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Whitepaper: 8 Essential Tips for Social Media Success

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:43:39 -0400

For the 15% Discount off all Sendible plans click on the image above. To download your FREE whitepaper fill in the form below!

Tired of reading articles or books on how use social media that don’t really tell you anything? So are we.

Be engaging. How? Be interesting. What does that look like? Respond to responses. No kidding.

In this paper we will provide 8 practical, put-into-action tips for you that will make a real difference in your business’ social media strategy. Ready to propel your company’s online presence into the stratosphere? These tips will help you do just that.

^*These fields are required.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/whitepaper-8-essential-tips-for-social-media-success/

Sendible’s Agency of the Month

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:56:43 -0400

Sendible will be featuring an Agency of the Month on the first Friday of every month. The Agency the Month will be recognized for their outstanding achievements in the fields of Social Media Management or Marketing.

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Source: http://sendible.com/insights/sendibles-agency-of-the-month/

Announcing Sendible’s Smart Queues with Optimal Publishing Technology

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:12:01 -0400

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/announcing-sendibles-smart-queues-with-optimal-publishing-technology-2/

8 Essential Tips for Social Media Success (Part 4)

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:45:02 -0400

Congratulations, you made it! Here we are at the end of this short but very important journey in increasing your online credibility and reach in the new frontier of social media.

I hope that you have learned a few things along the way at least, and I know that if you have been practicing what I’ve been preaching that you are well on your way to expanding your business.

While many of the tips I have given you are very specific, these last two are more of a big picture overview. Once you have the details of the other tips in place, these will ensure that you have a consistent voice and that you don’t slack up in the future. Let’s finish this strong!

7. May the Circle be Unbroken

You need to be on more than one social site. If you don’t have a website of your own, get one now. You don’t have to spend a fortune hiring web design experts or hosting services.

If you’re on a tight budget or bootstrapping your startup, you can use a service like Yola, Squarespace, WordPress or Blogger. Some of these will offer hosting services as well (a home or parking space for your domain name). You should spend the small amount that it costs to register a domain name, or even more than one. It looks more professional and the costs are minimal.

In addition to your website, you need a blog (a blog counts as a social site, and should be treated the same way when it comes to moderation and responses). This can be a page on your site, but I recommend having a separate site for it. That way your site can link to your blog and vice versa. Links, and the resulting traffic from readers clicking on them, will make the search engines happy with you and bring your sites to the forefront of search results much better and faster than a single site.

Which leads nicely into the next point. A site and a blog are necessary, but they don’t take the place of other social media sites. I recommend having a presence on Facebook and Twitter if nothing else. That was and, not or. At the very least you need to maintain a website, a blog, a Facebook account, and a Twitter account. IMHO (in my humble opinion – remember the tip on acronyms?), Google+ is also indispensable, and Pinterest should be leveraged if at all possible.

You can add many other sites if you like, and the more you can handle effectively, the better (tip 8 is coming, don’t worry). Once you have them established, you want to make absolutely sure of two things:

First, every site where you have an online presence should have a link to all of your other sites, and they should be easy to find. They can be under your “contact us” section, like on our site, or you can have buttons on the page that displayed even more prominently. On your Facebook, Twitter, or other social sites they should also be prominent in your profile section. Browse other sites to see what they have done and find what style works best for your company.

Second, your many sites should be consistent when it comes to your voice. If someone gets a different idea about you (or your products and services) when they visit different sites, it will be confusing at least and give them pause about your credibility at worst. You are one company, not four or five.

8. It’s Not a Hobby

Drum roll, please. You want a tip for social media success? Here it is, the fabled tip 8. Ready?

DO EVERY TIP YOU’VE READ BEFORE THIS – EVERY DAY, EVERY WEEK, EVERY MONTH, UNTIL YOU DROP. Clear enough?

To paraphrase the great Winston Churchill, never, never, never quit. This is your business, not something you play around with in your spare time. Take it seriously, because it is serious. Social media is every bit as important as any other aspect of your business, and you need to treat it that way.

So how do you make the time to put in the effort necessary to do this properly and effectively? I have two answers for you (no surprise there).

If you have the financial means, I highly recommend hiring a full-time social media manager for your company. You’ll be ahead of the curve, since this will be the norm for businesses very soon, and already is for those who are forward-looking. If they need to have additional responsibilities for now to justify the cost, so be it.

Make it a goal for this year if nothing else. Next year is too late. And please, please, please don’t just assign this to your HR person or your sales manager. You might as well let your janitor handle it.

Finally, invest in social media management software. This is a business expense that you can afford now, no matter how bootstrapped you are. The time you will save and the amazing things that you can do with it will be worth far more than you will spend. If you want a less biased opinion on the software I’ve linked to, read this article by comedian Max Goldberg.

Now, Do It!

You’ve just been given 8 tips that will literally transform your business for the better, but only if you put them into practice. You can mull them over, put them off, or dismiss them if you like. No one will force you or yell at you. Rest assured that you will be putting your long-term success in peril if you do, but it’s your choice. I don’t claim to have been the originator of all of these ideas, I’m just a half-decent communicator who has done his homework. I offer them to you because I really do want you to succeed.

It’s been fun writing this for you, and I truly hope that you’ve enjoyed reading it. I will leave you with a final thought that applies to social media and to life in general. I’m making it my mantra for 2013.

Serve others with no expectation of reciprocation. It will always come back around, I promise.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/8-essential-tips-for-social-media-success-part-4/

Top 9 YouTube Tips Businesses Need to Know (Part 2)

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 17:17:33 -0400

We’re discussing the magic of YouTube in this series, the video portion of your online marketing strategy. In the old days, there were newspaper ads, billboards, direct mail, and television ads. Today these have been replaced by WordPress, Pinterest, email, and YouTube.

