Results & Lessons Learned from a Viral Facebook Post

The Results & Lessons Learned from a Facebook Post Shared 30,000 times in 1 week

If you are a business trying to get the word out about your product or a blogger trying to build your audience; one thing is certain. You have to market your brand.

Whatever your mission is, you need to get noticed online and cut through the clutter. How do you do that and in a cost effective way? You guessed it – guest blogging. It can be an effective way to reach your target demographic without breaking the bank.

When I started Best Mom Products interview site, I thought that producing great, valuable content was enough.  I thought by the guest and myself promoting the segment; we’d gain a rapidly growing audience.  That didn’t happen.

As a previous marketer, I should have known better and marketed smarter, harder and more but the online world was new to me. As I’ve learned personally and from interviewing many mompreneurs, you never know what is going to yield results but there are lessons learned in each activity.

Here is one I’d like to share with you.

Last week, my article “The Naked Question” went live on the Scary Mommy website.  I share how my husband and I handle being naked around our children.  It wasn’t focused on mom entrepreneurs but something more personal…very personal.  After 1 week, the results are in.

Scary Mommy Audience Overview:

Target Audience: Moms Sharing Personal Stories of Being a Mom

Facebook Followers: 151,000

Twitter Followers: 335,000

The Results

On Facebook:  Scary Mommy posting  1x on her Facebook page

559 Likes  / 276 Comments

On Scary Mommy Website:

After 1 week, the results were in …

Google Analytics

I had only 62 new visitors, less than a ¼ of 1% of people who took the time to share the article with their friends chose to come to my website. Dismal.

Of those 62 new visitors, 4 signed up for my email newsletter.  That is a 6% conversion rate.

Lessons Learned

1. Target your exact audience.

• I took a chance and thought a highly engaged mom audience would definitely overlap with some mompreneurs.  It did but at a much smaller % than I anticipated.

2. Write about topics pertaining to your ideal target audience.

• I wrote about a topic I knew this audience would like – personal and controversial, not business.  The content was received well but didn’t garner more interest or convert.

3.   Create an Opt-In offer

• I have newsletter sign up on each page of my site but have not offered anything of additional value to incentivize someone to sign up.  I’ve known for a long time this is critical in growing your audience, customers, email list but didn’t do it.

I’d love to hear your experience!  If you’d like to share your tips and experiences with guest blogging, please do so in the comments.