Welcome to our weekly edition of what's hot in social media news.
To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
Facebook Carousel Ad Format is Now Available for Mobile: "Given the success of carousel link ads", Facebook is extending the format to mobile app ads as well.
Since being introducing on Facebook,"advertisers have seen carousel link ads drive 30-50% lower cost-per-conversion and 20-30% lower cost-per-click than single-image link ads"
Facebook Introduces Instant Articles: Facebook's Instant Articles is "a fast and interactive experience for reading articles in News Feed."
"Instant Articles load as much as ten times faster than standard mobile web articles, so you get to the stories you want to read instantly."
Facebook Adds Call Now Button to Local Awareness Ads: "By adding a 'Call Now' button, customers can call you right from your ad in the News Feed."
"The Call Now button is available for local awareness ads in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S."
LinkedIn Begins Announced Changes to Developer Program: LinkedIn is rolling out "some significant changes to [their] Developer Program, with the aim of ensuring the highest quality LinkedIn experience."
Other social media news worth following:
Tumblr Improves Search Feature: Tumblr announces "three massive improvements to the way you search for posts on a blog."
To search a Tumblr blog, users can "click a blog's name or avatar to open it up."
Here's a cool social media tool worth checking out:
Supermetrics Uploader: A tool that imports your advertising cost and ROI data into your Google Analytics reports.
Spotter: An app that brings you essential business news based on your interests.
"Spotter was designed for one-handed use on the busy train. The most important features are within thumbs reach."
How to Target the Fans of Another Facebook Page with a Facebook Ad
2015 Facebook Industry Report: According to Simply Measured's 2015 Facebook Industry Report, overall engagement on video content posted on Facebook went up 8% during Q1 2015 while the number of videos posted by the Interbrand 100 only increased by 2%. The bulk of this engagement came from shares of Facebook videos, which increased by 43% in the first three months of 2015.
How-to Video Searches Increases in 2015: New data released from Google shows that there are more searches for how-to videos on YouTube in 2015 and the amount of how-to content viewed has grown as well. More than 100 million hours of how-to videos have been viewed by North American users since January and searches are up by 70% year-over-year. Google reports that the most popular "how-to" searches include home-improvement, beauty and cooking related videos.
Compliance Analysis of Fortune 100 Social Media Infrastructure: A year-long study from Nextgate's security-as-a-service provider, Proofpoint, reveals that the average Fortune 100 firm has 320 social media accounts and 1,159 employees creating more than 500,000 posts on their behalf. On average, firms suffered from a total of 69 unmoderated compliance incidents on social media. Financial services companies accounted for the largest number of incidents with over 250 per firm. Based on the report, employees were responsible for 12 of the average 69 unmoderated social compliance incidents per firm, while public commenters were responsible for the other 57.
What do you think? Have you tried Facebook Carousel Ads? Please share your comments below.
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Cindy King is the director of editorial for Social Media Examiner. She spent 25 years abroad in international business development and then built her own international business from scratch by using social business networking. Other posts by Cindy King »
Want to incorporate influencers into your marketing?
To discover what you need to know about influencer marketing, I interview Lee Odden.
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.
In this episode, I interview Lee Odden, an influencer marketing expert. He's the author of Optimize, the CEO of TopRank Marketing, and his company produces TopRankBlog.com.
Lee explores influencer marketing and what you need to know to do it well.
You'll discover how to work with influencers.
Listen as Lee Oden shares what marketers need to know about influencer marketing, and what you need to know to get started.
Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
Listen now: Play in new window | DownloadYou can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher or SoundCloud.
Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
What is influencer marketing?
Lee says the roots of influencer marketing are in advocacy and public relations organizations. You're essentially working with people who are really famous in an industry. The idea is to create an affinity for the brand for however that celebrity is known, and to reach the audience that celebrity has been able to attract.
Lee adds that people still have the idea that if they convince famous people to talk about their company, then they'll be famous too.
The reality is that, today, especially in the world of social media, people are empowered to follow their passions to create, curate, connect with others, and attract a following. This allows people to create their own influence. Everyone is influential about something, Lee says.
