Learn some inventive ways to integrate Facebook into your social media marketing strategy.

Every day, businesses are inspired to bring creative marketing ideas to life on Facebook in ways that have a real impact on their bottom line. Many have discovered how to leverage their Facebook communities to strengthen brand loyalty and communicate directly with customers. As your company invests in the social network for marketing, advertising, and branding, it’s useful to have a few examples of what others have done with the platform. These case studies look at the goals, approaches, and results for several Facebook campaigns.

	HubSpot The all-in-one marketing software platform wanted to promote its brand in a 3-month campaign as a thought leader in the B2B field on Facebook to: Lead fans to its Page and ultimately engage them with other content Drive customer engagement and generate more leads Results: 71% sales increase from Facebook 15% increase in ROI from Facebook 39% increase in traffic coming from Facebook  Read the case study
	Corcoran Group Real Estate The New York real estate brokerage wanted to use the global reach of Facebook to increase engagement with potential homebuyers, local New Yorkers, and the real estate industry at large, as well as strengthen its online brand presence to: Create a community where people could start a conversation and discuss the question, “What does it feel like to live in New York?” Connect with a larger pool of people interested in buying homes before they decide to reach out to a real estate agent Drive awareness of Corcoran’s social hub and provide information about the brokerage’s activities Results: 2x visitors now come from Facebook compared with its other advertising platforms No. 2 in organic search results for Corcoran’s Facebook Page, second only to the brokerage’s own website 6x higher reach for posts on days when ads are running 10x more Page views of its Facebook Page when ads are running Read the case study
	Canvas People The canvas print maker wanted to drive brand recognition and establish a presence on Facebook to: Increase fan engagement to build a dedicated Facebook community Drive Facebook fans to purchase directly from CanvasPeople.com Results: 3,959 individual transactions as a result of the Facebook campaign 180,000 people liked the Canvas People Facebook Page 1.5x return on investment on Facebook advertising 10x page engagement increase based on the “People Talking About This” metric Read the case study
	Luxury Link The high-end hotel website wanted to drive engagement and increase brand visibility for the well-traveled luxury customer to: Offer a way for people to share luxury travel experiences and new featured destinations Continue to grow revenue by offering relevant deals to its community Results: 100% increase in sales for travel packages coming from Facebook 30% increase in site visits month over month from Facebook 90% of the Facebook community who purchased travel packages were new Luxury Link customers Read the case study
	Tough Mudder The 12-mile obstacle course events company wanted to use Facebook to spread the word about its series of obstacle course challenges that take place in different cities around the world and: Increase brand awareness on a global scale Drive more people to sign up for its events in specific cities in a way that was social and shareable Develop a community of individuals interested in participating in Tough Mudder Results: 24X increase in sales in just two years, with Facebook being the primary advertising and engagement channel for the company 5-10X return on advertising spend on Facebook 5-8X higher click-through rate (CTR) for ads in news feed vs. traditional ad displays 12X increase in the fan base in a year and a half, from 200,000 to more than 2.5 million, attributed to Facebook Ads 20% of Tough Mudder participants say they were influenced to sign up through Facebook Ads, according to a survey conducted by the brand Read the case study
	State Bicycle Company The Arizona-based bicycle manufacturer wanted to use Facebook to familiarize people with its brand and vision to: Increase fan engagement when communicating product releases and upcoming events Drive Facebook fans to purchase directly from its e-commerce site StateBicycle.com Results: $500,000 in annual incremental sales came from coupon codes and traffic exclusive from Facebook 12% of traffic to the State Bicycle Co. website came from Facebook 1/5th cost per click on Facebook compared to other advertising platforms 10x growth in fan base within 12 months Read the case study
	ASOS The fashion website launched a sales campaign to: Generate excitement ahead of its summer sale Increase revenue from a summer sale event on the ASOS web site Increase community engagement  Results: 1 million views of Facebook application 32% fan base growth Largest 1-day revenue in company’s history Read the case study

7 Facebook Marketing Case Studies is a post by Pam Dyer on Pamorama | Social Media Marketing Blog.

Use these platforms to manage, measure, and analyze your social media marketing initiatives.

To succeed in today’s connected world, you need to build a community around your company, brand, and products. Over the last decade, social media monitoring has become a primary form of business intelligence, used to identify, predict, and respond to consumer behavior. Listening to what your customers, competitors, critics, and supporters are saying about you is key to getting great results from your social media campaigns. There are countless tools out there, offering many ways to analyze, measure, display, and create reports about your engagement efforts.

