Have you heard about the Pinterest smart feed and how it impacts your exposure?
Are you wondering what it means for your pins?
With its new smart feed, Pinterest enhanced key features, which means you need to do things differently to make your pins stand out.
In this article I’ll explain the Pinterest smart feed and how to use Pinterest’s changes to your advantage.
Find out how to optimize for Pinterest’s smart feed.
What’s Pinterest’s Smart Feed?
Pinterest’s smart feed is a complex new algorithm based on the following elements: quality of your pin, quality of the source (blog or website) that the pin leads to and a rating assigned by Pinterest. Pin Quality: The highest-quality pins get moved to the top of the queue and stay there as long as the pin receives quality interaction (repins). It’s sort of like what Facebook does with popular posts in your news feed.
Source Quality: The quality of the source is determined by how often people pin and repin content from a website or blog. To get higher rankings, pin your best content. Also, check the source of each pin you repin to make sure that it leads to a reputable website with good content. (Spammers will change the links in the source to something other than indicated in the pin image.)
Check the source of everything before you repin to make sure it matches the content.
Pinterest Rating: Pinterest puts pins through a blender of criteria called the smart feed content generator. It chooses what they feel is best for the smart feed, based on the current pin and the performance of other pins from that source.
Pins are placed best first, not newest first, into the smart feed. Pinterest no longer puts pins in your feed based on the time they are pinned. For example, users will no longer see 10 Mason jar pins in a row from a pinner who went on a Pinterest binge to fill up a certain board.
According to Pinterest’s blog, the “best pins” are high-quality images that are clear and relevant; have minimal text and no borders; and include great, helpful pin descriptions.
Here are five things you can do to stand out in Pinterest’s smart feed.
#1: Design Beautiful Pins
Pinterest is the ultimate wish list. People pin and repin things they like and want. So think of your Pinterest boards as your visual portfolios, and make your pins as appealing as possible.
This pin by Trey Ratcliffe is an example of the vertical crop on an image that appeals to pinners. Trey recognized this early in his Pinterest usage and began cropping his professional photos to suit the style of Pinterest. His 4.6 million followers love his photos.
Optimize image sizes on your blog for pinning on Pinterest.
Here are a few tips for how to make outstanding Pinterest images.
Create tall, vertical images. The preferred image aspect ratio is 2:3 to 1:3.5. The minimum width of a pin is 600 pixels and the maximum is 735 pixels. (I use 735 pixels x 1102 pixels.)
Use high-resolution, professional-quality photos.
Don’t overwhelm your image with text. Incorporate the text into the image.
Make sure your text is easy to read on mobile.
Tone down your logo. Rely on rich pins to brand your content and provide more information.
Write descriptions with user-friendly language, and include keywords in the text. Beware: don’t stuff in keywords in that aren’t of value to the pin. Make sure the information is helpful, minimal and appeals to pinners. Plus, avoid overly salesy text.
Include helpful information in your pin descriptions.
This recipe rich pin uses simple text and provides in-depth information right on the pin.
People are on Pinterest to learn and get inspired. Provide answers and ideas in your pin text. It gives people a good reason to repin and click through to your website.
#3: Repin High-Quality Pins
Seek out quality pins to repin and analyze your own pins using a tool like Tailwind.
The Tailwind app offers enhanced analytics and detailed information on Pinterest pins and boards to help you discover what content is working. It helps you plan balanced content to spread throughout the week.
Tailwind analytics help you find viral pins, related pins and top pins to help with your Pinterest planning.
Use Pinterest consistently and find pins that add value to stay on top of the smart feed, since both of those factors play into the algorithm.
#4: Be Helpful
Make sure your pins link to a useful and relevant website.
This pin has all of the essential ingredients of a great pin: great image, not too much text on the image and a fantastic description.
Use text on your pinned images to give them context.
At a glance, you can tell this pin has helpful information.
Smart feed notices source quality, so be sure your pins (and destinations) are helpful and all content you repin adds value.
#5: Optimize Your Blog for Pinterest
Add the Pin It button and widgets to your blog to make it easier for your readers to pin. The more often your blog content is repinned, the better your pins will perform in the smart feed.
