Grow Your Audience. Extend Your Brand.

7 Ways to Set Your Twitter Feed on Fire

2015-02-21T10:02:00.001-06:00

Twitter has become an essential tool for entrepreneurs. A 2010 study done by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies showed that 67 percent of some 1,000 adults surveyed were more likely to buy from a company whose brand they followed on Twitter. Plus 79 percent of the respondents were more likely to recommend a brand whose handle they followed on Twitter.

Most entrepreneurs aren’t experts on Twitter, but all entrepreneurs can improve their engagement with a few minor adjustments. The following are seven ways to set your Twitter feed on fire:

Related: How Marketers Should Approach the New Twitter
1. Grow your following.

Increasing your follower count is the most effective way to boost your influence on Twitter. Look at the followers of your competitors. If their followers are ideal clients for you, begin by following these handles. Many of these users will follow you back.

To keep track of the Twitter accounts you follow and figure out which ones don't follow you back, use free tool like Manageflitter to identify those who don’t follow you back. Manageflitter gives you the ability to unfollow the Twitter users who have not followed you back right.

Using a strategy of following a few hundred targeted followers a week will result in your adding scores of new and ideal followers within a month. Continuing this strategy consistently could result your gain of thousands of new followers in a relatively short time period.
2. Be clear about your message.

The main question potential Twitter followers want answered is "How do I benefit from following this person?” To have ideal clients follow you, answer this question immediately.

The first place customers look is your descriptive bio. They don’t care if you're a father of two and a husband. Your favorite quote won't prompt them to follow you. Telling them what’s in it for them is all they care about.

Author Brendon Burchard offers the best way to communicate this concisely. At his live Experts Academy event, he suggested saying, "I help [blank] do [blank] so they can [blank]."

Related: Twitter Courts Businesses With Option to Promote Their Most Popular Tweets
3. Ask for retweets.

The ability to have your followers share your tweets is imperative to the growth of your social-media presence. Salesforce.com found that when followers are specifically asked to “retweet” with the shortcut reference “RT,” they are 10 times as likely to retweet a message.

The research also showed that asking followers to “retweet” (using the whole word spelled out), boosted the retweet rate 23 times more than average.
4. Share during the best times.

You can have the best and most engaging content in the world, but if it's not tweeted at the correct time, then it likely won't be seen. According to Bitly, the best time to reach people on Twitter is Monday to Thursday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. The worst times are after 3 p.m. on Fridays and any evening after 8 p.m.
5. Schedule tweets.

Set uptweets ahead of time. Free sites like Buffer and HootSuite grant you the ability to schedule tweets. This helps you be present on Twitter when your followers are more likely to be online. One hour of scheduling work might deliver a month’s worth of prescheduled Twitter content for your feed.
6. Use hashtags to boost retweets.

According to a study by Buddy Media/Salesforce at the end of 2011 and early 2012, tweets with hashtags receive twice the engagement as those without. The same study found that tweets incorporating more than two hashtags experienced a 17 percent decline in engagement. So be careful not to overuse hashtags.

Using hashtag websites like Hashtagifyme or Ritetag can assist you in identifying the most engaging hashtags for posts.
7. Use the @ properly.

Never start a tweet with @whoever. When you do, the only people who will see the tweet are your followers and @whoever.

Start the tweet with words and then insert @whoever later in the phrase like this: "Thanks @whoever for your great review about our service at ABC Company." This will ensure that all your followers will see this tweet in their feeds. And @whoever will be notified as well.

Article curated from Entrepreneur

5 Tools for Downloading and Analyzing Twitter Data

2015-02-21T09:59:00.002-06:00

If you are running a social campaign, you have to be analyzing your account's data. To do that, you have to do some data mining. Unfortunately, it is a time consuming process that brands often hire whole teams to manage, rather than entrusting it to a single person.

The good news is that there are tools that make it infinitely easier, and that you can take advantage of to archive your own Twitter data.

1. Twitter's official archive download.

The easiest route to go is always going to be Twitter itself. They allow you to access your own archive of posts, and save them in an easily exported format. This option has been available since 2012, and it is a consistent way to build up a good archive of your tweets in a CSV file that includes all information.

Of course, there are a couple of downsides. There is no way to set what dates you want, and so it will go back as far as it can to create your file. Any time you re-download a new version, you will be overwriting the old one, or else saving it as a separate file with the same old info.

While this is annoying, it is preferable to how it was, when you could only get a short period of tweets before they were lost forever. Progress!

2. BirdSong Analytics.

BirdSong Analytics is an absolutely unique tool that lets you download all the followers of any Twitter accounts. It's a paid tool but I don't think such feature has any alternatives.

The export comes in an Excel format and contains each username, number of followers/following, real name, Twitter URL, bio, number of tweets, date when the account was created, location, Verified status and how many lists the account is included into.

Now, think about all Excel sorting, filtering, searching options: You can now find most followed accounts, search bios by a keyword, sort accounts by location, etc. For example, you can download all people your competitor follows and investigate their habits, sites, etc. Or you can download all accounts that @nytimes is following and get the list of high-profile journalists, their personal sites, their hobbies, etc This is a great database to plan your outreach campaign out.

3. Cyfe.

For a more customizable option, it has to be Cyfe. This is an all-in-one business management tool that allows you to create custom made widgets that work with any number of services, including most social networks. There are pre-made widgets already available for Twitter (among dozens of others), but you can craft your own to catch the data that you need. Getting started is free, but you will want to use their premium service for real analytics gathering.

4. NodeXL.

To go more simple, but very thorough, you could try NodeXL. It is an open source template for Microsoft Excel that works by integrating data pulled from a CSV file into a ridiculously informative network graph. So you could get your archived data from Twitter, input it into NodeXL, and create a breathtaking visual representation of your tweets from any period you like. For a graph junkie like me, this is a very exciting tool.

5. TWChat.

Better known as a Twitter chat room for tweet chats, TWChat also provides you with the option of creating a permanent archive for various hashtags of your choice. Every day, a new archive will be created that shows you how that tag is being used. This is an amazing tool if you are looking to monitor your reputation, or even a specific social campaign.

Using Twitter archives.

Now, there may be numerous ways to use the data; here are just a few ideas:

Gary Dek of StartABlog123.com uses Twitter for content inspiration.
Anna Fox of HireBloggers uses Twitter favorites as a bookmarking tool, so her archive is her ultimate reading list (she can also share)
You can use BirdSong exports to identify niche influencers for outreach campaign or customer research.
You can also use hashtag archives for keyword research to investigate which words tend to go in close proximity with the chosen hashtag.

Article curated from Entrepreneur

Hey, Social-Media Marketers, Shut Up Already

2014-12-16T09:29:00.003-06:00

This past Halloween, I hosted a costume party at my home for 120 of my closest friends. We all had a blast -- we laughed, we drank a lot, some got sick, etc. You know how the story goes.

But in the middle of my party, a friend of mine came over and started telling me about his new startup business. Was it a good business idea? I don’t know, I wasn’t listening. Would I buy whatever it was he was selling? Again, I wasn’t listening and don’t care.

So why do I sound like such a jerk? Because I was at a party, that’s why. Let me drink, crack a few jokes and be obnoxious without you bothering me about your new business. Is that OK, buddy?

Which brings me to the point of this column.

When social-media marketing became a “thing” a few years back, companies got all excited. I know because I was one of them. It was a new way of reaching out to the customer. No longer did I have to wait to send my monthly email to my customers. No longer would I fear that reaching my customers would be costly and time consuming.

I was now able to reach my audience daily -- daily! -- for free. That’s right, I did not have to pay a nickel to post a new Facebook status about our recent GQ placement, tweet out a new sale or post a picture of our new products on Instagram. I could now do it every single day and it was free. Marketing had never been easier or less expensive.

Fast forward to 2015.

Because it’s (mostly) free, social-media marketing is now everywhere. It’s in your Facebook feed. It’s on the side of your Facebook feed. It’s in your Twitter feed. It’s promoted in your Twitter feed. It's in your Instagram feed and now promoted Instagram photos.

