How to Build a Community of Brand Ambassadors Rather Than a Number of Followers

Could you name half of the people you follow on Twitter? Ok, go!

…I'm guessing all you could come up with was Oprah and Nike? Perhaps there's a brand or two that really stands out in your mind because they've interacted with you and tend to post more stimulating content then the average tweeter. Those are the accounts I want to focus on, and how to make your brand become a community rather than a pool of unconscious followers. Yes, having 20,000 followers provides credibility in a sense, but that can only take you so far.

Image from Flickr

"Twitter is like the 'live TV' of social media," according to Founding Editor of Marketing Land, Danny Sullivan. "If you're not tuned in to catch the live tweet then you've missed it." This no longer applies for just Twitter. Unless you're paying to play on Facebook, your chances of reaching a follower of your page organically is slim to none.

Stop collecting followers to lose them at hello. These four strategies will turn your social presence from an unfertilized farm of dead leads to a field of blooming customers and brand promoters.

It's called SOCIAL media for a reason folks! All too often I see brands using the same messaging style on their social channels as they do in their email marketing and paid search campaigns. You wouldn't wear the same outfit to a family barbeque as the one you'd wear to a wedding, right? Frankly, you also shouldn't be wearing the same outfit (or writing the same content) on your social channels as your email blasts. You're reaching people in different mindsets looking to relax, unwind and kill time. On social media, people are often looking to be entertained so your copy should do just that. You'll also want to consider each social channel as its own unique community because your LinkedIn followers and Pinterest followers are not in the same mindset, even if they overlap. You might need to do some testing to figure out the right style that resonates with each audience, but regardless, spend time making sure your copy is infused with personality.

BarkBox is easily one of my favorite social accounts to follow because all of their posts are hysterical and entertaining. The majority of their content features an adorable pup with a tagline reading the dog's mind. Just look at the example below.

One way to really stand out is through a charitable, inspirational or emotional component. How do you do this? Through the art of storytelling. I could go and on as to why storytelling is so incredibly powerful to the human mind, but all you really need to know is that our brains value stories over all else. We have to be taught to not fall for anecdotal evidence because of how compelled we are to stories. It's just in our nature!

So, how can you tell a story when you only have 140 character on Twitter? Well, you can't, but you can compel the reader with engaging tidbits from a story that will leave them wanting more, and therefore leaving the platform to go to your site.

Charity:water continuously knocks it out of the park with their heartstring-pulling stories. Of course their business model easily allows for this, as their mission is to provide clean drinking water to every person in the world. Regardless of their strong cause, they are phenomenal at marketing their brand on social media. The stories they tell range from a 5th grader raising thousands and thousands of dollars to provide clean drinking water for children like him rather than asking for a birthday present, to a simple posts like the one below showing some of the lives of people the cause was able to drastically improve. Charity:water's social presence has a way of spurring their audience to get involved, whether it be through a birthday campaign or spontaneous donation.

Of course, not all of us have a strong cause like charity:water although any industry should be able to tell a moving story. Let's say you're a B2B marketer for software. Utilize your happiest customers to tell their stories of how your software helped take their small business to the next level. Perhaps your software saved them from losing their biggest client or led to a special moment of recognition from their manager. Draw out those powerful quotes, and tell them an engaging, emotion-provoking manner.

Moral of the story? We can't all be charity:water, but we can find ways to tell emotional or inspirational stories to our social followers to truly intrigue them and leave them wanting more.

Again, the word SOCIAL in social media needs to not be misconstrued. You need to make sure your social channels are having conversations rather than just automatically pushing out content. There's nothing more disheartening then tweeting to a brand that turns a blind eye. You must respond to every inquiry and mention of your brand.

If someone messages your company page on LinkedIn or comments on your Instagram photo they expect a response, even it's just a general statement. It's common courtesy, people! Check out the example from the Nike Women account – whoever is managing their Twitter is insanely fast at replying to the several fans that tweet at their handle often.

 

Another example I love is this tweet below I spotted from Expedia, which shows how to post content that spurs interaction. They partnered with dating app Tinder, where you swipe right if you find someone attractive and left if you're not interested, to create this ingenious quiz. It's the same swipe concept as Tinder, but rather than matching you with a romantic interest, it matches you with a travel destination. Very clever!

A few more tips to become more conversational on social media.

Craft conversation content: This comes in the form of questions or thought-provoking statements that evoke a response.  Join community chats: Use hashtags to join social conversations or participate in LinkedIn discussions within relevant groups. I try to participate in my industry's most well-known live chat, #ppcchat, on Twitter every Tuesday, and every chat I gain a few new followers, and have even formed relationships with regulars (I've met a few in person at industry conferences!). These interactions not only help build your follower base, but they build your brand and could lead to critical relationships.Assign a social media first responder: You need an employee who's able to track and respond to queries in a reasonable amount of time, ideally within an hour, especially if there's issues involving product quality, satisfaction, and finances. It will reflect incredibly poorly in a response isn't made in a timely manner, and bad customer service can kill a brand completely.