Here’s how to make your blog Pinterest-friendly.
Create an optimized, pinnable image for every post.
Add the Pinterest Follow button to your website.
Install the Pin It button for easy pinning.
Use rich pins on your blog to add more meta data to your pins.
Add Pinterest board widgets or pin widgets for easy repinning.
Use the Pinterest Pin widget to embed pins into your blog content to engage your blog with your Pinterest content.
The widget builder is easy to use.
Smart Feed Fixes
If your Pinterest activity has slowed since the smart feed update, consider doing the following things to boost your Pinterest power.
1. Revisit old pins and update them with better descriptions so they’re more likely to resurface into the smart feed.
2. Add better descriptions to your Pinterest boards to make sure that you have solid, searchable text.
3. Be more active on Pinterest and pin on a regular basis.
4. Share your pins from Pinterest to other social media platforms and invite your networks to follow you on Pinterest.
5. Apply for promoted pins with your business account.
Conclusion
Pinterest has changed their discovery engine in an effort to provide an even more beautiful experience for pinners with their smart feed.
If you pin high-quality content on a consistent basis and use all of the tools that Pinterest provides, you’ll find yourself in a prominent place in the smart feed and get repinned over and over again.
Pinterest is a wonderful platform for marketing your business. Make the smart feed work for you.
You can’t talk content marketing, strategy or return on investment (ROI) without mentioning CALLS TO ACTION.
You’ll find these little beckoning words on websites and billboards, ads and posts, blog articles and marketing materials. So what exactly are calls to action (CTAs)?
“Words that urge the reader, listener, or viewer of a sales promotion message to take an immediate action, such as, “Write Now,” “Call Now,” or (on Internet) “Click Here.” A retail advertisement or commercial without a call-to-action is considered incomplete and ineffective.”
I’m constantly looking for effective and innovative CTAs, because let’s face it, “Click Here!” gets old after a while.
So, I’ve compiled a list of some smart and savvy CTAs just for you. Thank me later!
THE BEST CALLS TO ACTION I’VE SEEN
Here are twenty of the BEST CTAs I’ve seen, accompanied with tips or [LINK] – meaning that is the link placement for the user to complete the CTA and visit your content/blog/event/site/etc..
Grab Yours Now –> [LINK] (yep, it had that little arrow leading me right to the link)
Will You Be There? [LINK]
Hope To See You Soon! [LINK]
Please Share With Your Friends And Fans: [LINK]
What Are Your Thoughts On This (Topic)? [LINK]
How Would You Handle ______? [LINK] (asking for responses; tie it in with your topic)
Read This Post: [LINK]
Have You Ever ______? (enticing comments or engagement)
What’s YOUR Favorite ______? [LINK] (tie it in with your topic)
This Article Will Teach You How To ______: [LINK]
YES or NO? ____________ (see example below from Amy Porterfield)
Seriously, SIGN UP! You’ve Got Nothing To Lose: [LINK]
Save Your Seat! [LINK]
Limited Seating Available: [LINK]
View This _____ To Learn How To ______: [LINK]
Want A Sneak Peek At ______? [LINK]
QUICK QUESTION: Do You Prefer A, B, Or C? (enticing comments or engagement)
You Don’t Want To Miss _______! [LINK]
This Is THE Solution For ______: [LINK]
This List Is Filled With Resources For ______: [LINK]
WHY ALL OF YOUR CONTENT SHOULD COME WITH A CTA
Whether it’s an ad, blog post, tweet, or update, each piece of your content marketing should have quantifiable goals. What are you hoping to accomplish? What do you want the reader to do?
Without this critical step, you’re using the loathed (by me, anyway) “post and pray” method – which is fruitless when trying to measure ROI. If you’re a real marketer looking for real results, you will have a goal in mind for your content. And with it, some sort of call-to-action. Slapping a post on Facebook and waiting for ‘likes’ is SO 2010!
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:
Facebook page asks the fan to do something
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:
fans respond to them
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.
Would you like to improve your social media marketing?
Are you wondering what social media marketing tactics the pros like to use?
We asked top social media pros to share their hottest social media marketing tactics.
