Facebook Post Ideas For Small Business Owners

In a rut when it comes to knowing what to post on Facebook? You are not alone. real estate social media marketing I have seen many small businesses owners get hung up on posting the same type of content over and over again…whether they are working or not. This post will give you 17 killer Facebook post ideas for small business owners that WILL work, by generating lots of likes, shares and comments, as well as increased clicks through to your website. Everyone loves a good contest! And there are a ton of great contest apps out there that you can use to run your contest AND grab emails to add to your list as well! There’s nothing like a good twofer, right? I use Heyo and have had great success when using their app to run my contests, promotions and special offers! There are also other apps available like TabSite and ShortStack. You can also run Facebook contests directly on your fan page. If you follow me on Facebook, you know this is a strategy I use every single day! There is so much negativity in the world (and on Facebook). I am not exactly sure what it is about fill in the blank posts, but people just love them! You can rephrase just about any question as a fill in the blank, and they often receive more engagement than basic questions.Give your fans the opportunity to share a link to their website or Facebook Page; not only do they get the chance to showcase their business or products, but they can meet new people and make new connections.I choose to encourage and inspire my fans by posting inspirational or motivational quotes and images. This works with every client we have ever had, by the way!
Illegal immigration is a hotly contested, provacative issue in the U.S. And, NumbersUSA, which is dedicated to limiting that immigration, uses provocative Facebook posts to resonate with its fans. social media marketing blogs They publish updates – including pictures – like many other pages. They ask their fans to like and comment on their posts, like many other pages. They link to outside sources, like many other pages. But they play on the emotions of their fans in a way many other pages don’t. And in politics, that’s effective. Their tactics range from citing dramatic, often controversial quotes from political rivals, to invoking popular fears.Whatever side of the immigration spectrum you’re on, NumbersUSA’s page is one to study. Their fan count – in the millions – proves they know something or two about getting page likes. Les soins par les plantes is a non-profit that advocates plant-based remedies for common medical problems – like upset stomach and insomnia. It also promotes their use in boosting our natural immune defenses.It’s an interesting niche. They don’t actually sell anything; they just encourage alternative treatments. And that’s why their Facebook posting strategy is so effective. They actually post those treatments, so their fans can try them at home. It’s a great way to market a concept. Holding contests on Facebook is a strategy that works, and works reliably. Monkey Town Helmond, a small indoor playground, told its fans to recommend people who deserved a free ticket. Predictably, engagement was high.

Share the results of your poll

Use an image to promote the discount, if possible. These are better for grabbing the attention of your fans and for getting more shares. social media marketing chicago Team up with a business that offers a complimentary product or service, and help cross-promote each other. Tag each other in Facebook status posts, recommend that your fans ‘like’ each other’s Pages, or simply share each other’s content. Not only did their fans interact with the page, they also interacted with each other. It made the brand-customer relationship stronger, too, by fostering these new friendships. Safety 1st Australia creates and sells products designed to make life safer for children. Its brand revolves entirely around that mission.What makes the Safety 1st Australia Facebook page so effective, then, is how well it adheres to that brand identity. It promotes a few of its products, sure, but it also posts tips – related to the products or not – for reducing the risks children face in the home, the car, or anywhere else. The tips aren’t just symbolic, either. They’re practical and actionable – the kind of posts mothers forward to their friends.By publishing content like that, the company gives itself more authority over something that would otherwise be more abstract or at least very broad – child safety. It’s simply good branding. That means, as a culture, motorcycles are more insular. Authenticity matters. It’s one of the many reasons Harley-Davidson bikes are the de facto standard of most American outlaw motorcycle gangs. The company has been around a long time and proven itself over and over again.
I see many business owners posting links to their blog posts, without including any additional context. social media brand marketing When sharing a blog post, be sure to include a backstory or short excerpt from the post so your fans know what to expect when they click on the link. Motorcycles have a degree of exclusivity. They carry more risk – and generally more excitement – than cars. They represent freedom, rebellion, and a devil-may-care edginess. Many people simply won’t ride one. Even though motorcycle accessory sellers aren’t subject to quite the same scrutiny, being “one of us” certainly helps. That’s why MAXXESS FRANCE’s posts on Facebook range from motorcycle humor to lurid crash videos. It encompasses as much of the riding experience as it can, so it can be part of a community that often buys within the community. And MAXXESS FRANCE has done a very good job of that. Heelbook isn’t a very serious brand. It sells humorous t-shirts based on professional wrestling.Most of the time, its customers aren’t exceptionally interested in fashion. They’re professional wrestling fans and they enjoy a good laugh – especially when it relates to a joke only they can fully appreciate. Heelbook could talk about what’s happening in professional wrestling on Facebook – who’s winning, who’s losing. It could be more serious. But the shirts – the product they’re selling – just aren’t.So, Heelbook posts jokes instead. Some of them are on their shirts. Admittedly, there is a bit of selling here. But, mostly, it’s just a little irreverence every few days. And that casual, insider humor is just what the value proposition of their shirts happens to be.

Call-to-Action Buttons for Pages

According to Facebook: “Designed to bring a business’s most important objective to the forefront of its Facebook presence, cost of social media marketing call-to-action buttons link to any destination on or off Facebook that aligns with a business’s goals.I’m betting businesses will agree that there’s nothing negative about this update. The call-to-action button allows a business to put a small ad right on their cover photo. Currently the call-to-action button has seven options; Book Now, Contact Us, Use App, Play Game, Shop Now, Sign Up, Watch Video. While there are a few other buttons we’d like to see on here, like ones that benefit non-profits, this is a great start. You simply choose your call-to-action button and then you can select a destination for where someone is taken when they click on the button. Facebook is also tracking the CTA clicks and showcasing them in the “This Week” bar located to the right of the cover image. We recommend linking to a custom landing page where you can further track your users actions.That’s why it makes sense that Fully Feline published several posts about the arrival of the new year, tying most back to their brand with a few pictures of kittens. All of them were unusually engaging – even if they said more or less the same thing.It’s well-known that restaurants and bars should be on Facebook. Bar and club owners appreciate this advice the most, as they’re competing less on product and more on experience; and there’s no finer way to prove you can show a good time than by inviting your patrons to post their pictures on your page.
But you don’t have to wait for opening night to begin marketing on Facebook. define social media marketing You don’t even have to wait until your building is finished. Bathers Beach House started talking about their place while it was still a pile of lumber. They documented the construction process and drove customer interest along the way. Memrise sells educational courses on a variety of subjects, but it’s known for its language courses the most. What’s more, the company also has a quirky, unconventional branding. The learning process they built is, itself, unconventional.That’s why their Facebook strategy works so well. They talk quite a bit about language – tricks, hacks, jokes, and more, and it gives their fans confidence that the people at Memrise know what they’re doing. But, there’s an almost joking tone in much of their content. It’s a little irreverent, a little playful. Facebook made this behind-the-scenes look – complete with owner-customer interaction – possible. You simply couldn’t do this on a website or in the comments section of a blog post. Rady tipy nápady is a partner of Kitchen and Living. It centers on the same design, culinary, and lifestyle concepts that Kitchen and Living is known for. In marketing terms, it’s a brand community. Rady tipy nápady brings an otherwise disparate customer base together, to build a stronger a relationship with them – one that revolves around the community, and by extension the larger company (Kitchen and Living).They do a few things particularly well in that community, too.

