How to Get Started on the Most Popular Social Media Networks

Are you starting a new social media presence?

Do you know what to share on each platform?

In this article, you'll discover tips to guide your posting on six social media networks.

Discover how to get started on six popular social networks.

People typically use Facebook to catch up on news and chat with friends. If you want to connect with your audience, you can't just copy a headline and call it a day.

Instead, ask a question or tease what makes your post interesting. Picture someone sharing the post with their friends. Encourage that with your tone.

Write a conversational caption to connect with your audience.

Your posts will get more engagement on Facebook if you include an image. Share a link and choose a bold image to catch the attention of your fans.

Include an eye-catching image along with your link.

You can upload a photo or video directly to the platform. Facebook's algorithm favors native videos uploaded directly. Keep your photos in the 1200 x 630 pixel range.

Remember, if you want to boost the post or use it as an ad, the image must include less than 20% text.

Facebook users are most active in the afternoon. A general rule is when people are bored at work, they're probably browsing Facebook. One study found that Facebook posts at 3 pm receive the most clicks. Thursday and Friday tend to be the busiest days.

Keep an eye on your Facebook analytics to see which posts get the most engagement and adjust your posting schedule accordingly.

People come to Pinterest on a mission. They want to learn a new skill, buy a new product, or find a new project. For these reasons, valuable and informative posts get the most engagement.

Pinterest favors information-rich captions, which can be up to 500 characters long. Tell your audience what inspired you about the pin, give an overview of what they'll find if they click through, and include a call to action like "Click for more" or "Comment with your thoughts."

Include a call to action in your caption.

Resize your photos to fit the vertical pin standard. The recommended size is 600 x 1200 pixels. To add more interest, you may want to combine a few photos or add a text overlay.

Use descriptive pin captions and text overlays to encourage more clicks on Pinterest.

Pinners are more active in the evening and especially on Saturday. Schedule your pins in the evening and make sure you spread them out. If you upload a group of pins at the same time, you'll likely miss out on some engagement.

People typically go to Twitter to have a conversation or follow news at a specific moment in time. It's a great place for you to share product updates and news or answer questions from your users or community.

Inform your Twitter community about product updates.

Your space and time are limited on Twitter, of course. You have 140 characters to share your take on your link or ask a question. Add one or two relevant hashtags to connect your post to a conversation or community.

Kickstarter uses short messages, hashtags, and bold images to connect with their Twitter followers.

If you add photos or other images to your tweet, you can boost your retweets by as much as 150%. Horizontal images perform best on Twitter. Keep your images around 440 x 220 pixels.

Twitter generally sees the most activity between 1 and 3 pm on weekdays. But because a tweet's half-life is just a few hours, it's good practice to share your content more than once, perhaps in prime time and in the evening or early morning.

LinkedIn is the professional social network, so people come to the platform with a work mindset. Joining the conversation on LinkedIn is like making a presentation in your office or at an industry conference.

Share your industry updates or thoughts on strategy as you would speak to peers or potential clients. This is the place to use the industry lingo you often avoid on other social networks.

Microsoft shares industry news and educational materials with photos and videos on LinkedIn.

Like other social networks, visuals will help boost engagement with your content. Horizontal images typically work best. In terms of size, keep your images around 646 x 220 pixels.

People spend the most time on LinkedIn mid-week. Post early in the morning or late in the afternoon on Tuesday or Wednesday for best results.

Users don't check in on LinkedIn as often as other networks, so you don't need to share new information every day. Find a schedule that you can keep up with, even if you post just once a week.

Tumblr is a great place to engage a younger audience because the majority of users are younger than age 35. The network is a casual environment where people are looking for entertainment. Don't be afraid to share your amusement in your words.

St. Ives often entertains their Tumblr audience with bright GIFs with Tumblr tags.

St. Ives often entertains and engages their Tumblr audience with bright GIFs.

Tumblr is a visual network, and GIFs and memes are especially popular. Don't be afraid to turn old visuals into a GIF or meme. Keep your images about 500 x 750 pixels.

Before you post, research your topic to learn what words and hashtags people use most often with that topic. Add your hashtags to the bottom of the caption to tag your image and improve discoverability.

Tumblr users are most active late in the evening. Schedule your posts after 10 pm to reach more people.

