How Can I Better Manage My Company’s Social Media Accounts?

by My Web Writers

For many of us, managing our own social media accounts is enough to keep us busier than we’d like. But when you’re given the responsibility of also managing your company’s social media accounts, this task should be given a fairly different approach and a lot more consideration. There’s no doubt that social media holds the power to become a business’s first impression for many of its customers. Because of this, a professional and well thought out social media management plan is critical for any company. Here are a few tips to get you on the right track of tackling this important marketing component:

Create an editorial calendar.

An editorial calendar allows you layout all of your planned social media posts for the coming month. For a company structure where such posts need to be pre-approved by the owner, this is an essential tool. To create an editorial calendar, there are several templates you can find online, or you can simple create a calendar in a Word Doc and format it to fit your needs. All it needs to include is what you’re planning to post and for what accounts. Include the links to any videos or web pages to make for an easy copy and paste action when you do go to post. Finally, an editorial calendar is just as beneficial to you as it is to a company owner. You will be able to easily see how often you’re planning to post and if there are any holes you need to fill. While the calendar may take several hours to initially create, it will make the rest of the month’s social media posting nearly effortless.

Automate your regular updates.

In speaking of making social media posting effortless, what’s less effort than when something is automated? Web sites like HootSuite.com and TweetDeck.com both offer automated social media posting for little to no cost. Once you create your editorial calendar, you can easily plug in the posts and schedule them in advance so that the rest of the month your regular updates are firing off exactly when they should regardless of how hectic your schedule gets. Note: it’s great to use automation for the pre-written tweets and updates, but social media is meant to be live and in the moment. Don’t tune out from all the news and announcements that may crop up unexpectedly that should be shared on social media. Be sure to get these out ASAP the “old fashioned” way—manually!

Make it a group effort.

While one person in a company may be designated as the social media manager, it’s important to remember that social media is meant to be social after all! Make this task a group effort by allowing everyone to offer input on what should be promoted or emphasized on social media. Many of your co-workers might have great suggestions for a contest to run or a question to ask to spark discussion. This input will also help fill up your editorial calendar with fresh ideas without you wracking your brain each month.

Do less, but do it better.

Just as in so many other aspects of life, you simply don’t need to do it all! There are countless social media platforms available to you, but that doesn’t mean you need to use every single one. Your time is not best spent managing 15+ social media accounts at a mediocre level. Instead, focus on your top performing 3-5 social media accounts (the ones with the largest audience and most interaction) and spend your time making these exceptional. For many businesses, these will include Twitter and Facebook to start. From there, you may also find YouTube, Digg or Google+ to be beneficial. Depending on your business and the product or service that you’re selling, your social media focus might be different from other businesses—and that’s OK!

Not only should every social media platform be handled differently, so should every social media account—business or personal. Following these tips, you’ll be able to create a professional image for your company that is both effective and well thought out.  ~Stephanie

Top Media Managers Reveal Ideas for Better Social Media Marketing

by My Web Writers

Social media marketing does not often conform to steadfast rules or conventional wisdom.  It’s a skill and a talent that takes patience, practice and a natural ability in order to excel.  Here are just a few powerful quotes from the world’s most experienced and influential social media mangers:

“A large part of this relationship marketing concept is allowing yourself to be a little bit vulnerable and let people in.”(Mari Smith, Social Media Speaker & Author)

Mari makes an excellent point – social media is a platform to get personal and really let people in. For a company, this means showcasing your “human element” and letting your customers get to know you and your people on a more personal level than what can be offered through your web site or business card alone. And from time to time, yes, it’s perfectly OK and sometimes beneficial to express a dilemma, difficulty or weakness and ask your network for input.

“Make influencers a part of your movement, even temporarily, and they’ll understand the brand and its worth far greater than if you just invite them on a factory tour or send them free product.”(Jay Bear, President of Convince and Convert)

This quote connects with one of the key tips to all social media marketing, which is to talk with your audience not at your audience.  Engage your followers! The more you can make your network feel a personal part of something your company is doing, the more they are likely to build a deeper relationship and a vested interest in your brand.

