20 Must-Follow Facebook Resources to Improve Your Page’s Reach by Scott Ayres

Yeah, I know — your Facebook reach is down.

Everyone’s is.

It’s a result of Facebook’s rapid growth. But you shouldn’t take it personally.

It just means your content strategy needs to evolve if you want to outpace competitors.
Let’s face it — the game of growing your business with Facebook has changed.

And there’s no better time than now to invest in your company & learn how to take your Facebook marketing campaigns to the next level.

The 20 Facebook resources in this post will help!

20 Must-Follow Facebook Resources to Improve Your Page’s Reach

By now you’ve probably heard about the latest Facebook news feed announcements.
Here’s a quick summary:

1. Less Visibility for Text Updates

First, Facebook told us text updates from pages wouldn’t be shown as often:

The latest update to News Feed ranking treats text status updates from Pages as a different category to text status updates from friends. Posts from Pages behave differently to posts from friends and we are working to improve our ranking algorithms so that we do a better job of differentiating between the two types.

This will help us show people more content they want to see. Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates …

So in a nutshell, text updates by pages aren’t going to get as much reach in the news feed.

You can handle that, right?

2. Like Bait Gets the Axe

Then we were told that Like-bait posts wouldn’t show up as much in the news feed:

‘Like baiting’ is when a post explicitly asks News Feed readers to like, comment or share the post in order to get additional distribution beyond what the post would normally receive.

People often respond to posts asking them to take an action, and this means that these posts get shown to more people, and get shown higher up in News Feed. However, when we survey people and ask them to rate the quality of these stories, they report that like-baiting stories are, on average, 15% less relevant than other stories with a comparable number of likes, comments and shares. Over time, these stories lead to a less enjoyable experience of Facebook since they drown out content from friends and Pages that people really care about.

The improvement we are making today better detects these stories and helps ensure that they are not shown more prominently in News Feed than more relevant stories from friends and other Pages. This update will not impact Pages that are genuinely trying to encourage discussion among their fans, and focuses initially on Pages that frequently post explicitly asking for Likes, Comments and Shares.
So in a nutshell, if you ask for Likes, comments or shares, you may get punished by Facebook.
Got it.

 

3. Frequently Circulated Content a No-No

Then we found out that Facebook is cracking down on pages that post the same content other pages have published over & over again:

People and Pages on Facebook frequently reshare great content, but people tell us there are occasionally instances where photos or videos are uploaded to Facebook over and over again.  We’ve found that people tend to find these instances of repeated content less relevant, and are more likely to complain about the Pages that frequently post them.  We are improving News Feed to de-emphasize these Pages, and our early testing shows that this change causes people to hide 10% fewer stories from Pages overall.

For example, this could affect non-official Facebook pages of a sports teams or brands who re-post a lot of over-posted images.

Ok, fine — most of these pages aren’t legitimate businesses anyway.

4. Say Goodbye to Spammy Links

And here’s the recent Facebook news I really support:

Some stories in News Feed use inaccurate language or formatting to try and trick people into clicking through to a website that contains only ads or a combination of frequently circulated content and ads. For instance, often these stories claim to link to a photo album but instead take the viewer to a website with just ads.

By measuring how frequently people on Facebook who visit a link choose to like the original post or share that post with their friends, we’ve been able to better detect spammy links. The update we are making today improves News Feed to reduce cases of these spammy links, and in our early testing we’ve seen a 5% increase in people on Facebook clicking on links that take them off of Facebook – this is a big increase in the context of News Feed and is a good sign that people are finding the remaining content in their News Feed more relevant and trustworthy.

There shouldn’t be a place for links on Facebook that don’t take the user to the website they intended to visit.

 

What this All Means for Your Page Reach

These updates spell death for some Facebook pages — there’s just no way around it.
And that’s ok!

When silly, spammy content starts to take over Facebook, that’s when people will leave the site.
And that’s bad for everyone — especially business owners trying to get engagement from fans.
Fewer people using Facebook means fewer opportunities to sell your product.

Your Facebook Reach may suffer if you post the type of content described above. But if you’ve posted high-quality stuff all along, recent news feed algorithm updates might actually improve your results.

Still confused? Don’t worry, we all are.

But hopefully the 20 links below will help improve your page reach moving forward:

Leverage the News Feed

These 5 articles help you understand news feed algorithm changes & ways you can benefit from the tweaks.

1. How to Visually Brand Your Facebook Posts and LIGHT UP the News Feed
2. 9 Ways to Game the Facebook News Feed (this Stuff Really Works)
3. Here’s the Only Way to Guarantee Your Fans See ALL Your Facebook Posts 
4. 5 Things Facebook is Trying to Tell Us With Its New Algorithm Update
5. RANT: I Mean It This Time, STOP Complaining About Facebook!

What You Should Post on Facebook

We spend most of our time at Post Planner helping small businesses figure out what to post on their pages.

