Social Media Marketing / Design / Princeton, NJ

The New Year is here!  Are you ready?  Here’s a quick list to help you head into the new year with a fresh start.

1. Update your LinkedIn profile.  Unless you’re a LinkedIn pro, you might find that your LinkedIn profile has gotten a bit dusty.  Take 5 minutes and give it a once-over.  Read through your job & project descriptions, add any updates, freshen up the language.  Take another look at your photo: is it working? (Is it clear, professional, well-lit, inviting…?)  Finally, join some new groups and ‘follow’ some industry pros.  It’s all about expanding your network, after all.

2. Write yourself an editorial calendar for one month.  An editorial calendar is an outline for your blogging or marketing goals, laid out in advance.  It’s an invaluable tool if you’re serious about providing regular, exciting content.  If you don’t use one regularly, try it for one month.  It doesn’t have to be complex or lengthy, just give yourself enough detail to go on so that you’re inspired to keep at it.  (Prediction: You’ll see an increase in post frequency.)

3.  Change your Facebook Cover Photo.  It’s a minor one, but this change gets attention!  Think about your brand ‘s major initiatives are right now, and how you can convey that through a photo.  Freshen things up!  While you’re updating your photo, take a look at your page through a stranger’s eyes and see if there’s anything else you can add to or enhance to captivate new visitors and engage those who already ‘like’ your page. (…and if you’ve written your editorial calendar, you’ll be prepared to serve up engaging content all month long!)

4.  Sign up for social media management tools so you can stay active on Twitter.  In my opinion, it’s better not to have your brand on Twitter at all than to have a stale, neglected Twitter account!  If being consistently active Twitter is a challenge for you, check out some tools to make Twitter more manageable.  Programs like HootSuite are designed to make tweeting even easier, with features that let you write and schedule tweets ahead of time, data reporting to help you judge how effective your tweets are, and more.  Finally, remember to check your Twitter account often so that you can reply to mentions and interact with your fans in a timely manner.  

Here’s to a happy and productive New Year!

A few weeks ago I posted the first in a series of write-ups reviewing tools for smarter tweeting.  If you’re managing the Twitter account for your business - and also trying to, you know, run the business - finding an effective way to plan and share content is crucial.  Save time, tweet smarter, and share great content with your followers using these programs!

Last time, I reviewed Buffer, an app that allows you to schedule as many Twitter and Facebook posts as you can write ahead of time.  It’s great - you can prepare all the tweets and posts you need, and not only does Buffer post them, but it will give you metrics to show you how many RTs and clicks you got for each one.

But let’s talk about those clicks… obviously the goal is to share content that gets as many clicks as possible, so naturally, your odds are increased when you have more followers online.  But how do you know when that is?  That’s where Tweriod comes in. 

Tweriod analyzes your Twitter followers and provides you with a chart showing how many of your followers are active at different times throughout the day.  It provides these statistics for each specific day, as well as weekends combined, and weekdays combined, giving you insight on the optimal times to share your content.

Tweriod is free (with slightly limited features) for analyzing up to 5,000 followers.  If you’re just getting started, the free version should suit you perfectly.

Tweriod markets itself to work alongside Buffer, which I have been making use of, but the information the program offers can act as a guideline that you can use with any other sharing app.

There’s a ton of information being shared on social media, designed to lure readers, engage them, make them click, buy, retweet, etc.  When you are just one voice among these millions of other voices, how will you make sure you’re heard? How can you be certain that the content you’re sharing is engaging your followers, and attracting new ones?  Here are some strategies for smarter sharing on social media sites.

1. Mind your post frequency.  Too often and it’s annoying, too little and you get lost in the crowd.  Deciding on how often to tweet or share takes time, and you’ll find your rhythm as you go.  For starters, shoot for a handful of posts per day - more than 3 - and see how that goes.  The key here is consistency.  If you suddenly vanish, the social media world will forget about you and keep moving on.  Dedicate yourself to a regular number of posts - blog posts, Facebook and Twitter posts - and stick with that frequency. 

