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6 Tips to Help Brands Use Pinterest Effectively

July 28, 2014/by Corey Padveen

When brands use Pinterest, they need to think about how the network can help them achieve business goals. These tips will certainly come in handy.

Pinterest can be a hugely valuable asset to any brand, but in order to see brands use Pinterest effectively, there are a few tips and guidelines that should be followed. The personal and subjective nature of Pinterest makes it such that simply posting content to a few owned boards will result in slow growth and a lack of user engagement (and, subsequently, referral traffic).

These six tips can help brands use Pinterest more effectively and start driving growth and achieving network-specific objectives in a much shorter timeframe. Implement some of these best practices and watch as Pinterest starts to work for you!

Reserve Pinterest Sessions

Creating and implementing an editorial calendar might work for some networks, like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, but Pinterest is all about the experience. Simply posting an image or two according to a schedule isn’t going to work in the long-run.

Instead, devote some time each day (even a 15-minute session is better than nothing) to playing around with Pinterest, sharing content and engaging with other users. These sessions will yield much greater results because of the nature of the network.

Repin, Repin, Repin

On any network, people love seeing their content generate engagement. The same holds true for Pinterest. Search keywords relevant to your boards and start repinning content that you find interesting and that your audience will find relevant.

This practice will accomplish two things: first, it will increase the volume of your pins with the curated content, which is great for your existing audience, and second, it will increase your exposure on Pinterest and lead to a greater reach and greater audience growth.

Leave Comments

Just as you should repin interesting content, you should engage further and start commenting on user uploads to increase engagement and reach. Comments can go a long way. Again, they will help you boost your visibility with key audiences (assuming you are commenting on posts that are relevant to your account’s theme).

Comments will also go a step further to show that you are in fact engaging with your audience and not simply sharing content in the hopes of leveraging Pinterest’s referral traffic power.

Maintain a Theme

If there is one thing that doesn’t look good for a brand, it is when their Pinterest profile is all over the place. Though Pinterest is a network where you should be sharing content that inspires, a professional account will try to adhere to at least a semblance of a theme.

This is not to say that you should not have fun with your Pinterest account – you certainly should. By in sharing content, make sure that it relates to your brand or your brand’s personality in some way. Keep the personal pins to your personal account, and leverage Pinterest s=to showcase your professional creativity, and content that interests and relates to your brand and audience.

Invite and Join

One great thing about Pinterest is the ability to invite users to pin to your boards and accept invitations to pin to others’ boards. This is a feature that should certainly be taken advantage of whenever it presents itself.

If you have a board that begins generating a lot of interest, begin inviting fans of the board to share their pins. It will greatly increase both the content shared to your board as well as the exposure of the board and, subsequently, your brand. Additionally, sharing your content to others’ boards will help increase your account exposure and drive new traffic to your boards and possibly website (assuming your pins link back).

Link Your Pins

This is a commonly referred to best practice, and there is a reason for it. Above the backlinking capabilities of Pinterest are referenced. These are only possible if you are embedding your pins with links, and pinning images directly from your website and blog posts.

When an image is pinned to Pinterest directly from your webpage or blog post, it automatically features a link. When you share images directly to a board, however, you will need to add the link in yourself. Don’t forget about this, because it makes the network all the more valuable when it comes to driving site traffic.

Conclusion

Pinterest is a powerful network and virtually any brand can find a way to take advantage of it. These best practices will certainly help brands use Pinterest more effectively. If you’re planning on getting started with Pinterest, be sure to include these activities in your strategy.

What else have you seen work on Pinterest? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

6 Social Media Best Practices You Probably Aren’t Doing (And Should)

May 5, 2014/by Corey Padveen

With the constantly changing social media landscape, it’s hard to keep up with trends.

There are a lot of hugely beneficial and fairly simple social media best practices in which brands and individuals should be participating, but most people simply don’t know about them. Social moves at such a high speed, that it can be difficult – and for some, even tedious – to keep up. So, with that in mind, these are a few of the more valuable things that most people should know about when it comes to social.

Leveraging Employee Advocacy

For brands, something that often goes overlooked is the fact that your first set of brand advocates is much closer than you might think. Within any company, there exists an entire workforce of prospective brand advocates. It’s important to take advantage of the opportunity that comes from leveraging this audience.

While a best practice would not be requiring that your employees share your content (in fact, this would like backfire in an extraordinary fashion) it is certainly wise to consider adopting an internal culture whereby employees are invited to share content, create content and involve themselves with the brand on social media. It might surprise you to see how much faster your audience can grow when capitalizing on this opportunity.

Taking Advantage of LinkedIn

For most people, LinkedIn is seen as nothing more than a large network in which to share your virtual resume. The truth of the matter is that LinkedIn offer a tremendous amount of opportunity if you are using all of its features.

First of all, LinkedIn’s rich media feature (shown in the image below) allows users to integrate much more than a simple resume. You can link videos, upload images and a little further down, showcase some of your publications. It is really a one stop shop for every bit of professional exposure you have received.

Screenshot taken 5/2/2014

It’s also important to take advantage of Groups on LinkedIn. Whether you are an individual or a business owner looking to increase your personal or brand exposure, LinkedIn Groups can do wonderful things. Take note of the groups that are meant for discussion, and those that are meant for articles, and build a content strategy on LinkedIn that you see resonating with your audience.

Use Google+…A Lot

It’s still surprising that so many people ignore Google+. On the personal side, Google Authorship is an outstanding way to increase your content’s exposure. For the brand side, sharing content to your Google+ Circles and Google+ Communities that generates clicks and +1s is a more powerful practice than virtually any other when it comes to SEO. And that’s SEO in total, not just SEO with regards to social signals.

Source: Searchmetrics. 2013 US Search Ranking Factors.

Write About Your Competitors (in a Good Way)

If you go to Google and type in “Best Social Media Listening Tools” one of the first items that pop up is an article from monitoring tool Brandwatch. The thing is that this isn’t a page on the Brandwatch site that talks about how it is the best tool in the marketplace. It is actually a blog post wherein they list ten competitors that offer free social media listening capabilities and do it quite well.

Often, business owners are afraid of touting competitors. After all, why would you recommend a competitors products when you are trying to reap the business for yourself. But people respond to useful information, not self promotion. If you’re an ad agency, you have a far better chance of having an article seen that showcases the ten best commercials of the year rather than a simple case study that features your own work.

A mix of the two is an important component of any strong content strategy and content marketing campaign.

Use a Suite of Technologies to Help You Execute a Strategy

There is no such thing as the perfect tool. People are looking for it, some applications claim that they have created it, but the reality is that to really execute a strategy effectively, you’re going to need a suite of technologies to help you.

Evaluate different tools that offer different services and see which ones will a) provide you with the greatest value and b) work well in conjunction with one another. It’s better to have several tools doing each task exceptionally well than one tool that is mediocre at everything.

Conclusion

These are just a few of the social media best practices you might not have known about. Considering the fast nature of the evolution of social media, no one can be expected to know everything. But as you try to build out your brand – whether it is your personal or professional brand – these are a few of the items you might have overlooked.

