Tips for successful marketing through Facebook

To market your business successfully on Facebook, you need to understand Facebook's unique opportunities, and how it differs from other media. social media marketing conference Just as you wouldn't run a radio ad on television, you shouldn't market on Facebook the way you'd market in a magazine or on your website. People regard Facebook as a fun social space where they chat to friends, check out photos and videos, and relax. You need to join conversations and become part of a community, rather than being a business 'outsider' who tries to sell aggressively. Hard-sell tactics - such as using advertising slogans, posting repeatedly about a particular product or service, or providing lists of products and prices in isolation from any related conversation - will result in other users 'unfollowing' you. They may even post negative comments about your business. Of course, our results could be different from yours. So many factors—industry, audience, relationship, engagement—will impact the final outcome, so if you want to find the perfect Facebook marketing strategy for you and your page, it’s best to test.We tried seven of the best Facebook marketing tips we had for getting better results with our Facebook marketing. Here’s how they went.Also know that our conclusions come from our specific experience on Facebook, sharing with our particular audience. Results might vary for you and yours. Feel free to start with our results, though. And come back and report your findings.
I’m sure that these quick experiments could be improved in a number of ways, and I’d love to hear from you about how you go about experimenting on Facebook. effective social media marketing Note that these experiments each lasted one week long and that the more samples you can get from your experiment, the better conclusions you’ll be able to draw. By nature of these being weekly experiments, we won’t have the same amount of data as we could if we had tried for monthly or longer. At the same time, we wouldn’t have been able to move fast and iterate quite the same way! One thing I’ve found to be true at a lot of social networks is that people on those networks love to view and click content that applies to the network. So, Facebook content works great on Facebook, Twitter on Twitter, etc. This update is an example of a Facebook topic (organic reach) that many are curious about. I love the pairing of update text to story in this one. It’s a post that we didn’t write ourselves, and it scored really high in reach and clicks thanks to a catchy update that played nicely off the article headline (and a nice picture to boot).The reach on this post was not extremely high (better than average for our page, though), yet the click rate was really amazing. Of the 1,000 people who saw the post 254 clicked through to read. My best guess on why is that it was a topic that is interesting to a lot of folks, along with an intriguing image you had to click through to see the complete picture.

Have a clear goal and strategy

It's important to have a clear goal for using Facebook, and a strategy to achieve that goal. social media as a marketing tool For example, a coffee shop might decide that its goal is to increase sales generated by Facebook by 10% in the next 6 months. Their strategy could include.creating a post every morning featuring a special of the day, using a coupon code so that the sale can be tracked to Facebook.posting a daily photo featuring a customer who is its 'Coffee King or Queen' of the day.encouraging users to post their own photos of them enjoying a coffee. Setting a goal and strategy gives you direction for your Facebook marketing and a way to measure your success. Keep an eye on your potential audience meter. As you add targeting options and narrow your audience, Facebook will generate an approximate number of people you’ll reach. This is only an estimate, but can help you make sure you’re not targeting too many people (or too few). Ads perform best when they’re targeted to at least a few thousand people, so consider removing some restrictions if your audience is dipping below this. If you only have a few interests targeted, try adding related topics in the "More Categories" section. There you'll find options for narrowing your audience even further - choose users who have had a birthday recently, who upload a lot of photos on Facebook, etc.
One of the elements that the Facebook News Feed algorithm considers is the type of update that a page uses. social media marketing pricing News Feed places greater value on link posts versus photos with a link in the caption.This was perhaps our biggest win from testing. Median reach grew almost 70 percent, and average reach grew nearly 20 percent. Clicks also increased on both measures by nearly 10 percent.When you share a link post on Facebook, the link comes with a preview image that is pulled from the blogpost (technically it’s pulled from open graph tags in the HTML of the page).For our Buffer blog posts, we have a couple different types of main images on our posts: stock photos that we use as background images behind our headlines and a custom-designed teaser image that sits below the intro to every post. Here are some examples. Want to bring customers in store? Try targeting people who live in your town or local area. Couple this with Facebook Offers to be redeemed in store and see just how much in-store footfall you can get from being social. If you’re looking to build upon existing leads, you can add a custom audience and upload your mailing list directly to Facebook, enabling you to target users you have an existing relationship with. Taking advantage of the custom audiences feature often increases ad conversion rates. You can upload a mailing list or connect directly with Mail Chimp. Just click “Create New Audience” in the Audiences section.

Create a human voice for your business

Facebook users like to talk to other people - not to an impersonal business. Whoever manages your Facebook page must be able to write in a voice that sounds real and likeable, using a style that suits your business. social media marketing blog They also need permission to express things in their own words, not in the company's jargon or 'official line'.nlike traditional media (such as magazines or television), or other online media (such as web pages), social media are built around frequent updates.There are a huge number of ways to compose an update on social media (we counted 71 ways in this post). This seemed like a good opportunity to see what style worked best for the Buffer page.The first test—no update text, just a link—is one that we noticed a number of other brands using on their pages. Instead of typing in the text for the update, you let the story’s title and description and photo encourage people to click through.Encourage other Facebook users to respond to your posts or to post their own comments about your business or a topic that's of interest to them and you. When they do post, respond quickly - within 24 hours is best. Failing to respond will weaken your Facebook friends' willingness to engage with you, and they will gradually drift away.Statistics show that around 50% of all Facebook users check their page at least once a day, and they need to see that you are regularly posting new material. Some guides recommend posting at least once a day, but the core principles are to post when you have interesting content, and to judge how often your audience wants to hear from you.
For the multiple lines of text, we broke out our updates and caption into two or three sentences and spread them over several lines of the update, giving the update a bit more vertical space in the feed. social media marketing experts Facebook recommends uploading an image that is 1200x627 pixels for your ads. You’ll be provided with more specific image size recommendations depending on the type of ad you’re creating, but make sure your image is at least 600 pixels wide for appearing in the News Feed.Facebook advertising has some incredible targeting capabilities that can help you tailor your message and target your desired audiences. Take full advantage of Facebook advertising targeting options to create highly successful Facebook ad campaigns.Take advantage of advanced targeting options. Facebook has a ton of awesome and unique targeting options for FB paid ads you won’t find elsewhere. You can target audiences by location, age, gender, workplace, relationship status, language, education and more. Zone in on your ideal audience with interest targeting. In addition to the targeting options mentioned above, Facebook allows for some incredible deep interest targeting. This provides tremendous value, and the interest targeting capabilities alone can justify your use of Facebook advertising. Make new friends or focus on the old. You can target your Facebook ads exclusively to users who are already connected to your Facebook page, or you can choose to target them and their friends, or those who aren’t connected to your page yet at all.

