Last Minute Holiday Ideas For Social Media Marketing

15Dec

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

Time is almost up. Santa has already planned out his course. Most gifts are wrapped. Many stores are already preparing for Valentine’s Day. While the holiday season is the prime time for marketers, it’s a very brief and time-centric period, so you need to act decisively and quickly.

If you haven’t touched on the holiday season in your content at all, you’re missing out on a nice heaping helping of customer engagement and brand awareness. Perhaps you have done a decent job covering the holiday season, but you’re looking for that extra festive flair for your Facebook, Twitter, and other accounts. Either way, you need to check out these content ideas that will help spark the holiday spirit:

1. Updated festive visuals – Add a Santa hat to your profile pic, a menorah to your cover image, flashing lights to your Snapchat Story. Above all, make sure your holiday-themed content has imagery.

2. Flash sale – It’s a bit too late to do a “12 days of deals” type deal. However, it’s still fair game for quick “limited time” social-media-exclusive sales. Make sure they’re worth people opening up their wallets for them because a lot of “wish lists” are complete!

3. Contests – Giveaways and prize draws are popular at any time of year, but especially during the holiday season. A big basket of merchandise or a larger grand prize will get people flocking to your page.

4. Eblasts – While not strictly speaking social media marketing, an e-mail marketing campaign is an effective and personable strategy content idea for reaching out during the holidays. Some services allow the ability to add variable data such as names, addresses, interests, etc.

5. Pics from the team – Whether you post (not embarrassing) pictures from your Christmas party or your team reaching out to the community for a volunteering event, this idea adds a healthy dose of humanity to any marketing campaign. This type of content, above all else, should be promo-free.

So, maybe the holiday season snuck up on you this year, or you’ve been grasping at straws for what to publish. Either way, the above ideas will help you finish off the holiday season on a high note so you can focus on the new year!

Click Here to Subscribe

Tap Into Your Customer’s Mind Through Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

14Dec

Business, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Marketing, Social Media, Social networking, Twitter, Uncategorized

What is a marketer’s job? To promote a business, right? No. Actually, it’s to be a mind reader. Every piece of data that we study, every update we publish, every advertisement we create, is all in an effort to create something that adheres to the customer’s mindset. This is why psychics would make such good marketers. However, we can’t tap into our audience’s minds, as nice as it would be. There is good news, though. We have the next best thing.

Social media allows us to study the public’s reaction to our marketing efforts. Never before has there been such an accurate and analytical marketing medium as this. Sure, we can have focus groups, polls, studies, and even articles written about traditional marketing efforts. Yet with social media marketing, we literally have the raw reactions to our strategies before us.

How exactly do we see this? The answer, like many social media related issues, lies in engagement. Obviously, if you’ve struck a chord with your followers, they will like, share, comment, retweet, upvote, message, and rate your content. If not, then your engagement may look a little desolate. That in no way means you have to give up, however. That just means you have to go back to the drawing board. Even successful marketers regularly restrategize.

As we’ve seen with events such as the Presidential Election and other significant events, people have no problem sharing their thoughts online. Comments are precious assets not only for marketing but how your business is perceived by your customers as a whole. Do yourself a favor and read the comments on your pages. You’ll be surprised at how much insight you can receive. Additionally, more innovative ways like Facebook Reactions and Quote Tweeting will further tap into your fans’ psyches.

Social media marketing gives us a “backstage pass” into your customers’ thinking. While we may not be able to see what they’re thinking exactly, their real and organic reactions speak wonders.

Click Here to Subscribe

The Top 5 Daily Habits For Social Media Marketers

By Christopher Tompkins

13Dec

Business, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Marketing, Pinterest, Snapchat, Social Media, Social networking, Twitter, Uncategorized

A morning routine is something that we all enjoy and need. It seems like our bodies go into auto-pilot mode as we brush our teeth, wash our face and prepare for the day. Habit, routine, and structure make for a successful day. This is the same for social media marketing work. Yet things go a little beyond brushing teeth in the world of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the other platforms.

Here are 6 habits that every marketer should have in their routine.

