Social Media Archives | Page 13 of 45

How to Leverage User-Generated Content in Your Marketing Strategy

Users today are bombarded with ads. We see them on TV, on our way to work, even on social media. Because of this, people learn to tune out these advertisements. What they value, however, are the opinion and feedback shared by your clients and customers.

People who had great experience with your company are likely to share this with their family and friends. People value these feedbacks. In fact, they can affect the buying decision of prospective customers. If you are looking to attract potential customers and increase your sales, we recommend that you use user-generated content to your advantage.

Here are some tips on how to leverage user-generated content in your marketing strategy.

Run a contest

Running a contest is one of the easiest ways to capture the attention of your target audience. This encourages people to share their story or upload a photo of themselves. In return, you get free endorsements from previous customers.

Through a contest, you can gather some valuable insights from your customers while building a relationship with them. This increases brand visibility and can help you build trust with potential customers.

Advertise with reviews

Instead of flooding your social media accounts with advertisements and company blurbs, why don’t you just share photos or screen shots of customer reviews. This is a great way to show people who happy your customers are with your products. Plus, customers trust customer reviews more than branded content because they come across as honest and reliable.

Encourage engagement

To build a relationship with your target audience, encourage them to share user-generated content. Starbucks had one of the most successful user-generated content campaigns.

A few years back, Starbucks encouraged its customers to decorate their iconic white cup. As expected, people came up with their own unique designs and shared them on social media. They received over 4,000 entries in just 3 weeks. The coffee chain used the winning design on their reusable cups.

August 28, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Internet Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

Twitter Hacks for Better Marketing

As marketers, creating compelling content through social media is the key to our internet success. But, without the ability to reach a large audience and attract followers, our content can be easily lost and forgotten. The world of social media is constantly changing, and staying on top of the latest tips and tricks to help make sure you stay present is crucial to your success. For many businesses, Twitter is the go-to platform for attracting customers, promoting products and services, and making sure people are actually noticing their content. Here are some useful hacks to make sure your Twitter posts are reaching the right people and attracting more customers.

Pinning Posts:

Pinning your Twitter posts can be used to highlight AND pin your key tweet. This is a great way to make sure your richest content has a longer lifecycle and is visible to newcomers. How do you pin a Twitter post? First, find a tweet you want to pin on your Twitter profile. This could be a post that received the most favorites, had the most comments, a retweet from someone who mentioned you etc. From there, click the three-dot icon that appears at the bottom of the tweet, next to the favorites account. From the drop-down menu, select “Pin to your profile page.” This can also be done through your mobile device! When you refresh your page, your pinned tweet should appear at the top of your most recent tweets.

It’s important to note that pinning the tweet does not add the tweet back to your follower’s newsfeed. Only people who look through your profile directly will see the pinned tweets. Pinning your tweets is affective because it helps direct newcomers to the content you feel grabbed the most attention. This leads to even more retweets and favorites with new followers, and overall more exposure to your Twitter profile.

Twitter Cards:

Major brands have been jump-starting their Twitter posts by using Twitter Cards. A Twitter Card allows you to decide how you want your content to be displayed within tweets and helps you stand out amongst the clutter. This leads to increased likelihood that customers will click on and retweet your posts. There are 7 different types of Twitter Cards that help your posts stand out and drive more traffic to your website.

One of the greatest Twitter Cards for marketers is the Twitter Summary Card. This allows marketers to customize the content description that appears in the summary before it’s posted. Whether you want to share your opinion, provide a short overview, or ask a question, the Summary Card makes it easy to eliminate the sometimes off-message default lines of text that appear with a particular link.

How To Enable Twitter Cards for Your Site:

Using the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin, enable Twitter card meta-data from the Social>Twitter menu.
Visit the Twitter Card Validator and enter the URL for your blog.
Once your site validates, request that your url is added to the beta program. Twitter will likely have you validated in just a few days.

