Hashtag Your Holiday! Why The Calendar Is Your Social Media Friend

4Jul

Advertising, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Marketing, Pinterest, Snapchat, Social Media, Social networking, Twitter, Uncategorized

Happy Fourth of July! As Americans celebrate their Independence Day, fireworks will set off, hot dogs will be grilled, and beer will be slurped all throughout the fifty states. Meanwhile, our fun moments will be documented online via social media. These are the kind of days social media was made for! We will see tweets upon tweets of firework videos and Facebook status updates wishing America a Happy Birthday in the coming hours. Guess what? Your business needs to join in the fun.

Social media marketing rocks holidays. They bring inspiration to the writers, deliver a massive amount of content, and by using appropriate hashtags, your posts will show up on a whole lot more screens than traditional content. By acknowledging a special time which customers are most likely participating in, you will be showing the humanity of your company which is a key goal in social media marketing. You want to be involved in the community you are reaching out to.

Of course, Independence Day isn’t the only holiday and each festive time brings its unique array of content curation ideas. When December rolls around, you are in for some holiday overload so a nice balance of holiday-centric posts and business-centric updates will give your audience room to breathe. You should not ignore a holiday, even if you are a bit of a Scrooge. Every year, Google catches heat for not acknowledging Easter Sunday with their Google Doodles. You don’t want that kind of publicity.

There are also holidays beyond those that the Post Office acknowledges. Each industry has awareness months and niche holidays that pertain to its demographic. They can range from events like Breast Cancer Awareness Month (which is October) and National Ice Cream Day (which is coming up on the 17th! Get your scoopers ready). No joke, every single day is a holiday, sometimes two or three of them on the same day. A little bit of research will give you a plethora of things to celebrate.

From a strict business sense, you should use social media marketing to take advantage of holiday shopping rushes. Between Black Friday specials to Back to School sales, the Sunday Paper inserts have nothing on a boosted Facebook post. So, get your Santa hat on and light those sparklers, because your business will benefit from participating in these special fun days.
What holiday posting techniques does your business utilize? Comment below!

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Why Your Company Can’t Fly Without Twitter

By Christopher Tompkins

3Jul

Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, Social networking, Tailwind, Twitter, Uncategorized

Many people immediately think of Facebook when social media is brought up in a conversation. Sure, it is the most popular of the platforms, but it isn’t the only helpful tool available. Twitter is a unique social media platform. Think of it as Facebook’s hyperactive, social butterfly of a cousin. News flies quick on Twitter, and more businesses flock to the platform everyday.

For those thinking, “Isn’t Twitter just a smaller version of Facebook?” they are in for a surprise. Yes, the infrastructure of the site enforces a 140 character limit for each tweet you publish, however effective social media managers use this to their advantage.

As we have said, news travels fast on Twitter. Because of this, you can quickly grow an effective brand with a wide reach. Due to the speed of the website’s activity, the 140 character limit is a necessity, otherwise it would be too long for someone to read, and it would be swept away in the news feed. For those saying that they only need a Facebook, you may want to realize that Twitter is where stories break the fastest. Time is a factor with social media, and your whole audience can watch your tweets unfold during an event, a Q and A session, or an unveiling of a product. As responsive as Facebook is, Twitter is even more so. This allows customers’ questions to be resolved as quick as they ask them and relevant topics to be on your news feed immediately. As a leader in your industry, weighing in on important news topics and rising issues is crucial. This is why reporters use Twitter every single day. They are able to post and tweet while a situation is still unfolding.

Twitter is like a sports car- without excess baggage, lightning fast, and it has the ability to turn heads. It has become one of the central hubs for social media professionals to promote a consistent and contemporary brand, and its demographic is universal. You can also gain some extra firepower in your marketing by utilizing Twitter Ads. They can ensure your promoted posts are in the spotlight, which will be extremely helpful considering how quickly other tweets fill up news feeds. We recommend you tweeting multiple times a day and share others’ content by retweeting and quote retweeting so your twitter account is top notch.

How does your business use Twitter? Comment below!

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What Your Social Media Marketing Doesn’t Have (But Really NEEDS!)

