DeGeneres Crashes Twitter the Wrong Oscars Headline

Oscars Group Selfie Sets Twitter Record

What was the big headline from the 2014 Oscars telecast?  “Ellen DeGeneres Broke Twitter.”  That’s not the best headline.  Instead, the big headline from the Academy Awards should have been, “Ellen DeGeneres Proves Power of Social Media.”  Millions played a part acting to support the lesson and promote multiple brands worldwide.

Midway through the show, the Oscars hostess walked down an aisle of stars and asked actor Bradley Cooper to take a selfie with her.  As they both crouched in front of Cooper’s extended arm, several other stars sitting nearby quickly crowded around Cooper and DeGeneres.  In a matter of seconds, the group photo, including Kevin Spacey,  Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie.  It was about to go viral on Twitter and be seen by millions.

A few moments later, DeGeneres uttered what the social media world had already known as their Twitter feeds froze for twenty minutes due to all the retweet activity.  “We crashed and broke Twitter.  We made history.”

Former Obama Record Retweet

Before the end of the broadcast, the star-studded group selfie had been retweeted over 2 million times, breaking a record of 781,728 retweets set by President Barack Obama with the picture of him hugging First Lady, Michelle Obama, after his 2012 re-election.

Which brands were the beneficiaries from this comic interlude? 

Of course, Twitter scored big.  The short message service specializing in 140-character bursts of thought proved it is not all about words.  It was the photo that generated the activity proving there are many ways to send a message others would be interested in receiving.

Samsung Electronics Corp. enjoyed the value of product placement as it was their electronic device that snapped the picture of the moment.  Their One Samsung advertising deal with ABC television included an agreement to take ten promoted tweet selfies in the green room at The Oscars and send them to the world.

Obviously, Ellen DeGeneres bolstered her brand image and savvy know-how of social media use.  Her @TheEllenShow Twitter account grew by a 47x factor the day of the Oscars broadcast compared to an average day and now boasts 27 million followers.

Finally, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences proved it was hip to a new generation of social media users.  After the brief Twitter outage, when services were restored, @TheAcademy sent a tweet of their own saying, “Sorry, our bad.”  It generated 4,211 retweets.

What should your brand learn? 

Watching advertising’s best on the big stage can provide your business with a few takeaways:

• Create memorable moments.  What unique photo or situation can you create that will be fun to share and get people talking about your brand?  Mix words about your brand, with images and video.

• Plant your product strategically.  Let your product or service be seen by others so they can interact with it and comment on it.  A paid placement sponsorship or a few product giveaways cannot hurt.

• Get involved with social media.  It’s new.  It’s a bit untested and wild west.  It’s here to stay.  If the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences can be trendy after being in business for 86 years, so can you.

10 Google Plus Strategies for Content Promotion

With the new changes in Google’s algorithm, Google Plus is an increasingly important part of online visibility. According to Social Media Today, under Hummingbird, failing to establish a presence on Google Plus can really hinder your content’s rank and visibility on the search engine. There are plenty of ways that Google Plus allows you to integrate the platform into your larger content strategy while also providing unique opportunities for connecting with your readers or customers. Here are ten strategies for promoting your content on Google Plus.

1.      Link Google+ to your blog. It’s a simple step, but linking your blog to Google+ streamlines the process of building a presence on the social media platform. Make each post visible to the public on Google+ when it’s published and you not only make the post more searchable on Google, you also start to build the authority associated with your own name or brand as well.

2.      Use hashtags. Just like on Twitter and Instagram, using hashtags with your posts helps you synch with trending topics and makes it easier for new readers to find you when they look for topics relevant to your content.

3.      Write posts to encourage crossover. Longer posts within Google+ generate greater reader response and a higher SEO rank. Create better content on Google+ itself by writing posts on your profile that also encourage readers to click over to your blog or website. For example, post a review or tutorial and send readers to your blog or store for more information or resources. Not only do you encourage a better following on Google+, you also strengthen the link between your brand’s website or blog and your Google+ profile and increase the authority of your site through the linking.

4.      Promote reader engagement. End posts with questions, post polls, or offer giveaways to readers who share their feedback, ideas, or tips. Promoting reader engagement can help you build your circles, authority, and crossover from Google+ to your website.