When you think about it that way, leaving YouTube out of the equation doesn’t make much sense. So here are 3 more tips to follow last week’s post on how to make the most of your videos. And we’re off!

4. Tag! You’re It!

Tagging is the great organizer of the new web. Folders and playlists are nice, but if you really want to cross-reference multiple ideas and make things the easiest to find, you’ve got to tag them. All software and sites worth their salt have great tagging systems for organization. It’s the key to maximizing tools like Evernote, and the reason that the old tree-file system is considered a dinosaur by the informed crowd.

As an example, let’s say that you have a site that sells clothing and you sell 100 different brands in every size and shape known to mankind. Oh, and don’t forget colors. Adding a list of tags to every video of size, gender, color, season, and style would make it much, much easier for someone to find a size 8 women’s red sleeveless blouse for summer (tagged with size 8, women’s, red, sleeveless, blouse, and summer – see how that works?)

5. Links – They Aren’t Just for Sausage Anymore

I know, you’re thinking “how can I add a link in my video?” Well, you just add it in the description! And you should – every time. Remember, your channel is not a standalone site, it’s a part of your business marketing plan, and an important one.

In addition to tagging and organizing your videos, linking to your website, your Facebook Page, Twitter page, or other social sites (and non-social sites) is a key part of spreading the message of your awesome company. Help them find you everywhere!

6. Moderation in Excess

One thing you will notice on YouTube channel pages is that they are (overly) prone to negative or disparaging comments. I believe this is primarily because of the (*ahem*) younger generation’s proclivity to the site, but hey – that’s just me. Regardless of the reasons, they show up often.

Removing a negative comment simply because it is negative is not a good practice. Negative comments that reflect an issue which could be addressed and/or corrected should be responded to in order to attempt to convert a detractor into a promoter. These are opportunities for improvement. However, comments which are nothing more than slander or obscenity for their own sake should be moderated out – immediately. Like now. Within a few hours maximum if at possible.

Negative comments that are left unmoderated are like a slow poison. They will kill your reputation on search engines and elsewhere. Thankfully, there are social media management tools to help with this.

That’s all I have for this post, but if you heed my advice that’s a lot. Nevertheless, I will be back yet again to throw 3 more tips at you next go ‘round, Lord willing and da creek don’t rise.

Anything in these 3 tips that struck a chord? Do your current YouTube practices follow these tips?

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/top-9-youtube-tips-businesses-need-to-know-part-2/

Feature Update: Multiple terms in the Brand and Keyword Monitoring

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:44:18 -0400

Our Brand and Keyword monitoring tool already lets you keep track of what people are saying about your business on the social web. Sendible’s reports help you understand exactly who and where those mentions are coming from.

We’ve provided you with a helpful update to this tool enabling you to achieve more targeted results.

We now support the ability to add multiple terms as keywords using OR.

- Users simply need to separate terms with “ OR “.

For example:

Learn more about Brand and Keyword Monitoring here:

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/feature-update-multiple-terms-in-the-brand-and-keyword-monitoring/

Announcing Sendible’s Smart Queues with Optimal Publishing Technology

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 15:45:44 -0400

We are excited to announce the release of Smart Queues: A clever way to schedule content for publication to multiple social media channels with minimum effort and maximum effectiveness and engagement.

“This has been one of our most requested features to date and we’re excited to make this technology available to our customers. After a period of intensive testing and tweaking we’ve produced a powerful addition to our dashboard to truly help users increase the effectiveness of their messages without compromising productivity.”

Gavin Hammar, Sendible CEO

Whilst many other tools restrict the number of queues users can create, you have the ability to create as many queues as you wish with an unlimited number of times and dates for delivery.

Smart Queue’s Optimal Publishing Technology distributes posts based on engagement probability, using Sendible’s intelligent ‘Best time to post’ metric. This algorithm takes into account actual days to determine the best time to post on specific weekdays based on engagement probability thereby allowing for improved accuracy.

You can collaborate with your team and share queues with clients and other team members. You can use Sendible’s Bulk Importer to import messages into specific queues using a simple CSV file. You are now also able to distribute RSS content via Smart Queues so that content flows from a queue at predefined or optimized times and dates.

Smart Queues are fully integrated into our extensive Reporting and Analytics dashboard enabling you to track and measure the success of a queue and run specific campaign reports. You are able to retrieve analytics on various metrics including the number of clicks, comments, likes, mentions, reach, opens and more, helpful in determining ROI and the success of a particular queue.

How to use Sendible’s Smart Queues

This new addition enables you to:

- Create a queue of messages and define posting times.
- Share queues with team members and clients.
- Import messages into a queue.
- Distribute RSS content as and when you want to using queues (as well as at optimal times).
- Optimize delivery using Sendible’s Optimized Send Times algorithm.
- Track queues and create campaign reports using Sendible’s reporting tools.

Create a Queue

All users start with a default queue entitled My Queue. To add more, simply click on Queued on the left hand side of your dashboard.

Click on ‘New Queue’

Give your Queue a name:

You will be then taken to Queue Settings.

Here you can choose add your own posting time for each day of the week or retrieve Optimal posting times for each day.

If you wish to not post on a certain day simply don’t define a posting time.

Click Save.

Sharing

In Queue Settings > Click Sharing

You can then select team members and clients you wish to share a share with. Click Save.

Adding to a Queue

- Compose message box

Create a message as you normally would. Select the services you wish to post out to.

Click Scheduling

Select Autoschedule and choose your queue > Click Add

- Bulk Import

Go to Add/edit services > Import > Message Importer > Add

- Download the Sample CSV file and fill in the rows and columns for each of your posts.