By Christopher Tompkins

2Jul

Advertising, Email Marketing, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Local Marketing, Marketing, Periscope, Snapchat, Social Media, Social networking, Twitter, Uncategorized

At this time, millions of businesses are on social media. Yet this doesn’t mean they are all successful. Perhaps, they have created accounts out of sheer obligation to a boss, or it was a one-shot attempt to stay trendy. As social media gurus, we see these kinds of accounts often. “Bare bone accounts” do the minimum by showing up on their platform of choice’s search results. However, this actually backfires on the owners by disappointing fans due to their lack of content. What should a social media account bring to customers?

To utilize the potential of your business profiles, you will want to optimize your page. In detail, go through each area that Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms offer, and your profile will have increasingly positive results. Sure, your name, address, phone number, and website address are all important, but an effective page requires in-depth copy for short descriptions, a company overview, a mission statement, and several other areas of the page.

Customers do not enjoy having to search for your resources and they shouldn’t have to. Facebook offers you two menus to provide helpful links. The “Apps” section allows your business page to showcase the essential pages of your company’s web presence. This section can also turn into a handy portal to your other social media platforms. The top of the page’s horizontal menu can be customized to transport customers to your most important assets and the web pages you want them to visit.

Twitter offers less optimization options, so you will want to take advantage of every single line offered. Descriptions, web addresses, locations, and a powerful cover image will make your profile look just right. Like everything else about Twitter, their customization options are effective and sleek.

Unlike Twitter, LinkedIn has tons of room for customization. Fill out as many fields as possible. Both personal and business pages have their own unique set of options, so take your time and don’t leave any room for customers’ unanswered questions. Your pages should speak for themselves!

Every platform offers different ways to present your information. Optimizing your page is one of the most important early steps in social media success. Here is another tidbit- this isn’t a once and done step. As your company grows, so should the information on social media. Keep everything updated and accurate. You may find this process repetitive, but by enriching all your pages with as many details as possible, a whole new level of professionalism will be yours!

What optimization tricks do you know of? Share below!

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Steps To Stay Ahead In Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

30Jun

Social Media

It seems that news stories have shorter and shorter life spans with every major event. Events that happened last week are already old news thanks to the internet. We are hungry for fast, fresh, and high-quality content and it is up to social media marketers to deliver. How exactly do you keep up with it all? Here are some helpful steps to take:

Schedule. While planning your posts for a particular period of time won’t help you with breaking news, scheduling ahead will be one of your most beloved tools. If you devote a few hours each week to social media, you will not feel obligated to spend every moment on the computer. Then, use either the native scheduler of your social media platform of choice or a third party such as Hootsuite so your updates will go live when you want them to.

Stay Informed. Be sure to have a sharp eye on what is happening in the world and in your industry. To do this, you will want to follow the leaders of your field and reputable news sources. Once you see news start to break, it will erupt over the internet landscape very quickly, so jump in early.

Watch the calendar. Of course, knowing the date is important, but what we are referencing here is keeping on top of seasonal trends. Holidays, awareness months, and anniversaries all bring success to social media marketing. You don’t want to be that one Facebook page that doesn’t wish a Happy Mother’s Day!

Social media marketing isn’t easy. It is hard to keep up with all the moving cogs and gears that make up the internet. Yet with these tips, you will be good to go!

Do you have any other tips about staying ahead? Comment below!

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You Published A Blog! Now What?

By Christopher Tompkins

29Jun

Copywriting

We are here at the end of our blogging for business series and you should be ready to post some great content on your new blog! After you hit that publish button, thousands of fans are guaranteed to visit your site in just hours, right? Not so true. While SEO is an important tool in promoting a blog, you will need a little more help getting noticed in the overly crowded internet landscape.

Your blog is not meant to replace your social media marketing. Quite the opposite, actually. Both of these internet-based tools are meant to work symbiotically together. You should be proud of your new blog post and as such, you will want to promote it on every social media account you have! On your website, where your blog hopefully lives via a link on the menu, you should have the links to your social media pages. All of this is your material and as such it should complement itself through internal promotion.

