Over the last few years, social media has become an integral component of marketing strategies of most companies. Those with a significant web presence generate leads, sales and boost brand profile at a comparatively low cost.

The fundamentals of social media, as well as online marketing as a whole, continue to evolve and expand. This phenomenon underlines the dynamism of consumer psychology. Building a great website isn’t enough to become a successful online entrepreneur. You need to also take care to create a brand which people will like and engage with, both on your home website, and across your social media profiles.

It’s vital to choose the right domain name and suffix, such as .com, .biz, or .org, for your business. “You also need to be aware of what is driving the behaviour of internet users,” says Brendan Wilde at Free Parking Domain Names, a domain name registrar.

Here are some recent statistics you should take into consideration when developing your online marketing plans for this year.

Here are some recent statistics you should take into consideration when developing your online marketing plans for this year.

Shorter posts engage users frequently

Shorter posts tend to engage social media users at a higher rate than longer ones.

In fact, you can earn 23% more interactions with shorter posts. This isn’t only true for Twitter, the micro-blogging site, which has a cap of 140 characters. Stats indicate that keeping the number of characters on your status updates on Facebook may generate you 60% more engagement, according to Buffer, a social media software company.

The rise of the visual web means that surfers are more attracted to posts with images. Those which have a relevant photo accompanying them will gain 39% more interaction, compared to text only. In fact, image-based posts account for 93% of the likes, comments, and shares on Facebook.

Users respond to question-format posts more

Social media users are also more likely respond to posts in question form. So, to maximise comments on your social media activity, make some of your posts question-based.

Readers are more attracted to posts with images

Social media posts that have a relevant photo attachment will gain 39% more interaction, compared to posts that are supported with links, videos or text-based updates. In fact, image attached posts account for 93% of the most liked, commented and shared posts on Facebook.

Everyone loves emoticons, not just teenagers

They may look playful and teenage-y, but emoticons used with posts on Twitter or Facebook have been shown to increase comments by as much as 33%. And it gets better: ‘Likes’ on posts with emojis are 57% higher than on those that don’t use them.

Thursdays and Fridays have higher social media engagement rates than other days of the week

The run up to the weekend shows posts garnering 18% more engagement. This makes sense considering they may be ready for the weekend and will be looking for some light relief as the week comes to a close.

Don’t post that content yet! First understand the science of social timing

To gain the most effective interaction or engagement, get familiar with these statistics from the science of social timing.

– 5pm is the best time to post on Twitter and get retweets.
– 1pm is the best time to post on Facebook and have a good chance of getting shares.
– The ideal Tweeting frequency on Twitter is 1-4 posts per hour
– For your Facebook page, it is 0.5 times per day

50% online users expect brands to take advantage of the Facebook platform to provide excellent customer service, but only 23% of firms actually understand and do this.

The implication is that there is a huge marketing opportunity on Facebook waiting to be explored by serious brands.

95% of online adults (18 – 34 years) are likely to be swayed by brand’s good social media marketing

A brand’s job will be to figure out the favourite social media platform of their online target audience, and reinforce their marketing and branding strategy by focusing their efforts there. Of course, you never want to put your eggs in one basket, so it’s good to formulate an outline of a strategy for the other platforms where your audience spend time too.

71% of consumers who had a good social media service experience are likely act as the brand ambassadors

Again, this highlights the need to empower your customers by allowing them to interact with your customer services team online. This behaviour also helps to positively reinforce your brand, and builds that all important trust factor with your core market.

70% of social media users trust their friend’s assessment of a brand

Word-of-mouth is as important as ever when it comes to reputation building. But instead of over the phone, word can spread through social media and email (also known as dark social), an important phenomenon to note for those tasked with marketing your company.

Twitter is the consumer’s new favourite customer complaint unit

Twitter is now the preferred place to complain about a product or service, or to get help from customer services. It’s unsurprisingly overtaken the humble phone call, as it’s often cheaper and easier to get a fast response. The fact that Twitter is a largely open environment where everyone can witness a brand’s response, means that it is in a brand’s best interest to handle complaints efficiently and diplomatically.

In fact, 8% of consumers who make a complaint on Twitter expect a brand representative to respond within an hour.

Rather than fight the new phenomenon where more and more consumers are taking to social media to unleash their frustration and get answers, your business brand should see it as an opportunity to humanize the brand and showcase its excellent customer care values.

By understanding what works best on social media, you will be maximising the impact of your campaigns and helping to build a steady stream of traffic back to your website. Don’t be afraid to experiment and get creative. With so many brands sending messages to users, it’s not surprising that posts that play on emotions do best. So try to make sure some of your posts are emotive as well as being entertaining and informative.