Tips For Social Media Marketing Rookies (Part 1 of 2)

25Jun

No matter how experienced you are with personal social media accounts, business accounts are a different animal. We’re not even talking about social media marketing: most social media platforms have different rules for business accounts. Today we’ll share the best practices for each of the most popular social media networks.

General tips:

First and foremost, follow the basic rules for content marketing. That means aim for quality over quantity, provide valuable content for your audience, and stick to a consistent posting schedule.
Sign up for (or convert your personal account into) a business account. This is recommended–and often explicitly required–by every platform. Social media networks usually have different rules for business entities than for personal accounts, and most networks are very strict about keeping business and personal accounts separate. Business accounts often have access to tools and perks that a personal user would never need.
Carefully review and follow each platform’s Terms of Service. What one network considers acceptable, another network may find objectionable. You need to make sure that you follow not only the rules for that network, but also its rules specific to business accounts.
Your profile matters. Make sure that your profile is completely filled out and contains all the relevant information your consumers might want. Include clear images of your company’s logo. Your branding should guide your profile’s design: colors and fonts should be consistent with your other branding materials!
Don’t forget about SEO! The format might be different, but you can still optimize your social media presence for search results! Utilize SEO in your profile’s About section, your posts, and your descriptions.
Take advantage of the platform’s analytical tools. Most social media networks offer analytical tools for free. These tools are not offered to personal or non-commercial users, which is another good reason to sign up for a business account.
Engage with your audience! Social media marketing (like all quality content marketing) is about connecting with your customers, so respond to all comments and answer their questions.
Confirm that all of your images adhere to the network’s size restrictions. An infographic that took your team hours to design will be worthless if automatic resizing makes it indecipherable.
Your posting schedule should be dictated by your audience. Schedule your posts for whenever your audience is most likely to be online and/or on that site. Different networks have different peak times, as do different demographics.
Tailor your profile and content to each network. Every individual social media platform was created for a specific audience and purpose. You should customize your content, message, and branding for each platform.

Facebook

Make your profile pop! Always include images and your logo whenever possible. Your profile picture should clearly display your logo or brand.
The design of your page can drive engagement. Install a Call to Action button on your profile, near your header image. Pin important posts to the top of your page.
Reach out to your followers! Surveys and polls are gold for engagement. Include a Call to Action in your posts or descriptions.
Crowdsource your content! Ask followers to share photos or stories that involve your brand (a maker of yoga gear might ask followers to take pictures of themselves wearing the brand while doing yoga in untraditional places, for instance). Are you trying to choose a new design, flavor, or product? Ask your followers for their opinions!
Don’t forget about hashtags! These handy tools aren’t just for Twitter and Instagram! Hashtag the relevant keywords in your posts and captions. Don’t go overboard, though: two hashtags should suffice.

YouTube

Your content should be current and relevant. You don’t have to jump on every trend, but don’t be the last to join either. Likewise, avoid format trends that don’t apply to your brand. Just as some industries/products/services are suitable for a tutorial video, the same format would not work as easily for other specialities.
Titles should be clear and concise. Put keywords before branding in your titles (i.e., the video’s subject matter, then your company’s name). Titles need to clearly describe video content.
Tags still matter, even though you can’t see them. Tags are not visible on the view page, but you can download an extension that reveals them. Remember to list the most important tags first, as the first tags are prioritized in search results.
Take advantage of captions and transcriptions! Not only does closed captioning make your videos more convenient and accessible, it improves your SEO rankings! Likewise, including a transcription of the video in the description is another opportunity for SEO. Beware the auto-captioning tool, though: garbled captions will make your brand look clueless. Double check the captions and translations before you post your videos!
Descriptions should be short and informative. The first three sentences of your description will be displayed in the search results, so make sure that they include the most relevant information. Mention your value proposition in those sentences. Include a call to action in the description as well.

