The success of digital platforms can be measured in several ways. One of the most obvious is the number of visitors who land on the page, but the reality is that this is often not a very telling statistic. You might get a million people to your page but if they all leave before interacting with the site or doing anything while the re, then there is really nothing much to crow about. So how do you go about actively engaging with your audience? There are many answers to this question, none of which the silver bullet to success, but all of which, if harnessed together, can dramatically help improve your digital results.
Make yourself part of conversations
A key part of staying relevant is inserting yourself into the conversations that are taking place. There are many ways to do this but social media services this need better than almost any other platform. This is because social media is dynamic, it is hash-tagged, and it is where conversations are already taking place. So, if for example, you are a bookmaker you could use social media to insert yourself into existing conversations that are taking place around a football or cricket matches. An infographic or an image that has viral potential and will be shared can help to take your brand and your platform into the mainstream – which is obviously where you want it to be.
Onsite interactions
Make sure that your website has plenty of ways and means to interact with the users. Things like polls or comment section, or solicitations of voice notes are all great ways to get users to interact with the site. Leave sign-up sheets for newsletters or install subscription buttons for alert services. Competitions are also a great way to harvest user information and to interact with the users. The reality is that the more touch points you have with your audience, the more engaged they are, and the more likely they will be to return over-and-over again.
Harvest data
Make sure that you collect as much information as you can from your users. The more information you have about them the easier it is to cater to their needs. Look at signing people up for newsletters and then tailoring them via AI to contain pertinent information. The more calls to action that you have the better the chance of driving numbers and interactions. But mining the data correctly and giving people what they want is very important.
Keep it fresh
Make sure that your site has plenty of reasons to keep people coming back repeatedly. It needs to have fresh and original content that sets it apart from other similar sites. Don’t just churn the same content over again, bring fresh insights and analysis and make sure that what you are putting out there is done in such a way that it will solicit both comments and sharing. Boring, reproduced content goes nowhere, it is punished in SEO rankings and it does not attract engagement or repeat visits – stay well away from it.
