Google+ Marketing Archives

Google+ Marketing

8 Tips for Optimizing Posts on Social Media

May 21, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Optimizing posts on social media can significantly boost your engagement, reach and influence across a number of networks.

When it comes to optimizing posts on social media, there are certain elements that are universal, and should be applied to posts on every one of your networks. Below we have showcased some of the most important tips when it comes to optimizing posts on social media.

Engage Your Audience

No matter where you are posting, you should be sharing content that engages your audience. Sure, sharing fun facts and information is important, but are you following that up with a related question? Where is the incentive to get your audience commenting, liking, sharing and talking? It is always going to be important that you keep engagement in mind no matter where you are posting.

Optimize Your Content for SEO

Each network contains different elements for SEO. (To find out more about those in detail, read some of these articles.) It is important that SEO is on your checklist when it comes to social media. Each network possesses different benefits when it comes to SEO, and in order to increase your findability, you need to incorporate those into your posting strategy.

Maintain Your Voice

The voice you create for your brand on social media needs to be clear in everything you write. Consistency is going to be crucial to getting your message across. After all, on social media, people are engaging with your brand’s personality, not simply your company. By maintaining that personality across all of your posts, people will be all the more willing to engage with you.

Consistency is Important

A posting spree followed by weeks of silence is going to hurt your brand. Consistently sharing relevant content with your network will keep your brand on the forefront of their mind, and it will do wonders when it comes to converting those fans into customers. Furthermore, sharing content on a regular basis will encourage visitors to return to your page frequently.

Make Sure You Are Linking Back

Social signals are of ever-growing importance in the world of SE (see the point above) and using social media as a back-linking strategy is going to be a big asset. When creating content on any of your chosen networks, be sure that you are linking back to your site whenever possible. As your build your network, this will serve as one of the most important linking strategies you have in place.

Engage in Conversations

Social networks are great for broadcasting your brand and showcasing your expertise, but the best way to see your referral traffic skyrocket is by engaging in the conversation with your network on your own posts. When someone responds to a tweet, post or update on any of your channels, you should engage with them. Whether it is a retweet, a share, or a simple ‘Like’, people will appreciate a reciprocal effort to engage.

Explain Your Links

Simply sharing a link with no explanation as to where it is going will mean a low click-through rate. Create a short but enticing description to go along with your link. Perhaps as a question that encourages the reader to find out more. When linking on social networks, provide readers with a reason to click on it.

Be Visual

There is a reason why Pinterest is so popular – human beings are visual by nature. Google+ is a great place to share images, and on Facebook, photos generate 104% more comments than the average post, and 53% more Likes. Use the visual nature of most social networks to your advantage, and get your content seen.

These are just a few tips you can use when looking to optimize the content you share on social media. Can you offer any other tips? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: Big Value in Company Pages

May 10, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social Equity receives a major boost with the added value from company pages on different networks.

From LinkedIn to Facebook, there is a way to feature your company, its services, history and expertise on almost every network. the result? Major Social Equity.

In this week’s Social Equity segment, we look at how company pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube add value to your business.

Facebook and Google+

We all know about Pages on Facebook and Google+. But with so much taking place on the networks, it is easy for your content to get lost in the noise. The most frustrating part? You might have some great content and a product that attracts a lot of potential customers. Having Facebook and Google+ Pages allows those leads to find everything you are offering in one central place.

Facebook takes a lot of criticism for their EdgeRank algorithm. But the truth is, EdgeRank provides a means of filtering out the noise so that those who “Like” your page, product and content have all of the information you share to the pages featured on their news feed.

The value in Facebook and Google+ Pages is simple: these are hubs that allow reciprocal engagement between your brand and fans in a central place while offering you a chance to share content towards which they have expressed an interest. On the plus side (that’s a pun, considering the point that follows) +1 and shares from your pages add a considerable benefit to your SEO, which further derives value to your business.