Social-Media Tips to Enhance Your Marketing

Read below to see which tips and strategies worked best for the Buffer Facebook page, and feel free to use our learnings as the basis for tests of your own. social media marketing degree There are tons of strategies out there, and you can find one that works for your page. I’m excited to share which ones worked for us.First things first, if I wanted to know which Facebook strategies might move the needle, I needed to see where the needle was at the beginning. I had to have a baseline of how our Buffer Facebook page was performing so I could compare how well each of the tests worked.Try starting with the Page Likes objective – you’ll build your audience and encourage folks to like your page. More likes make you look popular, which encourages more people to like you in a domino effect – it’s a safer alternative to buying followers on social media. Facebook Offers works similar to the Google Offers Extensions, letting you promote a deal exclusively to Facebook users. Try using an offer to give away an item – maybe an ebook or whitepaper – in exchange for an email address. Or create an offer or discount to be redeemed in your brick and mortar store. It’s recommended that you target your first Facebook Offer to just your fans. If it goes over well, then you can widen your net to larger audiences. With nearly half of Facebook activity being conducted on mobile devices, Facebook is a clever option for mobile app developers looking to promote their creation. Include a call to action in the body text of your Facebook paid ad to encourage FB users to take your desired action.
You can create an ad for a website by selecting the Clicks to Website objective or the Website Conversions objective. social media marketing los angeles Be aware though that Facebook ads not connected with a Facebook page will appear exclusively in the right column, not in the News Feed.When someone interacts with your Facebook page, offer, event, etc. the action triggers Facebook posts, or “stories,” that the user’s friends may then see in their News Feed. These “stories” are generated naturally but are often buried in the News Feed. Opting for sponsored stories basically means you are paying to increase the likelihood that these stories will be seen. You can opt in or out of sponsored stories in the left column of the ad creator tool. When promoting a Facebook page, the automatic setup is for the ad headline to be the same as your page’s title. Instead of leaving it as-is, type out your own customized ad headline to make the ad more enticing. Aside from your social media image selection, the headline is one of the main ways your ad will make an impact (or fail to).Using Facebook for advertising can help you promote a page, app, or even an event! Exercise all your options.You can choose from a number of different bid setups for controlling Facebook advertising costs. You can bid for clicks, impressions, or your desired objective (e.g., Facebook page likes). If you choose the recommended (and selected by default) option of bidding based on your objective, your bid will automatically be set to help you reach your objective, whereas bidding for clicks or impressions allows for more customization.

Send the right message to the right platform

Every social media platform serves a different purpose and draws a distinctive audience. Understanding this can make your marketing efforts go more smoothly. social media marketing strategy template For example, you wouldn't want to promote a law firm on Instagram or Pinterest.Evan LePage, a writer for HootSuite, explains that Twitter users enjoy an image that has been attached, Facebook users like pictures and can’t stand asking for likes and Google+ followers are passionate brand advocates. Test each platform to see how your audience responds. I’ve found that women tend to be on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook, and men turn to Twitter and Google+ more. Here is additional data from Alex Hillsberg on how men and women use social media. As an advertiser, you can choose to set up a daily budget or a lifetime budget. A daily budget controls how much you will spend on a specific campaign per day. Your ads and sponsored stories stop showing once you hit your daily ad budget, helping your budget Facebook advertising rates based on each daily cycle. Lifetime budget lets you select how much you want to spend over the entire span of time a campaign is scheduled to run. Don’t forget that each campaign has a separate budget, so create a social media marketing plan to keep Facebook advertising prices within your comfort zone. You can edit your campaign’s end date or budget anytime after the campaign has started running. While you can’t change your minimum daily spend limit (it’s set at $50), you can change your daily ad budget, which ultimately is what really controls the cost of Facebook advertising.
Facebook advertising rules dictate that image-based Facebook ads that are set to appear in users’ news feeds won’t get approved if the text takes up more than 20% of the image space. social media marketing resume Facebook has a grid tool to help ensure that your image ad follows the guidelines, but as Jon Loomer has noted, sometimes you can get around this simply by moving your text around slightly.First things first, if I wanted to know which Facebook strategies might move the needle, I needed to see where the needle was at the beginning. I had to have a baseline of how our Buffer Facebook page was performing so I could compare how well each of the tests worked.I was excited to improve these numbers and to put into practice much of the great advice out there on how to share to Facebook. Here is a list of the techniques I tried.Below are the results from the tests. You’ll notice that for each test I’m including the average and the median stats because on occasion the average might have been skewed a bit by a single outlier (a post that got seen by 3,500 people, for instance). Also, our social media strategy focuses a lot on clicks and reach, so those two stats will be highlighted the most. Questions on any of this? Let me know in the comments!Every time someone visits Facebook, they could have on average 1,500 potential stories to see from friends, people they follow, and Pages. A majority of these posts publish during the day with peak times between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. ET.

Don’t just rely on organic strategies

In a perfect world, organic search-engine optimatization efforts would be enough for all your marketing needs. social media marketing campaigns And best of all, it’s free. But the world isn’t perfect. Sometimes you have to pay for a spike in traffic. A pay-per-click strategy is a great way to get immediate results. Use Google Adwords to advertise near specific searches of keywords and you'll only pay if someone clicks on your ad. And all the major social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, offer opportunities to purchase ads. Advertising is available on YouTube and Reddit. Consult Larry Kim's guide on this topic. When you pay for placements, you expand your outreach outside of your current community of contacts in a rapid and effective way. While organic strategies are great, it doesn't hurt to shell out money for ad placements on social media networks. One of the ideas with increasing your posting frequency is that you may be able to increase your total clicks and engagement for the day (without necessarily improving on clicks per post and engagement per post). A greater volume of updates, even if the updates hold steady with engagement, will lead to more total interactions via simple addition. More posts should equate to more everything.Clicks fell ever-so-slightly (two fewer on average). Average reach stayed mostly the same, while media reach fell nearly 20 percent.
At the other end of the frequency spectrum is the advice to post to Facebook less often. In our case, we tested posting only once per day. social media marketing service This advice stems from a pair of studies on Facebook frequency by Social Bakers and Track Social. Both studies conclude that sharing five to 10 times each week is the ideal frequency. Five to 10 times per week works out to about once or twice per day. Nearly a mirror of the above results on frequency. Clicks fell slightly and a bit more so than posting six times per day. Median reach took a big dip (down 25 percent), and average reach held steady.It’s one of the recommended strategies by Post Planner, and anecdotally it makes a lot of sense for getting more comments, likes, and interactions from the community. The thinking goes that as Facebook notices people engaging with your content, future content stands a better chance of reaching more people.For the past several months, our community champion Nicole has posted an open-ended question five times per week on our Facebook page. These have been great for stirring conversations.Asking questions turned out to be the biggest drop of all the Facebook marketing tips we tested. Clicks were down by as much as 50 percent, and reach fell nearly 40 percent. On average, our posts were seen by 250 fewer people.For comparison, a typical open-ended chat question (without a link) sees a slight bump in reach compared to an average post, and the chat questions typically get five to seven comments. The questions with links received zero comments.

