Imagine shopping for a new dining table by picking up your phone and seeing the table in your dining room, as though you’re taking a video of it right before your eyes.

Sound a little like the holodeck in “Star Trek”? Yes, but this may not be science fiction in the near future.

The opportunity to engage with one another, see new places and reach a mass audience will create opportunities to shop with a confidence never before available from the comfort of your home. This is what’s available through virtual reality, the newest form of marketing.

Creative digital marketing strategies will usher brands into the virtual reality realm. Read on for an idea of:

• What virtual reality is and the ways people are connecting to VR today.
• The opportunities VR opens to marketers.
• Why VR in social media, gaming and commerce may be the catalyst for mass adoption.

With the virtual reality sector forecast to hit $162 billion by 2020 — up from $5.2 billion in 2016, these opportunities are not that far off.

What Is Virtual Reality?

There can be some confusion about what virtual reality is. What does VR actually do? How does it work? What am I going to look like with that headset on my face?

Let’s first get clear on the definition of virtual reality (VR). When we talk about VR, we’re talking about a computer-generated simulation of a 3D environment you can interact with using special equipment like goggles with a screen and sensors you hold in your hands.

Here’s a good explainer video from Mashable:

The key is that true virtual reality meets a few requirements:

• Perspective: a perspective that changes with the movement of your body and head
• Interactivity: an ability to interact with the environment, such as moving objects
• Navigation: an ability to control where you go through the environment

How People Are Using VR Today

People are using the term VR as an umbrella term for a variety of experiences. Purists consider VR to be technology that accounts for user perspective, interactivity and navigation. But you might also hear “VR” used to describe 360 videos, like those you might have seen on Facebook or YouTube, where you can move your phone around to see a 360-degree view from where the photographer stood.

Basically, under the VR umbrella, there are four major flavors of virtual reality, depending on the technology used and whether the environment is 2D or 3D.

On the 2D end, you have things like 360-degree video, which Facebook and YouTube have embraced, and several brands are experimenting with.

Here’s an example of 360-degree video (note how you have the control to move the screen any direction you wish during the video):

Google is betting big on VR, and Google positioned its Daydream View smartphone headset released last November to be one of the ways that affordable VR tech gets into the hands of the mainstream. Apps for Daydream, and other smartphone headsets like the Samsung Gear VR, include Netflix, HBO and a growing list of games. More on how the entertainment industry is going to be one of the first industries impacted by VR below …

How Virtual Reality Will Impact Businesses

VR will eventually transform much of how we live and work online, although some sectors may embrace virtual reality sooner than others — and for different reasons.

Entertainment is the sector where we’re seeing the fastest movement in VR. Product catalogs are also being enhanced with virtual reality as we speak.

The travel industry may use virtual reality marketing to entice potential travelers to their destinations.

The education sector may use VR as a way to bring concepts to life in the classroom, or to allow people to complete their university degrees from afar.

Let’s look closer at how some industries are using VR …

Virtual Reality and the Entertainment Industry

Immersive movie and gaming experiences may be the gateway to getting a VR device into households. Right now, VR is finding the most use here.

Last month, Google VP of VR, Amit Shingh, shared some statistics:

• Daydream users watch about 40 minutes of VR media per week.
• Over 50% of all content consumption on Daydream is YouTube content.

As a result, expect to see premium VR series and film content (not necessarily paid) coming from YouTube this year.

Experiencing a concert in virtual reality may not be too far off. Experts predict that paying for a VR concert would be an easy win, and in the future, may be an important revenue stream for musicians and producers. It could also free musicians from renting expensive venues.

Companies like VRTIFY are popping up, too. VRTIFY transforms music into fully immersive experiences using a variety of technologies, including VR.

Virtual Reality and Product Catalogs

A close cousin to VR is augmented reality (AR). AR is the technology in which you look at a screen reflecting your current environment and see a virtual layer on top of it. IKEA’s ground-breaking 2014 furniture catalog is a prime example of AR assisted shopping.

If you’re selling products, you should know about Augment.com. This service lets retailers and manufacturers put their product catalogs into an augmented reality shopping experience, like IKEA’s.

Interior design and architectural design are seeing advantages of envisioning a room or building before it is composed. Seeing an interior or building design come to life before committing with cash has obvious appeal. There are a growing number of apps and services that let users design a room with floor plans, wall color and trim, furniture and decor, then pop their smartphone into a VR headset to see their interior design in virtual reality.

Virtual Reality and the Travel Industry

Some businesses in the travel sector are already taking advantage of VR marketing.

Marriott delivers virtual travel experiences via a “teleporter station” and an Oculus Rift headset, transporting people to the beaches of Hawaii and the chic lobby bars of their hotels.

Several travel companies are already using VR to create their own promotional videos:

“We see virtual reality as an innovation that will change the travel business,” says Marco Ryan, chief digital officer for Thomas Cook Group, a U.K.-based tour operator that began testing VR content last year to boost sales. “The closer you get to the destination, the more excited you are to have that experience” — i.e., buy that experience.

To take advantage of the compelling VR experience and close the gap between the lack of VR headset owners and the consumers, “some VR producers set up at trade shows, shopping malls, pop-up stores and even on the street where they can provide the headsets.”

Travel industry pioneer Thomas Cook Group, by the way, has seen VR-promoted New York travel revenue increase by 190 percent.

Virtual Reality and the Education Industry

There are already several niche companies out there that specialize in curriculum, content and teacher training around VR like Immersive VR Education.

In 2015, Google jumped on VR education and launched Expeditions, a way for teachers to take their students on virtual field trips around the world.

Virtual Reality, and the Future of Marketing and Advertising

No matter what industry you’re in, virtual reality marketing may become part of your mix in the not-so-distant future.

Whether it’s through the storytelling power of VR content and experiences, or advertising placements within a virtual reality world, start thinking now about how your brand might fit in.

Think with Google believes that the medium has the potential to make any message even more impactful saying VR is an “incredibly powerful tool to create empathy. When a viewer feels like they are there, they have a greater sense of the situation. Messages become more impactful.”

Given that Facebook owns Oculus VR, it’s likely that social media will be a big catalyst for the adoption of VR among the masses. Once there’s money and connections to be made there, its adoption will likely become more mainstream.

In my 2017 digital marketing predictions, I predicted new forms of behavior around virtual chat rooms this year. Social media platforms are innovating new means of online engagement instead of meeting people in person.