Organize Weekly Twitter Chats:

Twitter chats are directly tied to specific and original hashtags through which tweets are organized and tracked and are great for your overall Twitter marketing strategy. To have a successful Twitter chat, set a date and time when most of your followers will be online, then choose a hashtag. Keep your hashtag short and concise, but also memorable and unique. Before starting your Twitter chat, make sure you have staff to keep things running smoothly and to prevent your hashtag from being hijacked. There are various tools to help organize your chats such as Twubs, Nurph, and ChatSalad.

5 Ways to Improve Your Twitter Marketing Results

1: Turn a Pinned Tweet Into a Feature Box

The Feature Box is an email form you place at the top of your homepage, which offers your website visitors a freebie in exchange for signing up for your email list.You can add a similar feature to your Twitter profile page by combining two of Twitter’s native features: a lead generation card and a pinned tweet. Simply create a Lead Generation Card that includes an incentive for people to opt in. Offer regular email updates, a special freebie or a subscribers-only discount. Pin the tweet to the top of your Twitter profile and you’re all set.

2: Communicate Less and Tweet More Links

A recent study by Dan Zarrella looked at the “reply rates” of about 130,000 random Twitter users and discovered that highly followed accounts tend to converse less. Keep in mind, the study results don’t suggest that Twitter conversations have a negative effect on your following, just that conversations aren’t what motivate people to follow you on Twitter. According to another study by Dan Zarrella, the way to get more followers is to invest more time tweeting relevant links to your followers, rather than communicating directly with them.

3: Ask Twitter Influencers for Help

According to BuzzSumo who recently studied the share counts of more than 100 million articles, when influencers share your content, the reach increases substantially. If one influencer shares a piece of content, it will get 38.8% more social shares. Three influencers double the social shares and five influencers quadruple them. It’s crucial to network with influencers and develop relationships with them. Then, when you have an important piece of content you’d like to get seen, you can ask the influencers you know to share it.

4: Use Twitter’s Recommend Feature

Recommend is a new feature of Twitter’s tweet button that many people don’t pay attention to. After a visitor tweets an article from your blog, the window recommends they follow you on Twitter, if they don’t follow you already. This is an excellent way to grow your Twitter account, since people who just tweeted your article are likely to want to follow you. Look at the code of your tweet button and make sure the recommend field contains your Twitter username. To double-check you’ve set up the feature correctly, ask a friend to unfollow you on Twitter and then tweet an article from your blog. If the recommend field contains your Twitter username, you’re all set.

5: Repeat Article Tweets

According to a study by Wisemetrics, the second tweet of an article gets as much as 86% of the performance as the first tweet. Clearly the performance will fade with each new tweet, but considering your followers are probably in different time zones, you still need to tweet your most valuable content more than once. Your new followers will appreciate it, since the content will be new for them.

And finally! Here are some Tips for Writing Great Tweets!

Composing the perfect tweet isn’t easy. With only 140 characters at your disposal plus million of users from all over the world generating more than 500 million tweets a day, it can be extremely difficult to get through the noise.

While there is no such thing as the perfect tweet, there are some guidelines to follow for writing one that will capture the attention of people.

Tips for writing great tweets:

Get to the point

According to studies, tweets with less than 100 characters get 18% more engagement. When writing tweets, make sure you keep it short, concise, and interesting. Get to the point. Make every character count. If you have a longer message to convey, we suggest that you include a link to a blog post.

Start interacting

If you want to reach more people, make sure that you interact with them. This can be done in many forms – by asking a question, retweeting other’s posts, responding to other users, following interesting people, engaging in conversations or sharing valuable information.

Command action

Recent studies show that tweets that command action receive better engagement and retweets. When writing tweets, make sure that you include a call to action. Whether you want people to follow you in other social networks, retweet your posts or enter your contest, you need to be clear about what you want people to do.

Use hashtags

A hashtag provides a way for new followers to find you. It is how you identify your content as relevant to a certain field or group of people. Make sure you include hashtags in all your tweets, but don’t overuse it. You can use an existing hashtag or create your own.