Can you think of other social media best practices that are not all that well known? Tell us about them in the comments below or on Twitter!

Turning Big Data Into Smart Data

April 29, 2014/by Corey Padveen

Big data is an exciting concept and we hear a lot about it, but we need to get our data working towards achieving business goals.

Big data is exciting. We hear about it everywhere we go. There are virtually limitless applications for these kinds of data, but when it comes to our businesses, we need to ensure that our own big data is working towards achieving the goals we have set for ourselves. This is the difference between your average big data, and smart data. But how exactly can we get our data working for us? Not all of us are mathematicians, and with the exception of a few of us, not everyone is all that well versed in mass data analysis. So what are we to do?

The beauty of social data is the fact that it is delivered to us in about as useful a form as data can be presented. We simply have to deduce what our social data is telling us, and turn that into an effective strategy or set of strategies.

The set of strategies listed below are easily optimized through the strategic leveraging of big data from your owned social media. Take a look at the process and see if there is any opportunity you might have missed out on!

Content Strategy

If there is one thing that your data is telling you it is how you should optimize your content for increased engagement and conversions. If you’re wondering what exactly a content strategy is, and how it differs from content marketing, click here. The gist of the concept is that your content strategy is the reason why your audience engages with your brand, based on the types of content and the messages that you are publishing. Your content marketing is the process of leveraging that connection in order to acquire new customers.

Your data is providing you with a world of insight into what types of content will resonate best with your target audience. Look for spikes in engagement and reach, correlations among those spikes and identify exactly how you can craft content that you know will increase overall engagement with your brand.

Think about it this way: say you analyze your data and notice six spikes in the last month where reach and engagement skyrocketed. You look at the content shared at each of those six points and note that at each point in time, your content was shared in the afternoon, featured an image and was posed as a question. These correlations help determine exactly how to structure the content you want to perform best on your social networks.

Social Ad Spend

John Wanamaker is credited as telling the world that half of his ad dollars were wasted, he just couldn’t tell you which half. That’s no longer the case when it comes to the powers offered by social data.

Your social data is telling you not only what demographics make up your largest audience, but also which demographics are most engaged with your content.

Screenshot taken 4/28/2014

Based on these engaged audiences, consider how you want to spend your ad dollars. The targeting capabilities that exist within social advertising platforms are unparalleled. Never before have such detailed audiences been targetable. You can now pinpoint audiences by much more than age and location. Go as deep as interests, political affiliations, marital status and even pages with which they have connected. There are virtually no limits to how targeted you can get, or you can go as broad as ‘everyone’. Use the social data you have at your avail in order to effectively target those audiences that have been most active with your brand (or your competitors).

Social Ad Optimization

For the first time in the history of marketing and advertising, we do not need to wait for a campaign to conclude in order to see our results and optimize a program for better performance in a future campaign. We can now make all the necessary changes in order optimize our performance and results in real time.

The data presented in your social ad campaigns tells you exactly how well a campaign is performing as it is taking place. This data should be used as often as possible in order to ensure that the ad spend discussed above is at no point being wasted. As you begin a campaign, several target demographics should be tested and tweaked until you have found the ideal target audience. You never know where it might come from!

Operations Efficiency

On a much higher level, your social data can help you improve the efficiency of your digital operations. It might sound like fantasy, but it isn’t.

When looking through your activity on social, connecting that to your website and observing the dynamic between the two, there are certain key indicators to pay attention to that can help improve efficiency of your overall marketing efforts when it comes to digital. Using an analytics platform like Google Analytics, you can see how your activity on social media extends to your website. Leverage the insights in your social dashboard to see where your most engaged audience is coming from. You can create goals and filters to see which members of these audiences are most likely to convert.

Screenshot taken 4/28/2014

One added benefit with the recent rollout of Universal Analytics out of Beta is that you can now get additional insights into your website’s audience members on top of the activity in which they are engaging, like gender, age and interests. All of this is hugely valuable when it comes to fine tuning your digital strategies in order to ensure that everything you do is geared towards growing your business.

Conclusion

Big data is exciting on a number of levels. Maybe one day it will be able to predict things like natural disasters, epidemics and change society for the better. On a smaller scale, there is a lot of value to your big data on social networks that most brands are not leveraging.

These are just a few of the ways in which your brand can get some value out of your big data. Perhaps the most exciting aspect is that we still don’t know what all of these data can do!

Have you used your social data in a creative way in order to drive business goals? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

The Best and Worst Features of Major Social Networks for Brands

April 14, 2014/by Corey Padveen

Not every brand is right for the major social networks, and not every one of those networks is right for a specific brand.

When a brand gets started with social media marketing, the initial thought process is something along the lines of: “I need to be everywhere, all the time, no matter what.” Considering the massive presence that some of the most successful brands have had on major social networks, this is a natural rationalization. But to really find success when it comes to social media marketing, you need to understand two things above all else. The first thing is crucial not only to where you want to have a presence, but to the success of your program as a whole: you need to set your goals. Your goals will be a defining characteristic of virtually every decision you make, and the process that led to that decision. Second, you are going to want to have a fairly strong understanding of the benefits and the drawbacks of every one of the major social networks. For this discussion, the networks that make up that group are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google+.

One common benefit is obvious: they are popular. You want your brand to have a presence on networks where people are talking. Considering the mass of users these networks have garnered, you are more than likely (in most cases) to find members of your target audience on these platforms. That said, depending on your brand’s message and the social persona you create for your brand, it might not be all that beneficial to have a presence on every one.

In this article, we’ll look at some of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of these five major social networks. Of course, there are others (dozens if not hundreds, depending on what you consider a social network) on which you might want to have a presence. The likelihood is, however, that these five will be among your pool for consideration, hence our decision to look closely at them.

Facebook

As the largest of the bunch (with an audience size well over 1.2 billion users) this is almost a guarantee to be added to the “Yes” column. The page layouts are simple and effective. Other networks can be easily integrated. And there exists a world of possibilities when it comes to apps and plugins as well as a huge mobile audience. Everyone is familiar with the “Pros” list when it comes to Facebook. But what about the “Cons”? What is it that brands should be wary of when venturing to use Facebook to grow their social presence?

First of all, if you don’t want to make an investment, don’t waste your time with Facebook. The network has made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of doing brands any favors when it comes to organic growth. Recently, it was made public that Facebook intends to decrease the organic reach of Pages – reach without any ad dollars spent – to roughly 1%. What’s more, certain tactics that have been used to game the system for some time (such as the “Like” vs. “Share” posts) will soon be penalized. So for brands thinking that it will be easy (or, for some foolish reason, free) to grow their brands on Facebook, they will not find the network particularly beneficial after just a short while.

Twitter

Twitter has made a lot of strides when it comes to the benefits for brands. The introduction of Twitter Cards has made interactive content much more readily available and inspires increased engagement with target users. Twitter also recently announced over a dozen new ad features, which will certainly be beneficial to brands. Then there is their most recent announcement about real-time communications (like Facebook chat). Twitter is going above and beyond when it comes to providing new ways for brands to use the platform. But what might hinder your desire to use the network?