Here’s a handful of resources to help your business:

6. 7 Surprising Places to Find Awesome Posts for Facebook 
7. STOP Thinking Facebook is Trying to Screw You! Take Action Instead
8. Your Facebook Posts Will Probably Go Viral if You Follow These 5 Steps
9. 8 Facebook Contest Ideas You Can Run on Your Timeline TODAY
10. How to Find Viral Photos from Forbes’ Top 50 Social Media Influencers
11. What to Post on Facebook When You Don’t Know What to Post
12. Here’s the Easiest Way to Run a Facebook Timeline Contest for FREE
13. 4 Annoying Facebook Habits Your Business Needs to Stop RIGHT NOW
14. How to Create Stunning Social Media Graphics WITHOUT Photoshop

Facebook Ads & Insights

Your posting strategy is only 1 component of your Facebook marketing strategy.

You also need to understand how to measure results of your posts using Facebook Insights — and how to run Facebook ads to expose your posts & page to more users.

These articles can help:

15. How to Use Promoted Page Ads to Get Tons of New Likes on Facebook
16. 3 Facebook Ad Strategies that Won’t Break the Bank
17. Never Get Confused by Facebook Ads Terminology Again!
18. Stop Promoting your Facebook Posts to Non-Fans. You’re Pissing People Off!
19. How to Find the 3 KEY Gender Ratios of Your Facebook Fans
20. Instantly Discover Which Posts Work Best on Your Facebook Page

Conclusion

Here’s my bet:
If you read all 20 articles here, you will have more knowledge about Facebook marketing than a lot of people who blog about it for a living.
But don’t tell the experts I said that.

Courtesy of http://www.postplanner.com

5 Smarty-Pants Ways to Collect Emails from Facebook Fans by Aaron Lee

Facebook is constantly changing.

Changing its news feed algorithm, its design, its rules, its ad units…

And you can’t blame them.

In the world of tech, you either adapt & innovate or you die.

Where does this leave businesses trying to market themselves on Facebook?

In the same position, actually — you also must adapt or die.

And more & more you must pay — ie. devote more of your budget to Facebook ads to make sure you’re reaching fans.

That’s fine — and buying Facebook ads should bring you good results if you do it right. 

But before you start pouring too much money into ads, I’d advise you to first build relationships with your fans *outside of Facebook*. That way you can insulate your business from the volatility & change mentioned above.

What’s the best way to build relationships with your fans outside of Facebook?

Simple. Create an email list & collect their emails!

In this blogpost, I’ll show you 5 clever ways to do that.

5 Smarty-Pants Ways to Collect Emails from Facebook Fans

1. Add a standard Sign-Up Form tab app

My first tip is the most basic.

Use your current email service provider (Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Aweber, etc.) by connecting it to one of your Facebook tab apps.

Here are some tab app providers that can help you get this set up:

• Shortstack
• Tabsite
• Antavo

Use this method to promote your business’s newsletter on your Facebook page.

Here is a great example from the sassy Erika Napoletano (I love how her tabs & hair stand out).

2. Offer an Incentive

The 2nd method encourages your fans to exchange their emails in return for something valuable — like an ebook, video, white paper or infographic.

Check out how Kim Garst uses ebooks on her Facebook page to incentivize fans to share their emails.

See how she uses killer headlines to get fans to click?

You can also use your Cover Photo to promote your incentives!

For example, check out this neat trick from Melanie Duncan:

When you click on the cover image, Melanie provides a link you can click to share your email.  Awesome!

If you’re selling a product, you can also give coupons to fans in exchange for their emails.

This helps entices them to share their emails while also incentivizing them to buy your products.

3. Run a Contest

Running a contest is a great way to build an email list. But you’ll need to use a tab app to run it.

Timeline contests are free & easy to organize — but they don’t allow you to collect emails from your fans.

Tab apps do! And if you make fans compete for something they want, they’re much more likely to hand over their emails to enter the competition.

Malaysia Airlines ran this contest to collect emails from Facebook fans:

TIP:  try to incentivize fans to promote your contest to their friends.

You can do this by increasing their chances of winning (allowing more than one entry, for example) if they share the contest with their friends.

4. Run a Co-Promotion

This Facebook marketing technique involves partnering with another person or business to co-promote some kind of giveaway.

Gary Vaynerchuk crushed it with this method while promoting his new book.

He basically partnered with other companies & gave them a chance to get exposure while also promoting the book & providing prizes for fans.

So it’s a win for Gary, the partner company & the audience!

 5. Drive Traffic to your Website

My last tip involves driving traffic away from Facebook to your homepage or blog.

With the new news feed algorithm update, link posts have better reach than ever.

This means you have a better chance than ever to drive fans back to your website & collect their emails.

The best way to do this is to share well-written, valuable blogposts — and then have an email opt-in on your blog posts:

• in the side bar
• in a lightbox pop-up

We use this method on the Post Planner blog & get thousands of new subscribers every month!

Courtesy of Post Planner

2014 Social Media Predictions -- Hold On, It's Going to Get Bumpy! by Kim Garst

With 2013 in the books, I have to admit my thoughts have been racing towards what's in store for businesses in 2014. We have seen such phenomenal changes this year in the way businesses are using social media, largely due to factors like the increase in mobile and video usage, and the mainstream adoption of content marketing.