Instagram users scroll through the feed on their phone in search of inspiration, entertainment, and beauty. Increasingly, people share experiences and explore places.

To enhance a visual you've used on another social network, turn it into a simple graphic or add a behind-the-scenes photo of how it was made.

Although Instagram is about visuals first, captions are also important. Tell a story with your post, share a quote related to the image, or give a teaser to preview content connected to that photo.

The caption is a great place to include a call to action. For example, use the caption to direct your audience to the link in your profile.

Use a call to action that points to the link in your Instagram bio.

In 2015, Instagram moved beyond the square format and started allowing vertical and horizontal images, giving users many more options.

If you want to grow an Instagram following (helping you drive more traffic and engagement in the long run), I recommend choosing a standard format and sticking with it. Then attach a logo or branding element to your image to make sure you benefit from any regramming.

Attach a logo or branding element to your Instagram images.

Instagrammers are most active in the evenings after 8 pm and early mornings. Monday and Thursday tend to be active days. Try scheduling your posts for those days and see if you get more engagement.

Conclusion

Imagine walking into three different environments: your office, the local mall, and happy hour with your friends. What would the conversations be like, what would you wear, and what would your mindset be? Chances are each situation would be unique. Similarly, the conversation, style, and mindset you use for each social platform should be different.

What do you think? How does your approach differ for each social platform? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Tips on how and what to post when getting started on six social media networks.

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Original source: How to Get Started on the Most Popular Social Media Networks.
http://www.jretechnology.com

The Beginner's Guide to Creating Shoppable Video

[Note: The author of this post is the CEO of Wideo]

Consumers today have little tolerance for video advertisements, though they have an ever-growing desire to digest quality video content. So how do marketers marry the two? The answer is shoppable video.

U.S adults consume 5.5 hours of online video daily. By making videos shoppable, marketers can take advantage of these hours spent watching videos without disrupting the content by inserting shoppable ads. With shoppable video, the products featured in the clip get more emphasis; whether your company video is an overview of your products/services, a catalog of your inventory, a tutorial video, etc. You can make your clip more useful to audiences by making it shoppable.

Check out these excellent examples to get better acquainted with the medium.

Welcome to Portland: We Make Stuff

Bally Interactive Experience

Early adopters of shoppable video have seen large increases in their view counts. According to YouTube's Director of Product Management for Ads, Diya Jolly, the number of views for product-related videos has increased by 40% over the past year since they introduced their True View Cards. Meanwhile, television channel site BravoTV.com has grown its digital audience by 91%, in large part due to the introduction of shoppable content on their site. Since it's quite clear that shoppable video has great potential for helping sell products and services, why then have marketers not fully adopted this medium?

If we had to venture a guess, it would simply be due to a fear of the unknown. As you can see in the examples above, there are many ways to approach shoppable video, and they may seem technologically advanced, but it's easier than you might think. Marketing teams may imagine the need to hire an expensive video production team all for one piece of shoppable video content. In actuality, shoppable video can be created in-house and quite easily with trackable analytics. Here's a walkthrough on some simple approaches to creating quality shoppable content.

Wideo is a platform you can use to streamline the video creation process. Wideo also offers analytics including video views, clicked links, the length of video watched, etc. to help you measure its success.

Making a shoppable video via Wideo is simple. You have the option to insert call-to-action buttons, sign-up forms, or spaces for email registry. Just connect a URL to the interactive options presented in the sidebar and manipulate the copy and color until you're satisfied. That's it; you've successfully created a simple, professional shoppable video.

If you want to make a shoppable video for Youtube, there are several options for you to choose from.

Via Wideo, you can export your content straight to Youtube option, which saves you the hassle of downloading the mp4 clip and uploading it yourself. On export from the Wideo platform, the interactive buttons you've made will cease to be clickable. Once the video is uploaded to Youtube, however, you can re-instate your buttons' interactivity through Youtube's annotations. Annotations allow you to pick a place on your video and hyperlink it to a URL. Line up the annotations with the buttons you made in Wideo, and you'll have an interactive, shoppable Wideo once again.

For those who would prefer to hide their shoppable attachments more stealthily within the video, rather than display them as part of the storyline, you have another option. A cards-based annotation system, launched in March, is now offered to all advertisers on YouTube via Google Adwords. The cards-based annotation system provides a menu in the Youtube video player which showcases an array of interactive cards that viewers can click on. The menu is hidden from view except for an icon in the upper-right corner of the video player. Viewers can choose to view the menu alongside the video or have it disappear by clicking on the icon.