Well, for starters, everyone is thinking the same way you do: I can just share my brand’s message a thousand times a day and get people to click through to my page! While it’s true that this is an option, no one will see what you have to say. And as more brands go with this approach, fewer users care to follow brands at all. The most difficult part about Twitter is the content strategy. 140 characters can be used extremely well or very poorly. It all depends on how you plan on getting your message out. What is going to entice the audience you wish to target? And when it comes to targeting, the same problems exist on Twitter as they do on Facebook: you’re going to have to be willing to spend money. A lot of those benefits listed in the paragraph above are really only apparent if you’re using Twitter’s ad platform (which is an excellent one). So if you won’t invest, you won’t succeed.

YouTube

Obviously, if you plan on sharing videos, you don’t have a choice but to share them to YouTube. You might prefer Vimeo or some other video sharing platform, but the reality is that these other platforms aren’t owned by Google. (One of the benefits of owning the Internet.) Sharing videos (that are properly optimized) on YouTube can mean increased search rankings, and linking your other networks, website and Google profile to your YouTube channel can mean some incredible benefits to those rankings. And all of that can happen very fast.

The drawbacks to YouTube are in the numbers. The longer your video, the less likely it is that people will watch it. The more boring your video (i.e. all corporate videos) the less likely people are to watch it, and the more likely they are to make snide comments. With so many hundreds of lifetimes of content available on YouTube, you need to really pull your audience in right away. Anything more than eight seconds, you’ve lost them. YouTube also cannot stand alone. Without the help of your other channels and your website, it is unlikely that your YouTube audience will grow. Again, with so much content available, people simply are not going to find your videos organically. At least, that is the case for most brands. Lastly, video sharing networks in general are not for every brand. Videos are (or can be) expensive and time consuming. And much like a blog or website, you’ll need to continue producing new content in order to find your channel on top. If you don’t feel like this is something your brand can do, don’t create a blank YouTube channel; that’s a worse option.

The professional network that every eager entrepreneur or seasoned veteran is using has some pretty obvious benefits. For starters, it’s full of professionals, many of whom have common interests. For individuals, it provides an excellent platform on which to build out your professional network, and for brands, it means garnering support and exposure within your industry or from potential investors. The latter item in that last point is especially true for B2B brands looking to make a splash and reach decision makers.

There are two problems, however, with LinkedIn. First, their ad platform is a little archaic. Targeting capabilities are excellent, but people have become accustomed to ignoring right column ads, and that’s where the majority of your ad dollars will go. Second, LinkedIn hasn’t quite yet figured out how to create value for Company Pages. Sure, they’re great to feature your brand and some of your services, but there is nothing to really pull people in. To their credit, LinkedIn is now in the process of revamping Company Pages (they just removed the poor-performing Products & Services tab) and have been working to make it a content publishing platform. That said, while the network is an excellent resource in which individuals can share content and expand their network, it still has not found that “it” factor for the brand itself.

Google+

Google+ is an invaluable (yes, as in has so much value, you can’t even assign it a number) tool when it comes to increasing your exposure. Why? Much like YouTube, it is a Google product so it has to be used and it has to be used well. It also has a huge customer base outside of the United States, so brands with an international presence can leverage the platform to reach a global audience. The Communities feature on Google+ also offers users a great way to connect with like-minded individuals, and allows brands to share relevant content to an already engaged audience.

The biggest problem with Google+ is that everyone knows they need to use it, but a lot of people are having trouble figuring out how to use it. As such, much of what you see on Google+, particularly in Communities, is self-promotional. Only the truly devoted Community Managers keep their networks clean from spam. But it still makes its way in there. There is also a lack of strong analytics with Google+ Pages. Of course, Google Analytics is designed to be integrated with the network, but unlike Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even YouTube, another Google-owned property, Google+ doesn’t provide much more than superficial data. So if Analytics are important to you – as they are to most people – you might find yourself a little disappointed with Google+.

Conclusion

Every major network has its positives and its negatives. And depending on your brand and what it is you want to accomplish by leveraging social media, your choices are going to be different. But it’s important to remember that a successful program does not mean a presence on every single network. A Pinterest board (and yes, Pinterest was a consideration to be added to this list, but frankly, the article was running a little long) with a handful of images that is infrequently updated has less value to a brand than no Pinterest presence whatsoever (in many cases).

So to sum up, consider your goals, the strengths and weaknesses of each of these networks and what the best course of action is in order to achieve those goals in the shortest timeframe possible.

What network is your most beneficial for achieving your goals on social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

The Fallacy of Social Media ROI with No Investment (or “I”)

April 7, 2014/by Corey Padveen

The idea of generating social media ROI without investing in social media is a novel concept; that’s mostly because it is completely irrational.

One of the favorite sayings of economists is as follows: “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Some attribute the adage to a practice that started in the Old West where patrons at saloons could receive a “free lunch” upon the purchase of a beer. This lunch, of course, would consist of salty ingredients, which in turn would lead to the patron buying several more drinks. (Why do you think there are peanuts, pretzels and popcorn given out for “free” at most bars?) From an economics point of view, the saying relates to hidden costs and externalities; even if you think something is free, there are economic costs that go into it.

This has been true in business for generations. So why do marketers and business owners now think that they can reap the benefits of the “free lunch” offered by social media marketing?

When it comes to running a social business, there are several costs that a corporation will incur. These can either be material costs – like ad spend – or immaterial costs – like adaptation time. All that to say is there are costs we need to consider when undertaking a social media initiative, and we need to accept that these costs are unavoidable if we wish to reap the benefits that social media can offer.

The four costs listed below are by no means the only ones that businesses will incur over the course of a social media campaign or program. That said, these are fairly standard, and businesses should be ready to factor them into the cost of doing (social) business.

Time

So often this is an investment that is quickly overlooked. It is hard to imagine why. What happened to the self-confidence of the average businessperson? Your time is an extremely valuable asset. Take it into serious consideration when determining the costs of running a social media program.

How much would you be making per hour if you were not toying away with Facebook marketing or writing your blog? Is the return going to justify how much time you are investing in these activities? Too often when calculating costs, individuals forget about all the time that needs to go into effectively executing a strategy. Give this cost serious consideration whether you are a one-person operation or a large organization.

Tools & Technologies

OK – this is an easy one. While some tools and/or technologies are free – generally those integrated into a social network or larger company, like Facebook Insights or Google Analytics – the majority of social media tools are standalone companies. That, of course, means that they need to make money in order to stay in business. So with the exception of a few, you are going to need to make an investment in tools.

With so much happening in the world of social media – and so much happening so fast – a tool can be a wonderful complement to a strategy. But the key thing to remember is that your tool is a complement, not the program. Though many technologies boast themselves as being the godsend application to rid you of all your social media woes, most simply offer a solution to one (or a select few) issues. You still need to put in the work.

Social Ad Spend

Another fairly simple one. But it is one that, again, is completely forgotten. Not because people do not realize that they have to invest in advertising, but because they think that they to not need social media advertising. This is a key component behind many brands having trouble finding success with social media. It also relates closely to the concept of the “free lunch” and the misconception of the true cost when it comes to investing in social media.