So what changes can we expect to see in social media in the next 12 months? What trends do businesses and brands need to pay attention to in order to keep up?

Here are my top 5 social media predictions for 2014!

1. It's About Show, Not Tell: Visual-Based Content Will Dominate

Given what we have seen so far in 2013, there is no doubt that the popularity and use of visual-based content on social media is going to continue to increase in 2014.

We know that posts that contain images or videos outperform those without when it comes to likes, shares, comments, and retweets. Failing to incorporate image-based media into your social media content strategy will mean losing out on huge amounts of potential engagement!
Just take a look at what we know from this year:

• Photos on Facebook receive 53 percent more likes than posts without.
• Tweets with images receive 18 percent more clicks than those without, 89 percent more favorites, and 150 percent more retweets.

Businesses will need to be creative in terms of incorporating images and videos into existing content, and coming up with fresh new ways of incorporating visual-based content into all aspects of their social strategy.

2. Instagram and Snapchat are Going to be Major Players And Businesses Will Use Them to Reach Their Audiences In Unique Ways

Some interesting current statistics for you about these platforms:

• In 2013, Instagram was the fast growing network with 150 million users and 40 million photos being uploaded each day.
• 71 percent of top brands are now on Instagram.
• Entanglement metrics on Instagram (likes and comments) have jumped 350 percent since last year.
• As of writing, Snapchat is the 4th most popular free iPhone app on the iTunes Charts.
• Snapchat is the 9th most popular iPhone app in terms of usage.

If you are not yet familiar with Snapchat (only 18.6 percent of iPhone users currently use the SnapChat app), here's a brief description: Snapchat is an app that can be used to send photos or videos that are only available to be viewed for a set amount of time (generally 1-10 seconds). Once time is up, the image or video is hidden from users and deleted from Snapchat's servers.

One of the most interesting uses of both SnapChat and Instagram that we should be keeping an eye on is for reaching consumers via coupons. While quite a few businesses are already taking advantage of Instagram for offering coupons, deals and discounts, it will be interesting to see what comes of Snapchat's 'exploding coupons'. These coupons will only be available to users for several seconds, giving a whole new meaning to the concept of 'flash sales'!

3. A Mobile Strategy Becomes Compulsory

With reports of mobile overtaking desktop usage somewhere between 2014/2015, businesses who want to keep up need to get serious about integrating mobile into all aspects of their business. Simply having a mobile-friendly website will not be enough.
Businesses will need to consider:

• How their website is accessible via mobile: responsive design, mobile-version, or app.
• How their overall marketing strategy works with mobile: With 84 percent of smartphone shoppers using their phones while in stores, businesses need to figure out how to integrate the virtual and 'real life' experiences of their customers (coupons, product reviews, mobile checkout systems, etc.).
• How their content strategy works with mobile: Offering short, actionable pieces of content to mobile-users, determining when their target market is accessing content via mobile (see infographic below), using segmentation to offer the right type of content to the right people, etc.

4. More Brands are Going to Get Serious About Social

While an estimated 93 percent of marketers already use social media for business, brands are going to need to take their social media marketing strategies to the next level. Smart businesses will increasingly realize that it's not enough to just have a presence on the major social networks. Getting serious about social means integrating it into every aspect of the business, not just marketing: from product development, to operations, to customer service and retention.

Company-wide support of social will become increasingly necessary to make sure social media tasks are carried out consistently, and in a way that aligns with overall business goals and values.
As digital analyst Brian Solis points out, "While creating a social brand is a necessary endeavor, building a social business is an investment..." While social brands are businesses that use social media as part of their marketing strategy, a truly social business is one that has integrated all aspects of their business with social.

A social business aligns every level of their business with social: in their systems, processes, and planning. A social business goes beyond using social media to simply communicate with customers, and involves every department and employee in their social media strategy.

5. Google Plus FINALLY Hits the Tipping Point

Google Plus just turned 2 years old. I read a report that pegs Google Plus's current active monthly users at 300 million people (up from 190 million in May). This clearly trounces Twitter's 230 million and makes Facebook the next logical target, but will it pass Facebook in 2014? No, but it will hit what I am calling the "tipping point" late in the year and be a solid threat to Facebook's dominance in 2015.

This is going to sound crazy, I know that, but to win long-term people must "love" Google Plus. I know it's a subjective emotion, but there certainly seems to be a strong connection between the success of a social media site and people's emotional connection to it. People "love" Facebook. People "love" Pinterest and Instagram. Right now people do not feel that connection with Google Plus. As subjective evidence, I asked 140+ small business owners, entrepreneurs and social media enthusiasts in my DIY Social Media Inner Circle secret Facebook group what they thought about Google Plus and not a single person said they "loved" or felt an emotional connection to the site, but they will!

