Facebook Reaches 3 Million Advertisers, Launches ‘Your Business Story’ Video Tool

Is your business advertising on Facebook? You're certainly not alone – Facebook has today announced that they've reached 3 million active advertisers on The Social Network, and growing.

To put that in perspective:

The announcement is a major one for Zuckerberg and Co, and one that will be cause for concern at Google and parent company Alphabet. As exemplified in this chart from Macquarie Research (published last year) the growth of Facebook's ad business has been rapid, and has the social giant on track to match, or even supersede, Google in the very near future.

What's more, Facebook's noted that more than 70% of their advertisers are based outside of the US. That's also a significant point – Facebook's looking to branch out and source its next billion users, with projects like internet.org and Aquila (solar powered, satellite drones) paving the way for greater connection and expansion into less-serviced regions (according to the internet.org website, 2/3 of the world is currently not connected to the internet).

The capacity for Facebook to grow outside of the US is a key element within the company's wider goals, both in regards to ongoing opportunity and market dominance – Zuckerberg himself recently noted that he's looking to have 5 billion users on Facebook by 2030, which would equate to more than half the estimated global population by that time. If Facebook even comes close to achieving that target, the amount of user data to which they'd have access would be simply staggering – already, Facebook knows you better than your friends, your family, even your partner. Imagine that understanding at an even grander scale and you get a sense of the massive potential of Facebook's surging advertising business.

Given this, Google has good reason to be worried – their long-held position of power now looks to be under very real threat.

The fastest growing region for Facebook's ad business is South East Asia, with Vietnam, Egypt, Indonesia, Peru, and Turkey all recording the biggest growth.

To celebrate reaching the 3 million advertiser mark, Facebook's launched a new tool to help businesses tell their brand story in a simple and engaging way. Called 'Your Business Story', the tool enables any Facebook Page to create their own video celebrating their achievements, using content from their Facebook Page as the source material.

"We know it's not easy for many businesses to create ads and content, so we created a simple tool that helps them tell their business story to their customers. As part of the tool, businesses are able to upload their photos from their page, overlay with music (licensed by Facebook) and share "what they are in the business of" doing."

The process is pretty straight-forward (though it did take a moment to load on each step for me) – head over to the 'Your Business Story' Page and you can click on a button which says 'Create My Video'. From there, you choose which of the Facebook Pages you manage that you'd like to create the video about, then you're taken to the next stage, which is selecting relevant images for the video.

You select 8 photos for your compilation, then you're taken to the next step, which is telling your brand story (in 90 characters).

You then select your Facebook-licensed music track (there are four to choose from) and that's it – Facebook puts them all together into a video collage, similar to their Year in Review posts. Once you've viewed your video, Facebook gives you the option to post it to your Page – make sure you're 100% happy with it, because there's no other review step between here and uploading it as a new post.

It's a simple video option, but given that video content on Facebook generates the highest amounts of both organic reach and engagement, and many smaller businesses, in particular, have difficulties in conceptualizing and creating video posts, it may provide some with a new option on this front, and it's worth exploring either way to see what you can do. Also, it's free, both of cost and obligation.

It's somewhat amazing to see how Facebook is changing the game in online advertising. Whereas Google has intent data, based on all your many searches, Facebook has more, in the form of your interests, your details, your interactions. In this sense, Facebook truly is the greatest source of customer insights and data we've ever had – there's so much data there that no one fully understands the extent of how it can all be used, how we can tap into those information streams to change the way we approach our outreach efforts.

But those efforts are changing. The capacity to track potential customers based on evermore intricate details and nuances is altering the way we think about how to use such triggers. Given the capacity of Facebook's insights to understand every detail about us, there's undoubtedly huge potential for all brands to use that information to establish clearer understandings of who their customers are, what leads them on their path to purchase, and at what points in that chain they should get in front of them (and what, exact, messaging they should use for that purpose). The complexity, however, is that no two businesses are the same – you have to start using Facebook as a research tool in order to ever get to any such level of understanding.

But it can be done. Marketers and advertisers everywhere are working it out with evermore intelligent data tracking and behavioral correlation measures. And as such tools evolve, so too does Facebook become a more important and more valuable platform for such purposes.

Zuckerberg and Co. have three million advertisers now, but I'd be willing to bet that number continues to increase as more businesses develop their knowledge of Facebook data, and more consumers continue to use the platform as a key connective utility within their day-to-day lives. 

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Any Business Can Be Social: Here’s How

In a recent blog on Social Media Today, the author argues that not all organizations should embrace social media particularly those industries that are not "social-friendly." He offered an example of a mental health care provider who likely won't have their content shared because it's personal in nature. I disagree. Sharing content is just one piece of the puzzle and I don't think this is a reason to avoid social media. In fact, I would argue it's a reason FOR using it.

First, this will be a space not yet saturated by competitors, furthering the opportunity to become a leader in the industry. Second, content doesn't have to be shared to be useful. The content is still valuable to the current patients! Offering relevant and insightful information enhances trust! Additionally, blog content is indexed by Google. If someone is searching for a solution to their health challenge, it's possible to stumble upon the content and even prompt someone to contact the provider.

Similarly, I often hear people say that their industry is too boring for social media. I don't care if you work in logistics, construction, commercial real estate, banking, health care or HVAC – any type of business can be social. I know because we work with ALL these industries right now.  

The first step to becoming social-friendly is to generate buzz and attract attention. Social media is designed by nature to be…social! So let's get the people involved!

Here's an example from our client, Horst Construction. We call these weekly spotlights 'Talent Tuesdays' and offer a snippet of information about the company employee. This post reached 767 people and received over 30 interactions (likes/comments/shares). Not bad for a fan page that has a little less than 300 fans!

You've heard me say this many, many times – what makes social media work is the human element.

Here's an example form our client, Heritage Hospice. It's a simple Throw Back Thursday, but it was one of the most engaging posts in the past six months reaching 686 people with 45 interactions. 

If you're looking for engagement, look no further than contests – we can't get enough of them.

Last month, we ran a contest for our client, A.C. Rimmer, encouraging the audience to share a photo of their 'ugly furnace' for the chance to win a new one. We boosted this post for $10 to their fans and friends of fans. It reached over 5,000 people with 126 interactions! (These interactions included 34 shares, which is nearly unbelievable for a small HVAC company in Central Pennsylvania). The post also received 70 clicks to the blog with contest details. 

This final example is a contest held by our client, Kane Is Able, a logistics company. The post reached over 3,000 people with 172 interactions (100 were guesses)!

Humanizing and holding contests are just two examples of how a business can expand their reach and increase engagement – no matter what industry. And Facebook is just one channel to share the message, there are dozens of other ways to expand your social reach and dozens of other channels to engage the audience, but this should get you started.

It's time to re-frame how we think about social media and stop limiting its power to magnetic industries.

Main image via Miss Ty / Shutterstock

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LinkedIn Releases New Ad Targeting Feature to Focus on Employees from Specific Companies

One of the key ways LinkedIn will be looking to improve, following their most recent disappointing earnings forecast, will be through the increased utilization of their data. LinkedIn now has more than 414 million members worldwide, and along with that comes an unprecedented amount of professional and career-based information – education, job progression and advancement trails listed throughout each and every member profile. With access to such insights, LinkedIn can create new solutions for recruiting, career advancement, learning – the list goes on – and another area that LinkedIn has capacity to advance the conversation is in ad targeting.