Not just famous people can be part of your influencer marketing program. An influencer can be an employee like "Ted in engineering," who has a blog with 5,000 subscribers. Or, it could be that person with a million followers. It could even be customers who are advocating for you every chance they get. When you work with people who have subject matter expertise and an active network, you can advance your brand goals in some really powerful ways.
People who have an active network are influencers. Image: Shutterstock.
On platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat, there's a whole category of people called creators. They have various levels of celebrity, influence, or network size, and have anointed themselves as experts. There are marketplaces where brands can go and literally shop for a tweet, an Instagram image, product placement in a YouTube video, etc. For companies in the business of paying to play, it's a good fit.
There are also brands that want to develop relationships with people who are truly thought leaders in their industry, or up-and-comers. They want to develop relationships, because they have an affinity for each other and have things their common audiences care about. There's no right or wrong, but it's important when setting expectations to know what you're going to get out of it.
What is the distinction between a celebrity and a thought leader? Lee brought up an expression he borrowed from Scott Monty, "brandividual." This is someone truly invested in developing his or her own brand, except they're an individual. These professional influencers write books, give keynotes, and do all sorts of amazing things.
Lee adds it's an important distinction to make between someone who is exclusively focused on being well-known and someone who is a true thought leader. He's not saying a brandividual can't be a thought leader. A thought leader is someone expressing original thought. They're creating content based on intelligence, experimentation, and observations.
Brian Solis is a great example of a thought leader, Lee says. In addition to being really good at promoting himself, Brian is constantly experimenting. He does research. He interviews. And then collects, analyzes, and interprets the data. His experiments and experiences help form the thought leader content that Brian publishes.
Brian Solis is a thought leader who constantly does research, interprets the data, and shares his findings.
Just as important as expressing interests and creating content is doing it in a way that inspires others to act. Sam Fiorella made that point to Lee early in his formal studies around influencer marketing.
Look at an individual like "Ted in engineering" who has 5,000 subscribers. Now compare him to someone like Gary Vaynerchuk, who has millions of followers. Gary is an exception, because proportionate to his large following, he has a high degree of engagement. He's a very unique individual. However, that's not always the case. Someone in a niche who gets people to pay attention and act is an influencer.
It's much better to have 50 of 500 followers engaged and taking action, than only a handful of people paying attention to someone with 100,000 followers. The smaller network size is better, since it has more action, engagement, and outcomes.
Listen to the show to learn how Lee got into influencer marketing.
The benefits of influencer marketing
Lee says brands work with influencers to tap into their subject matter expertise, community reach, and often their skills, which are relevant to their marketing or business goal.
People who have subject matter expertise are influencers. Image: Shutterstock.
Lee says brands are focused on working with influencers in the context of content, because it's tangible. Quality, authentic, credible content resonates with the community, since it has the voice of the customer in it.
Also, you can reach people your brand might not otherwise be able to reach. Ad blocking and numbness to advertising and marketing are big issues. People trust those they know (experts, peers, and folks they're connected to on their social networks) more than advertisers, so influencers can play a role there.
Tomoson did a study that showed that businesses that implemented influencer programs get nearly a 7:1 return in advertising value. There are a lot of other benefits, but fundamentally it's about reach, quality, and expertise from influencers.
According to Tomoson, companies that implemented influencer programs are getting a substantial return on their investment.
Another study showed better quality customers, shortened sales cycles, and (Lee's favorite) the prospect influencer. In the B2B world there are people who work at companies that would be great for collaboration. If the person or the brand has a degree of influence, invite them to make something together in terms of content.
Lee's company has created conference ebooks and done other projects with prospect influencers. The benefit is that it helps you create a relationship with someone with whom you would like to work. You're creating value and demonstrating your own expertise by making something together and creating an experience.
"That's one of the best benefits of all, especially in B2B," Lee says.
For over five years, Lee has worked with various events and brands to identify influencers to co-create content for the community at large. They pick a topic, drill down to the specifics, and invite influencers to be a part of making a useful resource. Usually, there's a theme of some kind. Rock n Roll, surfing, etc.
Listen to the show to hear about the surfing-themed book we did with Lee from Social Media Marketing World.