In this article, you’ll discover strategies the pros use to boost their social media marketing.
#1: Stay Top of Mind Using LinkedIn Tags
Viveka Von Rosen
On LinkedIn, you shouldn’t send an email blast to every one of your connections. However, you can create lists of “tagged” groupings so you can send relevant and helpful information to your contacts at strategic times.
When you tag your connections on LinkedIn, you can sort/filter them by Tags and—wait for it—send a message to up to 25 people at a time.
The message subject line might be something like: “As a medical marketing consultant, are you frustrated with LinkedIn’s new visibility limitations?” Use the body of the message to resolve their particular pain point. You don’t have to be the creator of the content, you just need to share it.
While you can use a different subject line to share the same tip with any number of tagged groups, I recommend creating an editorial calendar to keep track of what you sent to whom.
Use these targeted messages to create a feeling of trust and top-of-mind awareness, so that when your connections need you (or hear of someone who does) they will think of you! Viveka von Rosen, author of LinkedIn Marketing: An Hour a Day and known internationally as the “LinkedIn Expert.”
#2: Post in ‘Micro-Opportunity’ Windows
Jay Baer
Here’s my social marketing tip, ideal for B2B. For me, the people I want to reach with my social media marketing are other businesspeople, and which activity are businesspeople engaged in all day? Meetings. And when are meetings scheduled? Almost entirely on the hour or half-hour.
Based on the way meetings are scheduled and conducted, I believe many businesspeople are checking their social media accounts just before and after the top of the hour or the bottom of the hour. It works like this:
Meeting is scheduled from 1-2 pm. Meeting lets out slightly early at 1:57 pm, and attendees check Twitter on the way back to their desk. Meeting goes a little long, and that dip into social media occurs at 2:03 pm. You get the idea.
Schedule your social media marketing at opportune moments; for example, at times before meetings are due to start and end. Image source: iStockphoto
Because of this sequencing, I use Buffer to set my social media marketing to deploy most frequently in these micro-opportunity windows. I also try to pay attention to when people might be at lunch/dinner; although of course that’s a bit of a toss-up due to time zone differences. I haven’t been able to prove that this works (yet), but it makes so much sense to me intuitively that I’m going to keep doing it. Jay Baer, founder of Convince & Convert.
#3: Research Popular Content From Your Competitors
Ian Cleary
If a type of content is popular with the audience of your competitors and colleagues, it stands to reason that a similar post will be popular with your audience.
This isn’t about copying content, it’s about crafting content around a similar topic, but with a different slant.
For example, Jeff Bullas wrote a blog post on 7 Marketing Trends You Shouldn’t Ignore, which was very popular. I used his post as inspiration to write a post titled 7 Social Media Tool Trends You Shouldn’t Ignore that was also very popular.
There are a few tools that will help with research: Social Crawlytics does an analysis of your competitor’s content and shows you how often each post is shared across each of the social networks. SEMRush shows you what keywords bring your competitor the most traffic so you can target the same keywords in your own content.
Use SEMRush to gain insights into what keywords your competitors get the most traffic from.
#4: Increase Views on YouTube Using These Thumbnail Creation Tips
Gideon Shalwick
It’s no secret that getting more views on YouTube can greatly help grow your business online.
But with the vast majority of videos on YouTube getting mediocre results, everyone wants to know how to get more legitimate views!
One of the easiest ways to get more views is to create compelling, attention-grabbing thumbnails for your videos. The Secret to Creating Powerful YouTube Thumbnails
You need to get three things right for creating powerful YouTube thumbnails. Graphics: Start with a good headshot or closeup of your face to create a personal touch with your thumbnail, then add a colorful background—like a starburst—to grab viewers’ attention.
Use attention-grabbing backgrounds.
Text: Use compelling text inside your thumbnail design to tell your viewers instantly what your video is about and why they should watch it—maybe use your video title. Make sure your text is easy to read, even at the smallest display size of your thumbnail on YouTube, and that the image is on the left and text is on the right.
Make sure the image is on the left and the text on the right of the thumbnail.