Sheesh, I’m exhausted just listing them all. Now, imagine how the customers feel.

Here we are, at least five years into social-media marketing, and the results are still inconclusive as to whether companies make any money off this stuff. With advertisers so heavily invested in social-media marketing now -- through hiring, promoted posts, endless time -- they continue to try to break the code on maximizing their return on investment for their social-media efforts. To date, these efforts still aren’t working.

Why? Let’s go back to my Halloween party.

I’m hanging out with my friends. A little buzzed. Having fun. And then someone came over to me and wanted to talk business with me. He didn’t give me a hard sell. It wasn’t even a lengthy conversation. But still, I wasn’t in the mood to be sold to. I was talking to friends.

And that’s how I feel when I am on Facebook or Instagram, and to a lesser extent, Twitter.

I am hanging out online. Talking. Socializing. Not looking to be interrupted. Not looking to be sold to. And yet, that’s all these brands want to do. Interrupt my time with my friends. I’m tired of it.

Most brands, because of its low (or no) cost, market on social media daily. Which means we are not only bothered when we want to be left alone, but we are bothered multiple times a day.

That’s why I conclude that we are about to face a social-media burnout unless some industry-wide change is made.

Social media, at its best, is a brand enhancer. It is a new “two-way” communication tool between brand and customer. “Two-way” meaning the customer can initiate dialogue with the company (traditional customer service/engagement) or the company can initiate dialogue with the customer.

But that’s all it is. Social media is not a new sales channel, and it is time for companies to stop treating it like one.

I may not be a millennial, but I sense a change in the air. The constant noise of advertising (yes, social-media marketing is advertising despite its "marketing" name) is causing people to tune out the marketing messages. Some do it is consciously (unfollowing a company) and some do it subconsciously (scrolling quickly past the message). Social-media marketing, in my uncalculated/speculative opinion, is becoming like print advertising in newspapers -- we all just look right past it.

No, I am not calling for the death of social-media marketing. It will be around for the near future, for sure. But I do think we are nearing an era of customer apathy and it’s time for some kind of a reinvention by the industry.

Article curated from Entrepreneur

5 Tips to Get Active on Twitter and Reach Your Brand's Audience

2014-12-16T09:27:00.001-06:00

As social media continues to evolve in marketing, brands are constantly feeling the pressure to be more social on all platforms. But which platform is right for you?

Someone once told me this, and now I pass it along to my clients: Think about online audience in three ways. Facebook is for the people you know, LinkedIn is for the people you need to know, and Twitter is for the people you want to know. With about 232 million "monthly active users," Twitter is an insanely popular micro-blogging platform with an incredible reach of people you may want to know.

Here are a few tips on how to increase your Twitter followers and keep your platform alive!

1. Work on your social media voice.

Your brand should have a personality and voice on social media. There is a good chance that your brand is being discussed, hopefully in a good way, online. Every platform has a different audience, so identify that audience and cater your voice and message to them. Try and be a part of real-time conversation.

If you want to hire someone to converse on your behalf, make sure they are familiar with your brand's message. Hiring an intern to save money is probably not a good idea. It could backfire. While the tone may change depending on the platform, your brand's message and authenticity should be intact.

2. Make it easy for your audience to find you.

There is no question that people are moving quickly -- reading articles and watching videos on their mobile devices while on the run. With this in mind, make it easy for them to share your information. Place share buttons on your company website pages, your blog posts, on your other social platforms and in your email signature. Put the buttons in a place where they are easily accessible.

3. Be proactive.

A good way to increase your followers is to follow people you know by importing your email contacts to Twitter. Make sure that this list is updated with all your recent email contacts and your LinkedIn connections, as well. Once you are following them, you will be surprised at the number of followers you will get!

4. Tweet often and increase numbers.

According to a study by Mashable.com, it takes about 10,000 tweets, on average, to break into the 1,000 followers mark. Without compromising the quality of content, make sure you remain a consistent and prolific presence. Even better, join real-time conversations by setting your Twitter time to the peak time your audience is online.

Tap into the moments that matter and that people can relate to and can create a conversation. Your brand may benefit from shared discussions about cultural events, sports, pop culture, news events, etc. Stay grounded in popular demand and trending topics. This can only contribute positively to your social presence.

Be careful and conscious of participating in controversial topics that may put your brand in a spotlight you might not be interested in.

5. Use compatible hashtags.

Your industry has hashtags that are already being used. Join the conversation with relevant content and use them, as well. #ThrowbackThursday, #ShopSmall, #Entrepreneurs are a few good ones. Also, expand your reach by following prominent names in your field, sharing posts or articles, and including them on the tweet along with the hashtag.

Remember, tweets are not just bits of conversation. In mass, they have the power to affect your business. The sooner you join that online conversation, the better!

Article curated from Entrepreneur

5 Tips for Designing Your Website to Serve Every Customer Individually

2014-10-02T08:56:00.000-05:00

Current research shows that 40 percent of consumers buy more from retailers who personalize their shopping experience across channels. Additionally, nearly three in four, or 74 percent, of online consumers get frustrated with websites when the content that’s displayed has nothing to do with their interests. It is clear that a personalized website is an advantage to every marketer or entrepreneur leading a successful business today.

Website personalization takes into account that users have different motivations, devices, locations and time constraints. With current technology, marketers can now gather specific information about what a website visitor is searching for and translate their visit into a higher conversion.

“Organizations spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and sometimes even millions of dollars, to create robust dynamic web experiences,” explained Itai Sadan, CEO and co-founder of mobile website creation platform DudaMobile. The company recently rolled out inSite that adds dynamic web content based on customer behavior to create personalized viewing experiences.

“Expensive tools and this type of personalization traditionally requires substantial web development and design, which is why we’re excited about bringing affordability to this exploding industry,” Sadan said.

Website personalization on a mass scale is indeed possible with the increasing number of low-cost options available to business owners today. Here are five ways business owners can begin to increase conversion through basic website personalization:

1. Visitor frequency should determine different user experiences. A visitor to a website for the first time will almost always be looking for different information than someone visiting the site repeatedly.

David Reischer, marketing officer at LegalAdvice.com, suggests tracking each user differently to give different user experiences. “We utilize a cookie to track a returning visitor so that we can direct them to the most appropriate and relevant page. This makes site navigation easier for repeat users.”

To increase conversion of first-time visitors include a phone number or business address, a contact form to capture leads, or a video tutorial to explain a product or service to a first time visitor.

“For frequent visitors, add a spot to sign up for a mailing list or add information about new products or services,” suggests Sadan.

2. Geo-location helps bring together online and offline marketing. The ability to know where someone is at the time they visit a website is game-changing for marketers.

“Online we can follow our customer’s individual buying journey, optimizing it every step of the way,” explains Bart Heilbron, CEO and co-founder of BlueConic, the real-time system of online customer engagement. “However, we were never able to use these insights in our offline interaction. With geo-location, we are now able to.”

If someone is only blocks away from a business and searching on a mobile phone, chances are they can be easily converted as a customer if they see an address and even a coupon that says, “Come in today and get 20% off.” For restaurants, an OpenTable button to reserve a table, or a Google Map app that provides step-by-step directions to the store location are critical for conversion.

3. Adjust content based on certain times. Changing the content on a website based on the time of day, week or even season can increase conversions as well. Consider replacing a phone number available to website visitors during business hours with a contact form when the business is closed. This will avoid missing out on potential customers who want to get in contact outside of business hours.

“The ability to offer different products over the course of a day based on targeted trends, habits or culture will increase conversions,” said CEO of internet marketing company WebiMax, Ken Wisnefski. “For example, a restaurant offers a different menu throughout the day as they switch from lunch to dinner.”

4. Recognize holidays and other special events. This is a great way to personalize a website and better connect with a customer’s sentiment. Change the theme to hearts during Valentine’s Day or add an image of fireworks during the 4th of July.

“This could have a positive effect on customer engagement, and in turn conversion,” said Sadan.

5. Capture the visitor source to adapt content. Knowing the original destination source that a visitor has entered a website from should greatly impact the content on the landing page that they see first. This can provide a seamless and consistent experience to the visitor.