These 50 tools distill data in ways that are relevant to your social media marketing plan, enabling you to figure out how to succeed with your audience.

Determining which tools are right for you requires a clear definition of your objectives. Some are real-time, highly customized dashboards that enable you to manage multiple accounts, use shared work spaces, and respond on multiple social networks with one click. Others are simple, effective, and lightweight, and provide the right amount of functionality.

1. Alterian/SDL ($) | Alterian is now SDL, an integrated platform that blends the marketing analytics, campaign management, and social media capabilities from Alterian with those of SDL.
2. Argyle Social ($) | Identify and engage with more prospects, qualify and quantify better leads, and build and maintain stronger relationships by linking social media actions to the marketing platforms you’re already using.
3. BackTweets (Free) | Track how many people are talking about you, who’s talking, and what they’re saying. You can search through a tweet archive for URLs sent via Twitter, including results for full URL links, shortened URLs, and URLs without the “www” prefix.
4. BlitzMetrics ($) | Social media dashboards for your brand that monitor content across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, and more. It helps you benchmark against your competitors, learn which demographics are the most active, and track content performance so you can improve your reach and engagement.
5. Bottlenose ($) | A tool that provides live social intelligence by analyzing activity across all the major social networks. Use it to search, monitor, analyze, target, and engage in real time, all from one place.
6. Brandwatch ($) |This service reads through and summarizes what’s being said on the Web about brands, people, and products. Define keywords to track (brands, topics, people names, products) and get access to mentions,  trend and campaign analysis, and competitive info.
7. Buffer (Free and $) | An app that manages multiple Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts, with the ability to set a tweeting or updating schedule unique to each. Includes detailed analytics for all your posts.
8. Buzz Equity ($) | Listen to social media conversations in real time from various social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, news, forums, reviews, and video websites.
9. CARMA ($) | Evaluate your overall social media image, brand recognition, message penetration, competitive positioning, and areas of strength and weakness, and use the data to develop a strategically sound and effective communication strategy.
10. Collective Intellect ($) | This Oracle platform captures millions of conversations a day across multiple social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. It extracts sentiments, preferences, and intentions from those sources and displays the information in real time.
11. Crimson Hexagon ($) | Tap into social media conversations with listening tools that help you understand how the most engaged consumers think and feel about your brand, why consumers are choosing other brands over yours, and how your ads/marketing are really perceived by your audience.
12. Curalate ($) | This tool applies advanced image analytics to social media conversations to give you detailed insights for your initiatives on Instagram and Pinterest.
13. CustomScoop ($) | Track media coverage, listen to social conversations, monitor your competition, measure PR and marketing effectiveness, and get automated daily reports.
14. CyberAlert ($) | Monitor 100,000+ consumer-generated media sites for word of mouth, including Twitter, blogs, Usenet (there’s a blast from the past :), and video sites.
15. Facebook Insights (Free) | Facebook’s built-in tool provides Facebook Page owners with metrics around their content. Helps you understand and analyze trends within user growth and demographics.
16. Fliptop ($) | A customer intelligence platform that uses publicly available information, including social data, to score leads so you can prioritize your pipeline, better target your audience, and know more about your customers.
17. Google Alerts (Free) | Get email updates of the latest relevant Google results (Web, news, etc.) based on your queries.
18. Gorkana ($) | This tool searches through and filters conversations to provides insights into the most relevant conversations about your brand. Offers audits and reports plus daily social media alerts.
19. HootSuite (Free and $) | A social media management system that enables teams to collaboratively execute campaigns across multiple social networks from one dashboard. Includes audience identification tools, the ability to streamline workflow, and custom reports. I use HootSuite to manage my company’s Twitter account.
20. Icerocket (Free) | A free resource for brand monitoring, it taps the Web, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, and delivers easy-to-read results in one page.
21. Klout (Free) | A tool that finds the influencers in your audience so you can target and empower them to become advocates for your brand.
22. MarketMeSuite ($) | A dashboard similar to Hootsuite and TweetDeck, it can be used to manage and market on multiple social profiles, schedule messages, use geotargeting, and more.
23. MediaMiser ($) | Web app that collects and analyzes relevant content about your brand from social, traditional, and digital media. Spots trends in media coverage, including sentiment, share of voice, and top regions.