At at the Oculus Connect 3 conference last October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his vision for a social virtual reality chat room.

Why Being Virtual Will Be Virtually Mandatory

Virtual reality headsets are a solution waiting for a problem. The problem is what your target audience wants and needs. The technology is just a new way to give it to them.

The only thing standing in the way of VR right now is the adoption of this new technology. To move it to mass consumption will take a catalyst — catering to the desires of your consumers.

Once this mass adoption begins, it may already be too late to be an early adopter.

So, as you think about how to continually be where your customer has a need, consider exploring new technologies like virtual reality to evolve your brand’s storytelling, marketing and advertising strategies.

I want to know if you can imagine your brand in the VR space. Tell me about it in the comments below.

Virtual reality marketing is still in the future, but your cutting-edge digital strategy should be a work in progress. Partner with a digital marketing agency and stand out above your competition today and tomorrow. Give us a call or start talks today.

The post How VR Experiences Will Take Marketing by Storm in the Not-Too-Distant Future appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

The Facebook algorithm takes into consideration engagement, relevance, timeliness, and thousands of other factors in an effort to populate people’s News Feeds with more of the stuff they want to see, as inferred by Facebook.

Unlike sites where everything you post automatically shows up for every person who follows you, Facebook uses an algorithm to dictate what content appears in an individual’s News Feed. In Facebook’s official words, “The goal of News Feed is to show you the stories that matter most to you. To do this, we use ranking to order stories based on how interesting we believe they are to you.”[1]

In a sentence, the Facebook algorithm weighs factors to determine on a post-by-post basis whether a post is qualified to pass into an individual’s News Feed. And given Facebook’s impressive stats (1.71 billion monthly active users at last count[2]), it’s worth finding out how to extend your content’s reach organically on this platform.

What’s in the Facebook Algorithm?

Facebook calculates the authority and importance of Facebook Pages based on several factors — the most prominent of which is social interactions. The social site rewards engagement, so the algorithm considers the ratio of engagements to total number of followers.

The number of people “liking” your Page isn’t the main criterion. Content creators having real interactions with people, even if the audience size is smaller, carries more weight in the algorithm than an account with thousands of mute (and possibly fake) followers.

But that’s on the Page level. Individual posts have ranking factors, too.

The engagement cues that count in the algo include likes, clicks, comments and shares. But the social network also looks at the length of time spent viewing a post in the News Feed as an indicator of content people want to see more of.[3] The lesson here isn’t surprising — quality counts.

The News Feed filtration system — once called EdgeRank but now simply referred to broadly as the Facebook algorithm — takes into consideration as many as 100,000 individually weighted factors to deliver the most authoritative, relevant, and timely content to individuals.[4]

Of those 100,000 considerations, the three original EdgeRank factors — Affinity, Weight, and Time Decay — are still relevant and prominent ranking factors. In other words, EdgeRank hasn’t gone away. Its principles have simply been folded into a much larger, more advanced contemporary Facebook algorithm.

4 Factors the Facebook Algorithm Takes into Consideration

Facebook keeps adjusting its algorithm. It’s not just trying to find the right balance of ads and content, but also the right mix of shares from various sources.

1. Interaction a post is generating: Not just how much, but also what type — liking, commenting, clicking, sharing, or time spent viewing. Each of the interactions has its own weight depending on the amount of effort it takes to perform.
2. Who made the interaction: How directly connected is the user to the poster? It’s based on manual friendship designations, the user’s preferences, closeness inferred by interaction, and other factors.
3. When the post was made: Time decay happens because the News Feed rewards freshness.
4. Post popularity: If a post is losing the freshness edge because of time decay, but lots of people are still actively commenting on or sharing it, the engagement can trigger a bump that expands the post reach.

UPDATE 2/27/2017: Facebook announced today that it is “updating News Feed to weigh reactions [haha, wow, love, sad, angry] a little more than Likes” to help determine what an individual user is most interested in seeing.[5]

Also see 4 Ways to Optimize Your Facebook Presence.

4 More Factors Brand Pages Need to Know to Increase Organic Reach

Social sharing is a critical part of content marketing. But Facebook isn’t going to appreciate a business Page using Facebook just to promote its own content. Short of boosting posts with actual money, here are a few tips to help you keep your posts circulating through the network.

1. Don’t use click-bait: Facebook’s algorithm weeds out click-bait headlines, the kind that give little information about what the person will find if they click through.[6] So make sure to put enough description in your headlines.
2. Link the right way: Facebook favors links shared as link posts. The algo frowns on image and status posts containing a link in the text.[6] You’ll get even more reach if you leave off the link altogether! Sharing in a variety of formats is best, with and without links. With our own Facebook Page (see here), we get 10X more organic reach on posts without a link — probably because Facebook likes keeping people on its own site.
3. Mobile site load time must be fast: To improve the mobile UX, Facebook announced that “website performance and a person’s network connection” are considered when delivering promoted (paid) posts.[7] We can assume that how fast a page opens for a mobile user can affect the reach of organic link posts, as well. (Tip: Publishers can make sure their content loads fast using Facebook Instant Articles.)
4. Go for engagement: The social network’s tips for effective posts include: keep it short; use big, beautiful images; and respond to people’s comments quickly.[8]

Also see 4 Ways to Optimize Your Facebook Page for Search.

Want to boost your social media engagement? Our social media services may be the answer!

Sources:

1. http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/07/updated-controls-for-news-feed/
2. http://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/
3. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/04/news-feed-fyi-more-articles-you-want-to-spend-time-viewing/
4. http://marketingland.com/edgerank-is-dead-facebooks-news-feed-algorithm-now-has-close-to-100k-weight-factors-55908
5. http://mashable.com/2017/02/27/facebook-reactions-news-feed/
6. http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/08/news-feed-fyi-click-baiting/
7. https://www.facebook.com/business/news/improving-mobile-site-performance
8. https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/facebook-page-effective-posts

Editor’s Note: This is an update of an article originally posted by Chelsea Adams on Sept. 30, 2013.

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The post What Is the Facebook Algorithm? appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Of course, you’ll want to find the right social media software that aligns with your needs and goals. In this article, I will explore the factors to consider when choosing social media tools so that your social media marketing strategy has the power it deserves.

What to Look for When Choosing Social Media Tools

As you search for the right social media tool, here are seven factors to consider:

• Cost and features
• Contracts
• Google Analytics integration
• Supported social networks
• User access
• Access to historical data
• White labeling
• Comparison of social media software options
• FAQ: What are the key factors to consider when choosing social media management tools? 