According to Sadan, “Visitors that come to your site from an email marketing campaign or as a referral from another site should receive dedicated messaging that is aligned with the messaging they saw in the email or the referring site. Offering a coupon at this point could also be a good idea.”

Article curated from Entrepreneur Magazine

Don't Make These Customer Review Monitoring Mistakes

2014-10-02T08:54:00.000-05:00

It seems these days like everyone has an opinion. And thanks to digital tools, they have countless ways of sharing them. For business owners, this means that word of mouth, both positive and negative, can spread across social media and the Internet, coloring a particular brand or business in an instant. It’s something every business owner should watch carefully and these tricks, tips and tactics will make managing the positive, negative and useless reviews that much easier.

1. Make it a priority. While larger businesses can afford to hire a team to watch online reviews and reactions 24/7, new business owners need take matters into the their own hands. Create a schedule that’s consistent, but manageable, say our experts. This might be daily or weekly depending on the volume of reviews and mentions you receive.

Just make sure you have some plan in place. Says Jayson DeMers, founder and CEO of AudienceBloom, "The biggest mistake is simply failing to monitor reviews in the first place," he says.

2. Know your tools. Marketing consultant Brian Honigman highly recommends digital tool Mention which alerts you to all of your recent mentions across platforms like Twitter and Facebook as well as the web. "It allows you to react quickly and take feedback into consideration and point your team on the right course of action and continue to analyze this data and react from there," Honigman says.

Tools such as Google Alerts and Talkwalker can also help you track web mentions, notifying you whenever select keywords related to your organization are used online. Honigman likes to use Talkwalker to keep on eye on the competition. "If you want to do research on one of your competitors, you can enter keywords relevant to them and see where they're popping up on the web," he says.

For more specific needs, Siu recommends Hootsuite to monitor Twitter and Newsle to keep an eye on major news publications. Since you're most likely a team of one, automate your processes as much as possible. For this, Siu suggests Zapier, a service which ties various disparate tools together, helping to eliminate extra steps and platforms to check.

3. Engage carefully. Should a negative comment emerge, find a way to turn it into a positive. "It's really important to respond to the negative stuff as a sympathetic, real human," Honigman says. "Say, 'I'm sorry you're upset, how can we fix this’?"

DeMers concurs, saying that a particularly negative review can do massive damage to your brand if left unchecked. "Negative reviews can spread like wild fire on the internet," he says. He suggests you reach out with the aim to win that customer back. "[A big mistake] is to ignore negative reviews or respond defensively or insultingly to them," he adds.

Although negative feedback should require the bulk of your attention, don't be afraid to respond to positive word of mouth. "It's fine to ignore positive reviews, but it's even better to replay them with a sincere thank you," DeMers says. Honigman suggests personally reaching out to blogs or sites who write personal reviews and form a relationship. Networking like this opens you up to not only potential business opportunities, but better SEO practices as you share each other's work.

"Let it be known that you're grateful for the time that person or organization took for bringing your business a little visibility," Honigman says.

But most importantly, make sure you know how to separate actual negative criticism from online noise. Use common sense to discern if you're just being "trolled" or are simply dealing with an irrational person. "If it is unconstructive, rude, abusive or just someone talking for the sake of talking, use your better judgment," Honigman says. In this case, attempting to please someone who won't be pleased can make you look desperate and damage a young brand. It's better to move forward.

4. Keep your focus. Although it's vital to monitor reviews and respond as professionally as possible, Siu says that business owners in their early stages shouldn't let online reviews distract them from the real work of running their business. Says Siu, "You have much bigger fish to fry, like bringing in new revenue. You need to be focused on growth." And by concentrating on quality customer service, you’ll prevent many negative reviews before they occur.

Article curated from Entrepreneur Magazine

5 Predictions About the Growing Power of Online Customer Reviews

2014-09-08T08:49:00.001-05:00

We all do it – routinely sort through search results by customer star ratings and scroll through buyer feedback before making a final shopping decision.

It’s no secret the way consumers make decisions has dramatically changed from over the last decade. We stand in stores, use our smartphones to compare prices and product reviews. Family and friends instantly weigh in via social media. When we are ready to buy, an ever-growing list of online retailers deliver products directly to our homes, sometimes even on the same day.

With the advent of social media and constant updates, image sharing and online peer recommendations, it’s unsurprising that 61 percent of customers read online reviews before making a purchase decision, according to recent surveys. After all, reviews provide a first stop for any potential customer to understand a product from a consumer point of view, delivering honest and impartial insight from peers.

With reviews already such an important part of the buying process, it’s easy to see how reliance on them will only increase in the future. According to Nielsen’s latest Global Trust in Advertising report, online consumer reviews are already the second most trusted source of brand information and messaging, with 70 percent of global consumers indicating they trust online reviews, an increase of 15 percent in four years.

Some industry observers predict that retail will change more in the next five years than it has over the past century, and that the extinction of brick-and-mortar stores isn’t far off. While the shift may be a bit less dramatic than predictions claim, big changes are definitely inevitable. Retailers must act now to win in the long term.

For example, over the next few years, we can expect to see the anonymity of reviews fade away and instead become linked to shoppers’ real identities on Facebook, Twitter or other social integration. This will be beneficial for both retailers and consumers. It add a layer of credibility, rather than allowing chronic complainers to hide behind anonymous usernames,and provide an interactive connection through which merchants can engage with valuable customers.

So, how can merchants evolve moving forward to support the ever-growing demand for reviews and efficiently manage the process? The following are several predictions we think retailers will need to fully understand in order to be prepared for evolving consumer buying.

1) All reviews will eventually be linked to social networks. The era of anonymous reviews is quickly coming to a close. In the future, anonymous reviews will be obsolete. While it's pretty uncommon now, in the future consumers will only value reviews they can tell are from real, trustworthy shoppers. They'll be able to check on their validity by clicking through to the reviewer's social profiles.

2) Shoppers will turn to their friends’ reviews first. Because reviews will be easily visible on social networks, shoppers will first turn to their friends to read their reviews before checking reviews from complete strangers. Think about it: You know your friend, Sarah, is an avid photographer who knows a lot about cameras. You will check out her reviews before you visit the product page.

3) Reviews will be aggregated by reviewer. In other words, you'll be able to click on your friend Sarah’s profile and see that she's a 32-year-old mom, lives in Chicago and considers herself an amateur photographer. Then, you'll be able to see all of the reviews Sarah has written online, no matter the store, site or service.

4) Reviews will be personalized. Because both the reviewer and the review-reader's information will be available online, reviews of the future will be personally tailored to each reader. The same way Google Ads and Facebook ads are already delivered to us based on what Google and Facebook know about our preferences, reviews in the future will pop up based on a similar approach. Reviews from people with similar interests will show up.

5) All formats will become compatible. Currently, depending on where you are writing reviews, there are numerous formats and kinds of information required. For example, some websites allow for video reviews, while some only look for a star rating. In the future, websites will continue to ‘get smarter’ about extracting the most important information from any type of customer review, so shoppers can get a true "snapshot." This will become especially important as websites accumulate more and more reviews. Shoppers don’t want to sit and read through 2,000 reviews.

As the value of reviews becomes more prevalent, merchants must take a more active role in the review process. Right now, only about 13 percent of small-business owners actively invest in online reviews. That must change quickly to keep pace with consumer demand. Not only will merchants need to make a more concerted effort to solicit reviews, but also respond to both negative and positive reviews, perhaps even offering rewards to reviewers who offer valuable insight into their buying or product use experience.

As marketers and business owners, it is sometimes difficult to step out of the role as budget manager and chief efficiency officer. As a result, anything that looks like added time investment may automatically be deemed impossible, especially when so many managers are already overworked and overextended. However, moving forward, it’s critical for retailers to look at customer reviews from the perspective of the consumer. Keeping pace with expectations in providing customer reviews is going to be absolutely essential to survival in the modern e-commerce era.

Chances are that you rely heavily on reviews in making your own purchase decisions. Why wouldn’t you expect your customers to do the same?

