Yet again the Facebook IPO is dominating social media news this week, but I’m not going to delve into that. I’ve found some great stories on using visuals in social media, Facebook advertising, writing great email copy and some interesting Linkedin stats. Have a great weekend.
Flickr and Pinterest partner
The big discussion around Pinterest over the last couple of months has been about copyright and attribution. The concern that Pinterest users were inadvertently breaching coyright was addressed for the first time recently when Pinterest released a piece of code that when added to a website prevented pinning. Photo sharing site Flickr was one of the first to implement this code on copyrighted and unsafe images leaving those with a creative commons licence to be shared.
This week Flickr and Pinterest have moved closer together. Now you can share to Pinterest easily from Flickr keeping the original attribution of the image meaning the original owner of the image will get credit for it. I imagine this will be just the first of many partnerships that Pinterest will forge as these are issues that will not go away. For more on the partnership and the benefits to Flickr here’s a great article from Read Write Web.
Linkedin buys SlideShare
I’ve always been a big fan of SlideShare. It’s a really strong B2B tool that connects users via presentations. If you haven’t used it yet it’s really worth checking out. I don’t upload much there any more but find it a great tool for researching topics. If your target market is an international one it’s a great way to reach people outside your regular networks. One of the reasons I joined SlideShare was because of it’s Linkedin integration. It’s possible to display a SlideShow on your Linkedin profile using the application. This is handy for people like me who may wish to offer teasers of courses, share slides from a speech and it’s even more useful for those who work within a visual industry. It’s a fantastic way to showcase your portfolio. The news this week is that it has been bought out by Linkedin, this is an aquisition that seems to make sense. I would consider SlideShare a B2B social network not just a presentation sharing site, so the merger with the biggest B2B social networking site seems obvious. Read more on the merger here.
Facebook organ donor initiative
You can now add being an organ donor to your Facebook Timeline
Facebook launched a new feature this week that allows users to announce that they are an organ donor. It’s easy to add to your Timeline (you will need to be converted to Timeline for this to work). Just go to your Timeline, choose ‘life event’ from the status menu. Choose ‘Health & Wellbeing’ and organ donor from the subsequent menus. It then prompts you to add more info and asks you to officially register with the appropriate organ donor registry.
I’m often asked about Facebook advertising, although it’s not something I specialise in I am always interested in the latest developments. Facebook recently added some options to their self serve ads. If you are thinking of using Facebook advertising or haven’t had success with it in the past this excellent article from Social Media Examiner walks you through the options and shows you the kind of ad’s that work well.
Email marketing – Writing great copy
With so much emphasis being put on networks like Facebook it can be easy to forget one of the most effective online marketing tools. The email newsletter. I’ve been researching this area recently for some courses I’ve run and I’m often surprised at how few companies seem to utilise them. It doesn’t matter if you’re creating a beautiful HTML newsletter or simply sending a text email the copy is central to it’s success. This article from HubSpot gives great examples and suggestions that will increase your open and click through rate. It certainly has me thinking about how I can refresh my email newsletters in the future.
The rise of the visual social network
You really can’t have a conversation about social media at the moment without Pinterest coming up. Facebook seems filled with meme’s and images, the new Twitter interface makes it easier for us to view photos and Google+ always reminds me of a rich content version of Twitter. Images have become central to social networking but how and why did this happen? I remember less than a year ago creating memes and them being quite unique amongst the other content I was seeing, now they’re everywhere. This great Infographic and analysis shows the speedy rise of visual social networking and proves that we all need to be thinking visually in order to encourage more engagement.
Linkedin 4x better for B2B leads
Not really a surprising headline but I thought it was worth sharing this story. Anyone who uses Linkedin on a regular basis is probably aware of the potential leads that can be generated. I for one always find it the best network in terms of effort v the number of leads I get. It seems I’m not alone as this short but statistic filled article shows. So if you are still overlooking Linkedin, or not investing time in it and if your target market is other businesses I’d take another look. The article itself links to some really handy resources to get you going.
And from Spiderworking.com this week
Cool tool that helps you promote events via Twitter
My Twivite page for the next KLCK Bloggers meetup
This weeks cool tool was Twivite that allows you to create an event page that integrates with Twitter. It’s quick and easy to set up. More here
How to bring online relationships offline
It’s a bit of a bugbear of mine but I hate it when people to refer to ‘real people’ as being people you don’t communicate with online. This week I looked at how bringing online relationships offline can be a successful way to build both personal and business relationships. All the people I know are real! More here
Finalist in Social Media Awards
It’s not often I get to blow my own trumpet but I’m delighted that this blog has made it to the finals of the Social Media Awards for Best Business Blog. I’m listed against some great blogs including those from my co Blog Awards Ireland organisers Lorna Sixsmith (for Write On Track) and Beatrice Whelan (for Sage Ireland’s blog). The competition is fierce but I’m sure it will be a great night whoever wins.
