Scary Fun Facts About Social Business and Commerce

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It’s that time of year again, and we thought we would share some ‘scary’ fun facts about social business to keep with the spirit of Halloween!

facts about social media halloweenWait, how can something be scary and fun at the same time? Well, for businesses that are leveraging the possibilities that social business presents, these facts are a lot of fun. For those that have not yet invested in social initiatives, seeing that they are missing out on these facts about social business is very, very scary.

The Pinterest Witch Has Cast a Spell

A spell on female consumers, to be exact. On Pinterest, 47% of women say that they have made a purchase based on a recommendation they saw on the network. Considering that women make up a vast majority of Pinterest users, you can see why that might be an opportunity one would be terrified to miss.

People Are Trapped on Facebook

People are spending over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. Hours of time online is being devoted to one website. So the billions of other pages on the web need to compete for the attention of this Facebook user base. Rather than trying to direct their attention elsewhere, wouldn’t it just be easier to make your presence known within a community that is already active and highly engaged?

We Are Brainwashed By Cats

Over 6 billion hours of video are watched every month on YouTube alone! So whether you are creating videos for your audience or advertising in the video space, you know that there is at least one hour per person on Earth where you can be found on YouTube.

Shopping Zombies Hungry for Information (Kind of like Brains, I Guess)

Research shows that 40% of consumers compare prices on their mobile devices before making a purchasing decision. It also shows that 64% of consumers have made a purchase from a brand because of a digital experience (web site, social presence, email, etc.). Consumers are looking to the web for information and a positive user experience. If you do not have a presence there, you can rest assured that your chances of getting someone’s business decrease dramatically.

Scared yet? The importance of engaging with your audience and becoming a social business has never been greater. People are looking to each other and to brands in order to make purchasing decisions. If you are not a part of the conversation, you are not a part of the market. Now that’s scary stuff.

How are you conquering your fears and becoming a social enterprise? Find out how t2 can help you here.

We would love to know what facts you find interesting, and be sure to send us a picture of your costume on Twitter! Happy Halloween!

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Social Intelligence Says To Invest in a Social Advertising Campaign

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Social media is not free; if you want to succeed, you need to be prepared to invest in a social advertising campaign.

social advertising campaignHave you made the mistake of thinking that social media is ‘free’? You’re not alone. Plenty of people – marketers and businesspeople alike – have made the dangerous mistake of assuming that because you can create an account or page on a social network for free – from a financial investment perspective – that succeeding with the platform is going to be free as well. If you want to find success with social media, you need to be prepared to invest in a social advertising campaign.

Recently, Adobe released their Q3 Social Intelligence Report. In it, they outlined a lot of very interesting details. For example, people are beginning to engage more. Although brands only increased their post number by 9% year-over-year, engagement has jumped up 115% in the same time period.

Though despite all of these interesting stats, there was one point that stood out above the rest: paid social is on the rise. There were a few ways in which the report made this clear.

We have found ourselves at a wonderful point in time (as marketers and advertisers) where the world’s largest network is trying to justify it’s price tag. So, economically speaking, how do you increase demand? Why, you decrease price, of course!

A few of the key findings below show why now is the time to invest in a social advertising campaign and reap major benefits.

CPC and CTRs

The cost-per-click (CPC) for ads on Facebook has gone down considerably in the last year – down by 40%, to be exact. Meanwhile, click-through rates on Facebook ads (CTR) have gone up by a whopping 275%! By creating an optimized ad and sharing to the right people in the right places, you could reap some major benefits from the advertising platform.

CPM and ROI

The cost per thousand impressions (CPM) for Facebook ads has increased. And understandably so – there are over a million sets of a thousand users you can reach out to. That said, targeting capabilities have become increasingly specific in the last year and as a result, measured return on investment (ROI) has seen a jump of 58% in the last year. So, while it might be more expensive to reach large numbers of people, if you pick your audience properly, you can see significant returns.

Click Volume and Impressions Growth

Great news advertisers! As ads become more prevalent on the network, so do impressions (naturally) and clicks (interesting!). That’s right, people are clicking on sponsored ads as they become more frequent. So you might hear people say they don’t want to see any advertising on their favorite social network, but if it is done correctly, you can expect that they will not only accept it, but click on it.

Now is the time to capitalize on the returns that can be generated from Facebook’s huge network of users. Your brand should not let this opportunity fall by the wayside. You can and should strongly consider investing in a social advertising campaign today. Find out how t2 can help here.