Article curated from Entrepreneur

Grow Your Online Business Without Depending Exclusively on Google

2014-09-08T08:42:00.000-05:00

We hear a lot of scary stories about businesses going (almost) bankrupt after losing Google traffic. Some publishers are also voicing concerns over their dependence on Google. But how easy is it to not depend on it?

When Google traffic starts coming, it often monopolizes your traffic sources. Search traffic converts better than any other type of traffic, thanks to intent. People search for exactly what they want to read or buy. It usually flows in on a continuous basis without you having to necessarily do anything to drive people in on a daily basis.

I've seen businesses that were forced to expand once Google traffic started coming. That put them into Google dependency mode. However, even if we put Google penalty arguments aside (you are not supposed to be hit unless you've done something wrong, right?), depending on one source of traffic is neither reliable nor wise overall.
Is there a way not to rely on Google traffic while still growing your business online? The answer is mostly "it depends" but one thing is clear. It's time that we all started to diversify our online efforts:

1. Discover more traffic sources. Google traffic used to be quite easy and fast to earn: It spoiled us. Achieving top positions in Google has been a major digital marketing objective for too long. Now it's time to get back to basics: You should never put all eggs into one basket.

These alternative traffic sources can vary depending on the niche. Yes, you need to get creative but opportunities are endless. Here are quite a few ways to build traffic (some of them can be applied to almost any industry such as becoming a case study or getting interviewed). There are lots of other ways.

Pinterest has proved to be one of the best-converting traffic sources especially in food, travel, home improvement, DIY and related industries. SlideShare is an efficient traffic source in the marketing and technology niches. Investing in Facebook advertising is really effective in most niches.

Here's one quick recipe from someone who has decided not to depend on Google traffic from day one. BizEpic.com is just 10 weeks old and it's now averaging around 400 visits/day. The average is rising steadily on month-to-month comparison basis. Google traffic only accounts for about six percent. The majority of traffic is coming from social media. Their tactics include:

Focus on the "interestingness" of the topic and the headlines.
They post often, about four to five posts a day and spread around the clock.
They are growing followers on their Facebook fan page.
Large, interesting images.
A focus on social media promotion in Google Plus, LinkedIn groups, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, StumpleUpon, etc

Again, there's no recipe for every website looking to diversify traffic sources but the above experiment is a good example of a possible strategy that has been proven to work.

2. One word: Balance! Telling anyone to simply break up with Google would be poor advice. You can't just absolutely ignore it but you can balance and diversify. When it comes to SEO, I think this is how it has evolved:

Before: Trying to get referral traffic from Google within three months of a site’s launch. Now: Discover different channels and possibilities, build trust and brand while doing your fundamental SEO homework and waiting for search engine traffic to start coming naturally.

Investing in your in-house assets can help you grow diverse traffic sources:

Develop high-quality content assets to attract backlinks, social media shares and traffic. Many types of traffic (word-of-mouth traffic, for example) are almost impossible unless you have great content to attract shares and re-shares.
Invest in social media advertising. In some industries social media ads out-perform Google ads. Besides, social media advertising grows your following which means it helps in the long run as well. Experimenting with newer social media solutions such as Klout Perks is a smart idea. Invest in content promotion advertising, such as StumbleUpon promoted stories and Reddit ads, if you have good content to get picked up there. Social media dashboards such as Cyfe and Sendible make monitoring results much easier.
Grow your own email list. Sending regular email newsletters can become your own independent source of traffic and conversions. Besides, it can also be used to boost your social media advertising efforts.

3. Value what you have. There's one advantage in Google traffic becoming harder to get and to keep. We are forced to value what we have. Ultimately, traffic is not such a huge issue. The important thing is how well it converts or, to put it more pro-actively, how much effort you put into converting it.

In this respect, I like this case study describing a penalized website and how the owner, thanks to the Google penalty, had to re-think its whole digital strategy to survive. This unfortunate setback taught me a valuable lesson. Relying so much on organic Google rankings was putting us entirely at the whims of a company that is beyond our control. Our only option was to focus on other areas, specifically, achieving higher conversion rates.
Additionally, we amped up loyalty marketing by implementing personalized follow-up calls and e-mails for all of our clients based on the ideal time for each one to reorder. To sum up this last point, here are some things you may want to start doing:

Build your micro-community and turn your customers into brand advocates. Developing relationships with customers is an art but one that has proved to be very rewarding!
Invest in usability assessments and stop losing visitors! A long time ago I had a very good experience with usertesting.com
Don't get fixated on only one type of conversions. Your paying customers are not the only people who matter! Collect leads and develop your relationships with anyone who has expressed interest in your site. If anyone ever shares your message or defends your reputation online, that is a priceless outcome!

Article curated from Entrepreneur

Foursquare kills check-in feature in app overhaul

2014-08-08T09:13:00.001-05:00

Foursquare, the app known for letting users check into places, no longer lets users check into places -- yes, you read that right.

The New York City startup released a major revision to its app Wednesday that does not include the check-in feature. Instead, the revamped app is designed to help users discover new places to visit according to their individual tastes.

The new Foursquare gives users "personalized local search" results by learning their preferences. When searching for nearby places, results will be based on their tastes and the tastes of friends.

"If you love vintage clothing, it should tell you that there is a hidden gem nearby. If you’re in a new city, it should tell you that your friend Katy highly recommends this hole-in-the-wall restaurant downtown," Foursquare said in a blog.

Fittingly, Foursquare's logo is no longer a checkmark. Instead, the 5-year-old company now boasts a pink and white uppercase "F" stylized to look like both a map pin and a superhero emblem.

"We’ve always thought of Foursquare as giving you superpowers to explore your city, and our new logo reflects that vision," Foursquare said.

After launching in 2009, Foursquare was one of the most popular social networks, but after others added similar check-in features (notably Facebook in 2010), the startup struggled to remain relevant and lost many users.
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The company is hoping 2014 is its comeback year. Since December, it has raised $50 million, which has been used for the development of the revamped Foursquare app and Swarm, a new app launched in May. Swarm is a geo-location-based social network and has inherited many of the social aspects that have been stripped from the Foursquare app, including check-ins, mayorships and the feed showing what one's friends are up to.

So far, Swarm has experienced high user growth, Foursquare says. "It’s been pretty intense keeping up with the growth (Foursquare didn’t have that many users for a few years), and you guys have sent a ton of feedback," the company said, in a blog detailing some upcoming features for Swarm.

Article curated from LA Times

Google to give more weight to encrypted websites in search results

2014-08-08T09:10:00.002-05:00

Following reports of a Russian ring of hackers who stole more than a billion online logins and passwords from vulnerable websites, Google has announced that its search service will give higher priority to websites that use encrypted connections to keep their online visitors secure.

Other factors, such as the quality of content on a website, still hold far more weight when it comes to search results, but going forward, Google said websites with Hyptertext Transfer Protocol Secure connections, or HTTPS, will get slight boosts in their rankings.

HTTPS encrypts the link between a user's computer and a website's servers, making it harder for hackers to break into the connection and steal valuable information, such as a person's credit card information while they are on a shopping website.

Many major websites already use HTTPS connections, including Twitter, Facebook and almost every bank, but most other websites continue to use HTTP.

Google's announcement may prod more websites to adopt HTTPS connections, said Tom DeSot, chief information officer of Digital Defense, a cybersecurity company.

"Google pushing it is good because of the clout they have in the industry,” DeSot said. “The people that are in charge of search engine optimization, they will pay a lot of attention to this.”

The adoption of HTTPS is a win for Web surfers, but it could prove to be costly for website owners. DeSot said larger companies may have to significantly invest in new technologies so they can enable HTTPS on their websites and all websites will have to purchase annual certificates to enable this security layer.

“There is going to be a business cost to it,” he said.

Article curated from LA Times

On Social Networks, Engagement Is Becoming The Metric That Matters

2014-06-12T08:57:00.001-05:00

While previously the race among social networks was for users, now engagement is becoming an increasingly important metric.
Social media takes up a huge amount of time-spend, particularly on mobile, and major properties increasingly want to carve out a bigger slice of that total.