Here's an example:

via GIPHY

Of course, there's much more to shoppable video than the video itself. Your shoppable video can inspire a whole new approach to how you present your offerings on your site and platforms. Burberry's elegant display of their latest menswear collection is a great example. You'll notice while watching the clip of the runway show that as each look appears, the still image directly below the clip changes to present that same look with purchase details.

This video marketing strategy shows great creativity while keeping with the brand's aesthetic. Most importantly, this strategy has streamlined the Burberry experience for prospective buyers. A fully formed video marketing campaign like this one that properly incorporates a shoppable video will only increase your chances of sales success.

Thanks to shoppable video you can direct a viewer's focus towards certain products or services more than ever before. By creating quality content, you'll engage the viewer. By making it shoppable, you'll market to them without being overly promotional.

Creating these videos in-house allows your brand to integrate the tool fully into your company's standard digital marketing strategy which will enable you to track a quantifiable return. So whether you're interested in shoppable video as a means of engagement, or as a sales driver, the format is the perfect blend for audiences today that are turning away from traditional ads.  

This article was orginally published at Wideo.co.

View the original article here

Original source: The Beginner's Guide to Creating Shoppable Video.
http://www.jretechnology.com

When the Madness Ends, Social Data Still Flows: The Final March Madness Matchup

Monday's March Madness conclusion was a game certainly worthy of its championship title. Two storied and popular teams tipped off at 9:19pm EST, and after the final horn blew, Villanova found themselves ahead by three points due to some late-game heroics. It was the ideal contest to capture the spirit of the entire tournament.

We all watched the game, and many of us posted about it as we took in every play and whistle. Below you'll see how the conversation unfolded as the players hit the hardwood.

The day of the national championship game and the ensuing reaction the day after account for around 150,000 mentions of the term "March Madness". And as we can see below, there's nothing like a buzzer-beating, game-winning shot to create a conversation spike – after Kris Jenkins made his three-pointer as time expired, mentions soared to nearly 6,900 in one minute.

When you compare the spikes in each teams' mentions within the March Madness conversation, we can see that UNC's peak occurred as Marcus Paige tied the game with his circus, three-pointer. This caused UNC mentions to top around 340 mentions in one minute, but Villanova's mentions launched shortly afterwards with Jenkins' answer.

The game's last basket sent Villanova's mentions to accumulate more than 1,100 in one minute.

To the winner goes the mentions as Villanova accumulated nearly 20,000 mentions. The University of North Carolina only received around 11,000 mentions.

Pennsylvania, Villanova's home state, accounted for more mentions than the state of North Carolina as well. Pennsylvania accounted for over 2,800 mentions, while North Carolina accounted for over 2,400 mentions.

Lastly, men controlled the majority share of this online conversation as they made up 72% of all unique authors.

It would appear that the social conversation mimicked reality with Villanova getting more mentions, and really only pulling away after they won at the buzzer. Until that point, the social discussion was relatively even.

Until next March.

Want more social data? Head over to Brandwatch React to see the latest news, trends and pop culture happenings around the social web.

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Original source: When the Madness Ends, Social Data Still Flows: The Final March Madness Matchup.
http://www.jretechnology.com

Social Media Algorithms and What They Mean for You

"Voodoo". "Black magic". "The death of a platform".

These are just some of the affectionate terms that people have been using to describe social media's shift towards algorithm-based feeds. Social media audiences have frequently been averse to change, even if they don't fully understand the ramifications of such updates, and this continues to be true. But as marketers, we have to rise above this aversion to change and instead embrace it. In that spirit, what do algorithm-based feeds actually mean for your marketing efforts?

Facebook using an algorithmic feed is nothing new. For a variety of reasons – including the sheer number of users on the platform – Facebook has been using an algorithm-based feed since very early on in its existence. In a post on Facebook's own blog, they explain their reasoning behind the News Feed: 

"The goal of News Feed is to deliver the right content to the right people at the right time so they don't miss the stories that are important to them. Ideally, we want News Feed to show all the posts people want to see in the order they want to read them." 

