New social media platforms and apps are launched frequently, but not all get the same coverage. We have been receiving comments about the hot new app TikTok. So, in this article, I am going to share my knowledge of what TikTok is, how it’s used, and if Social Media Marketers will be struggling to use it for their customers or brands.
What is TikTok?
TikTok is the newest video-sharing app growing popularity in the United States. It’s indeed not all that new of an app; it’s only been re-branded. TikTok used to be musically before but was taken by ByteDance, who previously had an app called TikTok. So, they joined musically and TikTok into one platform and held the name TikTok.
TikTok is the once trendy Twitter-owned app, Vine, which allows people to post funny short videos. Yet, TikTok is a bit more sturdy in that it will enable you to watch music videos, lip-sync to tunes, and edit your videos with filters, effects, and stickers. There’s also a feature called “duet” in which you can create a new video next to an existing video.
The New York Times explained TikTok as “a quirky hybrid
of Snapchat, the defunct video app Vine, and the TV segment, Carpool Karaoke.”
How Popular is it?
TikTok currently has more than 700 million users worldwide. It has skyrocketed to the top of the charts in Apple’s App Store, YouTube, hitting Instagram, and Snapchat as the top free app. Celebrities like Khloe Kardashian, Jimmy Fallon, and Nick Jonas have promoted the app, too, which has clearly increased its popularity.
Company pages on LinkedIn are so crucial for brands to be able to build relevance, credibility, and showcase services mainly if that company is a start-up.
But, how can you increase your company page engagement on LinkedIn? It looks much easier on other social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook where your brand can have its own account and directly connect with other users’ content. In this article, we are going to share our tips for how to improve your engagement on LinkedIn.
1- Try out different messaging strategies to see what works
LinkedIn is a business-focused platform, so it has a
different target audience than other social networks.
To understand what works out best with your LinkedIn
audience, you’ll want to try different messaging approaches. Using these:
Your style and tone. Is it
serious, playful, educational?
The text length. Is it
compact or long-form?
Your valuable media. How do
visuals support the text?
It’s necessary to test—instead of making theories—because
the results will amaze you.
2- Use your ad budget to reach your target audience
If you’re running with a budget, you should be more
selective. Try to boost your organic posts such as product launches and
campaigns often to make sure that you reach your target audience.
By generating highly targeted ads, you can increase your
engagement during the campaign periods and receive greater conversions.
3- Examine your publishing volume to increase engagement
Here’s why publishing volume imports: If you post too short,
you’ll get less engagement, on the other hand, if you post too much on
LinkedIn, you may run the risk of spamming your readers.
You have to notice that magic posting number to increase
your engagement without spamming.
4- Create high-quality content stand out from competitors
You’ll experience a significant
increase in engagement and conversions when you produce our own content—this is
because you focus on creating quality content that gives immediate value for your
audience.
5- Extend your content mix to influence a broader audience
LinkedIn is so much more than just a marketing platform. It also lets you reach administrators, introduce your company experience, and hire top talent.
So, consider sharing:
leadership quotes from your
own managers
Business news and updates
Job perks and postings
HR advices on the workplace
Follow these tips to start getting more engagement on
LinkedIn. You will be on your way to producing your best content yet.
Email marketing is one of the most successful and valuable methods of marketing; it’s practical, affordable, immediate, and estimable. One of the most critical aspects of email marketing is getting somebody to join your email list.
Maybe you’re already gathering email addresses offline with
a paper sign-up sheet at your office or store. You may have also attached an
online sign-up form to your blog or website.
Did you also know that using social media can help you grow
your email list?
The best thing about using social media for business is that
your social media pages can be public, meaning that anyone can find you and
your page on the platform and become a fan.
The best thing about using social media for business is that
your social media pages can be public, meaning that anyone can find you and
your page on the platform and become a fan.
Resharing or reusing your valuable content on social media
platforms provides your email campaigns a lasting life and extended reach to
more consumers and prospects.
The users who follow you on social media, but haven’t yet
subscribed to your email list, will now be able to find out about your email
campaigns and subscribe right then and
there. So, any shares and retweets of
your email campaigns open up the opportunity of new email subscribers.
2- Run a contest or promotion
Planning contests or promotions is an excellent way to get
your audience to sign up for your email list. Try hosting a campaign with a
link to join your email list by giving the first 20 subscribers a 20% off or
another excuse. Try running a promotion or contest every month or so and see
what type of offer gives you the best results.
3- Add social buttons to your emails
When you send out emails remember to include linking buttons
to all of your social profiles.
Driving your current email contacts to share on social may look a bit backward, but because your current email subscribers already like your content, they are more likely to share it on their social network accounts. Their followers are seemingly like-minded and would find your content appealing as well, proceeding to build your following.
Once you reach these new followers on social media, you can
ask them to subscribe to your emails.