“Social media is not a media. The key is to listen, engage, and build relationships.”(David Alston, Chief Adoption Officer – Marketing Cloud at Salesforce)

When you have something important to say, it’s tempting to fire it out on every medium available to you. While a press release or media advisory are great tools for communicating with traditional press, these won’t work for social media marketing. Furthermore, every post for every different social media account should be slightly tweaked to connect with that specific audience. How you say something on Twitter (with #’s and @’s) won’t resonate on your Facebook page. Create thoughtful and genuine posts for each social medium and your information is more likely to engage and less likely to blend into the white noise.

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.” (Jeff Bezos, CEO at Amazon.com)

Social media is powerful stuff. And though almost 100% of users would agree to this statement, we all too easily forget how quickly information can catch like wildfire and spread. For positive information you want promoted, this is great. But if you have a disgruntled customer, this could be devastating. This is even more reason to be careful with your actions and words on social media than in the real world because of how easily it can be shared with thousands or millions of other people with the click of a button.

“Social networks aren’t about Web sites. They’re about experiences.” (Mike DiLorenzo, NHL social media marketing director)

If you want to create the absolutely most effective social media to represent your brand and market your business, you must create an experience that is memorable to your networks. Social media is, after all, what broke the mold on traditional marketing. Your options are limitless as to how you can create a unique viral marketing campaign. Don’t settle for the easy or the obvious, continually push yourself to set a new creative standard.

“Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t want plastered on a billboard with your face on it.”
(Erin Bury, Sprouter community manager)

This quote simply says it all – and if it could be made a banner on every social media web site to remind us of this before we post an update, it would save many people and businesses from the all too common social media “uh oh’s!”

Woven inside each of these quotes is a valuable lesson worthy of adding to our set of social media tools. While the authors may come from various degrees of experience and schools of thought, these quotes reach far broader than just social media marketing – and if you think openly – can applied toward many aspects of our business and our life. ~Stephanie

Social Media Interaction in 2013: What’s Your Plan?

by My Web Writers

You reflected on the old and planned for the new. You set goals for your career, health and finances in 2013. Just as you will benefit from these positive changes, so exists the opportunity to follow through on those resolutions for your business or blog. As you lay out your plans for growing and improving your business over the coming year, you should take special consideration to your strategy for social media interaction. Whether you would like to improve upon an already successful implementation or simply get a social media presence started, there is no time like the present to make this improvement. Here are some essential tips to include in your social media interaction plan for 2013:

Base your planning off of insights.

Every plan should first begin with research and with social media there is a myriad of resources available to you. If you’re planning to improve your existing social media interaction, first look at your insights from 2012. How many new Facebook fans did you gain? Twitter followers? How interactive were people with your status updates? All of these things will give you an indication of where you’re currently excelling and where you need to place your focus for the New Year. If your plan is to finally create a presence on social media, you won’t have personal insights to go off of, but you can benefit by learning from others. Read blogs, search Google and take note to your competitors’ social media presence. All of this will help you focus your planning where it will be most effective.

Think multi-faceted.

To maximize your social media interaction and effectiveness for 2013, you cannot rely on just one medium. There are countless sites and platforms that can help you reach a broader audience so don’t limit your plan to the top 2 or 3. While having a strong presence on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin makes sense for nearly all businesses, you should always refer back to your mission statement and target audience to see what other types of social media might be useful. The general rule of thumb is to focus on 3-5 social media accounts and use them exceptionally well. Also, when you find information you wish to share, but sure to coordinate this effort across all of your social media. How customers find you on the web is varied and often unpredictable. A multi-faceted social media presence will ensure you’re fully utilizing all of your tools to reach your target audience.

Consistency is key – set realistic goals you can maintain.

As a business owner, you wouldn’t open a new storefront and fail to staff it with employees to interact with your customers, correct? The same is true for your social media accounts. When you commit to creating a social media account, it’s paramount that you also commit to filling out the profile with professional information and consistently updating the newsfeed with fresh content. This closely ties in to the second point of setting realistic goals you can maintain. Such a commitment for 3-5 social media accounts is doable, but not for 15+ social media accounts. By narrowing down your social media platforms and using only those that most effectively reach your target audience, you will also keep your social media interaction plan realistic and attainable.

You should never have to pay for your friends.