5.      Use repeatable campaigns. Make use of hashtags in repeatable campaigns to create content on a schedule that readers can predict and interact with. For example, #FirstFriday and #ThrowbackThursday are popular hashtags on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram that you can crossover to Google+ too. You can also create your own hastags to suit your content and use them to promote reader engagement with your regular features.

6.      Tag people and brands directly. When you respond to reader questions or comments, tag them so they know you’re following-up. If you have a question or feedback for a specific product or brand, tag the brand to make your posts more visible and linkable. Interaction on Google+ helps build your presence and your overall visibility.

7.      Know your audience. Google+ provides you with tools like Ripples and Circles so you can see who your audience is. And it might not be who you’re assuming it is. Use these resources and Google Analytics to get a sense for who your followers and readers are. Knowing your audience can help you fine tune your content to better appeal to and engage your audience.

8.      Make your content visually appealing. One of the biggest way to draw attention to your posts is with attention-grabbing visuals. The use of white space in Google+ makes pictures and infographics really stand out. Make sure your blog posts shared on Google+ have a vivid visual to go with them to promote readers clicking over to your site. You can also share photos on Google+ itself to draw in more engagement with your brand or personal page.

9.      Take advantage of hangouts. Use a Google Hangout to really connect with your audience directly. For example, the beauty subscription service Birchbox hosted a Google Hangout with makeup artist Manna Kadar and later posted it to their YouTube channel. Nonprofits can use Hangouts to host meetings with grassroots teams or community organizations. Later, you can transform your Hangout into awesome content by embedding a recording on your blog or posting it to other social media.

10.  Make sure your Google+ page is easily found. Finally, none of these strategies will work very well if your Google+ page is hard to find. Make sure your audience can find your page by using badges and banners prominently on your blog, website, and other social media pages.

For more on the basics of Google+, check out Guy Kawasaki’s Entrepreneur article on getting started or My Web Writer’s other blog posts, How Should My Business Use Google+? and Better Understanding Google Analytics.

~Kasey

What should web writers know about content creation?

Strong content is a must-have to make your sites not only user-friendly but highly-ranked in search results. These tips will help you find a strong balance of readability and SEO.

Move Beyond Keywords

With each change to the Google algorithm, the role of keywords becomes more sophisticated. Keyword density higher than 2% can actually hurt your ranking. Just looking at keyword data will no longer work for generating high-ranking content. Additionally, the implementation of encrypted searching will make keyword data less reliable. Jayson DeMers at Search Engine Watch suggests continually building your content and refreshing pages to signal that your site is alive and growing, rather than focusing strictly on search terms.

Write Like People Think

When you do use keywords, the new secret is to instead use search terms in a way that more naturally reflects how the word is used conversationally or the way people think about the words. For example, instead of using shorthanded terms in your meta titles and keywords, use phrases or concepts. As search engines begin processing natural language more frequently, the change may become a hindrance to ecommerce and business sites that use keywords less conceptually. For example, rather than using a title like “Find the Best Writing Solutions,” which emphasizes keywords like writing and solutions but doesn’t sound much like an inquiry someone might ask a search engine, you might try “How to Write Better” or “Best Ways to Improve Your Writing.” Whereas older algorithms focused on keywords, the new algorithms are looking more for phrases and concepts that reflect real people’s language use.

Engage Your Audience

Since you’ll be writing more like people think, it’s important to think more about for whom you’re writing. As content becomes more prevalent in search algorithms, so do different ways of assessing the quality of the content, such as authority and audience engagement. Quality content is frequently updated, helpful, and targeted for your audience. Aim for content that will get the audience to comment, bookmark, or share. End your posts with questions or prompts to encourage audience participation and use reader feedback to help you assess who your audience really is. Not only does engagement with readers boost your SEO rank, it also helps you better address your readers in a way that makes them feel connected to your site or brand. Pay attention to signals that let you know what language, examples, and other trends are most engaging for your readers. Building a relationship with your audience is more complicated than analyzing keyword results, but it provides the biggest boost to your brand and content quality.