Consider these things while turning your followers into
email subscribers:
Are you making it easy for
other people to subscribe to your emails on social media?
Are you sharing your emails
on your social media account and inspiring your audience to like, comment and
share?
Are you seeking
opportunities to contribute an extra incentive to get people on social media to
join your list?
Are you making it easy for
your current audience to connect with you on socials and share your emails with
their fans and followers using a single-click?
Do you have any
recommendation on getting social media followers to join your mailing list? Let
us know in the comments below.
There are too many social media platforms to choose from these days, and if you are concerned about which one to use, you should only concentrate on one social media platform. It is best to put most of your efforts on one platform, although we do recommend creating accounts on other social media platforms in case you want to change strategies down the line.
The question is, how do you choose that one social media
platform?
Target a platform with more potential customers
You need to make sales. So while it is essential to stay in
touch with your companions, it is more critical that you choose a platform
where your potential and existing customers are.
How do we find out what platform they are using?
We’re living in the digital age; Google can easily find interests, age, gender, and other demographics. Find out where your target audience logs in and start signing up.
Don’t go into unknown territories
If your target customer is immature kids, then make a list of their preferred social media platforms. If you believe you don’t know anything about the platforms in that list, but you have better control over the second one, then we recommend you get there, pronto. You can rely on others’ professional help too, but in many cases, Brands like to know what they are paying for, so don’t force yourself to go into unknown territory. Pick the platform which you have good control over.
By now you realize that the case has been made to why you should hold to one social media platform at a
time to get better results. Social media can make you win if you work smartly.
What is your main
platform? Tell us in the comments below.
Facebook and Instagram removed 2.1b inauthentic accounts from January 2018 to September. Facebook and Instagram sued four Chinese companies for promoting the trade of fake accounts, likes, and followers that the social network titan says can be used for destructive purposes.
The Chinese companies promoted and produced the fake
accounts over the last two years and sold them on six websites, marketing them
in mass quantities, according to a criticism listed Friday in San Francisco
federal court.
“Fake and inauthentic accounts can be used for spam and phishing campaigns,
misinformation campaigns, marketing scams, advertising fraud, and other fraud
schemes which are profitable at scale,” Facebook and Instagram claimed.
They declared fake accounts were also built
on Amazon, Apple, Google, Twitter, and
LinkedIn.
Facebook has come under close investigation over the use of
private information and the impression of objectionable content on its 2.7
billion monthly users, with authorities around the world doubting the company’s
policies. Friday’s lawsuit, which declares multiple violations of US trademark
equity, is one way the company is struggling back against economic exploitation
of its social networks.
By using artificial
intelligence to detect fake accounts, Instagram and Facebook disabled 2.1
billion inauthentic accounts from January 2018 within September, “often
within minutes of the accounts’ creation,” according to the complaint.
The companies named as offenders — 9 Xiu Shenzhen, 9 Xiu Feishu, 9 Xiufei, and Home Network — are based in Longyan and Shenzhen. They are affiliated companies of electronics and hardware, as well as providers of software and online promotion services, according to the complaint.
The defendants couldn’t quickly be located for comment.
Facebook is querying a court order enduringly barring the
Chinese companies’ alleged policy and financial damages.
Some of us are a lot more sensitive than others. Make a bad
or negative comment, and some people will
break into tears. Some will take that on board and change their behavior; others will turn into a werewolf and bite
right back!
Dealing with negative comments on social media is a lot more different than dealing with usual complaints, received y chat, email or phone. And there is one reason for it: it is too easy to turn a social media complaint into a complete disaster.
Why should I care about negative comments and complaints
on social media?
Social media is a public place. Every time a user writes something wrong about your product or service, the whole audience on social media can see it. They will judge you based on different criteria:
How quickly did you reply?
What was your reaction?
What was your customer’s
reaction?
How did the whole thing
end?
Social media is all about immediate reaction and quick
response. People present on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter literally live there and can post in the
morning, while having breakfast, after dinner or even in the middle of the
night.
If you choose to have a business profile, you should be
ready to do the same. You might think that no one will notice one negative
comment, but they definitely will! And if
you don’t get response, they’ll get the idea of you not caring about your PR and
your customers.
How am I supposed to reply social media complaints if I
don’t see them?
It’s simple to reply to a complaint that was sent directly to your email, right? In the case of social media, it isn’t that easy! If you are lucky enough, users will tag your brand in their posts, and you will get notifications about it. Things start to get more complicated when people are sharing a lousy word of mouth about your brand, and you can’t respond to it because you can’t see it.
Enter your Brand’s name and optimize your settings. Remember you can choose more than one keyword alert for the search to get more specific information. This way you will get notified immediately when your keyword was mentioned, once a day or once a week. You can choose the language, region, and source (e.g., blogs, news, videos.)
How quickly should I response?
