This weeks roundup of good reads includes some Facebook data, some Twitter tips and a brief look at the new Facebook insights.
Sharing on Facebook: An Analysis of Boston Globe Posts
This is a fascinating review of a study of Boston Globe posts on Facebook. Some aspects will not surprise you, for example posts with images have more interaction and reach. Others may surprise you, for example labeling a post as ‘Breaking News’ made no difference to interaction although it did get greater reach. There’s more in the full study too if you want to have a full on old geek out.
20 Of The BEST Calls To Action
Us marketers are always talking about calls to action. It’s important to know what you want people to do with your content or when they arrive on your website. You need to think about how you will send people to your website, sign up form or other lead generation tool. You want to think about how you can get more interaction on Facebook whilst still adding value.
This great article from SteamFeed gives you some great suggestions for your social media calls to action. Some are a bit cringe-worthy but most of them are really useful.
3 most useful metrics in the new Facebook insights
Have you enabled the new Facebook insights yet? I did earlier this week and was really impressed with the layout and the information available. It will take me a while to get used to it fully but it’s a definite improvement. This article from Inside Facebook is a good start. I’m quite excited about the optimum posting time metric. This could help take the guesswork out of it without having to use external applications.
Twitter Cheat Sheet: Profile Image Heights, Widths & Design Tips
I’m a big fan of sizing guides. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gone to Jon Loomers Facebook page in order to check the size of an image for Facebook. Now there’s a version for Twitter. This Infographic is one to bookmark, showing you all the sizes you need to know about to design your profile page. It’s about time I looked at the design of mine again.
Instagram to Twitter Shortcut: Easily Tweet Instagram Photos with IFTTT
I’m a big fan of Instagram and I, like many others was devastated last year when images shared from the app no longer appeared as rich content on the Twitter site. You now have to click the Instagram link and leave Twitter in order to view the images.
Sometimes I will save my Instagram shots to my phone and upload them to Twitter so that people can see them in the stream but most of the time I just don’t share Instagram images on Twitter at all. That was until this week. I found this article that shows you how to use the IFTTT app to share Instagram photos to Twitter, doing it this way means they will appear in the stream just like they used to.
I’ve been meaning to use IFTTT for a while and I think this feature is the one that will finally tip me over to using it.
15 Killer Questions to Spark Your Content Creation
Do you get stuck for content ideas? Silly question – I think we all do from time to time. Next time you find yourself in front of your keyboard, fingers poised with not a clue what to write about this list could come in really useful. It’s a list of questions that you can ask yourself that should prompt content ideas. They’d make a great starting point for a mindmap.
10 Habits Of Great Tweeters
I’ve been talking a lot about the Beginners Guide To Twitter course I’m running on We Teach Social recently and I’m currently gathering ideas for the Twitter Advanced course that I will be launching in the new term. This post, listing good Twitter habits is great, it’s really a to-do list for your own Twitter account. Again, it’s one you might want to bookmark and return to every couple of months to make sure you are keeping your habits in check.
And From Spiderworking.com this week
The Reluctant Speaker Club Podcast
I was honoured to be asked by Eamonn O’Brien of The Reluctant Speakers Club to be his first guest on his new podcast. We ended up chatting for so long that he split my interview in to two parts.
1. On the Blog Awards Ireland.
There’s also an extra bit where he asks me 7 quick fire questions. I’m a bit embarrassed that for some reason I said my favourite blog was Techcrunch! It was the first one that came in to my head but in all honestly I rarely read it! Have a listen and subscribe to hear more business talk news from Eamonn.
Count Your Characters For Twitter Bios With Letter Count – Cool Tool
I really like the simplicity of this weeks cool tool. It’s a website that will measure the number of characters you type in to a box. Really handy for Twitter bios and Facebook ads amongst other things. Read more here.
How Is Your Twitter Etiquette?
This post was written in response to a question I got asked by one of the We Teach Social students who asked about etiquette. I am always loathed to give hard and fast rules as everyone has their own etiquette. There are however always a few good manners that are worth adhering to. Here are my suggestions and those of my Facebook followers.
For more info and to book a place on the next Twitter for beginners course with We Teach Social starting on 25th August click here.