24. MediaVantage ($) | Pulls traditional media coverage and social media mentions into a database that helps you monitor your reputation, align your teams and messaging, and measure results.
25. Meltwater ($) | Combines social media monitoring and analytics with social engagement tools to help you create targeted marketing campaigns and build  brand relationships.
26. Mention (Free to $) | An iPhone and Android app that lets you create alerts for your company, its keywords, your brand, and your competitors. Updates in real time.
27. NetBase ($)| A social intelligence platform that enables you to monitor, understand, react, engage, and publish through both owned and earned channels.
28. Netvibes (Free and $) | A platform that tracks clients, customers, competitors, and your reputation across media sources, analyzes live results with 3rd party reporting tools, and provides media monitoring dashboards for brand clients.
29. NUVI ($) | Real-time display of conversations that weight influence and sentiment. You can instantly see the social media conversations taking place in your market and immediately engage your detractors and evangelists.
30. Pinpuff (Free) | Similar to Klout but focusing only on the Pinterest, it measures the how people share images about your brand and the influence that results.
31. PinReach ($) | Measures your Pinterest influence by giving you an overall score and easy-to-read charts and tables that show your most popular pins and boards.
32. Pinterest Web Analytics (Free) | Pinterest’s built-in analytics gives site owners insights into how people are interacting with pins that originate from their websites. See my in-depth post: Use Pinterest Web Analytics to Jumpstart Your Social Media Marketing.
33. Plugg.io (Free) | Manage and tweet from multiple accounts, get friend suggestions, and automate syndication via blogs and news sources.
34. Shoutlet ($) | A community management and moderation platform for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and YouTube. Includes integrated workflow tools and task assignments.
35. Social Marketing Cloud ($) | An automated solution that enables you to monitor and analyze blogs, forums, wikis, and microblogging sites to track real-time conversations about your brand.
36. Social Mention (Free) | A real-time social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user-generated content from Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google,  etc. into a single stream.
37. Social Response ($) | Formerly Cotweet. Build dynamic Facebook fan pages, respond in real time on Twitter and Facebook, and communicate 1-to-1 with your followers.
38. Sprout Social ($) | Web app that monitors Twitter, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn, FourSquare, Gowalla, and other networks where consumers are engaging with businesses and brands.  Also offers contact management, competitive insight, lead generation, and analytics.
39. SWIX Analytics ($) | This tool tracks 75 social media metrics in one dashboard, enabling you to measure your social media influence.
40. Synthesio ($) | Platform that offers global, multilingual monitoring of your brand’s reputation, campaign management, influencer tracking, and competitive intelligence. Well-suited for large enterprises.
41. Sysomos ($) | A real-time monitoring dashboard that collects relevant online conversations about your brand and provides insights with detailed metrics and graphics.
42. Talkwalker ($) | This reporting tool constantly scans the Web and social media to monitor your brand, reputation,  and competitors. It can also be used for campaign tracking, market research, and customer service.
43. Topsy ($) | Monitors tweets, websites, blogs, and social networks, and analyzes/indexes/ranks content and trends.
44. Trackur ($) | Quickly monitor your online reputation, measure social media trends, and analyze social media mentions for your company, brands, or clients.
45. TweetBeep (Free and $) | This app is like Google Alerts for Twitter: Choose some keywords and receive daily search results via email.
46. TweetDeck (Free) | Very similar to HootSuite, only without all the bells and whistles, this client enables you to tweet and track mentions, people, and keywords.
47. Twitalyzer ($) | One-click access to Twitter metrics that analyze followers, mentions, retweets, and influencers and their locations. It can also be used to compare your Twitter account to those of your competitors.
48. UberVU ($) | Keeps track of all the major social media platforms in real time and delivers opportunities for audience engagement.
49. Visible ($) | A social media analytics and engagement dashboard that enables you to monitor, analyze, and engage in social media conversations all in one place. It can also be integrated into your existing CRM system.
50. Vocus ($) | Cloud marketing and analytics platform that looks at social, search, email, and PR, and delivers real-time marketing opportunities in the form of leads, prospects, social media conversations, curated content and inbound media inquiries.

50 Top Tools for Social Media Monitoring, Analytics, and Management is a post by Pam Dyer on Pamorama | Social Media Marketing Blog.

Give your posts a higher probability of appearing at the top of users’ News Feeds.

The News Feed — in the center column of your home page — is a list of stories from the people and pages you follow on Facebook. Customized and continuously updated, it is designed to make the most out of the time you spend on the social network by serving up the information that’s the most meaningful to you. News Feed stories include likes, status updates, app activity, photos, videos, and links.