Facebook Updates That are Great for Businesses

Exciting things are happening in Facebook world.If something exciting is happening in Facebook world, that means something exciting is happening in marketers’ worlds too!For a long social marketing media time marketers have wished they could do more organically with their Facebook posts. Especially after Facebook’s latest announcement that they were lowering priority for promotional organic posts, we were left wondering, once again, “what now?”I’m starting to learn that when Facebook takes a little they also give a little!So what’s Facebook giving marketers this time? A lot! In fact, these six updates all have big potential for businesses. For the last year I’ve been able to use my Graph Search bar to search things like “Posts by “ShortStack” that contain the word “contests.” I had no idea, until recently, that I was part of the beta testing of this feature by Facebook.This was a feature I loved and now the ability to search posts is coming to all users. If you’ve ever wanted to reference an older post that you’ve posted on your page, or that has appeared on another brand’s page, this is going to be the easiest way to do it. Personally, I use this feature a lot. How? To find a particular post I made on the ShortStack Facebook Page that I know was successful, or to find images and videos we’ve posted. Some other ways you might use this feature is to see what certain people are posting about your business. For example, you can search “Posts by Mari Smith about ShortStack” and it will pull up any post that Mari Smith has made where she’s mentioned ShortStack.
The possibilities are almost endless with this new feature, so we’ll be writing a blog post that further elaborates what can be done. social media for marketing Remember that you can only use this feature when you’re using Facebook as yourself, i.e., from your personal profile. However, you can search any post that has been shared or shown to you through the News Feed. That means you can search any Page you’re a fan of or follow or your friends’ profiles. This feature is going to be available via desktop and mobile! Aviation isn’t particularly easy. You have to take classes – quite a few, actually – before you can even get in the cockpit. And mistakes, as you might expect, are often costly. That’s why savvy pilots stay current on industry news, flight techniques, and developments in aviation technology. Boldmethod caters to this crowd. On Facebook, it takes part in what can only be described as inbound marketing – educating its fans about all kinds of things in the aviation industry, without actually selling any of its products. Facebook is a great platform for establishing thought leadership in niche communities, because it brings otherwise small and hard-to-reach groups together to interact with your brand. Boldmethod does this well.As in life, timing matters on Facebook. Posts that relate to current events – even if it’s just a holiday – are known to perform very well. Those events are top-of-mind; your fans are simply more likely to notice them in their feeds, and they’re more likely to interact with them too.

Target Organic Posts by Interests

According to Facebook, “To help you reach precisely the right people, we now offer the ability to target posts to a subset of the people that like your Page. social media marketing course For example, a publisher can use Interest Targeting to post a story about a sports game that will only be shown to people that like the teams playing.”One thing to keep in mind about this feature is that you can only target other pages that your existing fans like. With that said, the possibilities with interest targeting will vary based on your business type and your audience. The first thing you can do to benefit from this is to learn the main interests of your target audience. You can do this through your audience insights or by using Graph Search and searching “Pages liked by people who like.Once you know the main interests of your audience you can start building posting strategies that will target those interests. For example, when I use Graph Search to see the other Pages our fans Like among the list are Mari Smith, Mashable and Social Media Today. If we have some exciting social media best practices we want to post about, we could benefit from targeting that post to these interests so that it reaches a more relevant audience. Ideally engagement would be up since we’re targeting people who are interested in the topic.We’re still testing the possibilities with this feature, so check back over the next several weeks for when we publish our findings.
This feature has not rolled out to all Pages so it’s hard to say exactly how it will work. From the little we know, b2b social media marketing it appears that businesses who have an active website that receives a lot of backlinks will benefit. It appears that Facebook will look at the stories that are being linked to the most from a website and will predict/assume that the story will be of interest to the publisher’s audience and will generate a post and display that content to the brand’s audience automatically. Business’s will not see this in their own News Feed. You can see if you have this option by heading to Page Settings Publisher Tools Smart Publishing.According to Facebook, “We’ve added a new Top URLs section, which displays URL-level reporting and shows when other Pages and influencers share a post you’ve made to Facebook. For example, if a celebrity shares one of your URLs, you’ll know why that URL may have reached more people than other URLs. We also made the interface more intuitive and provide a way to segment data for specific time ranges, including hourly.We never have complaints when Facebook enhances Insights. With the latest upgrades, businesses will be able to know exactly who is sending traffic to their Facebook Page. We recommend using this information to find influencers and referrals to partner with. We don’t have the new insights yet, but the image below is from Facebook’s blog and gives an idea of what the new features will look like.