1. Cost and Features

The price range of a social media tool can vary from $50 to $1,600 per month.

Lower-priced options usually offer basic features like follower growth tracking and reporting. On the other hand, higher-priced tools provide advanced features like social listening reports, competitive analysis, hashtag tracking, and more.

(Some tools even offer free versions that give you basic functionality.)

Consider your budget and the specific features you require to make a cost-effective choice for your business.

2. Contracts

Most social media software providers require a year-long contract. However, some options like Sprout Social and Quintly offer month-to-month payment plans, providing flexibility for your business.

Be sure to carefully review the contract before signing so that you know what you’re signing up for.

3. Google Analytics Integration

You’ll want to see if your social media marketing strategy is actually bringing in traffic, so you may want to consider a tool with integrated Google Analytics.

Some social media tools generate reports similar to Google Analytics’ Social Referrer Report. Evaluate whether separate data platforms are acceptable for your reporting needs or if integration with Google Analytics is necessary for your business.

4. Supported Social Networks

Social media marketing is not a one-size-fits-all, so decide which social networks your target audience spends time on.

While platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook are typically included, some tools offer additional integrations with platforms such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, and more.

5. User Access

Different social media software packages allow varying numbers of user logins.

Assess the size of your team and the number of individuals who require access to the software. Ensure that the chosen tool offers adequate user access to facilitate efficient collaboration and management.

6. Access to Historical Data

Historical data can help you identify which messages and strategies resonate with your audience. However, not all tools provide access to data that existed before you started using the software.

Nuvi is an exception, offering historical data for X (formerly Twitter).

7. White Labeling

White labeling allows you to customize the software’s branding to match your company’s identity. This provides a seamless integration of the software into your overall brand experience.

While lower-priced accounts often lack this feature, higher-priced options like Nuvi offer white labeling at an additional cost.

Consider whether white labeling is essential for maintaining a consistent brand image across social media management tools.

Now that we’ve covered the key considerations let’s take a closer look at some popular social media software options and their associated features and costs.

Comparison of Social Media Software Options

• Nuvi: Nuvi offers packages priced at $600, $900, and $1600 per month. Their social media software provides advanced features, including comprehensive social listening reports with advanced sentiment analysis, competitor analysis, customizable threshold alerts, and content management capabilities. It supports multiple social networks, allowing you to monitor and analyze data across various platforms. Additionally, Nuvi offers white labeling at an extra cost for seamless branding integration.
• Sprout Social: Sprout Social offers a range of plans starting from $59 to $500 per month. The lower-priced plans provide basic features such as follower growth tracking and mentions. As you move up to the higher-priced plans, you gain access to advanced reports, Google Analytics integration, white labeling, and a message approval workflow. Sprout Social supports Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, ensuring comprehensive coverage of major social networks.
• Quintly: Quintly provides packages priced at $129, $299, and $479 per month. While Quintly may not offer Google Analytics integration or content management features, it does support white labeling. If having control over your software’s branding is a priority, Quintly may be a suitable option to consider.
• DataPine: DataPine offers packages priced at €219, €399, €699, and €799 per month. Their software includes features such as Google Analytics integration and white labeling. However, it does not provide content management capabilities. Evaluate your specific requirements to determine if DataPine aligns with your business needs.

To get the most out of your social media marketing, it’s obvious you need a tool. Be sure to analyze your target audience and what has worked in the past to identify which tool you need.

There are many options, and most offer free trials, so be sure to try out a few before choosing the tool that will supercharge your social media marketing strategy.

What’s your preferred social media software? Share your thoughts in the comments.

FAQ: What are the key factors to consider when choosing social media management tools?

Businesses and individuals must select an ideal social media management tool based on their goals and resources. Our guide explores key considerations to aid this decision-making process.

1. Purpose and Goals:

Begin by defining your social media objectives. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, engage with your audience, or analyze data? Your goals will dictate which features and functionalities you need in a management tool.

2. Platform Compatibility:

Consider which social media platforms you intend to utilize. Ensure the tool you choose supports the most relevant platforms to your target audience.

3. User-Friendliness:

User interface and ease of use are crucial. Opt for a tool that your team can navigate comfortably, as this will impact efficiency and productivity.

4. Features and Integration:

Evaluate the tool’s features. Does it offer scheduling, analytics, and monitoring capabilities? Furthermore, check if it can integrate with your existing systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM) software.

5. Cost and Scalability:

Determine your budget and select a tool that aligns with it. Additionally, consider scalability – can the tool accommodate your future growth without significant cost increases?

6. Analytics and Reporting:

Comprehensive analytics and reporting are vital for measuring the effectiveness of your social media efforts. Choose a tool that provides in-depth insights and customizable reports.

7. Customer Support and Training:

Assess the quality of customer support and training the tool’s provider offers. A responsive support team and accessible training resources can save valuable time when troubleshooting issues.

8. Security and Compliance:

Ensure the tool complies with data privacy regulations and offers robust security features to protect your social media accounts and data.

9. Reputation and Reviews:

Read user reviews and seek recommendations from peers in your industry. A tool’s reputation can provide valuable insights into its reliability and performance.

10. Trial Period:

Choose tools with free trials whenever possible to see if they suit you before making the commitment to subscription services.

Selecting social media tools that meet your goals and circumstances is paramount to improve social media strategy and productivity. When selecting an application, it should help enhance both.

Step-by-Step Procedure for Selecting Social Media Management Tools:

1. Clearly define your social media objectives and goals.
2. Select your social media platforms.
3. Prioritize UX design and make sure everything is user-friendly.
4. List the essential features and integrations required for your social media management.
5. Determine your budget and consider scalability.
6. Prioritize tools that offer robust analytics and reporting capabilities.
7. Investigate the quality of customer support and available training resources.
8. Ensure the tool complies with security and privacy regulations.
9. Research the tool’s reputation through user reviews and industry recommendations.
10. Take advantage of trial periods to test the tool’s suitability whenever possible.

Following these steps will enable you to evaluate and select social media management software that best fulfills your objectives and needs.

This article was updated on September 13, 2023.