Pinterest

Curate as well as create. Pin things from related brands. This will drive engagement and spread your brand’s message.
Use Boards to your advantage! Create boards around your lesser-known products or services. Repin content from your popular boards to your lesser-known boards.
SEO still matters. Optimize your descriptions and your “About” section. Use keywords for Board titles. Use descriptive names and alt-text for your pins.
People love infographics. Infographics are great everywhere, but Pinners in particular adore this content! Created or curated, make sure that you include a few wherever possible!

As we said earlier, social media marketing is an offshoot of content marketing. If you follow the same general rules for good content marketing, you should see good results. Pinterest is just now receiving recognition for the marketing opportunities it provides, so your brand should definitely take advantage before it’s too late.

Don’t miss our next blog, which will cover LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter!

Need help navigating social media? The Go! Agency is at your service! Visit our site to schedule your free consultation!

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6 Pinterest Mistakes To Avoid

By Christopher Tompkins

17Sep

Pinterest, Social Media

Pinterest is an unsung hero of social media. While many people know about it, not all take it very seriously. When you first visit the site, you may understand why. It’s very sleek, colorful, and a little chaotic. It doesn’t resemble Facebook or Twitter in the slightest. Still, Pinterest has a whole lot of potential, and marketers are doing their brands a disservice by not checking it out.

Where does someone begin on Pinterest? The best way to learn how to navigate to this hip platform is to understand what NOT to do. Here are the top mistakes Pinterest professionals should avoid:- Underestimating Pinterest. There is a stereotype that says Pinterest is only for DIY projects, recipes, and makeup tutorials. While that stuff does have a place, Pinterest is as diverse as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Give it a try for yourself. Look up any topic. There will be a wide variety of content just waiting for you to consume.

– Over-promoting. Pinterest is a place for interesting content. Yes, there is room for advertising, even at a premium level, but not every pin you post should be some form of promotion. It’s a good way to fall off the face of the board. Instead, integrate a motley mix of eye-catching and interesting content.

– Over- sharing. Okay, so since you can’t put only promotions, you will have to post interesting content in some form. The immediate social media “go to” answer might be to share someone else’s pins. Sure, you can like, share, and save a good amount of content, but you need to make your own! Whether it’s a link to a blog, a stunning info graph, or a cool collage, you need to get creative on this platform more than most.

– Ugly Pictures. If you thought making visually appealing content for Facebook was a challenge, then Pinterest will be brutal. This platform thrives on images that pop and can pull viewers in with just a glance. Vertical imagery is key to stand out. This is why info graphs are so effective on this site – they allow you to display a large amount of data, through attractive imagery.

– Sparse boards. Pinterest is all about boards, which are collections of posts that share relevant subjects. Nothing looks worse on Pinterest than empty or incomplete boards. Be sure to add to these collections often and ensure they are about popular, searchable subjects.

– Isolating your Pinterest. No social media account should be an island. Cross-promote your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Invite your followers to check out all the fun your Pinterest has to offer. It’s a great way to start your journey on this platform with a little bit of backup.

Pinterest opens many opportunities for engagement, brand awareness, and your company’s online presence. Did you know that The Go! Agency team has extensive experience with Pinterest? We work with brands every day to make their Pinterest accounts pop off the page and raise brand awareness as much as possible.

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The 5 Best Ways To Perfect Pinterest

By Christopher Tompkins

7Jul

Advertising, Local Marketing, Marketing, Pinterest, Social Media, Social networking, Uncategorized

Pinterest is a very eccentric social media platform. Yet despite it breaking some traditional norms, it has a lot of potential. It’s a great place to find inspiration or a unique way to use a product. Yet it doesn’t have to be for just DIYers. Pinterest is definitely an opportunity for businesses to promote their brands.

If you are new to Pinterest, once logging on and picking your interests, you will see that posts (or “pins”) are arranged in a different way. It’s too cool for traditional linear order! But its content display isn’t the only element that is unique. Check out these great ways to be a Pinterest pro.

