Social media really is most effective when you put together a strategy, have a plan for implementation and can devote at least an hour per day to engagement and content production. The reality is, most small businesses just can’t find an hour per day (sometimes even per week). While it may not be the most effective way to use social media, just 15 minutes per day can gain you some benefits. Here’s how: [Read more...]
Jan
12
2011
Why Understanding Your Customers is Vital to Your Social Media Strategy
Whenever I help a company with a digital or social media strategy, we spend a lot of time defining the business and understanding their customers. Why? Because understanding your customers is vital to the success of any marketing strategy, online or off. Who your customers are, what they care about, what their needs are all dictate how you should be using social media in order to engage and have conversations. Any type of marketing is more effective if you’re reaching the right people with the right message in the right places. Understanding your customers will help you be more effective in your social media strategy and increase engagement with the right people.
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Jan
03
2011
7 Social Media Resolutions to Improve Customer Engagement
Being on social media is nothing new. A lot of businesses are on social media. Many are even spending a lot of time and effort on social media. But are they using social media to actually engage their customers? Treating social media as another advertising channel is a big mistake. Here are some social media resolutions that can improve your customer engagement and lead to true return on investment (ROI).
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Dec
16
2010
Indicators of Increasing Brand Loyalty in Social Media
Yesterday’s post dealt with using social media to increase brand loyalty. But how do you know if what you’re doing is working? It can be challenging to measure brand loyalty since it often hides amongst other activities like engagement and plain old interest in your content. Unfortunately, there’s not a metric that points completely to brand loyalty, but there are a few indicators that you’re on the right path.
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Dec
03
2010
Tips for Finding the Right People on Twitter
The best results on any communications channel happen when you’re talking to the right people with the right message. Blindly following everyone on Twitter, in hopes that they’ll follow you back, may get you a large following (if they do follow back), but it may not be the right people. All your efforts will be wasted and you’ll wonder why Twitter isn’t working for you. (This concept applies to other communication channels too.) Building on yesterday’s post about why no one is following you on Twitter, here are some tips for finding the right people on Twitter in order to start up the right conversations:
[Read more...]
Dec
02
2010
17 Reasons Why No One is Following You on Twitter
As I was going through my new Twitter followers this morning, viewing each profile and timeline, I started thinking about why many did not have a lot of followers. I think these types of mistakes are made by many first-time Twitter users, especially when they try to use Twitter for the same marketing and advertising they do in other channels. Here are some reasons people may not be following you on Twitter (or why it seems like you’re talking to yourself):
[Read more...]
Nov
29
2010
Stand Out with a Custom Facebook Page
Facebook! Facebook! Facebook! With so many people spending so much time on Facebook, businesses are clamoring to get a Facebook page set up to get in front of all those eyeballs. While people spend time on Facebook primarily conversing with friends and family, some companies have had luck attracting some attention by customizing their pages. All sorts of integrations can be done with other content and social networks in order to increase engagement. Let’s look at a few:
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Nov
23
2010
Considerations for Using Facebook for Business
Businesses get really excited about Facebook when they see news like:
The amount of content consumption taking place on the popular social network has also grown substantially where nearly 1 in 4 page views in the US took place on Facebook.com for the week ending November 13, 2010. The market share of page views for Facebook.com was 24.27% last week, 3.8x the volume of the 2nd ranked website YouTube.com with 6.39%. – Facebook.com generates nearly 1 in 4 page views in the US | Hitwise
Oct
27
2010
Networking on Steroids
Pretty much anyone will agree that networking is important, whether or not you’re in business for yourself. Most of us will put networking events on our calendars and make an effort to attend, at least occasionally. If we agree that networking is important, why then are we so hesitant to connect with these same people online? One of the best ways to have conversations online is to connect with people you’ve already met offline.
[Read more...]
Oct
19
2010
Klout Adds Facebook to Influence Measurement
Klout recently added Facebook into its influence measurement (which previously was looking mostly at Twitter). Even after recalculating my Klout score from time to time, it didn’t move from my initial score until I added in my Facebook profile. The Facebook integration still doesn’t look at any fan pages (just your profile), but does provide some useful information. After my previous review, my complaint about Klout using only bit.ly’s data for clicks on links is still an issue — if you don’t happen to use bit.ly to shorten your links, Klout has no data about them, and this may negatively affect your influence score. Let’s look at what information the Facebook integration has added….
[Read more...]
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