What our year-end reviews revealed about our top 3 performing articles and how these insights can help your business go to market in 2018′

It is the end of the year and companies are wrapping up their 2017 activities and preparing for new opportunities in 2018.

Like many of you, we put a lot of time and effort into our business and brand. And a key element to all business marketing efforts is looking at results to effectively plan for future changes in marketing and business operations.

We recently started doing our year-end review of our social media and content marketing efforts and wanted to share some of the insights we uncovered in the hope that you’ll be inspired to look at your own efforts as you plan for the coming year.

Where and what to analyze

A quick and easy way to do your year-end review is to look at your commitment online from last year. Whether you’re checking your social media statistics or looking at your website traffic, a lot can be gained from this type of analysis.

There are a few places to look for the insights you need: you can use Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, Google Analytics, or your blog insights.

Log into each of these and take a look at how your posts and articles are performing. They can provide a lot of valuable information about how your business and marketing resonates with users.

If you’re stuck on social media and want to read more, check out our robust catalog of content related to all things social media.

So what did our analytics tell us about what our followers liked? Here are 3 valuable insights learned from 3 of our top posts this year:

1. Communicate to maintain effective customer relationships

Communication is key to a successful business and when customers and followers communicate with you via social media, whether it’s through a direct comment, sharing or anything else, you need to listen!

Customer relationships are a big deal for us and we like to build long-term relationships by treating our customers with respect and listening to what they say.

We don’t just hear it, we listen. We then adjust and improve to reflect customer expectations.

So apply the tips from the article like this one:

Use language and gestures your customers can relate to – use mirroring to deliver messages in a way that makes them feel comfortable.

And apply the same recognition and response to your social networks. If you have noticed that some articles are focused on something specific and your customers/audience are receptive through engagement, then in 2018 you should know what to do!

Give them what they want and build your customer base by embracing what your followers like and expect from you. Communication is a very broad term and does not always simply mean direct vocalization or emails.

2. 10 ways to attract customers through kindness

This article has our approach laid bare. We observe, we listen, we learn and we follow the golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated.

Be open to good and bad feedback and accept it as constructive.

Evaluate the whole picture of what is happening and understand where the feedback is coming from.

We employ kindness and generosity at all times. It’s a big deal when put into practice and by following that and our other 9 steps in the article, we have seen our business and customer base grow steadily!

3. Why Twitter ads drive business and how to create them

Social media is a BIG factor in most businesses and has effectively replaced many other support channels that users go to for an answer.

So once you’re online, it’s time to make the most of it. None of the businesses whose names we know are worth what they are today without requiring some payment component. Twitter is no exception.

While Facebook offers advertising and Instagram does too (among everyone else), our article on Twitter’s paid promotion resonated with our audience. Only 110 shares across our website is a great indicator of how effective this content is with our fan base and potential customers!

As stated in the article, diving into social media can have drawbacks, so if you want to take it seriously, it’s a good idea to hire online marketers who know how to use social media for business.

We don’t have any information on how effective our readers’ Twitter campaigns have been, but our clients have seen stellar results. From this we learned that within our content we have users who are eager to expand their online presence and try new ways to reach new potential customers.

Is this limited to Twitter? Probably not and the real message here is that when we give our customers and readers back with free advice through content marketing strategies, we will see reciprocity through new leads and new customers.

So what did you learn this year from your content and social media marketing efforts? Take a look at your metrics and see what they tell you.

Then take that information back to the boardroom and help make 2018 even better.