According to comScore, 40% of time on Facebook is spent on the News Feed. When a user logs in, there are normally many more posts than can fit in their “top news”. EdgeRank is an algorithm developed by Facebook that governs what is displayed — and how high — on the News Feed. Knowing how Facebook decides what shows up (and what doesn’t) in news feeds is key for digital marketers. If you can write posts with an eye toward the EdgeRank algorithm, they will have a higher probability of being displayed at the top of users’ “top news”.

What is an Edge?

Every piece of content in Facebook is called an Object (for our purposes here, think “post”), and each interaction with that content is called an Edge. Examples of Edges include status updates, comments, likes, and shares. Each Edge is comprised of Affinity, Weight, and Time Decay. Sounds pretty complicated, right? Stay with me and you’ll understand why it’s simple and effective — it’s very similar to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

The EdgeRank algorithm

EdgeRank is the sum of Edges. It looks at all of the Edges (actions on Facebook) that are connected to you and ranks them according to their importance to you. Objects (posts) with the highest EdgeRank typically appear at the top of the News Feed, although there’s a small amount of randomness.

What is Affinity?

Affinity is a one-way relationship between a user and an Edge. Think of it as a measure of the closeness between you and a brand. It looks at whether or not you’ve previously interacted with a post or whether your friends are engaging with it — actions taken into consideration include liking, sharing, commenting, and messaging.

What is Weight?

Weight is a system that increases or decreases the value of actions within Facebook. All Edges (Facebook actions) are assigned a value chosen by Facebook. Edges that take the most time to accomplish tend to weigh more — for example, commenting is more involved than simply liking a post, so it’s considered to be more valuable.

What is Time Decay?

Time Decay is the easiest of these variables to understand. It refers to how long the Edge has been alive — expressed mathematically, it is 1 ÷ (Time Since Action). The older an Edge is, the less value it has. This helps weed out old content and replace it with interesting new content.

Improve the EdgeRank of your posts

Here are some ways to get your posts to the top of Facebook’s News Feed:

1. Create and post more engaging content and post it often

Increase affinity for the people who like your Facebook page by posting content that appeals to them. Polls, questions, contests, and other interactive initiatives increase engagement. The more often you post, the less you’ll deal with post decay, which lowers content visibility.

2. Calls to action will encourage more people to like your page

Engagement increases with the size of your audience. Clear CTAs that raise interaction rates — sharing, liking, and commenting on your posts — improves the weight of that content. Post trivia questions and encourage people to answer by commenting on the posts, ask users to tag themselves in photos and like their favorites, etc.

3. Post links, photos, and videos frequently

Facebook pages that always include these have the best EdgeRank scores. Text-only posts don’t stand out or offer much opportunity for engagement. Adding links, photos, and videos to all of your posts increases visual interaction, making it more likely that users will view/watch, share, like, comment, and browse. This improves affinity and weight.

4. Avoid attracting Likers with low affinity

Contests that give away unrelated prizes attract many people who will never engage with your brand — they’re only liking your page to get the swag you’re giving away. Chances are that none of your messages will show up in their news feeds. If thousands of people like your page but only a few actually see your content, you’re not accomplishing your goal. It’s important to build an online community instead of going for the “low-hanging fruit” to increase the number of people who like your page, which creates an illusion of engagement.

5. Post consistently at strategic times

Post often — at least once a day — to decrease the time decay of your content. See my post, How to Improve Your Facebook Fan Engagement, for detailed analysis about the best times to post by industry. It includes a cheat sheet for effective wall post strategies.

EdgeRank Infographics

The good folks at PostRocket, makers of a News Feed optimization tool, created these infographics to help you better understand how EdgeRank works. Keep these great visualizations on hand as you work to improve the visibility of your posts.

Understanding Facebook EdgeRank [Infographics] is a post by Pam Dyer on Pamorama | Social Media Marketing Blog.

Pinterest Web Analytics gives site owners insights into how people are interacting with pins that originate from their websites.

With more than 48 million users, Pinterest is one of the most popular social networks on the Web. Rather than telling people about your products, Pinterest makes it possible to show what you have to offer. Companies are increasingly using the platform to reach new audiences, increase visits to their websites, and generate leads and sales — and it’s working.