- Browse and upload the file back into your dashboard

- Select the services you wish to send messages to

- Set your message status as your selected queue

Click Save settings

- RSS posting

Go to Add/edit services > RSS > RSS Auto poster > Add

When setting up your RSS Autoposter simply set the message status to add to your specified queue

Reporting

To Retrieve metrics from your queues go to My Reports > Report Builder

You can Create a New Report or Add to an existing one

Click Add Modules> Campaigns > Select your specific queue > Setup

Click Add to the various reporting modules and they will appear your report for you to share with team members or distribute via email to individuals on a regular basis.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/announcing-sendibles-smart-queues-with-optimal-publishing-technology/

5 Great Reasons to Start Using Sendible

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 10:50:09 -0400

Find out why over a 100,000 users are using Sendible to promote, grow and track their brands through our comprehensive Social Media Management Dashboard!

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Source: http://sendible.com/insights/5-great-reasons-to-start-using-sendible-2/

How to automatically distribute your blog to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more via RSS

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:44:16 -0400

One of the most popular features on Sendible is the ability to automatically distribute your blog posts to all your social media accounts at once. Our social media management software does this through the use of an RSS auto-poster. This blog post will explain how this can be achieved.

Step 1: Add your social media accounts

The first thing you’ll want to do is add your social media accounts. You can do this by going to Add/Edit Services where you’ll be able to add your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts as well as many others.

Step 2: Create a group

After linking up your accounts to Sendible, go to My Groups and click New Group. Give your group a name and click Create.
Once your group has been created, click “Add Contacts/Services…”.
Select the services you wish to add to the group and click “Select Contacts/Services”. These are the services that will receive the RSS posts. You can select as many services as you like.

Step 3: Add the RSS autoposter

Now that you’ve added your social media accounts and created a group of services that will receive RSS posts, you can configure the RSS autoposter.

Go to Add/Edit Services and select the RSS tab.
Click “Add” next to the RSS Auto Poster service.
You will then be taken to the page that allows you to configure your RSS autoposter.
Complete all the settings, by adding your RSS feed and making sure you select the group you created in Step 2 where it says “Post to the following group”.
Click Save Settings for your changes to take effect and Sendible will start distributing your RSS feed.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/how-to-automatically-distribute-your-blog-to-facebook-twitter-linkedin-and-more-via-rss-2/

Social Basics: Setting up a Twitter Profile for Business

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 11:14:28 -0400

This guide is part of a series of articles at Sendible insights outlining the basics for getting started with the digital world of social media. Small and local businesses owners especially are often not given the tools and instruction they need to keep up with the way their customers are using technology.
We hope this article and others we post are helpful to anyone who is new to using social media to promote their businesses and brands. If you have any questions, or advice of your own, feel free to share them in the comments below.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as “tweets”.

1. Sign Up

Visit http://twitter.com and click on click the big “Sign Up” button.

You’ll be taken to a page where you’ll be asked to choose a username.

Your Username (sometimes also known as your Twitter handle) is crucial because it’s how almost everyone who finds your business on Twitter.

We recommended that you use a shortest version of your business’s name or brand. As mentioned above Tweets cannot exceed 140 characters and this includes your handle – so longer handles will limit the number of characters your potential customers use when tweeting you. You can change your twitter handle later however this does have its drawbacks it can confuse search engines that index your account.

You’ll also be asked to provide a full name (keep it simple) and a password. Ensure our password is secure they are Twitter hackers out their (just ask Burger King) make sure your password is secure by using a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. When you’re content with your choices, click “Create my account.”

2. Confirm Your Account

Twitter will send you an e-mail at the e-mail address you provide it, and that e-mail will include a link that verifies your account. You have to click on that link to activate the account.

Done? Woo Hoo, you’re now on Twitter. Now log in to customize your profile.

3. Add Profile Details

Click on your username in the top-right corner of the Twitter home page and a drop-down menu should appear.

Click the option labelled “Settings”

There you will be taken to a basic account info page, where you can choose your time zone, customize the way tweets appear to you, and change your username or the e-mail address associated with your account.

4. Choose a Design

Click Design on the left-hand side.

Here you can pick a theme or you have the ability to upload your own. Make sure it’s simple, elegant, and very high-resolution — otherwise it will make a poor first impression for your business or brand.

Click Save settings

Next Click Profile

Click on change photo. This is your identity on Twitter and appears alongside your tweet. Pick something that’s clear and distinguishable even as a tiny icon your logo could be a good place to start. It doesn’t hurt to upload a larger image, though; Twitter will shrink it down.

Click on Header to change the box that appears on your profile which contains your profile picture and bio. The recommended dimensions are 1252×626

Add your location, Website URL and a 160-character bio. Try to convey what your business or brand is about as succinctly as possible; don’t go overboard with buzz words. Just make it clean and accessible to everyone.

Click Save Changes

Once you’re happy with how your profile looks, it’s time to link the account to Sendible so you can manage your tweets alongside your other social profiles and grow your following.

Log on your Sendible Dashboard

Click on Add/Edit services.

Scroll down to Twitter and Click Add

This will then connect up to Twitter and ask you to log in and authorize the Sendible App

You can choose where to receive alerts we recommend you chose the Priority inbox

Click Save settings.

This Account is now connected and you can review activity in your Priority inbox and post messages through your Compose message box.

To get some targeted followers automatically you can use our Twitter Auto Follower:

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/social-basics-setting-up-a-twitter-profile-for-business/

8 Essential Tips for Social Media Success (Part 3)

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 12:13:29 -0400

Now that you have been using images more liberally, learning the best times to post, monitoring and responding , and spending some quality time with the experts, let’s get to the next two tips.

First I want to add to the “learning” tip from the last post. There I told you about keeping up with trends and changes in social media, and gave you the names of some experts in the field that can help you. Now we’ll make sure you don’t look foolish in your posts. Then I’ll tell you how to mix the human and the software parts of a good social media strategy.