1. Check out your competitors. It helps to be a spy. See how your top competitors and industry influencers approach marketing. Are they offering big discounts? Is their engagement down? Did they forget a holiday? See how you’re faring and see if there is anything inspiring out there.

2. Read an industry-centric article. Even in seemingly stagnant industries, there is always something new and powerful to read. It’s always helpful to read what people are saying about your industry. This will help you learn about new updates, trends, and alerts.

3. Read a marketing-centric article. Since you’re all caught up in your competitor’s activities and industry news, you need to learn the best ways to funnel these content ideas into the best way possible for your social media audience. Should you create videos? Lists? Contests? Check out the best marketing strategies happening right now!

4. Research trends.Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Feed.ly, and Google will all help you find out what people are talking about right now. Find a way to harness today’s hot topics into your social media strategy, whether it’s a holiday, event, or movement.

5. Check scheduled posts. Smart marketers know that automation will allow them to plan and focus on other important elements of social media marketing than scheduling. That being said, you need to make sure everything is being published correctly!

Are these five habits in your work routine? It’s important to keep a careful watch on what’s happening and what’s being posted. As you continue throughout your work week, you will find that these small steps will benefit you and your efforts in big ways.

Click Here to Subscribe

What Is LinkedIn SlideShare?

By Christopher Tompkins

12Dec

LinkedIn, Social Media

LinkedIn is all about marketing with your fellow professionals. It’s essentially the world’s biggest conference if you will. It’s one of the few social media platforms that didn’t branch out into areas that it was never intended for. LinkedIn is for serious networking, and that’s that. That being said, every now and again they come up with new and innovative ways to share your wealth of knowledge. That’s where SlideShare comes in.

SlideShare is a stand alone site, albeit one that works entirely through your LinkedIn profile. Here, users upload infographics, documents, and most importantly, slideshow presentations named slideshares with other professionals. There are tons of slideshares available for viewing on a multitude of subjects. Think of PowerPoint presentations on steroids. These are all shareable through LinkedIn. In fact, you’ve probably seen material from SlideShare if you’ve spent any time on the traditional LinkedIn site.

Similar to a blog’s purpose, a slideshare presentation allows businesses to express their thoughts and knowledge via original or shared content. After spending a few moments on SlideShare, you will realize that this new medium of information delivery has a lot of potential because it strikes a poignant balance between text and visuals. It’s also a tad bit more digestible than infographics, but those can also be acquired through this site.

Who says the days of the slideshow are behind us? It just needed a facelift, that’s all. LinkedIn was the platform for the job, as we’re able to now consume a dense amount of information in an innovate fashion. Marketers should consider SlideShare a great tool in their social media utility belt.

Click Here to Subscribe

5 New Facebook Features You Need To Know

By Christopher Tompkins

11Dec

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

Sure, Facebook is just a website, but because it reflects its 2 billion users, it’s also a living, breathing organism that evolves over time. Because of this, those who run the platform continuously update both their desktop and mobile versions.

1. Facebook Discover – Once again, the king of social media takes notes from the new kid in town. They’ve created this new feature which allows users to see newsworthy stories, trends, and profiles just like Snapchat’s similarly-named section.

2. Facebook mobile’s new video section – The analysts were right. Many people predicted Facebook would have a new mobile section for video and it’s prominently placed right next to our traditional timelines. Take note marketers, your videos will get more attention now more than ever.

3. Facebook Workplace –The social media giant is getting down to business. Workplace is an enterprise collaboration app that is magic for both social media marketers and professionals of any industry. To combat the hugely popular programs Basecamp, Slack, and HipChat, they’ve created this software in hopes their already huge brand will expand. Now any office can utilize Facebook when they’re working with their teammates.

4. Chatbots –Chatbots are huge right now and are taking over Facebook Messenger. It’s a new way to communicate with a brand. While you won’t be talking to a human, you can purchase items, get caught up on news, ask support questions, and more. It’s definitely worth looking into for your own business.