As I noted in a previous post, Pinterest users spend more money, shop more frequently, and purchase items more often and in larger quantities than users on any other social network. Women are about five times as likely to use the site as men. Unlike other social bookmarking sites, content shared on Pinterest is driven entirely by visuals — it’s impossible share something on Pinterest unless an image is involved. You can reach millions of people if your pinned content — a picture or video — goes viral. If your business relies on driving website traffic, you should create a company presence on the site.

Follow these steps to get going with Pinterest for Business

1. Set up a business account

• If you’re new to Pinterest, visit this page to join Pinterest as a business.
• If you already have a personal account, convert it to a business account.

2. Verify your website

• Go to your profile and click on the pencil in the bottom-right corner of the name box.

Don’t see the pencil? Go to the menu in the upper right corner, select Settings, and go to the step below.

• Enter your Web address in the Website field, then click ‘Verify Website’.

• Follow the instructions on the next page. You can verify with an HTML file or a META tag.

 3. Once your website has been verified, you’ll see a checkmark next to it and will have access to your Web analytics when you’re logged in.

4. Switch to Pinterest’s new look by clicking ‘Switch to the New Look’ in the top-right menu under your name.

Begin using Pinterest Analytics

To get to your analytics, click ‘Analytics’ in the top-right menu under your name.

Track your pinning activity

Find out how many people are pinning from your website, seeing your pins, and clicking your content. Pick a time frame to see how your numbers trend.

Pinterest Analytics walk-through video

This video delivers easy-to-understand information about:

• What Pinterest Analytics is
• How to verify your website
• How to access the tool
• How to read and use the analytics graphs
• How to download a file with your data for more information
• How to understand what people like from your site

Use Pinterest Web Analytics to Jumpstart Your Social Media Marketing is a post by Pam Dyer on Pamorama | Social Media Marketing Blog.

Use the right colors to increase brand recognition and drive purchasing.

It’s more important than ever for brands to project their value. Marketers in general understand the need for consistency in color and design. But it’s also vital to move beyond the standard logo and tagline and take a holistic approach to evoking emotions among potential customers across all of your marketing channels — including social media sites. You can use color to your advantage.

Color is a form of non-verbal communication and an important part of our daily lives. The underlying emotions that colors evoke have been cultivated since birth and vary depending on age, geographic location, and gender (e.g. blue for boys, pink for girls). Color affects our moods and feelings, and research suggests that it has a physical effect as well, influencing the hormones that control our emotions. Applying color theory is one of the most powerful methods of creating customer appeal.

Why do you feel like clicking and browsing on some websites and not others? What makes you feel like purchasing from one online merchant vs. another? Could it be because of your emotional responses to their color palettes? Choosing the right color scheme is crucial to how your brand is viewed.

Studies have shown that color:

• Increases brand recognition by up to 80%
• Improves readership as much as 40%
• Increases comprehension by 73%
• Can be up to 85% of the reason people decide to buy

Some brands become so closely associated with their color schemes that we recognize them even when their company names aren’t visible. Use the two infographics below as guides to creating your online identity.

What kind of emotion do you want your brand to convey?

This infographic from Logo Company looks at the color choices used by major brands. Do you want your customers to feel that you’re trustworthy and dependable like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn? Blue might be a good choice. What about giving visitors a sense of youth, excitement, or boldness like Coca-Cola, Virgin, or Nintendo? Red may be for you.

How do colors affect purchases?

Web analytics firm Kissmetrics created this infographic to describe how color psychology influences purchasing. Visual cues help drive buying behavior, and color is the most persuasive element: 85% of shoppers say color is a primary reason why they buy a particular product.

Which colors do you use for branding and marketing? How did you select them? Do you think they impact the way visitors perceive you and your brand?

The Role of Color in Marketing [Infographics] is a post by Pam Dyer on Pamorama | Social Media Marketing Blog.

Don’t miss a huge branding opportunity: Link your Google+ profile to the content you create

Google is looking to put user identity at the forefront of a number of its products, including search. They are trying new ways to authenticate quality links. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt discusses this in his upcoming book, “The New Digital Age”, writing that profile verification will be directly linked to search engine rankings:

“Within search results, information tied to verified online
profiles will be ranked higher than content without such
verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking
on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining
anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”

As you know from reading this blog, creating a brand is incredibly valuable for building and strengthening relationships via social media and otherwise. People have more trust in recommendations from their circle of “friends”, including companies they follow on social networks. Google Authorship has made it easier for authors and businesses to get their brands in front of prospective customers and improve ranking — they can now represent themselves alongside their content within Google’s search engine results pages (SERP). Establishing a direct link between you and your articles or posts enables Google to display your picture next to the titles and descriptions of your site’s content so you stand out from the crowd.

