Audience Connection - Getting them to click, the changing Social Network mix

I'm not one to fuss over numbers, I stopped checking real-time web data when Google destroyed Google Analytics with GA4 and made it less about users and access and more about results and outcomes in e-commerce.

But what I do care about most is a connection to Audience.

In early 2021 Facebook forced me to take a good hard look at how I engaged with my audience. I'd been spending money with Facebook to promote articles I wanted to reach more people, and in fact, like anyone on Facebook, I was paying to reach even those people who had gone to the trouble of clicking "Like" and saying "I'd Like to hear more from EFTM". Yet Facebook served my content to an ever diminishing number of those people, below 10%, even closer to 5%. Then you had to get a click through rate from that small sample.

Facebook's actions made me choose to never spend money with Facebook again, never to "Boost" or promote a post.

But how would I reach my audience, my readers, my listeners, my "followers".

So I set out then, to build an app for a direct connection.

The entire purpose of the EFTM APP was to get people to download the app, sign up for notifications so they would know the second I published an article.

Likewise, the use of Widgets meant my content could be front and centre for them on their home screen.

I gave away a car to promote the app, and engaged a strong audience.

So today, I can directly count on traffic from our readers direct from their smartphones.

But social media still had a role to play - or at least I assumed it did.

We cross post our content to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Customising those channels would be pointless because the traffic they generated was a small percentage of the overall.

More recently, I took time - on several occasions, to analyse the traffic in more detail, and made the decision that Twitter was no longer a viable platform to engage on. And we no longer log in there more than weekly to engage with fans, but continue to cross-post content - for now.

Using Threads under my own name, I've stared testing some content links. It's my view that in the days since Elon flagged a likely monthly user charge for ALL users, traffic, engagement and link clicks on Threads has increased - Dramatically.

Around the same time, WhatsApp has quietly launched WhatsApp channels, and as I'm inclined to do, I signed up and created a Verified EFTM.com "Channel".

A week later, we're at 11,000 followers already.

Over the last two days, I've used our EFTM.me shortlinks to create unique trackable links for each platform, an frankly, the results are staggering.

Here's my observation on the sources of link traffic (we generate) accross platforms:

• 6th - LinkedIn - Not surprising, our content is consumer, not business.
• 5th - Twitter (or X) - Cementing my decision to abandon active engagement there
• 4th - Facebook - And I tested this across several types of links
• 3rd - Threads - You didn't expect that did you.
• 2nd - WhatsApp Channel - They are clicking, it's working early
• 1st - EFTM App - our audience is loyal, and they click what they want to read.

It begs the question, how long can Twitter last. And why does it continue to work for some.

I suspect what's needed is workflow improvements for newer platforms. We can't currently use Hootsuite for example to post across Threads, or WhatsApp channels.

If News organisations let alone small publishers can get API style access to these new platforms, Twitter will be left for dead. Very soon.

Anyway, I found this fascinating, and frankly, had no-where else to publish this, or no-one else to tell - so, there you go.

Reach out if you have questions, comments or advice! I'm all about growing my audience:)