If you actually want your social media efforts to pay off, then you need to stop focusing in on follower growth, and start focusing on how you're treating your current follower base. By following these steps, you'll gain the followers that actually matter to the growth of your brand.

var _comscore = _comscore || []; _comscore.push({ c1: "2″, c2: "19915597″ }); (function() { var s = document.createElement("script"), el = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.async = true; s.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js"; el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el); })();

View the original article here

Original source: How to Build a Community of Brand Ambassadors Rather Than a Number of Followers.
http://www.jretechnology.com

Social Media Day Reflections: 2015's Social Media Trends

Most of us use social media on a daily basis. Facebook keeps us connected to family and friends, Twitter is our go-to news source, Instagram lets us share the photos and images we love… so do we really need a designated Social Media Day? Mashable said yes and declared the 30th June to be the official Social Media Day. With the world of social media changing all the time, here at Talkwalker we decided to look at some of the latest developments and see how they measure up against our predictions on the future of social, from new trends to the growth of new social networks.

They sure are. Looking at search results for queries like "social media trends" or "trends in social media", we found the conversation about social media trends kept going strong throughout the year. But with almost 4,500 mentions around June 22nd – interestingly right around the time Instagram updated its search feature – the buzz hit a major high. 

One of the key trends our social media experts saw for the beginning of 2015 was that images and videos would become more important to social media aficionados. This prediction seems to have hit home. Not only did the Instagram update mentioned above drive conversation, but new research also suggests that Pinterest will see a new surge in the coming months, too. With the growing importance of image-based content, tracking such networks is vital for any company – be it to remain aware of their brand reputation or to measure the success of a new ad campaign.

Well, not exactly. But as the organic reach of many networks decreases, seeing an increase in social media ad spending is a logical consequence. An additional factor counting into this development is of course the increasing number of social networks allowing advertising on their platforms. All combined, social media ad spending is likely to hit more than 20 billion dollars in 2015. Again the topic was one that enjoyed a lot of attention after Instagram launched new advertising capabilities, including a "shop now" button and better targeting options for advertisers.

As smartphones and tablet computers increasingly become everyday items, marketers need to adapt to this change and focus their efforts on the mobile generation. One aspect: proximity marketing, also known as geo-localization, to target potential customers with offers while they are already in the vicinity of a store. 

We weren't the only ones to see localized marketing as a big trend for the near future. Mobile, in general, was a big topic. As the theme cloud above shows, it is one of the top 100 topics for the overall conversation about social media trends for the first half of 2015. 

Looking at a few of the predictions we made towards the end of last year, we can definitely say that they held true during the first half of the year. But social media, as we all know, is quick to change – new platforms, changes on existing ones and new preferences among customer are just some of the reasons. So what else can we expect to see in social?

Another look at the theme cloud about reveals additional topics that enjoy a lot of attention among social media pros. Among the top ones, we find terms such as #socialmediamarketing and #socialmarketing, which indicate that social networks will continue to be very important for marketing efforts across the board. Other ones include #BigData, which hints at the importance of retrieving and making sense of all the information available on social.

As you can see, this year has already seen a whole host of innovations and trends in the fast moving world of social media. It remains to be seen what the second half of 2015 will bring, but if past experience is anything to go by, expect lots more changes as the giants of social media try and outdo each other with new features and updates.

var _comscore = _comscore || []; _comscore.push({ c1: "2″, c2: "19915597″ }); (function() { var s = document.createElement("script"), el = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.async = true; s.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js"; el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el); })();

View the original article here

Original source: Social Media Day Reflections: 2015's Social Media Trends.
http://www.jretechnology.com

How to be a Smartass Marketer with Carro Ford [Book Review]

With over 25 years of marketing experience, Carro Ford has seen our field evolve to what it is today. This experience has allowed her to curate an incredible mix of both marketing and PR tactics in her latest book, "The Smartass Marketer's Handbook: A Guide to B2B Marketing with Attitude." Together, these tactics represent a power-packed toolbox for today's hybrid-marketer.

While this book isn't written for CMOs, per se, it can serve as a blueprint for what the rest of the marketing department should be doing. It's about tactics, not strategy. It's a culmination of some tried and true traditional tactics mixed with some of the hottest ones marketers are clamoring about today – presented with a smartass attitude, too, which makes it a fun read.

?Carro starts with a basic tactic that all too often gets ignored in our industry – put your customers on your marketing team. She's not suggesting to literally put them on the team, but to interview them as frequently as possible in order to make their success the focal point of your stories. She suggests making a customer plan and not a marketing one. Some customer-centric examples include:

Case StudiesCustomer CouncilsQuotesGuest BlogsSpecial Booth Guest at Trade Shows

She suggests your B2B marketing "wardrobe" should start with the basics: whitepapers, case studies, blogging and press releases. Then accessorize with things like LinkedIn posts, webinars, email campaigns and other prudent tactics.

The book makes it clear that Carro is a staunch supporter of content marketing and its many facets. She considers herself a copywriter, as well as a marketer, so she spends a little extra time writing about the nuances of copywriting.

Media and influencer relations are really hot content promotion tactics these days. It's clear she has lots of experience putting together and executing these types of campaigns. Prior to reading her book, I had no idea how helpful conference websites could be in both influencer and media relations.

Not only should you add the speakers to your list, but the sponsors may be a treasure trove of influencers, too. She recommends requesting the media list from the event, as well. Next, the book takes a detailed look at analyst relations, an often under-executed outreach target for marketers and communications professionals.

Carro is a staunch supporter of press releases. In fact, she says there's only one good reason not to write them – when you only plan to do just one. The book also goes into 15 ways to get the most out of an industry award.

All-in-all, the book has 13 actionable chapters on various marketing and PR tactics. The above represent some of my favorites from the book, however, there are many more. As marketers we can sometimes get caught up in our everyday tactical hustle and get tunnel vision.