How much time users spend on each social network and how engaged and interactive they are with content there are increasingly important ways of evaluating the sites, both for the social networks themselves and for businesses and advertisers looking at where to devote time and resources.

In a recent report, BI Intelligence calculates an Engagement Index for top major social networks and compares their performance in terms of time-spend per-user on desktop and mobile. We also look at how the different top activities on social media — photo-sharing, status updates, etc. — are indexing in terms of activity, and which sites drive the highest volume in each category.

Article curated from Business Insider

6 Key Shifts in Thinking About Social Media

2014-05-30T08:48:00.000-05:00

Do you ever wonder how your fellow marketers and business owners are using social media to grow their business? Whether they are concerned about declining Facebook reach? What platforms and strategies they intend to invest their time in?

Wonder no more. Social Media Examiner has just released its annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report after surveying more than 2,800 marketers.

The one undeniable message from the report is that marketers continue to place high value on social media with 92 percent of marketers (up from 86 percent last year) indicating that social media was important for their business.

The report also revealed a number of shifts in focus, as marketers try to stand out from all the noise to get noticed and get results online.

Here are six key shifts in thinking that are highlighted by this year's industry report:

1. A return to blogging: When asked how they will change their future social-media activities, blogging topped the charts with 68 percent of marketers planning to increase their efforts. Not since 2010 has blogging been the focus for increased activity for marketers, according to the report.

2. Facebook is losing its shine: The report indicates that we're seeing the beginning of a decline in the use of Facebook by marketers, despite it remaining the most important social network overall. Seven percent of marketers plan to decrease their use of Facebook in 2014, and only 43 percent think their Facebook efforts are effective.

3. B2B vs. B2C requires a shift in focus: The report reveals interesting differences in the focus of B2B and B2C marketers. When it comes to B2C, Facebook dominates (with 68 percent of marketers choosing Facebook as their No. 1 choice of social platform) followed by YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram. For B2B marketers, LinkedIn surpassed Facebook as the platform of choice, with blogging and Twitter also playing a more prominent role.

4. A greater fascination with Google+: Marketers want to learn most about Google+. "While 54 percent of marketers are using Google+, 65 percent want to learn more about it and 61 percent plan on increasing Google+ activities in 2014," the report states.

5. Podcasting is on a growth trajectory: Although only 6 percent of marketers are involved with podcasting, 21 percent plan to increase their podcasting activities this year. This is more than a three-fold increase.

With 28 percent of marketers wanting to learn more about podcasting, this is a major shift in priorities and, according to Social Media Examiner is likely fuelled by:

the global adoption of smartphones
the introduction of Apple's CarPlay (an in-car system to allow the playing of podcasts via car dashboards)
major auto manufacturers integrating dashboards with 3^rd party apps.

6. Eyes are now on visual content: When it comes to content, visual assets top the list of content forms that marketers want to learn more about. Sixty-eight percent of marketers want to know about how to create original images and infographics, followed closely by an interest in learning how to produce original videos.

It is becoming harder to reach your ideal audience while they filter out the noise. As indicated in the report, clever marketers are considering a shift in their approach to reach consumers.

Whether this shift is to be flexible in the platforms you focus on, to include more visual content, or to embrace emerging mediums like podcasting, the end result is to provide quality content that catches the attention of consumers and provides them with value.

Article curated from Entrepreneur Magazine

The 'Giant Selfie' and 6 Other Digital Marketing Trends to Watch

2014-05-30T08:44:00.001-05:00

A social media maven explains what's hot, and why your company can't ignore any of it.

When Shama Hyder published her book The Zen of Social Media Marketing in 2010, she got an email from a potential customer. "Is it available on the iPad?" he asked. "You mean that device that came out yesterday?" she replied. "Yes," he said.

Customers keep raising the bar on what they expect from businesses, said Hyder, founder and CEO of the The Marketing Zen Group, to the crowd during a breakout session at Inc.'s 2014 Growth conference in Nashville. And businesses have to work even harder to meet those expectations.

In the talk, titled “Digital Foresight: 7 Pivotal Trends Every Leader Must Know,” Hyder shared her advice for companies navigating the ever-changing world of digital marketing. Here are the trends she says you need to follow:

1. Idea-Based Ecosystems
The primary reason people use social media is to showcase their own identities, said Hyder. "It's essentially a giant selfie," she said. This is why a local cupcake shop will get more Facebook likes than a local construction company. "It's a reflection of who I am," Hyder explained. Any time you can tie your brand to the identity of the customer, you'll have a win on your hands.

2. Content Curation and Aggregation
In recent years, people have gone from information hunger to information overload, said Hyder. "People would almost rather give out their social security number than their email address," she joked. But if you can become the go-to source for relevant information on a specific topic, customers will seek you out, said Hyder, pointing to examples such as Upworthy and Pinterest.

3. Video Sells
Internet users are more likely to finish a 30-minute video than they are an article, said Hyder. "If you're not using online video, you're missing a big part of your audience," she said. Plus, customers are increasingly making purchases directly through videos, she said. Some examples: a new service called Insay and Target's "Falling for You" video campaign. "Everything in that video you could click on and buy," said Hyder.

4. The 4-Screen Revolution
Consumers frequently use multiple devices at once--TV, mobile phone, laptop, and tablet. "In 10 years that might be one device," said Hyder, "but in the next two to five years, I actually expect an increase in the number of devices we are using at once." For companies, the challenge is to find ways to interact with users on multiple screens-;and to cope with ever-shrinking attention spans.

5. Decoding Digital Signals
Hyder emphasized the importance of using analytics to understand customers and how best to reach them. "If 50 percent of your traffic is from mobile, and your website isn't optimized for mobile phones," she said, "You're going to lose half of your traffic."

6. Social Literacy Is Required
All of your employees need to be social media savvy, not just the social media team. Each individual should be a creator, curator, and connector, and organizations should focus on agility, aggregation, and adaptability. Above all, people should be posting content that is relevant to the customer. "You don't want to be like the person on Facebook who only shares updates about their dog," she said.

7. The Power of Reverse-Engineering
Hyder recommended that companies look beyond their own niches and industries when it comes to marketing ideas. Sometimes a company in an entirely different industry will have a great marketing tactic that none of your competitors have considered.

Article curated from Inc. Magazine

The Art and Science of Getting Content Shared on Social Media

2014-05-20T08:42:00.001-05:00

When excellent content fails to attract the readership it deserves, likely there were lapses in marketing efforts either before and after it was published. There is no guaranteed way to send your content viral but a few, reliable techniques boost the odds your posts receive well-deserved attention from social media users.

Leverage influencers. You don’t need to be a social media star to see your blog posts widely shared. You can depend on others who’ve nurtured loyal followings to amplify your content across Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.
Before you hit ‘publish,’ make sure you’ve quoted a few experts who have shared their opinion on your topic. When the story goes live, notify those individuals about your mention of them. They will likely respond with a ‘like,’ tweet and share of the post that will reach many of their followers.
This is a classic win-win-win. You add credibility to your post by noting what an industry influential has said about the same topic, those experts lend their social media presence when they share your content and you develop great rapport with the individuals you quote.

For more tactical advice, here are four foolproof strategies for getting social media power users to share your content for you.

Turn off comments. Sonia Simone, co-founder and chief content officer of Copyblogger, recently decided to do away with comments on the Copyblogger blog. As surprisinging as it was to many readers, others embraced the change, believing it would lead to better content and conversations. So far, the experiment has proved successful.

Upon reaching the end of a post, the Copyblogger audience is encouraged to “take the conversation further” on Google Plus and Twitter. This has proved brilliant at getting readers talking about and sharing Copyblogger content. Judging by activity on Google Plus, the conversations could not get any better.

Engaged fans enthusiastically contribute thoughtful insights to the conversation and, more often than not, will then interact with you one-on-one.

Use language that clicks. The social media management app Buffer published a study that analyzed the most popular words used in viral headlines and evaluated winning headline strategies. Experiment with your headlines to see which words and phrases resonate with your unique audience. Soon, you’ll have a list of what drives social shares.