Use Social Media

While all social media is a huge means of generating traffic, you can’t underestimate the use of Google+ in developing your rank and content. Link your blog or website to Google+ and make sure that you generate content that crosses over well. Think eye-catching pictures, engaging questions, and sharp summaries that encourage users to click from your Google+ page to your blog or website. That linking builds your presence and authority in the Google algorithm.

Creating a broader social media strategy is an important part of getting your content seen and of generating more engagement and authority. When using social media consider your audience and which sites offer the best reach. A social media strategy must do more than simply sharing links and hoping they’ll get reposted. Introduce content with thought-provoking or click-worthy leads. Ask questions. Use visuals that grab attention. Many social media platforms use a lot of white space in their design, so visuals really pop. Meet your audience where they are and draw them into your content.

~Kasey

More Posts:

Content Improved Our Client’s Keyword Reach and Searchlight’s Data Proved It

Ten Tips for Starting a Social Media Conversation

A Writer’s Insight into Google’s Hummingbird

Seven Helpful Apps for Social Media Marketers

How to Create a Hot Holiday Buzz for Your Business

By My Web Writers

It’s that time of year! Get ready to have your inbox and newsfeed filled with holiday promotions of all shapes and sizes. It’s a marketing bandwagon worth jumping on because the holidays are when your customers are most likely to act on impulse and splurge more than the usual. But how do you go about creating a hot holiday buzz that will command attention and motivate action? Here are the top 5 tips to helps get your started!

Make your product or service relevant.

You should carefully select the product or service you’re promoting based on what is relevant to your customers’ wants this time of year. For example, a salon that runs a sale on its summer lipstick line isn’t going to connect with its customers. It may be tempting to promote the product that you want to move or offers you the biggest margins, but this won’t connect with your audience. Instead, pick a promotion that “makes sense” for the holidays. Put together a holiday gift set that is packaged and priced perfectly for a small gift for a loved one. Or offer a special on a service that is most likely to help your customers this time of year. Whatever you choose, first ask yourself, “Is this relevant?”

Build excitement.

You should decide on your promotion at least two months in advance of the holidays. This will give you enough time to build excitement with your customer base. Give them a sneak preview on Facebook or allude to the “very special holiday promotion” to come in your next newsletter. Prime your customers to be on the lookout for this exciting deal and then be sure to deliver!

Create incentive.

In order to create an effective holiday buzz for your business, your promotion or sale should offer an incentive (or benefit) for your customers to buy now. Set a limit on how long the offer will last. Will it expire on a certain date? Will it close after enough offers are claimed? Creating scarcity will help to create a buzz. It will also make customers prioritize your offer as urgent and motivate them to act now.

Make it more than an afterthought.

The more thought you put into creating a holiday promotion, the more business you’re likely to get out of it. From mid October through the holidays, your core marketing focus should be on positioning yourself to capture holiday business. Sure, these are busy times for everyone, but don’t get distracted or split your marketing efforts by announcing other news to your customers at this time. All of your communications should tie back to your holiday promotion.

Spread the word!

You’ve gone through the effort of creating a promotion, now you must market it across every communication outlet to make it truly effective. The biggest mistake many businesses make is running a promotion, but forgetting to inform their customers. Create articles for content marketing and circulate them via Google Plus, Facebook, or Twitter to segmented audiences. Use your web site, newsletter, press releases, other social media niches, blog, and anything else to spread a consistent message. Create a signature graphic for this deal that you can also place on all of these pages. We are visual people, so the more we see the offer the more likely we are to remember it when it comes time to gift buying.

The holidays are a time to both give and receive – for businesses as well! By giving a great deal and a little extra to your customers, you are more likely to receive their business in return. But simply running a holiday promotion won’t have people lining up at your door, proper placement and marketing is key. Try out these top 5 tips to help create a hot holiday buzz for your business this winter season!

~Stephanie

Other Posts:

12 Steps to Create Your Own Infographic

Ten Tips for Starting a Social Media Conversation

Tell a Better Story: Tips and Tricks from Mark Twain

Content for Less, Fat Brain Toys Involves Customers in Content Creation

Social Media Interaction in 2014- What’s your Plan?