Social Business Archives

Google’s Top Tips for Innovation

November 25, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Sometimes inspiration can be hard to come by, but Google has provided us with some tips for innovation!

In a recent Fast Company article about Google’s Chief Social Evangelist Gopi Kallayil, a few great tips for innovation were shared that marketers, business owners and, frankly, anyone can appreciate. Of the nine excellent principles shared, the following three were the most resonant.

Focus on the User

Perhaps the most important question you can ask yourself when creating something – whether it is a service or an app – is, “Will people use this?”

Too many people are driven by the potential for wealth that they lose focus of the importance of the idea. A ‘million dollar idea’ only exists if there are people out there willing to use your product. Focus on the end user and what they want and need, and the rest will fall into place.

Let Employees Innovate

Let’s say you are building an app. You’re seeing some traction and getting downloads and you think you have it all figured out. What we often forget is that we are sitting on a goldmine of potential and never breaking ground!

Google provides their employees with what they refer to as ’20 percent time’. For those of you not familiar with this concept, it is time that employees can take using company resources to work on passion projects and try to bring them to fruition. You never know what brilliant ideas the people sitting all around might come up with. Give them a chance to find out.

Fail Well

Playing it safe might be the right call from time to time, but if you have never failed, you have never dared yourself to try something innovative. And if you have failed, you have earned something very valuable.

The idea at Google is that if you are going to fail (and yes, you will fail every now and again) learn from your failure. If a project is not doing what it is supposed to do, scrap it. But maintain what works and build from there. Who knows, you might find that a small feature of a larger failed project becomes your next big project. It is all about pushing yourself and letting yourself and your brand take chances.

These are just three of the great lessons we can take from this session. Have a look at the full article here.

What are some of your tips for inspiration? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

6 Great Resources for Blog Content [VIDEO]

November 23, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Looking for inspiration for your next post? Check out these six great resources for blog content!

How to Create Effective Email Subject Lines

November 22, 2013/by Corey Padveen

When running an email campaign, you need to ensure that you create an effective email subject line to get your audience to read on!

The first thing people see when they open up their inboxes are the subject lines of their emails. Generally, these are going to be the deciding factors in whether or not someone is going to open an email or delete it. If you want to find yourself on the better side of those two options, then you need to make sure that you are crafting effective email subject lines.

There are a few best practices when it comes to creating effective email subject lines that should be followed. Take a look below to see what you can do to increase your open rates with a few small tweaks.

Be Clear

People don’t want mystery. It might seem logical: entice your audience with an aura of mystery and they will be more inclined to open your email and read through your content. It is actually the opposite.

Roughly 84% of emails sent are spam. Yes, that’s an actual figure. When you are not clear about what people are going to see when they open up your email, you fall into that 84%. The subject line, “These 5 Facebook Marketing Tips Will Help Drive New Engagement” is much better than, “Want to Make More Money?” The latter screams spam, and you’ll be lucky if you don’t see a large unsubscribe rate as a result.

Avoid Certain Words

Email marketers should know that words like ‘free’ tend to trigger spam filters, but research has shown that there are other words that tend to lower open rates.

MailChimp conducted a study and found that there were three seemingly innocent terms that had generally lower open rates: help, percent off and reminder. If this is the content of your email, include these words in the copy and keep them out of your subject line.

Change Your Newsletter Subject Line

The tricky thing about newsletters – everything from daily to monthly – is that they all eventually start to see diminishing open rates. One way to avoid seeing a drastic drop off is to keep your subject lines fresh with every new email. If you are always sending out an email with the subject line, “My Company’s Weekly Newsletter” it will not be nearly as captivating as, “Major Discoveries Found in New Research This Week”.

The 50 Character Rule

We have to learn to work within tight spaces. If you look at your inbox and an email subject line is a lengthy sentence that ends with an ellipses (…) is that really going to interest you? Are you even going to read the full subject line? Probably not.

With so much we can be doing, reading, watching and working on, we need to capture the attention of our recipients right away. Keep your subject lines short, 50 characters maximum is optimal.

Avoid Flash

“You need to BUY NOW!” is horrible. So horrible. And anything like it is also horrible.

Nobody wants to read whatever is in this email. In fact, the only reason why you might see some opens is because people wanted to click on the unsubscribe link. Avoid flash like CAPS, exclamation points, multiple punctuation (!!!) and anything that might “grab the attention” of your audience. It does, but for all the wrong reasons.

Stick to these best practices and you will certainly see some better performance with your emails. One of the best questions to ask yourself is, “Would I open this email if it came to me?” That question will generally give you the answer you’re looking for.