One of the biggest criticisms of social media is that people are abandoning ‘real people’ to spend their time online. I see it differently, social media is a great way of meeting new people, forging new relationships and it’s a way of always having a ‘real person’ to hook up with wherever in the world you find yourself.
I’m in Scotland at the moment, my parents live in a pretty remote village on the east coast not far from John O’Groats. On my way here I met up with a friend in Edinburgh, a friend I met online through a mutual friend on Facebook. We had breakfast before I had to catch the train. There used to be a fellow tweeter who lived just up the road from my parents and we were able to meet for a pint and a chat when I visited. Last week in Dublin I went to a TweetUp with the host and listeners of the FIR podcast. It was great to meet new people with similar interests and to chat with some people I hadn’t seen in a while.
These are all real people and they are all people I’ve met online. They’re not strangers, they are people I know I have something in common with and as we’ve chatted online it’s easy enough to bring that conversation into the real world.
How does this translate to business? One of the things I love most about social media is that is able to take the coldness out of cold calling and the fear out of networking meetings. Here’s a few tips on building these relationships.
Linkedin Events
Linkedin is a great place to find out about networking events happening near you. Once you’ve decided which ones to go to check out the guest list and see who you might have a synergy with, who you may have met online before. Remember this isn’t people you want to sell to directly. These are people you can build strong connections with, people that you may be able to refer business to in the future or who may be able to refer business to you. If there is someone you are keen to meet drop them a message or an email before the event and arrange to meet them. It’s great to walk into a room at an event and know you have someone to meet.
Linkedin Connections
I’m quite strict about who I connect to on Linkedin. It might be old fashioned but I still use it as a trusted network. I tend to only connect to people who I’ve met and had a chat with or had a prolonged discussion with online. Of course all rules are there to be broken and if I haven’t met someone personally I sometimes offer to meet for coffee so we can get to know each other better. I’ve met some great people this way, people I can refer business to and people I can just ask a question of if I need help as well as people who might need to ask me for help from time to time.
Building relationships with Twitter
Twitter is a great relationship building tool. You can attempt to get to know anyone you want to on Twitter. Getting into conversations with people, chatting about topics you have in common mean that you can really get to know people. It’s simple to take this one step further and suggest meeting for coffee, a milkshake or lunch. As someone who lives down the country I find this particularly useful during my trips to Dublin and it’s how I found myself having a great chat over breakfast in Edinburgh yesterday.
Going To Events with Twitter
I travel to conferences quite often, most of the time alone. Following the Twitter #tag means that I’m never stuck for someone to talk to in a lunch or coffee break. Recently in London I got to meet to Irish Tweeters, @paulinesargent and @jilloherlihy. You might think it odd that I travelled all the way to London to meet to Irish people but it was a great opportunity to get to know them better and hopefully forge stronger relationships in the future.
I’m really only scratching the surface with this blog post and I’d really like to hear your stories of real people you’ve met offline. Leave your stories and suggestions below in the comments.
The Facebook acquisition of Instagram still seems to be dominating the social media headlines this week, mini blogging platform Tumblr have launched advertising on their dashboards but neither of these make it into my social 7. Instead we look at a great Pinterest case study, the story of a Facebook page that was taken down for running rule breaking competitions and some great Linkedin tips.
Klout Brand Squads
Red Bulls ‘Brand Squad’ page on Klout
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you will know I’m a bit cynical about Klout, in some respects it does look like a great way to identify influencers but there have been some huge privacy concerns and it also seems that it often marks someone as influential about a topic that the user has no interest in. However I do sometimes get persuaded to look again. There are some great examples of Klout encouraging advocates in Brian Solis’s ‘The End Of Business As Usual’ that I found quite compelling. This week Klout announced brand pages that will display the most influential people associated with a brand and offer perks to influencers. If you are on Klout you probably received an email about it showcasing the Red Bull page. I can see this being a great tool for large companies to reward their most ardent fans, I also see it as a great research tool for smaller businesses that share a target market with some of those using the ‘Brand Squads’. Read more about the new pages on Silicon Republic.
Twitter hijacks #creepingsharia
#creepingsharia mocks far right extremist EDL on Twitter
Idiotic UK far right group the EDL learnt a thing or two about Twitter this week. Their leader tweeted in disgust at a Mosque being included on the Twitter home page (it was in fact the Taj Mahal) and appended his tweet with the hash tag #creepingsharia. Thankfully Twitter reacted by doing what it does best, it hijacked the tag making a mockery of the original post. Below is one of my favourite tweets. The tag is still going strong too. The story even made it into The New York Times.
Facebook competitions – how one man had his page deleted twice
I posted this on Facebook today and it got a huge reaction. I always advise clients to abide by the Facebook promotional guidelines when running a competition but it can be hard when we see so many others breaking the rules. Very often people think that it’s OK because everyone else is doing it. This post shows one example of why breaking the rules can result in you loosing your page and all the people connected to it.