If you follow me at all, you know I am a big Google Plus fan and have been from the beginning. I love the functionality, communities, "hangouts" and the fact that everyone can see all of my content on their business pages. One real game changer for Google Plus this next year will be the continued integration of social media content into its search ranking algorithm and the realization by more and more businesses that being active on Google Plus is cheaper than paying your SEO consultant. Also, Google is reportedly testing on-site advertising, the staple of Facebook's monetization strategy. These two alone will not win the battle though. The real reason Google Plus will win big in 2014 is because people will finally accept it as a great place to form connections, meet friends and share experiences in completely cool and captivating ways.

What predictions do you think are missing from the list above? What major changes do you see happening in the social media world this next year?




Courtesy of TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc

The Good and Bad Of SEO Techniques by Leonid Singha

Anyone who is familiar with search engine optimisation (SEO) will know that the practice has undergone a number of changes over the years, many of them a result of people failing to use the techniques properly. Whilst SEO is a popular way of getting your website to rank higher in search engine results, it is of the utmost importance that you have used the techniques correctly, otherwise you risk your website becoming banned or blacklisted.

Keyword Research

Good – It is considered a good SEO technique if you strategically place keywords throughout your website, providing that they are relevant to the information on the page and they haven’t been used so many times that they are considered spam.

Bad – Targeting a single keyword on every page throughout your site is considered spam, as is hiding keywords in the background (by making the font the same colour) and using the keyword way too many times than would be considered natural.

Meta Tags

Good – Creating user friendly meta title tag using a relevant keyword phrase and that is 60 characters or less is considered good SEO, as is keeping your website traffic in mind so that your message can be heard when people read your description.

Bad – Stuffing your meta tag with keywords will not work in your favour when trying to rank higher in search engine results. If you forget about the user experience and just try to spam Google, you will quickly find your ranking lowered.

Content

Good – For the optimisation of your content to be considered ‘good’, you will need to include keywords into it in a way that is understandable and relevant to the website. SEO is all about making the content users want much easier to find.

Bad – If you have so many keywords jammed into your content that it is nearly impossible to read, however, this is considered spam. It is also considered bad SEO if you have used keywords that aren’t relevant to the information on the page.

Directory Submission

Good – When listing your website on directories that will make it easier for people to find you, you should only choose highly trafficked and respected websites. This will ensure that you are getting relevant and high quality links back to your site.

Bad – Using a software program that promises to distribute your website to thousands of directories is essentially useless for SEO if no one looks at the listing and it can actually be detrimental if the directory is proven to be less than reputable.

Facebook Marketing

Good – Building a Facebook fan page that is inviting for your audience and allows you to spread your message is very handy for SEO, as engagement is something that plays a major role in optimisation today. It also gives you another place for links.

Bad – If you attempt to send thousands of friend requests from a personal Facebook profile that has been structured to come from a business, however, you will damage your SEO efforts and Facebook may even shut your account down.

Whilst there are good and bad approaches to many other SEO techniques (such as blog commenting, video marketing and the use of Twitter), the five areas that we have outlined above tend to be the most abused. When it comes to getting your website to rank higher in search engine results, it is important that you ensure you have used the correct SEO techniques in the right way otherwise you will run into a few problems.

Courtesy of  Business 2 Community

5 Brilliant Ways to Use #Hashtags in Social Media Marketing by Uri Bar-Joseph

I was watching the Super Bowl (#GoHawks) when my wife asked me about hashtags. Granted, I was writing down every hashtag that came up on the screen for an analysis I did later that night, but her question surprised me.

"What do you mean 'what is this?' It's a hashtag." I said, amazed by my wife's unfamiliarity with the topic (#DoYouLiveUderARock). "You use it to tag your tweets or other social media posts."

Now, my wife's social media activity revolves around reading other people's updates on Facebook and Instagram, so I wasn't mad or anything, just disappointed when she asked me "Why would you want to tag your posts?"

To be fair, it wasn't always that obvious that hashtags will change the way we use Twitter and other social media channels.

Hashtags were a user-innovation that was later adopted by Twitter as an actual feature when Twitter decided to hyperlink hashtags to search results. The rest of the socialsphere followed in its own pace, and Facebook, my wife's go-to social destination, only recently decided to give in and add hashtags as a feature. It's no surprise that for the masses over the age of 30, hashtags are still a novelty.

So whether you're in that group, or just want a short social history lessons, here's the brief history of hashtags. Then we'll look at a few recent examples of brilliant marketing uses of hashtags.

A Brief History of Hashtags

There seems to be a consensus on the origin of hashtags and most people attribute the proposal to use hashtags in tweets to Chris Messina, through a tweet dating back to August 23, 2007.

But the first time a hashtag was used extensively as a way to categorize tweets and was adopted by the public was during the San Diego fire on October 23, 2007, when Nate Ritter used Twitter to report on the fire and included the hashtag #sandiegofire.

On July 2, 2009, Twitter officially embraced hashtags and hyperlinked them to search results. Tumblr was one of the early adopters of hashtags when it launched hashtags on August 18, 2009. A few months later, on March 30, 2010, in another homepage redesign, Twitter moved Trending Topics to its homepage, formalizing hashtags as a conversation driver on Twitter.
As Twitter users adopted hashtags as a normal part of the Twitter conversation, in a typical fashion to Twitter, hashtags stared in popular culture like TV shows, celebrities' promotions and mainstream media.