Set an End Date on Organic Posts

According to Facebook, “Post End Date allows Page admins to specify a day and time to stop showing a post in News Feed. social media marketing plans This tool prevents people from seeing out-of-date posts in News Feed, but posts will continue to appear on your Page. For instance, a publisher can use this to remove yesterday’s weather report from News Feed.” This update is pretty straight forward and I believe it will be beneficial for businesses who are using Facebook to promote current events/offers or promotions. Let’s say you’re running a “12 Days of Giveaways” promotion for the holidays. Your promotion is clearly going to end around Christmas time, so what happens to all of those posts after Christmas? Up until now, they would still be active on your Page and people could click the links (often leading to an error Page since the promotion has ended) and they could comment.The “End Post” feature is a great way to only have posts show on your Timeline during the timeframe that they’re active. You can also use this feature if you want to do a flash offer or giveaway on your Page, if you have a one time event you want to promote, if you want to do a live Q&A on your Timeline, or if you want to follow a current event with posts.According to Facebook, “Until now, it has been challenging for large publishers to predict which stories will resonate with their audience. Smart Publishing is a new, optional tool that identifies and publishes stories that are popular with people on Facebook. Once you enable the setting, frequently shared links to your website can appear in News Feed for people who like your Page.
For each page, you’ll see the average monthly organic reach, viral reach, and engagement, and how each metric compares with the average for pages of the same size. social media marketing podcastEngagement is based on the number of people engaged / the number of people reached. To see how your Facebook page compares against this average and have it added to the list, you just sync your page with the Facebook page Barometer. It’s free and only takes 30 seconds. Those posts will not appear on your Page, but you’ll have access a new dashboard in Insights to see analytics, moderate comments, and choose which you want to post to your Page.Animals Australia is a charity; it survives on donor contributions. But, you would be hard-pressed to find any hard soliciting on its Facebook page. Instead, you’ll see humorous pictures and videos of animals, tips for raising your pets, and even an inspirational story or two – like koalas being rescued from a wildfire.They’re a Christian lifestyle brand. Their Facebook page, unsurprisingly, is full of posts recommending films for Christian audiences. But, they also post the occasional Bible verse or televangelist quote, usually in picture format.On Facebook, celebrity pages are not a sales platform. They’re a marketing one. More specifically, they’re about establishing a personal relationship between the celebrity and his/her fans. A relationship that, in turn, will drive sales.The Argenis Carruyo Official page gets this right. It doesn’t pitch album sales. Instead, it posts videos of rare concerts, wishes fans happy holidays, puts pictures of Argenis and his family up, and generally makes him seem like somebody who could live down the street from you.

Facebook Updates and Marketing Tips

As you know, there’s always something new to keep up with when it comes to managing your business presence on Facebook. social media marketing applications In this week’s issue of The Social Scoop, for our #1 featured article, I’ve rounded up not one but FIVE Facebook-related articles pertaining to recent changes as well as suggestions for improving your results. In fact, my blog post title here is a smidge mis-leading because the five featured articles actually include 6 Facebook updates, 23 example fan Pages and over 44 hot Facebook marketing tips! Woohoo!The blog version of this week’s edition of THE SOCIAL SCOOP weekly newsletter follows below! If you’re already subscribed, you’ll continue to receive The Social Scoop via email on Friday mornings. If you’re not yet signed up and would like to be, please enter your name and email in the box to the right (desktop) or below the post (mobile). Using social media as part of your marketing arsenal is not just smart; in today’s landscape, it’s necessary.But true, valuable social media marketing takes more than just an established Facebook page or occasional tweet. To see real results, it involves a strategy and tactics. Get more value from your social media efforts—and focus your efforts into more prosperous directions—with the following five tips. Stop thinking of your profiles as an obligation and start thinking about them as an opportunity.Your profile should do more than serve as a placeholder; use the space to add true value for your reader. What does your business do? Why should someone follow you (what’s in it for them)? This is your opportunity to sell yourself—so take advantage. And remember, your readers have short attention spans, so be direct.
Serving Nashville homeowners for 15 years” doesn’t say anything about what you do or how you’ll help the reader—it simply serves as a tagline. To be frank, it’s a bit lazy. Instead, try something like,marketing using social media “Helping Nashville homeowners to keep bugs out—and happy memories in—for more than 15 years.”It gives an idea of what you offer, addresses the audience, and provides an idea of the benefit.Or, try offering an incentive—for example, “Keep your home bug free for less! Follow our page for free DIY tips and a new coupon code every Friday!”Character counts can be a bit limiting, yes—but using those characters smartly will serve you (and your potential clients) well. Anyone can use social media—but not anyone can use it well. The difference between having a presence and having a presence that works for your business often lies in one simple thing: not being merely present. What does that mean? Well, as I like to put it, don’t be a zombie.People follow—and work with—other people and businesses that they feel an actual connection with. That means that you need to interact with your readers, for starters—but also that you need to do so in a human way.Consider dropping the formal business tone—you aren’t pitching a presentation here, you’re trying to have a conversation. So don’t be stuffy; be yourself! Before you start posting away on every known social media platform, just hit pause and consider what you’re hoping to accomplish. There are so many different sites now—and each with its own quirks and benefits—that trying to use them all is like trying to boil the ocean.

Have a Goal for every Post

Now that you have everything setup, you're ready to start posting. Make sure you have a goal for every post and the type of content you post is aligned with your goal. los angeles social media marketingThese are the three main post types and the effect of each post type.If your goal is to generate traffic to a landing page, then have a link type post to pull fans through to that page. On the other hand, if your goal is to have fans share content with their friends, then use a photo or video type post. Basically, make sure the format matches the goal. In his online course "10 Mistakes People Make on Facebook Pages and How to Fix Them. Instead, take some time to build at least a basic strategy. For starters, consider who your audience is—then determine which platforms they most identify with (and use).For example, if you’re targeting late teens or young adults, Instagram may be a fit. Targeting an older business professional crowd? You aren’t likely to have the same success on Instagram, LinkedIn or Google+ might be more up your alley.Once you know where you’re posting, make sure you know who you are. Your goal is to become an “expert” and influencer in your niche… so determine exactly what that niche is. Then, find your own voice and use it to explain your own unique ideas and thoughts—there’s little value to come from simply restating what others in the field have done or said.In a word, focus. Focus your audience. Focus the social media platforms you use. Focus your niche. And focus your posts to that niche.
Even the most creative among us will burn out trying to constantly think of new, fresh topics. Instead, make use of what’s already going on around you. social media marketing university review Trending topics provide the automatic advantage of tying your content to something that people are clearly interested in (otherwise, they wouldn’t be trending topics). If you’re on Twitter, you conveniently have a list of trending topics displayed right on your dashboard.Buzzfeed is a great site for viral content—often that comes straight to you via your Facebook or other social media feeds.Reddit gives convenient tabs that allow you to quickly find topics sorted by newness, rising content, top content, and other categorizations.Since hashtags have become so commonplace—in and out of Twitter, try Hashtags.org. Notably, there are fee services for Hashtags.org if you want to promote or measure your own hashtags, but there is a free component to simply find what’s hot in the now.Finally, Google Trends is a quick and easy way to find what people are searching for—in general or by topic. When social media first started, it was all about static updates but today’s social media landscape is filled with multimedia content. Think of how to show your audience rather than just tell them. How-to videos, parodies, funny animals juxtaposed with content—the ways to turn your content into videos is endless. Is everyone going to turn into a viral success? Well, no but if you hit the right audience, you can create great impact in your space.