What? How? Why Instagram?
As I mentioned above Instagram is still the big news this week due to the Facebook buyout. Lots of new people have become aware of the photo sharing social network for the first time and downloading it. But onece you’ve got it what do you do next? This article is a brilliant quick start guide for new users. It takes everything that I had to work out over time and puts it in simple terms, in short I wish I had read this before I started! If you’ve just got Instagram read it and have fun.
Harrods on Pinterest
Sample mood board for Harrods Jubilee window competition
Pinterest persists in being one of the most topics talked about in social media and this is by far the most clever marketing campaign I’ve seen yet from a brand. Harrods are giving users the opportunity to inspire the design of the Knightsbridge stores Jubilee window. Pinners just need to create a mood board and submit it to be in with the chance to win a trip to London to see the window unveiled. Not a fantastic prize, I’m guessing there will be more to it that just a visit to the store ! For more on this competition and details on how to enter click here.
Cool Pinterest Hack
Staying on the topic of Pinterest this application looks pretty cool, it was submitted to appear in my weekly roundup by one of the Spiderworking.com Facebook community. It allows you to create boards from one single photo. Great examples but it’s definitely weighted too much in favour of dogs at the moment. I’m off to create a cat one!
25 Tips For LinkedIn
I often feel LinkedIn gets overlooked by many. It doesn’t have the pizazz of Facebook, the cool of Twitter or the incentives of Google+. It is however a hugely powerful tool, I know I get probably more concrete leads from it than any other social network. It’s also a fantastic research tool that can help you reach exactly who you need to in an organisation. If you’re still struggling on getting started this article is full of tips to help you build a valuable following.
And from Spiderworking.com this week
Pinterest, Pinterest, Pinterest
OK so I might not be using the network that much yet but I do seem a little obsessed don’t I? This week’s Monday cool tool was a neat little app that allows you to change data into pinnable images. Pinstamatic uses notes, quotes, location info, screen grabs to create the pins. More here.
4 Examples of brands engaging influencers using user generated content
I’m lucky enough to be organising the Blog Awards Ireland this year with Beatrice Whelan from Sage Ireland and Lorna Sixsmith from Write On Track. Lorna and myself went to Dublin at the weekend to meet Greg Fry from TweakYourBiz TV. Here’s what happened.
Don’t forget to share any great social media links you find during the week either as a comment on this blog post or on the Spiderworking.com Facebook page.
If you’ve been using social media for business for some time you will start to recognise specific people who contribute to your posts, discussions & tweets the most. They start to become the core of your community and will recommend you, your pages and your services to others they know. These are your ‘Brand Advocates’. This is a hugely powerful group of people and gathering a strong group is essential for increasing the reach of your message. How can you nurture these people? How can you encourage them to share more? Here are four recent examples of businesses using user generated curation or content to engage with and create new advocates.
@Ireland Twitter Account
WorldIrish.com launched a very clever initiative giving people the opportunity to curate the @Ireland Twitter account for a week. It’s totally up to the curator to decide what to post. As I’m typing this the current curator is Jonathan Lynn whose day job involves curating and promoting street art. As you can imagine there has been much talk about street art on the page this week.
The aim of the project according to the World Irish Website is:
…@Ireland is based around the idea that a single voice cannot represent a country. By sharing peoples’ experiences and lives with the world, project curators WorldIrish believe @Ireland can help to further connect Ireland to the world and the world to Ireland.
You can view the tweets from previous curator on the WorldIrish website. I have my hand hovering over the send button on an email applying to be a curator… I’ll keep you informed if I do decide to go for it.
ProBlogger
Another country, this time using user generated content to promote itself is Australia but this time it’s being pushed out by ProBlogger. I love the story behind this one. Darren Rowse, from ProBlogger decided that there were very few products he’d be happy to promote via his extensive social media channels and blog. One of those oh his list was his home, Austrailia. With this promotion he’s managing to fulfil that wish. I first saw it pop up on Google+.
The competition will bring 10 bloggers on an all expenses paid trip to The Great Barrier reef. In return the winners will be expected to blog about their experiences. Sadly the deadline for entries on this one has passed. Those that did enter had to submit their ideas on how they would approach the task as well as submitting links to their own blogs and social media sites. It’s clear they won’t just be selecting the winners on audience size but also on their ideas and how the experience will relate specifically to their readers.
The rules of entry will ensure that they get the best 10 bloggers with the biggest influence to participate in the project. By throwing the net wide and by running it as a competition rather than just researching influential bloggers in the field ProBlogger has already created a buzz around the project, many readers, myself included will be following the stories of the winners avidly.
Irish Rail Blogger
It’s fantastic to see Ireland in the European Soccer finals this year. I doubt many of the people planning to attend have looked further than an aeroplane for getting there, however you can get there by train and Irish rail have come up with an excellent way to promote this service by engaging bloggers and potential bloggers.