There are a lot more great facts and figures that marketers might find interesting in this study. Which one do you think is most important or interesting? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

6 Best Practices for LinkedIn Company Pages

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There are certain best practices for LinkedIn Company Pages that brands need to adhere to in order to generate engagement and business.

best practices for linkedinLinkedIn is a fantastic resource wherein professionals can showcase their expertise and highlight their strengths. For businesses, Company Pages provide a hub where brands can outline services, engage with prospects and ultimately, drive brand awareness and sales. In order to do that, however, there are certain best practices for LinkedIn that these brands needs to follow.

The six simple best practices detailed below should help brands harness the benefits that LinkedIn has to offer.

Fill Out Every Section

Your page consists of a services section, where you can highlight the services your brand offers and share pictures that make your page more aesthetically pleasing and more dynamic. Do not leave anything out. Your page is there to showcase your brand and all that you offer. Let potential clients know what you can do!

Be Relevant

Keep in mind that unlike Facebook or Google+, LinkedIn is all about business. Your LinkedIn Company Page is not a place to share the same type of content you would share to your Facebook page. Sure, there will be some overlap, but you only want to be sharing content that your audience will find relevant. Remember, they followed your brand because they like the professional content that you share.

Separate Content Schedule

You might find that sharing 20 updates to Twitter per day works for your brand, and a half a dozen Facebook updates generates quite a bit of engagement. LinkedIn is going to be a rather different story. People following your brand on LinkedIn are not going to appreciate being bombarded with content throughout the day. A less frequent content schedule is going to be adequate on LinkedIn.

Engage with Your Audience

Monitor your page’s activity to see what type of content is generating clicks, shares and comments and engage with your audience. LinkedIn recently made it possible to post content and comments as a page. Take advantage of this feature and make your brand’s presence known. Just because LinkedIn is all about business, does not mean it is any less social!

Create Market-Specific Pages

LinkedIn allows users to create landing pages on their Company Page for specific market segments. Say, for example, that you offer certain services to the retail industry and another set of services for the manufacturing industry. When users from these two industries visit your LinkedIn Company Page, they can land on pages that have been designed specifically for their industry. Not only does this provide them with the best user experience, but it also helps reflect your brand’s diversity and attention to customer needs.

Pay Attention to Your Analytics

On your Company Page, you have the ability to monitor all of the analytics on your posts. See what has generated clicks and comments, and what was ignored by your audience. Modify your content strategy as you would on any other network in order to ensure that you are only sharing content that your audience finds most valuable.

These six best practices for LinkedIn Company Pages should help you increase the activity and business you see on LinkedIn.

How else are you optimizing your LinkedIn strategy? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

The Anatomy of a Perfect Tweet [VIDEO]

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To call something perfect is a bold statement, but these are the features that need to be included in the perfect tweet.

6 Great Blog Content Sources

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These 6 blog content sources are great when you’re looking for fresh, new content.

blog content sourcesIf you have a blog, then you have, at some point or another, wondered where the inspiration for your next great article was going to come from. You’re not alone. Bloggers are always looking for great, new blog content sources. These six great resources should help you find the inspiration you need next time you hit a wall when deciding what you should write about.

Mashable

With everything from mainstream news stories to viral campaigns, Mashable has a ton of great content that can lead to inspiration for a new article. Every section on Mashable’s seemingly endless website has the potential to provide you with the content you need to get started on that next blog post.

Alltop

Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop is an aggregator of the best kind. The site brings together all of the top stories (hence, Alltop) from around the web to provide people with all the information they need and want to know in one location. For bloggers, the site is a great resource to find trending topics that people want to read about.

Scoop.It

This content curation tool is perfect for finding interesting articles and information. By following a targeted group of users, you can be sure to find plenty of great content filling your stream on a regular basis. Again, all it takes is time before you see the title or read the article that leads to you writing your next great article.

Quora

Quora is not only a great place to tout your expertise by answering questions related to your field, but it is also a source for inspiration. Look through the questions being asked in your industry and determine what people are talking about. This could give you a great idea for a post that answers the most popular questions, and could help drive traffic.

Your Social Feeds

Do not underestimate the value of your social feeds. If you take a few minutes to watch shared content fill your news feed on Facebook, your Twitter feed, or any other one of your social networks, you will see a great deal of content that might prove to be a source for your next article. Sure, social media is about being social with friends, but it is also about sharing what interests you. Pay attention to what your friends and followers find interesting, and you just might get a great idea for a blog.

Social Bookmarking Sites

Sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, and Delicious are fantastic resources for great content (and for passing the time, too). Anything in the world wide web that someone finds interesting can easily be bookmarked and found by others. Sift through the content on these social bookmarking sites and it will not be long before you find that piece of content you can use for your next article.