5. Speak the Language

Terminology

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Undoubtedly you’ve heard this old adage. The meaning of this is simple: if you want to be accepted and fit in somewhere, adjust yourself to the customs, habits, and communication style of those who live there.

The people you are trying to reach and communicate with live on social media. They spend time there. They know the terminology. They know the accepted norms of the site. If you want to connect with them, you have to speak their language.

The basic language includes the terms that describe the usage of the site. Tweet, retweet, post, share, like, friend, follow, pin – these and other terms are like “and”, “the”, and “or” in English. You can’t carry on a conversation if you don’t understand them. This is not to say that you use them in all of your posts, but you have to understand them intimately.

These aren’t difficult, and you probably already know most of them – but make sure you do. You also need to know the acronyms that are thrown around, such as RT for retweet. On Twitter, hashtags are used constantly. A hashtag is a phrase or word with a “#” in front, such as #thisisahashtag or #trendingtopic.

I may be telling you what you already know, but it’s that important. Go play golf with a regular golfer without understanding “par” or “stroke” and you’ll see what I mean. They want to play, not teach you about the game for 18 holes.

Grammar and Spelling

Although the sad fact is that less and less people seem to have any kind of grasp of proper English, most will still get annoyed quickly when reading others’ poor writing. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s reality.

A great and glaring example of this can be seen in the ever-growing trend of self-published books. Today anyone can write (term used loosely) a book and upload it to Amazon.com using the CreateSpace platform. This is both awesome and horrible – awesome because it encourages new talent to emerge and opens doors previously guarded by a few big publishing houses, and horrible because some people don’t seem to understand the value of good editing and proofreading.

If you go and download 10 random books from the daily batch of free offerings on Amazon (there are hundreds every day), you will find errors that are almost intolerable in probably 7 of them. And they will probably have reviews reflecting this fact if anyone else has downloaded it.

Use a spell checker. Please. If you can’t put words together in a compelling (or coherent) way, get someone else to compose your posts. You can hire freelance writers to do this if you don’t have anyone in-house to rely on (more on this in part 4). You may be the most intelligent and informed person in the world on the subject matter you are speaking about, but that information will be lost – along with your credibility – if you communicate it poorly to the reader.

6. Be a Cyborg

For those who aren’t science fiction fans or science geeks that studies artificial intelligence, a cyborg is basically a half-organic, half-cybernetic being (that’s half man, half-robot to use the simplest terms). If you are a business using social media (read: want to stay in business), you need to be a cyborg.

Before you think that I’ve completely lost my mind, let me explain.

Social media is a human activity. It’s a conversation. Things like virtual assistants on your smartphone (Siri, if you’re an iPhone user) may claim to be able to have a conversation with you, but vary the script a bit and you’ll see how useful it really is.

Don’t be Siri. Have a real conversation with your audience. Pat answers and standardized responses get under peoples’ collective skin. Not everyone would go this far, but I even get slightly annoyed when, after following someone new on Twitter, I get an auto-responder message of “Thanks for following me! I look forward to the conversation!”.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with an auto-response like that, particularly if you have thousands upon thousands of followers. It’s not realistic that you can personally thank that many people and still sleep or eat. However, I would rather have no response than an automated response. But that’s just me. For a business that is garnering the kind of following that would require and auto-responder, I actually recommend it, but only if it is unique and interesting.

This leads me to the other side of the cyborg coin, which is that you absolutely need to be using a solid piece of social media management software. Automation is not the key to success on these sites necessarily, but it is an essential piece of the equation if you want to do it right. As I discussed in tip 4 (Timing, remember?), composing posts and scheduling them for the week is a huge time saver.

Having a digital dashboard does more than just scheduling, though. It will help you with sentiment analysis, monitoring and tracking, measuring ROI, and managing multiple accounts from one place. Like I said, it’s essential.

Learn it, Get it

Before next week, I expect you to put these into action. If you don’t, I’m not going to fuss or chastise you, but you will have wasted yet another week that could have been a huge boost to your online endeavors. Your choice.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/8-essential-tips-for-social-media-success-part-3/

Sendible’s Social Media Expert of the Month: Teddy Goff

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 10:15:23 -0400

Teddy Goff graduated from Yale and started working on the first Obama campaign more or less right away. On that campaign he wound up directing state-level digital programs; there were Digital staff on the ground in about 25 states, all reporting up to a small team he led in Chicago. From there Teddy went briefly to work on the Presidential Transition and ultimately to Blue State Digital, where he worked until the 2012 campaign got started.

For Teddy what was exciting about the rise of social is that it gives so much more power to ordinary people. He believes that businesses that don’t understand this, and don’t change the way they relate to their customers as a result, are going to find those customers not just losing faith in them, but in many cases telling their whole networks about the lousy experience they’ve had. And businesses that do understand that are going to turn their fans into the best PR engine they’ve ever had. That’s what he tried to do on the Presidential campaign: arm the supporters with information, use great content to keep them engaged and inspired, and then get them talking to their friends about their support for the President.

If Teddy could share one best practice about using social media to grow a business, it would be: “Social media’s not just about marketing. The companies that aren’t doing it well tend to think of it that way, but it’s broader than that. It’s a reflection of what kind of business you are — because now it’s so much more difficult to hide if you’re providing bad service or bad products, or have bad values as a company. People can see right through that and discuss it openly, and a well-written tweet isn’t going to solve that. So fundamentally I think all these technologies require companies not just to market better, but to be better.”

Nominate your Expert of the Month using the form below:

^*These fields are required.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/sendibles-social-media-expert-of-the-month-teddy-goff/

Facebook Announces News Feed Changes… Are You Prepared?