The winner will travel over-ground via InterRail , get accommodation on a fan campsite in Ponza, have tickets to the three group games and receive €1,000 spending money. A great budget holiday that is bound to attract the student and the all important Millenial generation. Winners will be expected to produce daily blog posts in return.
To be in with a chance of winning applicants are asked to submit a sample blog post covering a journey they’ve taken or a sporting event they’ve attended.
The good news is that there is still time to enter this one, the deadline is Friday 27th April at 5pm. Details here.
Getting to the Euro’s is going to be a big stretch for a lot of people this year and the news has been full of the huge prices of flights and hotel accommodation. This competition should draw attention to the budget options that I’m sure will attract many of the people who otherwise could not have attended.
A-Wear
Engaging your audience this way and encouraging brand advocates is not a new thing. Clothing chain store A-Wear have always been very smart at bringing their audience on board and as I started to read about the ProBlogger and Irish Rail blogging competitions I was reminded of a promotion from A-Wear and the Electric Picnic a couple of years ago. They recruited bloggers via their Facebook page, narrowed it down to a few finalists, styled them in A-Wear clothes and asked their community to vote on a winner.
This competition was hugely engaging to watch on social media, appealed exactly to their target market and although it only produced one blog entry as far as I can work out, it definitely created a buzz around the brand as well as sending customers into the store to pick up their gear for the festival.
Have you seen any clever ways that brands have engaged their communities?
One of the reasons I don’t use Pinterest much is because I’m not working in a hugely visual industry. After a while people will tire of looking at infographics and book covers and although it’s a great bookmarking tool I worry about the copyright of the images I pin. Pinterest is pretty and I don’t want to spoil this with lots of dodgy social media stock photos.
Pinstamatic is a cool tool that allows you to turn all sorts of data into visual Pinterest posts. You can screen grab a website, turn a quote into an image, make notes, share a Spotify song, link to a location.. and more. (see examples below).
On some levels this really works, it’s allowing us to create visual content from our data, making them pinable. However some of the tools make quite ugly visuals. For example the ‘notes’ feature isn’t very pretty, not only will this wreck the beauty of Pinterest but if it’s not visually interesting you won’t get re-pins or comments. People notice quirky and interesting images, the notes just look plain.
I do like the way quotes look, you can change their style and appearance, I also like the way it pins a Twitter account. It’s going to be a valuable tool and is in it’s infancy, I’m sure the posts will become more aesthetically pleasing in the future and it is going to be very useful for those of us not working in a hugely visual space but who love Pinterest.
Would you use a tool like Pinstamatic or are you a Pinterest purist? I’d love to discuss it in the comments below.
One of the first videocasts I made was called ‘treat every social network differently’. Now I find myself writing a post entitled ‘All Social Networks The Same’. Have I had a change of heart? No, the original post was about automation and the danger of linking your tweets to your Facebook and Linkedin account. I still strongly believe you need to understand each network and post accordingly but as I wade through the mass of new networks trying to see how they work I’ve discovered that there are some key ways that they are all the same, some rules of thumb that can help you be successful with any social media tool. Once you have got to grips with these it’s just a case of learning the mechanics of the networks you choose to use. Here’s the tips that I believe will keep you on track:
Be yourself
When we go to school we are encouraged to write in a certain style, we much conform to this to pass exams but if we treat our social networks the same way our posts look stale. It’s hard to break the habit but always try to write the way you speak. Let your personality break through in all your posts. Look at what you are writing and then look at it again, does it look to straight, does it look like a person wrote it or does it look like a line from an essay at school?
It’s worth putting a bit of time in to defining your brand persona, think about your tone of voice, how you want to be perceived and tailor your posts to fit that. Your tone of voice will be slightly different depending on the network, on Facebook and Twitter you might want to be more ‘fluffy’ on Linkedin you need to be more restrained, however your persona should be consistent on all networks. For examples of brand persona here’s a great article from How To Branding.
Ask questions
Social media is ‘social’ it’s part of the name. We often hear people being criticised for broadcasting their message and I think I’ve often assumed this means them broadcasting sales posts. However broadcasting could just mean throwing up a link without asking for conversation. If you put a link up on Facebook, Google+ or anywhere, don’t explain why and don’t encourage others to contribute you are neglecting the ‘social’. Always try and think about why you are sharing content and ask for opinions or a simple ‘do you agree?’ As we’ve seen with Facebook recently, interactions are becoming the most important part of what we do there. Getting conversation helps us know that someone is listening, it can inform us further, it can help us get to know our communities and identify brand advocates, it will encourage people to talk about you. It’s too important a priority to ignore
Be generous – curate
If you are generous and share information from others or links to websites other than your own, people will begin to see you as a resource for great content. Curating good content can take a while but once you have a system in place it becomes less of a chore and more of a resource for yourself. By curating you are also reading and finding the best content online, you are educating yourself whilst discovering. It also helps you build relationships. If you share content from another Facebook page, Google+ account, Tweeter you are endorsing them, you are making them aware of your presence and you are taking the first step towards getting to know them better.