Along this line, LinkedIn has announced a new audience targeting option called 'Account Targeting'. What Account Targeting enables you to do is, businesses will be able to upload lists of the companies they either already do business with, or would like to do business with in future. Marketers can bring a list of up to 30,000 companies – LinkedIn will then take that listing, process it, and cross-reference it against their database to uncover all the listed employees they have who work for those brands. This then allows marketers to target those employees specifically with their LinkedIn ads, helping to hone the focus of campaigns to the very people they most need to hit.

It's a logical, and smart move by LinkedIn – Sponsored Updates were the primary driver of growth for LinkedIn's Marketing Solutions arm, according their most recent results, delivering more than 50% of the department's $581 million in revenue generated for 2015.  Through this new option, advertisers will be able to target in their Sponsored Updates more specifically, getting their content in front of the relevant decision makers, which is particularly relevant for those marketing to the B2B sector.   

Further to this, LinkedIn's also noted that it plans to develop its audience matching capacity to allow marketers to upload different types of information in future, utilizing even more data points to get increasingly specific with their outreach efforts. At present, advertisers can upload their lists and refine them based on LinkedIn's pre-existing ad targeting options, which include location, job title and age. Helpfully, advertisers will also be able to upload lists of people they don't want to target with their ads (which could avoid you spamming existing customers).

LinkedIn currently has more than eight million company pages listed within their network, a huge breadth of data to utilize in this context. Account Targeting is only available for Sponsored Updates and Sponsored InMail formats at present, and can only be purchased via LinkedIn's sales team, though there are plans to extent this capacity to the platform's self-serve ads tool in future.

It's another step towards maximizing their professional insights and data to change the way businesses approach their outreach efforts – and LinkedIn's not only doing this on an advertising front, their recruitment solutions, too, are looking at making more use of their career data to help recruiters and job seekers make better, data-backed decisions in their processes. 

Expect to see more advancements on this front from LinkedIn in the near future.

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Secure Your Own Mask First

If you've ever traveled on an airplane, you've heard the advice to "secure your own mask before attempting to help another passenger." That's a simple reminder we should take with ourselves more often.

Helping others and having a giving spirit is wonderful. But, while we should all become expert "givers" – of our love, attention, expertise, and value – it's important to remember we are entitled to receive it back once in a while also.

I was reminded of this recently when I came upon a post by the wonderful Stephanie Calahan on the importance of flexing our "receiving" muscles. It took me back to an experience in my own life that I'd like to share today…

Like all truly happy stories, this one starts with a nearly-terminal bout of cancer. I can distinctly remember my doctors handing my family and myself a pamphlet, and advising that I get my will in order. What can I say? Sometimes you just hold on to the little things.

But (spoiler alert), I didn't succumb to the illness and write this post from the other side. Instead, I listened to the little voice inside of my head that literally screamed "I haven't accomplished enough yet!" and I made it through. I truly believe it was that extra sense of determination that made all the difference for me when it came to beating cancer.

But while my determination was strong, in order to regain my strength and get my life back to normal, I had to learn to accept the strength of others. I just didn't have the fuel to get through the day-to-day grind. I needed help with small daily tasks, and more than that, their visits and encouragement.

It was during this time – roughly five months after my physicians had advised me of my imminent mortality – that a good friend came by with her enormous, loving hugs. I still smile at the memory of them today. Her hugs were (and remain) that good.

On this particular afternoon, we settled in and chatted for hours over tea. During our talk, I noticed something I hadn't ever paid much attention to before: my friend was a single mom who was caring for her aging mother (who happened to suffer from dementia). She was also helping to care for her adult daughter, who was an under-employed single mother herself.

My friend was essentially the caregiver to everyone in her home… and doing it all while bouncing between a number of poor-paying jobs. Her burden was enormous, and yet she never complained. All day long, she devoted the sum of her strength and love to her family and took nothing in return. It was a one-way street of care and affection.

However, at one point during our visit that day, I saw the tiniest crack in her mask of smiles and hugs. In that moment, I understood how much she was suffering from those burdens. My heart ached.

Abruptly, I asked her what she did to "refuel." She looked at me blankly for a moment, the smile on her face dropping for a split second, before clenching her fists and turning her best and brightest expression back on. It was too late, though, I had seen it. I knew the pain she bore.

After our talk, I gave my friend the best hug I could manage. Mine were a little weak at the time, compared to hers, but I figured it was the thought that counts.

In the following weeks, however, I was determined to help her find a way to recharge. As it happened, she came across an opportunity to attend a conference in the US on behalf of her employer. I practically begged her to take the chance she had, already being away from home and her normal day-to-day responsibilities, to get some time for herself. After a bit of cajoling, she decided to take a couple extra days to herself and make a short detour to Mount Rushmore.

Naturally, she returned with a mug for me embossed with the four famous faces (there she was again, thinking of someone else). When she handed it to me, she was beaming. She expressed her gratitude for the encouragement, as it had turned out to be just what she needed to find a bit of peace and energy. She had just needed a chance to refuel and reset her mind.

Let's not forget that it's hard to be of use to anyone else if we are suffering, drowning with anxiety, or too burnt out to be fully present.

The more you give, the more you get. That's true in business, relationships, and (probably) karma. And it's usually better to give than receive. But, when it comes to managing stress and emotions, don't forget that it's okay to be on the other end of kindness, appreciation, and self-care once in a while, no matter how daunting those marketing deadlines can be.

This post originally appeared on the Kayak Online Marketing blog.

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Original source: Secure Your Own Mask First.
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5 Social Media and Digital Marketing “Must Haves” for 2016

With so many social media and digital marketing options now available, it can be overwhelming trying to work out what you should be doing first. At the same time, it's also a very exciting time for marketers and business owners, with so many powerful marketing tools available to help escalate and grow their business, sales and exposure.

In this post, I recommend concentrating on and implementing the following "must have" tactics in 2016 to see fast, powerful and reliable results in your sales for your business.

Note that these tactics apply across the board for both large and small businesses, in both B2C AND B2B, as all people are "consumers"; this is now P2P, People-2-People marketing.

In 2016, having a social media presence for your business is a must, not a choice, if you want to expand your customer reach. Businesses need to seriously adopt and add social media as a strong marketing channel to gain exposure exponentially – here's why:

65% of American adults now use social networking sites – a nearly tenfold jump in the past decade. (Pew Research)Young adults (ages 18 to 29) are the most likely to use social media – fully 90% do, compared to 12% in 2005. (Pew Research)At the same time, there has been a 69-point bump among those ages 30-49, from 8% in 2005 to 77% today. (Pew Research)Usage among those 65 and older has more than tripled since 2010 when 11% used social media. Today, 35% of all those 65 and older report using social media. (Pew Research)Internet users have average of 5.54 social media accounts (GlobalWebIndex)

Google has integrated social media data into its organic search engine algorithm and to date, organic rankings may now rely on up to 70% on social media.

You can see that social media pages are being found more frequently in search results. And social media profiles are often amongst the top results in search listings.

As a business, you should post updates regularly and respond to those who contact you via social channels promptly. Google considers activities such as social engagement, comments, and website visits to be ranking factors.

Quite simply, social media is the future of marketing.

Figures show that consumers are becoming increasingly visual and prefer images, videos and infographics to other types of content.

Visuals are memorable and effective, because they help people process, understand, and retain more information more quickly.

Using images, making videos, visual presentations and infographics is a very effective way to convey your message to your customers.

Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images. (Source)Visual content is more than 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. (Source)Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. (Source)Tweets with images earned up to 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites, and 150% more retweets. (Source)Shoppers who view video are 1.81X more likely to purchase than non-viewers. (Source)Using the word "video" in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19%, click-through rates by 65% and reduces unsubscribes by 26%. (Source)Midway through 2015, mobile video plays exceeded 44% — up 74% from 2014 and up a whopping 844% since 2012. (Source)Between April 2015 and November 2015, the amount of average daily video views on Facebook doubled from 4 billion video views per day to 8 billion. (Source)

A responsive website ensures users have a consistent experience on desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.

The need to have a mobile-friendly website is the norm and no longer an item to place on the back burner to address later. This past summer, Google announced that, for the first time mobile searches surpassed desktop searches. Add to this the fact that in 2015 Google's algorithm started to prioritize sites that had been optimized for mobile devices.

According to Statista.com the forecasted number of mobile users in the U.S. for 2016 (as seen in the graph below) is estimated to reach 198.5 million unique users.

Considering that in 2015, nearly 52% of users spent a majority of their time using mobile apps like Facebook, Twitter, and social media based as well as business based apps, these numbers will only increase in 2016. Billions of internet activity signals are occurring at a rate that Google is absorbing, dissecting and rolling up into rankings & authority.

This forecast shows the number of smartphone users in the US. from 2010 to 2018. For 2016, the number of smartphone users in the US is estimated to reach 198.5 million. Source

Boosting content to your current fans so that they see your content in their News Feed is a must. Numbers show a continuous decline of all-things-organic on all the main platforms. Relying on organic reach is not effective anymore.

Advertising is the only sure thing you can do to grow an audience on social media. Paying for advertising allows you to reach your specific targeted demographic. This is so powerful. You can market to a particular age group, gender, location, and other parameters — something that has NEVER existed in marketing before.

Do you have your 2016 advertising budget secured?

Google My Business is the replacement for Google Places for Business. It's a key part of Google's strategy to simplify the process of harnessing the power of the Google suite of tools to get more traffic to your business.

This means that AdWords, Insights, Google+, Maps and Search are all closely tied into My Business, making it easier to use and more powerful than its predecessor.

Due to the unparalleled reach of Google and their services, plugging into the Google My Business network means your customers and clients can now find you more easily through Search, Maps, and the recently revamped Google+.

Google My Business doesn't just serve traditional businesses with a storefront. You can also sign up and instead of listing your business address, add the area you serve or just details of your brand.

As business owners, we have to adapt and change to meet the needs and demands of our customer base to be successful. These "must have" tactics I've outlined above will help you do just that.

The post 5 Social Media & Digital Marketing "Must Haves" for 2016 appeared first on yMarketingMatters.

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4 Tips for Overcoming Negative Reviews on Social Media

Reviews can be a double-edged sword for businesses. They increase search engine visibility and give customers a way to learn more about a store or restaurant before visiting, but in recent years, local businesses in particular have become extremely susceptible to online reviews as customers rely on online research more than ever. If you own a business, positive online reviews can make the difference between a customer choosing to buy from you or a competitor.

Unfortunately, even the most customer-focused business will eventually get a bad review, and whether the comments have merit or not, the results can follow a business for years. Even if the reviews are posted on Facebook or Twitter instead of a more traditional review site like Yelp, the words can haunt a business through search results. Here are a few tips to recover from those negative reviews and reclaim your reputation.

A proactive approach is the best way to ensure customers see what you want them to see when they search for information related to your business. Set up a website, blog, and active social media presence and load it with information that engages potential customers. Make sure you and your entire staff make every effort to resolve any issues before they can progress to social media.

"Don't wait until bad comments show up for you to react to the situation," reputation management firm Reputation Defender says. "An unhappy customer can be identified early, if you have good channels of communications open. People usually start making their comments public after they have exhausted other resources."

Once a negative post makes its way to social media, the best thing to do is take it private as quickly as possible. Send a direct message to the complaining customer and make it clear you're taking the issue very seriously. Get the information you need to research the matter and offer a resolution.

It's important to realize that some customers won't be satisfied with anything you could possibly offer. If the customer continues to post on social media, resist the urge to engage and consider blocking the person if it continues. It's important to recognize when you've done all that you can do and shift your focus to satisfying future customers to obliterate the negative review with numerous positives.

FastCompany tells the story of a company that responded to a customer's social media post about music being too loud in one of its restaurants. In addition to contacting the location and asking them to dial the music down, the business asked for a plate of cookies to be delivered to the customer. The diner was so impressed with the service, she tweeted it, turning a negative experience into an extremely positive boost to its reputation.

The restaurant chain accomplished this by monitoring mentions of its brand on social media. There are numerous tools available that will send you alerts whenever your business is mentioned, but you can take it beyond simply watching for posts about you. Set your mentions up to alert you when other business in your industry are mentioned and use it as a chance to keep an eye on the competition.

Even one bad review should prompt action from your business. Take every opportunity to let consumers as a whole know that you take customer service seriously, whether a negative review has been posted or not. Interact with your customers online and have an accessible, friendly tone with your posts. Host polls to ask your customers their opinions on any changes you're thinking of making and take the results seriously.

Another way to show your customers you care is by posting images and behind-the-scenes videos of your team. Even if you have a small staff, you can introduce your customers to your world by showing how you're preparing for a new product launch or participating in an event to show community support. When you make your customers a part of your daily operations, they'll be more likely to feel loyal toward your brand.

As a business grows, negative reviews will begin to increase, but hopefully the positive posts will well outnumber them. By taking a proactive approach to your online reputation, you can ensure that even when a negative review is posted, customers will still see you as a great company.

This post originally appeared on the Pagemodo blog

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5 TweetDeck Tricks and Tips To Try Out

If you're a social media manager and you're taking care of more than one account, you probably already know about TweetDeck. If you don't, now is the chance to get familiar with it – it's a great social media dashboard application where you can manage multiple Twitter accounts on the one interface.

But more than that, it's also a great way to curate content, to find potential customers/users, monitor your brand, schedule tweets, and more. 

Here are five tips to help you make best use of TweetDeck, which may come to play a valuable and important role in your wider social media management process.

You can add a 'Home' column to view the home timeline of any specific account. For example, you can view Jeff Bullas home timeline, which means you'll see tweets and re-tweets from Twitter users he follows.

This is a great way to also curate content.

Say you want to add the home column of an influential user in your industry (because they're most likely following Twitter users who share great content). Within TweetDeck, you'd add a 'Home' column by clicking: 'Add Column' (+) -> 'Home' -> Enter a @name or full name -> 'Add Column'

Adding 'Search' columns is another great way to curate content and find potential customers/users who're interested in a specific field.

For example, if your company targets people in the marketing industry, you might want to filter your content section with words like 'marketing', 'social media marketing', 'inbound marketing', etc., which would then alert you to all mentions of those terms.

You can also filter your search columns by content, users, and engagement (retweets, likes, are replies).

If you want to view tweets that include more than one word/phrase then type the word/phrase between quotes and, in between each word/phrase, write 'AND' (without quotes). However, if you want to view tweets that have either of the words/phrases then write 'OR'.

To add a 'Search' Column: click 'Add Column' (+) -> 'Search' -> Type in phrase, word, hashtag, etc. -> 'Add Column'

To filter the column -> click filter (top right corner of column) ->filter by content, users, and engagement.

You have a 'Mentions' column where you can add your Twitter handle to view all tweets that mention you. However, there are times where Twitter user don't include the [email protected] sign.

