Written By: Andy Ogg, CTIE, Editor and Marketing Director – Travel Professional NEWS®
You’ve undoubtedly seen or heard the phrases “trending” or “going viral” . Whether it’s on your preferred social media outlet, digital news or on the radio, it’s a big deal in today’s digital climate and is a goal of many people who utilize social media for their personal or business exposure.
Through my career, I have been involved in a lot of different facets of social media. Whether it was brand building, content driven marketing, consumer based marketing or just simply sharing information that was impactful, I have had some fantastic success in this field, however, through all of those years, postings and experiences, I’ve never had a “trending” or “viral” post.
In marketing today we define “trending” as: “currently popular or widely discussed online, especially on social media websites.” It makes enough sense and as we all know, having a trending post can be exceptionally difficult to execute. The power of a trending post on social media is exposure and the natural organic reach it can offer, without paying for it.
On August 6th, 2019, I posted an article that my wife shared with me to my personal LinkedIn account. One week later, the post has reached over 500,000 people organically, 1,350 reactions, 190 shares, and over 70 comments.
The Backstory
My wife, who works with me in our business, helps a lot with research, writing, business planning and so on. On August 5th, she shared an article with titled “Why Working from Home Should be Standard Practice.” Intrigued, I quickly read the article and was impressed.
The article, written by Ari Surdoval, shares some magnificent findings about the benefits of working from home in comparison to your standard office. The company, Ctrip, which happens to be China’s largest Travel Agency, was the focus of this study and the results, well they speak for themselves.
View the Article Here: https://lnkd.in/gsd8NK9
The Process
The article was great and it was just a bonus that it focused on a Travel Agency in the research so I quickly shared the link out on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
My post was “Great article and study about the true benefits of working from home. While it has it’s challenges, after almost 7 years of working out of our home, I wouldn’t do it any other way. #business #study #entrepreneurship #entrepreneur #sustainability”
Now, as a result of past experiences, I had literally no expectations on the performance of this post and just went along with my day per usual. The next morning, I had a surprising amount of notifications on LinkedIn. I opened the application and found that my posting had reached some 10,000 people in just 24 hours.
I was surprised and excited that the content was not only useful, but that so many people were also interested in the findings. The day continued and the number of people that viewed this posting grew fast… very fast.
That evening, intrigued on what was happening with the posting on LinkedIn, I checked again and the number had doubled. That same afternoon, it had doubled again, to almost 40,000 views. I shared the excitement with my wife who chuckled at the fact that she had been the one who had found the article, and we kept checking every so often.
On Friday, the post had grown by 100,000 views in just a day. Whoa! The number of engagements were up to about 400 and the comments and re-shares were growing pretty quickly as well.
At this point, I kind of figured that it was “trending” so I checked the “popular” posts on LinkedIn and sure enough, my name, business name and post were right there. Pretty cool right?
The Results
While we all struggle to find the “right” medium for us and our businesses, sharing the results of this particular post may be insightful.
Posting on personal Facebook:
Unknown Views
5 Engagements
1 Comments
0 Shares
Posting on Travel Professional NEWS Facebook:
577 Views
41 Engagements
0 Comments
6 Shares
0 Direct Messages
Posting on personal Twitter:
Unknown Views
0 Engagements
0 Shares
0 Comments
0 Direct Messages
Posting on personal LinkedIn:
503,780 Views
1,386 Engagements
206 Shares
73 Comments
28 New Connection Requests
51 Direct Messages
The Take Home
There is no doubt, it’s fun to have a trending post! It’s very exciting to see the number of views climb to levels far outside of your network. In this particular LinkedIn example, I’m only connected to 485 people so the fact that over 500,000 people viewed the post is astounding.
While the post was climbing, nearly 10,000 views every few hours, I attempted a “test” to see if the trending post would affect other posts and content I post on LinkedIn. While the views were rising, I posted an article recently featured in the July issue of Travel Professional NEWS entitled “The Journey in Obtaining a CTIE from The Travel Institute.”
The article posting went live and, in all honesty, I was hopeful to see an increased reach with the situation occurring. After about 1 hour of time, there was no engagement, no views and no major difference from a typical posting on LinkedIn. A week later, the situation stays the same with minimal engagement on recent postings, even while the my other post was doing very well.
The verdict leads me to believe that even though the post “Why Working from Home Should be Standard Practice,” was trending at a high rate, there was no increased engagement for any other content shared during that time.
The Secret
Social Media is a very fickle and a confusing thing to understand. With constantly changing algorithms, usability and features, it’s near impossible to stay on the cutting edge of what works best. Some days, especially in this example, luck strikes and you are on your way to reaching thousands of people. Other days, most days in my experience, the work in creating a quality post doesn’t always seem worth it when you look at the numbers.
That said, if I hadn’t of shared the article “Why Working from Home Should be Standard Practice,” this experience would have never happened. I’m grateful for the opportunity, education and experience that this post on LinkedIn has offered. While I wish I could tell you the “secret” learned in this experience, I simply can’t figure out why this particular content reached the high levels that it did.
If the answer is ever determined, trust me, I will be sharing it with you all in an upcoming issue of Travel Professional NEWS. Thank you for reading about this recent experience and I hope that you have an opportunity to have a “trending” post and have your name, business and information viewed by so many.