At present, social media is at its. Social media is ruling the world, be it for entertainment purposes or marketing. It offers a massive reach on various platforms for marketers to engage a broader range of audiences. But the question is, does A/B testing help in social media? The answer is yes! A/B testing is elementary to implement and has particular importance in social media. Some time ago, Google tested an A/B test to choose the shade of blue to be used in campaigns by exposing the shades to 1% of its users. They analyzed the results and implemented changes accordingly and recorded a massive customer engagement.Interestingly, at present, mostly all the companies prefer to test elements to take an idea of the audience’s response. Now, it is clear that A/B testing will help you progress in the business manifold. However, the marketers remain ambiguous about what to test and how to start executing these tests! In this article, we will be presenting a complete guide and tips regarding A/B testing on social media. Let’s begin!
What is A/B Testing? [Definition]
A/B testing is an experimental process that tests multiple versions of a web page at a single time. This test helps you to understand the requirements of your audience. The ultimate objective is to find the best combination that appeals to your target audience and achieve your end goal. In A/B testing, the original version of a page is known as ‘control,’ and the modified version of ‘control’ is known as ‘version.’ When it comes to social media, you need to find the most accurate set of images with appealing copy, targeting your audience at the correct time. Prior to testing, you must keep one variable constant and change the other one. For more clarity, here is an example: If you wish to run a LinkedIn ad, create three or more versions of the ad and keep the copy of all these images static with different images. You can keep different content variations and see what works best for you. After some time, you will be able to analyze which image suits you the best. The same applies to copy.
What to Test on Social Media?
There are several elements on various social media platforms to test. Here is a detailed list:
- Format: Keep a clear head while choosing the format or layout of your ad. Decide the structure that resonates the most with your design language of the company and the users. Testing different formats or layouts is the first thing you should start with as this is the foundation of your website and the first thing to put a positive or a negative impression on your visitors.
- Content: There are a lot of factors to consider and experiment with when it comes to content. You can try to test the font size, font style, headline, and description of the content. Consider keeping the text short and crisp as the audience tends to ignore significant texts. Furthermore, it is catchy to include a number in your headline; for instance, ‘5 steps to excel at digital experimentation’ will catch more eyes than ‘Know the steps to excel at digital experimentation’. All these elements can be tested for better results.
- Visuals: Try playing with the colors and visuals of your website and analyze the effect on conversion rate subsequently. It is also recommended to insert different images with some catchy background colors. As a matter of fact, the users are more attracted to appealing imagery. Therefore, try testing these elements as per your design language and understand the analytics.
- Content marketing: One of the essential digital marketing strategies is content marketing. It is advised to test each section of your site to get better insights into users’ engagement. In addition, we recommend that you understand which section has more users and what you can do to improve the section that doesn’t.
How to perform A/B testing on social media?
We are entailing a list of steps that you must follow to perform A/B testing in a step-by-step fashion.
- Understand your objectives
- Analyze elements to test
- Prepare a budget
- Start experimentation tests
- Keep repeating the tests
Understand your objectives
Firstly, it is crucial to know your goals and what you wish to achieve. Knowing this leads to deciding on a budget and elements to test. There are various goals to accomplish, such as:
- Increased conversion rates
- Fewer bounce rates
- More traffic
- Low CPAs
- High CTR
As social media platforms have many areas to improvise and work upon, it is best to decide what you wish to work upon before the experimentation.
Analyze elements to test
As in the first step, you decide the goals for testing; in this step, that list will help you determine which elements to test. For instance, if you wish to change the format of your ad, you can begin by experimenting with the texts, images, colors, and style. Prepare the list of these different versions to see which layout appeals most to the audience.
Prepare a budget
When you clarify optimizing the elements, it becomes easy to prepare a budget.
Start testing
If, for example, you wish to run an ad, launch different versions, and analyze the results. Moreover, you can also choose a different set of audiences for both tests to gain more accurate and more precise insights. After concluding, collect the results and deeply analyze them. You will get to know which version performed better and accomplished your targets.
Keep repeating the tests
After gaining one test result, you can opt to test other elements to enhance your website’s performance. Make changes and keep on testing at specific intervals.
Tips for experimentation in social media
While there are a lot of aspects to experimenting on social media platforms, there are some tips that you must know to ace the testing game. We are presenting some pointers to follow while conducting experimentation on your social media platform.
Implement accurate hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to increase your reach and deliver content to a broader range of audiences. However, it is crucial not to stuff them unnecessarily. Avoid using multiple hashtags as it can annoy the users. Make selective choices and post different hashtags that are best suited to your content. Test the post with the new ones and your previous post stuffed with hashtags. Analyze the results!
Target Audience
Before beginning with experimentation, you must understand your target audience. This will help you to strategize your tests and approach towards marketing in a better way. For instance, if it’s a Facebook ad, you need to segregate it based on age, gender, location, etc.
Work on different headlines
Headlines are an essential complement to your website. It is the first thing that catches the attention of a user. You can test specific factors such as:
- Length of the headline
- Color
- Font size
- Font style
Choose attractive images and videos
Selecting appealing images and videos for your website increases the chances of attracting more users. Therefore, you must test with a different selection of images that resonate best with your content and design language. There are endless possibilities on social media regarding visuals, so try:
- Using texts with images and videos
- Gifs instead of posts at times
- To experiment with the length of the posts
Experiment with CTAs
The ultimate objective of a business is to gain more customers. Therefore, you must work on the CTAs or Call to Action buttons. Different CTAs have different responses. So you must test these CTAs from time to time on several posts and record the results. Always remember, that modifying a simple text on the CTAs can increase your conversion rates massively.
Make changes in the post
While conducting social media experimentation, consider changing several elements of your post, such as:
- The tone of your voice
- Lists and numbers
- Length
- Colors
- Images and videos for reference
Implementing these changes and testing them can help you understand what the user requires from your content. It is an important exercise, and you must do it.
Time to post content
It is crucial to understand when your audience is online. Analyze and understand at what time the users are the most active. You can choose two different time slots and try posting at that time. Keep publishing for a period of one month, and check in your analytics at the end of the month. This way, you can understand which time is the best for you to post your content and engage a wider audience.
Concluding
Regular testing is a must if you are running your business on various social media platforms. Testing increases the chances of better results and progress of your brand. Sometimes, heavy traffic doesn’t always result in high conversion rates. It is crucial to strategize and make appropriate changes to achieve such goals. As you can see, A/B testing is an excellent method to bring effective results. If you are not performing testing, then you are lacking behind. This article has provided a complete insight into the definition of A/B testing, how to perform it, and what to test. We hope that the information provided above resolves your ambiguities regarding this topic. Happy Testing!
My name is Vijay Singh Khatri, and I enjoy meeting new people and finding ways to help them have an uplifting experience. I have had a variety of customer service opportunities, through which I was able to have fewer returned products and increased repeat customers when compared with co-workers.