The Company Page on LinkedIn is the strongest in terms of adding value to your business.

First, there is the Services tab. The ability to showcase your products and services to an engaged audience disrupts the conventional model of print advertising. Furthermore, the ability to link these sections to appropriate landing pages means both the ability to create backlinks and the ability to drive sales and traffic through LinkedIn.

Second, there is the ability to build a following on your page (as with other networks) and share content to those followers in an effort to drive new business. Unlike Facebook and Google+, LinkedIn offers the ability to broadcast and showcase your business to the engaged audience following your page. Users are following you knowing that LinkedIn is a medium in which companies aim to derive new business, and an active, engaging and popular page translates into Social Equity.

YouTube

A YouTube channel is an important feature, and one that can be very beneficial both in terms of its value to your business’s image and your overall Social Equity.

The ability to centralize all of your videos means two things: first, viewers can easily find your videos and, on the channel, discover more about your business and research your company further, outside of YouTube. Second, the optimization of a channel and your videos can be a tremendous SEO tool. Lone videos in the YouTube universe can easily disappear. With a discoverable, optimized channel, your business is easily showcased to your audience in video form.

Effectively, the true value of all of these pages lies in the disruption they cause to conventional marketing. No longer are you required to focus on print marketing. These pages are your corporate portfolio, and they are live, evolving elements that continually showcase your business.

In which social media company pages do you find the most value? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: How Google+ Adds Value to Your Business

April 12, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Many people do not believe in the power of Google+, but when it comes to Social Equity, the network cannot be ignored.

With regards to Google+, a great degree of the power of the network is derived from the reality that Google+ is owned by Google. Anything with the Google backing is automatically worth your consideration, and there is an inherent element of Social Equity added to your business because of it. But to simply say that the Social Equity of Google+ is derived from the fact that it is operated by Google is superficial and, more importantly, a misstatement.

In this Social Equity segment, we aim to define where the value of Google+ lies, and how businesses can profit from a presence on Google’s social network.

The Power of Google

As noted above, to simply state that Google+ matters because of Google is both true and false. It is the favouritism that Google will undoubtedly show signals coming from it’s own network over others that marketers need to be conscious of.

In last week’s Social Equity segment, we discussed the value added to your business from a linkage of SEO and social media. Google+ plays a major role from this perspective due to the fact that +1s on Google+ automatically register to the network as social signal backlinks. That’s a powerful feature. The fact that activity on Google+ can increase your search rankings means an inherent degree of Social Equity. But where Google+ truly stands out is in its Communities.

Google+ Communities

One of the main criticisms of businesses when it comes to Facebook has to do with the EdgeRank system. Effectively, the EdgeRank system is a complex filtration algorithm that prevents “unwanted” content from appearing in your timeline. Why does “unwanted” have quotes around it? Well, the EdgeRank system determines, based on engagement rates and other factors, what that content is; not you. So essentially, a page may publish a piece of content that you might be interested in, but because of the EdgeRank system, it may not show up on your timeline and the company might lose out on a prospective customer. Bad for business.

With Google+ Communities, there is no risk of this happening. When people join these communities, it is because they all share a common interest. Thus, it is assumed that everyone wants to see all of the content being posted to a group’s feed. So where is the Social Equity? Every bit of content you post to Google+ is seen by those who have shown interest in said content, whether that interest is by joining a community or following your page.

An unlimited potential for exposure means that you can constantly be targeting individuals who have come to you. Google+ is a pseudo-inbound marketing funnel. Considering inbound marketing is 62% more efficient than traditional marketing, it is no wonder there is value added to your business from a presence on Google+.

Despite the wealth of criticism Google+ is subjected to, it endures. The fact of the matter is, with the backing of Google and highly valuable abilities when it comes to social media for business, there is a degree of Social Equity involved with Google+ that no other network offers.

