Bitly, the popular link-shortening service, recently found businesses might want to reshare certain content pages to ensure potential website visitors learn of a new page after its initial posting.
Studying two cases, one from the Washington Post and another from StylistMagazine, Bitly determined that shared links have a “half life” of sorts, which it describes as “the amount of time at which this link will receive half of the clicks it will ever receive after it’s reached its peak.” The exact length will vary from link to link, but Bitly suggests the general half life of a shared link is three hours.
It can be tricky to tweet the same branded blog post multiple times via the company Twitter; as Brafton has reported, one of the top reasons consumers stop engaging brands on social media is repetitive content. However, bit.ly’s data suggests businesses can enjoy the benefits of content marketing more by linking to a new blog post or article a few times throughout the day.
Ultimately, as is the case with most content published to the web, the substance of the piece will define its lifespan more than anything else. Targeting content to specific audiences, both in terms of subject matter and the time and platform for distribution, will likely improve the chance it appears before the intended prospect pool.
Targeting content to specific audiences is among the most difficult aspects of content marketing strategies. However, as CMOs plan to direct more money to their marketing budgets over the next five years, strategies will likely evolve to ensure best practices in both social and content marketing produce maximum ROI.