Research conducted at the University of Texas, Austin, found Facebook users manifest their regular selves both online and offline. Content that speaks directly to who your readers are encourages them to share your post with people they care about as a way of publicly sharing a bit of themselves.

Article curated from Entrepreneur Magazine

6 Key Shifts in Thinking About Social Media

2014-05-20T08:40:00.000-05:00

the global adoption of smartphones
the introduction of Apple's CarPlay (an in-car system to allow the playing of podcasts via car dashboards)
major auto manufacturers integrating dashboards with 3^rd party apps.

3 Questions, 1 Answer -- How to Grow Sales Through Social Media

2014-05-20T08:36:00.003-05:00

The social media landscape has evolved. Conversations have become transactions. Businesses require a carefully crafted strategy to initiate dialogue with potential clients while maintaining relationships with current clients. There are three major questions every company must answer as they implement a successful social media sales and servicing strategy.

1. With whom do we connect? The right tools make it easy for companies to connect with customers looking to buy or who are considering a switch from their current provider.

The latest sales and service technologies use real-time text analytics to read and categorize posts, looking for consumers expressing an intent to purchase or upgrade, customers expressing frustration or an intent to leave their current provider, comparison shoppers examining competitors’ products and referrals.

2. What do we say? When teams first see a high volume of actionable social media leads, they are tempted to copy and paste a response they know works but potential leads must receive a genuine response that addresses their individual needs. It is important to value quality over quantity, so you can initiate meaningful customer engagements. Scale your operation after you’ve mastered this interaction process.

Empathy statements are an effective, traditional customer service tactic that works equally well in social media. When you identify a consumer need, acknowledge it and offer a solution. You’re much more likely to receive a meaningful response.

Among the easiest, most effective ways to open communication with the consumer is to follow them. If the user is having an issue with a competitor's product or service, a simple follow will help make them feel acknowledged and appreciated. If they respond, you have the opportunity to initiate a deeper engagement.

3. What happens next? Social media engagement is just the beginning of your conversation. To turn a prospect into a client, the conversation needs to continue off-channel. You will not, for example, request private information such as account numbers or credit card details over the social web.
By moving to phone, chat or email channels, you can commence your traditional sales process. Opening up the lines of communication with the prospect and establishing a meaningful connection fosters a positive online community while encouraging referrals and exceptional customer service.
Social media is an important sales channel that can achieve immediate bottom-line results. By using social media to positively influence a consumer's experiences, businesses develop more satisfied and engaged customers.

Article curated from Entrepreneur Magazine

These Are The Latest Technologies Powering Mobile-Local Marketing

2014-04-30T08:55:00.003-05:00

Marketing is in the throes of an industry-wide shift toward highly personalized campaigns that seek to target the right consumer, at the right time, in the right place. Without local data, it's impossible to target users near the retail location where they'll make the final purchase decision.

Techniques like geotargeting have become popular as a means of serving advertising, as have new technologies like beacons, which send signals via Bluetooth to consumers' phones. These services provide everything from information on where to find a certain product in-store to frictionless checkout.

In a recent report from BI Intelligence, we take an in-depth look at each of the most popular location-based marketing strategies and services, and explain how they're being used. The report identifies some the latest and most effective location-based apps that are giving consumers' reasons to share their locations. Research increasingly supports the notion that local apps and advertising lead to in-store purchases, which means there's even more reason to use location-based mobile marketing to nudge consumers down the purchase funnel.

Here are some of the report's key findings on how the entire local-mobile landscape has shifted:

Location-based services enjoy widespread acceptance, but adoption isn't growing. Seventy-four percent of U.S. smartphone owners said they used mobile location-based services in 2013. That percentage is flat compared to 2012.
Check-ins are becoming passé. The percentage of U.S. adults who reported using local-social networks to "check in," decreased from 18% in February of 2012 to 12% in 2013.
Apps like Life360 and Waze prosper because consumers feel like they're getting great value out of sharing not just their location, but other information too.
Geoaudience profiling, geoconquesting, and hyper-local in-store campaigns are three primary strategies used to segment audiences and target consumers based on location.
The geoproximity technique is equivalent to casting a big net near the boat and hauling in whatever gets caught. Campaigns erect geofences created around bricks-and-mortar stores and send targeted ads to smartphone users who travel within the radius. Some providers adjust their geofences for different times of day.
A geoconquesting campaign is a specific type of geoproximity campaign that uses location data to target potential customers when they walk into a competitor's store.
Geoaudiencing uses layers of location data and data from complementary sources (offline customer data provided by retailers, Web browsing data, etc.), to build audience segments of anonymous users, e.g. soccer moms, or white-collar frequent travelers.

In full, the report:

Examines how location-based services have changed now that the check in is on the way out.
Considers those apps that have done the best job offering a service to consumers and getting them to voluntarily share their information.
Puts location-based services in the context of mobile in-store shopping among consumers.
Unpacks the three main campaigns associated with mobile-location marketing.
Looks forward to emergent trends like hyper-local targeting, in which retailers use Bluetooth technology and mobile payments in stores.

Article curated from Business Week

RIP Google+?

2014-04-28T08:55:00.003-05:00

We may have just figured out the reason why Vic Gundotra chose to leave Google. Anonymous sources have claimed that the search giant is planning to make big changes to Google+, ones that could change the direction from being a full blown Facebook competitor, and more on the lines of a platform.

Google+ has long been a problem for the search giant, as it tries to push the platform to become as popular as Facebook and Twitter. While the platform has managed to gain millions of users, the majority of these registered users are not regular visitors. Google has attempted to fix this problem by integrating Google+ in many of its products, but this move was proven to be a terrible idea.

With the integration of Google+ in YouTube, Google has proven to itself that many users have no need for its social network.

According to the folks who leaked the information to TechCrunch, Google is now considering the daunting task of removing the Google+ integration from its social platforms. The company has made many mistakes by trying to make its social platform a jack of all trades. This is evident when Google killed the beloved Latitude standalone app, and bake the features inside of Google+.

The current social trend is that one doesn't need the same app to do everything. Google must realize that making its Google+ a bloated mess will not help it succeed against Facebook, a company that has come to realize this truth itself. Forcing Google+ social features on everyone is not the way to go, and sooner Google open its eyes and realizes this, the sooner it can bring Google+ back from its impending doom.

The unknown sources who spoke with TechCrunch claimed that Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp, which is now surpassed 500 million registered users, is part of the reason why Google is on the verge of making big changes to Google+.

So far, Google has denied that changes will be made in the coming months, but if something is indeed in the works, we should get more information at the company's I/O conference.
If Google chooses to do away with Google+, it would not be the first time the company has done this. Remember Orkut? That was Google's first social network; it is nowhere to be found today.

Article curated from Tech Times

Pinterest adds search tool for finding fun 'pins'

2014-04-25T11:26:00.003-05:00

Pinterest late Thursday launched a tool to help people quickly sift through the roughly 30 billion 'Pins' on the service's online bulletin boards to find what they like.

In a move similar to one made last year by Facebook, Pinterest is tapping into its rich trove of user-posted content to tackle questions that traditional search engines such as Google or Bing don't handle well.

Pinterest users can turn to the new Guided Search feature for answers to questions such as how to make a yummy breakfast, where to go on vacation or how to customize a motor scooter.

"Search engines are great for answering specific questions -- the weather in San Francisco or the capital of Peru -- but Pinterest can help with the questions that have more than one right answer," said Pinterest discovery team head Hui Xu.

"With so many possibilities, you might not know the best one till you see it."

Pinterest introduced Guided Search with the help of more than 100 "Pinners" at a party at its San Francisco headquarters.

- Tailored for exploring -

There are more than 750 million online bulletin boards with a combined total of about 30 billion Pins hand-picked by people sharing images on myriad interests from travel to food to sports and more, according to Pinterest.

"There are a lot of Pins and there is not much time," a Pinterest team member said at the launch event.

"We are working hard to make sure it's simple to find what you are looking for" as well as allowing for serendipitous discovery.

Guided Search was billed as being tailored for exploring, "whether you know exactly what you want, or you're just starting to look around."

The tool is available on smartphones and tablets that are increasingly the preferred options for accessing the Internet. It begins with keyword searches that trigger suggestions.