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You can also publish your newly-crafted article on Facebook Notes and LinkedIn to share with your followers. LinkedIn is particularly effective at this as it has the ability to share your writing with fifty groups. Talk about publicity!

You will also be able to use your blog article’s copy in your newsletters and email blasts. Original material is precious so you should take advantage of the writing you now own and broadcast it through all avenues.

We hope you enjoyed our series about blogging for business. Now let’s see what kind of awesome blog posts you come up with! If you ever have any questions about blogging or social media marketing in general, please feel free to contact The Go! Agency team!

Do you have any thoughts on how to share your blog? Comment below!

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Avoid These 3 Blogging Mistakes

By Christopher Tompkins

28Jun

Copywriting

When you begin your blogging adventure, you will find that like all forms of writing, it takes time to master. Do not give up! If you find yourself with a small audience (or none at all) there may be some room for improvement. Like social media, it will not happen overnight. Be patient with yourself, but stay consistent. Yet as you try to improve your content, there will be a few pitfalls to steer clear from. Here are the top three blogger crimes to be vigilant of:

Overly-Promotional Posts- Let’s face it. If your audience wants to read a piece of advertising, they will pick up a brochure. You do not want your articles and subject matter to be all promotional material. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, you are missing the point of a blog. It isn’t about posting ads. It is rather supposed to be a professional piece of writing that entices your target audience and hopefully invokes engagement along the way. Second of all, nobody is going to read your posts if they read like an infomercial. As a concept, a blog has a certain reputation to uphold and if readers discover that your writing is just ads, they will back out quickly. Lastly, you are going to come off as pompous. If all you talk about is your own product, then perhaps you need to conduct more research into your industry.
Grammar and Spelling Errors- Nothing looks more unprofessional than a glaring typo on a blog. You want to be sure to skim over your work multiple times. Also, a second pair of eyes such as a proofreader is a priceless member of a writing team. Try to have the piece as perfect as possible before sending it out to the scrutinizing world wide web. In addition to grammar and spelling, fact check. You will cause a firestorm of criticism if you post half-truths or unreliable information. Be sure to be as professional as possible and do your research.
Inconsistent Publishing- Because a blog places your most recent posts “above the fold” on the screen, an old date will stick out like a sore thumb. People like reliable and consistently new content on their favorite blogs, so be sure to deliver and often.

There are several faux pas to avoid, but these three big baddies should never be done on a professional blog. If you steer clear of “salesy” posts, grammar and spelling errors, and big time gaps between posts, your blog will be better for it and you will have internet success.

What other blogging mistakes can you think of? Comment below!

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How To Pick Your Pic: 4 Easy Steps On Getting Social Media Imagery Right

By Christopher Tompkins

28Jun

Graphic Design, Social Media

Here in social media country, creative writers and graphic designers alike can find a home. Social media thrives on the visual as much as it does the textual. With the written word, there’s plenty of rules to abide by. SEO rules will get your posts higher up on search engine results. Hashtags will get your updates in the right news streams. User names will grab the attention of the right people. Anyone who even reads social media can see there’s obviously some formulas to follow when writing. Yet what about imagery?

From the earliest days of social media, visuals have been just as important than anything written, if not more so. We talk a lot about how to formulate awesome content, but pictures tend to take a back seat. For an image to be eye-catching, there needs to be a few elements present. For the picture to actually help your social media campaign succeed, you need an additional set of things to consider. Here are the most important items to make your pic rock!