This is problematic because we often don't recognize or even see the value in adding different or more traditional tactics to our current mix. Carro Ford's book forces us to break the tunnel vision and take a wider view on what we do on a regular basis. For experienced marketers this book represents a valuable tune-up and health check. For newer marketers this book is a must-read. In fact, my entry level new hires will be given a copy on their first day.

Image credit: Flickr 

var _comscore = _comscore || []; _comscore.push({ c1: "2″, c2: "19915597″ }); (function() { var s = document.createElement("script"), el = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.async = true; s.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js"; el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el); })();

View the original article here

Original source: How to be a Smartass Marketer with Carro Ford [Book Review].
http://www.jretechnology.com

How to Boost Your YouTube Visibility

By Rachel Wisuri
Published June 4, 2015

Do you have a YouTube channel for your business?

Interested in ways to attract more viewers?

After you upload a great video to your YouTube channel, there are a few steps you can take to make it easier for viewers to find your content.

In this article I'll show you how to boost visibility for your YouTube channel.

Discover how to boost your YouTube visibility.

Listen now: Play in new window | Download | Embed

To give your videos the best chance of getting discovered via YouTube search, start by optimizing your channel.

The strength and authority of your channel (the number of channel views, video views, subscribers, etc.) are important signals for YouTube's search rankings. Obviously, if your channel is new, accumulating views and subscribers will take some time. Fortunately, there are some things anyone can do to optimize his or her channel, whether it's brand new or many years old.

Choose a Short, Descriptive Channel Name

Your channel title should briefly tell the world what your channel is about.

Include Relevant Keywords in the Description

The YouTube Playbook uses Vice's channel as an example of a great description.

Include keywords in your channel description.

This channel description tells viewers exactly what content to expect, and mentions Vice's most relevant keywords: culture, travel and news documentaries.

Fill in Additional Details

Spend some time working on your channel art. Choose an icon that represents your brand (this will be seen all over YouTube, so it's important), upload an attractive cover photo and fill out your profile with as much information as possible.

Link to Your Channel on Your Website

To start building a following for your channel, include a channel link on your website to let your fans know about your YouTube presence. For example, GoPro links to their social channels, including YouTube, at the bottom of every page of their website. They also embed YouTube videos on the website to let visitors know about their channel.

Embed videos on your website to promote your YouTube channel.

Upload Videos Regularly

Sticking to a schedule not only helps you build an audience, but also signals to YouTube that your channel is active.

When you're ready to upload a high-quality video you've created, here's what you need to do to optimize it for search.

Include Keywords in the Title, but Keep It Brief

Make sure you're targeting keywords that relate to the content of your video. The goal is to make the best video to answer those keyword queries, not to game the system.

The title should accurately tell people what's in your video so they won't be disappointed if they click the link and the video is about something else. Also keep the title short enough that it doesn't get cut off.

Focus on the First 100 Words of the Description

Only the first one to three sentences show up in YouTube's search results, so make these sentences count. Tell viewers what they'll see when they click your video.

For example, when I search for "social media marketing" on YouTube, this is the first video that pops up.

The first few sentences of your description are key.

The description here is concise. It includes "social media marketing" and accurately describes the video's content. The video also has a clickable title.

Include Tags

Tags help YouTube learn what your video is about. But don't go overboard; use only as many tags as necessary to accurately describe your video.

Add Annotations and Cards

Annotations are a chance to get more engagement from each viewing of your video. Remind viewers to like your video, ask them to subscribe to your channel and direct them to your other content.

To learn more about annotations, check out this video from the YouTube Creator Academy:

YouTube also recently released YouTube cards, which are similar to annotations, but even more interactive. YouTube hopes to replace annotations with cards in the future, so it's important to know about both. This video will give you more details about cards.

Upload a Custom Thumbnail

An attractive thumbnail can entice viewers to click on your video. You can find a lot of great thumbnail tips in this article.

Create a custom thumbnail for your video.

Add the Video to Relevant Playlists

It's important to make your YouTube channel layout clear and easy for fans to navigate. Playlists help your audience find all of your videos on a certain topic, improving the user experience.

Add your video to relevant playlists to make it easier for viewers to find the content they're looking for.

Since one of YouTube's ranking factors is recommendations from viewers, get the ball rolling and promote your videos yourself. Make it easy for fans to share by putting your videos where they are: on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, your blog or company website, etc.

For example, a simple way to post to Twitter is to auto-publish your videos. To connect your YouTube and Twitter accounts, go to your channel settings.

Connect your YouTube and Twitter accounts to auto-publish your videos.

You should also manually tweet your videos so you can add engaging commentary.

The NBA does a great job of putting their videos where their fans are. This tweet includes a link to a playoff highlight video on YouTube.

Tweet links to your videos to promote your YouTube channel.

While you can optimize your video when you upload it, those tweaks aren't going to help much if your video isn't any good.

Why is that? Because user experience metrics on YouTube are a huge part of the video giant's ranking factors. YouTube's algorithm places a high value on videos that generate a long watch time, and a high number of shares, comments and subscribers.

Creating engaging content is more challenging than simply adding tags or uploading an eye-catching thumbnail. The steps to get there are much less defined.

If you're just starting out, try creating different types of video content. For example, interview important people in your industry, create how-to videos or give your audience a behind-the-scenes look at your company.

Here are a few other content suggestions:

It may seem like a lot of work to make your YouTube channel the next big thing, but it doesn't have to be stressful. Go step by step, and you'll start to get the hang of it. You might even end up having some fun, too!

What do you think? Do you have any tips for optimizing your YouTube presence? Please let us know in the comments below.

