How much do you use social media to promote your directory?

If it doesn't work of course. Writing good content however does work so that's not a good example

 

oh okay. I was just checking. Just wanted to see where your head was at.

 

Both

 

I do mind.

 

both what ?

 

Both of the questions asked.

 

I have 4 different niche directories, i promote them all thru social media. It is my main source of conversions, twitter is where i get all my quality conversions. I have yet to get any real conversions from facebook.

 

Very nice. What do you consider conversion? paid listings?

 

I can get a lot of people to my sites through Twitter, but ninety-five percent of them stay for no longer than it takes them to click another button. Still the five percent that stay makes Twitter a worthwhile tool. Although I have a Facebook page for my directory review site and directory of directories, I can't even get my family to visit them, let alone friends or friends of friends on Facebook. Oh they'll "like" like the post but they almost never click on the link that was the point of the post. If I wasn't already on Facebook for other reasons, I wouldn't bother with it.

 

Who do you target on Twitter?

 

That depends on the site or page that I'm promoting. I have a directory review site, a directory of directories and a directory forum, so I'm mostly looking for directory people, webmasters, and SEO people there, but I also have several sites that I have created on an eclectic mix of topics, including Civil War hardtack, Upper Peninsula hardtack, Bible studies, and several small communities in North Dakota and Maine. The action that I'm looking for in my community sites is for people to send me family stories, digital copies of period photos, documents, and other things that I can use to build these sites, since some of them about about communities that I've never even visited. For the forum, I am trying to get people to read through whatever topic I am promoting at the time, to register for an account, and to participate in forum discussions.

Since my real-time visitor stats are out in the open on the forum, I can judge that easily. Every time that I have broken a record for the number of visitors on my forum at one time, it has been through a Twitter campaign. I will pre-prepare tweets relating to a number of discussions that are current, then tweet them at intervals of about a minute or two, and I can bring a hundred people to my forum. About three-fourths of them will stay long enough to read through whichever thread they were referred to, and about a quarter of them will go on to read through other threads. When I brought a hundred people there at one time, two of them registered for an account. Of course, I'm pulling these statistics out of my butt, which is where most forum statistics come from, I believe, but they're fairly accurate. I don't get those kinds of results on Facebook. In fact, I barely get any results on Facebook at all. Oh, I can get people to carry on a conversation on Facebook but they're not going to leave Facebook to go anywhere else because I've posted a link.

 

So you actually engage with people on Twitter (rather than using Twitter advertising). I've found that to be the most effective way too. It's just harder to do and requires constant attention.

I'm going to run a Twitter advertising campaign for one of my directories in the beginning of 2014 and give it another try though.

 

Definitely. I actively look for people who say things that I can agree with or who post things that I could support, in order to "favorite" or "retweet" them, since this tends to prompt them to be a little more aware of things that I am posting, at least for a little while, before they forget. I make a point to tweet helpful things that aren't advertising, and which don't even include a link. I tweet special offers that have been announced by people who are active on my forum, or whom I've otherwise been in contact with, and sometimes just because I think it's a good offer. When I add someone's site to my directory, I tweet that fact to them, not requesting a back-link or anything in return.

It is hard to carry on a conversation in 140 characters or less, I know, but it's important. I know that I remember people who have responded to me, at least for awhile. Given the space limitations, conversations don't usually last long. In fact, that's one of the things that I use to promote my forum. If you've something to say that can be better stated in more than 140 characters, register for a free account on (my forum link).

I don't use an automated process, and I try not to repeat the same wording often, but I often prepare my tweets ahead of time. It is important, I think, to make sure that all of your tweets aren't advertising because then people are inclined to ignore you.

For my directory of directories, whenever I add a site, I tweet that, which is something that might be harder to do in a general directory where you might be adding several sites every fifteen minutes. You might just want to do that for paid submissions. When I announce it, I leave a link, not to the site that I've added, but to its details page on my directory. For paid submissions, you could easily do both. Whenever I add an informational page, whether in my directory or elsewhere, I tweet that at least a few times, rewording it each time.

Pretty much everything I tweet, I also post to my Facebook page, only I never repeat anything on my Facebook page. However, as I've mentioned, I rarely get any results from Facebook and if I weren't already on Facebook for personal reasons, i wouldn't bother.

 

Social media plays a vital role in respect of promoting directory. Now the strategy of marketing has been changed a lot. We can easily promote business through social media. I regularly use social media to promote my directories. I gained huge popularity when I promoted my directories through Facebook, Linkedin and twitter etc. It took little bit of time. But anybody can get easy success.

 

I used to manage things at www.wellness.com - we were doing a lot of social and besides social online, I would advice for you to do social in real life. Try to print out flyers, invitations, organize events related to your specific niche. Don't forget about cool stuff, the human stuff - the way for example like MailChimp is doing with printing and spreading to everyone t-shirts, those cool looking hats. It won't pay off quickly but long term it is the best investment.

On facebook for example, you have to pay for everything these days, without boosting your post - don't expect results.

That is all my personal experience,

Hope it helps!

 

Out of curiosity, any of you measured the conversions social media offers? Or anyone tried Facebook ads narrowing down the audience to business owners for example?

 

I tried FB ads for a while but it didnt really work. Directories are a hard sell right now regardless of what advertising platform you use

 

I think you can do well socially if you create something that is a popular share on facebook where they have to go to your directory to see it. I'm doing something like this right now, and maybe I'll reply back with the result soon.

 

I'm not sure if just adding content will be enough for new revenue. Content might bring some traffic but who cares about more traffic if it doesnt actually convert.

I think directories need to offer something more than just a listing (actual customers, leads, tools) if they want to stay relevant and profitable in the long term,

 

I think you are quite right. A directory needs to connect business with prospects for example. I think a well created niche directory will tend to do that to some extent, but there is always more you can do to enhance interactions.