Be conversational
A lot of social networks can seem stale, you might set up your profile and share some content but find that no one is responding to you. In order to encourage more people to interact with you, to like your page, to circle you, to follow your Pinterest board you need to go out there and like, share and most importantly comment on posts from other users. Whether it’s an opinion on a shared article or a bit of fluffy conversation this is relationship building in action. Remember you are social networking, you are meeting people, finding out about them, finding common interests. It’s exactly the same as networking in real life but social media allows you to widen your base to include the whole world rather than just who is available in your local area.
Be authentic
Lying in social media or exaggerating a claim can land you in hot water. By putting something dishonest out on the internet you amplify the danger of being caught out. If you are caught you run the risk of being pulled apart by social users who feel cheated. You should always strive to be authentic, by this I don’t mean you should share everything about your life but what you do share should be real. For example if you put your name on an account it should be you updating it. If it isn’t you should make it clear that someone else does this for you.
And there’s more! I know I haven’t covered all bases here. Is there a hard and fast rule for social networking that you use? And of course with all hard and fast rules there are exceptions. Do you know of any? Leave your ideas below.
This week we look at Google Glass, how the UK government plans to monitor social media accounts and Twitter suing TweetAdder (amongst others). I’ve also found some great articles on how we view the new Timeline pages, an interesting Facebook marketing strategy from ‘The Avengers’ movie and how memes work.
Google Glass
Here’s that video that has been popping up all over my social networks this week. This is how Google sees the future of the internet… viewed through glasses. And they can’t be far wrong, mobile internet usage is still on the rise and a more integrated device seems to be the next step. Of cours if you read William Gibson books back in the day this will seem like old news!
Twitter sues 5 companies for encouraging spam
This is an interesting story. I’ve never really been a fan of those automated applications that will follow and unfollow people for you. Sure they are an easy way of getting followers quickly but I don’t think you can beat getting them organically, building a strong and trusted network of followers. I also don’t jsut unfollow someone because they don’t follow me back. I pick and choose who to follow because they share great stuff, or add value to my Twitter stream, if they don’t follow back their value doesn’t decrease. However I know some people do find these services useful so it’s with interest that I read that Twitter are suing five companies, one of which is TweetAdder, because they encourage spamming. This article tries to determine why.
UK Government to monitor social networks
The governement in the UK is in the process of putting together legislation that will allow them to access social media and social media data from ISP’s. The internet service providers will have to collate the information for the authorities. This is clearly a worrying development and infringes on the privacy of British citizens. It’s being hailed as an anti terrorist measure but the worry is that a more autocratic government could abuse this information. More here.
Using Memes to encourage social media engagement
You can’t have missed the recent flood of memes on Facebook, all my friends seem to be sharing pictures and quotes, my newsfeed is full of them. This is a huge opportunity for marketers. If you can create a great sharable image your page data travels with it on it’s journey accross Facebook. Memes are not a new thing, remember the dancing baby from Ally McBeal? For more on memes and using them effectively check out this great read from Mike Lewis on Social Media Examiner.
How Facebook users really see your Timeline
A fascinating study on eye movements analysed exactly how people view the new Timeline brand pages, and there’s some surprises there. Users don’t really look at your cover image, they don’t care about your custom apps. However they do notice when friends interact with your page. So this is good news for those of you working hard at encouraging engagement. For more on the survey and tips on how to use the results to your advantage read more on Read Write Web.
Marvels The Avengers lets Facebook choose where it will be screened
Quite an innovative campaign from the new Marvel Avengers movie. It’s choosing the cities that it will be screened in first by the number of Facebook fans from that city (US only). A clever idea but it is noted that by default you are likely to have the most fans from the biggest cities… so it’s no surprise that the first five chosen were; Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Hueston & Miami. Read more about the campaign on All Facebook.
Pinterest for the healthcare industry
Probably not the first industry that springs to mind when you think about Pinterest, but this informative post from self confessed Pinterest addict Marie Ennis-O’Connor could persuade you. She takes you through the benefits of the network and how to use it to promote and market your business. Great tips for any industry not just healthcare.
And from Spiderworking.com this week
Add your latest blog post to your email signature with WiseStamp
This could be a really handy tool if you are trying to build blog readers. It allows you to input your RSS feed and displays the link to your latest post at the bottom of all your emails. More here.
And we’re delighted to be featured in the Tweak Your Biz digest of links about engagement in social media. If you’re looking for more weekend reading it’s worth checking out ‘The Holy Grail of Online Engagement (In 15 Steps)‘ by Christina Giliberti
Don’t forget, if you have a great social media story that you think we should include in this roundup leave the link in the comments.