While it's well understood that Facebook's feed is governed by an algorithm, what makes it so damn tricky is it's transience. As soon as marketers feel like they've got a grasp on what makes the algorithm tick, Facebook shuffles, then reshuffles the deck.

Currently, the algorithm places importance on a few key factors:

How often you have an interacted with that type of post before, content included. (Yes, Facebook is keeping a tally of every time you "like" those cute baby goat GIF's)If/how often the post has been hidden by others.How well received (in terms of engagement) the past posts from that user have been.How well the post has performed with users who have already viewed it.The goal behind the News Feed is pretty simple: to promote the best content to the most relevant people – but what does this mean for you as a marketer?

Create the best content. Make sure your content is engaging, education, or entertaining. Most importantly, make sure that your posts are relevant to your audience. As much as you would like to think hat all your content is awesome, ultimately it's up to your audience to decide.

As others platforms look to the sustained growth in users that Facebook has seen over the years, they're beginning to adopt the network's strategies.

Twitter has recently been undergoing an identity crisis of sorts, and it's still somewhat unclear as to how they will emerge. They toyed with the idea of expanding the character limit of tweets to 10,000 characters, and that was ultimately nixed. However, the platform has rolled out an algorithm-based feed similar to that of Facebook. And when the feature was first announced, a typical tweetstorm erupted and the hashtag #RipTwitter was born as people prematurely mourned the death of the chronological feed. 

The 10 seconds where my @twitter was all out of order before I could opt out of their stupid algorithm were truly terrifying.

— Brian Daly (@briandalynj) March 10, 2016

As it turns out, the feature to view "the best tweets you may have missed" is essentially an expanded version of their previous "while you were away" feature and is easy to opt out of. As for how this update can benefit brands, the feed prioritizes content that receives above average engagement.

Since many companies have a larger base of followers, this will reward brands that produce engaging content by giving them additional organic reach within the algorithm-based feed. Another benefit of the Twitter algorithm is that now if your audience is engaging with your content there's a larger chance that the engagement is a result of the tweets being relevant, not just timely.

As for Instagram, they're not currently not facing the same user predicament that Twitter finds itself in, but they too, have indicated that an algorithmic feed is imminent. From Instagram's blog:

You may be surprised to learn that people miss on average 70 percent of their feeds. As Instagram has grown, it's become harder to keep up with all the photos and videos people share. This means you often don't see the posts you might care about the most. 

Not sure about you, but I near obsessively check my Instagram feed and rarely miss a post – however, only following ~300 people makes this much easier. In any case, this statement essentially mirrors what we have heard previously from Facebook and Twitter. Feeds are simply becoming too crowded and an algorithm is the best way to cut down on the clutter.

Again, brands are being forced to fight for a share in an increasingly small amount of social real estate. It's yet to be determined exactly how the algorithm will work, but it likely won't be as detrimental for businesses as the Facebook feed proved to be. Simply due to the nature of the platform, all posts are still likely to be shown within the feed, just not not in a chronological manner. Contrast this to Facebook, where there are an unknown number of posts that will never grace your screen.

'Algorithm' might still be a scary word, and the math behind them may be even more frightening, but understanding how they work and how they can be leveraged is certainly not "voodoo" or "black magic". It all really hinges on your ability to create valuable content that will be boosted, not hindered by these feeds. Certain platforms (we're looking at you Facebook) will also require you to reevaluate your paid social strategy in order to properly maxmize your impact. 

This post originally appeared on the Likeable Local blog.

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Original source: Social Media Algorithms and What They Mean for You.
http://www.jretechnology.com

5 Creative Ways to Grow Your Email List

Want to grow your email list?

Got a blog?

New tools and placement options have made it easier than ever to create an offer that compels blog visitors to share their email address with you.

In this article you'll discover five unique ways to grow your email list from your blog readers.

Discover five creative ways you can grow your email list with your blog.

To encourage email signups, show the value of being an email subscriber on the homepage of your blog. The main focus should be on your opt-in box.

Feature an engaging sign-up box on your blog's homepage.

Place the links to other areas of your site below the fold, so readers won't see them unless they scroll down the page.

Bluewire Media collects email addresses directly from their main page. Below, they offer visitors free marketing templates in addition to news and updates delivered to their inbox.

Gather new email addresses right from your homepage.

