Blogging has been on my mind this week and t0day’s roundup reflects that. There are three links that are worth checking out if you are a blogger or a prospective blogger. I’ve also included a link to a brilliant Burger King Facebook campaign, some interesting Twitter tips from the New York Times and more.
Blogging tools: 15 Tools to Become a more productive and effective blogger
I’m always looking at ways to improve my blog and to make the blogging process easier. It’s not always the writing that takes the time. It’s deciding on topics, creating graphics and images, and syndicating it that is the real time suck.
This post from Ian Cleary of Razor Social is a fabulous resource, it’s packed with tools. For example, I’ve been using Topsy for Twitter searches recently as I find it is much better than the inbuilt search. I hadn’t however thought of it for researching topics.
There is also a really cool graphics tool in there, ‘Canva’ that I have to try out, if the graphics here suddenly get a lot better you will know what happened.
Finally I’ve been having trouble with the RSS feeds that are supposed to link to the WeTeachSocial Twitter account, I’m now using DLVR.it thanks to Ian. There’s lots of other good stuff in this post too, have a read.
If a tweet worked once, send it again — and other lessons from The New York Times’ social media desk
I love this post from the New York Times, it analyses their tweets and shows what did and didn’t work well for them 2013. It outlines their biggest mistake that came from an automated shared Tweet, claiming tennis player Andy Murray as English. It seems that being straightforward and human have worked best for them and attempts to be clever worked less well.
Read more about what they learnt here.
Original Facebook Guide
If you are a regular reader of this blog you are probably aware by now that I am a huge fan of the Facebook app ‘ShortStack‘ (that’s an affilate link). As well as making a great tool for adding custom tabs and competitions to your Facebook page they also create great content. Here’s their guide to Facebook with a downloadable template and some posting hints and tips.
8 Smart Ways to Combine Blogging with Email Marketing for Best-Selling Results
As a social media marketer people often expect me to tell them that email marketing is dead, in fact I may have uttered those words 4 years ago before Facebook started filtering posts. Now I’m a convert, email marketing is still one of the best ways to reach your audience and to drive traffic to your website.
This excellent article from CopyBlogger is full of clever ways to get the most from your email marketing, some of it is straight forward like offering blog readers the option to subscribe to your posts by email and others are a bit smarter. For example, had you thought of creating some FAQ template emails with links to your blog posts in them? This way you can answer customer queries more efficiently and get more readers to your blog at the same time.
Clever Marketing – Burger King ditched Facebook fans with a free Big Mac offer
Burger King have been getting pretty innovative with their online marketing recently and this campaign from Burger King Norway is no exception. They opened a new Facebook page and gave Likers a choice, they could either like the new Facebook page or have a free Big Mac. The catch was if they chose the Big Mac they would be banned from the Facebook page for life.
This is a really clever way to ensure the people that matter like your page, it also means they won’t have to spend big bucks advertising to an audience who would rather be in McDonalds.
[embedyt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGJzkwu7bik[/embedyt]
How to Self-Edit your Blog
One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make, myself included, is not spending enough time reviewing their content. Although I proof read every post some typos still seem to creep in. This article from Socialnomics is one to bookmark, not only does it outline the importance of proof reading it also contains lots of other editing tips. For example are you using too many adverbs in your posts? Are your sentences too long? Are you writing for your audience. This is one post I’ll be hanging on to.
28 Day Study of Reach After December 2nd, 2013
You probably noticed that Facebook reach took a dive again at the beginning of December. I even wrote about it here. The clever people at EdgeRankChecker have delved into the statistics further. Interestingly although there was a drop in reach it seems engagement rates have stayed put. It’s a really fascinating study.
You can read all their findings here.
And From Spiderworking This Week
Are Your Facebook ‘Boost Posts’ Getting Rejected? Use Facebook Grid Tool – Cool Tool
We’re focussing on Facebook and social advertising this month at Spiderworking. One of the most frustrating rules on Facebook ads is that boosted posts with images can’t contain more than 20% text. Luckily Facebook have their own tool so you can check if your image complies. Here’s how it works.
How To Set Up A Facebook Advert in Facebook Ads Manager
A lot of the businesses I’ve worked with have used the timeline advertising features on Facebook but haven’t delved any further. Ads Manager may not be as complicated as people think. I created this quick video tutorial to help newbies get started.
Social Advertising – The Good, The Bad & The Future?
I discussed advertising at the CongRegation un-conference at the end of last year. I was becoming increasingly more frustrated with ads on the TV, in the cinema but most of all on Facebook and YouTube. I’ve elaborated on my original discussion paper here including examples of the good the bad and what the future of targeted advertising may hold. You’ll see that Burger King campaign features here again.
6 Ways To Refresh Your Twitter Profile For 2014
This week I’ve been blogging for We Teach Social, the online social media training company I run with Lorna Sixsmith. I took a look at ways that you could boost your Twitter profile for 2014.
Did you know that Spiderworking.com runs Facebook advertising campaigns for business? Click here to find out more.
