Using social media to land your dream job seems like a simple task. There are so many ways to connect with companies and employers online that you’re bound to find work no matter what…right? Unfortunately, as I’m sure most of you know, this just isn’t the case. Though social media channels can be a helpful tool to aid your job search, the actual pursuit can take some skill. Follow these few simple social media tips and you’ll find work in no time!

Networking

An obvious strength of social media is the ease of networking. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn all offer ways to identify and connect with employers, hiring managers, and organizations. Follow relevant industries on Twitter, “like” your dream company’s Facebook status, or invite a potential employer to connect on LinkedIn. Taking a simple first step will let others know you’re interested in their company or expertise. But basic interest isn’t enough – take your connection one step further and ask questions, make comments, and discuss current issues in your industry. Experts in your field will appreciate that you’re interested and might even offer to personally share their story with you. But be sure you’re simply asking questions. It’s okay to let people know that you’re looking to find work, but don’t blatantly ask for a job. Be bold in your connections, but show others that you’re interested in learning as much as you can about an area and aren’t just begging for a job.

Remain Professional

Like it or not, your social media channels are being seen. How you choose to present yourself on your networks says a lot about who you are. This doesn’t mean that you have to stop joking with friends via Twitter or sharing fun photos on Facebook, but it does mean that you need to be aware and careful about what you’re sharing. Check your Facebook settings – make sure the details of your profile, your photos, or your personal status updates remain private. Also remember to include job history on as many sites as possible. Ensure your Twitter profile describes you in relation to your professional self and career field. And keep your LinkedIn profile entirely professional – there’s no fooling around there.

Be Intentionally Active

It’s not enough to create all the right social media channels and then leave your pages to collect dust. To become a contender in the job market, you’re going to have to be active on your accounts. Express interest in others’ knowledge, ask questions, share content relevant to your industry, and look for chats that talk about your field. Search keywords and hashtags that connect to your career area. Post, comment, like, share, retweet, and mention – every single connection will prove that you care. Being consistently active and intentional in your posting and sharing shows companies that you’re diligent and genuinely care about the online community you’re building.

Be Bold

So, you’ve established your professional social media channels, started to network with all the right people, and you’re doing a great job sharing relevant content and ideas. You’re almost ready to land a job. But now you have to set yourself apart. You can be doing all the right things, but if no one recognizes who you are, you’re going nowhere. The best way to set you apart is to show some leadership. Start to answer others’ questions. Share cutting edge content. Be the first to ask a probing question. Prove that you’re so invested and so interested that you’re the one other job seekers are going to in order to get the best information.

If you’re already using social media in your job search, you’re a step ahead of the game! By employing these tactics, you’ll bring yourself one step closer to making a valuable connection and landing a great job.

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When you’re managing several clients, all at different times of the day and using different messaging and promotions for each of those clients, keeping everything straight can become a bit challenging. Social media management tools save you time, energy and stress. Not to mention they allow you to better understand and connect with your online communities. But there are loads of social media management tools out there – which ones are the best? To get you started, check out our three top favorites at SocialNicole.

Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a very popular tool, and with good reason. It’s a management tool that makes managing multiple businesses, people, or clients simple. From this dashboard, you can easily track interactions, send messages from multiple social sites like Facebook and Twitter, and see direct results of your management. Hootsuite makes scheduling messages incredibly simple and intuitive - you can even request to have an email sent to you when your scheduled message goes out. You can also customize the columns of your dashboard to include what’s most important to you – perhaps you want all of your clients Twitter timelines laid out next to each other on one dashboard – you can customize this on Hootsuite. Hootsuite offers free, pro, and enterprise levels of management which could potentially include social profiles, enhanced analytics, advanced message scheduling, Google Analytics and Facebook insights integration. 

