As an authorized local expert for Constant Contact, I often teach the benefits of email marketing as a lead generating tool. Combining email marketing with your favorite social media channel can be even more powerful. Recently, we put together a few campaigns with business owners and organizations to do just that.
So often when I'm training business owners about social media I ask, “What is it that keeps you from getting involved with social media?” They answer, I don't know what to write or share.
First, we will discuss what types of posts are working well on social media channels. No longer is Twitter just 140 characters of text. You can add photos and videos, too. For Facebook, you can use live videos, videos, photos, and text. If LinkedIn is where you are, it's videos, photos, long posts, and short posts. As far as what works best, it's videos, next is photos, and last is text.
So often I hear business owners say, “I really need to get involved on Facebook but have no idea where to begin.” What we say to business owners is the first step is to face your fears. If your fear is that you’re afraid of making a mistake or post the wrong thing, know that on Facebook you have the ability to put your posts into draft for someone to look at before you publish them. Even if you happen to post something, but you’ve made a mistake, you can delete the post.
Gathering the results for traditional marketing usually comes in the form of phone calls, feet in the door, coupons, and increased revenue. But how do you know what's happening with your social media marketing? This month's column will be all about tools to track your social media marketing results. There should never be any money or time spent on promoting your business with social media without measuring the results.
The expression "Use a picture. It's worth a thousand words." appeared in a 1911 newspaper article quoting newspaper editor Tess Flanders discussing journalism and publicity. With the ability to add text to that perfect photo, we can now say it’s worth more than a thousand words.
Why visuals?
In 2015, both Facebook and Twitter introduced video to their platforms and for good reason. Studies have shown that users are 44 percent more likely to engage with content that contains pictures and video falls into that category.
As I was preparing for my Social Media Class at Reading Area Community College, I had the most interesting experience happen to me. A week before the class a friend asked me to help him learn how to use Facebook. Me, being the helpful person I am, said, “Yes.” We sat down for what I thought would be a mundane experience for me which turned into a great lesson to share with my class and also you.
In a conversation at a Youth Leadership event with the local chamber, we were discussing social media and one of the comments shared was when posting on the internet, we should ask ourselves the question, "would you wear what we have said on a t-shirt?" What a great way to look at each message you are sharing online with that lense.
This month's column is focused on the content you are sharing on social media: how to monitor; what tools to use, and systems to follow in writing content.
I’ve discovered a new favorite Social Network… Periscope.
First of all, what is Periscope? Here’s the official description direct from trafficgenerationcafe.com. Periscope.tv is a life-streaming app owned by Twitter, which allows you to share, watch and engage with comments to live video broadcasts. With only 10 Million users since its launch in March, it’s really a baby in the world of social networks, but a baby who could quickly grow.
Each year, I like to research what's being projected to happen in social media marketing for the upcoming year. It's a great way to make adjustments of what we are doing and find out what's being planned for growth and changes. Last year it was all about Facebook and Twitter adding videos to their social media platforms. This year, my review includes projections from Huffington Post, SproutSocial, AllInOneSocial, to mention just a few, and it seems we're still looking at video as a focus, but with a twist.
Ok. You haven’t seen much from me in the way of promoting Facebook boosts in my column. Maybe it’s because of my allegiance to print advertising where I know how many real, live people are receiving the papers. No bots there! I cringe when people say to me I spent only $20 for 1,500 people on my boost to become fans. Really? Only 1,500 people when you could have taken the very same amount of money and advertised to 30,000 real, live people. Well, enough of comparing notes on print verses online. I don’t even have to defend that fact.
They are the magic that can make the difference for your site to be found on the tenth page of a Google search or the first page. Blogs are the most powerful tool to building a site found on Google.
Ok. So, you’ve spent all this time setting up Facebook, Instagram, or whatever platform you’re on. You have all the relevant information about your business on your page. Now what?
You need to think about what message you want to convey and how you go about it. Yes, you want to let people what your business, but no one wants to be sold to all the time. If all you are doing is trying to sell, you’re probably not seeing a lot of engagement on your social media. You want to give them the answer to “why” they should be doing business with you.
When creating a logo specifically for your business, it is very important that you brand your logo to be able to stand alone and reflect the mission and vision of your business. If you haven’t worked on the mission and vision of your company, that needs to be worked on first. Once you have the mission and vision, it’s a matter of visualizing what your logo should represent because a logo speaks for you when there aren’t any words to tell them about your business.
It is important that your Instagram account is set up as a business profile. With that you will have access to Insights, a tool to help you understand your audience and the effectiveness of your posts. That information will help you grow.
Check out your Insights to see how your posts are preforming. Here are some things you can see there:
What is IGTV? IGTV is an app associated with Instagram that allows you to create a channel for posting and sharing long form videos. Think of it as YouTube for Instagram. There are several different ways to promote your business on IGTV. This is helpful if your ideal customer is primarily on Instagram.
IGTV can be used to recycle previously published video content, like material that you have already used on other platforms. Videos should be vertical as they are geared toward mobile devices. If your content is horizontal, you will need to convert it.
You can’t make a plan for the future without an understanding of where you are right now. Before you put together your strategy for the New Year, let me give you some quick audit tips. Then, you will have a better understanding of where you need to focus your efforts.
Some things that you need to look at across all accounts.
Do you have a social media plan for the holidays? Now is the time to plan and schedule it. Pull out a calendar and decide what dates are important to your holiday sales strategy. Some dates that you may want to include are Black Friday- 11/23, Small Business Saturday-11/24, and Cyber Monday- 11/26. What other information might you want your customers to know? Do you have special hours and holiday shipping deadlines?
You are probably wondering why I am saying “Change Your Password!” instead of, “You want me to change my passwords? Really?”
The reason for this month’s column is to encourage you to get into the habit of changing your passwords on all your accounts. Why? There are a multitude of reasons which run the gamut of malware, ransomware, spam, hackers, and the list goes on and on.