Pinterest gave the example of searching on the word "running" and being guided to refine hunts by selecting categories such as shoes, marathons, trails or even music playlists.

About this time last year, California-based Facebook launched its Graph Search tool designed to tap into networks of friends and publicly shared posts at the social network for answers to naturally worded questions such "What is a good film to check out?"

- 'Promoted Pins' -

Pinterest last month said it will soon start pinning ads to its popular online bulletin boards in the form of "promoted Pins."

Pinterest began testing promoted Pins late last year and is "encouraged" by what it has so far seen.

Facebook and Twitter both bring in money from ads in the form of posts "promoted" to prominent positions in streams of updates at the social networks.

Pinterest late last year raised $225 million in new capital that it planned to use to expand to 10 more countries.

The funding round valued the company at $3.8 billion, according to a Pinterest statement to AFP.

Co-founder and chief executive Ben Silbermann said the new funding will help Pinterest's expansion.

Pinterest has become one of the Internet's hottest young websites, particularly among women, by giving people virtual bulletin boards that they personally curate with pictures showcasing interests in anything from food to sports, fashion or travel.

The company has not disclosed the number of users, although estimates from digital analytics firm comScore put the figure at around 60 million.

Article curated from http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Technology/International/2014/Apr-25/254346-pinterest-adds-search-tool-for-finding-fun-pins.ashx#axzz2zuKUNtKx

This Is the Absolute Best Day to Post on Facebook

2014-04-23T08:43:00.001-05:00

Businesses on Facebook are being forced to reevaluate their social media marketing strategies as their posts continue to reach fewer and fewer users. For a brand that’s looking to ensure that its posts get the most engagement possible, new data shows that Friday is the day when users are most likely to Like, comment or share posts that come from brand Pages.

Adobe tracked more than 226 billion post impressions by 300 brands on Facebook in the first quarter of 2014 for its Social Intelligence Report. Fridays earn about 15.7 percent of each week’s total posts impressions, with Thursday being the next most active day with a 14.5 percent share. Users also engage with brands more actively on Fridays by a small amount. Posts from the Pages tracked had a 3.3. percent engagement rate on Friday (meaning that 3.3 percent of the users that saw a given post interacted with it in some way), compared to 3.2 percent on Thursdays and less on other days. Combined, these figures show that Fridays are a competitive time to post but also a time when users are more active on the social network.

“Maybe it’s just that Friday afternoon is just not a time when anyone wants to start a new work project, so they just get on social media,” says Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst on Adobe’s Digital Index team. “You’re starting to think about your weekend and communicate with your friends and family.”

Whether the data reported by Adobe applies to all types of pages is unclear. The company mostly tracks social activity for extremely large businesses, including two-thirds of the top 50 companies in the Fortune 500. But Gaffney thinks the findings are likely relevant to a broad swath of the marketing community. “This is not a census of all things Facebook,” she says, “but we believe it’s still representative of what the reality for marketers is.”

There are more dramatic day-to-day trends when it comes to video. About one-fourth of all video plays for Pages occur on Fridays, according to Adobe’s data. Video plays are rapidly increasing on Facebook because of the introduction of new auto-play videos at the end of 2013. The auto-play feature has helped the engagement rate for videos rise from 2.4 percent to 3 percent over the last year. Text posts, meanwhile, have continued to decline in effectiveness, with only 0.6 percent of users that see them interacting with those posts in some way. Images are currently the most effective posts, with a 4.4 percent engagement rate (though that’s down from five percent a year ago).

Adobe data also show that posts perform the worst on Sundays. 13.4 percent of post impressions occur on that day and the engagement rate is 3 percent. Just 6.4 percent of video plays occur on Sunday.

This data doesn’t necessarily mean that brands should start spamming users’ feeds on Fridays. A glut of posts leads to greater competition to earn a spot in users’ News Feeds and a decline in organic reach. However, the data do show that users are on Facebook in big numbers on Fridays and they’re a bit more receptive to brand messages then. Smart content, particularly tailored toward weekend activities, can have an opportunity to score big.

Article curated from Time.com

Post Smarter: The Best Times to Use Social Platforms

2014-04-21T09:39:00.003-05:00

Almost every small business, 81 percent, is on social media, and 94 percent of them use these social platforms for marketing purposes (attracting clients and building a brand), according to research from LinkedIn. As social media usage becomes ubiquitous, the rate will only continue to grow, as more small businesses use Facebook pages and Twitter as their main platforms for communication, even more so than their websites.

The LinkedIn study and SumAll data further find social media’s importance to “hyper growth” companies (those with significant year-over-year growth). Ninety one percent of these firms said social media grew awareness, and nearly three quarters grew their social media budgets in the past year. The small businesses using social platforms must be doing something right.

Once small businesses are on social media they need to then figure out how to leverage each platform to meet their goals. These types of companies don’t have the luxury of spending too much time on any facet of their business. Small businesses want to be sure their content is engaging and impactful, and will have “legs” throughout the network in terms of additional sharing.

What many small business owners and managers overlook is the “when” of social media posting, not just the “what,” “where” and “why.” Having the right content is great, but knowing the time of day when people are most receptive to posts is invaluable for companies that need to run efficient campaigns.

SumAll.com is a startup firm that provides data analytics for companies ranging from small businesses to large enterprise-level players such as Starbucks and Pandora. The company analyzed large amounts of customer data to determine the most opportune times to send out posts to various platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest and Google. The “best time” metric was calculated for each social media platform by measuring the responses on hundreds of millions of different posts, representing companies in various industry verticals. The measured “responses” were likes, comments, reposts and other similar activities that represent a specific action taken by the recipient.

The SumAll.com research found the platform-specific times illustrated in the below infographic were generally optimal for sending posts. Some thoughts on the likely reasons for the popularity of the specific timeframes will follow.

Twitter: People have a chance to share their own thoughts or retweet in the afternoon.'

Facebook: The work day is slowing down and people have more time to do a Facebook check.

Tumblr: Reading micro-blogs on Tumblr takes more time and thought than other platforms, so non-work hours are often ideal.

Pinterest: Weekends are best, as the craft and collection emphasis of Pinterest lends itself to weekend projects.

A common trend with the optimal times is you want to catch people during their downtime. You might need to get them early in the morning during their commute or “settling in” time at work, during lunch or in the evenings.

Small businesses should try to follow these times but also need to understand the timing may be different for their specific customer base or industry. If they are trying to reach college students, the normal 9 to 5 workday doesn’t apply. Experimentation is still recommended, and small businesses can use various tools to automate the sending of posts and tweets at various times throughout the day and over the weekend.

Article curated from Entrepreneur

Your Customers Are Likely More Engaged on YouTube Than on Facebook or Twitter

2014-04-11T11:04:00.003-05:00

Get thee a YouTube channel!

While the quality of YouTube comments can be questionable, YouTube drives the most engaged traffic, according to a new study from Boston-based content-sharing Shareaholic. Meaning, YouTube users can be some of the most desirable customers a brand can have.
Video watchers are especially engaged and are more receptive to links within video descriptions, the study says. YouTube produced the lowest average bounce rate (about 43 percent), the highest pages per visit (2.99) and the longest visit duration (just under four minutes) the study reports. Viewers are used to spending a lot of time watching video, so what’s one more click to them?

While Google+ and LinkedIn don’t rake in the social referrals, the ones they do get are solid. Google+ users on average spend more than three minutes clicking things shared by their connections and bounce about 50 percent of the time. LinkedIn users normally spend more than two minutes on each link.

The time you spent crafting the perfect tweet and Facebook post amount to similar bounce rates (56 percent), pages per visit (just over two), and time on site (two minutes). And Pinterest, while pleasing to the eye, only heeds a little more than a minute on a site post-click.

Image credit: shareaholic.com

Article curated from Entrepreneur Magazine

Mobile Ad Spending Expected to Increase by 75 Percent in 2014

2014-04-09T15:26:00.005-05:00

A new report shows the still-growing importance of advertising on Google and Facebook, predicting that mobile ad revenue will rise to $31.5 billion this year.