The pop-culture adoption of hashtags helped push hashtags into other social networks. Instagram adopted hashtags on January 27, 2011, Flickr added hashtags on March 17, 2013 and Facebook finally broke and adopted hashtags on June 12, 2013.

Hashtags Adopted as a Marketing Tactic

An analysis of the Interbrand 100 list (the world's top 100 brands) and their activity on Twitter, reveals that the world's top brands have adopted the use of hashtags almost completely. In Q4 of last year, 97 percent of the brands posted at least one tweet that included a hashtag. Out of the 34,707 regular tweets (tweets that don't include an @ reply or a retweet) that the Interbrand 100 companies posted, 45 percent included at least one hashtag and more than 67 percent included one or more hashtags.

1. Drive Engagement: # + Link = More Engagement

These companies have realized that hashtags help drive engagement. When compared to Tweets without a hashtag, tweets with hashtags showed 12 percent more engagement (RT, favorite or @ reply). Tweets that included a link anda hashtag, showed the highest engagement rate of any other type of tweet.

2. Test Your Messaging: #SOTU

During the last State of the Union address (#SOTU), the White House media team prepared content and tested 26 different hashtags.

1. #SOTU
2. #StateOfTheUnion
3. #OutOfManyWeAreOne
4. #OpportunityForAll
5. #CollegeOpportunity
6. #MadeInAmerica
7. #ActOnClimate
8. #ActForOurVets
9. #RebuildAmerica
10. #ActOnJobs
11. #InvestInSTEM
12. #ActOnCIR
13. #ActOnUI
14. #ActOnPreK
15. #ConnectED
16. #EqualPay
17. #RaiseTheWage
18. #ActOnTenTen
19. #GetCovered
20. #ACA
21. #PeopleOverPolitics
22. #RightToVote
23. #ActForOurKids
24. #SaluteOurTroops
25. #Iran
26. #TeamUSA
27. #ActForOurTroops
28. #SOTUChat

The next day (January 29) the White House focused on only seven of these hashtags and the vast majority of its tweets promoted the top three hashtags:

1. #OpportunityForAll
2. #RaiseTheWage
3. #EqualPay
4. #ActOnJobs
5. #ActOnTenTen
6. #CollegeOpportunity
7. #MadeInAmerica

They did so because those hashtags resonated the best with audience on Twitter.


As evident by these charts, the White House team used Twitter to test the messages in the president's speech and the following day applied their lessons to emphasize and reinforce the ones that stuck.
The #SOTU campaign is a master class in digital media campaign management, and this was one of the best lessons from it.

3. Tie Activity Across Multiple Channels: #SB48

During #SB48, ads included more hashtags than any other social signal including Twitter handles and Facebook account names. Brands used hashtags because of their cross-channel nature.
Since most social media channels adopted hashtags as an identifier, brands can now run cross-channel campaigns with one common identifier, virtually making hashtags the global connector of the social web.

4. Create a Story: #esurancesave30

Following the Super Bowl, Esurance ran an ad promoting the hashtag #esurancesave30. Within minutes, the hashtag got tens of thousands of mentions and within an hour it racked over 1.4 million mentions. With a simple, albeit expensive, campaign, Esurance created a story that was featured the next day on media outlets, blogs, and last Wednesday on TV.

The hashtag brought to Esurance more than just attention, it gave them a list of people who actually engaged with their story and brand.

In the minutes following the ad, the Esurance Twitter account added more than 40,000 followers, more than doubling its followers in a matter of minutes. And in the days following the ad, the account added more than 250,000 followers, almost 10 times it's audience size prior to the ad airing.

5. Track Results: #Whosgonnawin

Leading to the Super Bowl, the NFL and Verizon created a campaign to allow fans to vote on who they think is going to win the Super Bowl. By tweeting the team's name with the hashtag #WhosGonnaWin fans voted for their favorite team.

Verizon and the NFL created a special website to track the results in real time http://www.whosgonnawin.com/ every day a new question was posted and fans voted using Twitter. By the end of the day, the team with the most mentions got to light up the Empire State Building.

Summary

Hashtags have become more than just a way to categorize posts or add a narrative to your updates. Marketers have found new, innovative ways to use hashtags as a mean to drive conversation, harness the public support, and garner attention to their brands.

Courtesy of Incisive Interactive Marketing LLC.

Need help with Managing YOUR Social Media Campaign?
Contact us and visit: http://www.janetpennconsulting.com/social_mediamarketing.html

6 Social Media Marketing Strategies to Drastically Improve Your Efforts in 2014 by Margot da Cunha

Did you know social media is the number one daily activity among Americans, topping time spent on email and Google?

According to Fast Company, 93% of marketers use social media to promote their business.
Social media is BIG and only getting bigger. If you are not marketing on it, you are likely missing a large chunk of your target consumers.