Getting Your Posting Time and Frequency Right

There's a lot of information out there on the best time to post on Facebook and other social media channels. The reality is there are too many variables for this information to be accurate. facebook social media marketing Your Facebook page is unique so you need to establish when most of your fans are on Facebook. To do this, go over to Insights and select the Posts tab. In the example below the highest fan engagement is around 1pm and continues through the afternoon. This is the ideal time to be posting, keeping in mind a post reaches 50% of its potential in the first 30 minutes. Once you start posting, you're communicating with your readers. Great! But are you asking them to take any kind of action? Or are you simply creating a dead-end for the visitor? You need to tell fans what to do next, otherwise they're simply going to surf away. In the example below, fans are informed about an event and invited to register for it by clicking the Register here button. The whole image is a Call-to-Action link and will take the visitor to a registration page. Make sure you track the right analytics and numbers in Insights. You don't want to waste time tracking numbers that aren't relevant to your business or marketing goals. Francisco Rosales from Social Mouths suggests a four step formula to make sure you're getting the most out of your analytics. Today's marketing is all about experimenting and testing new ideas. That's why it's important you set goals for all of your marketing initiatives. Have a clear goal for every post, analyze its performance and, if you aren't getting the results you want, then experiment with something else. Often the Posts you think least likely to have an impact bring the biggest results. So don't be scared to try something new, just don't be deceptive or mislead people.
Insights is Facebook's internal analytics tool that will help you measure and analyze the performance of your Facebook pages. disadvantages of social media marketing Clicking the "Insights" tab will take you to an overview of your page performance. You can then drill down into detailed information about your Page Likes, Post Reach and Audience Engagement. This is where you measure the success of your Post goals and, based on the data, make decisions on how to adjust your marketing to get the results you're looking for. As with anything, your bottom line should be about quality—not quantity.Don’t focus on the number of posts or the number of social media sites that you participate in. Instead, focus on interacting—consistently and in a way that adds value—on the right sites for your purpose.Testimonials are always powerful, and that rule continues on Facebook. However, it’s good to think outside the box when delivering testimonials on a social network. Rather than bland words, incorporate photos, videos, or other media.Facebook users love to get their voices out and feel heard. Try incorporating questions or surveys into your posts for engagement. Keep the questions simple though – no one feels like filling out the SATs on Facebook.Joining in on weekly movements like #ThrowbackThursday or posting about goofy holidays gives you a chance to have fun with fans.And, be more than present, but a part of your own conversation and find ways to provide value to your readers and co-conversationalists. Do this, and your efforts will start to pay off.

Things Facebook Fans Crave From Your Business Page

Do you know what your Facebook fans crave from your Facebook page? If you have been managing a business page for some time, hotel social media marketing you may have noticed that your content is not reaching a big majority of your fan base.Reach is a major frustration for most business owners that I come in contact with every day. However, I want you to stop focusing on reach just for a moment and ask yourself how you can better serve the fans that have liked your page.Here are some common questions that I get asked by my local business clients on a regular basis. The simple answer to this question is – ask your fans! Here’s an example from a local Facebook page. Every month this business owner asks her fans what they would like to see on her page. Check out that feedback! Each of these headings has the potential to generate up to three pieces of content each for your page. Yes, that is 30 potential posts for the week or you could break it down over the month. I’d recommend that you space promotions and contests out. Fans love to enter contests. This is a great way to showcase a new product, boost engagement on your page and build your list. One of the best features of contests using apps was the like gate. Sadly, that is no longer an option as of November 2014. You can still use apps if you want to build your list though. Facebook video is taking over. Last year, for the first time, it surpassed the number of YouTube videos that were uploaded to pages on the site.According to a SocialBakers study of more than 180,000 Facebook videos on 20,000 pages in December 2014, people posted 20,000 more Facebook videos than YouTube videos2 (highlight to tweet).
Social should be about interaction. Depending on your business, you could host a love Q&A on your Facebook page. atlanta social media marketing Of course there is no better example than Mark Zuckerburg. Here is a lovely example of how he recorded a LIVE Q&A – check out all the comments and interaction.Another study by SocialBakers revealed that even when Facebook videos were not as popular as YouTube videos, they received a 40 percent higher engagement rate on the site.While it’s important for brands to make use of various types of marketing channels, uploading videos directly to Facebook can greatly benefit your page. The following are some tips on how to do it so that your campaigns are as effective as possible.Facebook videos should be seen as tools to increase your number of page likes and the amount of likes on your content. They should also get conversation going on your page amongst your fans and followers.To implement this tip, you can include a call to action on your video to hit the “like” button on your page. This kind of video should be the one that’s featured prominently in the “about” section. If it’s hidden away in your video library, less people are likely to see it.To further develop your page, you can also encourage people to like the video, share it, or leave a comment. You might want to ask a question to your fans in the video, or include one in the description.Diamond Candles, which gives lucky customers rings worth thousands of dollars with their candle purchases, posted a video showing off their merchandise. They told fans to “like if you want one” and received 1,836 likes and nearly 25,000 views.

