Marketing is a science as much as an art, and the TopRank Online Marketing blog is an ongoing experiment. We’re constantly going back to the lab to try new approaches, research new topics, and refine our writing skills. As 2015 draws to a close, we’re taking a look at our most popular posts to see which ones you thought were the most shareworthy.
Social media marketing was a big topic for marketers this year. Facebook changed its algorithm to limit organic reach to as little as two percent. Twitter removed share counts from its API, taking away a powerful tool for marketers to provide social proof to their audience.
Despite these controversial decisions, social media remains a powerful way to build brand awareness and interact with our audience. Social drives over 30% of all traffic to websites, and social media spending is expected to top $12.3 billion this year.
To help you improve your social media experiments in the coming year, here are our five most-shared social media marketing posts for 2015.
#1 – Social Media Marketing for Business: Expectation Vs. Reality
After taking a few years to explore other opportunities, Ashley Zeckman came back to the TopRank team mid-year and quickly became a blogging force to be reckoned with. This post cuts through the social media myths to give solid advice for new and veteran marketers.
#2 – New Report Reveals the Impact of Social Media Marketing for Business
Ashley delivers the goods again with this exhaustive round-up of the 2015 Social Media Marketing Industry report. There are quality takeaways a-plenty here, supported with informative infographics.
#3 – Three Ways to Measure the Value of Your Social Media Marketing Program
Evaluating outcomes and proving ROI are constant concerns for social media marketers. Debbie Friez, an MVP of our social media team, outlines a three-step process for creating social media programs with measurement built in.
#4 – 5 Ways to Woo Your B2B Social Media Audience & 3 Brands That Are Doing it Well
Social media marketing is tricky for B2B: It’s important to give your brand personality, but challenging to preserve the professionalism and authority B2B buyers need. Ashley backs up her tips in this post with inspiring examples from HP, FedEx, and GE.
#5 – 9 Step Social Media Audit for Improving LinkedIn Business Page Results
While Facebook is still the most popular platform for B2C marketing, LinkedIn dominates the B2B space—and B2C brands are starting to take notice, too. Emily Bacheller brings her social media strategy expertise to this post.
Bonus! 3 Great Social Media Marketing Posts from Other Sources
We’ve Been Failing on Social Media for 2 Years. Here’s What We Think it Means
This SlideShare from social media giant Buffer is everything good content should be. It’s brutally honest, authentic, has a genuine human voice, and addresses a real problem many marketers face with humor and determination. It couldn’t have been easy to write, but it’s a great read.
New Data: What Types of Content Perform Best on Social Media?
This blog post and infographic present the results of a 220,000-post analysis of social media shares. Fractl’s Andrea Lehr distils the massive amount of data into takeaways any social media marketer can use.
The Hierarchy of Needs for an Engaged Social Media Audience
Hootsuite’s Olsy Sorokina applies sociological concepts to get at the basic principles underlying social media success in this brief but thought-provoking piece. Olsy’s conclusions are both surprising and obvious in retrospect—one of those where you think, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?”
Thanks to our stellar blogging team for generously sharing their knowledge in these posts. And thanks to our readers for writing, commenting, and sharing this year. We’ll use your feedback to make the blog an even better resource in 2016.
Are there any posts you loved that didn’t make the list? Are there any social media topics you would like to see us cover more? Let us know in the comments.
Header image via Shutterstock