Getting started
First, identify your expectations or what you want to get out of working with influencers. If it's sales, that's fine. Just realize you're going to pay to play. It's a relationship game and it's long-term, Lee adds. When you do a campaign, you need something that goes along with it, like a nurturing effort. Take that awareness, build it into consideration, and it ultimately turn it into purchase or a transaction.
Be clear about what you want from your campaign. Image: Shutterstock.
Also think about what role your work with influencers is going to play in your overall marketing and how you'll measure success.
What is realistic in terms of goals with influencers? Lee says it's like a force multiplier to your content marketing, in that it accelerates the reach. It shortens sales cycles, but you need something to sell. You've got to have something that solves people's problems.
Goals are not universal, Lee continues. It's like asking, "What's the benefit of marketing?" The answer is it depends. There are different kinds of companies, audiences, and things that are being sold. Influencer marketing is no different. It brings credible people to the table in creating or promoting content, which lowers barriers and lubricates the speed at which messages are received by audiences.
Influencer content can play a role at any stage during the buying cycle, whether it's creating awareness, part of consideration and evaluation, a transaction, or even around retention or advocacy. Any marketing goals you have can be applied to influencer marketing.
Listen to the show to discover the simplest way to use influencers.
How to identify influencers
Although you may have an intuitive sense of who is influential in your industry, there are also ways to find influencers. In the same way you might do keyword research (input words and ideas into Google's Keyword Planner and it spits back related keywords), you can do research with an influencer discovery tool.
After you decide what you want to be known for (what words represent the campaign or effort), put them into an influencer discovery tool. It will then come back with a list, like search results of people who are influential about that topic.
Search for influencers using a discovery tool like Group High.
For instance, BuzzSumo has an influencer search function. You can also use GroupHigh (a paid tool) to specifically find bloggers. There's also Traackr.com (a client of Lee's), which is more of a premium service.
These all work the same way. Pop in words, and it sends back a list of people who are influential about those things and their social networks. They all use some kind of scoring system, too.
Lee adds it's import not to evaluate based on network size. Don't go with the most popular people. Look for a combination of reach, relevance, and resonance, which has to do with how well that person's audience reacts to what he or she publishes.
More tools include Little Bird and ScribbleLive. Plus, TopRankBlog will be publishing a list of 50 influencer marketing platforms soon.
Tools such as Little Bird help you find the influencers who fit with your goal. Image: Shutterstock.
Listen to the podcast to hear Lee's take on these various tools and the progression of using them.
Reaching out
If people show up in an influencer discovery tool, it means they're creating content, whether it's tweets, images, or blog posts. That content can give you signals as to how to approach them. You can often tell if someone is interested in having awareness, as they spend a lot of time trying to get visibility for themselves.
Lee loves using content creation as the invitation for collaboration.
Make a list of the top 10 people in a certain industry, he suggests. Then, write a post about them, giving legitimate reasons why they're amazing. Go to these influencers and tell them you included them in this list and thank them for everything they do.
After the list publishes, go back to them and tell them you're creating a resource and you'd like them to provide the answer to one question for it. You ask, they answer, and now you have a robust blog post featuring several influencers. Later on, you can perhaps go back and ask a few questions this time. You've now developed a relationship based on value you created for them with these exposure opportunities.
Although these types of interviews are mostly done online, you can give busy influencer the option of doing it over the phone or sending you an audio message with answers through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn messaging, or even email.
If you have no visibility and are starting from scratch, finding influencers will be a challenge. However, if you've built up your reputation (you're advertising, actively speaking, and creating content, etc., or are making a concerted effort to do so), the chances of them saying yes is much greater. Be funny, succinct, and to the point with what's in it for them when you do your outreach.
The ebook 50 Ways to #FAIL at Influencer Marketing was also an influencer collaboration.
Lee admits they've made mistakes over the years. Just like in the song, "50 Ways to Leave your Lover," they documented 50 ways to fail at influencer marketing. This collaboration with influencers was repurposed into an ebook.
Discover a way to create value, Lee says. Determine what the influencer isn't getting and find a way to give it to him or her. For instance, if Lee sees people actively speaking at conferences, being quoted, or writing articles in business magazine websites, Lee's pretty sure if he can get them exposure on a really credible website, it will be attractive to them.