Neither in life nor on social media should you pay for your friends. It’s appropriate for your social media interaction plan to include increasing the size of your network, but you should do so organically. Beware of services that promise to deliver a “too good to be true” increase in your fans or followers. It’s almost certain that it will be too good to be true. Because they’re bought and not earned, these additions are unlikely to be genuinely interested in your brand and therefore unlikely to interact with you or buy into your services. Instead, aim to build your network by interacting with other people and pages, regularly updating your content and promoting your social media accounts everywhere (email signatures, e-newsletters, web site, blog, business cards and more).

Incorporate social media into every other business strategy.

All other components of your business plan for 2013 should weave into and build from one another. Social media interaction is only one aspect of successful branding and marketing. But when combined with advertising, SEO and public relations, it creates a powerful and comprehensive strategy that really starts reeling in powerful results. If there’s an important message you want to spread, make sure you know how you’ll drive it out on social media. If there’s a special deal you want to promote, make sure social media is considered into this marketing strategy. The more you build social media into your business strategy, the easier it will be to maintain and utilize.

Just as achieving any New Year’s resolution takes a great deal of time and commitment, improving your social media interaction is no different. You must recognize the value it holds for you and your business to find the drive to make these changes. Keep in mind these core essentials when outlining your social media interaction plan for 2013 and you will have a head start toward a successful year! ~Stephanie

Five Social Media Contest Ideas for E-Tailers

by My Web Writers

Vision.

Energy!

Enthusiasm…

And a whole lot of FUN!

That’s what it takes to host a successful social media contest if you’re an e-tailer.

Soooo…..

Are you as familiar as you should be with all those social media websites you use? It’s just a question (one that will make the difference in how much traffic you gain as a result of sponsoring your contest); but it’s only a question, just the same.

Facebook

Sharing a post and offering a prize to people who promote it the best is fairly easy to do.  Share a few posts (of specific items) and give a prize to the person who comments the most on all of them.  Rules for commenting may apply.  It’s also important to follow Facebook Rules for Contests.

Of course, we all know the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Photo albums are always fun to look at on Facebook.

Have your audience make a crazy photo album using product(s) from your e-store. This is particularly great to do with your satisfied customer base, as it will reward them for their patronage. Once customers have created their album, they can link back to your Facebook page and all your followers can vote on the best album.  The grand prize will be a goody, and runners up’s will win a few small tokens, too. Plus, all participants can receive a special coupon via email.

Pinterest

Speaking of pictures…

Pinterest is a gold mine for them.

Pick your favorite product and host a Pin It to Win It contest and drawing. Start the pinning, and everyone who plays gets entered into a drawing to win the product.

Name that Product Contest is another unique and fun idea. Pin a product and encourage participants to come up with a fabulously catchy name for it, submitted in the comments. Then, send them back to your Facebook page, where people can vote on the best name. This way, you draw traffic to your site from both Pinterest and Facebook simultaneously!

On-site Scavenger Hunts

This is a little tricky, so you need to plan it well. Use your blog as home base. Send people off in search of a specific product, via visiting other product pages. On each of those product pages, they’ll know they’ve found the clue, because they’ll be sent back to home base (a separate blog post) when they do. Upon finding the last clue, customers will be sent back to home base, where they can provide information to receive their prize.

Contest Necessities

It’s true. Contests can be a lot of fun, especially for excited participants. As a host, however, it’s important to remember a few details.

• Encourage more participation, by making it easy to enter.
• State the rules clearly from the start. Make them concise and easy to follow.
• Understand and follow social media rules, before hosting a contest on networks, to avoid unnecessary repercussions and consequences.
• Choose prizes wisely, and make them worth the effort of participating in the contest.
• Articulate clear parameters, including beginning and ending dates, participation requirements, limits in prize availability and the like.

Other Social Media Contest Ideas

We’ve compiled a list of sites with additional, creative ideas for running contests.  If you’re short on staff to effectively run these contests you can always hire additional, social media professionals.

The Beginners Guide to Running Social Media Contests 

4 Awesome Types of Successful Twitter Contests

Boost Your Social Media Marketing: 5 Creative Ideas

5 Great Facebook Contest Ideas

9 Businesses Using Pinterest Contests to Drive Traffic and Exposure

~MJ

Fine Tune Your Content for Search Engine Optimization

by My Web Writers

A few important things need to be considered, which will enable any writer to fine tune their content for Search Engine Optimization, a process motivated by organic searches, performed by average people searching for different things on the Internet. While this explanation of SEO may seem simplistic, it goes a long way in helping webmasters and content providers increase page rankings in multiple search engines.