As always there’s plenty of social media news this week. I haven’t included the ‘racist tweet’ story as it’s been covered so heavily by the main stream press. What I have included is news on Instagram for Android, employers wanting your Facebook logins, Google commenting… and lots more. Don’t forget you can submit stories you think should be included in my roundup every Thursday on my Facebook page.
Employers want your Facebook details – American attempt to make it illegal failed
It seems there has been a trend recently for employers to require employees to declare their Facebook login and passwords. It seems ludicrous that anyone could argue that this is OK. As soon as Facebook became aware of the situation they changed their Statement of Rights & Responsibilities to forbidding the act of sharing or soliciting passwords. Since then there have been attempts in the states to make it against the law, sadly with no success so far. Here’s the lowdown on the legal challenges to date from the Hubze blog.
At last! Instagram for Android
My iPhone had an accident last year and for a while I was using an Android phone, Instagram had been a favourite of mine on and I was devastated to discover there was no Android app. Thankfully after spending some time recuperating in a bag of rice in the airing cupboard my iPhone recovered and I’ve been happily snapping away. If you are not familiar with Instagram it’s a social media photo app, you upload photos, crop them to a square and add filters. It gives them a nostalgic feel (see the picture above).
Earlier this year there was talk of there finally being an Android app and that is one step closer to reality this week. You can now sign up to be one of the first to receive it when it’s launched. More here on the VentureBeat blog.
Google to launch commenting system
If you leave a comment on this blog you are using the Disqus commenting system. It’s a handy WordPress plugin that makes commenting nicer. It’s threaded and you can use a number of online identities to comment with. I’m a big fan although it can be glitchy at times. Facebook also have a commenting system that, like Disqus, can be added to your blog to manage your comments. Now it looks like Google is to launch it’s own system to rival these, like everything Google does it seems like a no brainer, surely a comment made on a Google system will be better for SEO than any other comment? It’s going to be interesting to see how it develops but here’s some pro’s and con’s as outlined by Read Write Web.
Storytelling for small business using Facebook Timeline for pages
For those of you who may still be cynical about Facebook Timeline for pages this video is a wonderful example of how it can enable storytelling to promote your brand. It’s bound to give you a few ideas of how to utilise some of the new features. It’s short but very compelling.
5 tips for moving social media leads into the sales funnel
2012 seems to be the year of ROI (return on investment) on social media and it’s about time. For two long we’ve been allowed to get away with fumbling the issue, yes it works we say but all too often real business goals haven’t been set or measured. We know we shouldn’t be too salesy on social networks but that doesn’t mean that we should ignore the sales process. That’s the reason I like this post from Social Media Examiner so much. It looks at how we should get and nurture leads as part of social media. It really is a must read, particularly if you are at a loss to justify the effort that you put into your online marketing.
Making Facebook a search engine
I’m sure that if you are a Facebook user you are aware that the search function is absolute pants. Very often I find myself frustratingly Googling “*a company name*” and “Facebook” to find their page as simply typing the name into the Facebook search bar has delivered no results. So it’s with some delight I see that Facebook are planning to make it better. It’s unclear at the moment what we can expect from the new search, will it attempt to rival Google for web search or will it simply make the on site search better? Read more on Silicon Republic.
And from Spiderworking.com this week
The Best Time To Post on Google+
I’m in the midst of revamping our Google+ strategy at the moment. I really believe that it’s a network we have to be on as Google continues to integrate it so strongly into search. This week I discovered a tool that will help you determine the best time of day and the best day of the week to post. Read my review here.
Chris Brogan & #SMWF
Yes I’m still banging on about my trip to Social Media World Forum soon, I promise. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am in the process of going through the twenty odd pages of notes I made. There were some real social media hero’s there. Chris Brogan, Scott Monty to name but two. There were also some really great case studies. I hurriedly cobbled together this post on Chris Brogan’s talk whilst it was still fresh in my mind, I’ve tried to cram in as many of his tips as I can.
Interview with Niall Harbison of Simply Zesty for Tweak Your Biz
I’ve taken a few weeks off of my own videocast to create some video interviews for Tweak Your Biz TV (formally Bloggertone). I was extremely privileged to talk to Niall Harbison from Simply Zesty about the amazing success of their blog and the recent sale to UTV. I am in awe of Niall’s blogging schedule. He writes two posts a day for Simply Zesty as well as keeping his own food blog. See the interview here.
As you may have noticed I’ve been looking forward to seeing Chris Brogan speak at Social Media World Forum for quite some time. When I arrived I sat (almost) right at the front so that I wouldn’t miss a word (see stalker style picture above). Here’s what I learnt.
Define your business goal
I guess people may be getting tired of hearing me banging on about Facebook Likes not being important, and it is true, you do need Likes in order to reach people, if you’re finding it hard to gather them here’s some of my tips. However the number of Likes or followers you have, or your Klout score should never be the goal of your social media campaign. Chris started his talk by revealling a conversation he overheard between two business people at breakfast. ‘Not once did they mention their Klout score or their Facebook Likes… social tools should be used in the service of doing business the same way that a telephone is.’ Apparently a bank manager won’t take your Klout score or Facebook Likes as payment for your mortage either! Using social media needs to be about achieving a measurable goal. This was the theme of Chris’s talk.