2. Maximize your reach.  If you’re managing multiple accounts, consider this point raised by Robert Caruso, author of bundlepost.  He argues that strategic posting across each of your social media channels increases the exposure of your post.  If you’re sharing your new blog post on Twitter, share it on Facebook at a different time, and engage a new audience.  The audience on your social media sites fluctuates throughout the day, and if you only share it one time, double-posting on social media sites, you’re only reaching one audience, one time.  With that in mind…

3. Work the metrics.  There are many apps that can work to your advantage when it comes to content sharing.  One of my favorites at the moment is an app called Buffer, which allows you to schedule tweets and Facebook posts ahead of time, and then provides you with the analytics for each afterwards.  (Read my review of Buffer here.)  The benefit to this is being able to see how effective each post was - how many people saw it, how many clicks it got, etc. - so that you can fine-tune your sharing strategy. 

Thinking strategically about how you share will increase traffic to your site, engage your audience, and help you grow your social media presence. 

Maybe in your dream world, you have a whole marketing team devoted to sharing your business’ message with your loyal fans.  But for now, you’re it.  Running a business means wearing a lot of different hats - perhaps juggling customer service, personnel, book keeping -  in addition to trying to keep up with your fans on social media sites.  With all those tasks to consider, finding ways to save time is key.  Lucky for you, there are several great tools available to make your social media marketing more efficient!

Buffer is a popular app that allows you to compose and schedule your tweets or Facebook posts ahead of time.  There is a lot to love about Buffer, but the biggie is the amount of time it can save you.  Instead of making time throughout the day to stay involved and share things on social media sites, you can prepare a few days’ worth of content in one sitting.  Type them into Buffer, they’ll be added to your queue.

Buffer also provides you with the analytics for each tweet.  See how many clicks it got, how many potential viewers it had, along with retweets, mentions and favorites - all from your Buffer dashboard.

After trying a few similar programs, I decided to try Buffer myself.  I’ve been using it for a few days now, and have found it to be user-friendy, intuitive, and a very helpful tool.  Take one thing off your daily to-do list, and download Buffer to make your social media marketing a little easier!

(Source: ohsobeautifulpaper.com)

Social Media Examiner just released their 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, packed with information about how marketers are using social media as well as some projections about the future of the field.  (You can view the full report here.)

Rohit Bhargava over at Ragan’s PR Daily interpreted the survey, and reached some interesting conclusions in his blog post, “Report: No. 1 Social Media Question: How Do I Measure?”

For me, the biggest take-away was that for all the hype that goes into measurement (which is an essential component of effective social media marketing), content and strategy have fallen to the wayside.  Having a well thought out strategy for your marketing program - specific goals, and an outline for how to reach them - will keep you on track, save you time, and give you a better results.  (Identifying the results you want will bring the results you want!)

Additionally, time and time again we’ve seen that content is king when it comes to successful social media marketing.  (That phrase in itself has become a sort of slogan for marketers.)  Create content that supports your mission and engages your audience, and watch the word spread!

Why should your small business join Twitter?
In my work as a social media consultant for several small, local businesses, I frequently find myself met with skepticism when I suggest that joining Twitter is a logical addition to a marketing strategy.  There is plenty to be learned from joining Twitter, and plenty of benefit.  In my opinion, the there are a whole host of reasons why you should get your business on Twitter, but if you too are feeling wary, I’ll elaborate on some of the more obvious benefits.

First, and perhaps most obviously, it is a networking platform that can be utilized to increase your brand’s exposure.   The nature of Twitter is to spread information.  Create interesting content, and your followers share it.  Their followers read it and take note, and they begin to follow you.  (And so on, and so on.)  It’s an easy way to get involved with your immediate community, other professionals in your field, and with fans and potential customers. 

Secondly, in addition to simply getting your brand out there and building relationships, Twitter allows you to tell your story.   By sharing snippets of your day to day, whether you have a product on sale, are discussing a new service you’re offering, or collaborating with others, you are giving your followers a chance to see what you’re made of.  What are your company’s values?  What things concern you in your daily life? What projects are you working on?  Tell your story from an honest, inside perspective and you will engage your curious fans.

Now that you’ve gained an understanding of some of the benefits to joining Twitter, here are a few things to be mindful of as you tweet for your company.  Let’s call them ‘best practices’ that you should consider as you dive into the Twitterverse.

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