How do you craft effective email subject lines to increase your open rates? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

What You Need to Know About Showcase Pages on LinkedIn

November 21, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Showcase Pages on LinkedIn are designed to help get the right information out to specific users.

LinkedIn Company Pages are a great asset, but if you are familiar with all of the features of LinkedIn Company Pages then you understand how they might limit a larger corporation’s ability to showcase different divisions or subsidiaries. With the new Showcase Pages on LinkedIn, that is no longer the case.

The idea behind this new feature is to give large companies the ability to showcase a specific product or service as a standalone part of the company. These Showcase Pages will also have the ability to publish unique updates and allow users to follow them individually as opposed to following the whole company. So, in the case of a company like Sony, they can have Showcase Pages for PlayStation that only shares content about the console and another one for their televisions. This way users can follow only what interests them. This also helps companies in understanding their audiences quite a bit better.

So how can your brand use these Showcase Pages on LinkedIn?

All About Organization

Sure, this seems to make the most sense for very large companies with several divisions, but don’t feel like your brand can’t benefit from it as well.

Even smaller companies can use these Showcase Pages, you just need to properly segment your company. If you offer multiple services or products, it might be beneficial to segment them in your Services tab, then create a Showcase Page for your most popular or most profitable product or service.

Use Them Properly

Few things look worse than a page (on any network) that is not being properly utilized. People familiar with social channels can spot these misuses right away and it reflects poorly on the brand. The same is going to apply to these Showcase Pages.

Do not create a Showcase Page for every single product you offer. What’s more, seriously consider if the Showcase Page is even going to make sense to you. Research the feature than make an educated decision as to whether or not it works and, if it does, how you can use it.

Plan Your Content

The content you share to your Showcase Page should be relevant to the product or service you are trying to showcase. Don’t simply share the same content you are sharing on your personal profile or to your Company Page. This should be relevant to the audience that choses to follow your product as opposed to your company as a whole.

A New Type of Advertising

Companies can advertise on Showcase Pages.

There are two types of ads that exist for Showcase Pages: Follower Ads that are aimed at increasing the number of followers for a Showcase Page and Sponsored Updates, which promote the content shared by a Showcase Page. This is a great way to feature your brand’s expertise and drive leads to a LinkedIn landing page with all the information they are going to need to know all about it.

Do you plan on using Showcase Pages on LinkedIn? Tell us about the product or service you are going to feature in the comments below or on Twitter!

3 New Features on Pinterest

November 20, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Here are some of the great new features on Pinterest that marketers should be aware of!

Pinterest has been very busy lately! Between Twitter’s IPO and Snapchat’s $3 Billion ‘No, Thank You’, many people have overlooked some of the great new features on Pinterest that are making the network more attractive to businesses.

Earlier this year, it was all about the new Pinterest Analytics feature and the ability to monitor your account’s activity. Now, it is much more about the superficial benefits that everyone can see.

Promoted Pins

This has been a long time coming. From the moment Pinterest introduced business accounts, it was only a matter of time before the Pinterest version of ads were introduced.

Though the service is still in testing, it won’t be long before we start to see plenty of pins from businesses trying to reap the benefits of the platform. To find out more about how your brand can sign up for Promoted Pins, click here.

Related Pins

What better way to convince businesses to share as much relevant content to Pinterest than to create a feature showing related pins. This great new feature shows users pins that they might find interesting based on their activity on the network. You might see a pin from a board that you are not following, but that might be of interest to you. This is because the brains behind Pinterest are following your like and share patterns in order to further expand the network and the business it can drive.

Dedicated Pinterest Pages

Ever wonder what other people are finding particularly pinteresting? Well now you can! Brands with a great deal of activity on their boards (like Disney, Walmart, Zappos and more) are working with Pinterest to create designated boards to share only content that is trending with their audience as well as an extended network.

This feature is not yet available to all users, but rest assured that when it does become available, you are going to want to be as active as possible and generate plenty of re-pins, as they will add to your clout on the network.

So there you have it. A few great new features on Pinterest that we can expect to see increase in popularity and importance in the next little while.

Have you tried using any of these new features yet? Tell us about them in the comments below or on Twitter!

4 Social Media Campaigns to Test this Holiday Season

November 19, 2013/by Corey Padveen

As the holidays approach, you need to find a way to leverage social media campaigns to boost your presence in the market.

Every brand is vying for the attention of consumers as we approach the holiday season and year-end. So what can you do to stand out? This year, why not take advantage of the benefits offered by social media campaigns?

Below are four very simple and potentially lucrative ideas for social media campaigns that your company should invest in this holiday season. The holidays are all about bringing people together, and what better place to do that than on social media (with the exception of home, of course)!