Listen to the show to discover how name-dropping helps woo influencers.
Paying influencers
Lee believes folks who are in high demand deserve to be compensated. They have a lot of skill, bring a lot to the table, and have demonstrated their ability to affect outcomes or create impact.
If you're working with an up-and-coming influencer, asking him or her to do something fairly easy (like answer one question or use a quote from another article in a curated post), that's just a value exchange. Also, if your brand is well-respected in the industry, a lot of those influencers will want to be associated with you. Those things don't require payment.
However, influencer marketplaces, like Tapinfluence, Crowdtap, and Webfluential are advertising platforms. You're shopping for someone to post a photo on Instagram, do a YouTube video for you, or send a tweet. And it's going to cost you. This is a good fit for companies that look at influencer marketing as advertising.
Influencer marketplaces like Crowdtap are pay-to-play advertising platforms.
Even if you don't use a marketplace, Lee says if you're working with an established influencer it's important to pay for their time. You may not have a lot of money, and that's okay. At least tell the influencer you don't have a large budget, but you'd like to pay them something (a nominal amount) as a thank-you.
It could be $500 or $1,000 for someone who normally gets paid $10,000 to $20,000 for a one-hour keynote. The bigger the ask, the more you should think about compensation. You're not just giving an influencer money, you're making an investment. It doesn't have to be a lot, but there's a big difference between zero and $500 or $1,000.
Listen to the show to hear the other benefit to paying influencers.
Disclosures
Any time a brand gives something of value to the influencer, there has to be a disclosure, whether it's money, a favor, or a freebie. You can disclose at the beginning or the end.
Lee talks about an influencer program they were running for Dell for Power More. Technology influencers would write for them and publish on their own blog. The same post would be published on the Dell content hub. There was a very long legalese disclaimer on their posts.
On the less formal end of the spectrum, if you sent socks to a blogger and that blogger says, "Look at these socks that I got from this company," that is also a disclosure.
Listen to the show to discover in what circumstances no disclosures are needed.
Google Photos, which is an app that works on both iOS and Android, allows unlimited uploads of your photos into the Cloud.
If you have a Google account, you can upload full-resolution photos from your phone and it takes up space on your Google account. However, if you upload your pics as high-resolution images, it's unlimited and it's free.
Upload, organize, and search your images with Google Photos.
Not only does uploading your images to Google Photos free up space on your mobile device, the search is amazing. It allows you to easily locate exactly whatever you want.
Google's smart algorithm looks at your pictures and labels them. For example, I can look at the cities Google thinks are in my library and zoom in on them. I can type in and search for mountain shots, screenshots, or selfies; look for things like food, sky, and long hair; and search for activities like concerts, stadiums, backpacking, birthdays, Christmas, and Halloween.
When you do a search for someone and then click on a face, all the pictures you've ever taken of that person are shown.
Google Photos allows you to rapidly locate things you're interested in. If you're looking for something in the past and don't remember when it happened, previously you needed to scroll through thousands of pictures to figure it out. Now, all you need to do is search inside the Google Photos app.
Check out Google Photos. It's completely free.
Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how the Google Photos works for you.
Welcome to our weekly edition of what's hot in social media news.
To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
Facebook Introduces Native Ad Tools: Facebook is offering "new native-focused tools to help publishers more easily implement native ad formats: native ad templates, native ad management tools and horizontal scrolling for native ads."
Facebook's new "native ad templates are based on common ad format sizes and native ad best practices."
LinkedIn Unveils Analytics for Publishing on LinkedIn: "LinkedIn has started to roll out full analytics and statistics on your posts made on its publishing platform."
"Analytics for publishing on LinkedIn provide insights into who's reading and engaging with your posts."
Google+ Introduces Collections: Google+ Collections is "a new way to group your posts by topic."
"Every collection is a focused set of posts on a particular topic, providing an easy way for you to organize all the things you're into."
Meerkat Adds Facebook Support: With Meerkat's latest update, it's "easier than ever to discover and interact with the people you already know by integrating with your phone's address book, and giving you the ability to push live and upcoming streams directly to your Facebook page."