For these kinds of situations you can add a 'Search' column where you can type in your Twitter handle, domain, and other versions of your handle that people usually write. This will give you a section dedicated to monitoring and interacting with those tweets.

Make sure if you do add more than your Twitter handle to put it in quotes and use the word 'OR' between each word/phrase you add in.

To add this Column: click 'Add Column' (+) -> 'Search' -> type in: Twitter handle -> 'Add Column'

Then filter the column:  click 'Content' -> 'matching' : "Twitter handle" OR "domain" (e.g. "SMExaminer" OR "socialmediaexaminer")

We recently attended an event, and the week before it was held, we created a Twitter list of attendees that we wanted to reach out to. After creating the list, we added it on our TweetDeck and interacted with them before and during the event to get their attention 

To add a 'List' column: click 'Add Column' (+) -> 'Lists' -> Choose list – > 'Add Column'

Another great column is 'Collections'. It allows you to add specific tweets into one column and share that collection of tweets publicly via an embeddable display – it even has its own dedicated page on the Twitter website.

One way you can use this is as a live Q&A column, displaying commonly asked queries via tweets. Whenever you receive a tweet with a question, you can drag it to your collections column and also add your answers/replies. 

To add a 'Collections' column: click 'Add Column' (+) -> 'Collections' -> 'Create Collection' -> edit name and description -> Drag Tweets into collection column

There have been several occasions where I've sent out tweets from the wrong account or with misspelled words (the worst). To help alleviate such faux pas, TweetDeck gives you the option to add a confirmation step before sending out a tweet.

If you have more than one account you'll have to turn on this option for each one individually. Now whenever you send a tweet from TweetDeck you'll have to check the box 'Ready to Tweet?' – it might get annoying but it will save you from some embarrassing tweet moments.

To turn on 'Confirmation Step': click 'Accounts' -> Choose account -> turn toggle on for 'Confirmation step'

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Original source: 5 TweetDeck Tricks and Tips To Try Out.
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Facebook Gives Live Videos a News Feed Boost

Think Facebook's not going to become a major player in live-streaming? Think again – while Facebook came a little late to the party on the live-streaming trend, The Social Network is slowly working towards making their live-stream offering more appealing, tapping into the rising trend of live video content and moving to beat out the current leaders in the market.

Back in December, Facebook announced the expansion of their live-streaming option to all users, which was expanded again just last week with the announcement that all Android users would now also be able to live-broadcast on Facebook.

And now, Facebook's giving live-stream content a News Feed boost, with an update to their News Feed algorithm that'll see Facebook Live videos given more reach value when those videos are actually live, as compared to after the event. Facebook's research has found that people spend over 300% more time watching a Facebook Live video when it's broadcast live compared to after the fact, which is a significant variation, and one which they're keen to utilize to boost on-platform engagement with Live content.

And while the update makes logical sense, it's also another step in Facebook's wider plan to dominate live-streaming and become a bigger player in live events. And they might be on track to do just that.

Here's how.    

In relative terms, Facebook's been a late-comer to the live-streaming trend. The resurgence of live video started with Meerkat, which shot to fame on the back of the app's launch during South by Southwest in March last year. That was soon followed by the launch of Twitter's Periscope, which has since gone on to to become the biggest player in the market, with around two million daily active users consuming the equivalent of 40 years of video content on the platform every 24 hours. And in the midst of all this, of all the hype around live-streaming and the rise of newer players like Blab, Facebook, too, has quietly been building up live-streaming option.

Facebook first announced their live-streaming tool, called 'Live', back in August, but they only released the app to celebrities and public figures via their Mentions app.

This upset some live-streaming devotees – they felt that the point of live-streaming was that it provided everyone with a chance to share their experiences, and restricting it to celebrities somewhat missed the point. But Facebook's strategy actually makes good sense – part of the problem with live-streaming is the noise-to-signal ration is quite high, the basic reason being that producing entertaining live content is difficult, even for seasoned professionals. By opening their platform to celebrities only – people with large followings who can attract an audience to their live-streaming tool – Facebook positioned their live-stream offering for greater success. If Facebook could get enough high-interest, celebrity content into their live-stream content feed, that would then raise interest, overall, in their live-stream offering, meaning that when the tool is eventually opened up to more users, there'd likely be more interest from both individuals and brands.

Think about it this way – on Periscope you can go live with your broadcast and it'll show up in the listing of other on-air content, amidst the various other broadcasters who are using the platform to share their message.

An example of Periscope's discovery listing

But imagine if a lot of those other broadcasters were celebrities, people bringing thousands, even tens of thousands of viewers who might then also see your content slotted alongside? That's a significant draw, and it moves, somewhat, towards making live-streaming a more attractive offering, both for entertainment and broadcasting purposes.

So are celebrities using Facebook Live? According to Facebook, "thousands of public figures have shared live videos with millions of fans". Facebook highlighted this again this week, showcasing a range of Live videos posted by celebrities at the Oscars.

#oscaars

Posted by Chris Rock on Sunday, February 28, 2016

Some of those broadcasts are getting millions of views – but then, of course, Facebook does have another significant advantage in this regard. While Periscope has 10 million user accounts (and they recently announced an update to have Periscope streams autoplay within Twitter feeds giving Periscope content significantly more reach potential), that possible reach pales in comparison to Facebook's 1.59 billion active users.

When you consider this, and that Facebook is now giving Live content a boost in News Feeds, it's not hard to imagine that Live content posted on Facebook will generate a lot more reach, and be more appealing to broadcasters overall than other platforms. What's more, Facebook Live videos remain in your News Feed forever, like any other post, while Periscope content still disappears after 24 hours (you can use third-party workarounds to keep your Periscope videos, but the native app doesn't save your content beyond that time frame).

While Periscope still has the momentum in the space – particularly around live events – it's not hard to imagine Facebook could take over. This is especially pertinent when you consider that Facebook's also looking to provide Live functionality to Pages, as opposed to just individuals, in the very near future.

Watch this space.

Another interesting element to consider as the live-streaming battle heats up is what Facebook plans to do about TV. As has been documented by myself and others previously, Facebook, as part of its ongoing mission to be your sole source of all media input, is looking at ways it might be able to steal more attention – by taking over TV as we know it. A patent filed last year shows that Facebook has been experimenting with a system that would more directly integrate your Facebook experience with your TV viewing behavior.

As demonstrated in the above image, Facebook would be connected to your lounge room TV set, with a notifications box in the lower right corner of your screen alerting you to what your connections are watching, what they're saying about live TV events as they happen, and, quite possibly, notifying you about new content on Facebook. Like, for example, a new Live broadcast from your favorite celebrity or friend.

This would be a significant step for social TV more widely, but also for live-streaming, as it would give your broadcasts more potential reach, more audience attention – and it would make Facebook's Live offering more valuable as a result.

Of course, this is just a patent, there are a lot of patents filed that don't come to fruition, but the fact that Facebook is looking in this direction makes sense within their wider plans to dominate attention – and the idea that Live could play a part in this process also perfectly aligns with the platform's larger goals.

In essence, it really doesn't matter which platform 'wins' from a broadcaster or viewer perspective, the battle only has any major impact on the players themselves. But Twitter's putting a bigger emphasis on Periscope – they recently named Periscope CEO Kayvon Beykpour to the company's executive team, underlining the role the app might play in their future plans. To users, though, it's whomever serves their needs best. Sure, it might make more sense to put more focus on one or the other platform when you're looking to build a following, but really, either is good practice for how to do live content well and will serve a purpose regardless of the platform battles.