Holiday Pin-To-Win

People love pin-to-win campaigns on Pinterest. They allow people to express themselves creatively and share their pinspiration with a large audience. If you have an active social audience and are part of a visual industry, consider hosting a pin-to-win campaign on Pinterest!

There are a lot of easy ways to run these types of campaigns. You can either host the campaign yourself, or use a software provider like Woobox.

Facebook Holiday Offer

Have you ever created an offer on Facebook? For brands with a physical presence, offers can be of great value. If you add a theme to your offer – in this case, the holidays – it can be even more beneficial. People love the idea of specials and savings during the holidays. After all, the season is expensive enough as it is. If you show your fans and followers that you are giving them a way to save this year, they will certainly appreciate that.

With the right offer designed for your fans, you can certainly expect the returns on your investment in boosting that offer to a wider audience to be very high.

Promoted Holiday Tweets

If you have created a landing page for a holiday ebook, service or special, or simply want to attract new followers by appealing to their holiday spirit, then promoting specific tweets with a holiday motif will certainly give your Twitter marketing a boost.

Target specific users and interests on Twitter and share your content to increase clicks to your pages and conversions from a targeted audience.

Promote Holiday Pins

Have you seen or used the new promoted pin feature on Pinterest? Yes, the photo-sharing network has gone the way of Facebook and Twitter and begun allowing advertisers to promote their content. Just in time for the holidays!

Try promoting pins with embedded links to your website that follow a holiday motif. This can be your marketing experiment this holiday season.

These are just a few social media campaigns you can consider launching this year.

Can you think of other social media campaigns that might generate high returns during the holidays? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

If You Ignore Your Social Data, You Ignore Your Business

November 15, 2013/by Corey Padveen

If you are not paying attention to your social data, then you are ignoring one of the most valuable assets you have in your social business.

With every action taken on social channels, social data is being gathered and analyzed behind the scenes. First, let’s dispel one rumour very quickly: activity on social media is measurable. You just need to know what to measure and where to find your social data.

Paying attention to these insights is going to be an integral part of running a successful social business. How will you know if your strategy is generating results and helping your business grow if you are not monitoring your initiatives’ performance?

Below are three types of social data you should keep a close eye on when it comes to your social business’s performance (and a few places to monitor that data).

Demographics Engaged

There are billions of people active on social networks every day. It is nice to think that every one is a potential customer, and a good way to overcome the fear of getting started, but the reality is that your real potential customers are making themselves shown every day – you just need to know where to look for them.

Look at your Facebook Insights to see what groups of people are consistently engaging with your content. The new Facebook Insights provide some great ways to do this. If you are running Twitter ads, pay close attention to those most actively clicking on your promoted tweets. On LinkedIn, look at your company page stats to see what groups of people find your company most interesting.

These are just a few of the easy ways you can monitor your most engaged demographics and understand how you can better align your business to target these markets.

Ad ROI

Social advertising is not being given enough credit (yet) as a legitimate source of advertising. Trust us, it is. But still, entrepreneurs running their own operations are often throwing a few dollars behind a Facebook as hoping that is generates some clicks and brand awareness. Not enough!

Set goals, target specific demographics and, both when it is over and while it is running, pay attention to your results! When looking at this social data, you might find that a user-base you hadn’t anticipated being so attracted to your offer is up there with the most active. Knowing your market’s wants and tailoring your services to provide for those wants is what keeps you ahead of the competition.

And it’s easy to find! In your Twitter Ads Manager, Facebook Ads Manager, LinkedIn Ads Manager and others, you can see all of this data in real-time!

Content Strategy

Once again, simply sharing content is not going to drive the results you hope to get as fast as you hope to get them. Every once in a while, we have a brilliant idea that helps our content go viral. And I don’t know about you, but those blue moons have been coming around less and less since the whole world has started trying to create their own viral video. Focus on how your content is being engaged with, and optimize your strategy accordingly.

Again, Facebook Insights provides you with some great insight into what types of content are generating interest. You can also look at your LinkedIn Page Insights, among other sources. This information is out there ready to help you succeed on social. Use it to your advantage!

Find out how t2 can help you leverage your social data here.

How are you leveraging the power of social data? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Everything You Need to Know About Privacy and Security on Facebook [INFOGRAPHIC]

November 14, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Privacy and security on Facebook are concerns for both companies and individuals.

In Deloitte and MIT’s social business research report, companies cited that one of the top barriers preventing them from going social is a concern with security on social networks. As the reality about privacy and security on Facebook comes to light, this is a concern shared by individuals as well. When you consider how many people have been rejected from or even lost their jobs because of what was said or found on social channels, it is no wonder that this is such a dominant concern.