Now on Meerkat, "a Twitter account is optional. Your audience can sign in with Facebook Connect to view your streams."
Meerkat Opens a Developer Platform: Meerkat is looking "to create a community for third-party developers to interact and work together with the Meerkat dev team."
Other social media news worth following:
Canva Announces "Canva for Work": "Online design platform Canva today announced it will set out to change the way every company designs with its new team offering, 'Canva for Work,' which will launch next month."
"Canva for Work will be launching officially next month."
Klout Reveals Klout Topic Expertise: "This feature will make it easier for people to make personal decisions based on the right context and with a higher degree of trust, based on the expertise of the people they choose to follow."
"Users will be able to easily see who the experts are for all topics found on Klout and identify individual Klout expertise."
Here's a cool social media tool worth checking out:
Search Analytics Report: "The new report in Google Webmaster Tools that will allow you to make the most out of your traffic analysis."
"The new Search Analytics report enables you to break down your site's search data and filter it in many different ways in order to analyze it more precisely."
How to Pull the Images You Want When You Post a Link on Facebook
Customers' Social Media Marketing Expectations for Local Businesses: According to a new survey from G/O Digital, 73% of U.S. consumers report that Facebook is the most important social media platform on which local businesses should have a presence. Twelve percent of respondents said Google+ is the most important social network for local businesses. Twitter was third (3%), followed by LinkedIn (2%) and Instagram (less than 1%).
2015 Marketing Performance Management Report: According to a March 2015 study by Demand Metric and VisionEdge Marketing, 83% of marketing professionals worldwide said that the pressure to drive results and prove their contribution to their business has increased. Marketers report having an effect across a wide range of business areas and goals. Mentioned in particular by over half of the respondents were customer acquisition and revenue growth.
Q1 2015 Socially Devoted: New research from Socialbakers shows that brands on Facebook have made a huge leap in social customer care. Of the 66,038 brands across 23 industries surveyed, they now respond to 74% of the questions posted on their Facebook brand pages. This is a big change from only 30% in Q2 2012. Unfortunately, brands answered only 30% of user questions on Twitter in Q1 2015 and took longer to respond. An average question, if answered at all, took more than nine hours.
Video Ad Spend Study: April 2015 polling by Advertiser Perceptions for the Interactive Advertising Bureau found that more than two-thirds (68%) of U.S. agencies and marketers were moving funds away from traditional TV toward digital video advertising. Respondents were specifically interested in original digital video programming, which has an increased its share of digital video spending steadily over the past three years, from 34% in 2013 to 40% in 2015.
Email Marketing Industry Census 2015: eConsultancy and Adestra partnered to survey more than 1,000 marketers. Results show that 20% of marketers currently implement behavioral email marketing based on web activity, a 43% increase year over year. Thirty-nine percent of respondents are planning to use behavioral email targeting.
What do you think? Have you tried out the Facebook native ad tools? Please share your comments below.
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Cindy King is the director of editorial for Social Media Examiner. She spent 25 years abroad in international business development and then built her own international business from scratch by using social business networking. Other posts by Cindy King »
Wondering how to get the most out of your Facebook Live broadcast?
With Facebook Live, you can show your expertise in real time, take people behind the scenes, and much more.
In this article, you'll discover five tips to succeed with your next Facebook Live broadcast.
Discover five tips for successful Facebook Live Broadcasts.
Facebook Live allows you to target your personal network, the fans of a business page (if you're an admin), a group, or an event. If you can't find a group or event to meet your needs, consider starting one.
It's important to let your audience know about your upcoming live video with news feed posts. Experiment with images and perhaps even a short video to tell them about the bigger video to come.
If your live video is important enough, you can boost your announcement posts as paid Facebook ads. Then, remind your audience again right before you go live.
For example, here's how NASA Earth promotes upcoming live videos in their news feed and encourages interactions.
Promote upcoming live videos to your audience.
Don't forget about the world outside of Facebook. Invite your blog readers, email subscribers, and followers from other networks. Include a link to your account, business page, group, or event.
Before you broadcast your live video, you need to do some preparation to ensure that viewers will be able to hear you clearly without distraction, follow your future broadcasts, and participate.