First of all, Rich Pins are great ways for businesses to have an advantage over the competition. They will cost you some money, but these posts have extended reach and your followers will be sure to view them easily and your content will be viewed.

Images are the biggest elements of your pins, literally and figuratively. As such, they should be bright, simple, and eye-catching. After all, they will be competing with many posts, so you want your followers’ eyes to lock onto your pins as soon as possible. Longer images work best on this social media platform thanks to its layout, but this can work in your favor, especially if you decide to add overlying text. Speaking of the written word, you have the opportunity to add captions. You will want to take advantage of this. Pinterest isn’t the place for a long-winded block of text, but a couple hundred words could help get your point across.

If your goal is to reach out to a local audience, you can utilize Place Pins. this will allow you to talk about a specific location and showcase imagery. This is a great way to show some hometown pride.

Lastly, keywords. When writing for Facebook and Twitter, the rule of thumb is a maximum of three hashtags per post. However, with Pinterest’s keywords, you can go crazy. The more the merrier on Pinterest! These will help you get a lot of attention on this popular website.

Pinterest is yet another avenue to tap into your customer base. It is growing in popularity and you should research how you can take advantage of its unique infrastructure.

How do you use Pinterest? Comment below!

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Pinterest: 5 Quick Fixes to a Stagnant Profile

By Christopher Tompkins

14May

Marketing, Pinterest, Social Media, Uncategorized

When formulating your marketing strategy, images can be crucial to conveying your message to members of your target audience.

Don’t think so?

How about your website, brochures, commercials, YouTube videos, billboards, business cards and more?

So, as you can see, your company is a bit more visual than you give it credit for.

This brings me to Pinterest. If you are currently using Pinterest to market your business and connect with prospects – well done. Pinterest is not an easy fit for many businesses, as the link between their visuals and their product offering is not always straight-forward. But for early adopters with extremely visual companies, it has been an exciting new venue to market their wares.

Today I want to speak with those companies that are currently using Pinterest to market their businesses. Do you feel like you are using it effectively yet?

Here are 5 tips that you might be missing when using Pinterest for your business. These will help you easily tweak your current strategy to not only get more hits to your website, but will also help you to connect and engage more effectively.

1. Complete Your Profile! This seems obvious, but I’ve seen enough incomplete profiles to feel the need to bring this up. Make sure that your logo is high resolution, can be fully seen in the given space and is easy to read. Fill in the “About You” section with your full company bio and make sure to add info on your key products and services.

2. Verify Your Website! For the non-tekkies out there, this can seem a bit daunting, but Pinterest makes it pretty simple. Give it a stab yourself, but my advice is to ask your IT wizard to get it done for you. It should take them all of 5 minutes and then you will be able to prominently display your website to get that all important exposure and clicks.

3. Maximize Your Pins! Make sure that your pins have links to related content on your website. This is how Pinterest is driving traffic to websites and has made marketers sit up and take notice. No links = no website traffic from Pinterest. Also, don’t forget to add your keywords in the description.

4. Make Your Boards Relevant! I’ve seen many companies that are just repinning random information without a strategy. You want to make sure that you have boards setup that reflect your business AND will interest and engage your audience enough to compel them to view, click and share. Puppies, babies and sarcastic cartoons are cute – but do they really convert? Make every pin count.

5. Build Your Network! If you haven’t looked for connections on Twitter, Facebook and your email database – this should be your first step. Use the “Find Friends” feature and follow Pinterest’s easy instructions. A great tip is to find a direct competitors profile and see who is following them. My bet is that those are potential prospects for you. Choose some of their followers and follow their boards. This will get you in front of them and increase the probability of them engaging with you!

These 5 items will help you make your professional Pinterest profile more attractive to members of your target market. Now…get Pinning and remember to follow us on Pinterest by clicking here: http://pinterest.com/thegoagency/