Tips for Successful Twitter Marketing

Twitter, as I’m sure you know, is one of the most popular social networks in the world with over 230 million active monthly users sending 500 million Tweets a day. marketing and social media But just based on those numbers there would be no reason for a small business to set up on Twitter in addition to Facebook. After all, Facebook has over 3 times that many active users. So why use Twitter for your business? Well, for starters, with Twitter, unlike with Facebook, your posts can reach all of your fans. All means all! There’s no Edgerank on Twitter, no declining organic reach, just pure, 100% exposure.There are many other reasons to use Twitter as well – it offers an “instant access” feel that Facebook does not provide, it can be very personal, hashtags offer free amplification of content, and more.Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, might I add that 72% of users are more likely to make a purchase from a small or medium business that they are following on Twitter. People come to Twitter to discover what’s happening in the world right now, to share information instantly, and to connect with people and businesses around the globe. With hundreds of millions of users and over 500 million Tweets being sent each day, there is a great opportunity for businesses to reach a global audience of new and existing customers.No matter what type of business you are — from a large retailer to a freelance designer; from a B2B software provider to a mobile app company — you can use Twitter to build meaningful connections with a relevant and engaged audience. These connections can lead to actions across a network of loyal customers for your business.
Learn how to compose a Tweet, use a hashtag, and discover conversations related to your business. Once you understand the basics of Twitter you can use the platform to achieve your business goals.Use Twitter to attract and educate potential customers. social media marketing salary Every element of your profile — your photo, header image, bio, and pinned Tweet — should reflect your business identity and show the world who you are.Write Tweets that spark conversations and keep your audience engaged. Follow our content calendar template to help you develop your own content strategy.If someone follows you on Twitter they’re opting in to hear more from you. Followers can help your business extend its reach, drive sales, and increase awareness.Use Twitter analytics to view your progress, discover your top influencers, and learn more about your audience. This information can help you understand how to optimize your content and expand your reach. Ok, if you’ve been promoting your restaurant for a while, this should be pretty obvious. One of the first steps in successful marketing is to know who you’re communicating with. This is particularly true in social media. Think like your customer, and about why they would want to visit you. Create a tone for your social media based on this.If you want your place to be known as the neighbourhood hangout - create a tone (or even character) that you’ll consistently use across all of your social media platforms. Post in a friendly, neighbourly tone. You could, for example, have a long-term waitress or barman be the face of your social media.

Choose a good Twitter handle

The very first thing you need to do is choose an appropriate, easy to remember, and, most importantly, brand related Twitter handle (your user name, ex: @StoreYaCom). The reason you want it to be brand related, social media marketing statistics obviously, is so that people can easily find and recognize your business’ handle. It’s possible that brand name won’t be available, but don’t fret, you can always choose something similar. When it was time for us to pick our handle here at StoreYa, it turned out that @StoreYa was already taken, so we moved on and chose a different handle. Facebook provides an incredible opportunity for dining establishments to connect with their clientele. You’d be hard pressed to find a patron of yours who is not on this site - and most of them are checking their updates a few times a day.Make sure you take full advantage of your cover image. You have 851x351 pixels to market your business for free. Include delicious photos of your food, or people having a good time enjoying a meal with friends. You could change your cover image whenever you have a menu change, and market the new items or specials.Use tabs on your Facebook Page to entice people to visit your eatery. The first four tabs in particular are key - these are the tabs that show up on your front page (without clicking to open them all). You can see how effectively Bahama Breeze Island Grille uses these. Their first four tabs are: photos of food; locations; food deals; and featured menu items.They are thinking like their customer, and giving them the images and information a patron would want.
The most shared posts on Facebook are images. You’re in the business of food, and food is extremely visual. Be sure to include lots of images of your food in your regular Facebook updates. top social media marketing companies You could even create a lookbook of your current menu items.Post exclusive offers on your Facebook Page. Give deals to patrons if they “like” your Page. Give group deals (using a third party app, as per Facebook rules), to entice your Fans to share your deal with their friends - and get those friends to become Fans of your Page too.Use social sweepstakes and contests on your Facebook Page. These social promotions add excitement, and a great reason to get your customers coming back to both your Facebook Page, and your restaurant.Here’s an example from a client using our sweepstakes app. Wayne Gretzky’s Toronto ran a geo-targeted sweepstakes through Facebook to successfully generate awareness of their newly renovated digs, and their brand new menu.Facebook ads let you do all kinds of very specific, niche targeting. For restaurants and diners, this is ideal. You can target your ads to be seen only by Facebookers in your particular geographic location. You can also target your ads to be seen by those with specific likes, and by those who like certain pages.You can also geo tag your posts. If you have a chain of restaurants, for example, use this feature to show images or updates from your various locations.Videos are very cool when embedded directly into an update, or in a tab. If you have videos about how your food is made, or you have an interview with your chef/ food suppliers/ happy customers - include them in an update.