The Golden Age of social media marketing, where brands could generate huge awareness and boost sales without so much as a penny spent on ads is, sadly, dwindling. Of course, this is still possible – but only to an extent. Much like the tools discussed above, networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are businesses. These businesses all have (hugely inflated) valuations and need to find a way to justify those price tags to investors. The answer? Charge businesses to access their huge reservoir of potential clients. This is why we are seeing things like the near-extinction of Facebook organic reach. Brands are going to have to pay-to-play. There is still a tremendous amount of potential when it comes to social media marketing. You’ll just have to invest in advertising in order to reap that social media ROI.

Adaptation

Much like time, adaptation is an oft-overlooked cost that businesses will have to incur whether they notice it or not. Transitioning into a social business is no easy feat. It requires dedication, perseverance, and perhaps most of all, willingness to change. Social business is not business as usual; it is a whole new way of conducting yourself in the marketplace.

Image Credit: Shutterstock. Used under license.

This is something that takes time to adjust to and that time needs to be factored into your costs. The decision to become a social business is a smart one, but one that needs to be undertaken methodically so that you do not become overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done. Figure out what you know and what you need to learn based on the goals of your strategy, and determine the cost of adapting to this new way of doing business.

Conclusion

One of the greatest values of running a social business is that virtually everything is measurable; while some criticize traditional operations for its lack of exactitude, every last detail can be attributed in social thanks in large part to big data. What’s more, communications and overall business costs are reduced as a result of becoming an effective social business. That said, there are still costs, and we can’t forget that costs are a natural part of doing business. Don’t be afraid of the “I” in ROI – that is what is going to generate the “R”.

What other costs have you noticed when it comes to running a social business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Media Managers

March 31, 2014/by Corey Padveen

What makes a social media manager stand out from the crowd?

While every social media manager approaches his or her job differently (after all, the job changes quite drastically depending on your goals) there are a few habits that the most effective social media managers will have in common.

These seven criteria should be applied if you want to succeed in your role as social media manager. With a medium that changes as often and as quickly as social, it’s important to be on top of your game.

Early Starter

The day does not start when you wake up, it carries over through the night and early into the next morning. If you want to find success in your position, you are going to have to be right there monitoring your brand and industry conversations on social first thing in the morning. A major part of the job has to do with keeping an eye out for bad press, negative comments or a social media crisis. These kinds of cases do not wait for you to sleep in and take your time in the morning.

Getting an early start means being alert from the get go. With real-time platforms like social, managers do not have the luxury of easing themselves into the day. If an issue or event comes up, you have to be ready to tackle it. So for all those morning people, you’re off to a good start. For the rest: a cold shower and a bucket of coffee should do the trick.

Great Writer

Great as in even when you throw something together quickly most people envy your innate ability to write. You don’t need to have the most eloquent of speech, but you should be able to speak well (not good, but well) and with complete grammatical accuracy. One of the most upsetting things for social media users is poor grammar from brands. That’s right – not terrible customer service, but poor grammar. (That said, don’t overlook good customer service in the name of proper grammar.)

As a social media manager for a brand or business, you are (generally) speaking on behalf of the company. That means that everything you say or do reflects not on you, but on the brand. So a whole bunch of misspellings and grammatical slip-ups means the brand looks bad and you’ll be taking the heat.

Quick on Your Feet

As noted above, a lot is happening and it is happening fast. You don’t always have the luxury of taking your time to deal with things as they come up. It’s important that you are quick on your feet when it comes to social media. When you need to respond to a tweet, for example, you should know your brand’s voice, the image it wants to maintain and, most importantly, how best to address a comment (or let it lie) in order to avoid any negative repercussions. That takes some quick, critical thinking on your part.

Of course, in the event of a crisis, the best thing to do is to bring the issue to higher ups that know how to handle these sorts of things. Try not to take on too much yourself. Which brings us to our next point:

Modesty Can be an Asset

There is a time to let your ego shine and there is a time where modesty can be your best friend. As a social media manager, you are going to have to realize (sooner rather than later) that you cannot do everything. Sometimes a senior marketing executive is going to have to take the reigns. Sometimes the PR department will have to step in. Sometimes there is an issue best handled by your support staff or the sales team.

Know the limits of your job description and recognize times where something is out of your league. Knowing when to pass things off is just as important as knowing when to take charge.

Friendliness

You were not put in this position because you are a monotonous drone with no people skills. You were likely charming in your interview and a great conversationalist. That’s a great start. That personality should extend to your brand’s social presence. Of course, you will probably be given some guidelines when you first get started indicating what you can and cannot say, but try to give everything that human touch.

People are active on social media because they want to engage in conversations with people all over the world who share similar interests. So, make the social channels highly sociable. A great example of a brand that understands this is Cadbury.

@coreypadveen Mwahahaha!

— Cadbury UK (@CadburyUK) March 14, 2014

Coolheadedness

We seem to keep circling back to one important point: social media are fast paced environments wherein a ton is happening all in real-time. You need to be able to handle that sort of thing if you plan on being a successful social media manager. Becoming easily overwhelmed means it will be tough to go far with the platform. So if you want to succeed in your role, know that you will be able to take a step back, take a deep breath and handle everything that is going on without feeling like it ‘never ends’ – because it doesn’t.

The larger and more public the brand, the truer this holds. If you recognize this aspect and still feel confident that you can handle this without breaking a sweat, you’re in great shape so far. Only one more step to go!

Born Decision Maker

In contrast to the modesty mentioned above, you will also want to be a born decision maker. Marketing, PR and advertising executives do not want to be bothered with every little thing that comes up. It might not seem like it at first (especially when people constantly ask you if you simply post to Facebook all day) but you are being given quite a bit of responsibility as a social media manager. The public voice of the brand is being put in your hands, and you ultimately control its fate. To succeed in this role, you’re going to have to be able to make some important decisions with the utmost confidence.

Know when to respond and when to leave a comment or criticism alone in the socialsphere. You need to be capable of making decisions in real-time about a number of different elements including what content to share, how to respond to messages, how to handle small crises, the best ways to measure returns, the best tools to use, the right campaigns to run, the key demographics to target and quite a bit more.

Conclusion

If all of this sounds like a walk in the park, and these seven habits identify you to a tee, then you might have found your calling! Of course, these are not the only seven habits of highly effective social media managers. Quite a bit more goes into the job. But if you possess these qualities, you are certainly off to a great start!

What other qualities do you think effective social media managers possess? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

6 Social Media Engagement Mistakes to Avoid (at All Costs)

March 10, 2014/by Corey Padveen

Make sure you avoid these social media engagement mistakes like the plague!

The (slowly slipping into the category of ‘age old’) expression of “Think before you tweet!” has never been more true than it is today. With billions of people tuning into social platforms and listening to what you have to say, you (and your brand) simply need to be on top of your game when it comes to sharing information and engaging in conversation.