How to implement Google Authorship

Set up a Google+ account

Go to https://plus.google.com and create one. If you have a Gmail account, you can use that profile to get started. Make sure the domain of the email address you use is the same as the domain of the site for which you’re creating content — this will help Google connect your Google+ account to that domain.

Google has made it easier to edit all your personal details with a new card-like format for profile information under the “About” tab on your Google+ profile.

Each of these cards now has its own prominently-displayed “Edit” button, so you can easily control who sees what for categories like Work, People, and Places. View your profile as “Yourself” or you won’t see the Edit buttons under each section.

Make sure your Google+ profile name matches the byline on the blog posts you want to associate by doing one of two things:

1. Change your byline on the site you contribute to so it matches your Google+ name, or
2. Change your name in Google to match your byline:

• Go to https://plus.google.com
• Click “Profile” (in the left column)
• Click on your name in the header
• Change your name
• Click “Save”

 Upload a Google+ profile photo

• Go to https://plus.google.com
• Click “Profile” (in the left column)
• Click on your avatar/photo
• Upload a clearly visible headshot

Make your Google+ profile visible in search

• Go to https://plus.google.com
• Click “Profile” (in the left column)
• Click the gear icon for Settings to the right of your tabs
• Scroll down to the “Profile” section and make sure the box next to “Help others discover my profile in search results” is checked

Add the blog to which you contribute to your Google+ page

• Go to https://plus.google.com
• Click “Profile” (in the left column)
• Click the “About” tab
• Click “Edit” at the bottom of any of the sections
• Click the “Links” icon, second from the right at the top of the module
• Under “Contributor to”, add any sites for which you create content
• Click “Save”

How to associate your site with Google+

If you have an email address with the same domain as the site you want to associate with Google+:

• Log in to your Google+ account
• Submit your email address at https://plus.google.com/authorship
• Click on the verification link in the email that Google sends you

Is your blog running WordPress?

If so, there are a variety of plugins that will create Google Author tags, including:

• WordPress SEO by Yoast (I use this)
• Google Plus Authorship
• Google Author Link
• AuthorSure

Test to make sure Google Authorship is set up correctly

It can take from a few minutes to several weeks for Google to show your picture along with search results, so use Google’s Rich Snipit Testing tool to make sure everything is as it should be.

• Go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
• Enter the URL of one of your blog posts that you believe should be associated
• Click “Preview”
• If the results page returns green text that says Email verification has successfully established authorship for this webpage, you’re all set and you should begin to see this in search results:

Use Google Authorship to Improve SEO and Drive Traffic is a post by Pam Dyer on Pamorama | Social Media Marketing Blog.

I was honored when I learned that Forbes included me in their list of the Top 20 Women Social Media Influencers.

Haydn Shaughnessy, a speaker, author, and Forbes contributor who who writes excellent articles about enterprise innovation, released his annual list on Wednesday. Using Peek Analytics data and other criteria, he assembled a list of fantastic women social media experts with whom I’m proud to be associated. I never would have been included on the list if it weren’t for you — thank you for reading and sharing my content! I hope I’ve helped you better understand social media marketing and how to use it effectively.

I want go give a shout-out to the sensational ladies on the list whose social media marketing expertise and advice has gone viral:

