Author Archives: Jake

Bringing Pinterest To The Mix – Your New Favorite Tool

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The latest social media craze comes in the form of images. By now, you’ve probably at least heard of Pinterest. Unlike other social networks, the site isn’t so much about updates as about sharing your interests through images. Many businesses have already discovered using images on Facebook and other social sites is a great way to generate buzz. Imagine using a site where images reign supreme.

No Clutter

Unlike Facebook where posts and images often get lost, images on Pinterest are easily organized so your followers can quickly find what they want. There are no games or status updates to compete with. Even comments are automatically minimized to create a clutter free space where the images tell the story.

Get Personal

Pinterest offers a unique chance to get personal with your followers. Post images which show your business in the community. Display the latest products in use by real customers. For instance, a restaurant my post pictures of happy customers enjoying the newest menu items or a pet store might post images of cute puppies playing with toys. The idea is to truly show potential customers what they are missing out on.

Network With Others

Pinterest isn’t just about you. Look for similar or complimentary businesses. Share their images with your followers. As with other social networking sites, take the time to network. You can also share the images of your followers when applicable.

Connect With Other Networks

Connect Pinterest with Facebook and suddenly you’ll see your Pinterest activity pick up. Many Facebook users are already on Pinterest. The pictures they share and post are listed on their Facebook walls. The same holds true for anything you share or post. If you’re new to Pinterest, this is the perfect way to gain a following. As the shares start to increase, you’ll find an entirely new following looking forward to your every image.

Less To Compose

Frankly, composing politically correct, non-boring status updates can be difficult at times. Pinterest takes away the pain by simply asking you to post images. The only thing you really need to compose is a caption and responses to comments.

Humor

Finally, Pinterest allows you to show off your humorous side by posting funny, non-offensive images (related to your business when possible) along with business photos. Followers love humor and personality. Take advantage of it.

5 Ways To Create Better Social Media Profiles

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Every single social media site allows you to create a profile. Sadly, some businesses ignore this section, filling out only the required sections. However, your profile is one of the most important parts of your social media page. Whether you use social networking or social bookmarking sites, leverage the full power of your profile.

Professional Picture

Don’t post just any picture for your profile. Definitely don’t use a blank or icon type image. Use the picture section to post a picture which represents your business. Consider using your company logo, employees at work, happy customers, community events or a combination. Some businesses have custom images created to catch the attention of potential followers.

Catchy Taglines

Many social media sites have a tagline or quote section. Place your company’s tagline, motto or philosophy here. A catchy phrase here grabs a user’s attention. Just like a song, it sticks in your head. A great tagline also perfectly describes your business.

About

The length of this section varies based on the social media site you use. For instance, Facebook actually has two About sections. The first is essentially a 100 character tagline, while the second is far longer. Regardless of the length, use this section wisely. Keep details concise, professional and most important, descriptive. This is the section to tell users who you are, what you have to offer and why their lives would be better by following you.

Contact Details

Don’t alienate yourself. When asked to place contact details, do so. List email addresses, phone numbers and websites. Don’t forget to list any other social media profiles. The more details you can provide, the better. You want your followers to be able to contact you.

Call To Action

While there isn’t a section for this, you need a call to action somewhere on your profile if possible. Extremely short profiles, such as those on Twitter, may not offer enough room. Longer profiles should always have a CTA. For instance, the About section could contain a sentence stating “For the latest updates, become a follower today.” You could also prompt users to contact you by saying “We’re happy to answer any questions you may have, contact us today.”

Create a killer profile before you do anything else. Without this, even the best page may not gain the followers it deserves.

Posts Getting Lost? Why Posting Manually Gets You Noticed

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How often do you notice posts from pages on your personal Facebook news feed? Take a minute and look. What you will find is those using apps to post for them tend to be grouped together. This is exactly what happens to your own posts if you use apps to post feeds and updates from your blog and website.