There are some social media engagement mistakes that brands will simply have a next-to-impossible time overcoming. After all, you are only as good as your most recent crisis, and you want to keep those to a minimum. These social media engagement mistakes are a surefire to see you brand come under heavy criticism, particularly if they go viral. And isn’t that always the case with these kinds of situations?

1. Arguing

Do not argue with your customers on social channels. Ever. It doesn’t matter how wrong they may be, and how right you think you are. The second you respond with the maturity of a pubescent high-schooler, you’re brand does not look good.

We all say that social media requires a human touch. But at the end of the day, there are certain human qualities we would like to leave out of our brand. One of those is the argumentative nature of human beings. It may sometimes result that you are better off ignoring a comment (still not a great option) than arguing in the public’s eye. Consumers will side with each other.

2. Automation

Automating certain posts and your content schedule is fine. No one expects the average brand to send out messages all day long, and sometimes the process is made much easier when certain aspects (not all, but a select few) can be automated. The one thing that has no business (and never will have business) being automated is engagement.

The human touch mentioned above is all about that engagement people are looking for with brands. If you plan on automating responses (as is done with email responses) than expect to see your brand laughed out of the socialsphere. It’s happened to bigger brands than you might think.

3. Grammatical Errors

OK, granted, your brand can recover from grammatical missteps. In fact, a lot of people won’t notice them. And, at the end of the day, they happen. But your brand is not supposed to make little mistakes. If you plan on presenting your brand as the best in the business, keep a close eye on syntax. People pay a lot of attention to those kinds of things.

Keep your brand integrity in order and proofread social media engagement posts before they go out. Sometimes a little something might get by you. That is especially true if you post content to multiple channels on a constant basis. Don’t make your brand look bad by engaging with a consumer directly and making a little, avoidable mistake like this.

4. Bulk Responses

If you plan on engaging as a brand, do it as conversations are taking place. Nothing looks worse in a Twitter feed than radio silence followed by dozens of responses, one after another, to messages sent to your brand days, if not weeks before you responded.

If you can’t engage in real time, don’t worry about it. It’s not a practice that every brand is comfortable with, and not one that should be approached without serious consideration of the pros and cons. That said, if engagement is in your bag, make sure you have an appropriate strategy that addresses comments and questions in a timely manner.

5. Automated ‘Thank You for Following’ Messages

This is, for the most part, relegated to Twitter. Have you ever followed a brand only to receive a direct message shortly thereafter thanking you for the follow and directing your to their blog, website or Facebook page? It’s annoying and defeats the purpose of engagement.

As with the automated responses mentioned above, the automated ‘Thank You’ message takes away from the personal touch that social media engagement offers and reflects poorly on your brand. That said, a personalized ‘Thank You’ message is a great way to welcome a new follower.

6. Bad Mouthing Competition

We have seen plenty of great examples of brands – sometimes competitors – coming together on social media for a wonderful experience for fans. But, as with arguing, getting into it with a competitor is a direction that should be avoided at all costs.

You want to showcase your highlights, not another brand’s flaws. Commend your peers on jobs well done and tout your own successes. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all, just, get along?

What other mistakes can you think of that brands should avoid when it comes to social media engagement? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

4 Growth Opportunities You Might Have Overlooked

March 7, 2014/by Corey Padveen

Growth opportunities exist all around us on social networks, and there is a good chance we have overlooked one or two.

We are always looking for growth opportunities on social media. After all, why does our business have a presence on these networks if not to expand? The social web is filled with these growth opportunities, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise to hear that we might have overlooked one or two.

These four growth opportunities are surefire ways to get your brand noticed in new communities and by potential customers across the social web.

Google+ Communities

Before the detractors attack Google+, keep in mind that it is a Google-owned product. That alone makes it important. What’s more important is that this year, according to SearchMetrics, Google+ +1s are the most important ranking factor for your content on Google (shown in the chart below).

Communities on Google+ are groups of individuals with similar interests. When you share content from your brand’s profile to these Communities and it generates shares, +1s and comments, that’s a powerful ranking factor for Google. It becomes even more important if you have influential users engaging with your content. All that to say is do not overlook the power of Google+ – and Communities in particular – when it comes to increasing your brand’s presence on search engines.

Quora

Sometimes all people want is an expert opinion without having to pay an expert for their opinion. Enter Quora.

If you are not familiar with Quora, it is a network where people ask questions and have them answered by others with the answers. Simple, and a great opportunity to showcase your expertise in a given field.

Create alerts for yourself to be notified of new questions that come up in your given field and make it a point to show people just how much you know by answering questions. It is important that these answers are detailed, on point and not self-promotional. You are there to be an expert, not to sell your services. That comes naturally when people see how qualified you are.

LinkedIn Groups

First of all, if you have not joined as many groups as you possibly can, do it now. There is no reason not to be engaging with your industry peers wherever possible. Moreover, this is a great way to increase your relationships on LinkedIn.

In these groups, you might have noticed an influencer rating on the right-hand side. Engaging and, more importantly, starting conversations in these groups (not just sharing your content, but maybe asking a question every once in a while) is a great way to build your influence. People take note of a top influencer in their groups and, a generally common reaction is to view their profile, maybe research their company, etc.

Groups aren’t all about finding interesting articles; they are a great way to generate new interest in your business and your expertise.

Bookmarking

Effectively bookmarking your blog posts, articles and guest blogs with proper tags is a great way to generate exposure. Take something like StumbleUpon, for example. You have people regularly clicking through content to find something that they might like, based on their preferences. By properly assigning your content to a category, you are more than likely to have someone interested in what you have to say landing on it.

Bookmarking is an excellent way to generate new exposure. Sites like Digg allow your network to see what you have archived and share it with their extended networks as well. Don’t overlook the value of simply clicking the icon and bookmarking your content (and ensuring that it is enabled on all of your pages, of course).

Are there any other subtle growth opportunities that have worked for you? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Demographics of the Top Pinterest Influencers [INFOGRAPHIC]

March 5, 2014/by Corey Padveen

What are the key demographics of the top Pinterest influencers?

Influence is a powerful phenomenon in any industry, and that is particularly true on social media. The folks at HelloSociety have done some research to determine exactly what the demographic composition is of the top 100 Pinterest influencers.

Not surprisingly, they concluded that the majority of these tastemakers are women in major American markets with a higher education (much like the largest demographic of active Pinterest users). What is interesting, however, is that these Pinterest influencers are regularly active on the network, sharing several pieces of content per day and generating a ton of engagement.

Have a look and see if there are any surprises that catch your eye! Tell us about them in the comments below or on Twitter!

7 Ways to Turn a Boring White Paper Into Great Content

February 21, 2014/by Corey Padveen

A corporate white paper can be turned into a ton of great, highly engaging content for your social audience.

Share your latest, lengthiest white paper on social media, and you’ll be lucky if it gets any clicks. If it does, you’ll be lucky if people stick around to read it. The fact is simply that people are not all that interested in sifting through page after page of boring facts and figures. The irony is that they are, all the while, very interested in all of those facts and figures.

Some of the most engaging, highly shared content on social media (depending on the industry) relates to content that can be found in many white papers. Studies, findings, best practices and other white paper-friendly content has been converted into flashy, fun content on social and generated a ton of interest from audiences in several industries. So how can you do the same with your latest white paper?

