The Power of Consistent Social Media Marketing
For brands, staying in front of your audience through a consistent social media presence does way more than keep you top of mind. It strengthens your brand and its position among your followers—it drives loyalty.
Bruce Springsteen does a decent job of summing up the marriage between consistency and your audience: “Getting an audience is hard. Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose, and of action over a long period of time.”
If you’re wondering what consistent social media marketing looks like, you’re in luck. Before we get into the data, here’s some wisdom to keep in mind:
Being consistent isn’t about staying the same or resisting change—it’s about practice. If you can start from that perspective, you’ll have an easier time managing the months where your social media efforts aren't performing as well as expected. Like Springsteen said, it’s practice ‘over a long period of time.’
Below you’ll find some social data we’ve collected over the last three years for two clients, in two different industries. The data pertains to their performance on LinkedIn from 2019 to 2021. We looked at Followers, Impressions, and Engagement to see how these particular accounts did over that three-year period.
The real proof to our social marketing efforts is best illustrated by tracking the number of followers. This metric is where both clients had the largest growth.
Even though they had fairly even impressions between 2019-2021 and scaling engagement, the increase in followers indicates that impressions definitely put content in front of the right people. These same users then began to interact with the content; and finally, those who engaged and saw the content became loyal followers.
By maintaining consistent social media marketing efforts, Citro was able to grow two of our clients’ LinkedIn accounts over a period of three years. If we had called it quits during any one of the major dips in impressions or engagement, we would have been acting on a brief moment in the span of three years and missed out on the overall growth. So, not every month needs to be a rousing success when you’re marketing across social media.
After all, social media is a grind when you’re marketing. Being such a slow burn can make it seem too difficult, or not worthwhile; but consistency inevitably yields better results than you started with.
Looking at the chart for Client 1, you can see that their organic impressions have been in a downward trend over the last three years; but the dips that occur get less deep over time. So, despite the trend line moving down and the up-and-down impressions between 2019-2021, the average number of impressions has grown. That descending trend line is owed more to a much higher starting point than an overall decline in impressions.
Client 2 (chart below) shows an upward trending line for 2019-2021 impressions. Compared to Client 1 (above), this trend line is due to the lower starting point and rising average number of impressions.
Impressions may be important, but as a metric over time, there are far better ways to gauge the success of your social marketing than relying on impressions alone. Impressions simply express how many times your posts have been seen; but what you really want to pay attention to is whether anyone is engaging with the content they’re being shown.
Over the last three years, both clients saw a dramatic increase in their engagement. These charts show regardless of impressions, their LinkedIn posts have been increasingly engaging with their respective audiences. The upward trend in either graph is a great sign for the three-year period as it indicates how well the social media accounts did with encouraging interaction between the clients and their audiences.
Like the data above, you can see that results will never stay the same. Certain events like seasonal dips or peaks may occur consistently but social media marketing is about practicing and learning what does and doesn’t work (i.e., A/B testing)—over a long period of time!
If you feel like you haven’t been seeing the results you hoped for with your social media, or you’re having trouble seeing the bigger picture when it comes to data, feel free to tag-in the experts at Citro. Whether it’s helping out with establishing a social calendar, building up your social media, or just making the data easier to understand, we’re here to help!
Bruce Springsteen does a decent job of summing up the marriage between consistency and your audience: “Getting an audience is hard. Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose, and of action over a long period of time.”
If you’re wondering what consistent social media marketing looks like, you’re in luck. Before we get into the data, here’s some wisdom to keep in mind:
Being consistent isn’t about staying the same or resisting change—it’s about practice. If you can start from that perspective, you’ll have an easier time managing the months where your social media efforts aren't performing as well as expected. Like Springsteen said, it’s practice ‘over a long period of time.’
What 3 Years of Consistent Social Media Marketing Looks Like
Below you’ll find some social data we’ve collected over the last three years for two clients, in two different industries. The data pertains to their performance on LinkedIn from 2019 to 2021. We looked at Followers, Impressions, and Engagement to see how these particular accounts did over that three-year period.
Followers
The real proof to our social marketing efforts is best illustrated by tracking the number of followers. This metric is where both clients had the largest growth.
Even though they had fairly even impressions between 2019-2021 and scaling engagement, the increase in followers indicates that impressions definitely put content in front of the right people. These same users then began to interact with the content; and finally, those who engaged and saw the content became loyal followers.
By maintaining consistent social media marketing efforts, Citro was able to grow two of our clients’ LinkedIn accounts over a period of three years. If we had called it quits during any one of the major dips in impressions or engagement, we would have been acting on a brief moment in the span of three years and missed out on the overall growth. So, not every month needs to be a rousing success when you’re marketing across social media.
After all, social media is a grind when you’re marketing. Being such a slow burn can make it seem too difficult, or not worthwhile; but consistency inevitably yields better results than you started with.
Impressions
Looking at the chart for Client 1, you can see that their organic impressions have been in a downward trend over the last three years; but the dips that occur get less deep over time. So, despite the trend line moving down and the up-and-down impressions between 2019-2021, the average number of impressions has grown. That descending trend line is owed more to a much higher starting point than an overall decline in impressions.
Client 2 (chart below) shows an upward trending line for 2019-2021 impressions. Compared to Client 1 (above), this trend line is due to the lower starting point and rising average number of impressions.
Impressions may be important, but as a metric over time, there are far better ways to gauge the success of your social marketing than relying on impressions alone. Impressions simply express how many times your posts have been seen; but what you really want to pay attention to is whether anyone is engaging with the content they’re being shown.
Engagement
Over the last three years, both clients saw a dramatic increase in their engagement. These charts show regardless of impressions, their LinkedIn posts have been increasingly engaging with their respective audiences. The upward trend in either graph is a great sign for the three-year period as it indicates how well the social media accounts did with encouraging interaction between the clients and their audiences.
Final Thoughts
Like the data above, you can see that results will never stay the same. Certain events like seasonal dips or peaks may occur consistently but social media marketing is about practicing and learning what does and doesn’t work (i.e., A/B testing)—over a long period of time!If you feel like you haven’t been seeing the results you hoped for with your social media, or you’re having trouble seeing the bigger picture when it comes to data, feel free to tag-in the experts at Citro. Whether it’s helping out with establishing a social calendar, building up your social media, or just making the data easier to understand, we’re here to help!