Buffer
The beauty of Buffer is in its simplicity. Buffer is a virtual queue that you can easily fill with content that will be automatically posted in a staggered manner throughout the day. Add the Bufferapp to your browser and, when you’ve found something worth sharing, simply click the icon for that post to be added to your queue. This is a worry-free tool – simply fill up your Buffer with enough content for an entire week and it will be sent out for you. Forget carefully scheduling delivery times or strategically choosing which post should go out when. Buffer allows for an easy was to have a consistent social presence all day and week long, but without the pain of manual labor. Buffer also offers a mobile app The and provides analytics about the engagement and reach of your posts.

SocialBro
SocialBro is a relatively new discovery – but I’m so glad I’ve finally found it. This tool is highly analytic, giving great insights to fuel your management. SocialBro allows you to browse your communities to identify key influencers, track specific user engagement, and analyze your competitors’ activity. This tool will analyze the timelines of your followers to show you when the optimal time for you to tweet is, allowing you to reach the maximum number of followers for each tweet. SocialBro makes it easy to make goals, track progress, and identify improvement. They also offer a visual dashboard that lays out all the recent activity of your account such as new followers, new replies/DMs, and most influential users from the day. Overall, SocialBro will allow you to better understand, target, and engage your Twitter audience, all the while helping you grow a more substantial online presence.

But don’t take my word for it – get out there and test these tools! Give each of these tools a trial run to see what works best for your business.

Need extra help managing your social outlets? Get help from SocialNicole today! 

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At SocialNicole, we LOVE Pinterest! Any client we think it may work for, we try to include in their social media plan. Because Pinterest doesn’t work for everyone due to the visual and demographic factors, when the stars align and a client has the perfect content and base to share magic can happen! So strap yourself in because we’re going to share a Pinterest success story:

One of our clients was interested at setting up a Pinterest account. After combing through their blog and analyzing their target clients and customers, we decided that they definitely had the right content and following for Pinterest. We launched in mid 2012 with a few simple boards and a small following. Now, less than a year later, this Minnesota based company has grown to hundreds of followers, thousands of pins, tons of interactive boards and a huge increase in website traffic. The reason they have grown so much has been because of several strategic moves that are easy to implement and that you can start doing – today.

6 Pinterest for Business Tips to Help Your Company Rock:

Become a Pinterest Business Account: first and foremost, you need to convert or setup your account as a Pinterest Business Account. Why? You become a verified business, your website is included in your information, your clients are encourage to pin your content…we could go on and on! Once we converted our client’s account, we were able to utilize tons of “freebies” that normal Pinterest accounts do not have and saw a growth in community interaction with their account.

Follow Relevant People and Business: this is a no-brainer. We started by finding and following community partners and people we regularly connected with on other social media sites. From there we searched for keywords on Pinterest that related to our business and followed other relevant people and companies. This isn’t a one-time-and-done deal, you must constantly be finding and seeking out new people to follow and new content to share. For our client, we do this almost daily and do a big clean-up at the end of each month. This has not only helped us connect and share relevant content, but has also helped get our name out there and build our Pinterest following.

Pin from Your Blog: One cool thing you can do as a business account on Pinterest is actually add a “Pin It” button to your blog or website so that visitors can pin content right from there! You can also do this manually and add pins from your blog on your own. Every time our client has new content out, we are sure to pin it with a keyworded description and add it to the appropriate board! Last month, one post brought almost 200 visitors to our client’s site! Why? Because we pinned a relevant blog post , with a great visual and put a description that folks in that industry would be interested int!

Start a Community Board: The cool thing about Pinterest is that like Facebook groups, there are Pinterest Community Boards. These are themed boards where you can invite “Pinners” to pin content related to the theme to it. It’s another fun way to interact with your followers and find new people to connect with!

Create Holiday and Event Related Boards: While we have many boards focused on the industry that our client is in, we also don’t want it to be purely business. We have many non-business followers who we love to connect with. Our community on Facebook is a perfect blend of business and fun and we wanted to carry that over to Pinterest. To add a splash of fun, we make sure to create boards that surround holidays and events to keep our content relevant and our followers pinning/liking/sharing and commenting.