Facebook changed the news feed to provide users with the most relevant stories only. While they can change their settings, they may not realize they are even missing your posts. Odds are, they saw the group of posts, but only really noticed the first in the list. If it isn’t yours, you miss out on an opportunity to engage with a fan.

To prevent this problem, manual posting is necessary. Before we discuss why it works, let’s discuss how posts are ranked. Posts from pages only rank higher in a news feed when there is engagement between the fan and the page. This includes comments, shares, likes and even visits. If your posts aren’t being seen, the engagement levels are next to nothing.

Facebook does rank manual posts higher than those from apps. For instance, a single game’s activity is usually grouped together for all friends. This organizes a person’s news feed, but doesn’t necessarily help you. Mixing in manual posts allows you to break away from the group.

Once a fan starts to engage more, they will also see your posts from apps. Either your posts will be at the top of the group or they will be listed separate. Fans can then choose to subscribe to all your posts, ensuring they are always noticeable in their news feeds.

You don’t have to stop using apps. If you have multiple content streams to post, it is easier to use RSS feed apps to post your content automatically. However, take the time to make manual posts as well. Perhaps you could choose your most important content stream and post manually for a while. Whatever strategy you choose, mix in regular manual posts to ensure fans notice you. Get their attention and you’ll gain more fans and better overall results.

Is Facebook Actually Working – The Benefits of Insights

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You’ve created a Facebook business page and worked tirelessly to interact with your fans. How do you know exactly how much interaction there actually is? Luckily, Facebook has the perfect built in tool to track the number of comments, likes and which types of posts perform the best. Insights is free to use and one of your best friends for social media reporting.

Create Valuable Reports

You are not restricted to viewing your data on Facebook. To create reports to study yourself or show to other members of your social media team, Insights allows you to export data to Excel or any other spreadsheet software. Choose whether you want to view page or post level data, select your date range and choose your file format. Please note you can only view 500 posts within a single report.

What You Can Learn

If you’re making the most of Facebook, you’re posting a combination of text, images and videos. Which of the three perform best? Since every business is different, what works best for one may not work as well for another. By using insights, you are able to see which post type receives the most interactions. More interactions means these are the posts your audience likes best. You still need variety, but put more emphasis on the post types your fans love.

Now that you know what post format works best, you need to view Insights to determine which types of updates are working best for your business. For instance, do product updates perform better than business news? Maybe your fans love interactive Q&A days best. If you want to make the most of your Facebook page, carefully review your Insights to determine the exact types of posts which fans like best.

Take full advantage of Insights. This simple to use tool provides a wealth of knowledge for any business. Download Insights at least once per month or weekly for extremely active pages. Not only can you track success, but you can vastly improve how you interact with your audience.

Timeline Isn’t The End – 4 Ways To Make It Work For You

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Many businesses complained when they were forced to switch to the new Timeline page format. While individual users had plenty of time to adjust, businesses only had a few short months. However, Facebook Timeline isn’t the end of your business page. Instead, learn how you can make it work for you.

Stunning Design

The first thing fans will notice about your newly designed page is the cover photo. Use this to your best advantage. Show off your latest products, employees, community events or anything else related to your business. Many are using custom designed photos which are a collage of the best photos to represent the business.

Pin Important Posts

In the past, your important posts quickly dropped to the bottom of your page as you added new updates. While you can only pin one post at a time, Facebook Timeline lets you pin a post to the top of your page, just below your cover photo and apps. It will stay on top for as long as you want. This works perfectly to remind fans of important events, contests and product releases.

Since tabs no longer exist, many businesses are using a pinned post as their welcome to new fans. It advertises the latest promotions so fans can find them quickly.

Milestones

Before, your page was limited from the time you joined. Now, you can go back to the beginning of your business. List all your important milestones to help fans get to know you better. As an added benefit, fans can tag older photos (from before you created a Facebook page) which will appear on your page. This means more advertising from your fans and better interactions.

About Tagline

While the About tab was often missed by fans, it is now directly below your cover photo. While you are limited to 100 characters, it is the perfect place for a killer tagline describing your business. Once users click the link below it, they will see an extended version where you can add as much information as necessary to truly show fans who you are.

