Social engagement.

How do I make my site more socially engaged?

[danwhitehouse]

Hello all,
I can't get into the social media optimization page as it's private, so I hope you do not mind me posting this Q here.

The company I work for is an authority. We have 30 websites, each with about 20,000 visits per day. Not bad going if you ask me.

What we're trying to do is get our pages and sites more 'socially engaged'. We have a Facebook profile and a Twitter page, but these push out a lot of generic stuff, even if they are quite well established.

We've also got a couple of share buttons on key pages as well as a blog and +1 button at the top.

But Analytics says <0.1% of visits are 'socially engaged'.

What can we do to up this number?

Many thanks in advance.

[mememax]

All your website are about the same theme? If so I'll create just one profile for them all in facebook and twitter.

The other problem you're facing is that be social is not so simple. You'll have to be not only unique and relevant (like you do with big G) but also interesting.

The best example of how to be social and sell is the "Will it blend" series. Obviously few people are capable of that, so better don't sell and focus on how to entertain user with things that may interest and engage them. Have you got commentaries enabled on your site (or an echo at least)?

In my experience videos, polls, controversial articles are the best choices iin this way but there are plenty of them.

[danwhitehouse]

So it's more about creating and syndicating content rather than asking users to share content? I'd say our best bet would be to get some videos made, but what would be best? That will require research. Thanks for your ideas.

[mememax]

You have to give to your users all the options, both shares (fb share, tweet this, digg it, and so on) and likes (fb likes, google+, etc). Users will use then the option that best suits them.

However you have to fix a goal. What do you want to achieve? I think that be more social is not enough because you can't measure that and uinderstand if you're failing or not.

- Do you want more brand awareness? Use socialmention.
- Do you want more followers and build a social network? Use klout.
- Do you want more subscriber to your newsletter? Set a new goal in GAnalytics
- Do you want more RSS subscribers? Use feedburner.

I don't know if I've helped you but I think you won't achieve any success if you don't specify your objetive.