SPECIAL FACEBOOK ONLY OFFERS

The offers feature on Facebook is a great way to drive sales into your local business. My biggest tip is to create something that is exclusive to your fans and makes it really easy for you to track. how to do social media marketing Here is an example from Jessica at Inspire Fitness. She has developed a 21 day programme for her fitness business. By running a special offer to include a discount and a free consultation on her page she attracted over 23 new leads in a couple days that converted into a number of high worth clients.Fans respond really well to visual content. This can come in the form of positive and inspirational quotes to attractive visuals for blog content to photos from within your business. You can use visuals to tell your business story and connect with your fans. Don’t forget you need to build a relationship with fans and this is a simple and human way to do that. I love how Kim Garst uses visuals to inspire her fans. Check out the social sharing and activity on this post! Since Facebook videos can only be shared on the site, you won’t be able to repost your call to action videos anywhere else. If you want to get more of your YouTube subscribers or Twitter followers to like your Facebook page, you’re going to have to upload a video from YouTube or another site onto your other accounts.When a news item or fad is in style, people’s newsfeeds are bursting with content about it. Just take the marriage equality Facebook photo or the KONY 2012 video, for example. You want to be there, on your audience’s newsfeed, with a relevant video that they’ll want to click.
Are you using Video on Facebook yet? If not, it’s time to start. I am starting to do this to introduce my weekly blog posts. Video is one of the biggest trends to hit Facebook this year. social media marketing trends Even if you are not technically savvy, you can still record simple videos on your phone and post them to your Facebook page. Check out what Jay Baer is doing with video on Facebook! I just love these videos, they are valuable, sometimes fun and most importantly they are short and sweet – just perfect for a busy business owner like meLet you fans be the first to know about new products and services that you are planning to release or launch. Do you have an exclusive brand or limited stock that you want to share with fans. They will really appreciate you sharing the news. This is a great example from a local shoe shop. Vaughan Shoes is a family run business in Mayo, Ireland. Donal plays for the county team and is a local hero so the business sell Mayo branded merchandise. Fans went crazy for these pink wellies! If you lived in the West of Ireland like I do, you would know how important wellies are and the pink Mayo ones were a BIG hit for this local business. Look at what trends your demographic is currently into. Are they tweeting about tattoos? Are they Instagramming their Ice Bucket Challenge pictures? Are they making vines about Valentine’s Day? Take a trend, put your own brand spin on it, and post a Facebook video about it. Remember to include relevant hashtags so that you have the chance to garner even more views.

DIY GUIDES OR FREE DOWNLOADS

Adding value with helpful content is really important and as Facebook continue to change the way they show your fans content this is a “must do” for 2015. social media marketing new york By creating helpful guides, how-to’s and libraries of content, you will build trust and credibility with your fans. Check out this great example from Agorapulse. Your free download does not have to be long just make sure it provides real value to your fans.Fans love to know more about the faces behind a business. Don’t be afraid to be “social” and share pictures and stories about your staff members. This helps your fans and customers to connect with the people in your business and when they come to your physical location there is a connection already!This past fall, caregiving company 24Hr HomeCare posted a video about their dedication to No Shave November. They included the hashtags movember and If you do create a trend video, make sure it’s not like everyone else’s. It should also relate to your brand—otherwise, your fans may think you’re simply opportunistic. You want to come off as genuine, not phony.shaveoff so they could be part of the conversation. If you aren’t optimized for mobile, you’re going to have a hard time growing your Facebook page. According to The Verge and data from Facebook itself, 30 percent of Facebook’s 1.32 billion users log onto the social network exclusively on their smartphones. Aside from that, mobile video itself is going through its own revolution. According to a Business Insider study from 2014, 50 million people in the United States watch videos on their phones, and “15 percent of all online video hours globally are viewed on tablets and smartphones.”
One way that your can build your reputation with fans is by what your customers say about you. Do you use the review feature on your page? social media marketing pdf Ask your customers to leave a review when they are in your store or ask them via your page. Here is an example of one from our own page.Facebook is great and I LOVE it as you may have worked out. However it is really important to use it to drive traffic to your website as well. You may write a weekly/monthly post or host videos on your site. Whatever content you are creating over there, make sure you use Facebook to share high quality content with your fans. Jon Loomer is a great example of someone who provides consistent value and uses Facebook to drive website traffic. When people are on Facebook, they view their notifications, answer messages, scroll through their newsfeeds, check in on friends’ and families’ profiles, look at the trending news, and maybe click on an ad. They don’t go on Facebook to watch a long video.When posting a video on the site, keep it short. Data from a Wistia study showed that people are more likely to watch the entirety of a video if it’s shorter. More than 80 percent of viewers watched one that was 30 seconds or shorter, while less than 70 percent watched one that was one to two minutes long.The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a coffee shop chain, posts videos that are mostly under a minute long. The company shows how their coffee is made and uploads fun, promotional videos.You don’t want any random shot to be your thumbnail. If your followers see an interesting image on their timeline, they’re going to click the video to see it.

HOW TO GET MORE TWITTER FOLLOWERS (THE ULTIMATE TWITTER TIPS GUIDE)

This Twitter Marketing resource introduces you to the best Twitter tips and Twitter How tos… period.Each chapter contains several links to hand-picked blog posts that improve your Twitter skills, social media marketing packages gain more followers, and show you how to get more traffic with social media.This will be a living resource, so bookmark this page. Twitter is a microblogging platform that allows you publish Tweets that are 140 characters or less.nd you can either use it to broadcast interesting information… or you could use it to talk to specific people.I’ll go over both…Twitter as Broadcasting PlatformYou can share anything on Twitter from what you’re doing right now to a cool article you just stumbled upon…that’s not the point.Nobody cares what you’re doing right now. We’d like to think they do, but they don’t.People only care about themselves. And if you’re going to share something on Twitter, it’s BEST to think about who follows you… and what THEY care about.Plus, if you do this right, this is one of the BEST ways to get more Twitter followers. It’s not a link. It’s part inspirational, part informational. And people liked it which is why they shared it.And if you dig a little deeper…Much of what I share on Twitter is about just that… starting and growing a business.Yes, I’m interested in it. But I also know the people who follow me are – and that’s why I share it.It’s never about me. It’s about the people who follow me. So, if you’re new to Twitter, remember this: even if you don’t have people following you yet, it’s always about the people who you want to follow you. Don’t share things about yourself. Share things that people want to see.
Every article you read online about social media analytics seem to discuss a new social media metric you should be tracking. social media marketing proposal Identify which social media metric(s) suits your business’s unique needs in this blog post—it goes over examples of social media goals and which social media metrics you should measure to report on those goals.Tracking retweets and likes is no longer enough to give you sufficient data about engagement. Remember that link you included in your post to drive people back to your website? Well, when you use URL shorteners, you’re provided with a trackable URL, so you can measure the success of that social media post in driving traffic to your website. Learn about what are URL shorteners and get answers to frequently asked questions about them in this blog post about URL shorteners.You’ve probably seen people use a hashtag with every word in their Tweet, or dedicate a separate Instagram comment to include hashtags. But that doesn’t mean that’s the right way to use hashtags. Educate yourself on the do’s and don’ts of how to use hashtags in this blog post that goes over the fundamentals of hashtags.Getting organized and figuring out a social media content schedule is imperative to your social media success. By using a social media content calendar you’re able to figure out a social media content schedule that works for your business. Not sure where to start when it comes to creating a content calendar? This blog post goes over how to create a social media content calendar and the benefits of having one for your business.