5. Facebook Reactions – This new feature has been around for a little while, but some marketers don’t realize the new opportunities Reactions bring. This tool is especially useful for polls, contests, and other engagement-heavy content. Send a “like” for option A, a “Haha” emoji for option B, and etc.

Like Google, Facebook is trying to branch out in just about everything. Social media is an important facet of our everyday lives both personally and professionally. As we can see, these updates are evolving our experiences and as such, so should our strategies.

Click Here to Subscribe

SEO V.S. Social Media Marketing: What’s The Difference And What Marketers Need To Know

By Christopher Tompkins

10Dec

SEO, Social Media

When people begin to research online marketing, they quickly realize that two terms seem to dominate most conversations – Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM). In fact, these two are used so much that it can make someone’s head spin, especially if they’re not entirely sure of the difference.

To start things off, let’s establish some definitions.

Search engine optimization is a process which allows a web page to appear in the most viewable placing possible in search engine results. For example, if someone looks up “fishing supplies” on Google, Bing, Ask, AOL, or Yahoo, they will get a list of related web pages that feature fishing supplies. Businesses that incorporate SEO strategies will, in theory, appear above others.

Social media marketing, on the other hand, is a tad bit different. Entirely different, actually. This method allows businesses to not only appear in search results on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest, but it also allows them to interact with customers through a variety of avenues. Marketers can represent their brand via profiles and pages. They can also share a constant stream of original and curated content, similar to an individual’s activity on these platforms.

We may be tempted to ask ourselves which one is better. SEO or SMM? Well, these two are not competitors. Instead, they cater to completely different aspects of the online marketing industry. The two are essentially completely different crafts despite contributing to the final product of increased online visibility.

That being said, social media marketing contributes to online marketing efforts in ways that SEO, in its nature, cannot. Here are the top advantages social media has over SEO:

Immediate customer and audience communication. Businesses on social media have the ability to respond to customers who are trying to reach out via messages, tagging, tweets, etc. After all, it is social media.
The ability to send out constantly fresh and updated content. SEO allows you to be in the spotlight in search engine results. Social media allows you to be in the spotlight of social media news feeds. The average Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram user checks their feeds multiple times a day, thereby increasing your chances of getting engagement.
Quick personalization and “damage control.” Are there negative comments about your business on social media? No problem. You can immediately respond to the “crisis” in a positive and professional manner. Does a negative comment pop up on search engines? You’re in for quite a headache.
The benefits of “peer reviews” and user-generated content. People like to read reviews from their fellow consumers. While places like Angie’s List and Yelp are helpful for this, social media is one of the most popular places for reviews and offers a special advantage – companies have the ability to respond and tell your side of the story, whether the review is positive or negative.
Considerably less expensive promotional options. Social media isn’t completely free if you want to be successful. Facebook advertisements, for one, is a very helpful albeit paid service. Still, social media promotional services may prove to be inexpensive when compared to premium SEO options.

We don’t do traditional SEO, as it takes quite a while to be effective, whereas social media takes 4 to 6 weeks to really take off. It is also quite costly. With SMO (social media optimization) we get people to your site via PR, targeted relationship building, social media advertising, and strategic use of keywords, hashtags, and algorithms.

Now, there is one bridge to connect these two worlds and that is Google+. By posting social media content on this platform, your SEO rankings will be improved on Google via the keywords you used in your updates. Google is by far the most popular search engine and offers this helpful solution to have best of both worlds.

When it comes down to it, SEO is a visibility tool. SMM is a communication tool.

There is a place for SEO. No smart online marketer would say otherwise. It can help service-based businesses show up when people are searching for solutions. However, SEO in no way replaces social media marketing. By representing your business on Facebook, Twitter, and the other platforms, you’re essentially giving your customers the opportunity to benefit your company by tagging your business, giving 5-star ratings, sharing your posts, and much more. It’s a completely different marketing animal, and one that is proven essential for online brand awareness.

Click Here to Subscribe

6 Steps To LinkedIn Success

By Christopher Tompkins

8Dec

LinkedIn, Social Media

When the average internet surfer thinks about social media, they tend to think of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Yet LinkedIn continues to stand firm as one of the leading platforms for professionals to reach out and connect with their peers in a unique way.