The post Is Your Company Ready to Invest in Social Media Tools? Which Factors Should You Consider? appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

With so many choices, kicking off social media marketing can be overwhelming. To help you choose the best fit social networks for your business, we’re shining a light on:

• The primary user base of the most popular social networks
• What brands are doing to find success marketing on each
• Guidelines for determining if your business could be a good match for marketing, branding, community building or customer service on each platform
• And any special considerations to be aware of that engagement on the platform may require

These are the six social networks covered here:

1. Pinterest
2. Instagram
3. Google+
4. LinkedIn
5. Facebook
6. Twitter

You can jump to each section from the link above.

Criteria for Evaluating a Social Investment

Here are some questions to ask to decide if a social network is right for your business:

• Are my target users among this network’s user base?
• Does my business’s products or services fit the type of content that is popular on this network?
• Can I commit resources to an ongoing campaign to create or publish content that is popular on this network?
• What are the ideal actions a user could take from this network that would benefit my business?

Below you’ll find each network’s primary user demographics and the popular content types as well as an example of a brand that has built a loyal and engaged community of followers.

While the examples of brands making each network work for them provides a template of what your business might be able to do, what has worked in the past is certainly not the limit to what could work in the future.

It’s important to note that every successful campaign strategy begins with creative thinking about a business brand and the audience it serves. In other words, your brand story could break the mold and be the next case study of a business doing social right!

Pinterest: Visual Candy Collectors

• Popular content: Food, fashion, décor and DIY images that users find around the web
• Most followed brands are Perfect Pallet, Real Simple and The Beauty Department
• Established in 2010
• 100 million active users
• 85 percent of users are female

Pinterest users post images to the platform (usually images they came across while browsing the web, sometimes images or graphics they may have created or published themselves) sorting or categorizing them by theme or subject matter which other users can then follow or browse. Pinterest has become a hub of inspiration for creatively inclined people, 4 out of 5 of whom are women. The industry themes that thrive on Pinterest include:

• Wedding and event planning
• Home décor
• Recipes
• Fashion
• Crafting and DIY

A Brand’s Pinterest Success

Upscale cosmetic retailer Sephora joined Pinterest in 2012. The brand boasts more than 290,000 followers and 6,500 pins showcasing product lines, tutorials for how to use their products and beauty looks created with their products, in other words, their products at work.

Since Sephora began advertising on Pinterest, Pinterest became one of Sephora.com’s top ten sources of referral traffic. Not only is Sephora boosting its reach with Pinterest, but it’s also able to improve its offerings via the data collected through it. Sephora learns about their users and the products they are most interested in, along with other key marketing information, by mining their Pinterest data.

How new content will be used on Pinterest is a consideration of every new campaign. “When we create content for our site or emails, we think of additional ways that we can help the story along on Pinterest,” said Sephora CMO Julie Bornstein. “We use web analytics to look at top pins, test quote layouts from brand founders, and try different product shots — we spend time learning about what works and experiment often to get it right.”

Instagram: Public Diarists

• Popular content: Photos by celebrities and brands revealing what goes on behind the scenes and glamorous lifestyles
• Most popular brands are Nike, Starbucks and NBA
• Launched in October 2010
• 400 million active users and counting
• 80 million photos shared per day
• Men and women are rather evenly represented among Instagram’s young (18-29) user base

On Instagram, users publish photos and videos (up to 15 seconds) dressed up with filters, user tagging and hashtags. Brands that succeed on Instagram are those with stories to tell, drawing users into the lifestyle the brand is portraying through the vignettes and characters featured in their photo stream.

Here’s a photo from BCI’s Instagram account. That’s BCI’s content and media manager Virginia Nussey, me, and senior technical writer Paula Allen (left to right) showing some behind-the-scenes fun at the office on Flannel Friday.

A photo posted by Bruce Clay, Inc. (@bruceclayinc) on Mar 18, 2016 at 10:11am PDT

A Brand’s Instagram Success

The ice cream purveyor Ben & Jerry’s reached 9.8 million users on Instagram through a paid ad campaign on the network. The campaign consisted of 4 sponsored images of its ice cream disseminated among a target audience of 18- to 35-year-olds in the U.S. over eight days. The end result was greater top-of-mind recall, brand recognition and product demand.

“Since its launch, Instagram has provided us with an amazing platform to connect with our fans and tell our story visually. Ads on Instagram let us reach and engage with more fans about our flavors, fun and values,” said Mike Hayes, digital marketing manager at Ben & Jerry’s.

Also see 4 Reasons Your Retail Brand Needs to Be on Instagram Right Now.

Google+: Conversationalists Plus Max SEO Benefits

• Popular content: Articles on Internet marketing, business and technology – which is no surprise considering the top eight occupations among Google+ users are engineers, developers, designers, software engineers, web developers, writers, software developers and programmers. Google+ is also popular among photographers who use Google+ to showcase their work (and, fittingly, photographer is the ninth most commonly listed occupation on Google+).
• Launched in June 2011
• 300 million active users and counting
• 68% of users are male
• Special note to consider in a business’s evaluation for network investment: There are SEO benefits to Google+ including increased visibility opportunities for a business’s content to be displayed in search results, and a quick way to get content crawled by Google

Brands leading the way on Google+ include:

• Topshop
• TOMS
• H&M
• The Financial Times
• Cadbury
• Mashable
• Fitbit
• Flixster
• Hotel Tonight

Read brand stories and case studies for each of these companies.

A Brand’s Google+ Success

Like many other leading brands on Google+, British chocolatier Cadbury has leveraged Google+ to create conversations via Hangouts On Air.

“The thing that’s most different (on Google+) is Hangouts – you can’t really do it on any other platform. We’ve done three hangouts so far. The first one we created a chocolate version of our Google+ page. Then we did a second with Rebecca Adlington, one of the Olympians we’re sponsoring … We just met up with one of chocolate tasters and had an informal discussion on the basics of chocolate,” said Jerry Daykin, Cadbury’s social media and community manager.

“We spent quite a long time with our first Hangout thinking what will we do, when will we do what, and made it quite complicated in our head. And the reality was it’s as easy as having a conversation with someone face-to-face … My favorite feature about Hangouts On Air is the ability to have this really close connection to a small group of people but do it in a way that lets thousands of people see it.”

LinkedIn: Consultants, Personal Brands and B2B Reach

• Popular content: Professional profiles and resumes, business-centric news and articles, and job opportunities
• Established in May 2003
• 400 million members
• 3 million business pages
• Top company pages on LinkedIn include Mashable, HubSpot, NPR, Kellogg and AppleOne

Among LinkedIn’s users are many owners, presidents, founders and C-Suite executives – i.e., people with the ability to make change, hire companies and acquire new talent. If you are a B2B company, LinkedIn provides a golden opportunity to market your company in front of businesses who can hire you.