X-Factor: Think about how you can inject emotion into your thumbnails. For example, the expression on the face of the person you’re using can be that of shock, amazement, disgust, enjoyment… choose an emotion that will create intrigue and get people to click on the image.
The expression on a person's face can be enough for someone to click through.
To learn more about thumbnails and how to use them correctly on YouTube, check out the YouTube Playbook. Gideon Shalwick, founder of Splasheo and author of Rapid Video Blogging.
#5: Limit Your Social Media Platforms
John Lee Dumas
My social media marketing tip for businesses today is to find three or four social media platforms where you can build the strongest presence that will be most beneficial for your business.
With countless social media platforms available today, it’s impossible to grow a strong presence on every one. Having a mediocre presence on six or seven social media platforms is far inferior to a strong presence on three or four when it comes to your social media marketing goals.
Build a strong presence on three or four platforms. Image source: iStockPhoto.
Why spend time on social media platforms where your audience might be hanging out when you could be spending that time on social media platforms where you know your audience will be hanging out?
To find out if your target audience spends most of their time on one platform over another, join online groups within those platforms that focus on your industry or niche. If you find that the members are really active and engage on the topics you’re focused on in your business, there’s a good chance that a presence on that platform will benefit your business. John Lee Dumas, founder and host of EntrepreneurOnFire.
#6: Find Work With Twitter’s Advanced Search
Kim Garst
One of the great challenges for business owners is being “top of mind” exactly when prospects either want the product or service you offer, or have a problem that your product or service can solve for them.
Think about the billions of dollars spent on billboards, television and radio commercials, print advertising, etc., just to be in the right place with the right solution at the right time. There has to be a better way, right?
What if I told you there was a tool that could put you personally in touch with a new prospect at the exact time they desperately needed you for FREE! Interested?
I’m talking about the Advanced Search function on Twitter.
Let’s say you are a handyman in New York City and you need paying customers today. Simply log into your Twitter account, go to Advanced Search and type in the word or phrase that somebody might use when looking for what you have to offer in the geographic area where you work.
In the example below, we are going to see who is “looking for a handyman” in “New York City.”
There’s your next customer. Imagine how shocked Regan is going to be when you send her a tweet telling her that you’re a great handyman and you just happen to be working in her area today.
So all the people who say you can’t do anything meaningful in 140 characters—certainly not anything business-related—need to rethink that position.
Twitter search is the mother lode for live leads that can create sales for you and your business! Kim Garst, CEO of Boom Social.
#7: Grow By Giving Away Your Best Stuff
Melonie Dodaro
Forrester Research found that over 90% of purchasing decisions begin online. Having quality and relevant content allows your prospects to learn about you and the products/services you offer.
Many people are worried about giving away their best content for free. They are concerned it may prevent people from taking the next step and investing in their products/services. I understand this fear, but it is truly unfounded.
When your prospects see the high quality of your free content, they will be much more confident in paying for your services because they already know the great value you deliver.
Give away your best content for free. Image source: iStockphoto
When you create content, you want to think about the problems your ideal clients have and solve them with blog posts, articles, infographics, free reports, webinars, teleseminars, podcasts, etc. Additional benefits you’ll receive include:
A strong reputation as a trusted authority and expert on your topic/niche
Additional opportunities such as speaking engagements and interview requests from the media
Improved SEO rankings of your website with quality content
Giving away great content opens up an opportunity for you to really educate your potential prospects and build trust, positioning you as the solution to their problem. Content marketing allows you to begin a relationship before ever speaking with a prospective client. Melonie Dodaro, founder of Top Dog Social Media.
#8: Connect With Twitter’s Mobile Users
Jamie Turner
There are two easy things you can do to improve the impact of your efforts on Twitter. The first is to do a promoted post that targets people only on smartphones. A lot of people don’t realize that you can target promoted posts just for smartphones (or just for iPhones, or Android devices, etc.).
By targeting people while they’re on their mobile devices, you catch them while they’re out and about and, hopefully, near your business. It’s a great tactic that takes context (where people are located) into consideration when you connect with them via Twitter.