A little over 200 million users are on LinkedIn, many of them have found valuable connections they wouldn’t have had access to otherwise. Linkedin’s success all boils down to how you use it. Check out the following steps that will help you market on one of the largest and most important platforms available.

Notes – Learn a lesson from the world of blogging. Posting original articles will help you establish online credibility as an idea generator in your industry. It’s a great way to attract attention and you can reuse these articles on Facebook, Google+, and promote via Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Groups – After you’ve written a note, you can’t just let it sit on your LinkedIn profile and become stagnant. You need to share it! One of the most effective ways of accomplishing this is through LinkedIn Groups. There are so many groups on LinkedIn that you will be able to quickly find many communities in which you can discuss, connect, and share your written content.

Endorsements – LinkedIn is all about looking as professional as possible. Endorsements help you accomplish this by utilizing your fellow peers. When you create your LinkedIn profile, you choose which skills you have. Other users have the opportunity to “endorse” this skill, which is further affirmation saying “Yes, they really are good at this! I’ve seen it!”

Genuine Invitations To Connect – One annoying aspect of LinkedIn is that there are a lot of recruiters and promoters online. You can spot one quickly when you see a generic invitation to connect. When you want to reach out to someone, write a personalized, polite, and real message.

Stay Away From Sales – LinkedIn isn’t the place to post sales, coupons, and promotional content. You’re already selling your image on this platform, do not try and sell to your fellow colleagues in the same industry.

Staying Updated And Current – When you’re creating your posts, come up with relevant, creative, non-controversial, and compelling content. You want to make sure you come off knowledgeable about today’s situations and business landscape.

LinkedIn has the power to become one of your greatest allies in your marketing efforts. Do not let this opportunity up! Start connecting with fellow professionals today.

Does LinkedIn have you stumped? Contact us today to jump on board!

Use Social Media To Project Your Work Culture

By Christopher Tompkins

7Dec

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

Wouldn’t it be nice if your business could take a selfie? Well, it can through your employees. Emphasizing your company’s unique and vibrant office culture through social media is a great way to humanize your business. It appeals to the very core of social media, which is person-to-person communication.

Social media marketing is quite a bit different than traditional methods. It requires a human element. Otherwise, you’re just posting a bunch of ads. The most successful social media campaigns projects work culture through the following methods:

1. Pictures from around the office/events. Christmas party? Post (non-embarrassing) pictures! Methods like Snapchat Stories and Instagram Stories have even proven to be great with this so you can show behind the scenes shots of your office.

2. “Staff Picks”. Whether it’s an interesting article, a book of the month, the movie of the year, etc., what your employees like is always a fun way to add a bit of humanity and caring into your brand. This is also very effective when talking about the products and services you sell.

3. An employee of the month. Fairly self-explanatory. By spotlighting an employee, your social media will show your brand is people-driven. This is important for customer relations so your brand can come off as approachable.

Be real with yourself- do you like your office and your coworkers? Let the good vibes show on your social media marketing! Your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram followers will love these types of posts – and so will your team!

Click Here to Subscribe

The Top Tools To Automate Social Media Marketing

By Christopher Tompkins

7Dec

Advertising, Business, Content Creation, Email Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Marketing, Pinterest, Snapchat, Social Media, Social networking, Tailwind, Twitter, Uncategorized, YouTube

Before you know about social media marketing automation, you may be wondering how do these companies have marketers employed seven days a week to post at all hours? After learning about automation, you may smile and wonder why you didn’t think of that in the first place.

Many businesses use software tools, so their social media marketing stays consistent. Smart marketers understand that posts should be published on a regular, if not daily basis. The following tools help marketers live a life and still reap the rewards of the internet:

Hootsuite. Our friends at Hootsuite have made a comprehensive package with their software. Yes, you can schedule posts for your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ business pages, but you can also study the performance of these posts via detailed analytics and reports.