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 13:45:36 -0500

During the opening of this announcement, CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared how almost 50% of News Feed content today is photos and visual content. We’ve referred to this trend previously in our 8 Tips for Social Media Success series available on Sendible Insights. Logically, Facebook took this information and translated it into a new, visual-focused, News Feed design.

These News Feed improvements have serious implications on how brands are engaged with on Facebook, and what content these brands need to be posting for ultimate Facebook success.

“We want to give everyone in the world the best personalized newspaper in the world.”
-Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO

It should be noted that Sendible is not affected by any of the changes due to our intensive integration with Facebook, you can capitalise on these changes and make positive impact to reaching and growing your audience on Facebook.

Let’s answer some key questions:

How do these changes impact Facebook’s News Feed algorithm?

The central idea as mentioned by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is for the News Feed to behave “like a newspaper would.” The ranking algorithm won’t change but there will be more sections, essentially, like in a newspaper.

The content that is shown in user News Feeds is based on EdgeRank, Facebook’s News Feed algorithm. EdgeRank of an activity is calculated on various terms and an activity is not limited to a like, share, comment or tagging. It is the algorithm behind all the updates which you view on your Facebook.

EdgeRank is comprised of three elements: affinity, weight, and time decay.

- Affinity is dependent on a user’s relationship with an object in the news feed.
- Weight is determined by the type of object, such as a photo/video/link/etc.
- The last variable is Time Decay, as an object gets older, the lower the value.

In order to optimize EdgeRank on the new News Feed, it’s important to know what has worked for your businesses in the past to help shape your strategy for the upcoming changes.

As noted above, Facebook said no changes have been made to the algorithm. However, the new Choice of Feeds feature and higher prominence on Rich Photos may change how you go about optimizing your posts.

What do these changes mean for marketers?

With the development of a photos-only feed, the weight placed on photos could rise even more, calling on the ever growing importance of visual content.

Companies will have to invest time in creating and sharing compelling visuals, or suffer the possibility of getting left behind on Facebook. – You can bulk schedule these images to go out at various intervals using Sendible’ social media management tool.

How does this change your content strategy?

- Focus on visual content

Prepare for the roll out of these updates by creating visually compelling content. If you’ve been previously posting text-based statuses and links, think about how

You can convert those ideas into visuals.

For example we converted our 12 tips of Christmas Campaign previously to a 500 x 500 Images:

This photo could appear in both a photos-only News Feed, and a “following” brand News Feed, giving it the opportunity to gain wider reach.

With the focus on photos, Facebook has also changed the way captions will display. Before captions were scripted underneath photos, captions will now overlay images in the News Feed.

This means that photos will be the primary way by which people engage with your visual posts. Any copy text you provide should be brief and succinct.

Your other content for example blog posts should be compelling and different. When it comes to creating viral reach: it’s all about sharing compelling content. Facebook is bombarded with content daily, and unless your content stands out from the crowd in terms of value and interest, it won’t gain the visibility it needs.

- Focus More on Your brand advocates

With the new Facebook News Feed, users will be able to look at content posted only from their friends. That means that even if someone likes and follows your business page, they may never see your posts because they filtered them out by looking at the content posted only from their friends.

Focus more on your evangelists and customers. Your brand advocates are the lovers of your brand. They are the people who find you remarkable, and share your updates with their own Facebook friends. Whether they are customers, or just pure fans of what you do, these people will be influential to your success on Facebook.

- Location, Location, Location

Facebook’s changes makes check-ins more visible and clear in News Feed. By finding ways to encourage more people to check-in to your business, you’re creating more ways for people to see your business in their friends-only feeds.

You may wish to offer deals to the most frequent visitor or just simply make an announcement at an event or meeting reminding people that they can share their location. The main reason is that these checkins will help your visibility on Facebook.

- More Likes equals More exposure

With the recent changes now when someone likes your page, a new story is created in News Feed that shows a snapshot of the page with your cover photo. This once again brings up how important your Facebook cover photo is, because every time someone likes your page, that cover photo will have the opportunity to influence and entice the friends of your new fan.

Concluding remarks

If users have the choice of filtering out messages directly from the brands they like by looking at their All Friends Feed, chances are they’ll do it from time to time. The only time content from a brand page will get into a user’s All Friends Feed is if a user’s friends share content from that brand page.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/facebook-announces-news-feed-changes-are-you-prepared/

8 Essential Tips for Social Media Success (Part 2)

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 12:41:47 -0500

Hey, you came back! Awesome! How did the first two tips work for you? For those that missed the first post, let’s review quickly.

In the last post I told you about using visuals and about monitoring and responding to your friends/fans/followers online. The upshot was to:

1. Use Pinterest if at all possible and employ infographics (or other relevant images) in your posting routine elsewhere, and

2. Monitor your account, respond to responses, and address any questions or concerns.

If you did, you probably saw an increase in engagement. If not yet, keep it up – you will.

Now, let’s build on our new adventure in better social media skills with 2 more tips. Off we go!

3. Always Be Learning

In the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin’s hard-nosed character tells his audience of half-hearted salesmen the key to selling real estate: Always Be Closing. In the realm of social media, this is a bad idea.

While always be engaging is a mantra you should definitely embrace, it applies to last week’s post. This week’s first tip (tip 3 for those keeping score at home) has to do more with the ever-changing landscape of social media.

Do you know what Panda or Penguin means when it comes to search? Did you know that Pinterest just changed their layout and added business pages? Or that Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ have pages just for businesses? Do you know what a promoted tweet is?

These questions aren’t rhetorical, they’re essential. Social media sites are constantly vying to develop the next big change that will draw more users (and keep current users), and the changes are coming at dizzying speeds recently. It may seem like a hassle to keep up with, but it’s absolutely necessary if you want to stay at the top of your social game.