But you may just find that Facebook becomes the big player. If Facebook keeps making incremental shifts in their Live strategy, little upgrades and moves and de-stabilizes the hold of other players, you could see The Social Network coming out on top.

While live-streaming more widely is an important trend to be aware of, be aware, too, of the potential of all the major players – of which, Facebook is undoubtedly now one.       

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Original source: Facebook Gives Live Videos a News Feed Boost.
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NBA Scores the Top U.S. Brand on Social Last Week

For the week of February 22, 2016 – February 28, 2016, U.S. brands captured 1.4 billion likes, shares, comments and retweets on content published on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Powered by Shareablee data, the top U.S. brands across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for each respective industry is shown in the ranking below. NBA (Sports) was the top overall brand in the ranking with nearly 25 million total actions, capturing 15% more engagement than National Geographic (Media Publisher) with 21.8 million social actions. Video accounted for 17% of NBA's social posts and drove 39% of the sports league's overall social actions, with Instagram videos featuring Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry and his consistent three-pointers scoring its top posts overall.

Of the top performing brands, Citi (Financial Services) saw the highest growth in social engagement over the previous week with a 976% increase in social actions. This growth was driven by Citi's new Postcards Q&A blog series featuring Citi Country Officers around the world, starting with Ecuador. National Geographic scored the highest actions per post, led by Instagram photos of sharks, orangutans and the Grand Canyon.

i Total actions metric includes the total volume of post-level likes, shares, retweets and comments.
ii Total content includes all posts, tweets and media posted by each brand across platforms.
iii Actions per post metric notes the average number of actions garnered by each brand.
iv Total fans/followers includes fans/followers for each brand as of February 28, 2016.

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Original source: NBA Scores the Top U.S. Brand on Social Last Week.
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6 Steps to Incorporate Guest Blogging as Part of Your Overall Content Strategy

According to research, high-growth professional services companies generate at least 40% new business online. And the one thing most of these organizations have in common is a consistent content strategy. They educate their target audience by sharing valuable information. And one of the best ways to reach an audience beyond your immediate reach is through guest blogging.

There are two main reasons that guest blogging should be part of your content marketing strategy:

It increases your brand's visibility and credibility with a wider audience, establishing you sphereYou gain authoritative SEO backlinks to your website.

Take a look at the 6 steps you need to take to get started with guest blogging.

You may already have a few outlets in mind. If you don't – and many new bloggers won't – the first place to turn is Google. Search for terms similar to the topics you want to write about. Add "guest blog" to your keyword to see if that helps. See what your peers are sharing on Twitter and LinkedIn, as well. Your goal is to find the outlets your target audience read. You'll need to vet these outlets to confirm they're relevant, reputable, and active on social media.

Your competitors can also lead you to fresh outlets. Consider what competitors closely mirror your service offerings the closest – where are they blogging? Typically, folks aren't shy about promoting their content when it's published elsewhere. If you know the names of your competitors' leadership, you can even Google "John Doe ABC company" for some quick intelligence. You can also set up Google Alerts to let you know when they publish anything new.  

Over time you will develop a list of prospective outlets that make sense.

Start by researching the outlets on your list. Acquaint yourself on the issues covered in the last 6 months. Also look for patterns or clues that can help you shape your topic and pitch to fit their preferences. Doing so will greatly increase your chances of success.

Armed with this critical information, you can start evaluating your own content. Determine the best fit between your content and your prospective outlets. Then be sure to match these topics with your firm's service offerings.

Now it's time to dig in and write your pitches. Your pitch letter or email should cover some basics: 

Introduce yourself and your firm.State your intention (to submit a guest blog).Mention how it will fit will their readership.Provide a working title and main points of the blog (including any supporting research).

Keep it brief. Don't force the recipient of your blog proposal wade through more than a few sentences to get to the ask. So strike the right balance and make sure your outline isn't too complex or too generic.

Be sure your keep track of what online pubs you pitch which ideas. We recommend you start a simple spreadsheet with the editor's name and email, the name of the publication, the date contacted, and current status of the pitch. Have fields for the ideas you pitched and any other notes that might be relevant. It will help to include a link to the blog. (This will come in handy once your blog is accepted and published. See step 6.)

If you don't get a response, gently follow up in 2-3 weeks. Sometimes editors are inundated with email and things get lost in the shuffle (we've all been there). If you still don't get a response, try again with a different topic. If that fails, let it go for now. Keep the publication on your list and let some time pass – you can always return later with a fresh pitch.

Did you snag a guest post? Excellent. 

If you pitched an idea and outline, your next step – before any writing – is to nail down the important details with the editor. What's your deadline? What word count should you target? Chances are they'll have specific guidelines on both.

Also ask if you're allowed to link to your website from the post (after all, this is the payoff for all this labor), and how long your biographical blurb should be. Some blogs and publications are also willing to run your photo, so be sure to inquire and provide that, too.

And above all else, be sure to do a final proofread before you submit.

All your effort is for naught if no one sees your post. So, promote your guest post (and let the editor know that you plan to do so). Liberally spread the link across social media and include a shout out to the publisher.

Guest blogging is critical piece of your online marketing program, and it'll reward you with increased exposure and critical links back to your website.

Keep at it and watch your visibility and authority grow.

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Original source: 6 Steps to Incorporate Guest Blogging as Part of Your Overall Content Strategy.
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7 Productivity Secrets of Sports Champions To Emulate

To stay ahead of the game, one of the main goals companies strive to achieve is to improve productivity. Increased productivity means higher revenues and a stronger bottom line. So how can you improve productivity in the workplace? In many of the same ways that you improve productivity on the sporting field.

Here's what some of the most successful sports figures have to say about how to increase productivity.

Football legend Steve Young said, "I was taught early on that I should plan my work and then work my plan. The best strategy in the world won't be effective if it isn't backed up with muscle and sweat."

Setting goals is a necessary first step, but it's only the first step. Make sure those goals are attainable, and then work to attain them.

If you're not measuring your performance, you have no benchmark for improvement. Cameron MacMillan, co-founder and COO of Daily Fantasy Sports site Rotogrinders says – when it comes to working with statistics – "Numbers don't lie; every incremental improvement you make can be measured and compared to previous productivity. A graph of your achievements, with the line going up, is just as good as a pat on the back from the boss."

Facebook is perhaps the biggest time suck ever invented. It's useful for a lot of things, but can also be detrimental to your productivity. Golfer Tiger Woods said, "I can either play golf or play on the internet — guess which one I chose?"

The fact that he actively chooses to pursue his passion instead of getting caught up in time wasting activities is what makes him such a great golfer. Angry Birds, Wikipedia, and YouTube can wait until after you get home. When you're working on a project, give your full attention to working on the project – if you let yourself get distracted, things will never get done.

On the other hand, no one can be productive all day every day. Vince Lombardi, the uber-coach of the Green Bay Packers, told reporters, "I not only plan to win, but also plan for player down time — it's a given that has to be factored in. Instead of pulling out my hair in frustration, I just leave some wiggle room in the schedule, so that when it happens I already have a way of dealing with it. That's why so many coaches go crazy — they never plan for player down time."

Down time can mean an accident or unforeseen circumstances that keep you from working, or it can simply mean taking a breather for a few minutes, and pausing to relax and unwind. If you don't do the latter, the chances of the former are much greater. Either way, if staying on schedule means working constantly, you'll find yourself behind schedule very quickly.