As a product of the Mark Zuckerberg generation, it is easy to understand why people are so obsessed with social media; for marketers, the potential to grow their business via these networks is endless. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ – these are some of the prime networks every company, big or small, young or established, needs to have an active presence on. It is now inexcusable for any business that wants to thrive to not be tweeting!

And now we are being exposed to more and more social advertisements. As I complete my morning ritual of sipping coffee and scrolling through my Instagram feed, I now notice sponsored ads appearing in between filtered pictures of scenery and food. It is impossible to visit one’s Facebook news feed without popping into a few compelling ads along the way. And I’m not going to lie, I’ve fallen victim to several of these ads, and been captured and clicked through to their site, sometimes even converting – shameful, I know.

But before diving into paid ads it is important to build out your social channels with rockstar content, quality customer service, and eye-catching visuals. Once you optimize your social channels for success, you will not only gain loyal brand promoters, but you will begin capturing leads and converting visitors into customers.

For those of you who have let your social channels develop cobwebs and cockroaches over the past year, here are six social media strategies to take control of your social channels and give them a much needed facelift in the New Year.

Social Media Marketing Strategy #1: Create a Game Plan & Stick to It

If you have no execution strategy, your content is likely going to fall through the cracks. Set a limit on how many tweets you have to publish per day. This number can be adjusted as needed, but having a number you have to hit, even something as small as four tweets per day, gives you a benchmark and a goal at the very least.

TIP: Investigate how often your competitors are posting and conduct industry research to see the ideal amount of content to publish per day on each channel. You want to be active, but not overly active.

Compile all content in an easy-to-read editorial calendar. Google Excel Docs is a good place to start. Set up a weekly, shareable publishing calendar, then separate by social channel, and provide columns for co-workers within your content team to provide their feedback before posting. Plan ahead, but continue making additions as necessary, for example if a great PR hit is published cover this in a timely manner even it was not on your original posting schedule.

Look into social media management platforms, like Hootsuite, Buffer, and TweetDeck, to help schedule posts ahead of time, monitor and manage your social feeds, and access performance analytics.

Social Media Marketing Strategy #2: Treat each channel as an individual entity

Each social channel needs to be treated as a separate entity. There can be content that is spread across all channels – for example if your business was recently acquired by a global company, this is likely news you want to share across the board, but you should adjust your strategy depending on the audience for that channel.

For example, LinkedIn tends to have a more business-focused audience looking for in-depth, educational content, compared to Instagram, which is likely to have an audience looking for engaging visual content. Pay attention to your follower demographic on each channel to publish content that appeals to them.

Social Media Marketing Strategy #3: Go above & beyond in customer service

If a visitor tweets at your handle or posts on your Facebook page and never receives a response, trust is lost. Due to your lack of communication, the dissatisfied potential lead is now turning to your competitors to seek answers to their questions. On the other hand, when you deliver a thoughtful response in a timely manner that visitor is flattered and intrigued by your brand. It’s humanizing to take the time respond to a personal inquiry, and it builds your authority.

Alexa, a friend of mine who formerly resided in NYC, commented on a picture on Instagram posted by her favorite city dive bar. The social media manager quickly responded by offering her a free T-shirt for the positive feedback. A few weeks, when later Alexa drove six hours from Boston to collect her free shirt (and visit a few friends), the bartender realized, “Wow! Social media does work!” She has in turn become a free promoter for the bar, and encourages her large network that still resides in New York to check out her former go-to spot – essentially free PR for this small, neighborhood bar. And this is one minuscule example – if you haven’t heard the Morton’s Steakhouse story about delivering a joking tweeter a free steak at the airport, I suggest you use this as a prime example of BOMB customer service that led to a ridiculous amount of free press.
Negative feedback needs to be addressed as well, preferably with patience and respect. But think of your social channels as an opportunity to display how awesome you treat your customers.
Take these four steps to boost the happiness of your Twitterbirds:

• Assign a first responder to post and monitor each channel your brand has a profile on.
• Create a troubleshooting library of common bugs or complaints that arise, and how to handle these issues. This will ensure the issue is addressed properly and in a timely manner. (NOTE: If the issue needs further investigation or requires confidential information, have the user email support, send a private message, or call your help line.)
• Be creative – use giveaways, personality, and a sense of humor to engage followers and convert them into free brand promoters.
• DO NOT IGNORE any comment posted to your account on social, whether stellar or critical. No need to create brand detractors!

Social Media Marketing Strategy #4: Embrace mishaps

We are humans, so mistakes are unavoidable. This is especially true when it comes to the fast-paced world of social media. Rather than flat out ignoring these hiccups, embrace them. I am not saying that when a comma is missed in a tweet you should announce this small grammar error, but DO NOT delete the tweet. It has already been published, and followers are more likely to notice if you are continuously re-posting. For larger mistakes, like a product error or multiple overcharges to customer credit cards, you’ll want to proactively respond in an apologetic, actionable manner, and send out content from your social accounts apologizing and addressing how the error is being handled so customers are aware.