What others ways are using finding content for your blog? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

5 Ways to Use Facebook Graph Search

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Do you know about some of the interesting ways to use Facebook Graph Search?

use facebook graph search The Facebook Graph Search feature was rolled out a little while ago, but has not had quite the impact Facebook was hoping for. The social search tool geared towards providing people with personalized search results and competing with search giants is very impressive, but seldom used. It is a shame, because there are some great ways to use Facebook Graph Search.

While there are a number of features to the tool, we decided to pick five interesting ways to use Facebook Graph Search and highlight how they can be leveraged by individuals and/or marketers.

Search by Keyword, Interest and More

This is nothing new when it comes to search. You can use Facebook Graph Search to look for keywords and find results like Interests, Pages, Communities and more. The difference, however, comes with the personalization based on your profile.

Facebook Graph Search is designed to provide users with the most relevant searches based on their personalities (or, at least, the personalities that have been created in their profile). This is an obvious feature, and nothing out of the ordinary. The helpful aspects come when users start to drill a little deeper.

Filter by Location

Sure, when I do a Google search, it is going to give me the best results based on the location I have set in my Google+ profile. But with Facebook Graph Search, you can specifically indicate where you want your results to target and these results will, once again, be filtered according to your Facebook personality.

Personalize Searches

So, while your results in Graph Search are already personalized for your profile, you can narrow them down even further. Let’s say you look up ‘Mexican restaurants in Los Angeles’ and you generate a list of results. You can then use the filter on the right-hand side to further narrow those results by anything from the type of results to whether or not you, a friend or a group of your friends has ever checked in there.

use facebook graph search 2

Multi-Filtered Search

You want to find as specific a result as possible? Then Graph Search has you covered. When you use Facebook Graph Search, you can be as specific as you like and expect the results to be there. 91% of people trust the recommendations of their friends. That said, sometimes it is easier to search for something online than to text or call that friend. Luckily, Facebook Graph Search is designed to work as a pseudo-referral network.

What does that mean? Well, for example, you can search, ‘Mexican Restaurants in Los Angeles, California my friends like’ and find a list of results. The idea behind this feature was to add value to the ‘Like’ a company received. It also discourages black hat techniques, where brands buy meaningless likes. Now, when someone likes your company, you stand a better chance of being found on Facebook.

Search Through History

Now your brand’s presence and activity is more important than ever. Go to Facebook and type ‘Photos of [YOUR BRAND]’ and see what pops up. Your content library is now directly searchable. You can also add those filters we talked about. Go ahead, try ‘Photos of [YOUR BRAND] [FROM/TAKEN IN/BEFORE/WITH/BY] [MONTH, YEAR/YEAR/LOCATION]’ and see the results. People can search for a whole lot with Graph Search, and that includes your activity, and their activity with your brand.

use facebook graph search 1

For brands, an active presence and a complete profile are now more crucial than ever on Facebook. Think of it like you would SEO. Without your page titles, meta descriptions, alt tags and other SEO must-haves, what would be the point? Would it even make a difference? The same is now true for Facebook. Graph Search is designed to increase the value of Facebook for consumers and brands. To take advantage of this value, you need to optimize your Facebook page the same way you would a website.

These are not the only features that exist with Facebook Graph Search. Users can do a lot more and the feature keeps evolving. While it has yet to make the impact Facebook was hoping for, it is still an impressive feature and one we can expect to see and hear a lot more of.

What is your favorite feature of Facebook Graph Search? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

What’s the Difference Between Paid, Owned and Earned Media?

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We often hear about paid, owned and earned media, but what is the difference between media types and which one is best, if any?

difference between media typesThere is a lot of discussion around paid, owned and earned media, but not everyone knows or understands the difference between media types or which one generates the greatest degree of Social Equity for a brand. While every brand will find that one of these media types may be better than others for achieving certain goals, there are qualities to earned media that far outweigh those to paid and owned.

Paid Media

Wherever you are investing resources in order to have your brand featured – from a multimillion dollar Super Bowl ad to a five dollar ad campaigns on Facebook – you are using paid media.

There are a few great things about paid media. For one, the results are very easily measurable. In order for media companies to charge brands for advertising space, they must provide them with clear metrics of performance and reach. While the response depends on your content, you know how broad of an audience you can reach. Second, the results are more or less immediate.

When you are trying to break into a noisy market, waiting for organic traffic to build can take some time. When you pay to place your ad in front of hundreds, thousands or even millions of potential clients, you can rest assured that your presence in a market will be felt much faster than if you wait for that presence to be felt organically.