Sasha Trubnikov is a former Olympic shotputter from Russia and now a productivity engineer at Interactive Strategies. How does he keep focus? "I only try to beat my own record. That way I never waste any time getting mad at anyone else or being discouraged."

A little friendly competition in the workplace can actually help productivity to some degree. Seeing how well others are doing can motivate you to improve your own numbers. But in the long run, comparing yourself to others is detrimental. If you get caught up in the competition, you to lose sight of your actual goals – concentrating on improving your own performance instead of beating someone else's will help you focus more on the task at hand and ultimately motivate you to continue doing better.

Yankee legend and noted wordsmith Yogi Berra once quipped, "What's a calendar for if it don't keep my head empty for other things?"

Now we have more than just desk calendars. We have mobile devices that can store all of our important appointments, deadlines and other events. They can even send us reminders of what we have going on. This allows you to prioritize your tasks and budget your time, without having to be constantly worried about how many tasks and projects you still have coming up. Your calendar will keep you on task, and remind you of what you need to do. That way, you can keep your head clear for the work that's right in front of you.

Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky famously said, "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take." If you're afraid to act because you're afraid to fail, then you end up getting nothing done at all. You've failed, before you even began.

Sonja Henie, a Norwegian ice skater who parlayed an Olympic medal into a Hollywood career, is quoted as saying, "I was told I could skate but not act, or act but not skate — but I wanted to try doing both at the same time. It didn't scare me; my parents taught me that failure is only a detour, not a wall."

Learn to embrace those detours. They may hinder your productivity temporarily, but will improve it in the long run – particularly over those who aren't taking any shots at all.

The key to productivity is twofold: half planning and half hard work. Between the two, you can do anything you set your mind to. So get out there and give it 110 percent. If you do that, you can knock it out of the park, and win just one for the Gipper.

The post 7 Productivity Secrets of Sports Champions To Emulate appeared first on Launch & Hustle.

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Original source: 7 Productivity Secrets of Sports Champions To Emulate.
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5 Ways to Build a Customer Adventure to Better Connect with Your Audience

The original "Choose Your Own Adventure" book was created by Edward Packard and titled the "Adventures of You." Between 1978 and 1998, it was a phenomenon for kids (and adults), because it was the first time the reader was given control over the outcome. With so many options to end the story, the unexpected twists brought the reader back to try it again and again.

If this behavior sounds familiar, it's because it also describes today's customers. With so many choices and ways to buy, customers are crafting their own "choose your own adventure" in their purchasing path. So as the author of your story, are you confident that you're connecting with your customers and showing them how they can be a part of building their own version of your story that makes them want to come back again and again?

Let's be real here: People buy because of people. It's our interactions and experiences with others – whether we know or even trust the source – that lead us to any purchase. This is what makes the buying cycle so sophisticatedly unique, every time, and out of our control as marketers. Combine this with varying levels of customer loyalty, and their overall satisfaction of every interaction with your brand, it's clear that their journey is going to be different every time.

What you can control is how much, as a marketer, you put into earning your customer's trust.

The quality of your content, information, and the choices you make to connect with them is under your control.

Here are 5 ways to build a customer adventure that is sure to connect with your current and potential customers:

The demographic is dead. Your message is everywhere and your referrals and influencers exist all over the place. I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say that their potential customers aren't on Facebook. Wanna bet? They may not be on there for business, but as individuals they are being influenced through connections and friendships. Don't discount the shattered geographical boundaries that online networks have created; it's where interactions of all kinds – personal included – that open up new opportunities.

"Life is a journey, not a destination," said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Mapping out as many customer journeys that you can think of will help visualize unexpected interactions and steer experiences that will really matter to your customers.

Doing something for the first time only gives us a benchmark. It's the documented shifts along the way that ultimately gives us a better rule set for us to market against. After all, every experience is unique and different to a brand and customer. Next time you say "we know what works" if it's only been done once… think again. And don't be fooled; just because something can be measured, it doesn't mean it should be. If the information you're collecting doesn't directly relate back to a business objective, it can't be used to optimize anything (except your trashcan).

It's the total experience that shapes whether we buy something or not, and until a customer really understands what you're selling, their experience won't be complete. Depending on what you're selling, this can come in the form of a conference call demo, a face-to-face meeting over coffee or an in-store overhead conversation. You will never have complete context to inform your purchase without real human experiences.

As marketers, we strive to build programs that make stuff sell. But sometimes, the brand, product, or the service fails to deliver the same promise. Really understand what you're selling, find its best attributes and promote those to the top of the marketing plan. Then you can devise the very best case scenario upfront – one that's consistent with what you say, and what your customer experiences.

Today's customers are fickle and connected, and you'll never have total control over your brand experience – period. But by truly understanding what you're selling, how you're measuring success and seeing your customers as unpredictable humans, you can craft adventurous experiences that keep them talking and coming back for more.

This post originally appeared on Bryan Kramer's blog

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Original source: 5 Ways to Build a Customer Adventure to Better Connect with Your Audience.
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Social Advocacy and Politics: Seller Beware

Traditionally, businesses avoid taking positions on public policy issues for the simple reason that their goal is to maximize sales. Taking an issue position runs the risk of alienating potential customers on the other side of that issue. But increasingly, businesses are finding that either their customer base is far more likely to favor a particular policy position or the company's leadership has a strong position that they are willing to endorse even if it costs some customers. Regardless of the reason, it is certain that businesses need to think carefully about taking a public-facing policy position and be willing to stick to their decision. Otherwise, they likely risk a social media marketing crisis.

Currently, Land's End is facing such a social media marketing crisis. In response to a recent photo shoot and interview with legendary feminist and founder of Ms. Magazine Gloria Steinem, Land's End was inundated with messages from upset, pro-life customers. Even though Steinem did not discuss abortion in her interview – focusing instead on women's equality – the angry voices were strong enough to persuade Land's End to scrub Steinem from its website. But then the retailer went a step further and removed a feature allowing customers to donate to the ERA Coalition Fund for Women's Equality by adding its logo to any Land's End product.

This full public pendulum swing led to irate messages from an entirely different set of customers, these being pro-women's equality and pro-choice. In other words, by endorsing and then backing down on a principled endorsement of women's equality, Land's End ended up angering all of its customers holding positions on either side of this issue.

Land's End's failure in this matter highlights the need for businesses to be committed to any policy advocacy positions they take. Rather than discourage businesses from engaging in issue advocacy, which I think more businesses should do, they should think through any advocacy campaign carefully in terms of both market impact and their principled commitment to the issue. And if they decide to take a stand, it should be a committed stand; an attempt to lead the conversation, rather than allowing themselves to buckle under pressure from loud activists.

Businesses need to understand that oftentimes activists can raise a loud protest that exceeds their actual numbers. Just because a group of customers get angry and loud about a position the business takes does not mean they represent a large portion of the company's customer base. Businesses need to do the math to determine the net impact an advocacy effort will have on its sales. And it should note that the potential loss of some customers will be offset by gains in new customers drawn to the company because of its issue stance.

Good market research, a clear understanding of a company's own commitment to an issue and an effective social marketing campaign must all figure into any decision to get a business involved in a policy debate. Do this work up front and then stick to your guns to avoid Land's End's predicament.

———

Alan Rosenblatt, Ph.D., is Senior Vice President of Digital Strategies at turner4d, where he provides cutting edge social and digital media strategy to organizations engaging in public affairs. His column appears every other Tuesday on Social Media Today. Read his previous columns here.

