There’s been a lot of talk about the Facbook IPO again this week, Google+ have finally launched a share button but I’m not going to talk about either of those things. Here’s my top social media reads of the week.
Tweeting the French election results in code
The French presidential election is in full swing and Sarkosy seems to have taken a bit of a battering. I’m not too familiar with the French political system but it seems that election law forbids anyone reporting the results before an official announcement. Of course Twitter users decided to ignore these rules and started tweeting results in code, using terms such as ‘Flan’ and ‘Tomato’ to signify candidates. A great way to rebel! Here’s a full story in The Guardian.
Facebook change the size of profile pictures for business pages
Around the time that Google+ launched their re-design Facebook quietly changed the size and positioning of profile pictures on Facebook Timeline profile pages, this week it implemented the change on business pages too. The alignment of the newly sized profile image is slightly different on business pages to profiles but the size is the same. This has meant that anyone with a really cool integrated cover and profile image, like the Pizza Hut one featured here has had to quickly re-design. If you’d like to have a go at creating a an integrated image and have Photoshop or another image manipulation programme the geniuses at HyperArts have created a downloadable Photoshop template to help you. You can get it here.
How to make Infographics
I blame Pinterest… well actually even before Pinterest was the big thing I’d got a bit tired of Infographics, now the online world seems to be flooded with them. Some are brilliant some are not so great. However it can’t be denied that the pairing of easy to consume data with a network like Pinterest means they can generate phenomenal traffic. If you’ve ever fancied creating your own there are lots of apps out there to help. This great post from Write On Track tells you all the basics and shows you some tools that might help you out.
How to measure your social media success for free
Measurement of your social media campaign is an essential part of everything you do within social media. If you don’t know if your efforts are working it can be easy to get disheartened. If you measure you will discover what works and what doesn’t work. It will help you see the results of your efforts and keep you motivated. demonstrates some simple techniques to help you meaure. Here’s a brilliant post from Social Media Examiner that shows you how to measure using free tools. I’d recommend bookmarking it as it’s something you will want to return to over and over again.
The problem with engagement
I’ve talked about this a lot. Engagement is becoming the most important part of what we do on social media. There are lots of things you can do to encourage people to engage with you but getting obsessed with your talking about stat, or the number of @ replies you have can be just as bad as counting the number of Likes or followers you have. Why? Well unless you are engaging with your target market all the engagement in the world won’t help you reach your business goals. So have we all gone engagement mad? Are we all scrambling so hard for likes, comments & mentions that we are forgetting our key messages and business goals. This week I’ve read two articles that suggest just that. This one from the brilliant Brian Solis and an easier to read but less in-depth look from Jason Falls.
Facebook EdgeRank explained
Here’s a scary fact. Only 16% of your Facebook Likes see your content appear on their newsfeeds. Why is this? It’s all down to an algorithm called EdgeRank, this scores every piece of content you post according to three main factors. The higher the EdgeRank the more likely it is to make it to the newsfeed. It’s this EdgeRank that is driving the engagement frenzy I talked about in the last paragraph. Here’s a fantastic post from EdgeRank Checker that delves a bit deeper into the algorithm.
Google+ tactics used by the blogging pros
There are probably lots of reasons you’ve either not bothered with Google+ or that you have given up on it. One of the biggest barriers for many has been trying to define a strategy that is different to what you do elsewhere. These tips from ProBlogger could essentially be used on any social network but they might inspire you to rethink Google+.
And a special mention goes to…
This is link number 8 but I couldn’t sign off without mentioning this brilliant project from Christina at CG Online Marketing. Here’s her latest post and videos about Irish Dogs For The Disabled.
And from Spiderworking.com this week
Add a YouTube tab to your Facebook page
I’ve not been video blogging for Spiderworking.com for a while. Instead I’ve been working with TweakYourBiz TV to interview some social media heroes and innovators. I’ve also had my flip cam out creating videos for Blog Awards Ireland. I have noticed though that a lot of people who visit my Facebook page have been hitting the video tab. It’s great that these videos are finding a new audience but I was also very aware that the videos uploaded directly to Facebook were a bit dated, the most recent video blogs have been uploaded exclusively to YouTube and linked to Faceobok. This weeks cool tool shows you how you can add a YouTube tab to your Facebook page.
How to be delightful
Do you reward the most active people on your social media channels? What do you do to inspire your brand advocates to share more of your content or refer you more? I recently received a bottle of champagne for tweeting a lot at a conference and it inspired me to think about how this sort of reward could be translated to small business. Read more here.
How to be successful on Facebook
Many businesses feel they hit a brick wall with their Facebook marketing. In this post I wrote for the Sage Ireland blog I share some of my tips for success, tips that I hope might help you get over the first few hurdles.