Make your profile look great

Twitter’s new profile layout, most specifically the header photo, enables brand’s to really show their colors in their profile by displaying a large, eye catching image. social media marketing training Be sure to make good use of this image in order to promote your business’ image. This image matches perfectly with the HubSpot logo and at the same time shows how (presumably) the HubSpot staff works. Giving an inside look into your business is always a great way to engage your fans.Here some more ideas of what you could use for your header image:ser generated content. For example, winning pictures from photo competitions could be used.ictures of your products.Pictures related to your brand’s personality. For example, a sporting goods company could have images of people playing sports in its header photo.In regard to your profile picture, the best practice is to use your company’s logo. nstagram is a hugely popular photo sharing platform. With its seamless integration with Facebook, it’s used about 95% of the time when your patrons are posting images to their Facebook friends. You can use Instagram in conjunction with your Facebook tactics, or you can use the site on its own. To increase awareness about both your Instagram profile and your restaurant, include relevant trending hashtags. For example, if it happens to be nationalcheesecakeday , and your culinary delights include cheesecake, post a scrumptious photo of that dish. Get found more easily by your niche market by using specific hashtags. For example, if you’re a bakery in New York, and are located in Soho, use geographic specific tags, like sohoeats. Instagram is a mobile social site - you use it on your phone.
When you’re running a particular marketing campaign (such as a contest or group offer), create a tag just for that promotion. social media marketing classes This lets your followers - and anyone else - engage with your campaign by using your hashtag in their posts, too.Hashtags are very popular on Twitter too. Include them in your updates. Use similar tactics to the ones mentioned above with Intstagram. Tip: You don’t want too many (given the character constraints on this platform - and you want to leave room in your tweets to get RT’s and shares with @mentions - so a friend can send your tweet to a friend).Send out tweets close to breakfast, lunch and dinner hours. Unlike Facebook, your tweets will show up in Followers’ feeds immediately as you send them. Invite your followers to join you for your special deal for Twitter followers.The only problem with the Merridees tweet, above, is that they are located in Tennessee, and I am not. It is incredibly important to geo-target your ads on Twitter. If your place of dining is located in Seattle - make sure you check off the geo-targeting location of Seattle when you are paying for your promoted tweets.I hope you’ve learned a little bit more on how to use these social media platforms to market to your restaurant patrons. There are many more tactics you can use, such as trying out Foursquare or Yelp, or creatively marketing with YouTube videos.

Facebook Marketing Tips for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs

When it comes to social media marketing, and in this case Facebook, your business goal isn't to get likes and shares, it's to do sales!For that reason every post should have a clear purpose. social media marketing articles Ask yourself, "What is the goal of this post?" and "How does it relate to my business goals?". If you can't answer these questions, you're wasting time, one of the scarcest resources any business owner has.If you're in the wine business, your goal is to sell more cases of wine, right? To test your audience and gauge if there is a market for Chilean wine, you run a post on a new Carmenere with a question "What's your favorite Chilean wine?". Your goal for this post is to engage your audience and gauge their interest in Chilean wine, which you may ultimately stock based on your fans interest.Facebook holds great potential for your business: 41% of B2B companies and 62% of B2C companies using Facebook have acquired a customer from it. Facebook Insights can tell you more about the people who choose to like your page. Once you know your Facebook friends' characteristics, you can tailor your posts and offers to meet their needs and interests.For example, if you're a book store that caters to customers of all ages, but most of your Facebook friends are aged 18-25 years, your Facebook offers might concentrate on books suitable for that age group (while your in-store offers are broader). Or, if you're an online seller who never meets your customers, you might be able to get a clearer picture of what they think and feel by reviewing their interests, ages and locations on Facebook.
We've covered all the nitty gritty need-to-knows about Facebook advertising. Now it's time to move on to the Facebook marketing, social media marketing dallas with tips and tricks that will help your Facebook business page grow, draw in new followers, and remain engaged with customers.In the past marketers were required to use a third-party application for FB contests, but Facebook recently changed their policy and now allows contests to be hosted directly on Facebook. Hosting a giveaway or contest on Facebook has never been easier! Hiding valuable content behind a like barrier will get more likes to your page – be sure to include a colorful and captivating call to action graphic to seal the deal.Trying to drive traffic to a blog post or article you’re sharing? Instead of using the automatically generated link and image block generated by Facebook, attach your own larger social media pic to the post and add the link to the blog post as a neat and tidy bitly URL. A larger image can do a better job of capturing attention. A/B test this technique and see if your clicks improve from the regular auto-generated format.Concise posts tend to fare better than their lengthier counterparts – it’s recommended that you trim down your words to somewhere between 100 and 250 characters for optimal engagement. No one’s looking to read the next great American novel in their News Feed.

Integrate FaceBook into your Marketing Strategy

Be clear on what you need to accomplish with your marketing strategy and the role Facebook will play in helping you achieve your goals. learn social media marketing If, for example, your goal is to generate 40 new leads a month with 10 of them coming through social media marketing, ask yourself: how will Facebook support that goal? How many leads will come from your fan base? How will you attract the right fans (use your buyer personas)?Your fan base is the entry point into your sales funnel and your Facebook posts the digital breadcrumbs that draw your audience into the funnel and down a trail towards a much more substantial piece of content they can download after filling out a form. Having a plan for attracting the right fans, engaging existing fans and drawing them into your sales funnel using posts is the first step towards reaching your goals. Chances are you already have customers, friends, and family that would be happy to give you a boost. If your business is a Pop-Up Kitchen, reach out to customers, family and friends you've served and ask them for their support. You can do this by inviting relevant Facebook friends to like your Page or uploading a list of best customers so you can send them an email. All of which can be done from the Build Audience section. These are the fans who will build the initial foundation and set the tone of conversation on your Page. To keep growing your audience, you can use your website, blog, or email newsletter. Just be cautious not to over utilize these channels and annoy people.
Pictures and videos are a major element of Facebook's appeal. Use them frequently to keep your friends engaged and entertained. importance of social media marketing For example:a clothing retailer could post photos of new stock as it arrivesan architect or builder could post day-by-day pictures of a house under renovationa personal trainer could post an instructional video of how to do a particular exercise.Get interactive with offers, contests, games, surveys, etc. People like it when Facebook is fun, and when it delivers something that they can't get any other way.Research shows that discounts and giveaways are the most popular reason for a customer to follow a business's Facebook page. Likewise, contests and games can be used to liven up your page.Facebook can also be used to distribute customer surveys. If you do this, make sure that you keep surveys short, and provide a survey link that users can easily click, ignore or share with their friends. It takes time to build good relationships with other Facebook users, so be patient. Engage sincerely in conversations, provide useful content, and develop rewards for loyal customers to help foster positive relationships.If you have a Facebook page, promote it throughout your business so that your social media works hand-in-hand with more traditional marketing methods. Provide your Facebook address on your letterhead, business card and website, in store, in advertisements, and in your email signature. You can also use Facebook’s various social plugins – especially the Like Button or Like Box – to get people to like your Page without having to leave your page and go over to your Facebook page.