Facebook Timeline is different, but it offers more than enough benefits to make up for the sudden change.

Is Facebook Actually Working? The Benefits of Insights Revealed.

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You’ve created a Facebook business page and worked tirelessly to interact with your fans. How do you know exactly how much interaction there actually is? Luckily, Facebook has the perfect built in tool to track the number of comments, likes and which types of posts perform the best. Insights is free to use and one of your best friends for social media reporting.

Create Valuable Reports

You are not restricted to viewing your data on Facebook. To create reports to study yourself or show to other members of your social media team, Insights allows you to export data to Excel or any other spreadsheet software. Choose whether you want to view page or post level data, select your date range and choose your file format. Please note you can only view 500 posts within a single report.

What You Can Learn

If you’re making the most of Facebook, you’re posting a combination of text, images and videos. Which of the three perform best? Since every business is different, what works best for one may not work as well for another. By using insights, you are able to see which post type receives the most interactions. More interactions means these are the posts your audience likes best. You still need variety, but put more emphasis on the post types your fans love.

Now that you know what post format works best, you need to view Insights to determine which types of updates are working best for your business. For instance, do product updates perform better than business news? Maybe your fans love interactive Q&A days best. If you want to make the most of your Facebook page, carefully review your Insights to determine the exact types of posts which fans like best.

Take full advantage of Insights. This simple to use tool provides a wealth of knowledge for any business. Download Insights at least once per month or weekly for extremely active pages. Not only can you track success, but you can vastly improve how you interact with your audience.

4 Reasons To Start Using Facebook Events Now

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If you’ve been using Facebook to market your business, you probably know all about the basics of regular posting, adding photos and interacting with fans. One feature you might not be aware of is events. Like the term implies, you use this feature to make fans aware of upcoming events they can participate in. Whether your business is based online or off, you need to start using events now.

Community Events

Local businesses often make the most of events. When you have a community event planned, let all your fans know. Don’t depend upon word of mouth alone. Far too many businesses place an ad on their door and expect the general public to be aware of the upcoming event. You will reach a far larger audience by posting the event on Facebook. List the time, date, price (if applicable) and any additional details. For instance, restaurants often use events to update fans on live music and karaoke nights.

More Interactions

Are you planning a big Q&A session with your fans? You may have posted about it, but you still run the risk of your posts being buried in fans’ news feeds. By scheduling an event, the date is listed in the events section on a fan’s main Facebook page. They see it at all times.

Know Who’s Attending

If you really want an idea of how many people are planning to attend your event, you must take advantage of the events feature. Fans have three options when it comes to events which appear on their Facebook home page. They can choose “Yes, I’m attending,” “No, I’m not attending” and “Maybe.” This gives you an idea of how many people might attend your event.

Build Hype

Schedule an event on Facebook and watch the excitement build. A simple post isn’t enough. Instead, post an event. Fans can easily invite their own friends and family. Each time your event is shared, all details are shared with it. Any type of event you hold should always be scheduled using the events feature. It will build more hype than a post alone and the event will be shared far more.

Twitter Isn’t Just Tweets – 4 Ways To Utilize Twitter

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The initial marketing concept for Twitter is to simply tweet about the latest product releases and company updates. While this does gain you followers, there are other uses for Twitter besides just tweeting to the world. Twitter actually has two distinct purposes. The first is to make followers aware of your brand, while the second is to use feedback to better your business.

Gain Essential Feedback

Don’t limit yourself to talking to your followers. Instead, ask for their feedback. This involves your followers and allows you to receive completely free feedback on product features, what customers are looking for and how your company can improve. Link to videos, surveys and polls to provide an easy way for followers to provide their feedback. You can also take advantage of Q&A days where you customers actually ask you questions.