Clarity. The idea of clarity covers two fronts. First, the obvious. A picture shouldn’t be blurry, pixilated, warped, or blown out. Unless your posts are about those old bigfoot pictures, clarity shows you’re a professional. You’ll need a high resolution image of at least 300 dpi to make sure that it’ll be crisp and clean on most screens. Large pictures are always good to pick so you’ll have peace of mind that your social media posts won’t look like a vintage video game. However, you should also keep in mind that huge pictures will take time to load. You’re also going to want to steer clear of any images that have watermarks or another company’s logo somewhere on it. The second side of clarity is subject matter. Don’t have your followers trying to guess what they’re looking at. If they can’t figure out what’s going on in a picture, they’re going to give up and scroll away quickly.
Subject Matter. Most of the time spent on images will be on pictures that accompany posts. Make sure the picture you pick out actually makes sense and is appropriate for the subject and audience. Obviously, this means no obscene pictures plucked from the dark corners of the web, but also that it fits in with the tone of your brand.
Optimization. There are many ways to make an image jump off the screen. You could spend hours trying to make a picture just right. First of all, colors are important. If you have very specific rules with your company’s colors, be sure to adhere to them. You may want to consider some basic design laws. Choose colors that complement each other. Lastly, GIFs and animations have become popular once again, and you can take advantage of this. These will add a bit of motion to your images and it might help attract the right set of eyes.
Professionalism. Having high-quality, professional images is an element of all three prior items. However now we’re referring exclusively to your profile and cover images. For businesses, logos are always a great way to go for the profile image and a nice clean accompanying graphic for the cover image. If you’re representing yourself and you need a headshot of yourself, be sure it is a high-quality image, you’re wearing something appropriate, and you know…smile! A word to the wise: just because it’s your personal page, doesn’t mean recruiters, clients, and potential employers aren’t looking through your stuff. Get those old party pics out of there.

There’s no question about it, images can make or break any post. These are the kinds of things that social media marketers truly strive to achieve perfection with because we understand how quickly an image can bring a whole new wave of attention to a page.

What do you think about imagery’s role in social media? Comment below!

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Anybody Out There?! Understand your Followers

By Christopher Tompkins

28Jun

Advertising, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Local Marketing, Marketing, Social Media, Social networking, Twitter, Uncategorized

Those who are involved in the world of social media marketing could learn a great deal from a certain advertising star. Have you ever heard of Old Spice? If not, it’s a company that makes toiletries that are geared towards men. It’s been around since 1934 and as such, they’ve had some time to think about their intended audience. For a whole generation, it became the man’s fragrance. However, because of that, once “the greatest generation” that fought in WW2 and came home to reshape America began to enter their golden years, their iconic brand started to “get old” with it. People began to peg the brand with senior men and as such, their young customers started to dwindle. They needed a way to reinvigorate themselves to become popular again with the young crowd. They broadened their product line with multiple fragrances, body washes, and deodorants. Yet what really put Old Spice back into the hands of young twenty-somethings was their marketing campaign. They enlisted Terry Crews and Isaiah Mustafa, two celebrities know for their “manliness”, to endorse the product. Yet they did much more than that. They blew it up!

Their television commercials, which ended up being viral phenomenons, showed the men in such ridiculous poses in often psychedelic settings, that people had to pay attention. They looked absolutely crazy, entitling the campaign “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”. Yet what was even crazier was that it worked, and then some. See, they didn’t just tap into a younger market, they infiltrated them because they utilized what the youth liked best- quirky, off the wall humor and viral marketing. They knew who they wanted to get and they assimilated the tone of the brand.

Now, we’re not saying you need to hire Terry Crews and put him on a unicorn while holding your product—although that would probably work. But you do need to know who your audience is, and what they want to watch. Like Old Spice, you need to understand how your audience thinks and what they like to watch. That’s the thing- it went beyond a commercial. People actually searched for these advertisements for entertainment value. Now, it’s your turn. Your content needs to go beyond pushy sales. That’s a surefire way to lose followers. You’re going to want to understand the following things to succeed:

WHO your intended audience is. Whether it’s an age, gender, style, or profession, you obviously have some type of target you’re aiming at.
WHAT content they want to consume. Does your audience like cute puppy videos? What about something more substantial like a sale? Figure out the type of things they want to have in their news feeds.
WHERE they’re at. Facebook is a go to. But younger audiences are flocking to Instagram and Snapchat. Professionals hang out over in LinkedIn. There’s those three guys who still linger in Google+ territory if you’re interested.
HOW they talk. This is where Old Spice really hits the mark. They knew who they wanted and they analyzed their tones. Witty, sarcastic, funny, and, to be frank, not all that interested in the complexity of the product. Figure out how your audience talks. Perhaps they like a more serious tone. Maybe they only like shop talk.