Host a Pinterest Contest: One huge endeavor we took on for this client was hosting a Holiday Spirit contest that was spread across all their social media accounts – including Pinterest. While this is something that takes work to research and implement, we had a ton of fun with it and it was a big success!

While these are just a snapshot of the things we do to rocket our clients to Pinterest success, they are simple enough to start get your Pinterest for business page growing! If you have any other tips or hints that you use, share below!

Interested in working on growing your business page on Pinterest? SocialNicole can help! 

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They say a picture speaks a thousand words, well they were right! Pinterest speaks an infinite amount with pictures from all over the world whether personal or for business! Pinterest is a social media tool that allows users to pin and “repin” items onto their personal boards. Not only can users pin pictures, but also they can pin videos, blogs or etc. Users pin whatever they are interested in onto “pinboards.” These boards are a collection of things that you like, would like to purchase, or can be used as a tool to organize.

According to Business Insider, in the past year, Pinterest alone has driven more traffic than any other social media marketing website combined. It is the third largest social network with five million users and growing each day. Study also shows that 1 in 5 people purchase an item because of Pinterest. To help businesses keep track of how much interaction customers have with their boards, Pinterest recently launched an analytic tool.

Why Should You Try Marketing Your Business with Pinterest?

Free
The best things in life are free. Pinterest is one of them. Pinterest is a free social media network website that caters to business use or individual use. It’s free but it does take time. Be prepared to invest time or hire someone to do the work for you. Pinterest is like any social media channel; it requires investment in the community.

Pinterest Provides a Visual
Pinning pictures of the product or service of your business offers a visual of what your business provides to users and potential customers. Pictures attract attention, so Pinterests makes it easy to market what you are trying to sell. As mentioned before, 1 in 5 purchases are made through Pinterest! This can be YOUR business. Not only that, but many customers appreciate a visual of what they are going to purchase and this also gives them an idea of what to expect.

Gain More Followers
The power of repinning is fabulous! If someone likes the item they have the ability to repin. If someone else comes along and like that item they can also repin or click to learn more about it. This will bring users from anywhere to the original link, which would be your pin board and drive traffic to your business. This is like the virtual word-of-mouth. Pinners ranges from, newlyweds, collectors, designers, people looking for gift ideas, all of the above! EVERYONE is on the Internet. You never know what to expect and who is browsing. If they, whoever it is, like your pinboards, they can follow and be updated with your board activities. When Pinners click on the image, it will bring them back to the original link.

Pinterest is a great way to market content using pictures. Everyone loves pictures! It gives them an idea of what to expect when purchasing.  I like to think of it as virtual word-of-mouth marketing. Once you repin it anything can happen! Happy Pinning!

Need help managing your social presence? SocialNicole would love to help! 

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One of our smaller clients was hosting a big fundraising event this past year. We wanted to find a creative way to spread the word online – extending beyond just out online community and followers. We racked our brains trying to decide exactly how to do this in a way that wasn’t too “spammy” or overly advertised. That’s when it hit us: Social Media Ambassadors.

A Social Media Ambassador is someone who is a thought leader in their industry. Through blogging and social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, they have gained a group of core followers and a close knit community where they share their thoughts and expertise. If we could utilize select “thought leaders” to help promote our client’s event, we would be able to get their message out to the masses – for virtually nothing!

The cool thing about using Social Media Ambassadors is that the concept can work for practically any industry or organization. The people we reached out to for the Ambassador position came from a variety of different backgrounds – from mommy bloggers to design gurus. Yet they all had one thing in common: they supported our client’s cause! That is essential in implementing a Social Media Ambassador program. For it to be successful and NOT seem “spammy” they need to be just as passionate about what you’re doing as you are.

You don’t need a million different people backing you, just a few folks with strong followings who are willing to assist and share your content or information with their community. For our client, that meant some of them wrote blogs about the event, some hosted mini-contests and some simply chatted about it via Facebook or Twitter. Regardless of what they did, they were passionate – and that showed.