Tips for boosting YouTube visibility.

(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&appId=167506593384213&version=v2.0″; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));About the Author, Rachel Wisuri

Rachel Wisuri is the Community Manager at Magoosh, an online test-prep company in Berkeley. There, she spends her time making sure the Magoosh community is happy, healthy, and growing. Other posts by Rachel Wisuri »

View the original article here

Original source: How to Boost Your YouTube Visibility.
http://www.jretechnology.com

4 Ways to Accelerate B2B Lead Acquisition

Lead generation at all stages of the sales and marketing funnel isn't easy. There are many different approaches, strategies, tactics, and techniques and no one person has all of the answers. However, the basic B2B formula online looks like what we call inbound marketing today. That's all and good, but with the plethora of businesses adopting inbound marketing, it's never been harder to drive leads online. There is a silver lining, however. Inbound marketing can be augmented with acceleration driving technology and tactics.

There are basically two ways a marketer can increase lead acceleration via inbound marketing and sales. The first is by minimizing barriers to consumption. That essentially just means you make it as easy as possible for someone to consume the strategic content you've created. The second way is by increasing the number of opportunities your content has to convert or nurture a consumer through promotion channels (paid, earned or owned).

This deck is filled with GIFs. To view them you must download the presentation and open in full presentation mode – http://bit.ly/1ehEKB1

For those inbound marketing adopters still struggling to drive enough leads, the below list represents proven tools and tactics that will help accelerate your current lead generation activities.

Many marketers associate content discovery with native advertising platforms like RevContent, Adblade, Taboola and Outbrain. While those are indeed content discovery networks, they represent the paid media channel.

The channel that most often gets overlooked for content discovery is owned media. Tools like Contextly and BrightInfo allow marketers to recommend like or similar content to website visitors. This keeps them on the site longer while potentially serving up ebooks, guides and whitepapers for conversion. These tools increase the likelihood of a conversion.

Most marketers are believers in the power of email as a content promotion channel that helps nurture leads down the funnel – and with good reason. However, many marketers aren't aware that mobile push notifications have a 30x better opt-in rate than email. Companies like Roost have developed technology to empower marketers without mobile apps to leverage push notifications across devices, screens and user interfaces. This has the potential to help bloat your middle of the funnel with nurtured leads.

If you recall above, minimizing barriers to consumption helps accelerate lead acquisition. However, as marketers, we need prudent data and lead intelligence in order to properly nurture leads. This represents a problem for many lead generation departments. If they ask too many questions they won't get enough conversions. However, if they don't ask enough questions they won't be able to work the lead.

This problem is easily solved with the Smart Forms solution from ReachForce. This solution bridges the gap between too many form fields and not enough. It's able to use captured information like email and IP addresses, and augment it with all of the known company information in its database. It can literally take five data points acquired by a form and produce 23 or more additional data points. This will help increase your conversion rates.

I'd be remised if I failed to mention A/B and multivariate testing. This is the act of changing the look, feel, interface or message of a landing page in order to produce more conversions. There are whole books and blogs solely dedicated to this subject so I won't bore you with a synopsis. If you don't have a landing page testing program I highly recommend you look into one. By the way, one of my favorite A/B testing newsletters is from whichtestwon.com. It delivers results from real A/B tests every week.  

Since we know that how many form fields we use impacts conversion rates, utilizing a methodology like progressive profiling can help marketers gather robust amounts of information over time without negatively impacting rates of conversion. This can be accomplished by asking new and unique questions on future subsequent visits. This type of information gathering, coupled with email lead nurturing, can produce very robust lead intelligence over time.

Producing an MQL is not easy. However, today, technology empowers marketers to build robust lead management programs. Generally, these systems include some type of marketing automation system and CRM. However, just having this technology does not produce a lead management program.

Traditionally, Sales handles the CRM and Marketing handles automation. Makes sense, right? Unfortunately, Sales and Marketing tend to be quite separate and siloed in many organizations. This is where closed loop marketing comes in.

Many successful lead management programs have at least one individual that sits between Sales and Marketing that facilitates the free flow of lead intelligence and feedback through scoring, both up and down the funnel – from marketing automation to CRM and back again.

Having a program like this in place will not only optimize MQL generation, but will help you optimize all stages of your marketing and sales funnel.

For those of you struggling to keep your Sales folks busy with heaping mounds of inbound leads, it's my hope that some or all of the insights, tools or tactics mentioned above have a positive impact. Lead generation isn't easy, but with enough hard work, the right technology and proven processes, it can be a successful endeavor.  

Image credit: Flickr

View the original article here

Original source: 4 Ways to Accelerate B2B Lead Acquisition.
http://www.jretechnology.com

5 Ways to Protect Your Reputation with Social Media

Social media has quickly changed the way the people create, find and represent other individuals and brands online. It wasn't that long ago that the internet was HTML based and the web was more of a one-way conversation and everything was static. MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have completely changed everything… and if you aren't keeping an eye on it, your reputation and brand could quickly change along with it.

Don't think social media and your online presence is important? Just take a look at what Todd William, reputation management expert and the founder of Reputation Rhino has to say.