Proofread

As a business professional, you want to make sure that your tweets are free from grammar and spelling errors. Your tweets will only be composed of 1 to 3 sentences, so make sure that you get them right. Avoid slang and abbreviations.

August 21, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Social Media

3 Types of Social Media Content to Help Increase Engagement

#1 VIDEO:

A study by Animoto asked 1,000 consumers what they want to see with regard to social video. It also surveyed 500 marketers to determine whether they are fulfilling those expectations.

Highlights from the study were compiled into an infographic, which includes the following findings:

39% of consumers are more likely to finish videos that have subtitles. (The infographic reports that, according to Digiday, 85% of Facebook video is watched without sound.)
Preference between pre-recorded video and Facebook Live was split nearly down the middle, with pre-recorded video having just a slight edge (52% vs. 48%).
81% of marketers optimize their social videos for mobile.

#2 GIFS:

GIFs are the newest, coolest trend on social media and getting a lot of attention because not only are they easy to view, they also usually offer a call to action. Fun Fact – We may think that GIFs are a recent phenomenon in the world of digital marketing, BUT animated GIFs have been around for more than two decades!

Here are just a few ways how to incorporate GIFs into your digital marketing strategy:

The attention span of your audience is very low. GIFs are a smart way of reaching your target audience with a living picture of your message.
GIFs are an easy way to get engagement from your target audience and show them how something works.
Another way to use GIFs is through your email marketing, blogging, and other digital materials. It has been reported to raise the click through rate as well! GIFs are fun to watch, easy to find and easy to upload.
GIFs can be about a new process you have, new products, telling a story, explaining a situation, tell a joke etc.
GIF format can be done through Boomerang, GIF Keyboard, and GIPHY. There are tons of options out there for you!

#3 Infographics:

Remember last week we talked about ‘Stopping the SCROLL’? Great article by B2C:

6 Step Process to Amazing Infographic Design

Step 1: Choose your topic and research your audience.
Step 2: Take a look at your data and consolidate it.
Step 3: Craft the copy.
Step 4: Design!
Step 5: Review, review, review.
Step 6: Publish and promote.

August 4, 2017/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Social Media

5 Social Media Tips You Need For Your Business

Social media can be overwhelming and daunting as a business owner, some even tend to avoid or do the bare minimum when it comes to social media marketing. We want to help break through that confusion, frustration and make it easier for you as a business owner to be successful with social media marketing!

Here are 5 of our favorite tips when it comes to social media:

Have a purpose and goals:

What are you wanting out of social media? What is your purpose and goals ? Is it for brand awareness? To drive people to your website? To position yourself as an expert in your field? Whatever it is, write it out and make sure each and every post moves you towards that goal and purpose.
Have a plan:

Once you know why you are on social media, create a laid-out plan and a content calendar. The content calendar can be weekly, monthly, or even quarterly, whatever works best for your business. This one tool will make social media so much easier for you. Think about it, if you know the topics you are going to write and talk about on social media, the content will flow! Think of different causes you are a part of, websites you visit, company news, events, myths, trends, etc.
Choose 1 platform and grow from there:

This is KEY! Yes, we want you on all the social media platforms but don’t worry about being on all of them all at once. Select 1 – ideally, it should be the social channel where you can find the bulk of your target market or niche. Get to know this social channel inside and out so it becomes second nature to you and your business. THEN, and only then, move on and grow from there.
Always provide value:

What’s in it for me (meaning your audience) Steer away from the selling mentality, we all want more business, but just selling on social media without value isn’t the correct move. If your audience will not benefit from the post, it may be time to re-think your message.
Measure your results:

Make sure that whatever you select as your purpose in tip #1 it has the ability to be measured. If you can’t measure your results, you will never know if you are on the right track or if you need to pivot and adjust your messages.

BONUS TIP: Your main goal with social media marketing should be STOP THE SCROLL!!! Remember to make each social media post, image, graphic and video compelling enough to stop people from scrolling on by. Keep your followers intrigued and offer something unique to keep them engaged with your social media account.