Track mentions -- and respond if appropriate

Track brand mentions and keywords to make sure [you know what's being said about you]," says Vikram Bhaskaran, director of marketing at Freshdesk, a customer support Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution. social media marketing for dummies And be sure to respond in a polite, professional manner if appropriate. "After all, customer service is the new marketing!" And many customers now post their product queries and complaints on Twitter.Set up Twitter searches for terms relevant to your brand," adds Ginger Geoffery, director, Social Marketing, The Mac Groups, a social media agency.Don't be afraid to retweet as this will help link you with and cement your own thought leadership within your industry," says Mark Rushworth, head of Search at Blue Logic Web, a Web services provider.Many people don't know about favoriting tweets, but it can get someone's attention more than a retweet or a mention," says Amy Marshall, COO, Fathom, a digital marketing and analytics agency.Once you know what Twitter is and how it works, these 7 resources will show you how to use Twitter the right way. You will learn what other Tweeple do and how to get your followers to click your links."Monitor the conversations in that search and jump in to the conversations when appropriate," Geoffery she says. "For example, say you're a dentist in Buffalo. You could set up a search for the term 'dentist Buffalo.'" Then, when "you then see someone in Buffalo tweet 'I need to go to the dentist but it's so hard to get an appointment,' you could jump in and [tweet], 'We'd love to have you as a new patient
Using social media advertising to expand your social media reach is an opportunity that any business should take. Investing in social media ads should be an integral part of your social media strategy. social media marketing definition However, knowing how to use social media ads effectively is something everyone should take the time to learn before investing a hefty budget into advertising. This beginner’s guide to social media advertising will provide you insight into the different advertising opportunities available on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and StumbleUpon.If you’ve made it down to this last tip, congrats! We’ve talked about various social media marketing tips; now, to provide you with a final takeaway, download these 6 social media templates to help boost your social media presence and save you valuable time and effort.So, you know how to use Twitter and you know how to create high-impact tweets, but no one is listening. Here are 9 resources that show you how to gain Twitter followers and how to lose Twitter followers. I highly recommend you check out how Kevin Rose increased his Twitter Followers.Here is where several bloggers talk specifics. You will learn how to increase your RSS subscribers and Blog readers via Twitter. Additionally, you will learn why specific types of bloggers, like lifestyle and business bloggers, use Twitter and how they do it.This is the one-stop source for all Twitter resources that relate specifically to business. You will learn how people acquire customers and grow their business using Twitter.

Offer discounts or special deals to Twitter followers

un Twitter contests such as: 'The next 50 people that retweet me will receive a coupon for 50 percent off, social media marketing firm or have people post pictures of themselves in the store or using the product and do a random drawing," suggests Marshall.Look at the trending topics and hashtags and find a way to make a relevant connection to your brand," says Crystal Cantabrana, director of Operations, Grizzly Group LLC, which provides social marketing solutions. "By putting your business among the trending topics, your handle will be seen when people search tweets regarding that particular hashtag.Tagging our posts with one or two relevant and trending hashtags has [helped us] to reach new users," says David M. Burrows, vice president of marketing & PR, Cinsay , an online video commerce company. However, "hashtags should be used sparingly, as they can be seen as 'Twitter spam' when over used or attached to irrelevant content.Where there are people, there will be marketers looking to market to them. Twitter has lots of people and here is how you can market to them the right way. You will learn how to go viral and how to build your brand.With Twitter No Following all their outgoing links, are there still SEO Benefits? These 6 articles will help you learn just how it works.So, I talked about Blogging, Marketing, SEO, and Business. Here are more ways you can use Twitter. Some highlights include, Twitter for Journalism, Twitter for Career Advancement, and Twitter for Recruiting.
This is the most important chapter. Once you learn all the tips and tricks of Twitter, here are some real world examples of how companies and people use it. social media marketing firms If you know of more case studies, please tweet me as I would like to build this out substantially.These Twitter Tips are just a bonus and don’t fall into any of the above categories. It’s hard to establish yourself as a one-stop-site for something as broad as a city, especially when it’s a major one like Chicago. But DNAinfo.com Chicago is doing a wonderful job of it.Most of it comes from the variety of their posts. They go after major stories, the ones that nearly every Chicagoan will have heard and be affected by, but they also post smaller too. There’s city-wide posts and posts relating to specific neighborhoods. From cultural events, to crime, to sports victories, to restaurant grand openings, their Facebook page has an impressive breadth of content. It appeals to as many Chicagoans as possible, and that’s why so many of them become fans. Club Mavi, a hotel in Turkey, is a nice hotel but not a major, internationally recognized one. It won’t get fans just for existing; it won’t even always get everyone who stays there to like the page. Brand awareness is a concern. And that’s why Club Mavi puts its logo on nearly all of the pictures it uploads. When their fans interact with those pictures and their friends see those interactions, they’ll at least get to see the Club Mavi brand.

Must-Have Social Media Marketing Tips For Business

You already know about our main mission to provide our readers with advice on social media. We’ve written how-to guides, shared different templates, and have created many lists to cover important topics in social media marketing. social media marketing news However, we know that for people in charge of social media management, especially in small businesses, don’t always have much time to browse through an extensive blog archive. To give you a hand, we’ve compiled 18 blog posts that touch on the topic of social media marketing tips that will help you improve promoting your business on social media.Especially after launching Buffer for Business recently, a lot of business approached us, asking which practical tips we had for them to improve their social media and content marketing. Since Twitter announced inline images, we’ve been experimenting with this change by adding images to a lot of the tweets from our @buffer Twitter account and have noticed a big difference in the engagement we’re getting. To get a better idea of what a difference inline images has made, I took the last 100 Tweets including a link from our @buffer account (not including any Retweets) and compared the averages of the tweets with and without images included.Using Buffer’s built-in analytics, I was able to look at the number of clicks, favorites and Retweets each of our Tweets received. Our click-through rate did grow, but not by very much. My theory on this is that with an inline image, there’s more content for the user to consume without leaving Twitter (which is probably what Twitter wants), so they’re not much more likely to click-through.
Of course, that’s just a theory so it’ll be interesting to see what the data says over a longer time period as we keep experimenting with this.Favorites increased quite a lot. Along with Retweets in the graph below, social media marketing network this shows a lot more engagement with the Tweets themselves. Clicks, on the other hand, show engagement with the original content.We often share our blog posts multiple times on social networks, for a few difference reasons. Some of the biggest benefits we get are more traffic, reaching people in different time zones and sharing our content with people who’ve followed us since we last posted it.The first, and perhaps most obvious, reason to share your content more than once is to drive more traffic that the initial share.Tom Tunguz did an experiment on his own blog to show how reposting the same content helped him to boost traffic.To get an idea of how many people were seeing and sharing his posts, Tom looked at the number of Retweets he got when Tweeting a link to one of his blog posts. We can assume from this that actual visits to his posts increased with each Retweet, as well. With each subsequent Tweet of an existing blog post, Tom noticed that he got around 75% as many Retweets as the time before.Guy Kawasaki is known for posting the same content multiple times, and one reason he advocates doing this is to reach your followers in different time zones. We’ve also noticed that Tweeting posts from the Buffer blog more than once gives us more traffic and more engagement (favorites, Retweets).