Set Up Your Location
Here are some tips for optimizing the location and setup for your live video:
Try to minimize background and ambient noise. While users will expect the production quality to be a bit raw and unrehearsed, be sure that they can see and hear you without undue distractions.Decide whether to hold the phone yourself or use some type of mount. You could also delegate the job to a co-worker. For the live video, you can use either the front- or rear-facing camera.Choose a spot that has a strong broadband connection. Set up your location before shooting your Facebook Live video.
Facebook recommends that live videos last at least 10 minutes, but you can go as long as 90 minutes.
Tip: Forward your calls to avoid distractions during your broadcast.
Set a Policy for Instant Feedback
Two new Facebook Live features allow viewers to provide feedback and ask you questions during the broadcast. They can click on the same six emoji reactions that replaced the simple like back in February. These will appear for a few seconds onscreen; Facebook compares them to applause and boos.
Viewers can respond with comments or by clicking on a reaction.
Users can also comment during the video, so you should decide in advance how and when you will acknowledge your audience. Facebook recommends that you address commenters by name and make it clear how much you appreciate their involvement. If you need to block a user, click on the profile picture next to their comment and select Block.
Note that when the video is replayed, the comments will appear at the same point they did during the live event.
Do a Practice Video
Before you use Facebook Live for the first time, consider doing a practice run. To get all of the practice time you need, set Facebook's Who Should See This? privacy setting to Only Me. You'll see the live video exactly as it will appear, but no one else will.
Setting your privacy to Only Me allows you to practice without broadcasting your live video to your network.
If you're having trouble changing the privacy setting from the mobile app, open your desktop or laptop and set your preferences at Facebook.com. Your changes will be integrated automatically by the app.
Remember, Facebook doesn't allow business pages to post to a group or event, so you'll need to use a personal account in those instances. You can remind your audience about your company association in posts and during the video.
To launch your live video, open the Facebook app and go to the personal, business, group, or event page that you want to target. Tap to start a new post and look for the Live icon at the bottom of the screen. In Android, the Live icon is at the far right.
Tap the Live icon and then provide a short description of your video. Put on your SEO hat and create a catchy description that humans will like and that algorithms will be able to parse successfully.
Android users launch a live video through the icon on the far right of the Post dialogue screen.
Don't forget to change the setting back to Public when you're done.
When you're ready to broadcast to your audience, start by relaxing, and don't forget to smile. Make yourself comfortable and the audience will follow. You don't need to give people a 60 Minutes-level production, but you do need to give them a reason to like you.
Introduce yourself and your company and tell the audience what you plan to cover. Unlike a prerecorded YouTube video, viewers will have no idea of the time commitment involved so help manage their expectations. Encourage comments and other feedback. You'll be able to see how many viewers you have at any time.
Important: Be sure to end your live video with a call to action and tell your audience a bit about your plans for the next video. Ask them to share the archived copy of the video that will be in the timeline. Make sure that they can easily contact you with any follow-up questions.
Facebook Live videos are immediately archived, and it's quite common for archive views to exceed live views.
Live videos are archived and shareable in the news feed.
Add a post-show comment thanking everyone again for watching. Encourage further comments and questions to get more news feed activity and engagement.
You can edit some of the metadata of the video and change the thumbnail. Click on the date stamp (which also acts as a permalink that you can use for sharing), click on Options, and select Edit This Video. You'll probably need to do this from Facebook.com, especially if you're using the Android app.
Click Edit This Video to add descriptions and metadata to the archived version.
You can change the thumbnail, add or change the location and date, provide a longer description, and select a category. Nobody is sure how Facebook's video search function will evolve, but these common-sense measures should help your video get discovered.
Facebook added two new metrics for live videos. You'll be able to see the total number of people who watched at least a portion of the video, along with a running count of how many viewers you had at different points in time.
Facebook offers expanded video metrics that include retention data.
The Audience Retention metric could assist your plans for the length of future videos. Given the attention that Facebook Live is getting, there should be future releases of analytics that provide even more data about the interests and demographics of viewers.
Experiment with your next live video. Try a different day of the week or time, modify your approach, and perhaps add a second person on camera. The great thing about video is that there are so many ways to approach it.