July 29, 2017/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Facebook

How Your Business Can Capitalize on Facebook Live

Facebook live has become increasingly popular with businesses, organizations and the general public. It allows you to stream and share live videos with your fans and followers. It has opened a whole world of opportunities for businesses from around the world.

Facebook live in more than just broadcasting a brief episode on Facebook. It can add a personality to your brand and really work to broaden the sincerity and breadth to your business on Facebook.

What topics can you discuss on Facebook Live?

Whether you are camera shy, feel like you don’t have anything to put out there, or are just dragging your feet, I highly recommend jumping onto Facebook live. This list should help you feel more empowered to find a topic to discuss live!

Hot topics in your business or industry
Q&A or review the FAQ on your website in a video
Breaking news
Conduct an interview
Are you a performer? Perform!
Give a behind the scenes look at your profession
Record a demo or tutorial and teach your fans.

What topics have you found to get a lot of response from your viewers?

Now that you have decided on a topic, there are some tips to help you get the most views and engagement.

6 Tips for Better Facebook Live Engagement

Tell fans you are broadcasting
Make sure you have a strong internet connection
Add a description to your live before you actually click to go live on Facebook
Take the time to say hello to your live viewers and respond to their comments in real-time
Don’t always keep it short – longer broadcasts pick up more viewers
Use a closing line to signal the end of a broadcast

Here are 4 ways your business can capitalize on Facebook live.

Real time engagement

One of the biggest benefits of using Facebook live is that you get to engage with your audience real time. You can see how many people are watching your video, ask for their opinion, and determine whether or not your content is working. Because of the real time connection with the audience, studies suggest that Facebook live gets 10 times more comments than other contents.

Most business use social media to interact with their audience. You can take it to the next level by using Facebook live. We’ve seen a lot of business use this to conduct Q&A sessions. People can ask whatever they want. Since this is a live version, they can get an answer to their questions in an instant.

It is more convenient

Business owners have a lot on their plate. Sometimes, creating new content can be time consuming. If you want to increase engagement without spending too much time creating new content, Facebook live is the way to.

You can conduct a Q&A session without all the big production behind the content. Live streaming also provides an easy way to disseminate information to your fans and followers. It’s a lot easier than writing a blog post or newsletters.

Create better relationship with your audience

Live videos are spontaneous. They are not rehearsed. There are no cuts. There are no edits. People want authenticity. It’s the total transparency that draws people in. Through these videos, they get to see the people behind the company and interact with them directly. It humanizes your brand and creates a new level of trust. It also provides a more intimate level of engagement.

Reach more people

People have a very short attention span. They prefer to watch a 1-minute video than to read a 1,000 word blog post. Considering that there are more than one hundred million active users on Facebook, you are likely to reach more people with Facebook live. What’s great about live streaming is that it people can watch the video even after it has ended. That means you can engage new audience.

July 25, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Social Media, Social Speak

How do you incorporate your offline and online marketing?

Here are 3 social media tips to help your business:

How should your online and offline marketing efforts work together?

It is important to have the same branding online and offline. For instance, your website, social media and even email signature should have your logo; same colors, and even your slogan should be the same as your print media. What people see on your marketing materials, ads etc., should look and feel the same.

If you use different logos or colors in your email signature, website, brochures and business cards, people won’t recognize your brand. You may start to lose customers. It’s all about the brand message and being consistent!

Marketing Materials – What should you have on them??

Your marketing materials are all about the first impressions, right? You want to make sure your marketing materials are simple and, yet, effective. So, let’s talk about what makes your marketing materials effective.

The purpose behind your Marketing Materials:

Inform customers and potential customers about your business
Attract more customers
Maybe get the word out there about an upcoming event, conference, workshop you are hosting
The BIG thing is to create a positive customer experience

What needs to be on all your online marketing and offline marketing materials:

Business Name
Business Logo and Slogan
Business Phone Number (Is it ok to text?)
Business Email Address
Business Address – if you have a physical location
Business Website URL
Social Media links to Facebook, Twitter, instagram, LinkedIn, etc. Wherever you are consistently posting is what you want to promote

Here is a great resource we will add to our website that talks in more detail about how to create effective marketing materials: http://inkbotdesign.com/effective-marketing-materials/

Monitoring your metrics – how do you know what is working?