If you don't have a custom homepage or don't have the resources to redesign your current homepage, a feature box might be a good option for you.

A well-designed feature box exchanges your lead magnet for new email addresses. You typically place the feature box above the fold of your page so it's immediately visible to users.

Unlike entry pop-ups, feature boxes don't interrupt visitors from scrolling down the page and browsing your blog content. They can either take your bonus or scroll down the page.

The feature box at DIYthemes increased the blog's subscription rate by 51.7%. Feature boxes convert well even if they're subscription-only and don't offer a lead magnet.

A feature box above the fold grabs your readers' attention, but doesn't prevent them from scrolling down the page.

Choose a good opt-in offer, such as a free email course. The Enchanting Marketing blog offers readers a free writing course in their feature box.

This feature box offers a free email course as a lead magnet.

If you're looking for a tool to create opt-in feature boxes, try the WordPress plugins PlugMatter Optin Feature Box or Thrive Leads.

Don't forget that your homepage is one of the most visited pages on your blog, so it deserves special treatment. Think about changing your homepage design to include an engaging sign-up box as the next step after a feature box.

Content upgrades are another way to grow your email list. The principle behind them is the same as for any opt-in form: You give away free material (a lead magnet) and get your visitors' email addresses in return.

Place a link to your bonus content with a call to action in your article and wrap it with an eye-catching box. When readers click the link, a pop-up box appears, asking for their email address to get the bonus material.

Michael Hyatt offers readers a list of literary agents as a bonus in the following article, which is valuable material for his readers and relevant to the topic of the article.

In your article, place an eye-catching link to your offer with a call to action.

When readers click your download link, open a pop-up box asking for their email address. After readers complete the form, redirect them to a page with the bonus.

After readers type in their name and email, they're redirected to the page where they can download the free guide.

You can use a variety of different materials in your content upgrades. Here are a few examples:

A PDF version of your articleA checklistAn instructional videoA templateA list of tools or resourcesAn infographic

Remember that you need to choose bonus content that is highly relevant to the topic of your article. That's why content upgrades are often called "content-specific bonuses."

To implement content upgrades on your blog, try a tool like LeadBoxes or the Content Upgrades PRO plugin for WordPress.

Another effective and unobtrusive way to turn readers into email subscribers is to use scroll-triggered opt-in boxes.

A scroll-triggered box doesn't cover up any content.

Unlike pop-ups, scroll-triggered boxes don't interrupt the visitor's reading and don't cover up any content. Place a scroll-triggered box at the corner of the page when readers scroll down to a certain part of your article.

By the time the box appears in front of readers, they've already read most or all of your article. They've formed an impression of you, so it's a good time to introduce your offer.

You can decide when to show the box to your readers. For example, make it appear halfway through your article or at the end.

You can place a scroll-triggered box at the end of your article.

If you want to use a scroll-triggered box on your blog, try a tool like Scroll Box by SumoMe or the Scroll Triggered Boxes plugin for WordPress. Both of these tools are free.

Although people say they hate pop-ups, studies show that pop-ups are effective for collecting email addresses, especially when they're well designed and have strong, engaging text.

A good pop-up design and call to action can be very effective.

If you're worried about potentially irritating your visitors with a pop-up, consider using an exit pop-up, which is action triggered and shown only when visitors intend to leave your page.

You don't lose anything and don't run the risk of irritating visitors when you offer them something right when they're about to leave. Keep in mind that exit pop-ups work only for visitors who have spent time on your blog.

If you're looking for a tool for pop-ups, and exit pop-ups in particular, try OptinMonster, PopUp Domination, or SumoMe's List Builder. The latter is free with an opportunity to upgrade to a pro version.

Conclusion

These are all effective ways to get people to sign up for your email list from your blog. Keep in mind that you can use more than one of these techniques at the same time.

What do you think? Do you use some of these tactics on your blog? What tips do you have for growing your email list? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Tips on five unique ways to convert blog readers to email list subscribers.

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Original source: 5 Creative Ways to Grow Your Email List.
http://www.jretechnology.com

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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Original source: Facebook Reaches 3 Million Advertisers, Launches 'Your Business Story' Video Tool.
http://www.jretechnology.com

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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Original source: Any Business Can Be Social: Here's How.
http://www.jretechnology.com