Have a Clear Value Proposition

One of the biggest marketing mistakes is not having a clear value proposition. social media marketing agencies You must communicate how you solve a problem, what are the benefits you offer and how you're different from the competition. Then make sure your value proposition is consistent across all your marketing channels. This is Hppy, an application to measure employee engagement. It's clear as soon as you hit their homepage what their value proposition is - they reduce employee turnover and increase productivity. However, their Facebook page doesn't communicate the same message. It simply asks "Are you happy?". In their defense they've just done website refresh and I'm sure their social media pages will be updated shortly. Now go over and become a Hppy fan.First, make sure you've setup a company page and not a personal page. Then go into the "About" section of your Facebook page and make sure it's properly filled out with searchable information.Provide readers with a clear value proposition, an overview of what your business has to offer with a link to your website, include your address details if you want your ratings to appear and add any products or services with links to relevant pages on your website. Even on your about page take the opportunity to pull fans into your sales funnel. Change your Facebook cover to mix things up. Changing a cover photo to reflect a season or time of year shows fans that you are making an effort to be active and stay relevant. Updating your cover photo to advertise a special sale or giveaway will also help those events get more attention than they might receive otherwise.
Don’t worry about overdoing the posts – as long as they are spaced evenly through the day, you’ll be fine. Only 16% of your fans will see one post (if even that), as news feeds easily become over populated.search and social media marketing The more you post, the better your chances are of being seen. However, do remember to focus on quality over quantity – every post should be of value, not just something thrown quickly together. Insights lets you see your most popular and successful posts in terms of link clicks, shares, and likes. This data is extremely valuable and ignoring it is like ignoring conversion tracking for AdWords – it’s just plan silly! You should be using this data to see what you’re doing right, and then do more of it.Including tags in your posts is a great way to broaden your exposure, especially when working with other organizations. If you run a doggy grooming company and are giving away Petco squeaky toys, tag them with an @Petco. When they see the tag, they’ll be more likely to share your post with their fans, multiplying your reach by a ton! There’s no reason not to be generous with tags. Tag conferences you’re attending, businesses whose articles you’re sharing, favorite clients, etc. Everyone likes to get noticed, and they’ll remember that you were the one to put them in the limelight. In a similar vein, Facebook has hashtags enabled and you might as well use them. Twitter hashtags are a great tool for promoting a specific campaign you want to raise awareness of (like our own recent GradeAndGetPaid). It’s a nice way to seamlessly connect Twitter and Facebook marketing efforts.

Helpful Tips for Marketing on Twitter

Marketing on Twitter is essential for oh so many businesses and individuals, yet there are almost always room for improvement when it comes to marketing. I’ve compiled some tips for both starters and advanced users. social media marketing software Be sure to improve your efforts!No, not everyone but you should be definitely seeking a healthy following:follower ratio. You should follow back those who’s bio and recent tweet suggest you have something in common with them. WHY? To establish connections and make a good first impression. There’s something weird about having 10,000 followers and only 3 who you follow.There is no point having tens of thousand followers yet none of them are interested in what you have to say. This is why I suggest you stop adding people at random. Yeah, big numbers look great but don’t get carried away. Use a profile picture unless you really are an egg, of course. The best bet is to use your business logo or if you’re posting as an individual, a portrait picture of yourself will do the trick.Twitter is already in the process of launching a new re-design, regardless the point stays the same. You should be cleverly using the background space. Mashable‘s custom background is a great example of what you should be aiming for.Posting links to your puppy pictures is cute and all but unless it has something of value, it’s considered spam. Stay on topic!You have only a few characters to draw attention and make people click on your content. Using a distinctive headline will make the users undestand what they’re getting when clicking on your content.
Use call-to-actions while tweeting. Call-to-actions make people act and this is what you want your followers to do. “Please retweet”, “click”, “read” – these are just a few of the call-to-actions that you should be posting. how to use social media for marketing Fill in your Twitter profile completely. You’d be amazed at the amount of people who don’t put any effort into this. You have about three seconds when people check you out so make sure you write it well.Have a good icon or image. Photos work best for a personal feed. Professional shots are best of all.Include a link to your website or blog. This is VITAL if you want to be trusted on Twitter.Find people to follow. Connect with others who you find interesting, people you know, clients, organisations you rate, authors, commentators in your field or journalists you admire. What type of Tweets do you respond to best?Follow back. If people follow you and they look interesting, follow them back and see what they’ve got to say.Be polite. Thank your new followers, acknowledge those who mention you or ‘retweet’ your posts.RT, DM? Get up to speed with Twitter lingo. Learn from Twitter’s glossary.Stay on message, most of the time. What do you want to be known for? Put thought into what you want to talk about. What’s the “red line” that runs through all that you do? Have an opinion. A strong theme to your Tweets really helps.Write for your particular clients and customers. What do they want to know? What do they ask you? Educate, inform and entertain them. That’s the point.Share valuable content.