"I look at page one of Google as real estate. There is somewhere between seven or ten houses on the block and your goal, just like in the game of Monopoly, is to own as many of those properties as possible or to make sure that those properties that are near you or next to you are not competitive or damaging. If you cannot own it, you at least want to have nice looking neighbors. When we are talking about page one for a key word, like the products or services for your business. You are absolutely right. The competition is fierce. If we are talking about page one for your first lame and last name, depending on how common or uncommon that first name / last name combination is, it could be highly competitive if you happen to share a name with Justin Bieber or Brittany Spears, or it can be very unique and you could be the only one on page one. So the question is, if you have a unique name or unique brand, how do you make sure that the content that appears when people are searching for that unique name or brand is positive or at least neutral.  Right now content marketing and writing high quality content is paramount and we focus on quality over quantity. That is where much of our time and attention is being placed; on great writing and seeking out the best possible sites to leverage the content that we help create."

With that being said, now it's time to jump right into five of the best ways for anyone to start using social media to their advantage, whether it be for expanding your reach and experience or protecting your online reputation, these methods will work for everyone.

There are currently over 2 billion users spread across all of the major social networks. Securing your personal or brand name as your social username is a huge asset. Not only will this be perfect for branding and allow people to easily find you on any network, it's also a great way to improve your chances for ranking your social profile at the top of the search results for your name.

To use social media to your advantage, you will actually need to "use social media". So many individuals and brands think they can setup a profile, add their picture and make a few updates to their account and leave it at that. This is probably one of the worse things you can do, as people will find your profile page, but once they see you are no longer updating your account with new content, they won't bother to follow you at all.

One of the best ways to use social media is to setup a blog of your own, and then share your content with your social media following. It's not just about creating content to share it with your social audience, instead it's about creating a main hub where someone can learn more about you, your brand and also connect to all of your social profiles in the process. Additionally, a blog is one of the best ways to rank at the top of the search engines for your personal name, brand or business.

Social media is a two way conversion. Way too many people are creating social profiles and only putting content out, and providing nothing of value or substance in terms of building a relationship. The correct way to build a social following is to provide value through your content and social updates, engaging with your fans and followers while also contributing to their social conversations, even when it doesn't provide any direct value or benefit to your own brand.

The ultimate goal for every professional, brand or business is to become an expert within their niche. While social media continues to grow and saturate the internet with billions of users and daily updates, it's actually made the process of becoming a well known and trusted authority much easier — when done right. To build a following and their respect, you must provide value, follow others within your niche, reach out to see how you can help others and give people exactly what they are looking for.

Whether your end goal is to protect your online reputation, build a social media following or take your personal or brand exposure to the next level, be sure to implement each of the methods mentioned above into your social media efforts. While each of them are special in their own way, you will see the best results when all are used in conjunction with each other.

Image Credit / Shutterstock

var _comscore = _comscore || []; _comscore.push({ c1: "2″, c2: "19915597″ }); (function() { var s = document.createElement("script"), el = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.async = true; s.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js"; el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el); })();

View the original article here

Original source: 5 Ways to Protect Your Reputation with Social Media.
http://www.jretechnology.com

Monica Lewinsky: Marketers Fuel a "Blood Sport" of Public Shaming

Former White House-intern and activist Monica Lewinsky was given a standing ovation after her speech on the dangers of cyberbullying and public shaming at the Cannes Lions festival last week. In the talk, which was sponsored by Ogilvy & Mather, she called out advertisers and marketers, who she believes are "fueling a blood sport of public shaming" online and off.

After her affair with then-President Bill Clinton was exposed in 1998, Lewinsky became what some regard as among the first private individuals to be publicly scorned in the Internet age. "Yes, I'm in rap songs," Lewinsky stated. "By my original count, it was almost 40 rap songs, but it actually turned out to be over 120."

Lewinsky, now 41, dropped out of the public eye for nearly two decades after the scandal, which led to Bill Clinton's impeachment. But in the past year, she has returned to the limelight as an anti-cyberbullying activist. In June 2014, she wrote a piece for Vanity Fair titled "Shame and Survival." Earlier this year, she gave a TED talk on "The Price of Shame."

During her speech at Cannes, she described her life post-shaming as ultimately a "branding problem." "I was branded as a tart, slut, whore, bimbo, floozy and, of course, 'that woman,' she says. "I was seen by many but truly known by few." She describes, in effect, two Monica Lewinsky's: the self that she knew, and the one that public saw.

Lewinsky pointed to digital news as partly responsible for the way her story was digested by the wider public. "When the story broke in January 1998, it broke online. It was the first time traditional news was usurped by the Internet. A click that reverberated around the world.

What that meant for me personally was that overnight, I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one, worldwide."

She likens her experience to that of Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers student who committed suicide after his roommate recorded and posted video online of him being intimate with a man. When excerpts from the Starr Report were published, she said, containing taped conversations between her and the President, her private life was made the property of the public.

"Online, technologically enhanced shaming is amplified," she said, "uncontained and permanently accessible. It is loud, and there are no borders, no perimeters around how many people can observe it once and put you in a public stockade."

Ultimately, Lewinsky points to a dearth of compassion in our interactions online. Speaking to the crowd of creative communications professionals in the room, she called upon them to encourage responsibility over our communications online. "If people are compassionate," she says, "brands will be compassionate in return."

Read the full text of the speech here.

var _comscore = _comscore || []; _comscore.push({ c1: "2″, c2: "19915597″ }); (function() { var s = document.createElement("script"), el = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.async = true; s.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js"; el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el); })();

View the original article here

Original source: Monica Lewinsky: Marketers Fuel a "Blood Sport" of Public Shaming.
http://www.jretechnology.com

10 Ways to Creatively Design Your Business Twitter Profile

Twitter is such a great social media tool, isn't it? It connects you with your audience, helps you reach a wider one, and makes it incredibly easy to go with the trends. When used right, it can be a powerful social channel for your business, and can be a lot of fun, too.