As a business owner, it is important to know that your efforts are paying off! In the social media world, we would love to be able to say, if you post 3 times a week with these types of posts you will make this much money . . . BUT it doesn’t happen like that, unfortunately! SO, social media works different for each business.

A few resources that you can monitor to see what is working for you would be:

*Google Analytics – This is a tool that is embedded into the backend of your website and monitors all traffic that comes to your site; where they are coming from, such as country, state, social media platform, email links, and so much more. Google Analytics also tells you how long people are staying on your website, what pages they are looking at, and your bounce rate; are they getting what they want from your site? This is a great big picture tool to monitor!

*Facebook Insights – It is important to look at your Facebook Insights on your business page on a monthly or even weekly basis, just to see what posts are getting the most engagement, what time did you post it, what did you post, etc. This will help you figure out what types of posts you should be posting and what times, so you are reaching your audience when it’s the best time for them!

* Buffer and Hootsuite – These are two FREE resources as well that help give more of an overview of all your social media metrics, like Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, so you can see everything in one area – what is working best for you, from a social media standpoint; then you can see what the numbers look like and if you should continue with each platform. You might want to consider letting one go or spend less time on one. Remember, you always want to focus on where YOUR target audience is.

July 22, 2017/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Branding, Social Media

3 Social Media Trends To Pay Attention To

Here are the 3 social media trends we covered on our radio show this past Saturday. Each week we will bring you new social media trends to help grow your business and your social media strategy!

Brand Loyalty:

Celebrate your fans and followers and build loyal brand followers on Facebook. Post special % off discounts only available on Facebook. Also use Facebook ads to help grow your brand awareness and brand loyalty. Grow your following and your brand by offering unique content on a regular basis. Stand out and be leader in your niche.

Online Reviews What to do??

Check online reviews constantly and respond to the good and the bad. A bad review is the opportunity to start a conversation and turn it into a positive. When responding to a bad review, handle it off line and in a private forum. Where to check your reviews?? Google, Facebook, Yelp

Building your followers organically or paid??

There are a couple of reasons why this is not a good idea.

Low engagement. Purchased likes and followers are not your ideal customer. You will never be able to engage with them or have a successful purchase history with them.
Think about your brand reputation before even considering buying likes or followers. It looks spammy and suspicious when you jump from a few likes to thousands in a short time.
Algorithms. Social media channel algorithms are smart. If they record a suspicious jump in likes and followers, your organic reach may be compromised.

July 17, 2017/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Social Media

5 Social Media Trends to Follow

Here are 5 social media trends we spoke about on our radio show that are important to pay attention to while putting together your social media strategy.

1) Content

How to use video and images to stop the scroll, text to image ratio, A video on Facebook receives 135% more organic reach (non-paid advertising) Thank a single photo posted on Facebook. Stop the scroll! Make sure your posts are interesting enough for people to want to stop and view, watch, listen and read your content.

2) Apps

There a hundreds of different apps you can use, there are just a few of our favorite. Best apps to use to create compelling images and posts are WordSwag, Ripl, Flipagram, Typorama

3) Brand Message

Did you know that people like Facebook for online shoppers – is it clear and add shop button to FB page, 42% of people who like a business page on Facebook do so to receive coupons and special offers. What have you offered in your business page lately? Adding an offer to your business page is a great way to track marketing efforts!

Roughly 93% of online shoppers consult social media before buying. Online shoppers read social media reviews, monitor brand engagement and get to know the brand before making a commitment to buy. What message is your brand sending on social media?

4) Emojis

Emojis can help you show emotion through content with your social media posts, texts and even blogs. You may experience a 33% increase in comments and engagement when you do!