Ask questions to engage your followers

A bakery shop could ask “what’s your favorite pie flavor?” and a social media marketing company could ask their followers about social media tool preferences. social media marketing courses The key thing is to make sure the questions you’re asking are related to the interests of your followers. Moreover, incorporate questions, call-to-actions and suggestions with your article headlines and try to spur some interaction.Post information you think they’d find useful or interesting – links to articles or video, share quotes, relevant news, books you’ve read, opinions, tips.Make sure it’s not all about you. Me, me, me is seriously off-putting.Use shortened links rather than full blown URLs. Bit.ly is good for this.on’t sell. This is not the place for a stream of high-pressure sales messages. Think of it as an online networking event, if you like that sort of thing. Promote your services occasionally but this should not be the main event. Far too many people get this wrong.“Curate” good content. Share posts and articles by others that you think your readers will find valuable or back up your approach.Engage. Talk to people directly by using theirname. You’ll be surprised by the depth of relationships you can create here.Ask questions. You can learn a lot from your followers (we’ve learned loads!). It’s incredible how supportive and useful this platform can be.Tell them a bit about you. What are you up to? What’s news? Your choice about how much personal information you feel comfortable to share. You’ve got to find a voice that feels right for you.Recommend others you rate and say why. Twitter is a trusted referral engine.
Cross–reference tweet times from your Tweriod report with the time zone where you have the most followers to find the best times to tweet.Remember, social media marketing b2b the life span of a tweet is short, so the best way to catch your followers is to tweet when they’re online. Recommend suppliers, clients, commentators, friends, other Tweeters.Organise your connections into lists. This will make it much easier for you as your Twitter connections build, and enables you to check into conversation on a particular subject.Show up regularly. It doesn’t have to be every day (although that helps). Consistency is all. Check what people are saying about you often and reply promptly.Twitter Analytics allows you to see which of your tweets got the best engagement. After you identify your top tweets, try to determine which individual elements you included in them. This is one of the most effective ways to step up your Twitter marketing.To do this, go to Twitter Analytics and click Tweets at the top of the page. Then click Top Tweets to see your most popular tweets for the period. Your tweets with the highest engagement rate are clearly working for you, so review them and see what they have in common.Also reverse-engineer other people’s tweets that have high retweets and likes. Dissect the elements of the tweets and create similar tweets for your own Twitter account.To find material to retweet from people you trust, create Twitter lists for different niches.

Write a bio that describes who you are

You have 160 characters to tell the story about who you are, what you’re doing and why should anyone follow you.If you’re an individual who’s tweeting, use your real name. social media marketing for small business If you’re sticking to just an username such as rockstar998 you will be not found on the search engines while searching for your real name. Stop posting automated messages. Most of us consider them spam. Moreover, not many people check their private messages – mostly because it’s filled with spam. Get it? Use Twitter tools! Tools make your life easier (duh) and also open up some new possibilities such as tweet scheduling, keyword monitoring, follower analysis, etc. These tools include HootSuite, FollowerWonk, timely, TwitterCounter, etc. I’ll be writing an in-depth post dedicated for Twitter tools later this week.Monitor what’s being said about you, your brand and the topics of interest. Your aim is to find conversations, jump in and contribute. You can do this easily with Twitter Advanced Search functions that can be streamlined to a third party application such as HootSuite. More about monitoring and Twitter Advanced Search in my next post. Don’t just hit the RT button. Add a few words about why you retweeted such as “great post” or “I agree completely”. Unpublic tweets are not getting indexed by the Search Engines. Also, Twitter is a social media site and social media is all about communication, not hiding what you’re trying to communicate. The purpose of public tweets is also to give your potential followers some insight into what you’ve been tweeting about in order to make a decision whether they should start following you or not.
In order to clearly understand how your tweeting efforts are effecting your website’s analytics, you need to tag the links social media marketing job description that are directing back to content on your own site. Read more about tagging social media links in our post here.Aggregate and create content about your industry that people are interested in, don’t just plainly promote new campaigns and sales. For example, if you’re marketing a task management software, you could be talking about time efficiency and productivity. Now share your knowledge with the rest of the world. When compiling lists, first look at the accounts through the eyes of your target audience. Find people who share valuable content that your audience is likely to retweet. Then add these accounts to your Twitter list. Also, if you run events, create lists of speakers and attendees. This is helpful when you retweet content from influencers and friends closer to your event. Plus, if you run a blog or podcast, make a list of interview guests and contributors.Note: Lists are also a great way to discover powerful tweets from other users to reverse-engineer. If you take a few extra moments to incorporate one or two of these tips for each tweet, you’ll vastly increase the reach of your tweets. Not only will your tweets go farther initially, but they’ll also get shared more and their visibility will extend well beyond your initial sphere of influence.Ultimately, writing better tweets will help you build authority in your area of expertise, and improve the reach of your tweets even more.

Twitter Marketing Tips in 140 Characters or Less

It's no secret: I am the biggest fan of social media marketing. Why? Well for one, that's where everyone's at—or at least a good percentage of your potential customer base. According to eMarketer, nearly one in four people worldwide used social networks in 2013. marketing social media Eighty-one percent of those surveyed say that social media posts from friends and family directly influences their purchase decisions.Thirty-eight percent of moms say they are more likely to buy products from brands that other women like on Facebook.Seventy-eight percent of people say that a company's social media posts impact their purchase decisions.Nine out of 10 users say that they watch videos about the tech products they buy.Fifty percent of social media purchases take place within just a week of favoriting that same item on social media; 80% percent of purchases take place within three weeks.Interesting and compelling—especially for companies. Many marketers, however, remain unsure about the steps to take to implement the right social media plan for their companies. So, here I'm providing 10 social media marketing tips in 140 characters or less. Feel free to add your own in the comments, or tweet the ones here. Tweet a lot—like a whole lot because it drives engagement. Automate during your off hours because @Twitter never sleeps. People expect to hear from you at all hours.Don't overuse hashtags in your tweets; one to two per tweet—max.Put a budget behind your posts to amplify your messages; it's a great way to drive engagement and traffic.Don't sell on Twitter. Remember that social media is for socializing.
Don't just post a message; create social media campaigns.Be a resource, not an advertiser.Put pictures and media in as many posts as you can; they get more engagement. benefits of social media marketingEmbed links in your posts; they drive traffic.Ask your audience questions to drive engagement. People want to feel like you value their opinions. Effective marketing on Twitter doesn’t require a lot of time. In fact, you need to spend no more than 30–60 minutes per day (in two 15–30 minute blocks) on Twitter. Twitter is a remarkable social media platform for businesses. It’s a way to connect with new people, keep in touch with those you know, find out what’s going on in your world and get your message out there. And all in 140 characters!But if you’re new to Twitter it can be more than a little confusing. You’ve set up your account but just exactly what do you say? What sort of information should you share? What rules do you have to play by? Here are some tips for how to be productive during the time you spend on Twitter. Research shows that tweets without links get more engagement.Remember that not everything you tweet has to have a link. If you limit the number of links you share on Twitter, you’ll add value to the ones you do.For example, I tweeted this same quote with and without a link. Twitter is an excellent platform to build your brand and create trust, so spend time developing relationships with your followers rather than just sharing a lot of links.Plus, when you tweet fewer links, the people who trust you know whatever links you choose to share are likely worth clicking.

