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.
We have had the wonderful opportunity of working with a financial advisor to do her marketing, be it social media marketing, email marketing or print marketing. To work with her, I had to go through security screening and fingerprinting for compliance. Needless to say, we take the responsibility of working with her seriously. Every article, advertisement and online change to the website goes through a process of approval. We actually have an employee who has been trained to make certain there are no issues with any sort of implications of guarantees.
There are so many useful tools that can help you create, organize, and schedule your social media. Here are a few that might be able to save you time and help you with the creative side of creating social content.
Canva is a great program to help you create graphics for your social media. It has free templates for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. You can upload your own pictures and logo to brand your graphics. The paid version has more capabilities including setting uploading special fonts, collaboration tools, and setting up your brand colors.
It’s said, it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know. Your involvement in social media easily allows you to open the channels to reach out and connect to those individuals who may become an impact on the success of your business. With that said, how do you go about the strategy of connecting with these individuals?
With over a billion monthly users, Instagram is a social media platform every business should consider. It is a great way for a customer to visualize the lifestyle that they would have with your product or service. Here are some easy ways to get started.
Branding is something that you need to keep consistent across social media. In the bio, you should use the same profile picture that you have for Facebook or Twitter. If you have a Twitter account, use the same handle as well and link to your website so that people can find you.
Recent changes with Facebook Marketing have left us a bit unsure whether Facebook is planning to say goodbye to marketing for businesses. Recently, I was working with a client’s Facebook Boost which requires us to fine tune the market based on net worth and interest in investing in land. What they are eliminating is all those demographics that would fine tune the audience and only allowing us to choose just interests in hobbies and sports.
I know that you are thinking, “Not another social media task to add to my to do list!”
What are Facebook Stories? They are user-generated pictures and videos that are shared with your followers for only 24 hours. Why should you use them? Stories are a fun way to interact with your followers. If your followers are a little younger, you are giving them content in a way that they consume it. Facebook introduced Stories to compete with Snapchat.
Everyone will give you an opinion on the “right” way to post social media content. Truthfully, you must figure out a system that works for you and be consistent. How do you get from being overwhelmed, to a monthly content plan? Here are a few tips.
What are the various social media platforms you are currently posting on, and how often are you posting? Is that working for you? Make a note of what you think you need to change. If you are not posting consistently, what is a realistic goal?
Facebook gives you a lot of tools to analyze your audience, and they can be used to help craft your social media strategy. Understanding your audience and their viewing habits can help increase your reach. Here are three Insights to watch.
Since January when the announcement was made about Facebook’s change to their algorithm, we’ve been testing what we’ve done in the past, as well as some of our new adjustments. In some cases, with no engagement what so ever, we didn’t see any changes.
Those where we moved attention to GYBO posts and more engaging posts but less of them on Facebook, we noticed an uptick on organic reach on Google and about the same result on Facebook.
Have you ever gone live on Facebook? If you haven’t you are missing out on a great way to increase your reach and engage your audience. Here are a few tips to get started.