Here’s the part to put into action: you have to read the latest news on developments and learn them-at least weekly. You can decide who (or which site) speaks to you to follow or read, but I’ll give you some suggestions to get you started.

The undisputed king of social interaction online is Chris Brogan. Need a Facebook expert? Mari Smith has you covered. Tehmina Zaman has a laser-like focus on teaching people about Pinterest. Some must-follows on Twitter include @briansolis, @copyblogger, @davekerpen, @guykawasaki, and @prsarahevans. The best site for keeping up-to-date on the latest thing is without a doubt Pete Cashmore’s Mashable.

You can’t learn without a good teacher. The list I just gave you could be considered the staff of Social Media University. Learn from them.

4. Timing is Everything

Guilty. I have violated this rule too many times, and I’ve lost connections because of it. I would get online and start reading posts, tweets, blogs, and articles – and every one of them was so interesting and great that I had to share them. Right Now!

The result was that when others opened their page they were flooded with information that I had shared. That can get annoying, fast. You know that friend that will never shut up long enough for you to share in the conversation? That was me.

The solution to this problem? Spread…it…out.

That sounds easy, but for many of you it’s just not very feasible. After all, you have other things that need to be done with your business too. Additionally, when should you post?

This article from last year gives some insight with data collected by the URL shortening service bit.ly. It’s not comprehensive, but it’s a start. Common sense plays a part – a post around lunch time is probably going to be seen by more people than a post at midnight. This is business, though. Guessing doesn’t cut it.

The best solution for this conundrum is to use social media scheduling tools. With these nifty pieces of software you can write your posts for the week, pop them into the scheduler, and be done with it. They will usually tell you what the optimal times are as well. Ain’t technology grand?

Don’t get the wrong idea though. Automation, while immensely useful (and necessary, IMHO), does not a social media strategy make. But more on that in tip 8. (I know, the suspense is killing you)

Homework, again

You know what to do. I just told you. The learning part will take some time and lots of reading, but the timing part you can put into action today.

When does your company post on social media? Let me know in the comments. Then do some research to discover the best times for the sites you use, and practice posting at only those times for the next week. See what happens. It’s like magic.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/8-essential-tips-for-social-media-success-part-2/

Marketing is Dead! Long Live Marketing!

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 13:20:59 -0500

It sounded great, and I didn’t imagine that it would be much of a hassle. My wife and I had been on several of these “listen to the pitch, tour the place, and get your free gift” deals in the past, and the secret was always the same: smile, nod, say no repeatedly, get gift, go home.

Foolproof.

This time was different however, as I was soon to discover. The problem was not the holiday company that we visited – we actually signed up this time because the deal was good and the offer fit into our new, empty-nester lifestyle. The problem was the marketing company they had hired.

Traditionally, in Europe, when a monarch died and their heir replaced them on the throne the phrase “The King is dead! Long live the King!” was used to announce the passing of the old monarch and the ascension to the throne of the new. Well, the old marketing is dead, long live the new marketing.

Someone needs to tell that to a whole bunch of marketers out there.

Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing is one of the standards for understanding the new world of marketing. It’s a new world, where consumers are more savvy and relationship marketing has replaced “bait and switch” tactics and high-pressure sales.

In a nutshell, the marketing company that contacted us had practically zero knowledge of the area we are in and gave us horrible directions (which caused us to miss our scheduled appointment), they were extremely rude when we called them for help, and they promised us a gift which was not offered at the location. (a 10’ Samsung or Acer tablet, dagnabbit)

Imagine this conversation: “Hi, we’re trying to find the location of our appointment, can you help us? The address you gave us doesn’t exist.”

them: “Where are you now?”

me: “We’re at the corner of x and y. Should we go straight or head back over the bridge off of the island?”

them: “Yes, you want to go back across the bridge, and then…”

You can see how this could be problematic already. Once we finally found the building, after 45 minutes of driving around (we had been only a few blocks away), we were told that we had missed the appointment and would have to reschedule. I picked up the phone and called the marketing company back.

After complaining (heavily) to the ‘manager’ that I got on the phone eventually, this exchange took place:

me: “We shouldn’t be held responsible for this, we were given bad instructions by your office and would have been early otherwise.”

them: “Your email should have had good directions.”

me: “It had a non-existent address, and when I called for help I was told that it wasn’t even on the island.”

them: “Which island are you referring to?”

me: “There’s only one here.”

them: “I’m sorry, but if you can’t be more specific than that, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Really?

This is a marketing company at it’s worst. Hard sell, promise the moon, deliver dirt, and don’t provide service or help after the initial contact.

So how do you judge a marketing company? Here’s my two cents.

First, what are their methods?

If they engage in over-the-phone marketing, particularly cold calls based on data mining, fire them. They are ruining your company’s reputation.

If they have to use skeptical tactics to get people to try your product or services, fire them. I don’t care if it has given you results on paper and/or ended with sales. The tactics will come back to bite you in the long run. Reputation will win in the end.

If they aren’t maintaining an online presence for you on at least two or three social sites, fire them. They are operating two decades behind the rest of the world.

The best method for marketing, of course, is to hire someone in-house to do it for you. Find someone who is great at social media (and preferably knowledgeable about traditional marketing as well), set them up with a quality piece of social media marketing software, and develop a good strategy.

Otherwise, quite frankly, you are wasting a lot of money. Tell me your worst and/or best experience with a marketing company in the comments. Does it top mine?

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/marketing-is-dead-long-live-marketing/

8 Essential Tips for Social Media Success (Part 1)

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:45:37 -0500

Tired of reading articles or books on how use social media that don’t really tell you anything? Me too.

Be engaging. How? Be interesting. What does that look like? Respond to responses. No kidding.