Don't agonize over what to say

Anything you say on Twitter stays in the general timeline and on people's minds for all of ten seconds. Unless you tweet something grossly offensive or rip-roaringly funny, people aren't going to remember what you said five minutes after you tweet it, using social media for marketing let alone what you said last week.You don't need to make your tweets profound. Your tweets can contain abbreviations, but remember that is it extremely important to your business’s image to spell words correctly and use proper grammar. Also, you don't need your tweets to always have a 50 percent click-through rate.Falling water drops wear away stone over time — likewise, it may take weeks, and maybe even months, before your frequent tweets lead to increased sales and become a viable marketing strategy. Be patient, stick with it, and just have conversations with people. Let them see the real you so that they can trust you enough to buy from you. If you want to get noticed, add hashtags that give your tweets context. It’s important not to overdo it with hashtags, however.Handy tools like Hashtagify and RiteTag can help you find the right hashtags to use.Find Hashtags With HashtagifyHashtagify allows you to search for a hashtag you want to use. In the Search box, type in your hashtag (socialmedia, for example) and press Enter. The results let you see the most popular related hashtags. By default, you see the results in Basic Mode view, which looks like a mind map. Everyone knows that tweets with images stand out, but not everyone takes the time to add them. Consistently incorporating images will improve your engagement.
You can use any of these alternative hashtags or combine several of them for each tweet.Check Hashtag Relevance With RiteTagOnce you determine what hashtags you want to use, use a tool like RiteTag to find out how relevant they are. social media marketing strategies to RiteTag and sign in with (and authorize) your Twitter account. Then click the New button at the top of the page.In the Compose New Tweet box, type in your tweet. You’ll notice that when you add hashtags, RiteTag gives you a color-coded rating for each hashtag in real time. Green is good, blue is cool and red is overused. RiteTag also has a Chrome extension that shows the tool’s codes and analytics for your tweets whenever you use Twitter, Buffer, Hootsuite or another platform to compose or schedule a tweet.Using Hashtagify and RiteTag together is a great way to find effective hashtags for your tweets to get the most visibility and reach. Use these tools to do research and then build a library of hashtags for your future tweets. It’s no surprise that tweets with images stand out and get more engagement than tweets without images. Fortunately, there are a variety of tools you can use to find the right images to use in your tweets.Twitshot is an online tool you can use in any browser that makes it easy to find images to use when you share links. It’s also available as a Chrome extension and iOS app.Twitshot then searches for and lets you see all possible images that go with that link. Select one of the available images or upload your own image.Compose your tweet in the Twitshot tweet box and paste in the URL you want to share.

Don't read every tweet from the people you follow

The effective Twitter marketer is following, and being followed by, thousands of people. You just can't keep up with everyone. So, accept the fact that you don’t have time to read tweets from some people (okay, a lot of people). social media marketing manager Hundreds of affiliate marketers and spammers follow you, so ignore them. Find people in your industry, people in your city, and your customers. Keep your list of followers to just the people who write worthwhile tweets.Whether you use a third-party tool or Twitter itself, saving searches based on a keyword or phrase is helpful. Look for hashtag topics, keywords in your industry, or current events. Now, instead of having to scan every tweet for that elusive message about the Marble Collecting Convention, you see only the tweets related to that topic.weet whatever you want. Just try to add value when you can. For example, you can add value by telling people about breaking news stories, articles in a trade journal, new blog posts, and new resources or software. Don't send marketing message after marketing message. The number of acceptable marketing tweets seems to vary from expert to expert, but a good guideline is a maximum of 1:9 ratio.Consider a 1:15 ratio as a solid recommendation for your marketing tweet ratio. For each marketing message you send out, you should send out 15 messages that don't talk about your product at all. You can make those 15 tweets conversational, added value tweets, or even 140-character love sonnets about hazelnut cream cheese on a blueberry bagel.How often do you e-mail people? How often do you talk on the phone? How many days a week do you work? That's how often you should tweet.The following list provides a few solutions to finding the people whose tweets you want to read.
To compose a tweet in the proper format, you need to have all of the individual elements in the correct order.Start your tweet with text and then add a link. Make sure to include the attribution with @mentions if applicable. marketing with social media Then add hashtags and insert your image. Now that you know the rules for composing a tweet, you can break them for effect. Come up with multiple ways to tweet the same information to add variety to your Twitter stream.or example, rather than adding the article title, use an interesting or relevant quote from the article (attributing it to the author) with a link and hashtags. Another option is to start the tweet with a question that the article answers.Remember, don‘t start tweets with @Mention unless you’re replying. When you tweet with @Mention first, only the people who follow both accounts will see the tweet. Tweets that are replies to multiple people, on the other hand, are fine. The purpose of a quote before your retweet is to showcase your thought leadership by adding value. Your tweet should set up the promise of what clicking through to that tweet will deliver to your audience.It’s important to know where your audience is in the world, and then identify the best times to tweet to them. Next, go to Tweriod to figure out the best times to tweet for your audience. Sign in with Twitter and click the My Analysis button. The results let you see when your tweets get the most exposure and when most of your followers are online.To find out where the largest percentage of your Twitter audience resides, go to your Twitter Analytics. Click the Audiences tab at the top of the page and then scroll down to Country.

Rules For Effective Social Media Marketing Strategies

It is important to revisit the whys and hows of social media marketing strategies often if you are a brand or a company. You have to constantly stay up-to-date with how things work and how things change when it comes to the top social media services. social media marketing agency It’s not an easy task, I can tell you that, but it’s necessary if you want to stay ahead of the game. Knowing what way social media is swaying is one of the most profitable pieces of information you can utilize when planning your marketing campaign.Since click through rates are getting continuously worse on the top social networking services, we all have to regroup every once in a while in order to make an effective impact. Influence is no longer gained the same way it once was, and reaching a larger audience is becoming more and more difficult. The effect is usually that when a new social media service becomes popular, the click through rate of your posts and shares are incredibly higher than after a few years of that site being in the limelight. It’s like people are getting more and more saturated with social media marketing campaigns, in whatever form or shape they come in, and they decide more carefully what they are going to click on to check out. Time becomes more valuable in a way, and it’s important to spend it wisely.We are continuously trying to improve our own influence as well as help you improve yours on the different social networking services, and this is in a way an attempt to help you look at social media marketing strategies in a different light. Implementing new standards and approaches can sometimes mean a whole lot more influence on the Internet. Still, creativity is one of the most important factors when it comes to social media marketing strategies.
In yet another attempt to help you gain more influence and reach when applying your social media marketing strategies, I have dug up an infographic that might come in quite handy. social media marketing company It’s called 21 Rules For Effective Social Media Marketing Strategies and is presented to us by Social Metrics. It’s a particularly useful piece of infographic that might shed a bit of light on how to break through the noise and allow you to actually execute that creativity of yours to gain more followers and influence.I am not one to jump on new social media trends right when they are announced. Why? Well, I mostly like to observe people’s reactions for a while in order to see how it progresses first. Call it a calibration time if you will. It’s a way to finalize a more creative plan than perhaps most people introduce into their social media marketing strategies. And, that’s kind of a shame really. People can accomplish a whole lot if they just look at things a little bit more creatively. Try to find new angles, and you will find that good social media marketing strategies aren’t that hard to discover. An editorial calendar is a valuable tool for defining the who, what, when and where of your social strategy. What topics will you address? How frequently will you post, and to which networks? This clear framework serves as the foundation of your social media marketing plan, but it must be flexible enough to readily adapt to audience feedback. If you’re posting seven times each day and losing followers, tone down the frequency for a few days and measure results. Social media is built around engagement, and it requires continuous input from you or your social marketing manager.