A Brand’s LinkedIn Success

One such B2B company advertising on LinkedIn is marketing software company HubSpot. HubSpot uses LinkedIn to distribute white papers, drive traffic to their own site, increase high quality leads, and reach targeted professional industries.

“With LinkedIn, we’re able to truly identify our core audience by going a step further and targeting by company, job title, job function and groups,” said Dan Slagen, head of paid search marketing at HubSpot. “This gives us the unique ability to tailor messaging and target the exact audience segment that we need.”

For HubSpot, LinkedIn advertising resulted in a lower cost-per-click rate than with search engine advertising. Slagen said that the CPC averaged at $3, “which is actually a fraction of the cost of paid search advertising … on traditional PPC search engines, we’ve seen average CPC rates that are … as much as three times higher.”

Facebook: Local and National Brands Alike, but Come with a Budget

• Popular content: Photos (including selfies), coordination of social plans, posts about what people are doing, likes and shares of content found on the web
• Established in July 2004
• More than 50 million business pages
• 1.65 billion active monthly users – with this many users, everyone’s on there, which is how Facebook has been able to grow its ad products that feature a high degree of audience targeting capabilities
• Special note to consider in a business’s evaluation for network investment: paid promotion is required for visibility

Facebook has been the dominant platform within the social media sphere for many years. It has the most users, and, speaking to its prominence users’ daily lives, 48 percent of 18-34 year old Facebook users check Facebook when they wake up. But when talking about Facebook as a marketing channel today, the discussion must begin with advertising.

If you’re considering investing in Facebook for your business, you should understand that you will likely need to dedicate an advertising budget for promoting your content on the network, even among your own fans. Without paid promotion, Facebook reportedly shows brand page content to a mere 1 to 2 percent of a page’s followers. In order for a brand page’s posts to show to its fans and followers, reach must be amplified by paid promotion.

Facebook points to the following industries as leaders in Facebook advertising:

• Automotive
• Consumer goods
• Financial services
• Gaming
• Politics
• Retail/ecommerce
• Technology
• Travel

A Few Brands’ Successes on Facebook

On Facebook, national brands and local retailers alike successfully pay to play with the social networks. Global retailer Michael Kors, for example, was able to use Facebook ads to drive more than one million view to its sneaker videos, increasing brand awareness and sales.

Sam’s Chowder House, a locally owned restaurant in San Francisco, attributed a 19 percent increase in guests and revenues to Facebook’s promoted posts. The day after their most successful promoted posts, they experienced 58 percent sales increase and 22 percent guest count increase.

Twitter: Build Awareness Through Fast Feedback

• Popular content: Users have 140 characters to broadcast commentary, links and images or converse with other users. The avenues of success on Twitter are broad and varied, with popular accounts ranging from musing celebrities (@ladygaga) to humorous shticks (@shitmydadsays) to businesses providing stellar customer service (@JetBlue) to food trucks tweeting the day’s location (@CurbsideCupcake)
• Established in March 2006
• 310 million active users on Twitter
• 83 percent of Twitter users access Twitter from a mobile device

Compete.com recently looked at the online habits of 2,000 consumers and found that 38.9 percent of users made online purchases from retailers whose tweets they had seen … compared to only 26.9 percent of users who made online purchases without being exposed to any tweets. A brand that tweets stands to gain a 37 percent increase in online sales.

“Consumers who see Tweets from retailers are people who, for one reason or another, are engaged in conversation about or with that retailer. These people prove to also be much more likely to shop and buy from retailers’ websites … The results demonstrate that more exposure correlates with more retail activity.”

Here’s a photo tweet by @BruceClayInc of me speaking on social media marketing at a recent event in LA. Photos are easy to post to Twitter through the mobile app, and tend to get higher engagement than tweets without images.

Branding on Instagram and Snapchat panel at Media Leaders Growth Summit #dgs16 https://t.co/eQoIi1Sr9H pic.twitter.com/OJIAn8zV92

— Bruce Clay, Inc. (@BruceClayInc) May 6, 2016

A Few Brands’ Successes on Twitter

As with Facebook, brands of all sizes and from all industries are using Twitter. Chicago bakery Whipped Bakeshop used a promoted account to increase followers in Philadelphia and attract new customer. The Barack Obama presidential campaign used promoted trends get keep voters informed in real time and gain record engagement in 2008. The American Red Cross used promoted tweets to drive donations (reaching 100% of its goal) and attract new volunteers.

Next Steps for a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Success in social media marketing is measured by the quality of interactions over the quantity of interaction. No matter how your business’s online social presence develops, it’s critical to determine and track metrics that align with your business goals so you can decide what’s working and what’s not.

As you’re deciding what social network to invest in, determine the metrics you’ll be tracking to measure your efforts. That way, when you’ve launched a campaign to build brand awareness, provide customer service, enhance visibility of your products, and grow loyalty, you’ll be able to tell if your efforts are making progress for your business and adjust your tactics accordingly.

Want Social Media Recommendations Just for Your Business?

If you’re interested in a free 15-minute social media review from me, BCI’s social media editor, and learning more about how we can help you build your online presence, let us know and we’ll be in touch!

The post Which Social Media Networks Should Your Business Invest In? appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

SEM and paid social are both performance channels with particular strengths and weaknesses; SEM captures intent where Facebook doesn’t, but Facebook can open awareness to a huge new audience that AdWords can’t reach. Used intelligently together, however, these two channels combine for a powerhouse marketing campaign.

Here are five ways to integrate your paid search and paid social campaigns for immediate results.

1. Generate Demand and Brand Awareness

To attract users at the top of the funnel, use Facebook to increase share of voice, brand engagement, and awareness. This will help generate demand. As users begin to learn about your product and services, they’ll end up going back to Google later and performing a search. You can capture and convert those with SEM.

2. Leverage Facebook for Remarketing

Let’s say we’ve been successful in getting our ad to high-intent audiences via SEM and we’ve been able to bring them to our site. However, for one reason or another, we were unable to get them to convert. We can leverage Facebook for additional scale on high-intent customers by using remarketing and getting our brand back in the eye of those visitors. We can leverage Facebook’s creative options to take another stab at convincing them (with value props, product imagery, etc.) to convert as well as sending the user to a highly relevant page to finish the job.