Create a social media marketing plan before you begin

Similarly to the way you do everything else in the world of business, you must make a plan before executing. Same goes for social media. marketing through social media Creating a social media marketing plan will set you up for success, and will allow you to avoid any social media mistakes. Learn how to create a social media marketing plan and watch your social media game flourish.Something we’ve noticed at Buffer is that a lot of our posts are still relevant months after we publish them. The other thing that changes after we publish a post is that more people follow us on social networks, so if we repost content from our blog that’s six months old, many of our followers will be seeing it for the first time, so they’ll get value out of it even though it’s old content.You can use a tool like Twitter Counter to track your follower growth, so you know when it’s a good time to repost some of your older content. Find 2 headlines for an article that you think will perform well.Tweet both of these headlines at roughly the same time, at least 1 hour apart. We’ve found that posting the two Tweets both in the morning or both in the afternoon works best.Compare the data for each Tweet to find the best headline for your blog post. The second Tweet clearly performed better as we found out through our social analytics and Buffer’s algorithm also identified it as a top Tweet. In fact, you can clearly see that the second headline got double the number of clicks.When we see a big difference in engagement on a different headline like that, we usually go back to the original post and change the title itself (the URL never changes, just the heading of the post).
Something we try to do each time we post a piece of content is to slightly reframe it so we’re not just repeating ourselves. social media marketing certification This way we can sometimes get double or even triple the amount of engagement by highlighting different elements of the content each time we post it. We often do this on Twitter as well.You can simply right click any image on the web with Buffer’s browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome to share a new image post on Twitter or Facebook, that according to the latest social media statistics, will garner significant more clicks, Retweets and favorites.Skimping out on social media engagement in your social media strategy can pose a huge threat to your company’s social media presence. The 3 steps to doing social media engagement right are being proactive, always listening, and being engaging. Learn more in this blog post.Whether or not you should keep your social media management internal or outsourced is a decision many business, big or small, encounters. It takes time to weigh the pros and cons of the decision to give up the keys to your social media accounts. To learn about the kind of things you should consider, here’s a blog post that talks about the pros and cons of outsourcing your social media management.Every (smart) business has a website, but not every business gets the desired amount of traffic to their website. Using social media to drive traffic to your website ranges from the basic tactics everyone should be using, to more sophisticated methods that take a little more time to master.

Do a social media audit of your social media presence

Before creating a new social media profile, run a social media audit of your current social media presence. social media marketing consultant Social media audits are useful to keep all your social media ducks in a row, such as social profiles and passwords. To help you conduct one, use our social media audit template to get you started. If used strategically, these 5 tips found in our blog post that talks about how to increase website traffic with social media marketing will help you reach your website traffic goals.Here’s an example of how we might do that on Facebook.When it comes to social media, people have all the power to say whatever they want about your company and brand. What they are saying can be positive or negative. Regardless of how or why they give you feedback, not monitoring your social media audience is a missed opportunity. There are 3 ways to get the most out of social media monitoring, and this blog post explains them and more.You’ve probably heard this many times already, but I want to stress it once more: LinkedIn is no longer optional for any business, big or small. This social networks provides you with credibility, a large network of professionals, sales opportunities, and a marketing platform for your business. Educate yourself on the 4 reasons why your business should be on LinkedIn in this blog post.Social media tools like Hootsuite take the stress out of managing multiple Twitter accounts by providing you the ability to schedule Tweets ahead of time. There are 3 ways you can use Hootsuite to schedule Tweets and this blog post goes over how to schedule Tweets with Hootsuite.
Knowing what to include in your social media strategy is key to your social media success. But do you know what not to do on social media? social media marketing ideas There are many common social media tactics that can be damaging to your social media presence and this blog post touches on the social media mistakes you should put on your ‘what to avoid list.’There are many who support the use of social media for business, but there are still skeptics out there who don’t see or understand the benefits of social media for their business. This blog post uncovers 10 benefits of social media for business that will make any social media skeptic think twice about not using social media.Social media statistics allow marketers who use social media for business to guide their social media strategies. With so many studies being done on social media, it would be a shame not to take advantage of these very informative numbers. This blog post puts together a healthy selection of social media statistics that every social media manager should know.Even with a social media content calendar in place, content management can be tricky—especially if you’re juggling several social channels. Picking out the right piece of content to share out to your social media audience can be a daunting task for any social media manager. Learn 4 content management tips you can do with Hootsuite in this blog post.