If you’re not ready to spend money on a promoted post, that’s okay, because you can try another technique. My estimates are that about 30% of the people using Twitter are self-promoters, which is a no-no. About 60% are simply retweeters, which is not the most efficient way to use Twitter. And about 10% are conversationalists, which is the best way to use Twitter. Shift to a conversationalist strategy and have a dialogue with your followers to keep prospects and customers engaged with your brand. This deepens your relationship with them, which, over time, turns into customer loyalty. Customer loyalty = more revenue for your business.
Have conversations with your followers to keep them engaged with your brand.
Long story short, if you’re not going to do promoted posts targeting smartphones, then try being more conversational and watch your results change overnight. Jamie Turner, founder of 60 Second Marketer.
#9: Find Prospects Online With Twitter
Tom Martin
To truly prospect with social media, you need to understand where you’re most likely to find prospects online—what I call your Propinquity Points. Twitter is an excellent resource for this.
First, create a private Twitter list called Prospects. Then search for relevant keywords for your company or competitors. Find tweets where folks are obviously talking about your company, product category or competitor in a way that convinces you they are true prospects. Next, add each person to the Prospect Twitter list. Do this every day.
Create a Prospect Twitter list.
Now, create a column in HootSuite or whatever Twitter client you use and populate that column with the Prospect list tweets. Lastly, filter the column so that you see only tweets with links. Create a spreadsheet to track all of the links you find, and note when multiple folks share content from the same site.
Over the course of a few months, you’ll have a pretty solid list of online destinations frequented by your target prospects. This shows you where to make comments on existing content—or better, where to contribute your own content. Tom Martin, author of The Invisible Sale.
#10: Easily Connect With Your Email Subscribers on LinkedIn and Facebook
Stan Smith
Email is critical for notifying subscribers of new posts and generating repeat visits to your blog. However, the latest Gmail Promotional tab addition by Google means that most of your notification emails are routed to the promotional folder where they can be overlooked by your readers.
Tackle this problem by connecting with your blog update subscribers on LinkedIn and Facebook. Simply download and install Rapportive, a social CRM tool that displays social network connections in your Gmail sidebar.
Next, export a list of your blog update email subscribers. Compose a new email in Gmail, and paste 10 addresses from your list of subscribers into the To: Box.
Mouse over one of the addresses and you will see Rapportive offer a Connect button for LinkedIn or Facebook (if the subscriber has an account). Click on the Connect button and customize the invitation to connect with you on the selected platform. Repeat the process for all of your contacts.
Rapportive offers a Connect button for LinkedIn or Facebook.
When you publish a new post, update your LinkedIn or Facebook to increase the chance that your Gmail subscribers will see your updates on LinkedIn or Facebook. Stan Smith, founder of Pushing Social.
#11: Find Content to Share Using Platform Searches
Cynthia Sanchez
When business owners or marketers begin to use social media as a part of their marketing strategy, they often focus on getting the right profile image, when the best time of day is to post or what scheduling tool is best. While it’s important to consider these things, there is something very valuable within each platform that is often overlooked.
Networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest each offer a search feature.
The search feature available on each of these networks can help businesses better serve their customers or clients by providing insight into what the users of each platform are interested in. Search can reveal if there is even a place for their business there.
For example, at a recent conference where I was speaking, I was asked to provide an example of an investment banking business using Pinterest.
After a quick search, we discovered that there were only two investment banking accounts on Pinterest. However, when we switched from searching for pinners (accounts) to searching for boards about investment banking, we found several.
This discovery shows that there is an interest in investment banking among the Pinterest audience and the two accounts currently on Pinterest with investment banking in their name were not active. This presents a big opportunity for an investment banking business to become the go-to source for information on Pinterest.
Earlier this year, Facebook introduced Graph Search. In Graph Search, you can refine your results down to pages, groups and events. Inspiration for future blog posts or even new products or services could emerge from the search.
Graph Search can be very useful for a business.
Twitter offers an Advanced Search feature where you can perform a very specific search, but the option to search for tweets with questions is most helpful. How better to serve potential clients or customers than by answering their questions?
The option to search for tweets with questions is extremely valuable.
Cynthia Sanchez, writes and podcasts about all things Pinterest at Oh So Pinteresting.