How do you find value added to your business as a result of Google+ marketing? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Hints: Best Times to Post

March 20, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media is a worldwide network, but every aspect of that network – from Facebook, to LinkedIn, to Twitter – is different, and as a result there will be different posting strategies employed in each.

Social media marketing is all about expanding your reach at every turn. Considering the vastness of your audience, it would be devastating to waste a solid piece of content on a dormant audience. As we like to say, if a post falls on social media at the wrong time, will anybody see it?

We thought that it might be helpful to break down where and when you should be posting based on best times to post by network. Before you can employ these tips, however, you need to answer two questions. First, what are the features of the audience you are hoping to target? In other words, what demographics are you targeting? Second, where does you content best fit when it comes to social media? Once you have established answers to these two important questions, then you can apply these tips and see your reach skyrocket on social media!

Best Times to Post

People are constantly asking what the best times to post on social media are, and the reality is that the easy answer is, “It depends.” Who are you looking to target? Night owls? Then these general data will not apply to your niche. However, based on amalgamated survey data, these are the best times to post to different social networks.

Facebook

For Facebook, traffic hits a peak between 1p.m. and 4p.m. The best time for traffic on the social network is Wednesdays at 3p.m. On the other hand, posting first thing in the morning (as people are getting to work) and between 8p.m. and 8a.m. will leave your post stranded on Facebook with few, if any, being reached.

Twitter

What is important to note for Twitter is that business hours are key, with an emphasis on the afternoon (1p.m.-3p.m. more specifically). After 11a.m., traffic on Twitter begins to build and by mid- to late-afternoon, it reaches its zenith. However, posting in the late afternoon on Fridays, or between 8p.m. and 9a.m. will, once again, leave your tweets with few users engaged.

Leading up to and away from business hours is when you stand to see the highest exposure on LinkedIn. From 7a.m.-9a.m. and 5p.m.-6p.m. is when your reach will be maximized on the social network, while 10p.m.-6a.m. will generate the least exposure. Traffic also tends to fade during business hours on LinkedIn, and Mondays and Fridays are statistically a little quieter than the rest of the week.

Google+

Google+ is most active during business hours, with a peak being hit between 9a.m. and 11a.m. However, as you head out of the business day, traffic tends to slow and doesn’t pick up until the following morning. Evening posts generate the lowest reach on Google+.

Pinterest is where the night owls show up. (Well, also the afternoon owls.) Traffic on Pinterest begins to build after noon, and peaks between 2p.m. and 4p.m. and again between 8p.m. and 1a.m. However, avoid posting to Pinterest during dinner hours! Between 5p.m. and 7p.m. is when your exposure stands to be the lowest, and the same holds true for the couple of hours leading up to dinner. But Saturday morning is the Pinterest gold mine – this is the point in the week where the network has its highest traffic.

Now, these are all the hours where your content stands to garner the most exposure due to the traffic on the social networks. However, consider in your strategy whether you want to be competing at peak hours, or if you would rather be one of the few competing for attention in non-peak hours. For example, the weekend may not be the busiest time of the week for Facebook, but there is still a large audience on the network and very few businesses posting to it. Furthermore, there is a higher share ratio on Facebook on the weekend. Think about it!

When have you found is the best time to post to different social networks? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter! And don’t forget to ‘Like’ us on Facebook!

Google+ Marketing Explained [INFOGRAPHIC]

February 15, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Google+ marketing can be an excellent tool, but you need to understand the social network in order to execute an effective strategy.

There is a ton to know about Google+ in order to effectively execute a Google+ marketing strategy. That explains the length and detail of this excellent infographic. Considering Google+ has the backing of search giant Google, it is no wonder there is so much intricacy involved in understanding the social network.

In the last couple of years, Google+ has exploded with regards to membership. Now whether or not these numbers are inflated due to the fact that Google+ automatically signs Gmail users up is not the point. The fact of the matter is, there are hundreds of millions of members on the network, and whether or not you plan on engaging with them, having a Google+ marketing strategy in place will help you with your search rankings.