1. Ann Tran: A social media consultant and travel/leisure blogger, Ann has over 300,000 Twitter followers. @AnnTran
2. Jessica Northey: Jessica is taking over country music one tweet at a time, helping broadcasting professionals, musicians, and entertainers optimize their brands. @jessicanorthey
3. Mari Smith: A top social media consultant, author, and speaker, Mari is widely recognized as the top Facebook marketing expert in the world. @marismith
4. Liz Strauss: Liz is a social media strategist and prolific blogger who founded SOBCon, the high-touch business summit. @lizstrauss
5. Pam Moore: Pam is an an avid keynote speaker, best selling author of two books, and has guts to tell you what you may not want to hear to drive results. @pammktgnut
6. Renee Blodgett: Renee provides branding, word-of-mouth (WOM) campaigns, viral marketing, social media, and PR programs for companies and high-profile individuals. @magicsaucemedia
7. Eve Mayer: Eve is the CEO of Social Media Delivered, a LinkedIn expert, and author of two books about using social media for business. @linkedinqueen
8. Kim Garst: Kim is the CEO of Boom! Social and author of two books about social media marketing. She speaks at conferences and trains business owners worldwide. @kimgarst
9. Lori Ruff: Lori helps businesses become more successful with LinkedIn through comprehensive and inspiring training programs. @loriruff
10. Ann Handley: An author and 13-year veteran of creating and managing digital programs to build relationships, Ann manages all of the content at MarketingProfs. @marketingprofs
11.  Me! @pamdyer
12. Laura Fitton: Laura co-authored Twitter for Dummies and founded Twitter app store oneforty, which was acquired by HubSpot in 2011. @pistachio
13. Bonnie Sainsbury:  An online marketing strategist, Bonnie helps companies increase their virtual presence and engage with new customers. @bsainsbury
14. Lilach Bullock: Lilach is a business owner, consultant, and founder of Socialable.co.uk, where she helps companies create smart social media marketing strategies. @Lilachbullock
15. Deborah Lee: Deborah advises and coaches organizations and individuals about how to maximize their social media potential, especially via Twitter. @debsylee
16. Marsha Collier: A prolific author whose books cover topics around customer service and social media, Marsha is a radio host and sought-after speaker. @Marshcollier
17. Lori Taylor: Lori is an award-winning direct response copywriter who focuses on unique content marketing strategies to build brand awareness, authority, and audience rapport. @lorirtaylor
18. Viveka vonRosen: Viveka is a successful entrepreneur, a nationally renowned LinkedIn expert and trainer, and social-media keynote speaker. @LinkedInExpert
19. Sandi Krakowski: Sandi is an author and Facebook marketing expert who specializes in social media and blogging forbusinesses. @sandikrakowski
20. Susan Cooper: A social media marketing enthusiast and strategist, Susan consults with musicians, entertainers, and select businesses on targeted strategies. @buzzedition

Be sure to follow Haydn Shaughnessy on
Twitter (@haydn1701) and read his
insightful Forbes articles.

Forbes Top 20 Women Social Media Influencers is a post by Pam Dyer on Pamorama | Social Media Marketing Blog.

Pinterest is perfect for businesses with small marketing budgets, and you can improve SEO and drive traffic by optimizing your images.

The image-based social media site is an online bulletin board that lets you collect and share images by “pinning” them to virtual boards. It has been one of the fastest-growing consumer Web properties — according to comScore, it ranked 28^th among U.S. Internet users in January, with about 30 million unique visitors.

Pinterest users spend more money, shop more frequently, and purchase items more often and in larger quantities than users on any other social network. If you believe that Pinterest is a viable social media marketing platform for your business and your initial attempt at using it hasn’t yielded the positive results you were looking for, it’s time to optimize your presence — starting with the images you post.

Maximize your Pinterest image optimization

Here are 18 great tips about growing your brand with Pinterest marketing through image optimization, brought to you by PinnableBusiness.com.

• File names become your image titles, so name them accordingly. Names with lots of letters and numbers won’t rank as well.
• Pin from a variety of different sources, not just from your own site. Re-pinning, liking, and commenting all play a role in where your image will appear.
• Pinning gives you the best opportunity to go viral. Uploading is okay, but not as beneficial.
• After you upload an image, you should edit your pin to add a link. Pinterest doesn’t automatically add any links to uploaded pins, so it’s important to do this to drive traffic.
• Pinterest descriptions can be up to 500 characters, but longer ones annoy many users. Use a short caption that incorporates major keywords, and add more info in the pin’s comment section.
• Research Pinterest to see what catches your eye and compels you to engage with an image, and try to replicate that feeling with your own images. More engagement leads to more followers, and more followers equals more power.
• Remember that Pinterest is a social media platform, not an advertising platform. Comment, like, and repin other people’s images.
• Create a variety of different boards and make sure the titles of the boards are keyword-rich. A board named “Stuff I Like to Do” isn’t as effective as “Birdwatching in Seattle”.
• Add the “Follow” and “Pin It” buttons to your website. The key to social media is empowering people to share your content.
• Be yourself and express your personality and that of your brand. Communicate your unique voice through the images you post.

Some image specifics

• A typical e-commerce image is 300 pixels wide. But you can pin an image as small as 85 x 85 pixels.
• The maximum horizontal width of pictures is 554 pixels. Anything wider than that will be resized.
• Pinterest doesn’t limit the vertical size of images, but you should. Make them no longer than 5,000 pixels — if someone has to scroll down to see the whole thing, they aren’t likely to scroll all the way back up to pin the image or “like” it.
• You can pin videos from YouTube and Vimeo. If you have produced videos about your products and services, Pinterest users can watch them on the site.