These seven methods of turning boring content into engaging posts are just a few of the great ways you can take a white paper and turn it into loads of wonderful content to share with your social audience.

Infographics

People love infogrpahics. They are fun to read through, fun to share and generate a ton of engagement. A branded infographic is a great way to turn the data you have into an engagement feeding frenzy. Think about it for a second: aren’t infographics just studies published in colorful form? Consider creating one with the stats you have in front of you.

Images

In the same vein as infographics (but not as lengthy) images with a simple stat or finding can generate a lot of success on social. We have long known that images perform well with social audiences. Optimize them for size and appearance and watch your content reach broad audiences.

Blog

If you have a 10,000-word white paper, you have 10 1,000-word blog posts (or 20 500-word posts, or 50…well, you get the idea). Take the segments of your white paper and turn them into short, informative blog posts that relate to your subscribers. If the data is universal, create examples that are relevant to your industry.

Video Blog

Videos are another great way to generate engagement with a social audience, and a great way to showcase fun facts. People might not want to read about your findings, but that does not mean they don’t want to be told what you found. TED Talks are a great example of content that the average person might not want to read about in a textbook, but loves hearing about from an expert.

And speaking of TED Talks…

Webinars

How many times have you been on a webinar and heard from an expert quoting expert sources. You have one of those sources at your fingertips! Running webinars and sharing your findings is a great way to get the information out to the industry and promote your work.

eBooks

Again, a lengthy, dull and aesthetically subdued white paper can quickly be transformed into one or several flashy eBooks. People love short, informative eBooks and no one seems to recognize that, with the exception of the graphical elements, they are (or often can be) essentially white papers. Turning your white paper into an eBook can be a very wise investment.

Teasers

Have you ever landed on a website, seen a newsletter popup or a great piece of information that enticed you to sign up for said newsletter? You can use some of the great information within your white paper as teasers to generate new blog or newsletter subscribers. Something like, “Did you know [FUN FACT]? Find out more by subscribing to our newsletter.” can work wonder for your subscription rates.

These are a just a few of the ways your white papers can be turned into highly engaging, highly lucrative social content.

How do you leverage the content from white papers on social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Tag Archive for: social business

Social Media: Week-in-Review, June 22, 2013

June 22, 2013/by Corey Padveen

In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!

How to Properly Promote Your Blog [INFOGRAPHIC]

You might have written a great article, but if you are not properly promoting your content after it has been published, it is going to be very hard to build up a loyal audience. Luckily, there is a great checklist of actions to take to properly promote your blog in this detailed infographic!

5 Ways to Improve Your EdgeRank Score

The Facebook EdgeRank algorithm is one that is both mysterious yet relatively well-understood. There is one common motif that marketers should all be aware of, however, when it comes to the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm: engagement. Find out how you can improve your EdgeRank score with these 5 helpful tips!

4 Tips to Help You Manage Your Online Reputation

Managing and monitoring your online reputation is now more important than ever. SEO, social media and monitoring the web are all crucial to reputation management, and there are few key points to keep in mind when monitoring your reputation online. Take a look at these 4 tips to help you efficiently manage your online reputation!

Case Studies: Vestas

Creating a winning social media campaign involves several steps, the two most important of which are planning and cohesiveness. Vestas – a wind-energy provider – proved that big or small, there are benefits to social media marketing for all companies. Take a look at what Vestas did on LinkedIn in this week’s Case Studies!

Social Equity: Targeted Campaigns on Social Media

There was a time in the world of marketing and advertising when a few carefully placed television spots meant reaching 80% of your targeted audience. Those days are gone and now marketers and advertisers need to find more creative ways to reach their audiences. Luckily, the ability to create targeted campaigns on social media provides such an opportunity, and adds value to your business. Find out how targeted campaigns are so valuable to marketers and advertisers alike in this week’s Social Equity segment.

Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!

Case Studies: Vestas

June 20, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Vestas – a multi-billion dollar wind energy pioneer – used LinkedIn to combat rising competition.

Late in 2011, Vestas, a Danish manufacturer and provider of wind-based energy systems, was faced with a global recession, increased competition and an unpredictable regulatory body. The result was a decline in revenues and the burden of bringing the company back to its usual standards fell on the branding and marketing departments.

When one thinks of a Case Studies, multinational energy providers are not necessarily the first companies to come to mind. What Vestas showed, however, was that social media marketing can deliver results for companies in all sorts of industries, even those where you might least expect to see an impact.

The Campaign

The Vestas campaign was among the most impressive ever put together on LinkedIn. It encompassed several parts and was tailored, effectively, to each of the 400,000 people who were reached. The campaign, titled Energy Transparency, aimed to accomplish a very specific goal, according to Morten Kamp Jørgensen, Director Brand Management, Group MarCom and Customer Insight, Vestas:

“The goal of the campaign was to start a discussion and education process for carbon conscious corporations to directly invest in wind energy rather than just buying Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). Many corporations are already investing directly in renewable energy and we wanted to encourage this and engage corporations who have sustainability targets that make them more likely to invest in wind.”

To do this, Vestas launched an InMail campaign to 622 targeted executives at 50 energy-conscious companies, created customized LinkedIn banner ads for the 400,000 employees of said companies, partnered with Businessweek for a special offer for the InMail participants and created custom landing pages for each of the 50 companies’ executives and employees.

The results were outstanding. (You would hope so with that much work!) And while this is a huge campaign – one that not every company would need or be capable of executing – there is a lot to learn for marketers.

The Lessons

Do Your Research

Vestas did not succeed because they blindly launched a campaign on LinkedIn – far from it. Months of careful planning went into this campaign, starting with research into the companies most likely to respond. Again, the 50 companies selected were chosen based on specific criteria that made them excellent candidates.

When putting together a marketing campaign – social media or otherwise – you will only succeed if your campaign is built on a solid foundation of research and data to back up your decisions.

Customize Your Campaign

The banners, the landing pages, the InMail – everything about the Vestas LinkedIn campaign was customized and tailored to fit the individual seeing the content. Adding a personal touch keeps your audience invested.

Sharing generic content leads to fewer click-throughs and, subsequently, a lower conversion. If you personalize the different features of a campaign, you stand to generate a much higher success rate than if you do not.

In with the New, But Not Out with the Old

Vestas took several marketing styles and created a huge campaign that blurred the lines between conventional marketing and new marketing. From LinkedIn, to banner ads, to magazine spreads – they covered all their bases and, more importantly, they connected every aspect of the campaign together.

It is important for marketers to remember that social media is not the end all be all of marketing. While it does present some great new opportunities, it should be looked at in unison with your conventional marketing efforts. Vestas realized that and the numbers prove that they got it right.

Which lesson do you think is most important to pull from this campaign? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media: Week-in-Review, June 15, 2013

June 15, 2013/by Corey Padveen

In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!