Have a look below and learn exactly why Google+ marketing is important to both your social marketing strategies as well as your SEO efforts.

How are you using Google+ marketing in your social media strategies? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Best Mobile Tools for Social Media Marketing

February 12, 2013/by Corey Padveen

When you’re on the go, what are the best mobile tools you can use to manage your social media marketing?

Social media marketing is no 9-5 gig; far from it. When we’re on the go, we need to have access to our dashboards and accounts, because social media is all about real-time engagement. If we miss an opportunity to engage, we might be missing an opportunity to acquire and possibly convert a new customer.

With that in mind, what are some of the best tools we can use when it comes to mobile social media marketing? The app store is filled with some great (and almost all free) business apps that can help us efficiently run our social media programs when we’re out of the office. Have a look below for a list of some of the social media marketing apps we think are the best.

Facebook Pages

The Facebook Pages app is an excellent tool for monitoring your company or fan pages on the go. The app allows for nearly all the same insights and features as your admin when using your Facebook pages on a desktop. You can view insights, receive notifications, and even monitor the success of campaigns as they are executed. This is a particularly great tool for marketers managing client pages. This allows you to be away from the computer and still engaging with your clients’ customers and fans in real time.

HootSuite Mobile

HootSuite is a favorite among marketers when it comes to social media marketing management. It is an easy-to-use, efficient dashboard that incorporates the majority of the most popular social networks. Considering the vast number of users, it is no wonder that they have developed an excellent mobile app. The HootSuite mobile app allows users to manage a number of profiles from their phone. Granted, there are not as many options available on the mobile version as there are on the desktop dashboard (it is effectively just Facebook and Twitter at the moment) but it does give you some of the same capabilities as the desktop version.

iDashboard

Google Analytics is a vital tool. And while we may not necessarily need to constantly access it in real time on-the-go, it is still nice to have the option. And the option of using iDashboard is a nice one. The Google Analytics app (paid version) has a ton of great features. Not only can you access all of your Analytics accounts, you can also look into specific data regarding traffic, referral data, social monitoring, and much more! So when you need a quick bit of information when you’re on the road, the iDashboard has it for you.

Foursquare for Business

The Foursquare for Business app allows owners of a business (or businesses) and marketers to claim locations, and create and monitor campaigns as the move. As they expand their business frontier, Foursquare is looking to make it as easy as possible for marketers to access the social network for business purposes wherever they are. It is for that reason that they developed the app. So whether you’re monitoring your own location or a client’s, you can do it from anywhere with the Foursquare for Business app.

These are just a few of the great apps available for running your social media marketing on the fly. There is no shortage of other apps, including stand alone apps for Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn and more. What are some of your favorite social media marketing apps? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Fun Facts and Stats

January 28, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media is constantly evolving and at shockingly high rates; these numbers prove that.

Over the course of the last few years, social media has made its way into virtually every aspect of our lives. As such, in this short period of time we have seen some unprecedented numbers when it comes to social media. Below are a few fun facts and figures as they relate to social media as a whole and by network.

Social Media

Roughly one third of bloggers are mothers.
There are more devices connected to the Internet than there are people on Earth.
40% of people spend more time socializing on social networks than they do face-to-face.
AllTwitter reports that every minute of the day:
- 100,000 tweets are sent.
- Over 680,000 pieces of content are shared on Facebook.
- 2 million queries are made on Google.
- 3,600 photos are shared on Instagram.
- Over $270,000 is spent online by consumers.
22.5% of time spent online is spent on social media networks.
70% of adults on social networks shop online.
53% of adults on social networks follow a brand.
57% of marketers say they have acquired a customer as a result of blogging.
44% of marketers say they have acquired a customer from Twitter.
The use of social media has increased more than 350% since June 2006.
65% of traffic on Pinterest is from the United States.
Blogs increase web traffic by 55% for companies.
35% of the comments on brand Facebook Pages are compliments.
Over half of all mobile searches lead to a purchase.
90% of mobile searches lead to some sort of action.