Conclusion
Twitter, Snapchat, and now Facebook have all realized the effectiveness of live video. Facebook is putting a huge emphasis on live video, and they offer the biggest audience. Social media marketers who invest now in live video are essentially partnering with Facebook and stand to see significant long-term gains in their social marketing.
What do you think? Have you used Facebook Live video? What tips can you share? Please share your thoughts and plans in the comments below!
Tips on five ways to get the most out of your broadcasts on Facebook Live.
Have you considered partnering with an influential blogger?
Working with the right blogger for a giveaway drives sales and grows brand awareness for your products or services.
In this article you'll discover how to partner with influencers for a successful social media giveaway.
Discover how to partner with influencers for social media giveaways.
There are plenty of ways to find bloggers to partner with. Here are three of the most common approaches.
Do Research
This is probably the best way to find the right blogger partner. Use the search features of popular social networks like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to discover influencers in your industry. Search using specific hashtags that are relevant to your business.
For example, if you have a 3D printing business and you want to attract makers who blog about their projects, search with the hashtags #maker and #blog.
To research bloggers on social media, do a Twitter search that includes a relevant hashtag for your business, as well as the hashtag #blog.
Also, check out what I call "influencer discovery tools." These are websites such as BuzzSumo that give you access to influencers. Do a search for influencers on BuzzSumo using keywords like "marketing," "fashion," "fitness," "food"–whichever is most relevant.
Use BuzzSumo's software to find relevant influencers and popular content based on keywords.
Another way to research influencers is to survey your audience. Create a form and ask your customers or fans to recommend their favorite bloggers to you.
Ask your audience to recommend bloggers they trust to you.
Want something even simpler? Gather fan feedback via "question-style" posts on your company's various social media channels.
Use Software
Another way to find good bloggers is to use a tool like GroupHigh.
GroupHigh software allows you to quickly build lists of quality bloggers based on topics, content, location and more. You can also search and filter to find and prioritize your blogger outreach, based on which bloggers are active on popular social networks.
Use a software solution such as GroupHigh to search by keywords or phrases and discover influential bloggers in your industry or category.
Try a Blogger Talent Agency
If your brand is interested in teaming up with a really established blogger who has significant influence and a massive following, contact a blogger talent agency. It's a relatively new concept, but many of the most well-known and established bloggers are represented.
One of the biggest is Digital Brand Architects (DBA), which essentially brokers the relationships between brands and the bloggers DBA represents.
If you are considering a blogger talent agency, fill out the talent management inquiry form on the Digital Brand Architects website. To access it, go to their Contact tab and click the For Talent Management Click Here button.
A blogger talent agency should be able to connect your brand with their blogger talent based on your brand's goals and vision.
After you find some quality bloggers, take a closer look to choose those to pursue and pitch. Here are some things to look at to determine if a blogger is a fit.
Posting Platforms and Frequency
Look how often potential blogger partners post to their blog and on their social platforms. No matter whom you partner with on a giveaway, you want to make sure they are active on all of their social channels.
Social Media Following Size
Review the size of the bloggers' social media presence on multiple networks. This research is good intel for when you devise a promotion strategy for your partnered giveaway.
The Facebook page for the blog Another Mother Runner has 43,000 active fans, which is one of the reasons GU Energy Fuel wanted to partner on a giveaway.
Previous Partners and Sponsors
First, check to see if each blogger has worked with any of your competitors. Then look at the rest of the companies the blogger has worked with, and see if your brand fits with them. It is important to develop what feels like a natural partnership, since bloggers need to be able to talk about your brand and their partnership with you in a genuine, organic way.
Once you find and vet bloggers, pitch your brand's partnered giveaway idea. This is a critical step. If you are contacting the blogger directly (not going through an agency), here's what to include in your first email.
Add something unique in your pitch email that makes you stand out, so you are more likely to get a response. Call out and link to a post of theirs you really liked, tell them why you think the blog is awesome or recount a quick story that somehow relates to the blog.
Taking this step proves to your blogger that you've already invested your time into getting to know who they are and what they're about. Plus, it will not sound like a generic email you've sent out to hundreds of other bloggers.