I’ve got 8 practical, put-into-action tips for you that will make a real difference in your business’ social media strategy. Just so I keep your attention, I’ll break them up into 4 articles with 2 tips in each.

Ready to propel your company’s online presence into the stratosphere? Here we go.

1. The “Eyes” Have It

The vast majority of people are visual creatures. Otherwise television commercials wouldn’t be so incredibly expensive, billboards wouldn’t exist, and your mail wouldn’t be filled with junk fliers every day. Do I even need to mention YouTube’s popularity?

You must find a way to be visual, even if you don’t sell a product that you can take a picture of. The two most effective ways to do this? Pinterest and infographics.

Facebook may be the largest social site, but Pinterest is the fastest growing. Why? Because users can scan it very quickly visually and find what is interesting to them. If the image grabs their attention, they will then read the information behind it.

Infographics are the most viral form of sharing on the web today, because the audience gets the information you are trying to convey presented in a visually attractive package that doesn’t really require any extra clicking or reading. If Pinterest isn’t a perfect fit for your company, learn how to leverage infographics on other sites. Quickly.

2. You Are Who You Associate With

Your mom always told you this (or she should have). Perception is reality, and if you are associating with the wrong crowd, people will assume that you are part of that crowd or, at the very least, that you approve of them.

As a business this is trickier than choosing your online “friends” as an individual is. You don’t want to alienate potential clients, but you also don’t want to let them affect your reputation negatively.

There are two must-do’s when it comes to your professional or company account. The first is to moderate comments on your blog or social account. This is a daily, ongoing process that must be kept up. Letting your online reputation be ruined is easier than falling off a log if you don’t.

Hint: the most effective way to monitor your reputation is with some good sentiment analysis software.

The second is to try to fix the situation. If you have negative feedback, it is imperative that you engage the poster of said feedback and try to turn them from a detractor to a promoter.

Imagine a time when you had a problem with a retailer and complained to them. We have all had such situations. Their customer service department likely responded in one of two ways: either they told you “Sorry, that’s the way it is”, or they went out of their way to make you a happy customer.

If their response was similar to the first option, chances are you don’t do business with them anymore. You probably have shared the bad experience with others many times over as well.

If they made a point of doing whatever they could to fix the situation, however, I’ll bet that you left satisfied, or even happy. Even if nothing changed! When people know that you care and will do what you can to serve them, the results are often less important than the effort.

Now Do It

Homework time. In the Good Book it says to not be just a hearer of the Word, but a doer. The application here? If you read this and understand how these tips can help you, put them into action. Otherwise you are just wasting valuable time.

My challenge to you until the next post in this series is to take the two tips listed here and get busy with them.

Get your Pinterest account set up and start pinning.

Post at least 3 awesome infographics or other visually stunning and informative images on Facebook, Twitter, and/or Google+ over the next week.

Respond to all comments on your posts. (at the least, respond with a Thanks for the like/retweet/share!)

Then let me know if you see a difference. You will.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/8-essential-tips-for-social-media-success-part-1/

#Hashtag Power

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:21:11 -0500

What is a Hashtag? – This may seem like a simple enough questions however the hashtag is all too often misused or misunderstood.

The # symbol is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. This little cross hatch is a powerful tool for you in navigating the Social Media landscape.

Born initially with Twitter hashtags have become increasingly common place on other social networks like Google +, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Hashtags have become an integral part of the digital space with them being used in ever more frequently in creative ways to promote events, ideas and products.

We’ve written before about the convergence between TV and Social Media. With Television becoming increasingly an interactive medium for key events, or sports events like the Olympics and the Super Bowl, hashtags allow anyone with a Twitter account to take part in a universal conversation about a group topic. TV shows, news programmes and sports events are harnessing the power of hashtags and it can lead to serious exposure and gains for a business or individual – it has even helped spark political revolutions in some regions.

According to The NY Times, the uses of hashtags are ever increasing. Their appearances have grown year on year since their inception in 2009 about 1 in 8 tweets now include a hashtag. More interestingly, the average number of tweets per hashtag has remained consistent, even as corporate hashtagging is on the rise. The most widespread hashtags are included in as many as tens of thousands of tweets, there are still as many hashtags isolated to just one tweet then they have ever been.

The New York Times reported a study from Cornell researchers which looked at a large cross section of tweets. The research found that different types of hashtags are adopted in different ways. Some of the more frivolous ones catch on quickly and then die out, while more serious or controversial hashtags take a while to gain momentum. How these hashtags are used and develop ultimately depends more on the structure, connections and characteristics of a network of Twitter users than on its size.

This adds a new facet to the term “viral” in social media marketing. In order to get something ingrained in the minds of your audience, marketers and other interested parties – like politicians, news organizations – cannot simply rely on one person passing along a link or a thought to another. On Twitter, at least, trends such as hashtags appear because of more complex structural factors. People react to others in their network, and most aren’t ready to jump on just any trend they see. Audiences are very particular about their user actions and associations they create- they often wait, and watch, and choose when to tweet or retweet carefully.

Measuring and monitoring this effect is more important than ever not only in terms of lead generation but also with reputation management with hashtags that are closely aligned to your brand. Using a Social Media management tool that caters for this is a good start in tackling the growingly interconnected digital world of the #.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/hashtag-power/

Social Media Response Flowchart

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:14:19 -0500

How do you handle the tough ones — the comments made in anger, the posting that doesn’t quite violate terms of service or the diatribe littered with poor punctuation and no clear direction?

As with anything else in social media, it helps to have a plan. Get your FREE Social Media Response Flowchart.