3. Use Facebook for Re-engagement

If you are a business where users can come and convert multiple times (think ecomm – toy stores, apparel, etc. – or services – spas, food delivery, etc.), you’ll want to use SEM to capture those high-intent users initially. Once they have made a purchase or signup and you have gotten that first-party data (email really), Facebook is a perfect avenue to remind these customers later on about great deals, new products/offerings, etc., to lure them back in for new purchases. Facebook allows you to upload first-party data to narrow out your customer base within their members and allow you to show your ads directly to that audience.

4. Leverage Lookalike Audiences

In the same vein as above, there are a bunch of good options in Facebook to really leverage our first-party data to help us capture incremental unique users. Let’s say we have been able to build up a great customer base via SEM. However, often there’s a limited number of people searching for our product/service, and we want to venture out to get our offering to more audiences.

A great way to do this in an efficient manner is to take our customer list (ideally segmenting them out into smaller lists of audiences with a similarity – for example, high lifetime value/LTV, medium LTV, and low LTV) and upload that into Facebook, essentially creating website custom audiences. From those website custom audiences, we can then use Facebook’s lookalike technology to find additional audiences that show characteristics/traits very similar to our customer base.

5. Go after Your Competitors

Double up on your competition by going after audiences who like competitors in Facebook – target them specifically on Facebook and bid on competitor terms in SEM. If we continue to get our brand in front of these audiences, they’ll become familiar with our name, and with the right ads we should be able to capture enough interest to bring them onto our site via either Facebook or SEM.

Have you developed any other ways to use Facebook and SEM campaigns together, replicating successful messaging, for example? Leave a comment!

If you enjoyed reading this post, then be sure to check out our How to Improve Your Social Media Strategy article too!

The post 5 Core Ways to Integrate Paid Search and Social appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Speakers:

• Merry Morud, Social Advertising Director, aimClear (@MerryMorud)
• Evan Sandhaus, Lead Architect, Semantic Platforms, NY Times (@kansandhaus)
• Courtney Seiter, Head of Content Marketing, Buffer (@courtneyseiter)

Merry Morud: Essential Knowledge Open Graph Social Markup

“Content is king, but strategic content markup for distribution for social is everything,” Morud says.

Social markup makes it easier for users to share your content, and therefore more likely. When you share a link and it looks really poor, the user is going to rethink even posting it. Investing in social markup improves the health of your content in the long term.

(For Twitter Card beginners, Facebook Open Graph is an integration between Facebook and the internet at large).

Smart brands, like the NY Times, The Huffington Post and the Washington Post, take control of how content is displayed via strategic social markup.

Morud shares some quick tips:

• 1200 x 627 pixels is the recommended image size for Facebook — but that ratio is always subject to change. Make sure the image is no smaller than 400 x 209 or the image will revert to a thumbnail.
• Make it engaging – keep the character count to 200 and the most important message within the first 100 characters.
• Check your work: Use https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/ This clears the cache and lets you see what your latest post version looks like.

No HTML Skills?

Try using Google Structured Data Markup Helper (within webmaster tools). Highlight the headline and author easily and avoid confusion for HTML novices.

Approach Social Markup like Ad Creative

No one else is (probably) going to edit the post — you need to treat the post like an ad and make it awesome and accurate. This is essential for increased content sharing. And note that OG tags are also read by LinkedIn, Google+ and Twitter.

Courtney Seiter: The Everything Guide to Twitter Cards

View Seiter’s slide deck: bit.ly.com/cards-guide

Seiter opens by quoting Michael Sippey, of Twitter: “Twitter cards are an important step toward … creating new opportunities to build engaging experiences into Twitter.”

Twitter Cards, Seiter asserts, allow Internet marketers to expand Twitter into a rich multimedia experience by including videos, pictures and so much more.

What’s so great about Twitter Cards? They’re:

• Familiar
• Contained
• Portable (easily transported from person to person)
• Tactile
• Consistent

9 Types of Twitter Cards

1. Summary (Headlines and description)
2. Photo Summary (includes small picture)
3. Photo Card (includes large picture)
4. Gallery Card (includes three pictures)
5. Product Card (fast facts about product – sizes, price, etc.)
6. Player Card (play video, play song or view slides)
7. App Card (shows app rating and on a mobile device, you can download app directly)
8. Lead Generation Card (when you click the Call-To-Action, such as sign up for email list, the action automatically happens).
9. Website Card (everything you click takes your user to your site. This is the only Twitter Card that can never be truncated).

You create Twitter Lead Generation Cards and Website Cards via Twitter Advertising (for free).

For all other Twitter Cards, you need to edit the HTML on your site (via hand coding, a Yoast plugin on WordPress, etc.).

Twitter Card Strategies

Make the images large and beautiful.

Make the text engaging – have the user want to click on it. This is particularly important because your gorgeous Twitter Cards can be truncated, and then the user needs to click on the link to get the photo to appear. You must make the text extremely clickable.

Test images, languages and offers. Do different images, headlines, etc. and see what works. Post at different times and with different hashtags to find the sweet spot.

Twitter Card Measurement

Twitter Card Analytics show data for anyone who has shared your Twitter Cards, not your brand’s account alone. View:

• Change over time
• Card Types (compares your cards to other Twitter Cards)
• Top Links
• Top Tweets
• Influencers (see the most influential people sharing your Twitter Cards – Seiter suggests using this as a place to find people you can reach out to in the future)

Evan Sandhaus: 19^th and 20^th Century Social Media Optimization

Sandhaus is tasked with optimizing The New York Times archives, which date back to 1851. Articles appearing before 1981 are categorized as the Deep Archive. Via the TimesMachine, users can find the 11.3 million articles as they appeared originally via PDFs that show the entirety of the page that article appeared on. This was a conscious choice by the NY Times, as they believe showing the article in its original context alongside the other articles of the day and ads serves to position the article in history. Sandhaus calls this a more immersive and accessible experience of the deep archive.

Because this TimesMachine content is only available to subscribers, the NY Times doesn’t want TimesMachine content showing up in search … so they block it from search via noindex. They want traffic showing up from the NY Times site search, direct traffic, third-party content sites, and social media.

Via @NYTArchives Sandhaus uses Twitter Cards to share a lot of interesting TimesMachine content.