Social media marketing is effective

In 2015, we’re seeing a bit of a backlash again social media with some saying that social media is a waste of time and even an ‘infantile delusion’.We disagree! Social media is here to stay and will only grow in importance. social media marketing plan template Social media has transformed the marketing of many businesses since it is a fantastic way to engage audiences, encourage participation and sharing and so build brands and businesses.But social media strategies are needed to make the most of it, so that social is managed, measured and optimised alongside a content marketing and customer engagement strategy.Social media marketing is rated effective by many Smart Insights readers. In our research on Managing Digital Marketing in 2015, both organic and paid social media was rated not far behind search and email marketing. How does your social media marketing strategy rate? To help you review ways to make better use of social networks we have created a new social media benchmark where you can score how you rate on a 5-point scale for each of the 7 key areas we recommend you focus on.Over the past four years at Convince & Convert, we’ve continued to refine our social media strategy process. Here’s one of the latest iterations, presented as a keynote speech to ESTO (Educational Seminar for Travel Organizations) last Fall. I’ve pasted the slides below, but also included a short summary of the 8 steps in our social media strategy process, as the slides are more visual than descriptive.Nobody should “own” social media strategy in your organization. Social impacts all corners of the company, and should be more like air (everywhere) than like water (you have to go get it). Thus, the first step in the process is to create a cross-functional team to help conceive and operate the rest of the strategy.This visual capability review is one of a series available for download by all Smart Insights members in our Digital Marketing Benchmark download.
Social media is more than just a publishing platform. If you ask questions, you should stick around to participate in the discussion. social media marketing world There are dozens of social media monitoring tools that provide instant alerts when your posts have been shared, commented on or “Liked.” These tools often mean the difference between dedicating your entire day to monitoring your social networks and actually running your business while remaining on the grid.Obsess is a strong word, but you do have to be serious about your analytics. Platforms from Twitter to Facebook offer built-in analytics these days, allowing marketers to see which posts and updates are making the biggest impact and even identifying the specific number of people a single post reached. In addition to this data, your website analytics are a big key to measuring your social media success. If your strategy is working, you should see an increase in traffic and leads from your social networks.Social media is a powerful and affordable marketing tool if it’s taken seriously. Instead of a shotgun approach, follow these steps to create a social media marketing plan with a focused, refined strategy that can generate results.It’s an old social media strategy chestnut by now, but “listen” is still good advice that’s often ignored. The reality is that your customers (and competitors) will give you a good guide to where and how you should be active in social media, if you broaden your social listening beyond your brand name.Yes, you can use social media to help accomplish several business objectives. But the best social media strategies are those that focus (at least initially) on a more narrow rationale for social. What do you primarily want to use social for? Awareness? Sales? Loyalty and retention? Pick one.

Select Success Metrics In Social Media

How are you going to determine whether this is actually making a difference in your business? What key measures will you use to evaluate social media strategy effectiveness? How will you transcend (hopefully) likes and engagement? Will you measure ROI? With whom will you be interacting in social media? social media marketing tips What are the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your current or prospective customers? How does that impact what you can and should attempt in social media?It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you sell, your product features and benefits aren’t enough to create a passion-worthy stir. How will your organization appeal to the heart of your audience, rather than the head? Disney isn’t about movies, it’s about magic. Apple isn’t about technology, it’s about innovation. Only after you know why you’re active in social at all, and how you’ll measure social media strategy success should you turn your attention to the “how” of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and the rest. This channel plan should be distinct, in that you have a specific, defensible reason for participating in each (I covered this more in-depth in my post on 3 Rock Solid Questions to Guide Your 2013 Social Media Success).When we’re working on social media strategy for major companies, the plan and the deliverable is quite a bit more comprehensive than what you see above, but it’s based on this scaffolding and thought process. I hope you’ll find it useful in your own endeavors.Social media can be a huge benefit for small businesses, but it can also be a hindrance when implemented unsuccessfully. Developing a comprehensive strategy that will allow your organization to grow a strong and recognizable brand with consumers and potential business .
Another important aspect of growing a brand through social media accounts is to post consistently, Sherrill said. The types of content involved might vary, but in order to establish your organization as a thought leader within your industry, social media marketing tools she said that frequent and relevant posting is vital. Within the scope of B2B marketing, she warned that updating an account multiple times per day may not be appropriate – this strategy is generally acceptable for consumer-oriented marketing, but not for appealing to other professionals.In addition, Sherrill advised that certain social media platforms – Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc. – can be more valuable than others depending on the situation at hand. For example, she said that LinkedIn is the best way to engage with other professionals within your industry, which is helpful for B2B marketing. But Twitter can offer instantaneous communication with other businesses and potential clients on a much more casual level, while Facebook is more consumer-oriented. Depending on your marketing goals – which should be focused on the target audience’s interests – each format can have varying degrees of value.The author also noted that there are various different strategies to help determine which kinds of content to post, and when. In general, SMBs should aim to post relevant news that is produced by industry experts, as well as original content and some promotional elements. How you choose to distribute these categories may depend on your audience’s interests or the standard dictated by leaders in your particular industry.Sherrill pointed out that a number of tools are available that can help social media users assess the value they are gaining by operating their accounts.