In the world of distributed content, it’s crucial to reach the right people and to keep them as engaged as possible. A million clicks or likes might seem great, but if those come from the wrong people, they may not help your engagement goals.
The key is to attract users to your core audience: the loyal group that keeps coming back on their own. While the definition of “core audience” may vary, most publishers will agree that a core audience member provides greater value than a random person clicking or liking your content. To help publishers attract, grow and retain these core audiences, we hosted a webinar with our friends at Apester.
To bring core audiences to your site, you need to find them first. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we should be looking for them on mobile devices. Individuals are spending almost five hours a day on their phone and one of those hours is almost entirely devoted to Facebook.
Unsurprisingly, this translates to the publishing world as well; much of publisher’s traffic today is coming from social channels, predominantly from Facebook (over 70%). Our world is quickly moving from mobile-first to mobile-only.
So it’s crucial to meet your would-be readers where they are: on Facebook. Obviously, we’re a little biased, but we think paid distribution on Facebook is the way of the future. It is imperative for publishers looking to maintain consistent business results. The distribution algorithm on Facebook is constantly in flux, which means consistent results from organic distribution are nearly impossible to maintain.
Paying to distribute content on Facebook opens up new opportunities for publishers, including targeting audiences by interests.
Shameless plug for Keywee: we help you target potential core audience members based on your content, their interests, and historical data from millions of articles. We scan every article for themes and match those to the Facebook audiences that are most likely to be interested in that type of content. By applying this process to your core content, we can help you expand your core audience.
Once you drive those readers to your site, you want to keep them engaged. Engaged readers are more likely to make organic repeat visits. Apester is a tool that can help publishers engage their readers on site with experiential elements, like polls and quizzes.
With readers increasingly coming from social rather than the home page, every piece of content delivered to readers is virtually its own domain. Their widgets help ensure that your content is visual, concise, entertaining and constant — what they consider the tenets of modern content. These widgets are also optimized for mobile, ensuring that your content is mobile-friendly.
One of the easiest ways to drive engagement in-article is a related poll.
Did we mention it was super easy to add Apester widgets into your content?
No matter which type of interactive content you include, the key is to keep it both entertaining and relevant to the rest of your content. The interactive elements are not there to replace your content, simply to enhance it.
Ultimately, the content you produce will define your core audience; and your core audience will remain loyal when you have engaging content.