If you're not considering dedicating a larger portion of your advertising budget to mobile, you're behind the times.

A new report by research firm eMarketer predicts worldwide spending on mobile advertising will reach $31.45 billion this year, a 75 percent increase from 2013. Mobile advertising will account for nearly a quarter of total digital ad spending, according to the report.

What companies are leading the trend? Not surprisingly, eMarketer forecasts Google will be on top in 2014 with 46.8 percent of net mobile ad revenue worldwide. Facebook is predicted to be next with 21.7 percent, while Twitter ranks a distant third with 2.6 percent. Those companies occupied the top three spots, in the same order, in 2013 as well.

Mobile ad spending around the world increased by 105 percent in 2013, according to eMarketer. The rapid pace of growth is not expected to last, however. The report predicts that by 2018, mobile ad revenue will climb to $95 billion but the growth rate will be only 22 percent.

Growth in ad spending will decline as the the digital ad space matures, according to TechCrunch, as well as from companies adopting other revenue models, such as game makers relying on in-app purchases rather than ads.

Article curated from Inc. Magazine

Businesses can see a return on Tweets, they just need to be using the social media platform properly.

2014-04-07T08:48:00.000-05:00

Businesses can see a return on Tweets, they just need to be using the social media platform properly.

Earlier this year, research firm DB5 released a study--based on responses of over 1,000 active Twitter users--that outlined the social media platform's impact on the purchase decisions of Twitter users. Of those surveyed, 60 percent said that they purchased something from an SMB because of the platform, while 86 percent said that they have plans to make purchases in the future. In fact, 43 percent of respondents said that they plan to make multiple purchases from the SMBs they follow on Twitter in the future. So it does seem that small businesses on Twitter can see a return on their tweets and presence on the platform. That, however, doesn't mean that every business will.

Last week, Twitter released a guide to getting direct responses from customers on Twitter--"Drive results with Twitter"-- which is worth a read, but Inc.'s Abigail Tracy also spoke with Russ Laraway, head of SMB at Twitter, about how small businesses can create a successful presence on Twitter.

What do you think businesses should be doing to create consistent engagement with their brand on Twitter?

One thing to note is that when a Twitter user chooses to follow someone [or a company], it shows a pretty strong interest in what they have to say. So the first order of business for any SMB is to treat a follow as a sort of responsibility. For example, tweeting about what you had for lunch or the funny thing that your cat did might not be quite that interesting to your users.

Successful brands are creating a community on Twitter that they care about, building a strong follower base and then using that follower base to send out messages that are important to them.

So then, what suggestions do you have for brands in terms of content?

First off, they need to make sure that their profile is fully filled out. It has to be descriptive and reflective of their business. Everyone has seen, no doubt plenty of accounts that have the egg avatar--they just don't look professional.

Another really important thing to do is create a content calendar. Companies can create a recurring, weekly cadence of content that sort of takes the guesswork out of tweeting--which they might organize by day of the week and then make adjustments as needed. That tends to be a pretty good approach to getting out quality content to users and retaining them as followers.

What would you say to businesses that don't think they have enough bandwidth or manpower to really focus on their Twitter presence?

The reality is that many [companies] are already using email marketing, which means that they already have some base of content that they could use. They should just think of Twitter as another channel to put that content out there. Yes, there is a constraint of 140 characters, but businesses can still include a bunch of rich media--such as images, vine videos and videos from other platforms. They can create a really rich experience with just 140 characters now. Thats a good way for people to think about it--they already have the content, they just need to get it out on Twitter.

How important is it for businesses to interact with individual followers on Twitter?

Really, really important. The reason is because your followers can end up driving sales. Obviously, it would not be a good thing to build a big follower base and then never say anything to them. Don't forget that by following you, they have given you a very string signal that they want to hear what you have to say. So when you're interacting with your followers, you are dramatically increasing the likelihood that they are going to visit your store or website and make a purchase.

What is the biggest stumbling block for companies on Twitter?

Just not engaging enough. Companies go to great lengths to build a strong base of followers on Twitter who have a strong interest in what they have to say and offer. It's really important to put out interesting content with some frequency. It's actually really easy to do.

Article curated from Inc. Magazine

How to Tell Your Professional Story on LinkedIn

2014-04-04T08:51:00.003-05:00

A social media expert weighs in on keeping your profile fresh and using it to create an effective narrative about yourself.

There are more how-to articles about creating LinkedIn profiles than there were stars at the Academy Awards. But with all due respect, most are worth less than a DVD of Lindsay Lohan's best performances. That’s because almost every tip I’ve read suggests you should create an LI profile that reads more like an unemployed used car salesman’s resume.
Success on LinkedIn depends upon your ability to craft compelling stories that engage your audience. The site has successfully transformed itself from an online recruiting platform to a robust business-to-business social media community; as such, you should contribute in ways that add value to the community.

With that in mind, I asked for some quick storytelling tips from Sam Ford, Peppercomm's director of audience engagement, the coauthor of Spreadable Media, and a frequent speaker at publishing and social media events such as South By Southwest and MIT's Media in Transition conference.

Why is a vibrant LinkedIn profile page critical to an entrepreneur's success?
Sam Ford: LinkedIn has provided a platform that is increasingly seen as a place to manage your professional connections and tell the story of who you are as a professional, not just to job hunt. These days, many people are more likely to check out your LinkedIn profile than any corporate biography, because they know where to look for what, and how to understand who you are as a professional. Your LinkedIn profile is also likely to appear at or near the top of an online search for your name. That makes it one of the most significant vehicles for telling your professional story.

How do you define storytelling in the context of LI?
SF: I’m talking about how professionals use their LinkedIn profile to show people who they are and what they care about. For example, your LinkedIn profile could inform people you’re an expert on diversity in the workplace by listing some of your key publications on those issues. Or it could demonstrate you care about mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs by including your service on key boards. A good LinkedIn profile shares your professional history and shows how your professional choices and accomplishments form a clear career trajectory.

How do you tell LI stories that are neither hard sell nor self-serving?
SF: The ideal profile begins with an overall summary or narrative written in the first person and provides an overview of your career and points of passion and focus. That, in turn, sets up the overall narrative the rest of the profile can flesh out. I liken it to the first time you meet someone. Do you talk all about yourself or engage that person in a conversation? Use that same strategy when creating your LinkedIn profile.

Can you share a best practice?
SF: Many people copy over impersonal language from their professional resume. Instead, you should opt for a first-person narrative that contains a paragraph describing each position you've held. Then, connect your lead paragraph to the overall narrative of who you are as a professional. Also, rather than cite the awards you've won or industry associations to which you belong, list those--with the appropriate details and links--in the "Honors and Awards" and "Organizations" sections of your profile. Connect them with the professional role you held at the time. That way, those who visit your page can find--in the logical places--all the details about what you’ve achieved in your career, without you bragging about it.

How often do you need to refresh the stories you tell on LI?
SF: The best way to update your page frequently is through "status updates." Once a week or so, you might share news about something you’re pondering, an event you've participated in, an interesting article you’ve read, or a piece you’ve written that you think would be of interest to your professional connections. And now LinkedIn is also rolling out a publishing function for all users. This allows entrepreneurs to write longer pieces for their LinkedIn network, which if they gain traction might be shared elsewhere on the site.

It seems to me a lot of the people who connect with me on LI are job seekers. Why do I care if they read and spread my stories?
SF: First, it's crucial you think carefully about how you want to manage your LinkedIn profile. For me, I use it to stay connected with those who have some connection to me elsewhere. If someone I don't know contacts me on LinkedIn, I suggest we chat on the phone, or meet up in person, to talk about what brought them my way. Most of the time, that weeds out people who wanted something from me other than to genuinely connect. And in the process, it’s caused me to know who each of my connections are, and to understand why we are connected. Because I know why each person is in my network, I see great value in sharing my work and reading about theirs.

Increasingly, information circulates through personal connections, and it's often more credible when it’s being shared by someone we know and trust. I know those with whom I'm connected share similar professional interests. And hopefully they themselves are connected to the types of people who I would want to reach with what I share.

Article curated from Inc. Magazine