Ways to Use Twitter to Market Your Business

At the time of its SEC filing in early November 2013, Twitter had more than 232 million active monthly users, 53 million of which were in the United States. social media marketing books That makes Twitter a potentially powerful marketing tool if you know how to use it. So how can you leverage the popular 140-character social media site to drive more traffic to your business or website? Dozens of Twitter experts, marketing pros and business leaders who have used Twitter to market their brands, products and services share their top 14 tips for how to successfully market your business on Twitter or employ Twitter as a marketing tool. Make sure your company identity and voice are branded well," says Jon Ferrera, CEO, Nimble, a provider of social CRM. That means having a bio that tells people who you are and includes a link to your company website or a landing page and having "a consistent tone so that people clearly understand who you are and what you do."Use Twitter search or a tool like Topsy [or Followerwonk] to find like-minded prospects, customers and influencers/media by searching keywords that relate to your industry," says Stacey Miller, social media manager at cloud marketing provider Vocus. Then follow and interact with them on a regular (daily) basis."Make a list of the 100 most influential people in your space journalists, thought leaders, potential clients/customers, big-name bloggers and writers, potential partners, etc.," says Shanelle Mullin, the director of Marketing at Onboardly, a provider of PR and content marketing for startups.
Add them to a private Twitter list and engage with them daily. (Tools like HootSuite make managing this process much easier.)" And remember to "be casual [and helpful], not promotional," Mullin says.social media in marketing "Build a real relationship and then look for opportunities to collaborate.The first people to help build your brand should come internally," says Amanda Cohen, marketing coordinator, Homescout Realty. "Make sure your coworkers are following you on Twitter and tweeting, retweeting, engaging, etc.Regular tweeting is a sign of an active, healthy profile," says Sandra Fathi, founder & president, Affect, a public relations and social media firm. "If you only tweet once a week, or once a month, you aren't keeping up with the Joneses [or the Twitter equivalent]. Worse, folks will forget about you,I recommend daily postings and engagement so that you are top of mind on a consistent basis," Fathi says. Just be sure you are tweeting relevant or useful information, content your followers will read, click on, retweet and/or favorite.Ask followers to retweet, mention or favorite your tweets -- or to share content with a fresh tweet.Get visual," says John Lee, manager, Brand + Social Marketing, Webtrends, a digital marketing solutions provider. "Photos and videos drive three to four more clicks on Twitter.Images, videos and other rich media have proven to receive more views, clicks and shares than plain text tweets," says Marko Muellner, vice president, Marketing, ShopIgniter, a social performance marketing platform.

Make sure Twitter is integrated with your other marketing efforts

While community managers may be doing a great job engaging followers, a banal post about enjoying the weekend is much less effective than rich, in-stream content in which someone can, small business social media marketing for example, view a film trailer and find out where the movie is playing in their neighborhood," Muellner says. "In fact, research shows that rich tweets have significantly lower negative feedback rates as consumers appreciate interactivity and content designed for their social mobile context. "Be sure to directly target your audience with Promoted Tweets," says Bryan Shaw, community manager at 3dcart, an ecommerce platform. "Failing to define exactly who you're trying to reach [could] cost you time and money. Just "be sure that your promoted tweets aren't spammy," says Aaron Endré, a marketing and PR expert helping B2B tech startups. "The goal is to provide value that establishes trust and credibility, not trick people into clicking a link." And "Keep it fresh," adds Alicia Antoniolli, account manager, Social, 3Q Digital, a digital marketing services provider. "Make sure your promoted tweets don't run for too long." If you want to continue to get that message across, find a slightly different way to say it. The former editor at Copyblogger, Morrow now runs a highly successful website, Boost Blog Traffic. A mix of his own blog content and curated content from other sources occupies Morrow’s Twitter feed and covers all the digital-marketing and social-media bases.
Twitter, like other social media platforms, is much more effective when integrated with your other marketing activities," says Mark Schmulen, general manager, social media marketing plan sample Social Media, Constant Contact, an engagement marketing company. "For example, if you're running a promotion or contest on Twitter, let your email subscribers know about it, as they are another customer base who have already let you know that they want to receive messages from you," he says. "Inversely, by occasionally tweeting out the link to your mailing list, you can also tap your Twitter base into your email content.Use Twitter's native analytics daily to get a grasp on what's resonating and what's not with your audience once you've built it," says Miller. "In the analytics dashboard, you'll be able to tell what your best days to tweet are, the types of content that are more favored and the demographics of the followers that you're attracting," she says. Then you can "replicate what's working and rework or reevaluate posts that aren't.A blogger and freelance writer, Hines knows a thing or two about content marketing. In addition to helpful content marketing tips, you will find her tweeting about productivity, social media and SEO.An entrepreneur that founded several software-as-a-service companies, Patel provides an abundant amount of information via his own blogs as well as valuable curated content. Shah co-founded multiple SaaS companies with Neil Patel. His Twitter feed is a source of excellent content, covering all digital-marketing formats.

Social Marketing Overview with Twitter

Social media platforms are constantly changing. I hope this article will provide you with an introduction, catch-up or refresher on social media marketing. marketing on social media I pulled together some social marketing tips for a presentation to WordPress website developers and designers at WordCamp Los Angeles (WCLAX) on September 27th. Several attendees asked for Twitter tips so that is my primary focus here. I decided to use the format I have used in this article instead of just sharing a set of slides, so that I could add some verbiage and give you links to articles I have written that further explain some of my points. All elements of this article are copyright Linda Sherman. Please include a link back to this article if you share it online. The images are watermarked, so you are welcome to share any of them so long as you leave the watermarks intact.We use MindJet MindManager mind maps with clients for everything from brain storming for 5 year business plans to website plans. If you see me at a conference, you will notice I am taking notes with maps. Maps are much easier for the right brain to absorb. There is more than one mapping software out there. We like this one. It is very easy to use with drop and drag and sections can be highlighted with color. Maps can be saved as PDF’s and shared with clients with live permalinks in the entries.The cobbler’s children have no shoes applies to many website developers and designers. We are so busy with clients that we put ourselves last. Take the time to review your own website.
As the content crafter at Buffer, Lee tweets a great deal about social media and content marketing. social media marketing campaign His content typically features a lot of posts filled with tips that are suitable for people of all skill levels. His company, Digital Marketer, has one of the best blogs I have seen in a while. His Twitter feed features videos and blog posts that discuss strategies for building email lists quickly and scaling business revenue via online marketing.The CEO of VaynerMedia and the host of the #AskGaryVee show, Vaynerchuk’s Twitter feed is a great way to stay up to date with the latest episodes of his show as well as reading the latest content from his blog and platforms that he contributes to, such as Medium.As the founder of pay-per-click management-software-company WordStream, Kim’s Twitter account is a great source of PPC information, naturally, but he also tweets a lot about social media and content marketing.Porterfield is all about growth, from social-media followers to prospects and profits. Give her a follow to have a constant flow of helpful content to engage with.As the president of Convince & Convert, a strategy-consulting firm, Baer’s Twitter is a source of relevant information covering everything digital marketing and social media.A small-business-marketing consultant, and the man behind the popular Duct Tap Marketing blog, Jantsch is a great person to follow on Twitter to keep your feed packed full of great online-marketing-related content.