^*These fields are required.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/social-media-response-flowchart/

Valentine’s Day – Creating Customer Attraction

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:56:30 -0500

Valentine’s Day is only a couple of days away. I’m sure many of you already have your content a scheduled ready to go. For those of you still debating whether or not to post a ‘heartfelt promotion or message’ I’m going to explain to you the benefits of contributing to the hype of this day.

In my view Social media is like a frequency of noise. At certain seasons, events or days this noise is harmonized to key messages and themes. It is you’re job as a social media marketer to capitalize on what your customers are talking and in some cases thinking about. The sheer fact you are reading this article is a true testament to the power of this type of aperture messaging.

The Aperture Concept states that advertising is most effective when it reaches the right people at the right time with the right message. In photography, aperture is the size of the hole used to make the image. The Aperture Concept uses this as a metaphor for when the receiver is open. With the Valentine’s Day already in the mind set of many of your customers this may prove to provide a more receptive message about your brand.

Brand fit. The first point of call should be whether your brand has the right fit to engage in such a promotion. Certainty some companies such as florists and restaurants innately can capitalize on this Hallmark Holiday. If you get creative any brand can fit to some degree. Brand’s such as Dr Pepper which doesn’t exactly scream romance and seduction, have still gotten in on some Valentine’s action. The firm a couple years back had a played on its brand name and famous advertising slogan to find a campaign that fits. ‘The Spin Doctor’, a Valentine’s Facebook app aimed at the teen market. When users ‘like’ the app, it chose six of their friends at random and ‘spins the bottle’ to land on one of those friends. It then generated a “cheeky Valentine’s message” which was posted on the friend’s wall. Users were encouraged to play with the well-known one-liner: “Come on – what’s the worst that could happen?”

Promotion. Customizing your discount code to reflect the nature of Valentine’s Day can help increase the level of retention of that code. For example; Sendible is offering a 15% discount to new users and existing users whom upgrade on its Social Media Management Dashboard with the short snappy discount code: ‘LOVESOCIAL’ (expires 15^th Feb). You may wish to publish ‘Last Minute’ Valentine’s Deals for those people who buy gifts on the last minute. Use social media and mailers to promote these deals (a comprehensive dashboard can help you out there). Also if you use Facebook Ad’s you may wish to tailor your ads accordingly to the Valentine’s Day theme. You can even target single people or those in a relationship for ads on Facebook – this can be incredibly useful in message targeting.

Make whatever you do on Valentine’s Day is lighthearted, fun, emotive and interesting for the customer. Make sure your marketing connects with him or her in a new and innovative manner that excites, intrigues and encourages creativity and out-of-the-box thinking.

Valentine’s Day needn’t be cheesy or overdone and there are literally hundreds of inventive and creative ideas that offer something completely new.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/valentines-day-creating-customer-attraction/

Why Your Business Sucks at Social Media

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 10:21:16 -0500

I shouldn’t have to tell you, since you are smart enough to be on this site, that a business that isn’t utilizing social media is a business that is doomed. The problem is not that businesses aren’t getting on board the bus. The problem is most can’t find a good seat and don’t even know where the bus is going.

A recent article by social media guru Dave Kerpen, founder and CEO of the fast-growing Likeable franchise, highlighted five things that businesses need to do better in social media.

Forgive me for being forward, but I would like to tell you the 5 things that your business really stinks at when it comes to the new way of marketing.

1. You Talk Way Too Much

You know that person you can’t stand to be around because all they do is talk about themselves? That’s your business on social media. Sorry, it’s true. No one cares if you have a new product line. Really.

The good news is that this is a problem you can fix, and it’s not that hard. First, look at others’ posts that get tons of likes and shares. What kind of posts are they? More than likely, they are the types listed here.

Second, use the old golden rule of sales: the person asking the questions is the one in charge of the conversation. Ask questions and listen. Repeat. Repeat. Then answer. Then ask again.

2. You use it when you feel like it

Social media is not a game, and it’s not an option for a business. Not only is it absolutely imperative that you leverage the most powerful marketing platform on the planet, you have to do it like it’s part of your job – because it is.

If you decide to open your doors to the public when you feel like it, your customer base will be non-existent. If you use social sites when you feel like it, your results will be the same. Regular, daily engagement is the only solution.

3. You don’t know which social media sites to use

Your target audience is not necessarily the same as company X. Each social site has it’s own strengths and weaknesses, and you have to figure out which ones your potential customers are likely to frequent.

For example, if you offer something that can be visually marketed (particularly to women, but certainly not exclusively) and you aren’t wearing your computer screen out on Pinterest, you are probably missing over half of your potential audience.

4. You’re hoping instead of measuring

Anytime you are making a purchase that requires paperwork or anything more than a shelf and a cash register, you will likely be asked “how did you hear about us?”

Why? Because a business needs to know their ROI. Does radio work for you? Newspaper ads? Television? What exactly is bringing people to you, or not?

The best way to measure your ROI with social media is to use a solid piece of social media management software for analytics. These dashboards will give you real-time feedback and let you know in great detail which of your posts or activities are effective and which aren’t.

5. You’re not using Google+

The most underrated and disregarded social media site is Google+. Ironically, for those of us who can see the big picture (like Dave Llorens points out), it will ultimately be the most influential and far reaching of all social sites.

Llorens article is a must-read, and he explains why G+ will win in the end. The condensed version is this: it’s Google. As popular as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or others may be, they simply don’t have the infrastructure that Google does, and the boys in Mountain View are playing the long game.

Google has slowly been integrating all of their vast services into G+. Maps, voice, gmail, advertising, reviews, you tube, etc., etc., etc. And of course we can’t forget the backbone of the internet – search – which they completely own and dominate. When was the last time you used Yahoo or (God forbid) Bing to search for something? Yeah, me neither.

Source: http://sendible.com/insights/why-your-business-sucks-at-social-media/