Also, tell the blogger specifically why you're pitching your giveaway idea to them. Is it because they have a readership that would appreciate what you're giving away? Is it because they've mentioned your brand before in one of their posts and got a good response from their readers? Explain the value of partnering with your company on a giveaway to paint a clear picture of your idea.
Included a deadline in your pitch. Image: Shutterstock.
The last thing is to include some sort of deadline. This could be a date by which you need to hear back or the date of an important event, such as a product launch. This gives the blogger insight into your brand's goals and how quickly you want to move.
Add as much relevant information as you deem necessary to help the blogger decide if he or she wants to partner on your company's giveaway.
After you find a blogger who is a good fit for your company giveaway, create a contract for your partnership. Do this as soon as possible, since agreeing on the language and details of a contract is often the longest part of the process.
Blogger Sarah Bowen Shea, COO of Another Mother Runner, and her co-founder have partnered with a number of well-known athletic brands on all sorts of giveaways. According to Shea, it takes an average of about three months from pitch to signing the contract. This is typical. Everything always takes longer than expected, so plan ahead.
One clarification before we move on. It's often the party who pitches the partnership or sponsorship opportunity that creates the contract. (Most people might assume it's the brand, but that's not always the case.) Established bloggers are brands in their own right and so most of them know the drill when it comes to creating and signing contracts.
Get a contract in writing. Image: Shutterstock.
If your company is drafting the contract for your giveaway, there are three main components to include.
Goals
It's important to clearly state your brand's goals for partnering with the blogger on the giveaway. This helps the blogger understand his or her role in your partnership.
Deliverables and Key Dates
The deliverables section of your contract is going to be the longest. For partnered giveaways, you'll want to include things like:
The publish date and expectations of the blog post announcing your co-branded giveaway. Does the blog post need to use specific branded images? Is there specific brand information you want the blogger to share? Make sure you cover all of the details of the giveaway announcement, including the rules set in place by the FTC.The number of social media posts promoting the giveaway you expect from the blogger. Be sure to include specific verbiage, creative and maybe even hashtags used in social media posts.Logo usage details. Both brands and bloggers should be specific about where and how their logos appear during a partnership's contract period.Post-giveaway expectations. After the giveaway is over, it's fair to expect a detailed report that's complete with social media numbers, comments from the blog post, number of giveaway entries collected–everything. Experienced professional bloggers should agree to deliver these metrics by a certain date following the giveaway.
Compensation and Payment Schedules
The amount of money a company can expect to pay a blogger for a co-branded effort, if anything, will vary widely, depending on the blogger's reach and the amount of effort the blogger is required to invest. Some bloggers may charge an hourly, others may charge a flat rate and some may work on trade. Bloggers may ask for a portion of the fee up front and the remainder at the end of your co-branded efforts.
Compensation will vary greatly. Image: Shutterstock.
Whatever agreement you come to, make sure you have it in writing.
Conclusion
Once you find, pitch and negotiate with bloggers, the next step is to create and implement your social media contest.
Of all the ways brands and bloggers can work together, a partnered giveaway is one of the most productive efforts.
Giveaways are the perfect opportunity for companies to collect valuable data such as email addresses that they can use for future marketing efforts. Plus, they're a great way to encourage influencers to engage and share a specific message on behalf of your brand. They can certainly benefit everyone involved.
What do you think? Have you partnered with a blogger on a giveaway? How has it worked out? What advice do you have for others considering a blogger partnership? Please share your thoughts, recommendations and questions in the comments.
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Jim Belosic is the CEO of ShortStack, a self-service software that allows businesses to create engaging campaigns for social, web and mobile. Other posts by Jim Belosic »
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Ask your audience to recommend bloggers they trust to you.
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If you are considering a blogger talent agency, fill out the talent management inquiry form on the Digital Brand Architects website. To access it, go to their Contact tab and click the For Talent Management Click Here button.
The Facebook page for the blog Another Mother Runner has 43,000 active fans, which is one of the reasons GU Energy Fuel wanted to partner on a giveaway.
Included a deadline in your pitch. Image: Shutterstock.
Get a contract in writing. Image: Shutterstock.
Compensation will vary greatly. Image: Shutterstock.
About the Author, Jim Belosic