But what happens if a BIG, truly embarrassing mistake is made? Personally, I love how Pamela Vaughan, a HubSpot employee, handled her baby bump mishap. Pamela accidently posted a picture of her growing pregnant belly to HubSpot’s company Twitter account, which has close to 350,000 followers. Instead of crawling into a hole of embarrassment, Pamela embraced her faux-pas and created this awesome blog post. The post has received a lot of love, with several shares and comments mostly showing respect for HubSpot’s human element – a key that makes them one of the most loved marketing companies out there.

Social Media Marketing Strategy #5: Track & Talk!

Tracking is often perceived as tedious and time-consuming. It can be, but it only needs to take a few hours each month. Set aside time to review metrics that are important to your business on a monthly basis (preferably the first day of the month). Here are some stats to focus on: number of posts, follower growth, clicks to your site/products, pageviews, post likes or shares, impressions, etc. Look at each channel separately, and compare to your largest competitors to get a sense on how you’re matching up (or how you’re CRUSHING them!).

If you’re crunched for time and analytics is not your thing, invest in software to help track data. A lot can be tracked using free tools like bit.ly, Google Analytics, and Hootsuite. Diving in to see which content received the most clicks, shares, etc. will show you what to repurpose in the future. Look for common themes in your analysis, for example if advice posts with numbers in the title perform wonderfully on Facebook then up these on that platform.

Share your results and set monthly strategy meetings with your different marketing forces within your company to plan for the future. Working collaboratively and taking a step back to brainstorm and reevaluate your strategy can drastically improve your social efforts. Also leverage other departments within your business. Various teams like client services and sales might have stellar ideas for social since they are the people who communicate with prospects and customers on a daily basis.

Social Media Marketing Strategy #6: Stay active on Google+

Many of you may be raising an eyebrow, but Google+, often viewed as the Facebook wannabe, is not going away anytime soon. In fact, it’s only becoming more and more important for businesses to actively engage and grow their circles on this platform. When you search on Google you will notice that Google+ is everywhere. If your business is actively posting on Google+, you will receive essentially free ad space when users search for you on Google.

Notice when I do a search for Salesforce not only does their Google+ follower number display, but there’s a call-to-action to follow their brand, as well as recent posts on their Google+ page, on the right side of the SERP.

According to a Moz.com survey, leading marketers believe the number of Google +1’s plays the second largest part in determining search engine rankings. This isn’t proven to be true, but clearly marketers are seeing that Google+ is affecting the visibility of their content on Google.
Google+ is also integrated with YouTube, so users are unable to comment on the platform without being opted into Google+. Essentially Google is making having a Google+ account pretty much essential.

Courtesy of  WordStream, Inc

Here’s How to Choose the Right Promotion App for Your Facebook Page by Mike Gingerich

You’re on Facebook because you want engagement, right?

But you don’t want engagement purely for the sake of engagement.

You want it because an engaged Facebook community translates into more leads, more customers & more sales for your business.

Put simply, more engagement means more sales:

Research data reported by Vocus notes that 79% of Facebook fans are more likely to purchase from a brand they have liked.  Thus, pursuing more fans and deeper engagement with existing fans is a valuable priority!

But how do you get more engagement on your Facebook page?

Lots of ways. You can:

• create highly shareable content
• post more images and videos
• post succinctly at key times
• etc. etc.

And you can also run promotions. But you need to choose the promotion type that fits best with your goals.

Certain promotion types work better for certain goals and certain industries.
Below I’ll outline a number of promotion types and offer tips on how to select the right one for your Facebook Page.

Each type can draw fans to your page and incentivize them to explore and engage with it. And each type is a Facebook approved tab app that complies with Facebook’s promotion policy.

4 Promotion Types for Fan Pages

1. SWEEPSTAKES

A sweepstakes is a chance-based, easy-entry promotion that fans enter by completing a simple form with their name & e-mail. Winners are drawn randomly after a set date.
As with most Facebook promo apps, a sweepstakes can be a “Like-gated” so fans have to Like the Page in order to access the entry form.

Pros of using a Sweepstakes:

• Low barrier to entry (simple form completion)
• Works for a wide variety of industries
• Pages can capture key user information – important for future email/location marketing

 

If you run a sweepstakes, you can limit each fan to a single entry or allow fans to enter repeatedly.
I recommend allowing fans to enter daily because it ensures the most continued engagement — it incentivizes the fan to return to the page day after day.

Sweepstakes promotions can work for a wide variety of businesses — including B2B and B2C.

They help

• draw fans to the page to enter
• boost viral sharing – if the app has a sharing mechanism that increases entries

2. DEALS & COUPONS

A deal or offer is another promotion type with a low barrier to entry.
Here’s how it works:

1. Facebook page asks the fan to do something
2. when fan completes task, he is given access to the deal

For example: “Like our Page to access this 40% off Coupon”

Other examples (and app offerings) include (1) sharing a post on your Facebook news feed or (2) sharing a post on a friend’s timeline to access the deal.