The post SMX East Liveblog: Twitter Cards & Facebook’s Open Graph appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

SEO Checklist: 5 Factors You Can Expect to Change

With Google’s search algorithms changing on a daily basis, content strategist Kristi Kellogg advises Internet marketers to adopt a proactive rather than reactive approach to SEO by anticipating changes and being prepared for any potential threats to your website optimization. Kellogg addresses five fast-moving battlefronts that are worth reviewing on a quarterly basis:

• Local optimization: Local results are a hotbed of activity, especially with search shifting from desktop to mobile. As an example, Kellogg discusses the recent change in the way reviews appear in search results.
• Search platforms: As new devices become available, count on search patterns to evolve as people explore new ways of embracing mobile technology.
• Keyword targets: As search patterns evolve, so too will the words people use to find your website.
• Schema markup: Confirmed as a ranking factor by at least one major search engine, schema is an area of fast development that offers websites a chance to stand out in the search results pages.
• Link building: Backlinks may not be as important to ranking as they once were, and the question of building links needs to continue.

Survival SEO: How to Do the Search Marketing of Tomorrow, Today

To prepare your website for Google’s next big algorithmic change, Bruce Clay, Inc.’s SEO Manager Mindy Weinstein shares three key search marketing survival tips. Those tips include:

• Understanding how user intent affects the SERP
• Recognizing the impact of social signals on ranking
• Creating content that truly speaks to your audience’s needs and desires

SEO News and Upcoming Training Events

The Hot Topic this month covers highlights from Facebook’s first f8 developer conference in three years, including anonymous logins, extended ad networks beyond Facebook, and more. In Education Matters, learn how to create an SEO culture throughout your organization. Whether you prefer on-site or off-site training for your organization, Bruce Clay, Inc. offers SEO training in the U.S. and even Europe. Coming up: European marketers can join Bruce Clay on July 2–3 for the next SEO Training event happening in Milan, Italy!

With a commitment to excellence, Bruce Clay, Inc. aims to serve its readers with meaningful, educational and informative content that propels businesses forward in a digital age. For monthly Internet marketing news and upcoming SEO training information that will put you ahead of the competition, sign up for the SEO Newsletter here.

The post SEO Newsletter: The Survival Guide to SEO Edition appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Though fiction, “The Circle” provides an eerily familiar account of “the most influential company in the world’s” ever-evolving technology and ever-increasing power sure to intrigue Internet marketers and community managers. When you’re ready for a break from how-tos and manuals, I recommend “The Circle,” where you’ll dive into the long-term implications — if only fictitious — of a Google-esque empire’s rise. Read on to discover why this book should be your next choice when it comes to fiction.

Familiar Setting and Technology in “The Circle”

In an interview with McSweeney’s, Eggers stated that “The Circle” is not based on Google or any single search or social company — “the book takes place after a company called the Circle has subsumed all the big tech companies around today,” he said.

And yet … the Circle is again and again reminiscent of real world search and social media companies. Not unlike a number of Bay Area leading Internet companies, the Circle headquarters are run from a campus. The Circle campus:

• spans 400 acres
• is largely built of brushed steel and glass
• is surrounded by open land
• boasts amenities such as theaters, tennis courts, a volleyball court and an aquarium to rival SeaWorld

Like Facebook, the Circle’s campus is peppered with inspirational phrases. For Circlers, it’s “Dream,” “Participate,” “Find Community,” “Innovate,” “Imagine” and “Breathe.” For Menlo Park’s Facebook campus, it’s “Keep It Simple.” These messages also call to mind Google’s long-time informal slogan “Don’t Be Evil.”

The similarities don’t end there. Like Google’s executive triumvirate (Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt), the Circle is run by “Three Wise Men.” The Circle’s “passion projects” are reminiscent of Google’s “moonshot thinking,” and then, of course, there’s the fact that Google+ is actually comprised of … circles.

Then there’s the Circle’s technology. In the McSweeney’s interview, Egger also revealed that “a lot of times, I’d think of something that a company like the Circle might dream up, something a little creepy, and then I’d read about the exact invention, or even something more extreme, the next day.”

In Seven Technologies Predicted in Dave Eggers’ (The Circle) That Already Exist, author Leo Mirani points out the real life examples of technology from The Circle, including mass surveillance, national genetic databases, reusable spacecraft, health monitors and self-driving cars.

Protagonist Mae Holland’s Challenges are Compelling

Whether you’re a community manager or a recreational social media enthusiast, you might, to some degree, relate to protagonist Mae Holland — she struggles to keep up with an onslaught of information and a litany of data and scores — and as those scores begin to rise, do does her obsession.

Given how close she was to the top 2,000, she stayed at her desk late through the weekend and early the next week, determined to crack through, sleeping in the same dorm room every night. She knew the upper 2,000, nicknamed T2K, was a group of Circlers almost maniacal in their social activity and elite in their corresponding followers.

Mercer, Holland’s ex-boyfriend finds her preoccupation with zings, feeds, ratings and shares unsettling:

Every time I see or hear from you, it’s through this filter. You send me links, you quote someone talking about me, you say you saw a picture of me on someone’s wall … it’s always this third-party assault. Even when I’m talking to you face-to-face you’re telling me what some stranger thinks of me. It’s like we’re never alone. Every time I see you, there’s a hundred other people in the room. You’re always looking at me through a hundred other people’s eyes … there’s this new neediness — it pervades everything … The tools you guys create actually manufacture unnaturally extreme social needs. No one needs the level of contact you’re purveying. It improves nothing.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is fellow Circler Josiah, who is “visibly shaken knowing that Mae hadn’t been reading his WNBA feed.”

The Circle Reads Like the Prequel to 1984

The Circle is a publicly traded company — it’s independent from the government … for the time being. Without giving anything away, this book reads like the moment right before totalitarianism. As “Hey You Geeks” podcast host Tony Nunes tweeted yesterday that this book “the prequel to every dystopian book you’ve read, only steeped in reality.”

As one character eventually asks “How can anyone rise up against the Circle if they control all the information and access to it?” The implications of autocracy and monopolization are a recurring theme throughout the novel.

Digital security is a hot topic in the real world as well as the world of the novel. This month, more than 500 distinguished writers (Eggers among them) signed the International Bill of Digital Rights — a petition to protect citizens against the government’s ability to, “with a few clicks of the mouse … access your mobile device, your e-mail, your social networking, and your Internet searches.” The petition continues:

The basic pillar of democracy is the inviolable integrity of the individual. Human integrity extends beyond the physical body. In their thoughts and in their personal environments and communications, all humans have the right to remain unobserved and unmolested.