Facebook

Facebook users combined spend over 10.5 billion minutres on the social media network every day.
Only half of all Facebook users have over 100 friends.
People spend over twice as much time on Facebook as they do on Google every month.
AllFacebook reports that in an analysis of over 60 Facebook marketing campaigns, 49 percent reported a return on investment of more than five times, while 70 percent had a return on investment greater than three times.
Less than 0.5% of Facebook users engage with the brands they are fans of in a given week.
20% of Facebook have made a purchase as a result of an ad or post they saw on the social network.
Half of all smartphones are connecting to Facebook every hour of every day.

Twitter

There are over half a billion registered accounts on Twitter but only 140 million active users.
15% of adults user Twitter.
29% of the Twitter user base is between the ages of 18-29, the largest demographic on the network.
Users aged 30-49 represent 14% of people on Twitter and 50-64, 9%.
The average number of followers for any Twitter user is 27.
A quarter of all Twitter accounts have no followers.
40% of Twitter accounts have never sent a tweet.
79% of Twitter users are more likely to recommend a brand they follow.
67% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from a brand they follow.
57% of businesses that use social media use Twitter.

61% of LinkedIn users use the social media network as their primary professional networking site.
81% of LinkedIn users belong to at least one group.
82% of users are aware of ads available on LinkedIn.
60% of users on LinkedIn have clicked on an ad feature on the site.
90% of surveyed LinkedIn users find the site to be helpful.
61% of LinkedIn users are registered for the free version of the network.

Mobile

10% of Internet usage worldwide is now done via mobile smartphones.
Roughly one quarter of the world’s 4 billion mobile devices are smartphones.
Nearly 8% of web traffic in the United States is mobile traffic.
29% of mobile users are willing to scan mobile codes (i.e. QR codes) to receive specials and promotions.
39% of consumers who leave a store without making a purchase are influenced by mobile.
91% of mobile access to the web is done for social networking purposes.
Over one third of Facebook users and half of Twitter users access the social networks via their mobile devices.
QR code scans increased 300% year over year from 2010 to 2011.
73% of smartphone users access social networks using mobile apps at least once per day.
One in ten dollars spent on e-commerce in the United States is done on mobile devices.
87% of the world’s population subscribes to a mobile device.

Social Media for Business

27% of small and 34% of medium businesses are using social media for business (expected to reach over 75% in the next three years).
MarketingMag reports that 25% of SMBs have no strategy and only 28% of small and 24% of medium businesses measure their ROI of social media activity.
83% of socially savvy consumers have walked away from a purchase in the past year after a negative customer service experience – compared with 49% of everyone else.
Of businesses using social media, 80% are using it to monitor and extract data related to competitors.
Only 44% of customer questions on twitter are answered within 24 hours.
56% of customer tweets to companies are being ignored – that’s much too high!
55% of consumers share their purchases socially on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social sites.
59% of Pinterest users have purchased an item they saw on the site.
33% of Facebook users have purcahsed an item they saw on their news feed or a friend’s wall.
79% of Pinterest users are more likely to purchase items they’ve seen on Pinterest.
64% of Facebook users have clicked on a Facebook ad.
87% of the Fortune 100 now use social media – with Twitter being the most popular social media network.
75% of the Fortune 100 are on Facebook.
50% of Fortune 100 companies have a Google+ account.
25% of Fortune 100 companies have a Pinterest account.
Facebook is the number one social marketing tool for brands at 83%.
On average companies respond to only 30% of social media fans’ feedback.
40% of young workers rate access to social media at work above receiving a higher salary!
Over 50% of workers aged over 50 use social media every day at work.
94% of corporates use social media and 85% say it’s given their business more exposure.
74% of brand marketers saw an increase in website traffic after investing just 6 hours per week on social media.
65% of corporate marketers use social media to gain market intelligence.
70% of brands ignore complaints on Twitter.
83% of people who complained on Twitter loved the response from those companies that did make the effort.
Only 26% of businesses regularly include a call to action in their tweets.
42% of marketers believe Facebook is critical or important to their business.
Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing.
80% of US social network users prefer to connect to brands through Facebook.
Facebook is responsible for 86% of social referrals, Pinterest 11% and Twitter 3%.
Over 25% of Twitter users would consider contacting a business via the platform.
39% of companies do not track their social media responses at all, and 55% ignore all customer feedback on Twitter and Facebook, largely because they have no process in place to respond.