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Original source: Social Advocacy and Politics: Seller Beware.
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Has Twitter’s Switch to Hearts Worked? Here’s The Data

We absolutely love Twitter. It's become one of the most exciting places to be in social media and a lot of it has to do with the speed and pace the platform brings to engagement. Brands love Twitter too. They know it's a great place for customer service. Engagement is fast and effective.

Twitter recently decided to change the rules a little – it can do that kind of thing, of course, because it runs the show. To switch things up, the platform decided to introduce "heart" button in place of the good old-fashioned star for "favorite" that everyone had known for years.

Most would consider this change to be cosmetic at best, but if you dig a little deeper, there are some people out there who think that the heart has changed the social media landscape dramatically.

Some like the change, many don't.

We've got the data so we decided to take a look and find out if the introduction of hearts has changed the way engagement takes place on the platform – we'll look at the details behind this change first and move to the numbers next.

Twitter has its own version of events as to how the change came about, and it has a clear definition of what a heart means on its own site. To quote:

"Likes are represented by a small heart. They are commonly used to show appreciation for a Tweet. You can see someone's likes by visiting their profile, and your likes are also visible on your profile."

So according to Twitter you're showing appreciation for a tweet by giving it a heart.

Then there's Chris Sacca. Sacca, a Twitter investor, wrote a long post back in June, 2015, which focused on where he wanted Twitter to put their focus. You can read the piece here (give it an hour to digest fully) – it discusses the platform in great detail. The good thing about the piece is the fact that Sacca genuinely loves the company, not just as a cash cow, but as a kind of 'mission company'. Read the piece, you'll see what we mean.

At one point in the piece, Sacca makes it clear that he feels that switching to hearts, instead of stars, will massively increase engagement on the platform. Many people have since shared Sacca's post, and it's well-known that Twitter executives have seen it too.

When was it written? June 3rd 2015.When were hearts instead of stars first explored by Twitter? June 2015.The official change from stars to hearts happened on November 3rd 2015So h?as it worked? Let's look at that next.

Twitter feels the switch has brought an increase in engagement on their platform. Comments from Kevin Weil, their SVP of Product mention a 6% increase in activity for existing users and 9% increase for new users.

"We put a lot of thought into a change as fundamental as replacing star with heart. We tested it a bunch of different ways across a bunch of different countries. Trying different icons, different words. The heart is a universal symbol. It's a much more inclusive symbol."

We took a look at our numbers to see if we could learn more. The results may surprise you.

We looked at more than 1,500 Twitter profiles in the 3 month period before and 3 month period after the change to hearts. These profiles tweeted more than 2.2 million times receiving more than 21 million favorites in total during the 6 months.

An average tweet in the 3 months leading up to the change to hearts got 8.16 favorites. An average tweet in the 3 months since the change to hearts got 10.43 likes. This is a 27.82% increase in people using that one button and must be considered a major success for Twitter.

Have you noticed any difference in your engagement since the change to hearts? You can use our Twitter Analyser tool to have a quick look at how you're doing.

The word 'like' is where the issue lies for those who are against the new direction.

You go to a store, you buy their stuff, and after a few months you keep buying more of their stuff. Eventually, you begin to realize that you rate their stuff higher than another store's stuff.

One day you stumble across a review site that is rating and collating all the reviews and info on stores like the one you have been visiting for months. The store in question is staring at you from your screen. Underneath there is a chance to click on stars, with five stars making it a highly rated store in your opinion, and one star making it a poor option.

Makes perfect sense right? Quality is gauged by the number of stars a provider gains – this system's been in place for a long time, and it works.

But let's say that you look at the same store on the site and instead of stars underneath the details you see a group of hearts. Five hearts means… what?

That you love the store? That you are fond of it? Or simply that you rate it highly?

Twitter replacing stars with hearts is something that, to some people, changes the nature of how we interact with tweets. We no longer simply rate the quality of a tweet, we show our love for it and that is a whole new ball game.

The whole issue centres around the notion of 'favorites'. If you star something, you are giving it a favorite. This wasn't that hard a concept to understand – but if you give something a heart you're showing that there's an emotional weight attached to that action.

People used to star stuff on Twitter because it was an easy way to lock onto tweets they wanted to check out later. When you are sifting through tweets and find an important news item, you would star the tweet. You can simply come back to your favorites at a later date, and in that way have your Twitter life pretty much organzed. And that worked. It also meant that you were able to find tweets that were genuinely interesting to you.

This is a great idea for news-based tweets, for example – people could simply star their notable news tweets that had floated into their stream and keep an eye on events. From terrorist acts to celebrity weddings, it made for an easier way to navigate the Twitter experience.

But issues like terrorist events are also where the switch to hearts becomes problematic for some. Starring a terrorist event to read a tweet about it later makes perfect sense – the tweet is notable, it rates highly because it's of interest. But adding a heart to a news tweet about a terrorist event? That, arguably, makes for a slightly more uncomfortable experience.

Twitter will have to deal with this perhaps. Doing this would mean categorising tweets, and Twitter is all about self-expression. Pushing a tweet into a bracket and not allowing hearts while all other tweets get the chance to receive hearts… it just makes everything messy. For now we're stuck with a new system that allows people to 'spread the love' about horrible news events.

Take a look at the tweet that gave us the launch video. Watch the launch video and see why people are starting to think Twitter may have missed out on something here. The video is all about love and passion and all of that social media stuff that works on other platforms.

Most platforms face bumps along the road of their growth, but it's all about taking a look at what is going on and trying to change for the better without losing your core fans. That's what Twitter's trying to do with hearts, the algorithmic timeline and other experiments.

The problem for Twitter is that they have many die hard fans who love the platform as it is and don't want it to change in any shape or form.

With Twitter continuing to slide on the stock market, is making their loyal fans unhappy a gamble they can take? They need to, and the first 3 months of data shows that the change to hearts has paid off in a big way.

The post Has Twitter's Change Of Heart Worked? Here's The Data appeared first on Locowise Blog.

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Twitter Provides Tips for Creating More Effective Tweet Content

Last month, Twitter introduced a new option which raised the hackles of many a seasoned Twitter user.

That option? An algorithm-defined timeline.

The idea of an algorithmic timeline for tweets has been in discussion for some time – the actual roll-out and had even been leaked by BuzzFeed the week before the official announcement. BuzzFeed's report subsequently lead to the creation of a new hashtag – "RIPTwitter" – which was used by thousands of people to voice their displeasure at even the suggestion of such a change to how Twitter works.

That backlash may have actually lead to Twitter making the algorithm-defined timeline opt-in – a detail which was highlighted repeatedly throughout Twitter's various announcements on the addition. But nevertheless, the option is here, and it is being used by some, so Twitter's taken the opportunity, via their Small Business blog, to highlight the potential impact of the change, and what it may mean for businesses looking to maximize their engagement via tweets.

The potential problem: People may see fewer of your tweets if they're not generating enough engagement, as the algorithm won't see them as important.

Twitter's advice to counter this: "produce sparkling content"

Okay, there's more to it than that – Twitter's actually provided seven tips to help brands up their engagement and ensure their tweets don't get lost in the shuffle as users switch to their algorithm dictated feeds.

Those tips are as follows.

As per Twitter's post:

"To be heard in the noisy environment of social media, it's crucial to have a clear voice that channels your business's personality. For example, is your business inspiring, playful, or a serious authority? Use language and tone that conveys the key attributes of your business."