While paid media was once the end all be all of marketing and advertising, the social evolution of markets has led to a few issues resulting from the use of paid media. For one, it is not entirely credible. When people see a brand paying for ad space, they tend to ignore it compared to, say, a recommendation. Paid media has also become a very loud marketplace, and with that comes increased expense to make an impact.

Owned Media

Do you have a corporate website? Are you publishing content on a blog or branded social channels? These are forms of owned media. Your brand holds all the cards.

Your owned media are not only going to be a source for sharing original, branded content, but these media will be hubs in which your leads and customers will congregate. Owned media are great spaces in which you can engage your audience and, ultimately, work to generate new clients. These are also cost-efficient, since all expenses are under your control. There are a few downsides, however, to owned media.

As I mentioned above, it is going to be a lot harder and take quite a bit longer for your audience to find you when they you are looking to generate organic traffic. There is also the same issue as with paid media in that people tend not to trust the word of a company over a friend, relative, or former customer. And that brings us to earned media.

Earned Media

Considering the increasingly social nature of the web, earned media is going to be the most fruitful for a brand. Forrester Research defines earned media very simply: “When customers become the brand.” Customer loyalty is going to be your greatest source of growth. If you are able to create brand advocates that speak on behalf of your brand, you will see your business increase dramatically.

Today, 91% of people trust the recommendations of their friends and family. This is earned media. Independent blog articles that talk about your brand positively are going to hold much more weight for prospective buyers than a piece of paid advertising that you are using to generate business.

Of course, there are some risks associated with earned media. You do not have any control over the content, and it may not be entirely accurate. There can also be negative earned media, which is never good. (Although this does give your brand an opportunity to showcase how much you care.) And while it might be hard to measure the exact returns earned media provides, you can rest assured that they are there in some way or another.

Now that you understand the difference between media types, is there one you think is most valuable? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

t2social social medis marketing strategies

8 Annoying Things Brands Do on Twitter

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Twitter is a great platform for communicating with your audience, but try to avoid these annoying things brands do on Twitter!

annoying things brands do on twitterTwitter is a pseudo-broadcast medium – that means that on Twitter, more so than most networks, we can drive traffic to landing pages and soft sell our product. That said, there are still a few annoying things brands do on Twitter, and you should avoid them at all costs.

Stagnant Automation

A lot of individuals and brands automate the messages they send out from their Twitter accounts – it’s not a secret, and if it is done properly, it is not a bad strategy. That said, if you are simply pumping out links and calls-to-action, and nothing of substance, you are going to lose the attention of your followers (and your followers themselves).

Ignore Replies

It is a lot of fun to see that someone has sent you a message. Imagine how great it would feel to have an ongoing conversation! A lot of brands make the mistake of ignoring their followers when a reply is sent. Engage!

Endless Links

Again, Twitter is a pseudo-broadcast medium. That does not mean that you should be sharing nothing but links to your followers. They want something with substance. Show your followers why they should keep following you with great content.

Mystery

What’s worse than always including a link with your posts? Posting nothing but links! For those that do not understand how Twitter works, let’s all get on the same page: nothing says spam like a link with no other content. Tell people what they are clicking through to!

ALL CAPS

Even the heading above is annoying. Seeing a tweet pop up written in all caps might do the job of grabbing my attention, but for all the wrong reasons. Grab attention with brief, enticing messages, not loud, annoying caps.

Retweets Only

There are a lot of people out there who share great content on an ongoing basis, and it might seem like a good idea to retweet that content to show people what you find interesting. But this strategy should be included with your original content. Let the world know what you think. Then throw some great retweets in there as well.

Rapid Fire

Have you ever found yourself sitting on Twitter, watching the tweets go by when all of a sudden your stream is flooded by a dozen tweets from the same account? Few things irk people more than this ‘rapid fire’ style of tweeting. Not only does it annoy your followers, it also hurts your brand. A tweet does not have a very long shelf life. If you expect your content to get any exposure, sending it all out at once is not going to be your best bet.

Spellign Erorrs

If there is one thing that hurts your image, it is spelling and grammar errors in your tweets. Proofread your content. It is only 140 characters. There is really no justifiable excuse as to why your tweets have these errors in them. It simply looks lazy.

Can you think of any other annoying things brands do on Twitter? Tell us about them in the comments below or on Twitter!

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4 Features Every Blog Post Should Have [VIDEO]

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There are some features, simply put, that every one of your blog posts should have.

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