#12: Make Your Podcast Easily Consumable on Mobile
Paul Colligan
Smartphones have changed social media in some amazing ways. Perhaps most exciting (for me, at least) is how they’ve helped podcast consumption explode. More and more people are listening to podcasts on their smartphones—and they (and the podcasters) are better for it.
When someone clicks on a podcast from a blog, most smartphones open a new window and start playing the content. It just works. A simple link to an MP3 will “work” on most blogs for a media player and a number of podcasters are fine with that. Install a simple HTML5 audio player on your blog that doesn’t open a new window, but does, in fact, give a similar (in-screen) experience to what listeners see on the desktop. This lets the listener read your content while listening to your podcast.
Which experience below do you want your audience to have when they’re listening to your podcast, the first or the second?
Let the listener read your content while listening to your podcast on mobile.
Paul Colligan, director of content marketing at Instant Customer.
#13: Think of Social Media as a Publicity Engine and Distribution Channel
Brian Clark
The best social media marketing strategy I’ve found (and have used for years) is to think of social media as a publicity engine and distribution channel for content. Even back before Facebook and Twitter, content was the fuel for traffic back to our web properties from social media news sites like Delicious and Digg.
Now there’s content, and then there’s content that functions as marketing. After all, no amount of traffic from social networks means anything unless a portion of that traffic converts into customers and clients.
The content you create must attract your ideal prospect, not random traffic. To do that, you discover the problems and desires your ideal prospect has, and then create content that addresses those problems and desires at an introductory level. Once these prospects visit your site, you must entice them to follow your content over time by email, which is still the highest-converting online sales channel (by far).
The reason content works as a social media marketing strategy is that people not only want valuable information, they like to share it as well. This results in an amazing word-of-mouth effect where new people are exposed to you and your brand each and every day via those in their own networks.
Attract your ideal prospects, then encourage them to share with their own networks. Image source: iStockphoto
People don’t want to be pitched directly via social media. They do seek out and share content though, and if that content is fine-tuned to appeal to your perfect prospect, you’ll develop a social media marketing strategy that works for you night and day. Brian Clark, founder and CEO of Copyblogger.
#14: Include an Original Photo in Your New Piece of Content
Gini Dietrich
The best social media marketing network most businesses still ignore is Pinterest. Too often, we hear, “Oh I don’t have anything visual to show” so they ignore the fastest-growing network. But here’s the deal: Sixty-five percent of human beings are visual learners. That means they’d rather look at pictures or watch videos than read text, yet most of us still use text as our main method of communication.
Let’s say you run a professional services firm or a manufacturing company or a software-as-a-service business. If you are creating content for your business, include an original photo and you have something to pin to Pinterest.
First, create a board for your content. For instance, I have one on my personal page called Spin Sucks.
A best practice for a new piece of content is to include an original photo. When you publish the content, you’ll want to pin it to the board you’ve created specifically for the business. Click the “pin it” button and get it saved.
Include an original photo in a new piece of content.
Do this every time you publish content for a month. Then go into your Google Analytics and see what kind of traffic it’s driving.
Even if you don’t have anything to sell online, it’s a quick and easy (incredibly easy) way to bring new visitors to your site. And now you have a huge opportunity to capitalize on that new traffic! Gini Dietrich, founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich.
#15: Allow Employees to Advocate for Your Business
Neal Schaffer
One of my best social media marketing tips, and probably the one that is most underutilized by businesses, is employee advocacy.
You’re a business engaging in social media and creating content, but you’re only sharing that content from your company’s account. Wouldn’t it be great if all of your sales and marketing people also shared your content? It would help your company reach more people and help your sales and marketing folks better brand your company in social media.
The recent Edelman Trust Barometer reported that 41% of people believe company employees rank higher in public trust than a firm’s PR department or CEO. With the advent of social business, every employee can and should play a role in your social media efforts, and there are now a handful of platforms like GaggleAMP (you can join my own Gaggle here to see what an employee would see), Addvocate, PeopleLinx, Dynamic Signal, Expion and SocialChorus that make it easy for you to both facilitate and measure your employee advocacy program.