That’s a ton of information! Social media is growing more and more important to business every year. We are still at a stage where entry barriers are low and the benefits of using social media for your business are notable and impressive. The proof is in the numbers! Which of these statistics did you find to be the most impressive? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Optimizing Social Media Strategies: 5 Tips to Maximize Success

January 2, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Why worry about mowing the lawn when your house is on fire?

Social media strategies require a great deal of planning in order for their execution to generate success. While the statement above may seem a tad extreme, it holds very true: why worry about the less industry-relevant networks when you should be focusing your efforts more heavily on other ones? Below are a few tips and pointers that should help you understand how to organize your social media strategies in order to focus your social media efforts where they stand to generate the best results.

1. A Presence on the Big 4 Is Important, but Focus Shouldn’t be Uniform

Having your brand or business present across all of the Big 4 (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn) is important, but the focus of your social media strategies should not be uniform across all four of these networks. For certain industries, some of these networks prove to be far more important than others, and your time should be well divided among these four so that those networks apt for your industry receive more attention than those that are not. Below is a great breakdown from the experts at HubSpot detailing where a large number of industries are focusing their efforts, and should give you an idea of how to align your social media strategies when it comes to the Big 4.

2. Think Pinterest Is Just for Visual Industries? Think again.

We recently posted about incorporating Pinterest into your social media strategies, and this article details exactly how you can go about using Pinterest for your business. But if you think that Pinterest is simply about loading pictures for a visually-oriented industry, you might be missing out on an incredible opportunity to capitalize on the social network’s referral power. Our article explains that in great detail, and this pie chart shows a breakdown of the top 10 industry websites to be using Pinterest to drive referral traffic.

[iframe src=”http://infogr.am/Top-10-Industry-Distribution-Using-Pinterest/” width=”550″ height=”805″]

3. Google+ Helps You Target a Niche Audience

There is plenty of literature out there that might suggest Google+ is a waste of time for many businesses looking to optimize their social media strategies. This is simply is not true. A little while back, we posted an article about the new Google+ Communities and how they are revolutionizing the way businesses share content. These Communities offer businesses the ability to target niche audiences made up of people who have all expressed an interest in what you have to offer. Furthermore, the content on these communities is shown to everyone, as it does not follow the same EdgeRank system as Facebook, which limits exposure of some content. That said, Google+ may still not be where you should be focusing all of your time. Have a look at the breakdown below to see which industries are focusing their efforts on Google+, and see if you fall into any of these categories.

[iframe src=”http://infogr.am/Top-10-Industries-on-Google/” width=”550″ height=”805″]

4. Set a Timeline and Stick to It

No, this has nothing to do with your Facebook Timeline. We are talking about a roadmap. One of the most important elements when it comes to successful social media strategies is not rushing through the process. Now that you know where you should be focusing the majority of your efforts, set an execution agenda and stick to it. It is easy to expedite a process when you think you have done everything you set out to do, but monitoring and tweaking your strategy as you go along is par for the course. You should be setting yourself timeframes in which to work in order to ensure that when you are ready to move on to a new social network, you have optimized every aspect of the last one.

