagram was built overnight. Iterating the types of content based on current trends and the times I post them based on the data I receive will eventually pay off. The internet says it many times over, so it must be true.