There are different aspects you need to consider when it comes to using this channel, and one of those is how you can creatively design your business Twitter profile to be absolutely powerful. Here, we're going to take a look at some great ideas to help create the best, most impactful profile that people will simply love to follow.

It might seem like all you need to do with Twitter is slap up a profile image, and possible cover image, and then start tweeting. People only follow you because of what you tweet, right? While this is definitely a contributing factor to why someone wants to follow your business or brand, another great element to convince someone to click that follow button and read your content is to have an epic, creative, and powerful Twitter profile. It'll help set you apart from your competitors, make your brand look unique, no matter how common of a product you have, whilst also convincing people that you aren't a spam account.

When you start interacting with people, they'll click through to your Twitter profile and have a look around to establish how legitimate you are and decide if you're worthy of a follow. In order to put your best foot forward, you need to dedicate time to your profile design. But how do you do this, you wonder? Have no fear, I'm going to take you on a journey to show you how you can create an amazingly creative design for your business Twitter profile.

Twitter gives you the chance to create epic profiles by letting you customize your profile image and cover photo. A lot of people already upload profile images, but the header is one that's often forgotten. You don't want to leave it blank, it can help set your brand up and make your Twitter profile look absolutely incredible. When you create a header image, make sure to use a high-quality photo that matches your brand and brand personality. If you're looking for some excellent cover image inspiration, check out HubSpot's blog on some of the top brands with incredible header photos.

As noted above, Twitter gives you the chance to customize your profile image, as well. This is a great chance to use your logo while using a different photo for your header. When you create a profile image, make sure to use a smaller, condensed version of your logo and keep it unique from the header image. This will help get your logo into the entire square profile image, and also help make your profile look unique to new followers.

You want a Twitter handle that not only represents your business's name, but is also creative. Your Twitter handle can be another step in the perfect profile design, matching the personality you're attempting to convey with your profile. Choose something that doesn't utilize numbers or underscores, if possible, to help make your handle stand out as unique. Many times, someone might see that underscore or number and believe that the name was already taken, meaning your brand isn't unique. The best way to avoid this is to not utilize those, making your handle and brand appear original.

Your bio is also another step in the design, especially with Twitter's current layout system. Once people have scanned your profile and cover image, they'll look at your handle again and then naturally read your Twitter bio. If you create something fun and snappy, you run a greater chance of convincing that person to follow you - it can really help show that your content is going to be excellent, as well as fun.

An excellent feature on Twitter is the ability to pin a tweet to the top of your profile. According to Kevan Lee at Buffer, you can pin any tweet you want from one of your top blogs to a favorite, witty joke you told. This gives you the chance to pin one that will look excellent with your Twitter profile. You want to be sure to pin something that's fun, interesting, or represents your brand well, helping you capture a visitor's attention. Take a look at these two examples of pinned tweets from We Need Diverse Books and Game of Thrones' Twitter profiles.

Twitter Lists are an incredible resource that many businesses aren't taking advantage of. These allow you to create lists for your business to follow privately, as well as lists to allow your followers to follow. This works as a great design tip simply because it offers more content to your client base, helping them get more content in a variety of ways. Make sure that you only make completed lists public (though you can always add to them later) to make everything look complete and professional. If you want to know just what you can do with Twitter lists, take a look at Buffer's excellent list.

Your tweets can be another element in your design, even though you'll be continually posting. There are many ways that you can make excellent tweets from knowing what type of content you want to share to utilizing hashtags well. When you share the right, high-quality content on your Twitter profile, you're continually updating your design with fresh, relevant content for your audience. This content, along with other profile elements, can be what convinces someone to follow you so make sure you are posting the best content possible.

In the Buffer blog referenced above, Kevan Lee also states that a great way to use your Twitter account effectively is to maintain your "favorites" carefully. While this can help you with content, it can also be great for your Twitter design. If you haphazardly favorite tweets, your "favorites" category could look cluttered, but if you carefully select what you favorite, you can curate great looking content. Make sure that you favorite tweets that are relevant to your brand and consider clicking favorite on tweets that mention you, as well, to have a snazzy, professional looking favorites section.

An incomplete Twitter profile can look incredibly unprofessional, and it can also make people think your account is spam. A great way to make sure everything is complete is to add your images, brand name, bio, and a link to your website. Once someone decides to follow you, you're giving them the chance to find your business and take a look at your products and services. Make sure you add your web address to make your profile look complete and incredible.

When it comes to your Twitter bio, you want to make sure you optimize it while considering looks and design. Neil Patel from Buffer suggests that you add a hashtag or two, mention someone, or add another link if necessary. This can help make your bio look great while also being incredibly impactful. Since this is for your business profile, consider adding one or two hashtags in it to reach a wider audience. However, if you want to make a page you use in connection with the business profile, always @ mention your business in your bio.

Well, there you have it. There are so many different things you can do outside of excellent images when it comes to designing your Twitter profile. What are some aspects you are keen on trying ASAP? Let me know in the comments. 

Main image via Shutterstock

var _comscore = _comscore || []; _comscore.push({ c1: "2″, c2: "19915597″ }); (function() { var s = document.createElement("script"), el = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.async = true; s.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js"; el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el); })();

View the original article here

Original source: 10 Ways to Creatively Design Your Business Twitter Profile.
http://www.jretechnology.com

8 LinkedIn Marketing Tips From the Experts

By Cindy King
Published June 11, 2015

Want to improve your LinkedIn marketing?