According to Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide,

“Creating compelling and useful content will likely influence your website more than any of the other factors discussed here.”

The reason is clear, based on the objective criteria requirements for search engine optimization. Real people are searching for specific topics (not computerized coded algorithms), to find desired information.

Keeping this in mind, fine tuning content for search engine optimization is more about relating to the people searching for content on the Internet, than it is about triggering computer spiders and bots with various tricks of the technology industry trade.

Tailor Content to the Intended Target Audience: Web content needs to be geared toward real people seeking information, not toward search engines delivering it. Webmasters should take the necessary steps to determine who their target audience is, and provide quality content directed toward it. Obviously, average senior citizens aren’t likely to respond well to articles plagued with cell phone text coding and accented by loud rap music. However, the high school and college crowd will probably appreciate and spend more time with this type of content. Content providers who know and respond appropriately to their given target audience are likely to receive more page views, back links and recommendations by tailoring their content to a pre-determined target audience. In doing so, they will automatically improve their search engine optimization, because the people seeking their specific content will respond favorably to the content they provide.

Organize Content Clearly and Concisely: Organization helps with almost any task people attempt to achieve with success; directing traffic to web content through proven techniques. Making it easy to find and sort through content is vital for search engine optimization success. Considering what search engines are expected to do, deliver acceptable content based on simple word searches inserted by average people, adequate content organization will provide increased results based on common sense practices. Creating flowcharts, categories and channels supporting natural hierarchies are essential elements of fine tuning content for search engine optimization.

Be Diligent about Content Accuracy: Creating reputable content helps readers develop a relationship of trust with websites and authors. While it is important to be accurate, it is also necessary to use valid references and resources that can be verified for having accurate information as well. Any links within and directed to outside sources should always have a reputation, for providing quality information that helps visitors discover what they are looking for, with minimal effort. Search engines track how long visitors stay on sites, and analytic tools have been developed to discern quality content from fluff. Search engine spiders and bots respond to reputable links, quantity spent on sites and user-friendly content that is found easily by its intended user.

Keep Content Unique, Varying It for Individual Web Pages: Search engine algorithms favor unique and original content, particularly if it is being referenced and linked to by other well-established and reputable sites related to it. Using keywords throughout content is necessary to create accurate searches based on those keywords. However, using keywords without considering the target audience, and tailoring content to those intended visitors, could limit search engine findings, as opposed to increasing them. Keywords must be used in conjunction with the development of unique and varied content, to reap the maximum benefit of their usage, thereby fine tuning search engine optimization to a greater capacity.

Use Simple User-friendly URL’s: People search for topics on the Internet with words. Simple URL’s are organized, accurate, unique and telling. URL’s are displayed in search engine results; people clicking on these results are more likely to click based on words they recognize, than on complicated codes that may or may not mean anything to them. Since search engines are responsible for bringing up results based on random searches, and because they are triggered by a variety of factors including time spent on sites brought up in results, content providers will achieve better results by creating simple, user-friendly URL’s that can be easily tracked for search engine optimization.

Establish High Quality, Useful Content Guidelines: Excellent content rules. Set the bar high, and don’t scrimp when it comes to content. Numerous content mill sites have taken a big hit and some have even been forced out of business by search engines in recent months, because in the process of producing mass amounts of content, many of these large sites sacrificed and minimized the importance of content quality. Consequently, their reputations suffered; search engines reconfigured their algorithms to enable people to safeguard against bringing up less than stellar results, thereby ensuring a more user-friendly experience for target audiences, to provide quality content results for Search Engine Optimization.

Numerous tools and applications are available today, to help webmasters and authors fine tune content for search engine optimization. However, many of the most telling indicators of general search engine optimization skills and techniques are readily available in a compilation of 2011 Search Engine Ranking factors. Social signals, usage data, and quality SEO content rank very high, while anchored text, paid links, and exact keyword match domains don’t fare as well.

~MJ