5) Content Calendar

Keep posts simple! Did you know? Posts with less than 150 characters get up to 60% MORE engagement! Create an editorial calendar. By doing some planning up front, it will really save you time on being consistent in your message on social media. When planning your editorial calendar of content, don’t forget to plan in content that works well with annual holidays and the seasons of your business. Remember to be flexible with your calendar so it allows you to pivot and make room for trending topics that may impact your business. Make sure your team has a copy of the editorial calendar so they can stay focused on what your business’ message is month to month.

July 17, 2017/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

Boulder Marketing, Connecting with Customers, Internet Marketing, Social Media

4 Simple Ways to Attract Customers to Your Small Business

In today’s saturated marketplace, getting ahead in the business world is tougher than ever. They need to amp up their marketing efforts in order to thrive and succeed. If you’ve tried different strategies, but you still haven’t achieved your desired results, don’t fret. We’re here to help you out.

Use these simple and inexpensive tips to attract customers to your small business. Try any of the methods listed below to see which one works best for you.

Identify your target audience

The first and most important step is to identify who your target audience is. Have a crystal clear picture of who exactly you are targeting. You wouldn’t know where to start looking if you don’t know the type of customers you seek.

You may have great products and a marketing campaign in place, but this won’t help you reach your bottomline without a composite of your ideal customer.

Online advertising is the way to go

Living in the digital world, most people spend most of their time online. They would log in to their social media accounts to get in touch with their family and friends. Some even rely on the internet to know what is happening around them. So if you are looking to capture the attention of your target audience, online advertising is the way to go.

Get listed on popular local directories, be active on social media, post blogs regularly and update your website from time to time. With all these strategies combined, you are guaranteed to build a strong online presence and attract a lot of potential customers to your business.

Start a contest

Everybody loves free stuff. This is why contests are always a big hit. It’s not just the idea of receiving free items that encourage people to join contest, but the thrill of beating others and winning.

Let’s say you’re in the wedding business and you sell wedding rings. Couples who are planning to get married will be very much interested in joining. But first, they need to share their love story in order to enter the contest. The couples that get the most number of likes wins. Contestants will need to share this with their family and friends in order to get as much likes.

Yes, you’ll be losing money since you’ll be giving away a pair of wedding rings, but imagine the kind of buzz this could create for your business.

Offer deals and discounts

Everybody is looking for a way to save money. People see deals and discounts as a great way to save money. This is one of the best ways to capture the attention of your target audience.

Since deals and discounts are offered for a limited time only, people are tempted to buy something even if they didn’t plan to. After all, it’s cheap, and the items would revert back to their original prices after a few days, so why not buy now?

Now before you jump into these methods to attract your tribe, make sure you also know where your audience is online!

Which Social Media Channels Fit Your Target Audience

You may have amazing products and provide great services. You also spend time creating good quality content. No matter how engaging or persuasive your content is, you won’t be able to achieve great results unless it reaches your target audience.

Most business use social media to engage with their fans and followers and even build a relationship with them. Considering there are several social media channels out there, do you ever wonder if you’re reaching the right audience?

Which social media channels fit your target audience? Keep reading to find out.

Twitter

Twitter makes use of hashtags that allows businesses to target people who are talking about and engaging with topics related to their business. This social media platform is ideal for sharing real time information, timely trends or live events, and will result in high levels share and engagement.

Use this social networking platform if your target audience is young adults. 24% of internet users log in on their Twitter account on a daily basis. Younger, more educated crowds aged 18 to 29 uses Twitter. 29% of college grads use Twitter and lots of it.

Facebook

Facebook is the biggest socal networking channel, with over 1.86 billion monthly users. Yes, Facebook is crowded, but it gives you the ability to narrow down that 1.86 billion users by gender, age, location, interests, marital status, employment, and income; thus, making it easier for you to reach the right audience.

Majority of the entire adult population is on Facebook. In fact, 88% of milennials and 62% of adults aged 65 and up use Facebook. As such, this would be a great place to start with your social media campaign.

Instagram

Instagram is geared towards younger millennial users. A hefty 38% of female internet users use Instagram. To make the most out of your social media campaign, make sure that you provide attention grabbing photos and high quality videos to your audience. Remember, content is king on Instagram.