Optimize Marketing

With Twitter, you can track how many times tweets have been retweeted along with any responses. This is the perfect way to determine what types of tweets are most effective. While you can still use other types of tweets, the most effective ones are the ones which create the most buzz. Use your Twitter stats to optimize your marketing campaign.

Full History

Consider Twitter to be a record of your social marketing history. At any point, you can go back in time to see customer feedback along with your own business information. You can quickly chart how far your business has come since using social media and which marketing strategies have worked best.

Go With The Trends

Just like search engines, Twitter has daily, weekly and even monthly trends. Some hashtags and topics are more popular than others. Use this information to focus your tweets around any of these popular topics to better increase brand awareness. Even a completely off topic tweet on a popular topic can increase followers if it is humorous and professional.

Don’t stop at just tweeting. Instead, take advantage of all the information Twitter offers to users. From history to optimizing marketing, your business has much to glean from the 140 character messages between you and your followers.

Hunting For The Perfect Employee? Utilize Social Networking

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Many businesses focus on increasing customers through social media use. More and more, social networks are being used to help fill positions in companies. While potential employees used to post their resumes on job search sites, they are now networking more on social networks than career sites. Advertising open positions in your business on your social media page is a great way to find the perfect employee.

Discover More About Candidates

Employers are using social network profiles to learn more about candidates even through traditional job application methods. For businesses already utilizing social media, when someone applies for a job through the link on your social media page, you have instant access to view the candidate’s profile to find out more about them.

Reach Millions With A Single Post

Millions use social networks on a daily basis. From Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to smaller niche sites, your biggest candidate pool is using the same networks you use to promote your business. Send out a message to all your fans about new openings in your company. Add a link on your page about the opening, all requirements and how to apply.

In just a few days, you’ll receive all the replies you could possibly handle. While some applicants won’t come close to meeting the requirements, you can quickly scan applications to find which best fit the needs of your business. It is better to have too many applications with several winning candidates than receive too few applications where no one fits the criteria.

Post Jobs For Free

Some sites require businesses to pay a fee to list jobs. Social networking sites are free to join and use. You can also remind users about the opening on a regular basis without your listing be lost in the growing pile of job openings on a career search website. Not only do you post your job for free, you can update the status and send out reminders whenever you want.

Your perfect employee could very likely be on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media site. Reaching out to your fans not only shows you value them, but that you would love to have them on your team as well.

Get People Talking – 5 Tips For Facebook Interactions

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The key to succeeding with Facebook is to get people talking and interacting with you. With readyBUZZ, you are well on your way to success. However, you still need to keep your page active in order to generate the necessary buzz for social media success.

Post During Odd Hours

Usually, business posts are made between 9 AM and 5 PM during weekdays. Weekends are typically quiet. However, most Facebook users are on the site after these times. Keep in mind the average user works during your business hours. Waiting until 3 PM to post on weekdays helps keep your posts visible for users. Posting on weekends is a great way to interact with users. Schedule your posts around when your target audience is most likely to be at home for best results.

Ask For Likes And Comments

Don’t just assume fans will “like” or comment on a post. Instead, encourage them to interact by asking them to “like” a post or add their feedback. When prompted, users are twice as likely to interact, equaling a higher interaction rate overall.

Add Meat To Posts

Many businesses try to stay within Twitter’s 140 character limit so posts work on both Twitter and Facebook. Whenever possible, make your posts slightly longer. Several sentences better describes your message and increases interaction. Every post doesn’t have to be long, but at least one a day should have a little more meat to it.

Add Photos

When scanning through their news feed, a user notices an image before a status update. Grab a user’s attention and increase interaction by posting pictures regularly. Include a call to action as mentioned above and you’ll further increase interaction.

Give Your Posts Time

Don’t try to flood a fan’s news feed with posts just to get their attention. On average, most users only expect to see a few posts a day. Depending on the type of business or site you have, users may expect far more. Consider your target audience and what they might expect. Too many posts means users don’t have time to read them. Give fans a chance to see your posts. Most posts have at least several hours of visibility, meaning fewer posts equal more interactions.