By event time ticket sales had gone up, interaction on the client’s social media accounts had skyrocketed and we had a whole new community involved in their mission. We had the Social Media Ambassador’s actually attend the event and live Tweet and Facebook what was happening with their followers! It was a really cool way to not only share with our new communities but document the event for us to remember.

The program was a win-win for everyone. Not only was the event a success due in part to their efforts, but they also gained a new community to grow with and we created strong relationships for our client with a variety of industry leaders!

What are your thoughts on Social Media Ambassadors? Have you or your business done something similar? Share below!

Interested in learning more about Social Media Ambassadors or implementing a similar strategy? Contact SocialNicole today! 

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That is the question that everyone is asking nowadays. LinkedIn launched in 2003, has increasingly gain members and popularity all over the world. It is currently the world’s largest professional social media networking website.

Creating a LinkedIn Company Pages is almost a must for your business. If you don’t have one for your company, now is a great time to start one. Why? According to LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, the United States alone has over 74 million people connected to LinkedIn! These include the most educated and most influential people for making business decisions. Being equipped with a LinkedIn Company Page will open an abundance of opportunity for business and professional growth.

Here are 4 reasons why LinkedIn Company Pages should be considered for your business:

Build Brand Awareness
Whether your business is small or big, having a LinkedIn Company Page will help build brand awareness. LinkedIn Company Pages can be used as a tool to highlight company products and services as well as highlight company accomplishments. Keep in mind that there are over 74 millions users. LinkedIn has a very diverse professional audience. These people are potential customers, other business professionals wanting to grow their business or are looking for services, college graduates and more.

Networking and Business Growth Potential
It also enable companies to expand their network by connecting with other companies and professionals in the same industry. Business forums may be created for business growth and advice. Being connected to other professionals will also help increase business credibility in the business community. These relationships will not only help business but also establish a positive web presence.

Find Great Industry Research
Another great feature about LinkedIn is that they provide research and market polls. Having a LinkedIn Company Page allows companies to conduct research prior to launching campaigns and gathering information about potential customers.

Keep an Eye on the Competition
Since all LinkedIn pages are public, having a LinkedIn Company Page will easily provide competitor business updates and strategies. This makes it convenient to keep track of your competitors and plan for future campaigns or change marketing strategies.

So what do you think of LinkedIn company pages? Share your thoughts below! And as always, SocialNicole is here to help if you’re interested in getting started on LinkedIn! 

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Each and every day we’re bombarded with new blogs and articles that claim to have the next big secret to writing a successful blog post. Though these articles are usually full of good tips, the secret to blogging is that there is no secret – there’s no magical code or piece of advice that will make your blog reader-worthy. However, there are a few basic blogging practices that are always crucial no matter what blog you’re writing or who you’re writing for.

Whether you’re a newbie or a pro, there are always ways to refine and refocus your blogging skills. If your goal is write an awesome blog, connect with readers, and build a community, the following fool-proof best blogging practices are the “secrets” to success.

The Voice 

Your first step should always be to evaluate the voice from which you’re writing. If you’re writing for an organization or outside client, be sure you’ve carefully researched their messaging, phrasing, and writing style – your goal is to blend your voice in with their content. If you’re writing for yourself, focus on being conversational. You want your words to leap off the page so readers feel like you’re talking directly to them, writer to reader. Be you. Create such a unique and specific blogging voice that readers can tell who you are without glancing at the author line. And since you’re chatting with readers conversationally, don’t be afraid to let your passion shine through. Readers appreciate when you’re real and authentic with them. They also appreciate humor. Do your best to be punchy and witty and even if you’re not brick wall caliber, readers will appreciate that you tried.