SEO considerations

• Unlike Facebook, Pinterest allows search engines to crawl their site. Many boards are showing up in Google search results.
• The title of your board will be used as part of your Pinterest URL. Use keywords in both your title and your description.
• Most links on Pinterest are nofollows, but they are a strong social factor in search engine algorithms.
• More repins means more links to your site, which brings you more traffic. A repin keeps the original source link.

This helpful infographic includes all the this information as well as figures about Pinterest referral traffic vs. other social media sites:

18 Tips for Optimizing Your Pinterest Images to Improve SEO is a post by Pam Dyer on Pamorama | Social Media Marketing Blog.

67% of online adults use social networking sites. But who exactly are the people who use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram?

Some very useful social media demographics are outlined in a recent report by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. The study reaffirmed that young adults aged 18-29 are more likely than others to use major social networks (83%). It also substantiates that women are more likely than men to be on these sites (71% vs. 62%), and that people who live in urban areas are significantly more likely than rural Internet users to use social networking (70% vs. 61%).

The analysis also takes a deeper dive into statistics such as the race/ethnicity, education, and household income of people who use social media sites. This information can help you refine your social media marketing initiatives to find leads, increase sales, and improve branding.

Facebook demographics

Facebook remains the dominant social networking platform: 2/3 of online adults (67%) say that they use it. Women are more likely than men to be Facebook users, and Facebook use is especially common among younger adults.

Twitter demographics

60% of Internet users are on Twitter, which is double that of November 2010. Those under 50, and especially those 18-29, are the most likely to use Twitter. People who live in urban areas are significantly more likely than both suburban and rural residents to use the social network.

Pinterest demographics

Pinterest, the online pinboard, has attracted 15% of Internet users to its virtual scrapbooking site. Whites, young people, women, the well-educated, and those with higher incomes are particularly likely to use the site. Pinterest is equally popular among those 18-29 and 30-49 (19%). Women are about five times as likely to be on the site as men, the largest difference in gender of any site featured in the report.

Instagram demographics

13% of Internet users are taking pictures and sharing them with Instagram. Women are more likely than men to use the site, as are those under 50. African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely than whites to use Instagram, along with urban residents.

Download the full report to learn about all of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project’s report on the demographics of social media users.

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram Demographics is a post by Pam Dyer on Pamorama | Social Media Marketing Blog.

Blogging breeds community, where influence is born.

A new survey from Technorati has found that many consumers are turning to blogs when they’re looking to buy something. They rank blogs as the third most influential digital resource (31%) when it comes to making purchase decisions, following retail sites (56%) and brand sites (34%). But it turns out that where brands are spending is not fully aligned with how and where consumers are seeing value and being influenced.

Social media marketing is only 10% of digital marketing budgets

A majority of brand marketers said they count on Facebook to reach influencers — more than half of their social media marketing budget goes to the social network, followed by YouTube and Twitter, with the remaining 11% of their social spend going to blogs and other influencers:

But consumers say they’re more influenced by smaller communities.

They enjoy sharing information, learning from each other, discussing ideas, and communicating with others who have the same interests.

Blogs are the 5th most trustworthy source for information on the Internet.

In terms of shaping consumer opinion, blogs are the third-most influential online service.

Only retail and brand sites rank higher in influencing purchase decisions. Blogs are more important to consumers than Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other social networks. But brands are not taking advantage of this influence when it comes to investing in marketing initiatives.

Brands work with these metrics when deciding which influencers to work with.

65% of brands participate in influencer-based marketing. When it comes to selecting which influencers to work with, brands are using metrics like comScore and Nielsen indices, Twitter and Facebook following, and basic blog statistics.

Influencers use different metrics to measure their own success.

Blog/website page views rank highest (52%) among influencers. Social following (Facebook likes, Twitter followers) and user interactions (comments) also rate highly among influencers, as do Facebook likes and Twitter followers.

Do you want to be an influencer? You need to start blogging.

What are you waiting for? This information about huge impact of blogging on purchases should be a catalyst for changing the way you leverage social media marketing for your brand.

Check out the full report to gain more insight into how to use digital marketing to reach your target audience.

Blogs Influence Consumer Spending More Than Social Networks is a post by Pam Dyer on Pamorama | Social Media Marketing Blog.