Are you interested in the latest tips and tools?

LinkedIn is one of the most effective platforms for expanding your reach and improving your business results. We asked social media experts for their hottest LinkedIn tips.

Here's what they had to say.

Discover eight LinkedIn marketing tips from the experts.

Melonie Dodaro

The new LinkedIn Publisher stats offer amazing insight into not only how many people are viewing each post, but the length of life of each post, reader demographics and the people who engage with your posts.

To see your stats, go to the Who's Viewed Your Posts tab, which is located under Profile in the main navigation under Who's Viewed Your Profile.

See the stats for each Publisher post under the Who's Viewed Your Posts tab.

Click on any post to see a graph that shows the number of views by the last 7 days, 15 days, 30 days, 6 months or 1 year.

This gives you incredible perspective to see the shelf life of each post. Review these numbers, as well as the elements of the posts themselves, to see patterns that will tell you what topics, format and length your readers are most interested in.

See how many page views each post has received.

LinkedIn also provides you with the demographics of the readers for each post. View the top four industries, job titles, locations and traffic sources that showed interest in your posts.

Based on this information, you can see if your content is reaching your intended audience. You can also determine if there is a need for your products or services with a niche market you had not previously considered.

Learn the top four industries, job titles and locations of your readers and how they found your post.

Finally, see who engaged with your posts by liking or commenting on them. Since this includes people you are not directly connected to, it makes it an excellent opportunity to find potential prospects or partners.

Look through the list of those who have actively engaged with your content to find potential prospects.

This only scratches the surface of what you can learn and how you can use LinkedIn's new invaluable feature Who's Viewed Your Posts.

Melonie Dodaro is author of The LinkedIn Code and founder of Top Dog Social Media.

Kristina Jaramillo

LinkedIn is steadily restricting functionality from the free version that business owners and sales and marketing leaders need, which includes a limited view of prospects inside targeted companies. It's time to consider investing in Sales Navigator. (This is something I didn't advise in the past.)

Sales Navigator assists with buyer identification and prospect research. Plus, it helps you engage with decision-makers more effectively, as it provides real insights into what your prospects care about. This is important because reach without engagement means nothing.

You even get news about the company, so you can create messaging around trigger events. For example, for one of our clients, we took advantage of a major airliner's IT outage. We engaged in sales conversation with tech leaders who wanted to learn about a new approach and a rising technology that would keep it from happening again.

Even though LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a great platform that's worth the investment, it's still just one piece of the puzzle. All the lead suggestions and insights won't help if you don't have the right messages, content and approach to enable sales using LinkedIn. You also need a strategy your tools can support.

Kristina Jaramillo is founder of GetLinkedInHelp.com.

Linda Coles

Instead of surfing Facebook during downtime between appointments, increase brand exposure by using LinkedIn on your mobile device. Use LinkedIn itself or companion apps.

If you only spend 10 minutes per day sharing great content with your connections on LinkedIn, it will keep your brand on their radar. Plus, it's simple to do on the go. Be strategic about connecting with new folks or start conversations with recent contacts.

When making a connection request, always personalize your message by clicking Customize Invite. A generic message is bad connecting etiquette. Plus, it's not something you would ever do in person. So stand out and do it right.

Always personalize your messages on LinkedIn.

Also, download LinkedIn Connected, which allows you to easily keep in contact with people you already know. Click on the grey head and shoulders image on the top right of that person's update, you can "star" them. This will ensure LinkedIn keeps you informed with what's going on in their world.

LinkedIn Connected allows you to easily keep in contact with people you already know.

LinkedIn Connected is a great tool for dropping someone a congratulatory line on a new role or to say happy birthday. You can even add an emoji if you wish.

Nurture new relationships with prospects in a very low-key way. Just a few minutes per day of networking on LinkedIn can provide great results.

Linda Coles is a speaker and author of Marketing with Social Media: 10 Easy Steps to Success for Business.

Chris Raulf

LinkedIn now sports 364,000,000+ members and this rapidly growing social media platform consistently ranks highest for its B2B lead generation value, finding new talent or landing a new job. Yet, many companies are still not aware of the search engine optimization value LinkedIn offers.

Treat and optimize your LinkedIn company page for SEO just as you would any page on your website. Just follow these four easy steps:

1. Add your 3-4 most important target SEO keywords right at the top of the LinkedIn company page description. Separate keywords by a special character such as a * and try to keep it to 90-100 characters.

2. Add a double space and use 150-160 characters to write a compelling and engaging sentence about your company that also includes your 2-4 most important target SEO keywords.

3. Now, add a double space again and provide an extended version of information about your company. I recommend you use about 5-7 variations of your primary target SEO keywords.

4.Google seems to pay quite a bit of attention to the Specialties section of your LinkedIn company page. You have 256 characters and multiple fields available to add your primary and additional SEO target keywords.

Add your SEO keywords to the Specialties section of your LinkedIn company page.

Optimize your LinkedIn page for SEO. You'll see it really works!

Chris Raulf is the founder and digital marketing expert at Boulder SEO Marketing.

Jon Rognerud

Before posting anything on social media, you need to ask yourself: "Why am I doing this _______ (insert creative asset here), who benefits and what would I like them to do next?"

When posting on LinkedIn (for example, for purposes of B2B lead generation), research and engage with new users and groups before reaching out with appropriate content.

Here's what I recommend:

1. Research, find, join and connect with related groups within your niche.

2. Join the conversation. Like posts and comment with useful insights. Plus, note what's trending/popular and write it down.