Before even clicking that “Sign Up” button on a social media site, you need to answer these questions. Chances are, you already know the answers to them and you’ll be able to translate your pre-existing business tactics onto the web.

What do you think about the tone of audiences? Let’s hear your thoughts!

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Reddit: The Popular Black Sheep of Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

28Jun

Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Marketing, Reddit, Social Media, Twitter, Uncategorized

At this point, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are pretty common brands that a majority of people know. However, there’s one social media website, Reddit, that not many are knowledgable about. It’s an odd duck, that’s for sure. However, many people prefer Reddit’s format than others. So, what makes Reddit so different than the other social media giants? If you haven’t heard of the website, you’re in for a treat.

When it comes to Reddit—whose name comes from “I Read It”—social networking is a little different. It has a more traditional forum format, which encourages users to reach out to strangers, as opposed to finding old high-school buddies or coworkers. People go by user names and aren’t really encouraged to use personal information. All user names have “u/“ in front of it. For example, u/screenname.

People use Reddit to find news stories on specific topics or to discuss very specific things. It’s the king of the niche audience, so you can subscribe to sub-communities, or “subreddits”, based around a subject you’re interested in. All subreddits start with “r/“, so an example would be r/politics or r/funny. People can subscribe to many subreddits so their “front page” is filled with information relevant to them.

A big way that Reddit differs from other websites is the order in which posts become visible. Each post and comment is equipped with up and down arrows so users can up-vote or down-vote content. The concept behind the thumbs-down button everybody always wanted on Facebook is alive and well on Reddit. When you first log onto Reddit, you won’t find the most recent posts, you’ll find the most popular. This makes fresh content to be visible slower than speedy Twitter feeds. Users can always click the “new” tab on any subreddit to see content that is being posted that very second. However, you might have to muddle through some junk.

Reddit is starting to turn some heads. At first, it was more underground, yet now, it’s taking traction and celebrities are doing a special type of Q&A session with their audience called AMAs (Ask Me Anything). It’s a great way for business owners and celebrities to reach out to their audience in a unique way. Even President Obama did an AMA, which received approximately 12 thousand up-votes.

While you can have a friend list, it isn’t really the place for socializing with people you know in real life. However, it is a great place to reach out to a community of like-minded individuals and discus relevant topics. You might even find a celebrity or two in the comment sections.

What do you think of Reddit? Let us hear your thoughts!

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Why Customers Are Your Biggest Social Media Fans

By Christopher Tompkins

Social-Medias-Role-in-Customer-Service--200x300

28Jun

Advertising, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Local Marketing, Marketing, Pinterest, Social Media, Social networking, Uncategorized

We’re aware of all the benefits social media has when it comes to personal communication. We’re able to connect like never before! That’s true when it comes to customer service as well. Each platform gives us unique opportunities to reach out to customers in innovative ways. Huffington Post explains how social media allows businesses to drop an intimidating veil and come down to an approachable level. Here are the top ways businesses benefit from what will define our generation in terms of business and human interaction:

Technically speaking, businesses now have access to a ton more data. Whether it’s customer reviews, demographics, or analytics, social media now helps get the numbers straight. We are able to look into the minds (and conversations) of our customer bases. This allows us to create better content, more engaging posts, and essentially adapt to the needs of the market.
Businesses now have a direct line to their customers. They don’t have to worry about other mediums like television channels and press releases if they don’t have to. If they want to reach out, all they have to do is press the “Publish” button. Now, with updates to Facebook’s Messenger app, we can greet them with immediate replies in case there isn’t someone near a screen to reply. There are also AI systems in the works so you can allow your customers to enjoy a quick, automated process.
As stated earlier, social media allows businesses to be human. They now communicate like everyone else and can have a real conversation. This is why we post engaging, fun content instead of constantly barraging our followers with ads. This is supposed to be social media, not a sales pitch.

We see a big shift in the way businesses market and advertise thanks to social media’s tools. The internet has opened up a whole new world for professionals to reach out to customers in a fluid, organic, and frankly, fun way.

For more on how social media changes the engagement of customers, check out Huffington Post’s article here: http://ow.ly/FH4P3008ThL

How has social media helped your business? Let us know!

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