How I Promoted My Blog Post and What I Learned
When planning how to promote my blog post, I chose email and Facebook to engage two distinct audiences. LinkedIn wasn’t included because most of my connections there overlap with my email contacts, and I believed email would be more effective — especially since many of my colleagues at Duquesne are occupied with our annual fundraiser. I anticipated email would reach them more reliably.
Each campaign used a customized UTM link, and I tracked their performance using Google Analytics. (Email UTM and Facebook UTM.)
For the email campaign, I crafted short, personalized messaging that emphasized the blog’s value for the class and included a strong call-to-action, explaining how viewing the blog would align with the assignment. On Facebook, I shared a similar post, omitting the introductory greeting and tailoring the text for a broader audience. Both campaigns ran from February 1 to February 2.
Results Recap
Total Users
Since the launch of the campaign, 17 users visited the blog via my promotional efforts. Facebook contributed 12 users (70.6%), while email brought in 5 users (29.4%).
Engagement and Time on Site
Facebook: While it brought in more users, their engagement was minimal. The average engagement time per user was 5 seconds, indicating that the Facebook audience may have clicked through but didn’t find the content compelling enough to stay.
Email: Although it reached fewer users, the quality of engagement was significantly better. The average engagement time per user was 1 minute and 4 seconds, suggesting that my email recipients were more invested in the content.
Desktop vs. Mobile Performance
Users on mobile devices were more likely to click the links I had sent. Engagement for both web and mobile traffic was low through Facebook – with the average engagement time per active user being 5 seconds for both categories. For my email campaign, however, users who clicked the link were a lot more engaged. The average engagement time per active user for web traffic was 1 minute and 4 seconds; for mobile traffic, it was 39 seconds. From my conversations with people about the assignment, those who left comments did so from the link I sent out via email and were on their laptops.
Insights and Next Steps
This data perfectly exemplifies the need to analyze user engagement. While Facebook helped increase visibility, email drove deeper engagement, especially for desktop users. For future campaigns, I’ll focus on optimizing the following:
Facebook Content: Add more images to my post to keep my community engaged.
Email Content: Increase the reach of my email campaigns by expanding my contact list and exploring new segmentation strategies. I’d consider sending out through Campaign Monitor and employ A/B testing.
Mobile Optimization: Continue to shorten content to keep users reading until they hit the bottom of the page.