Your Website
Does your website have a strong call to action? When someone arrives there is it clear what they have to do next? or are there multiple calls to action? If it’s the latter the site is badly designed. You always need to be thinking about the sales process and guide visitors through it. In the age of mobile you need to make sure your site looks great on all devices, from a small screen phone to an iPad. It’s worth the investment as more and more consumers are accessing the web this way.
Your Email Marketing
91% of consumers over the age of 18 said they would prefer to interact with a brand via email. This is hugely more than any social media channel, email is not as you may of heard dead, it’s alive and well… bad email marketing is dead. Having a beautiful HTML designed email that fits in with your website is not what is important. Segmenting and segregating your email list so that you are sending the right message is. Make sure you are targetting customers, leads etc differently.
If you are putting more than one call to action in your newsletter then you are diluting your message make sure your emails don’t run to longer than 350 words. If it’s too long for you to read on a mobile device it’s also too long for the people you are sending it to. Encourage engagment and interaction by ensuring when someone clicks the reply button the email comes straight to you your email newsletter should be a ‘relationship experience’.
Video
Create interesting searchable content on YouTube. YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world, it’s important to embrace it. Again it’s not about views it’s about leads and conversions so define your goal, decide who you are trying to reach with your video and what information they will be searching for. Think about how you will turn them from leads into conversions.
Finding time for social media
‘I don’t have the time’ is a common complaint from social media sceptics so we need to look at where we do spend our time. At the moment how do we generate leads? Something like cold calling can reach up to 12 people an hour where as spending an hour on social media has the potential to reach 1,000.
These are the key points I picked up from Chris’s presentation, they may seem a little disjointed but there were so many in his talk I found it hard to keep up. At the end I asked him for examples of small business using Google+ well and I’ll be coming back to you on these. Were you at the talk? What tips have I missed? Remind me by posting them in the comments section below.
Finally something new has come along to eclipse the Facebook Timeline business pages. Yes the new iPad is what has been filling my feeds this week. There has been other news however and below is my pick of the best blog posts I’ve read this week. Sorry I couldn’t squeeze all your suggestions in.
Twitter and mobile advertising
It doesn’t seem that long ago that Twitter introduced promoted tweets. Twitter purists (myself included) were worried that ad’s would kill the network but so far they seem to fit in quite well. This week sees Twitter up their mobile advertising offering, allowing targeting of mobile customers specifically. This, and Facebook’s decision to display advertising on it’s mobile app show how seriously companies are taking the mobile web. Read more here on the Venture Beat blog.
Happy Birthday Twitter
Twitter was 6 years old this week. It’s amazing to think that something so young that started as a SMS service is now such a big part of so many peoples lives. It’s changed the way that news breaks and it’s given us all the opportunity to converse with people and businesses that were inaccessible to us in the past. I’ve done business on Twitter, debated on Twitter, made real life friends on Twitter and I’ve only been on it since January 2009! Here’s an app that will show you how long you’ve been on Twitter. And here’s a great article from Bernie Goldbach who’s been there since the beginning.
56% of Facebook pages have less than 256 fans!
For those struggling to build their Facebook community this could be good news. If you’ve more than 256 Likes you’re in the majority, well done! And that’s not it, there’s plenty of other interesting statistics in this infographic from Recommend.ly. Also revealing is that the second biggest page type is local businesses and that 82% of all pages only post 5 times a month! Read more here.
13 brands using Linkedin business pages
I often feel that Linkedin is one of the most undervalued of all social networks. But according to Hubspot in this article Linkedin is 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook or Twitter. If you feel that you’re not getting full benefit from Linkedin read beyond the stats to discover how to maximise your business page profile. This is something we’re currently working on at Spideworking.com.
Hiring Interns via Facebook
What an innovative way to hire an Intern, and just in case you’re worried, the job on offer is a fully paid Summer position. A marketing company called Fast Horse is asking Facebook to choose someone for the job. Applicants upload their submissions to a Facebook app and the applications are voted on by the community. More here. Would you trust your Facebook fans to choose the right person?
Facebook Timeline icons
If you are still in the midst of redesigning your Facebook page before it’s converted to Timeline at the end of the month this free icon set may help you. They can be used to customise your app tabs and all the basics are there. I called them ‘not beautiful’ on Twitter during the week (and was caught out by the designer) but they are functional and well designed, perfect for anyone who wants something quick and easy to make their page look good.
Re-arrange your Pinterest boards
Pinterest is still a hot topic and if you are using it for business it’s worth having a look at this post from Write On Track. It shows you how to re-order your boards so that some appear more prominently. This is a great way to highlight seasonal offerings, special offers or a particular board you want to draw attention to.