Like sweepstakes, deals are useful because:

1. fans respond to them
2. it accomplishes a task helpful to the company (e.g. more Page Likes)

Pros of using a Deal app:

• Low barrier to entry (simple task completion)
• Expands reach to additional social networks — which can help the Page reach a wider audience or other type of audience than currently reached on Facebook
• Works for a wide variety of industries
• Pages get something of value in return – such as further exposure, a Like, or a e-mail address for their list

Facebook Deal Example

3. CONTESTS

A contest is different than a sweepstakes or a deal in that it requires more effort & skill from the fan to enter.

For example, the fan has to take a photo that meets certain requirements to enter.
Instead of a random drawing to determine the winner, contests select a winner via:

• voting by the public
• judging by a select group

While photo contests are the most common type of contest on Facebook, there are other types too, like videos, essays or photo captions.

Pros for using a Facebook Contest:

• More opportunity for engagement

Contest entrants engage via their entries, of course. But more importantly, new users and potential fans come to your page & engage by way of viewing and voting on entries — which can add up to some serious reach, exposure, & interaction on your page.

Another option for a contest is to consider a two-stage process.  This adds the benefit of a initial round of voting and then the need to return to view and vote again in the final round.

• Entrants are motivated to share with Friends

Entrants want more votes — so they extend the reach of the contest to their network of friends by asking for their votes.

This social sharing by entrants to their friends both (1) increases the contest’s reach and (2) functions as a positive referral mechanism.  The entrant’s invitation to friends to vote adds trust & credibility to the Page — and to its products & services.

• Better qualifying of entrants

Making entrants meet a certain criteria for entry acts as a sifting mechanism.  It adds a barrier for those who just enter any promotion because it’s easy & they might win, regardless of whether they’re interested in your business.

Depending on your contest’s entry guidelines, this process can serve to qualify or pre-screen entrants as potential customers.

• Access to user generated content

If your promotional rules make it clear that contest entry materials can be used by your company in the future, the contest can be an excellent method of getting user-generated content relevant to your brand — and useable in future social marketing.

Note: Contests may not work for industries or businesses that don’t lend themselves to this type of engagement.  For instance, it might be a stretch for a medical practitioner to run a photo contest due to privacy concerns or relevance.

4. MULTI-NETWORK SOCIAL PROMOS

A multi-network social promotion is a promotion that involves Facebook and at least one other social media platform — such as Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram.

Similar to a deal, the fans are asked to accomplish a task and upon completion they are then given access to the deal offer.  The difference is that the task is centered around doing something on a different social platform such as Pinterest or Instagram.

In this case the fan comes to the Facebook page and the promotion is outlined.  The fan then accomplishes the task — such as adding a image to Instagram with a certain hashtag or using a integrated pin tool to pin a image to Pinterest.

Some apps allow images to be pulled in from the other social network to appear on the page tab.  Otherwise the image can simply stay on the other social network.

Either way the fan has engaged with your Facebook page and simultaneously extended information about your brand to another social network.

Pros for using a Multi-Network Social Promo:

• Extends brand to more social locations - This type of promotion can work great for a company whose audience is active on more than one social network — or for a company seeking to continue gaining Facebook traction but also expand visibility on Pinterest, for example.
• Image Driven - Images are powerful in social media and a multi-network social promo using images can capture the attention of viewers and invite sharing & comments — all of which boost visibility & drive referral traffic.
• Suitable for a wide variety of businesses - A multi-network social promotion can work for apparel firms to credit unions, venues to radio stations and more.

 

BONUS TIPS FOR RUNNING SUCCESSFUL PROMOTIONS:

• Keep the entry form simple — too many fields will cause fewer entries.
• Make the prize relevant to your company! – an iPad is not relevant if you own a craft store.
• Ensure the prize value equates to your product – $30 Gift Card for $600 watches is not a motivating deal!
• Keep the contest moving! – don’t run a month-long contest.  The attention span of a Facebook fans is short. They won’t keep track of an entry and vote daily for 30 days.  5-7 days is a better span or perhaps 10 days if it’s a 2 stage (initial and finalist rounds) contest.
• Set voting to 1x per day for Contests — this encourages entrants to get voters to come back each day — a perfect situation for your page!
• Know your target audience!  — is your target using Pinterest or Instagram already?  If so, a multi-network social promotion could work well.
• Ensure the process is seamless – make sure the promotion is doing the work for you and giving the user the best possible experience.  Apps integrating OAuth for login or other integrated means to access the service directly (without the “open a new browser window” issues) are critical.  Fans should be able to arrive, understand, and complete in short order.

Promotions for Facebook pages offer the power to draw fans in, boost page engagement, and accomplish tangible marketing goals — like increasing e-mail list numbers.  Deals in the form of coupons and discount codes will always be an attractive means to help increase traffic to a page and encourage visitors to begin a fan relationship with the page.

While not an end in themselves, contests & offers can be part of a larger marketing strategy and a key piece of helping a business grow their social community.

Courtesy of  http://www.postplanner.com

Need help with Managing YOUR Social Media Campaign?
Contact us and visit: http://www.janetpennconsulting.com/social_mediamarketing.html