ATTENTION EMPLOYEES: employee of the month once again goes to the 5th floor vending machine

— woot.com (@woot) January 28, 2016

This, as always, is a relevant point – before you can use social to spread your message, you need to define what that message is and how you're going to communicate it. In large part, this'll be aligned to your brand mission, but it'll also come down to your target audience and what resonates with them. And the best way to learn that is to become part of your target online communities, get yourself attuned to how they discuss topics, how they use hashtags, what issues are of relevance. And then, the next part is to test – try different approaches and see what generates the best response.  

As highlighted in this example from woot.com, the tone and style you choose can play a big part in your social outreach strategy.

Of course, this is largely along the same lines as the first point, but Twitter suggests that brands should also employ a platform-specific approach to this process by utilizing their Twitter audience insights data to get a better understanding of who their followers are and what they're interested in. Twitter demonstrates this with an example from British pension scheme Nest, which, through insights, was able to determine that football is a key passion among their target audience.

Twitter suggests that brands consider how they can utilize popular events and align them to their brand message – but importantly, Twitter also notes that those events don't have to be global-scale trends:

"Remember, these can be everyday, personal events like breakfast or lunch, as well as wider cultural events, like Valentine's Day or Chinese New Year."

In the first example, Pressed Juicery highlights breakfast ideas, with a very good looking photo (that would also resonate on Instagram, I suspect). While you may not consider breakfast an 'event', as such, it's a relevant point – events are essentially anything that inspires a gathering, and if you can align your brand with that and highlight the relevance of your product/service in one image, that's a great way to boost your message via tweet.

In another example, Twitter shows how how Cure & Simple Bacon used creativity to tap into the wider discussion around Valentine's Day.

It's an interesting example in itself – though I would question the resonance of such messaging – this particular tweet has no re-tweets, no likes and five total replies.

Either way, it does highlight the point that you can look at events from a different perspective with a view to boosting engagement by using trending hashtags. Trying to wedge in an off-topic or forced reference with a rising tag isn't the way to go, but there are ways to approach those engaging topics in ways that can help boost your overall reach.

"Use videos, GIFs, photos, and emojis to attract people's attention and slow down the speed of their Twitter feed. People are three times more likely to engage with Tweets that contain videos and photos."

We've all heard the stats about videos – that videos generate the most engagement, that users are growing to expect to see more video content simply because they can, due to improvements in mobile connectivity. Twitter itself has produced various research reports on this, finding that that tweets with images can generate up to 313% more engagement than those without, while 82% of Twitter users watch video content on the platform. There's little question that videos work, and with the continued rise of emoji options and the recent addition of the new Twitter GIF button, it's now easier than ever to attach visual content to your tweets. And it may well be worth that extra effort.

Twitter's advice on this front is two-fold: you can use unique, branded hashtags to make it easier for your audience to find your content, or you can tap into a trending hashtag conversation to extend your content reach.

As previously noted, don't force it, but getting your brand into those trending discussions could be highly valuable.

This one's pretty obvious, yet it's still an element that's overlooked by many. Responding to queries via social – and quickly, if possible – is one of the best ways help build your brand presence and extend your messaging through positive word-of-mouth.

This is particularly relevant via tweet? Why, because stats show that more than 80% of customer service requests on social come through via tweet – and that there's been a more than 2.5X increase in the number of tweets to brands and their customer service handles over the past two years.

The immediacy and public nature of the platform has made it a go-to reference point for many people seeking to get their questions answered – ignoring this element could be a major error, and could be hurting your brand more than you think.  

Twitter's also working to put more emphasis on their customer service capacity, recently introducing a new option to prompt users to switch the conversation to DM if you need more context or to share personal details. While Facebook continues to grow its business offerings, Twitter remains a key customer service channel for many – responding to tweets is, really, just basic good practice.

And Twitter's final tip on how to 'produce sparkling content' is to ensure you're highlighting and celebrating your advocates where possible – which they've exemplified with a great tweet to LocoMetric.

Re-tweeting positive reviews or responses can be a great way to boost customer loyalty and advocacy, and even the simplest action like 'Liking' one of their tweets can be alot more significant for them than it is for you. People are on Twitter to be part of the wider conversation, to have their voice heard on the global stage. Those brands that hear it are the ones that are on track to win out in social – it's important to consider how you can recognize and acknowledge those community members that have gone out of their way to mention you in the first place.

There's some great tips here – mostly basic, core advice, but relevant and important, either way.

Will the new algorithmic timeline cause a reduction in tweet reach for many brands? I'd say it's not likely, particularly with the option being opt-in (most people won't bother to go to the effort of actually switching it on, I'd suspect). But then again, if the feedback about the algorithm is good, and if tweet engagement goes up as a result, I wouldn't be surprised to see Twitter switch it to an opt-out tool, making it the default display for all users.

If that happens, then that might change the conversation somewhat, making tips like these even more relevant to ensure you maximize your Twitter efforts. 

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Original source: Twitter Provides Tips for Creating More Effective Tweet Content.
http://www.jretechnology.com

Take Your Community from Good to Great

In the bestselling book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don't, author Jim Collins says: 

"Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great."

As a community manager, you've invested time and effort into making your community a valuable resource for your audience. You drive conversations and deepen the relationships community members have with your brand. You strive to increase membership and activity within the community, engage with new users, respond to questions and comments within the community and introduce new topics. Overall, it's a success – but how can you transform a good community into a great one?

In the quest to become more effective, here are three questions community managers should ask themselves:

As a community manager, you make engagement a priority. You understand that the relationships you have with your employees or customers – and the conversations they have with each other – fuel the success of your community. However, when was the last time you acknowledged the top contributors that helped you achieve such high engagement levels?

To go from good to great, you need recognize those participants that are the backbone of your community's success. These are the community members who initiate quality discussions and share their expertise. To sustain active involvement, you must reward their efforts.

This can be done in a variety of ways. For example, an insider group grants active contributors special access, permissions, power and perks. It also provides them with a sense of ownership in the community. The group enables members to share their insight into the needs and interests of your community.

Or, reward top contributors with badges, reputation points, and expert status. Gamification is not only a fun way to recognize active users, is can also lead to organic engagement and community growth.

Companies can have private and public communities. Whether your community consists of employees or customers, it's important to gather feedback from your target audience. 

This open dialogue serves two purposes; it allows the audience to feel appreciated and heard, and enables companies to build a more valuable user experience.

As a community manager, it's your responsibility to not only collect feedback, but use ideas and suggestions to improve where necessary or add new features to the community.

Research shows that communities can increase the average amount of customer spend, attract new customers, and reduce support costs. As a community manager, you need to define what success looks like to you, as well what it means to your organization.

Evaluate metrics related to engagement, community growth and actions tied to revenue – such insight will enable you to prove the community's return on investment and allow you to more effectively promote and nurture engagement, and create a more satisfactory user experience.

Just as the needs and wants of your community will change, so too will the definition of a great community. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for community managers – to maintain momentum and achieve success, community managers need to continuously evaluate their efforts, build valuable connections, incorporate feedback into the community experience, and analyze key metrics.

There is nothing more important to a community manager than an open feedback loop. A quality community manager is listening as much as speaking, leveraging the feedback communicated by the users to make informed business decisions and to provide a reason for the users to become repeat-users and promoters.

Main image via Shutterstock

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Original source: Take Your Community from Good to Great.
http://www.jretechnology.com