That is why Inside Facebook has put together this infographic with every bit of information you are ever going to need (at least until the next major overhaul) when it comes to your privacy and security on Facebook.

Of the information presented below, perhaps most startling is the fact that over six-hundred thousand accounts are compromised on Facebook daily. Sure, that’s only a small fraction of a percent of the active accounts on the network, but that is far from a negligible statistic.

Take a look at the data below and consider if you have properly protected your information.

Have you ever had any major security issues with Facebook or another network? Tell us about it in the comments below or on Twitter!

How Much Does Social Media Cost?

November 13, 2013/by Corey Padveen

It is a misguided question often asked: “How much does social media cost?”

We hear it all the time. As marketers, a lot of us have even asked it or are asking it now. The question, “How much does social media cost?” is one that has surged in popularity as of late, but anyone who actively operates a social business knows why it is somewhat misguided.

So what makes the question misguided? The nature of asking why it is misguided might lead us to think that we are going to be given some convoluted, pseudo-existential response, but the fact is that it is quite simple. The question, “How much does social media cost?” is misguided because of the simple use of the term, ‘social media’.

What’s wrong with the term ‘social media’?

The buzzword on the tips of everybody’s tongue is ‘social media’. We know that it resonates when we talk to clients, and we bring it up because we know that clients expect to hear about it. While the media type is important, we have to step away from the term and look at the words and what they mean.

Social is self-explanatory. It is something that connects people. But media is plural. So basically, when we take a step back, we are saying, “How much does it cost to connect with people in different ways?” Now we’re getting somewhere.

What should the question be?

Now that we know that using the term ‘social media’ is misleading, we need to ask ourselves what the proper question is. We need to ask ourselves, “What is the cost of running a social business?”

A page on Facebook, boards on Pinterest and a Twitter account might look good, and they might be ‘free’ to create (if you don’t count the time it takes to create them) but what is the overhead of running a social business? This is where you have to think of ‘social media’ as more than a few networks – it is the new way of conducting business.

What is the cost of running a social business?

First of all, we need to stop thinking of social as MySpace, Friendster, Facebook and subsequent networks. Yes, these were new ways of connecting people, but the concept of social selling was nothing new. Blogs and email, even your website, were the original forms of social media; hubs in which people could connect. So what does it cost to apply that approach to your entire business?

First look at what departments are going to go social. If you are going to transition your customer service onto social channels – a more cost-effective, time-efficient and customer preferred way of doing business – how much will it cost per issues handled? Determine how much work will exist, how many people it will take to handle it and how much it will cost to employ those people. (NOTE: You might be the sole proprietor of your business. That’s great! But don’t sell yourself short. Your time is very valuable, and you need to figure out what your opportunity cost is to handling these facets of your business on your own.)

Most people are not looking at bus benches. They are spending hours a day looking at Facebook. They are sifting through billions of pieces of content on Twitter. They are conducting Google searches and clicking on results. They are looking for jobs on LinkedIn. You might hope to drive traffic organically. But these social channels need to make money, too. You are going to need to invest in your social business to see returns.

Advertising on social media is still young enough that it is affordable. Take advantage of that. Create highly customized ads that target your ideal candidates. Drive people to your website with your ads, or grow your brand’s market presence. Determine your budgets, as you have in the past, and test them to see what works.

There is no magic button or single answer. You might hear about a video that goes viral and figure, “I can do that, too!” You can try. But you might be sorely disappointed. Your social business is going to take a serious commitment, an investment and a new way of thinking.

So, how much does social media cost? Social media is your new business. It is not a standalone tool. Do not simply throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks. Take social seriously and invest appropriately.

Have you developed a Social Business Plan? See how t2 can help you put one together here.

Where have you invested most in your social business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

15 Amazing Social Media Marketing Statistics (in Pictures!)

November 11, 2013/by Corey Padveen

These social media marketing statistics will make the case for the transition into a social business!

As marketers, we are all looking for that one piece of crucial information that will help us convince our clients (and, in some cases, our own management) that the need to become a social business is greater than ever. These fifteen social media marketing statistics are certainly impressive, and should help any marketer get over that last hurdle when it comes to proving that social is a necessity!

Now, if those stats don’t get you excited about the prospect of becoming a social business, little else will! Social media is quickly spilling over into every demographic and in big ways. The marketing landscape has been drastically altered by the presence of social, and it is time for your brand to become a social business!

Find out what a social business looks like here and let us know how your company is social! Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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