People tend to use LinkedIn for interacting with clients, influencers and other professionals. This is a great option for business whose products or services are highly specific to professionals. It is also ideal for B2B marketers.

Just like Facebook, LinkedIn allows you to target users based on gender, location and age. In addition, it also allows you to filter based on field of study, company industry, company size, degrees, job title etc.

July 17, 2017/by Caitlin McDonald

Social Media, Social Speak

The Numbers Say “Embrace Social Media”

If the social media numbers and statistics that we are seeing already for 2016 are a glimpse into the future for 2017, you are going to want to get in the game! It’s time to take the Social Media landscape seriously and apply it to your business for maximum growth and exposure.

Check out these numbers from SmallBizTrends.com

General Social Media Use

97% of online adults aged 16-64 say they have visited or used a social network within the last month.
Internet users have average of 7 social media accounts. This is a HUGE jump from 2012 where most people reported having only 3 social media accounts.
8 out of 10 internet users visit and/or use social media from their mobile devices.
Users spend a minimum of an hour on social media per day (I think this number is too low!)

These numbers tell us that Social Media is not only increasing in popularity but it also tells us users are finding tremendous value in it. What does this mean for businesses of any size? It means we need to embrace social media and start using it effectively.

Which Social Media Platform Should Businesses Concentrate On

Many industry professionals will tell you two things when it comes to where you should be spending your time as a business when it comes to Social Media. They will tell you:

Go where your target customer spends their time
Focus on 1 Social Media platform and get comfortable with it before you add more

While I agree with what other industry professionals advise, I also believe this is one Social Media powerhouse we cannot ignore. Facebook. Have you noticed, slowly but surely Facebook is adding all the most popular features each of the major Social Media players. Here is what I mean:

Live video was huge when Periscope came on the scene. Facebook saw the value and created Facebook Live for its users.
Simple, to the point text is what Twitter is all about. Facebook now amplifies short text with a larger font size so it stands out in your news feed.
Instagram is wildly popular with its highly visual platform. Facebook purchased Instagram. Now Facebook advertisers can promote posts from Facebook to Instagram without even having an Instagram account!
SnapChat is highly popular with its disappearing posts. Instagram (owned by Facebook) has embraced the same technology through Instagram Stories

Plan Of Action

Over the last 2 years or so, Facebook has added an incredible amount of features and nuances to its platform. For most, it is hard to keep up with all the changes. It seems once you have it down, Facebook amps up its game, forcing you to learn more. Many times, your focus is taken off your business and craft to learn the next Facebook marketing technique. Learning the new features of Facebook is a necessary evil if you are the person in charge of maintaining the social media footprint of your business. While being in charge of executing your business’s social media content seems like a good plan, it can backfire. More often than not, businesses who manage their own social media accounts are:

Inconsistent with their presence and message
Tend to be overly pitchy or “sales-y”
Misuse the functions of the social media platform
Often post just for the sake of posting in order to have some sort of presence

The best defense to social media marketing is to spend the time to craft an annual social media plan complete with a budget and measurable goals. Once you have the plan designed, outsource the work. The people you outsource your social media plan to can generally do it faster and with better results, freeing you up to do what you originally got into business to do in the first place!

So You Think You Can Get Along In Business Without Social Media

Think again! Before social media hit the scene, to gain credibility in the marketplace, you had to have a website. Today, it is extremely important to have a website PLUS have presence on social media. Here’s why:

Studies show consumers check out social media first before even going to a company website.
Consumers engage in “social listening” watching and reading how people react to a company or product
Social Media gives consumers the opportunity to quickly engage and build a relationship with their favorite brand or product
Potential customers can get real time, personalized responses from companies through social media

What will your social media plan look like in 2017. It is not too late to start thinking about it now.

June 16, 2017/0 Comments/by Caitlin McDonald

How Your Business Can Capitalize on Facebook Live

What topics can you discuss on Facebook Live?

6 Tips for Better Facebook Live Engagement