The Logistics 

Blogging and novelizing are not synonymous, so don’t make your blog posts the length of a paperback. Frankly, having too much text bores people and readers will quickly move on. Shoot for posts to be no more than five paragraphs long. If you have to go longer, use bold text, headings, page breaks, or images to liven up the lengthy text. After focusing on length of your blogs, you might also wonder about frequency of posting. Some popular blogs post 3 – 10 new blogs each day. This is pretty ambitious, but also a good reminder that you want to attract readers to come back several times throughout the day. If you’re lacking in content, posting once a day or every other day is still enough to keep the conversation going. But no matter how often you post, each time you post a new blog, don’t forget to share it. Include a link to your blog in your email signature, post new pieces on Facebook and Twitter, and ask friends or other bloggers to share your content. You could write the wittiest, most informative post in the world, but if you don’t push it out there, it won’t get read.

The Connection

A blog isn’t a blog without reader interaction. Nobody wants to spew out their thoughts all day without any reader response – that’s why engaging readers is critical. Make your content relevant and find real ways to connect with your readers. A simple way is to just ask readers for their thoughts and opinions. Even throwing the question out there will encourage people to take the time to respond. Diligently monitor comments and be ready to respond. You want to be sure to respond in a timely manner, but remember to think carefully about what you write to readers – don’t respond if you’re angry, tired, or annoyed. If responded to the right way, readers will appreciate that you chose to engage with them directly, and they’ll automatically feel more connected to any future content that you write. But don’t feel pressure to respond to every single comment. Only address comments that will keep a conversation flowing – ignore anyone who wants to criticize your writing, agitate other readers, or disrupt your community.

Need some help implementing these best practices on your blog? Contact SocialNicole today! 

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This day and age, everyone is on a social media network of some sort whether it be Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or WordPress. The list goes on. In truth, social media is everywhere! Social media is a great tool to network, keep up with friends and family, as well as keeping up with the latest news of favorite celebrities or business deals. However, one downside of social media is that it can be a time guzzler. So the question is, how do you not let social media be a full-time task?

Here are 3 helpful social media time management tips that any small business can benefit from:

1. Subscribe to the most relevant social media sites to you: This probably means that you should take a look in your “Liked” or subscriptions/Following pages and clean them out. Try to have only those who posts relevant information that you find useful or else you will be scrolling through pages and pages of posts, wasting time.

2. Consolidate all your social media networks into one place: A great way to avoid opening multiple tabs on your computer screen and wait for each page to load is to use tools like Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a great software that allows anyone to stream all of their social media networks in one place. This software is particularly great for business use, but can also be for personal use as well. There are paid options for more features of Hootsuite, but the free version is already equipped with great features. All you need to do is register with an email and start adding your social media networks on. If not Hootsuite, there are a number of other softwares to help organize all of the social media networks you are on.

3. Remember you are a brand: Whether you are using social media personally or for business, remember that you are branding yourself with everything you put out there. Avoid posting every five minutes or liking so many pages. Social media is a place to build relationships and create your own brand. Have conversations, but keep the numbers of posts at a conservative level. You can lose followers by having too much posts or not have enough posts. Be consistent in your posts so that followers know when to expect an update if you are a business. For tips on what to post and how often check out this post.

Need help managing your social presence? SocialNicole would love to help! 

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Let’s face it: Google+ hasn’t been the most warmly welcomed social networking tool. But don’t let your innate distaste blind you from the awesome benefits that a Google+ Business Page has to offer. It’s not enough just to stick with your personal page – business pages offer opportunities to market your business, connect with customers, and ultimately grow your business.

A New Way to Be Found 

Google+ Business Pages are also a great tool for online advertising. If you have a Google+ Business Page, your page, profile, image, and most recent posts are eligible to show up on the right-hand side of Google search results when your business is relevant to a customer’s search. By showing up in this part of a customer’s search screen, your business will look popular, relevant, and credible. This is something businesses don’t have to pay for – all you have to do verify that you’re interested in this type of promotion and then consistently share popular content, consistently engage with users, and grow a strong following – Google does the rest.