Say you begin with Facebook and Twitter accounts. Set up is simple, and publishing content is easy as well. But over time, you may notice, through the use of analytics and insights tools, that certain posts garner more exposure, and certain types of tweets generate more referral traffic and higher click-throughs. Using this information, you will be able to optimize your social media strategies so that when you move on to the second stage, you won’t find yourself overwhelmed with the unresolved issues of the first.

5. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

You might model your social media strategies after some of the more successful campaigns you see out there, and then you might find that your social media strategies are not exploding at the rate you had hoped for. That’s ok. There are two things to keep in mind when running your social media campaigns. First, like anything, it takes time for your efforts to show results. Second, social media is ever-changing and thus, your social media strategies will constantly evolve, and by the time you see major results, your campaigns might be completely different than when you initially launched them. With proper social media strategies in place, however, you stand to see results at a much faster rate than if you launch your campaign blind, and with these tips properly incorporated into your social media strategies, those results will be much greater than the average.

Do you know of any other helpful tips that can help build up a social media campaign? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Leverage YouTube for Your Social Media Strategies

December 29, 2012/by Corey Padveen

YouTube can be a vital part of your social media strategy, but in order for it to drive success you need to be able leverage all of its capabilities.

YouTube users watch over 3 billion hours of video every month. However, those hours are limited to only roughly 30% of the videos uploaded to the video search engine. That’s right – According to James Zern at YouTube, 30% of videos uploaded to YouTube account for 99% of the video views on the website. So how can you get your video into that coveted 30%? There are a few tips you can apply to your social media strategies when it comes to YouTube to better your chances of having your video found and increase your exposure, traffic and social media success. Have a look below for the top 4 ways you can better your social media strategies when it comes to leveraging the power of YouTube.

1. Brand Yourself

This may seem like a simple and obvious tip, but a branded YouTube channel adds a great degree of credibility to your videos and gives you the opportunity to showcase your content with your brand at the forefront. It allows you to post comments as you would on any other social media network, and provide an abundance of links to promote your properties outside of YouTube.

2. Engage with Your Subscribers and Commenters

YouTube affords you the opportunity to develop a virtual community surrounding your content. But while you may have hundreds or even thousands of subscribers and tens of thousands of video views, this community goes to waste if an engagement plan is not a part of your social media strategies with regards to YouTube. Listen to your fans; check comments, trends and subscribers in order to get the most out of your community. Remember, these are people who have come to you because they like what you have to offer. Don’t turn them away by not engaging.

3. Optimize Your YouTube Video

This is the real bread and butter of getting the most out of YouTube. Optimizing your videos does as much as optimizing your site for SEO. YouTube is a search engine. Not only that, but it is the largest site of its kind, backed by Google, and generates the third most traffic of sites on the web. Furthermore, videos are ranked both on Google and on YouTube itself. So, in order for your video to get found, you need to optimize it the same way you would a blog post or website.

First, optimize your content. Originality is crucial when it comes to YouTube. There is virtually endless content on the video search engine, and for yours to stand out, it needs to contain content people want to see. So be original and relevant when it comes to making your video. Second, be wary of your video’s length. Studies show that the optimal length for a video is between 2 and 4 minutes. After this point, analytics show a drop off. With so much going on – both in our lives and online – a 5 or 6 minute video may seem like an eternity. So keep your videos short and to the point.

Third, professionalism is a major factor. If you are a brand or business making a video, you will want to keep it as professional as possible, both in terms of your content and the quality. High quality cameras are no longer a high-priced commodity, and making a professional looking video no longer comes with an astronomical price tag. Fourth and finally, pay attention to the search criteria of your video in order to ensure that it gets found by Google and YouTube. How can you do this? Well, a title with keywords (similar to an h1) is extremely important. This is the first category recognized by search engines. Next comes your description. A video without a description is the equivalent of a web page with out a meta description. This is an area that should be optimized for your keywords and links. After that, traffic will boost your video in the rankings. The number of views and the ratings will help your rankings and bring your video to the top of the list.