My Gaggle makes it easy for me to facilitate and measure my employee advocacy program.
Your social selling can also be helped by employee advocacy. Prudential Financial embarked on an employee advocacy program, which encouraged their employees to get connected. Now each of their 15,000 employees has an average of 160 connections, meaning that as a company, their message—through their employees—can potentially reach 2.4 million LinkedIn users! It’s time for companies to wake up and unleash the power of some of your most passionate, but often forgotten, brand advocates: Your employees! Neal Schaffer, president of Windmills Marketing, author of Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing: Understanding, Leveraging and Maximizing LinkedIn.
#16: Attend Live Events
Jeff Korhan
Live events are where you experience firsthand the energy and enthusiasm of other like-minded people who share your interests and business objectives.
In addition to building meaningful relationships, you walk away with abundant ideas for invigorating your social media marketing. I’m still mining ideas from my experience at Content Marketing World a couple months ago, not to mention being better connected with industry colleagues.
Jeff Korhan and Joe Pulizzi reconnecting at the Green Industry Conference shortly after Content Marketing World.
One of the challenges of social media is translating our weak connections into stronger relationships that can potentially lead to mutually beneficial outcomes. The solution is to literally get out of the office to meet the people with whom you’re connected online, and make new connections that you can bring to your social networks. When you integrate the two, you enhance the effectiveness of both.
A few years ago, it was predicted that webinars and other digital events would eventually replace live events, thereby putting professional speakers and trainers like me out of business as we know it. It turns out we are now experiencing a resurgence of live events, and the reason is somewhat surprising.
Now we are more connected than ever as a result of social media and people want to meet their connections in person to further develop their relationships. The community and energy of live events adds richness and depth to your social media relationships, and makes a positive impact on that illusive metric—your social media ROI. Jeff Korhan is a small business marketing expert and the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business.
#17: Build Authority Relationships With Google+ Reverse Image Lookup
John Jantsch
Networking for link relationships has taken on a bit of a popularity feel due to Google’s emphasis on authority when it comes to content.
Links from sites that Google ranks highly have always been important, but now individuals inside of Google+ carry a great deal of weight as well.
It’s important to build relationships in your industry with those authors whom Google already thinks highly of. I’m not talking about stalking, I’m talking about discovering the most valuable relationships and finding ways to build value within them. Find those authors in your industry who appear with an author box in common searches with your industry and do a Google reverse image search to find where they contribute content currently.
Find an author whose image shows next to highly indexed content
Navigate to their Google+ profile, right-click their profile image and copy the image URL
Paste the image URL into a Google Search by Image box
Scan the results to find a great deal about their contributed content landscape
Create a plan to build relationships based on value
Reverse Google image lookup reveals a list of places where this author contributes.
You’ll turn up some great guest post opportunity possibilities for yourself, as well as gain some insight into ways you can connect with authors of authority. John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker and author of Duct Tape Marketing, The Commitment Engine and The Referral Engine and the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network.
#18: Actively Use SlideShare Pro to Acquire Subscribers
Joe Pulizzi
A subscription strategy is critical to any social media and content marketing professional. I’m astounded that more marketers aren’t actively using SlideShare to acquire subscribers. If you’re not familiar, SlideShare was purchased by LinkedIn and sees about 100 million visitors per month. Simply put, SlideShare is the YouTube for PowerPoint presentations (and so much more).
A SlideShare Pro account starts at $16 per month and lets you collect leads and/or subscribers. Also, SlideShare can be integrated with most marketing automation systems.
At Content Marketing Institute, we’ve been using SlideShare Pro for two years now, and it’s our number-two overall source for new subscribers. We’ve done nothing different with deploying content on SlideShare, but now we actively drive new leads.
The images below show one of our presentations on SlideShare.
Use SlideShare to acquire subscribers to your content.
The second screenshot shows the SlideShare Pro subscription popover that appears near slide 10 of a presentation. The popover can easily be skipped so viewers can access the full content, but on this presentation alone, we’ve collected over 500 subscribers with no additional work. Need help with Managing YOUR Internet Marketing? Contact us and visit:http://www.janetpennconsulting.com/internet_marketing.html