Another way to promote your business is through customer recommendations. By adding social extensions for AdWords through your business page, you can show customers’ recommendations across Google by linking your Google+ page to your AdWords campaign. Google will tally the social interactions with your brand, including +1’s for your Google+ page, website, and ads and that information will be shared with your ad on Google.

Having a Google+ Business Page also gives you the opportunity to add the +1 button directly to your business site. This button makes it simple for fans to show their support of your company and share that love with other users. Businesses can also extend that reach even further by enabling AdWords social extensions with a simple code.

A New Way to See Growth

Google+ Business Pages offer many elements that can be key to the growth of your business. Google+ Ripples’ data visualization tells you who’s sharing and resharing your posts most often. This tool allows you to recognzie influencers and active users within your community.

Google Analytics will also offer Google+ Business Pages the chance to get social data reports that show how Google+ influences the effect of personalized recommendations on your site, what visitors from other social networks are coming to your site to see, and more powerful statistics.

The search tool on Google+ can also be a great asset to your business. By searching keywords, names, or anything else, your search results will give you insight into what people are saying about your brand.

A New Way to Connect 

Your Google+ Business Page is an opportunity to tell people what you’re all about.

Google+ is an entirely new market of customers – who may not have seen or heard about you. By having a valid business page, you’re easy to identify and simple to connect with. This is another chance for your business to reach out and connect with customers. Your Google+ Business Page also allows you to have 10 person video chats through Google+ Hangouts, creating an automatic virtual focus group. You can also add a free Google+ badge to your website so visitors can share your content and follow your Google+ page directly from your site.

Google+ is currently growing exponentially – and it’s only going to get bigger and better. Take advantage of a Google+ Business Page today and see positive business growth tomorrow.

Interested in getting some help setting up your Google+ Business page? Contact SocialNicole - we’d love to help!

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Today’s in our Blogging 101 series is how to optimize photos for your blog. Read on to learn why this is important and how to do it!

4 Tips on How to Optimize Photos for Your Website/Blog:

1. Select an Image that Fits: The reason someone may choose to click on your blog post is not only for the content but for the visual. That is why it is essential that you pick and photo that accurately represents the piece, is eye-catching and appropriate. Whew! Quite the order for a picture, huh? An easy place to start is Flickr. Find out more about using this service to find great, free images in our Adventure into Flickr: Finding Free Pictures for your Blog post.

3. Pick a File Name With Meaning: What’s in a name? A lot of SEO value! When naming your picture file, use a keyword related to your post topic. Try not to be extremely general, but not too specific  Strike a balance and use the Google Keyword Tool to help in your decision because this is partially how search engines determine the rank of the image. Generally, you will just want to use the keyword used in the rest of your blog.

3. Use Alternative Sections: Something that can be easily missed and a great SEO opportunity are the alternative sections of a picture. As you can see below, you have the change to fill in a caption, alternative text and description for each image you post. While we generally don’t put a caption with photos, that is entirely up to you. The alternative text and description sections are another way to rename or go more in depth with what the picture/post is about. Once again, keywording is important so do your research!

4. Use the Right Amount of Visuals: There’s nothing worse than having too many or two few images in in your blog posts! Too many get annoying and distract form the content, too few and it feels like a marathon of reading with no breaks. While photos are always a great way to grab attention and gain SEO value, make sure they aren’t overkill. Our rule of thumb is at least one photo. We usually center it at the top while some wrap it around their text – that is a personal preference but one you need to be consistent with. It may take a while to get the hang of it, but look around at some of your favorite blogs or even successful competition for an idea of the “right balance”.

Missed a previous Blogging 101 post? Never fear!

Blogging 101: Google’s Keyword Tool

Blogging 101: Yoast SEO Plugin

Blogging 101: Resize a Photo for Online Use

Interested in help with your company’s blog or website? SocialNicole is here to help!

Want to see us blog about something specific in our Blogging 101 series? Share below! 

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