4. Check Your Analytics

Once you have reached five subscribers, you will have access to analytics about your audience that provide deep insights about who is watching your videos, where they are dropping off and what audience you appeal to most. This will allow you to tailor content to your demographics, or target new, unreached demographics by creating new content for those groups.

YouTube can be an extremely helpful tool when it comes to getting the most our of your social media strategies, and these tips should help you maximize your efforts on YouTube to help get your content found. Can you think of any other ways you can optimize your YouTube account? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

5 Tips to Optimize Interaction in Your Social Media Marketing

December 27, 2012/by Corey Padveen

What are some ways you can optimize your interaction to maximize your social media marketing efforts?

Social media marketing is about one thing: being social. It is one thing to have a Facebook page, a Twitter or YouTube account or any other social profile, but if you are not engaging, you are not reaping the benefits that social can offer. Perhaps what is most important is to realize that your social media strategies and social interactions should not be confined to the individual social networks alone – you need to incorporate your social media strategies into your web strategy.

Below are a few helpful pointers that you can use to optimize your social interactions and get the most out of your social media marketing strategies.

1. Incorporate Social Media Into Your Site

It may sound intuitive, but you would be surprised to find how few brands incorporate their social media into their websites. If you are looking to optimize interaction with leads and clients, your social media marketing efforts must go beyond social networks themselves. By simply incorporating social media into your website, you are extending the ability to interact with your brand beyond social networks themselves, and opening up a whole new realm of possibilities when it comes to lead engagement.

2. Don’t Forget the Little(r) Guy

Everyone knows about the Big 4: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn. But there is a ton of potential when it comes to smaller, or less frequently used social networks like Google+ and Pinterest. With the growth Pinterest has seen in the last year, it won’t be long before it is added to the Big 4 to make it the Big 5, but until that happens, it is still one of the most overlooked social media networks despite the tremendous potential it holds when it comes to growing your brand.

A little while back, we posted an article about the benefits of Google+ to your business. With the added benefit of being integrated with both YouTube and search giant Google, Google+ offers certain benefits to SEO that other social media networks do not. So remember, as your social media marketing grows, don’t forget the little guys.

3. Focus On Your Blog

HubSpot conducted a study some time ago and put together a few impressive marketing statistics that should not go unnoticed. One of their key findings was that companies that blog get 55% more web traffic than companies that don’t. Take a survey of every brand in the world, and we bet that increasing exposure by 55% is something every one of them would agree they want to do. Now, operating a blog with consistent and engaging content being published is not the easiest thing to do. It takes a time and resource commitment, but the numbers show that it is one of the most effective ways to increase your audience and get them engaged with your brand on-site.

4. Reward Your Fans

People like being rewarded for their efforts. By rewarding fans for their engagement, you prompt a much higher interaction rate with your brand than if you simply wait for engagement to increase organically. There are a few ways of doing this, like caption contests, promotions on different social networks, and there are even plugins with different CMS tools that allow you to reward fans for high levels of engagement. One example of this is Achievements for BuddyPress offered on WordPress. This is a simple app modeled after the concept of achievements and rewards available in video games. It is as simple as fans engaging with a brand and receiving badges and awards for high engagement rates. And putting this campaign together is as simple as installing the plugin.

5. Any Press is Good Press – Especially if it is Good Press

Review sites are a great way to get found. Reviews are taken into account heavily by search engines, and the more positive they are the better. This last tip is a bit of a two-fold pointer. Social media is a great way to conduct customer service. It is a public forum, and if done right, people will want to work with your brand is they see you are professional, courteous and helpful when it comes to helping your customers in real time on social media. If you can do this, encourage your audience to post reviews on sites like Yelp!. Again, these are very helpful when it comes to getting found, and the more positive they are they more authority your brand has.

Can you think of any other ways brands can optimize their engagement using social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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