Onlypult. Instagram is an animal of its own and as such, a specialized tool called Onlypult only deals with Instagram. It’s a great tool that can help you schedule, study, and review content.

Post Planner. This handy scheduling tool has one thing that others lack. Canva integration. Canva is helpful design software that partnered with Post Planner so you can make exciting imagery as you schedule. What a time saver!

Crowdfire. Automation isn’t only about scheduling. As you can imagine, plenty of sites can do that. However, Crowdfire is one of the few tools that can help you reach a massive amount of people on Twitter with just a few clicks of a button. You can “follow back” those who followed you, unfollow inactive users, and even tap into a competitor’s fan base.

Tailwind. Pinterest can’t be left out of the loop, now can it? Tailwind provides analytics and scheduling, but you can also increase your reach by pinning to multiple boards. It also offers content calender and a nifty browser extension.

As you can see, signing up for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. is just the beginning. These helpful tools will help you raise your social media marketing game so you can promote, pin, and post like the pros!

Click Here to Subscribe

10 Inspiring Online Destinations For Content Creators

By Christopher Tompkins

6Dec

Advertising, Business, Content Creation, Copywriting, Facebook, Google+, Graphic Design, Instagram, LinkedIn, Local Marketing, Marketing, Periscope, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, Social Media, Social networking, Tailwind, Twitter, Uncategorized

There’s nothing worse than being stumped on what to write about. We all know how daunting the blank page can be, or an empty spot in your content calendar. Well good news, you’re not alone.

At times, writer’s block is no match for the internet, while other times the sheer magnitude of the web causes us to become overwhelmed and leaves us without results. You need filters, guides, and specific places to go for the best material.

Here are the best places to find content ideas for social media marketing, blogging, and more:

Google. Okay, we all use Google. But the handy website goes far beyond the standard search engine. You can specifically look for news and filter results based on the most recent or relevant. You can also set up alerts that help you stay aware of new content relevant to specific keywords. Finally, Google allows you to study trends and topic performance with Google Trends. It’s a handy tool that transforms content into quantifiable data. All three are fantastic features that not many marketers utilize.
Facebook and Twitter. I bunched these two social media giants into one category simply because you’re able to search for content in similar ways. Hashtags, trending charts, and search bars are all very helpful when trying to find that spark of inspiration.
Reddit. While Reddit is technically a social media platform to a certain extent, you can use it as a resource. Reddit is comprised of categories named Subreddits and you can find content that’s specific to your topic. r/cars is ideal for mechanics, r/technology is for computer companies, r/news is all-around awesome.
Groups. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ house communities where like-minded professionals go to discuss relevant topics. These places are great for inspiration and new insights.
Blogs. There’s nothing like a blog to get your brain working. There are millions of these sites out there that offer up a plethora of information. The only problem with blogs, however, is that they can be difficult to find. Blog Engage is a great place to find new and exciting avenues to knowledge.
Email Marketing. Instead of trashing every email you receive, save the ones that might actually get your brain thinking or offer an engaging news article. You might find out that not everything in your inbox is spam.
Stack Overflow. I love Stack Overflow. It’s a fantastic place to find the answers to technical questions, but they also offer a seemingly infinite library of knowledge and resources. They also have plenty of sister sites that will fit a wide variety of your content-hungry needs.
Feed.ly. Like Google Alerts, Feed.ly is great because you can sit back, relax, and wait for the content to come to you. It takes just a few moments to set an account up and you will soon see a nice stream of articles, blogs, and more coming your way.
YouTube. YouTube offers content suggestions based on things you’ve already viewed. This causes it to become a surprisingly deep well of knowledge and information. Just don’t get too distracted with funny videos.
Your Own Page. Lastly, all the inspiration you need might be on your own Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram page. Read your followers’ comments, study analytics, and read your older content.

There is no excuse for writer’s block or blank pages anymore. With the above recourses, you should be ready to take on the content creation world with a revived passion for marketing!

Still stuck? Contact us today to see how our social media managers can bring your marketing to new heights!

Click Here to Subscribe

Tag : how to share content on social media