Brands on Social Media: Do You Fit In? [INFOGRAPHIC]

There is a lot of debate over whether or not there is a place for all brands in all industries on social media. Is there an audience for everyone? The reality is that there is room for every brand on social media, you just need to know where your brand fits in! Take a look at this great infographic to find out where your brand fits in on social media!

5 Tips for Dealing with Customer Complaints on Social Media

Social media has created a new avenue through which customers can reach out to brands, and that means a new avenue through which customers can complain to a brand. How we handle customer complaints on social media is crucial. There are certain ways to do it properly, and we have those methods. Find out how to properly handle customer complaints on social media.

18 Twitter and Facebook Business Facts

While the marketer in us knows exactly how important social media is to a successful marketing strategy, the businessperson in us wants to see the truth in numbers. That’s why we have compiled 18 great Twitter and Facebook business facts that should satisfy the businessperson in all of us!

Case Studies: Sony

When one thinks of Sony, Pinterest is not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind. Yet, the marketing team at Sony managed to take the electronics developer and turn it into a major player on the Pinterest playing field. Find out what marketers can learn from the Sony Pinterest strategy in this week’s Case Studies!

Social Equity: Social Care

Social media can be a great avenue through which customers and leads can reach out to your brand. It can also add a significant degree of value to your business! Find out how Social Care adds value to your business in this week’s Social Equity segment!

Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!

Case Studies: Sony

June 13, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Sony is not the first brand to come to mind when you think of Pinterest, but they managed to make themselves a powerful force on the network.

The logic was simple: everybody’s doing it, why don’t we? In 2011, Sony noticed the persuasion Pinterest had on purchasing mentality and decided to leverage the power of the network to increase traffic and, ideally, drive new sales.

Using a carefully coordinated strategy, Sony managed to garner 2,500 followers in the first six months of their activity on Pinterest, increase referral traffic from Pinterest to the Sony Store website by 800%, and collect more than 4 million brand impressions!

You can argue that Sony’s success came from their status as a brand on the market, but the reality is that Sony succeeded on Pinterest because of the course of action taken. The five lessons below detail what Sony did both before and after launching their Pinterest account and what marketers can learn from the strategy applied by Sony.

Do Some Research

While Sony had the added advantage of a brand that people were already talking about, it is important to do as much research as possible on your brand, competitors, industry leaders and, most importantly, your industry. Find out what people are already sharing and join an existing conversation instead of trying to start a new one. You might find it a lot easier to gain momentum.

Jump Right In

To truly succeed on social media – Pinterest or otherwise – you need to commit yourself and your team to the execution fully. Sony involved a huge part of their team when they started pinning. They did not want to ease their way into the community, they wanted to come in strong and get noticed. There are billions of conversations taking place and you need to find a way to get yourself noticed.

Mix It Up

After doing their research, Sony determined what topics were most relevant, most popular and most engaging, and created boards that fit into all of those categories. Do not limit yourself only to posts about your brand.

On the t2 Pinterest page, we share plenty of content about marketing, but we also share animal pictures, motivational quotes and healthy recipes! Be as broad as possible, because at the end of the day you want to reach as many people as you can. You never know where you might find new business!

Cross Promote Pinterest

Share your pins and promote your Pinterest page wherever you can. Sony posted their Pinterest account and their pins to other social networks, included links in email blasts and added links on their blog to drive new traffic to Pinterest. The more accessible your content is, the faster you will see eyes landing on it.

Pin It!

For Sony, the Pin It! button generated 10 times the number of clicks from the Sony Store than the Tweet This button. That means 10 times the number of links being generated on Pinterest than on Twitter and leading back to the store. Make your website Pinterest-friendly and your visitors will take care of the rest.

While we can’t all be Sony-sized brands, we can all develop strategies that lead to the same degree of success that Sony experienced. Whether your brand is big or small, your strategy is what will determine the value of your social media program.

What strategy do you incorporate into your Pinterest marketing? Has it worked? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

5 Tips for Dealing with Customer Complaints on Social Media

June 11, 2013/by Corey Padveen

There are certain ways to go about dealing with customer complaints on social media.

All customer complaints are not the same, but there are certain features that are true to every one, and certain best practices that should always be adopted when dealing with customer complaints on social media.

The most important thing to note when it comes these complaints is that under no circumstances should any customer complaint go ignored on social networks. In addition to this one universal rule, there are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to dealing with customer complaints on social media.

Always Be Courteous

A 2011 survey on Customer Rage conducted at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University found that 90% of complaining customers want one thing above all else: to be treated with dignity. Yet, only 40% said that this is the kind of treatment that they received.

At Zendesk, the philosophy is to treat a complaining customer as you would treat (or, at least, hopefully treat) your grandmother. Kindness goes a long way, because for a lot of complaining customers, they simply want to vent.

Respond Quickly

If I am a dissatisfied customer and I send you a tweet and hear nothing for days I might be tempted to take my efforts to the next level. The same survey mentioned above also found that 88% of people who had a negative experience with a brand chose to deal with their issue by telling their friends about it. In the age of social media, “friends” could mean tens of thousands. So act fast to help your customers or things could get way out of hand.

Be Knowledgable

Have you ever called a customer service line and found yourself waiting on hold every time you ask a question because your service representative doesn’t know the answer? It’s frustrating. Having answers to customer questions and complaints (both on and off social media) is your most powerful weapon, and you should always have an answer locked and loaded when an issue arises.

Be Proactive

The answers and solutions your customers are looking for should be readily available in as many places as possible. If an issue comes up once, you should always assume it will come up again and prepare for it the next time it does.

The faster you can resolve someone’s issue the happier they will be, and a proactive approach to customer service is going to help you do just that.

Use Your Experience

While this is not a method for dealing with a customer complaint directly, it is a means of using these situations for the benefit of your company. Customer complaints are a great way of figuring out where your product or service needs work. It is your product, so for you, it is perfect. For others, that might not be the case.

Adapting your product or service to the requests and complaints of customers is a great way of making your product more user-friendly, and it is going to make your job of customer service a lot easier down the road.

How do you deal with customer complaints on social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media: Week-in-Review, June 8, 2013

June 8, 2013/by Corey Padveen

In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!

Monitoring Your Online Reputation [INFOGRAPHIC]

Managing and monitoring your online reputation is more important than ever, and the numbers are there to prove it. You might be surprised by some of the data that is showcased here, and it might make you look at monitoring your online reputation and little more closely! Have a look at the great infographic here.

3 Mistakes You Are Making on Social Media…But Don’t Know It

We all do it. It seems so intuitive and yet, we all tend to make these mistakes. Take a look at these three common social media mistakes and see if there are any you have been guilty of in the past!

5 Tips for Using Google+ Effectively

There are critics and detractors, but the reality of Google+ is that, when used correctly, it can be one of your most powerful assets. The benefits to exposure, SEO, influence and business growth are nearly unsurpassed in the world of social media. Take a look at these 5 tips for using Google+ effectively to find out why.

Case Studies: Nutella

Sometimes, the best lessons we learn are those that teach us what not to do. That is the case when it comes to a recent action taken by the makers of Nutella that went viral on social media – and not in the way brands would hope for. Find out what lessons marketers can learn from the makers of Nutella in this week’s Case Studies.