This fundamental human right has been rendered null and void through abuse of technological developments by states and corporations for mass surveillance purposes.

A person under surveillance is no longer free; a society under surveillance is no longer a democracy.

Whether or not you view Internet security (or lack thereof) as a breach of  the Fourth Amendment right “against unreasonable search and seizure,” the topic is on the global table and books like Eggers’ “The Circle” are very much a part of the conversation.

Bottom line? It’s all right to make room for fiction on your 2014 reading list alongside your Internet marketing guides (including Bruce Clay’s latest book Content Marketing Strategies for Marketing Professionals, co-authored by Murray Newlands and including insights from 12 Internet marketing experts including Jonathon Colman, Lee Odden and Andy Crestodina).

#TheCircle

Have you read Eggers’ The Circle? How did Eggers’ depiction of emerging technology affect your own views on technology? Share with us in the comments.

The post BOOK REVIEW: Dave Eggers’ The Circle is Must-Read Fiction for Internet Marketers appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Opportunities to get marketing advice from a Facebook executive in an intimate setting are rare, even in San Francisco’s hotbed of tech entrepreneurialism. An hour with a Facebook exec, including time for Q&A, doesn’t usually come outside a full industry conference pass. Bruce Clay’s training is a deep-dive SEO experience that every marketer who thinks he knows SEO should experience. A day of training with Bruce at a conference like SMX can cost more than $1,000.

On Dec. 3, 50 people will get to spend the afternoon with top-of-field experts getting in-person advice on leveraging the Internet’s hottest platforms — Google, Facebook and Pinterest.

Get your seat here for just $89 with promotion code bruceclayVIP.

Need-to-Know SEO Strategies from Bruce Clay

Clay’s five-star SEO training is the main event during the Dec. 3  Workshop. SEOs of all levels have something to learn as Clay breaks down the mechanics of SEO as it relates to content, IT and other business departments. Learn:

• Why SEO is integral to all businesses and brands with an online presence
• How Google rates websites
• How to rate your own SEO success
• What constitutes spam and how to avoid spam penalties
• How SEO directly effects content and content marketing
• How IT departments are affected by SEO initiatives
• And much more, plus ample time for questions from the audience

Techniques for Wielding Facebook for Direct Response from Matt Idema

When Idema takes the floor, the conversation will turn to Facebook and how marketers can leverage advanced audience targeting and retargeting ad network. Idema will lay out why Facebook is such a high performing direct response channel for e-commerce.

Pinterest Tactics for Overflowing Traffic from John Rampton

Rampton will discuss advanced Pinterest strategies that will dramatically increase your site’s traffic. Best of all, these strategies only call for investing one hour per week.

Register as Our VIP and Stay for the After Party

If you register with the promo code for Bruce Clay, Inc. VIPs you’ll get your seat for a steal at $89. For those who want to keep the party going, attendees are invited to a SEJ Meetup from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at the Creamery. Workshop attendees are guaranteed free entry to this sought-after meetup, with a first drink on SEJ! So, will we see you there?

The post Search & Social Workshop Triple Header Is a Can’t Miss for Bay Area Marketers — Plus a Promo Code for a Can’t-Be-Beat Price! appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

Have a Blog in the Bag

A successful blog keeps readers engaged and ever-hungry for more content. Readers should be so excited for your posts that they check your blog regularly for content, but that will only happen if you’re a consistent and frequent poster.

As a point of reference, we post four times a week on the Bruce Clay blog. If you don’t have the resources for such frequent posting, however, you should — at least — be updating your blog once a week, and each post should be a minimum of 400 words.

Just because you’re going on vacation doesn’t mean your blog can go on hiatus. Your readers expect your posts and you can’t disappoint them. Therefore, it is essential that you find the time to prepare and schedule a blog post ahead of time. Another option (which will also theoretically save you time and boost engagement) is to invite a trusted colleague or peer to guest post on your blog. If you go that route, however, make sure the deadline for their post is before you vacate, so that you can do whatever editing you need to do beforehand.

Prep and Optimize Social Media! #necessary #simple @Tweriod @BufferApp

You don’t want your brand voice to fall silent while you’re away, so set aside some to time to craft and schedule social media posts before you vacate. Tweets, Facebook posts and LinkedIn posts should be distributed throughout each day. Follow these steps to optimal social media posting (which can be used even when you’re not on vacation).

1. Strategize your share times with Tweriod. Tweriod is a free service that analyzes your Twitter following to determine what the optimal times of the day are for you to tweet. After it gives you the times for your Twitter account, click on “Send to Buffer.”

2. Log into Buffer. Buffer is an amazing dashboard that automatically pulls the data from Tweriod and knows the times you should be tweeting (see right). Buffer will then present you with a list of suggested times for you post social media. Buffer allows you to connect with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

3. Create your posts in Buffer. So for example, if I were going to be out of the office Monday through Wednesday and wanted to send out four social media postings per day on Twitter, I would simply stick with the schedule Tweriod designated — which Buffer also defaults to, conveniently.

Now, I would just have to come up with 12 tweets in total. Stumped for what to tweet about? Consider these types of tweets when planning:

• A picture
• A retweet
• A great quote from someone in your industry
• A deal or discount your brand offers
• A link to a helpful article that can benefit your customers or clients
• A link to an awesome related infographic related to your industry
• A link that announces your blog post, corresponding to the time you scheduled your blog to go live

4. Want to share across social media platforms? When creating a post, simply click the icon for your Facebook, the icon for your Twitter and the icon for your LinkedIn and everything will post simultaneously at your designated times.

5. Simply click and drag to change the order of your tweets. To change the time (which default according to Tweriod’s analytics), just click the clock.

Designate Time to Check In

By scheduling your tweets and Facebook, LinkedIn and blog posts, you’ve completed 95% of the work you needed to do. But part of staying in constant contact is being there to answer questions and comments that users post on your various channels. Therefore, it’s a good idea to set aside a certain amount of time (for example, half an hour a day in the morning before you start the day) to check in and respond to anything that needs a response. And if a customer has a question or concern that is going to need a lot of attention, respond letting them know you’re out of the office, but his or her concern is important and you’ll get back to them next week. It’s just a matter of communication, and that’s what social media thrives on.  

The post Tips for Blog and Social Media Maintenance While on Vacation? Get Out of Town! appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..