This week I finally got around to answering one of the most common questions I get asked. How do you get more Likes to your Facebook page? I’m sure I’m missing a few so do leave a comment if you have a great tip to share.
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The Social 7 – My Top Social Media Reads Of The Week
As always there’s plenty of social media news this week. I haven’t included the ‘racist tweet’ story as it’s been covered so heavily by the main stream press. What I have included is news on Instagram for Android, employers wanting your Facebook logins, Google commenting… and lots more. Don’t forget you can submit stories you think should be included in my roundup every Thursday on my Facebook page.
Employers want your Facebook details – American attempt to make it illegal failed
It seems there has been a trend recently for employers to require employees to declare their Facebook login and passwords. It seems ludicrous that anyone could argue that this is OK. As soon as Facebook became aware of the situation they changed their Statement of Rights & Responsibilities to forbidding the act of sharing or soliciting passwords. Since then there have been attempts in the states to make it against the law, sadly with no success so far. Here’s the lowdown on the legal challenges to date from the Hubze blog.
At last! Instagram for Android
My iPhone had an accident last year and for a while I was using an Android phone, Instagram had been a favourite of mine on and I was devastated to discover there was no Android app. Thankfully after spending some time recuperating in a bag of rice in the airing cupboard my iPhone recovered and I’ve been happily snapping away. If you are not familiar with Instagram it’s a social media photo app, you upload photos, crop them to a square and add filters. It gives them a nostalgic feel (see the picture above).
Earlier this year there was talk of there finally being an Android app and that is one step closer to reality this week. You can now sign up to be one of the first to receive it when it’s launched. More here on the VentureBeat blog.
Google to launch commenting system
If you leave a comment on this blog you are using the Disqus commenting system. It’s a handy WordPress plugin that makes commenting nicer. It’s threaded and you can use a number of online identities to comment with. I’m a big fan although it can be glitchy at times. Facebook also have a commenting system that, like Disqus, can be added to your blog to manage your comments. Now it looks like Google is to launch it’s own system to rival these, like everything Google does it seems like a no brainer, surely a comment made on a Google system will be better for SEO than any other comment? It’s going to be interesting to see how it develops but here’s some pro’s and con’s as outlined by Read Write Web.
Storytelling for small business using Facebook Timeline for pages
For those of you who may still be cynical about Facebook Timeline for pages this video is a wonderful example of how it can enable storytelling to promote your brand. It’s bound to give you a few ideas of how to utilise some of the new features. It’s short but very compelling.
Twitter brand page backgrounds to inspire you
And if the video above didn’t inspire you enough I’m loving this post from Hubspot showcasing some beautifully designed Twitter backgrounds. I particularly like the Adrants one (pictured above) as it will work with every screen resolution size. It’s certainly inspired me to think about tinkering with the Spiderworking.com one.
5 tips for moving social media leads into the sales funnel
2012 seems to be the year of ROI (return on investment) on social media and it’s about time. For two long we’ve been allowed to get away with fumbling the issue, yes it works we say but all too often real business goals haven’t been set or measured. We know we shouldn’t be too salesy on social networks but that doesn’t mean that we should ignore the sales process. That’s the reason I like this post from Social Media Examiner so much. It looks at how we should get and nurture leads as part of social media. It really is a must read, particularly if you are at a loss to justify the effort that you put into your online marketing.
Making Facebook a search engine
I’m sure that if you are a Facebook user you are aware that the search function is absolute pants. Very often I find myself frustratingly Googling “*a company name*” and “Facebook” to find their page as simply typing the name into the Facebook search bar has delivered no results. So it’s with some delight I see that Facebook are planning to make it better. It’s unclear at the moment what we can expect from the new search, will it attempt to rival Google for web search or will it simply make the on site search better? Read more on Silicon Republic.
And from Spiderworking.com this week
The Best Time To Post on Google+
I’m in the midst of revamping our Google+ strategy at the moment. I really believe that it’s a network we have to be on as Google continues to integrate it so strongly into search. This week I discovered a tool that will help you determine the best time of day and the best day of the week to post. Read my review here.
Chris Brogan & #SMWF
Yes I’m still banging on about my trip to Social Media World Forum soon, I promise. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am in the process of going through the twenty odd pages of notes I made. There were some real social media hero’s there. Chris Brogan, Scott Monty to name but two. There were also some really great case studies. I hurriedly cobbled together this post on Chris Brogan’s talk whilst it was still fresh in my mind, I’ve tried to cram in as many of his tips as I can.
Interview with Niall Harbison of Simply Zesty for Tweak Your Biz
I’ve taken a few weeks off of my own videocast to create some video interviews for Tweak Your Biz TV (formally Bloggertone). I was extremely privileged to talk to Niall Harbison from Simply Zesty about the amazing success of their blog and the recent sale to UTV. I am in awe of Niall’s blogging schedule. He writes two posts a day for Simply Zesty as well as keeping his own food blog. See the interview here.