3. Reach out directly. Connect with new people via profile email or InMail. Then, share related, helpful articles and insights, keeping in mind the questions above. Create content that you can place on your blog, video channel, podcast or in a LinkedIn post. Drive your visitor back to your preferred online asset. Also, use remarketing/retargeting where you can continue to build your audience. Advanced users, send your special "Dream Client List" a follow-up hello-style letter in the mail too.

Do this for at least 30 days and watch your quality leads go up while you build authority and trust!

Jon Rognerud is the founder and chief cartographer at Chaosmap.

Stephanie Sammons

The best marketing opportunity on LinkedIn right now is the publishing platform, where you can publish long-form content to share with your network and beyond. I've often said that you don't have to be officially crowned as a LinkedIn influencer to become one. With this publishing platform, there is a tremendous opportunity to build momentum and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry or niche.

Keep in mind, content themes associated with business and career tend to work best on LinkedIn's publishing platform. Write articles about your own business and industry expertise or career experiences to differentiate yourself and stand out. Share your unique perspective and insights. The frequency of your posts will also make a difference in growing your visibility, reach and engagement. Don't expect to see meaningful results unless you make a commitment to publishing content consistently on LinkedIn's platform.

Here are three reasons to jump on the LinkedIn publishing platform:

1. Position yourself as an industry expert. A big reason clients and customers do business with you is because of your unique perspective. Sharing how you think and providing insights and guidance through your LinkedIn posts can position you as the go-to expert in your industry.

2. Increase your reach. As you publish more posts on LinkedIn, you will earn more followers (which are different from connections). Your followers can see your published posts and share with their respective networks. Your LinkedIn posts will also be indexed by Google search and can be discovered across the social web outside of LinkedIn as well.

3. Generate new leads. In every LinkedIn post you publish, include a simple call to action either within the post or at the end in your bio section. For example, I offer a free guide in the bio section of my LinkedIn posts that links to a landing page on my website.

These are only a few of the benefits to publishing your thought leadership content to LinkedIn. If you haven't started already, develop your LinkedIn publishing plan and write about the most frequently asked questions in your industry or market. Jump on this opportunity now while it's still in the early stages.

Stephanie Sammons is the founder and CEO of Wired Advisor.

John Nemo

One of the challenges you can run into with LinkedIn is keeping track of all of the profiles you visit during a given day or week. Install the Google Chrome Internet browser add-on called Dux-Soup, and you have a great way to automate the process.

Dux-Soup lets you export a .CSV file of every LinkedIn profile you've visited in any given time frame. This .CSV file lets you see the name of the person whose profile you visited, his or her LinkedIn ID, job title, company name, location, email, phone number and more.

The reason I love Dux-Soup is that after I spend an hour visiting the profiles of people in a target audience and sending them messages or invites to connect, I can now remember and track all the activity with one simple export.

Dux-Soup will save you hours of manual data entry when it comes to tracking all of the people you come across and interact with on LinkedIn. The premium version costs $15.00 per month, and comes with additional features, including the ability to automatically visit profiles of LinkedIn users based on Google or LinkedIn searches you make.

Note: I don't recommend auto-visiting or mass-visiting LinkedIn profiles of people you don't know just for the sake of trying to gain visibility, which is the purpose of that feature with Dux-Soup and similar browser add-ons like Autopilot for LinkedIn. Some consider auto-visiting profiles a violation of LinkedIn's Terms of Service, and/or a "black hat"–type approach to networking on LinkedIn.

With all that said, I've found Dux-Soup to be invaluable when it comes to tracking and organizing the profiles of people I've visited on LinkedIn.

John Nemo is the author of LinkedIn Riches: How to Leverage the World's Largest Professional Network to Enhance Your Brand, Generate Leads and Increase Revenue.

Jason Miller

The new LinkedIn Company Page Notification Center streamlines how you manage your company page, while allowing you to better understand which updates and content are performing the best. Now all of your company page activity can be viewed in one place in a single view.

Open the new Company Page Notification Center dashboard, and you:

Get an aggregated overview of how many likes, comments and shares you've received on the updates on your company page and also see how often your company has been mentioned by LinkedIn members on the platformView every publicly shared mention of your company on LinkedInSee all of the most recent likes, comments and shares your company has received in a single viewComment and like as a company representative in response to mentions about your company

In addition, company page notifications are now displayed as multiple interactions aggregated into a single notification for admins. This makes it easier to manage a company's LinkedIn presence, while also keeping track of personal notifications from their network.

With greater insights into how the content and messaging on your LinkedIn company page is performing, you can make better decisions around which types of content to post to better engage with your target audience.

Jason Miller is the senior content marketing manager at LinkedIn and leads content and social strategy for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions.

Conclusion

There's no better way to step up your business game than to be active on LinkedIn. The platform is constantly making improvements, so individuals and businesses can get more out of it. Plus, there are tactics, aside from LinkedIn itself, to increase organization, engagement and visibility. Explore these tools and tips, and see which ones work best for you and your business.

What do you think? Do you use any of these LinkedIn marketing tips and tools? What has been your experience? What other little-known LinkedIn tips to you have to share?  Please leave your comments and questions below.

Tips for using LinkedIn from eight experts.

(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&appId=167506593384213&version=v2.0″; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));About the Author, Cindy King

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 »

View the original article here

Original source: 8 LinkedIn Marketing Tips From the Experts.
http://www.jretechnology.com