Social Equity: Foursquare for Business

Mobile marketing tools are growing both in popularity and prominence when it comes to forms of social marketing. Foursquare has recently made a slew of changes that have greatly increased the network’s value for business. Businesses that use the network properly stand to garner a significant degree of Social Equity, and we showcase what that value added is in this week’s Social Equity segment!

Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!

Social Media: Week-in-Review, June 1, 2013

June 1, 2013/by Corey Padveen

In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!

21 Types of Content People Love [INFOGRAPHIC]

Content is the root of a successful marketing campaign, no matter the medium. When it comes to content, however, there are certain types that flop and then there are others that engage your audience like never before. In this great infographic, we look at 21 types of content that always drive good engagement with your audience.

Make Use of the New Features on Pinterest

Pinterest keeps rolling out some great new features that marketers should all be aware of and use to their advantage. Take a look at what some of these new features are, and find out how you can use them to your benefit, whether it comes to your own marketing efforts or those of a client!

4 Ways to Increase Sharing of Your Blog

Your blog is one of the best ways you can showcase your expertise to your audience. It is a hub where almost all of your links might point, and one of the key steps in the path to conversion. So how can you go about increasing the shares of the content on your blog? Take a look at these 4 great tips to help increase the sharing of your blog content!

Case Studies: Cadbury

Cadbury is known for having some of the most delicious treats on the market, and they did something very sweet (sorry – it was just too easy) to thank their fans and boost engagement rates on their content. Find out what Cadbury did in this week’s Case Studies!

Social Equity: Video Blogging

Blogging is an exceptional tool when it comes to getting found, and engagement rates see a spike with video content over any other type of content on social media. So, naturally, it would make sense that video blogging can add considerable value to your business. Find out what that value is in this week’s Social Equity segment!

Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!

Case Studies: Cadbury

May 30, 2013/by Corey Padveen

How did Cadbury make their social media presence as sweet as their candy?

It was early in 2012 that Cadbury realized they were approaching the 1 million fan mark on Facebook. It was around that same time that they realized that only about 16% of fans ever saw any of the content they were posting to their social networks.

Cadbury wanted to get the most out of their social media marketing, and they knew that for an internationally-recognized brand, 16% simply wasn’t good enough. So they decided to do something so big that it would grab the attention of a lot more than a mere 16%: they built a Facebook ‘Like’ thumb out of chocolate to say thanks!

The results of this gesture were 40,000 new Facebook fans and engagement of well over 30% for this campaign. Clearly, there are a few takeaways marketers can pull from this campaign by Cadbury.

Always Engage Your Audience

Engagement is going to be at the forefront of any successful social media campaign. Your audience needs to have a purpose for viewing your content, and providing engaging content is always going to be on top of that list of reasons.

Simply sharing promotional information, or a piece of text, isn’t going to entice anyone to share, comment, or necessarily like your content. The results? It hurts your EdgeRank and can be somewhat damaging to your brand’s growth on social media in the long run, due to the lack of exposure.

Let Your Fans Know You Care

Whether you are a Cadbury with 1 million fans or a Mom n’ Pop with 100, you should always let those that have become fans know that you care.

Success on social media stems from the ability to reach a wider audience than on any other medium, and each fan is another new network of possibilities. So when reaching milestones, show your fans you care – you’d be surprised at how appreciated those gestures are.

Never Ignore Your Analytics

It took Cadbury until the million fan mark to realize that only 16% of those fans were engaging with the brand. Moreover, Cadbury is an international brand; imagine how few fans are engaged with your small business on Facebook if only a small fraction are engaging with a brand like Cadbury!

The reality is that roughly 98% of people who ‘Like’ a brand never return to that brand’s page. You need to find a way to optimize your content and your strategy in order to get those numbers as high as possible. Don’t ignore your analytics. They are providing valuable information that is going to help your brand blow up on social media!

The Case Studies on Cadbury’s Facebook campaign provides a great set of Do’s and Do Not’s for marketers.

Which of these lessons do you think is most important? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media: Week-in-Review, May 25, 2013

May 25, 2013/by Corey Padveen

In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!

5 Tips to Optimize Landing Pages for Conversion

Landing pages are great resources for converting leads into customers. Whether you are looking to get them to download an ebook, register for a webinar or sign up for a demo, a landing page is going to be one of the most important steps in the process. In order for that to happen, however, you need to be optimizing your landing pages for conversion using some of these universal tips!

8 Tips for Optimizing Posts on Social Media

Sharing content across different networks with an engaged audience is one of the best ways of building exposure, influence and traffic. In order for the process to be successful, there are a few things that every marketer should keep in mind. Take a look at these 8 great tips for optimizing your content posting strategy on social media!

Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2013 – The Highlights

Every year, the folks at Social Media Examiner put together a fantastic report highlighting some of the major findings in the realm of social media. This year was no exception, and we have featured some of the highlights from this year’s Social Media Marketing Industry Report.

Case Studies: Oreo

Among the memorable moments at Super Bowl XLVII were the heroic efforts by some football stars, an extended blackout that enraged social audiences, and, the biggest event for social media marketers, a tweet for the marketing team at Oreo that created some major waves in the world of social media. Take a look at this week’s Case Studies to find out what marketers can learn from Oreo’s big play.

Social Equity: The Big (Now Even Bigger) Value of Tumblr

Tumblr is a great platform for blogging to an already engaged audience, and the recent acquisition of the social network by Yahoo! gives it even more value for brands and marketers. Find out where there is value added to your business from a presence on Tumblr in this week’s Social Equity segment!

Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your long weekend!

Social Media: Week-in-Review, May 18, 2013

May 18, 2013/by Corey Padveen

In case you missed some of the topics we covered this week, here is the social media week-in-review!

5 Things Brands Should Never Do On Social Media

Social media can be an exceptional tool in your arsenal when it comes to building up your business and your exposure. However, unlike the old saying, not all publicity is good publicity, particularly on social media. Take a look at these five activities that should be avoided by brands looking to succeed on social media!

4 Important Social Media Metrics

Marketers are always looking for the best ways to measure their social media programs. There are some metrics that will be looked at more closely than others, depending on your goals. However, these 4 important social media metrics are universal and should be studied over the course of any program!

How Organizations Structure Social Media Teams [INFOGRAPHIC]

Social media is a relatively new marketing concept, and there are still many marketers and companies wondering how social media teams and initiatives should be structured. Take a look at this detailed infographic to see how organizations are structuring their social media teams and programs!

Case Studies: Comodo

It is no secret that Instagram is notoriously filled with pictures of our food. And sometimes, meals are just so stunning they need to be photographed! Comodo, an independently-owned restaurant in New York City recognized the influence of Instagram and decided to harness its popularity to build their virality and business. Read more in this week’s Case Studies!

Social Equity: The Viral Effect

Virality is one of the most commonly measured features of a social media marketing program. It is also an important factor when determining the reach, success and power of your brand on social networks. In this week’s Social Equity segment, we look at the value added to your business from the viral effect.

Have a look through some of these great articles and enjoy your weekend!

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