You should reply as soon as you’ve received a negative comment. Try to aim for responding in at least15 minutes to make a good impression, but if you can’t do that, try to answer in an hour. According to researches, 43% of your customers will expect a “one hour” response time and 30% of them expect a reply within 30 minutes.
The faster you reply, the better you will look in the eyes
of the social media community. Yes, there is no mercy!
How should I react to negative comments?
If you let yourself discharge in public, you’ll be judged by your behavior. You might find yourself discussing with other people who will stand in the trolls’ defense and trust me, that’s the last thing you want! So, whether you’re speaking with an angry troll or customer, make sure you are doing the following:
appreciate them for their
opinion (try not to be too formal, just a “thanks for reaching out to us”
should be excellent)
apologize for the
inconvenience (“sorry to hear that you didn’t like our services/ you’re having
problems with our product”)
inspire them to send you a
private message.
The last thing is essential: whatever happens, you want the
unsatisfied customer to send you a private message.
Should I delete negative comments?
No!I know, you might be intrigued to delete them, but you
should never, ever do that.
The thing is, if you delete a real comment from an angry customer, you can be sure they’ll come back: louder, more upset and more frustrated. Also, negative comments show that you’re a genuine, honest brand. You shouldn’t think about dealing with negative trolls and complaints on social media as an offensive obligation but more as an opportunity.
Opportunity to turn your customers’ lousy experience into a
good one and to turn complaints into compliments.
One primary reason why brands are unwilling to use Twitter
is because of negative customer feedback. More and more often customers are
using Twitter as a forum to place customer service complaints, making brands
wary of joining what seems like a black hole of customer complaints.
Twitter users can apply smartest techniques to grow on the platform and even can buy Twitter followers on WP Dev Shed. But how to deal with the negative feedback? While not all tweets that get on your way will be negative, there is a benefit to having your brand on Twitter: you have control over turning negative feedback into positive ones. Negative feedback will be present on Twitter whether you have a twitter account or not. You can’t control what’s being said about you, but you do have control over your answers to unhappy customers. Here are many ways that you can deal with negative feedback on Twitter.
Kill them with humor and kindness
Last week, ThinkGeek had a typo in an email they sent out to
their loyal customers. They had a lot of Twitter followers point out this typo
through Twitter. Instead of ignoring the typo or getting disturbed at the
hundreds of finger-pointing tweets, ThinkGeek responded with funny tweets to
their followers. One example:
“Can’t you just
see those ThinkGeek monkeys wailing because of their typo? Makes me smile every
time.”
Be honest
Southwest Airlines was having a problem with their website,
getting many angry tweets from exhausted customers. Instead of replying with
the general customer support tweet, Southwest Airlines responded with a genuine
apology and honest answer. It’s hard to stay mad at someone who is willing to
empathize with your pain.
Give them a solution
A Gap client was unsatisfied with the quality of one of her
purchases. The company was proactive in reaching out to the customer to suggest
that she return the product.
Instead of being afraid
of negative feedback on Twitter, embrace the chance to change negative customer
experiences. Reach out to angry customers, frustrated clients or out to make
you look like a fool. The more honesty and empathy you share with your
customers, the more they will appreciate the experience you create for them.
Twitter has set different limits on user activities to decrease the load on their services, as well as reduce the possibility of spammy behavior.
These limits are based on a combination of factors like how old your account is, the speed at which you follow/unfollow, the third-party applications you use for your Twitter account and also if you are using the native Twitter app less frequently.
Some notable updates:
January 6, 2012:
Added lists and unfollow limits.
January 6, 2013: Added
biography character limit & Picture sizes.
May 31, 2013: Twitter
updates the number of Twitter lists you can have and the number of users you
can follow in each list.
August 12, 2015: Twitter
now lets you send direct messages with up to 10,000 characters. The threshold
used to be 140 (similar to standard tweets).
October 28, 2015:
Twitter has raised their follow limit
from 2,000 to 5,000.
October 2016: links,
Media attachments, and screen names in replies no longer count in the 140character limit.
May 2017: Updated
number of daily direct messages from 250 to 1,000
November 2017: The
number of characters in a Tweet has been raised
from 140 to 280.
The Follow limit
on Twitter
You may be new to
Twitter, or you may have been using the platform for a long time and hit the
“2000” limit, which Twitter increased to 5,000. Most social media platforms
have limits in place for the number of users you can “follow” or “friend.” For
instance, Google+ currently has a limit of 5,000 users you can have in your
circles, and you have a limit of 5,000 “friends” on Facebook. This is to stop individuals, brands or
automated applications from abusing the system.
On Twitter, it was
possible to bulk follow thousands and thousands of users in the hope that they
would follow you back. This caused many
accounts to abuse this and follow a lot
of people while not generating engaging content and not having many users to
follow them back.
Not good!
Twitter launched back in March 2006. But it wasn’t until August 2008 that it began imposing limits on the number of users you could follow. Twitter was facing big problems with spam (as Twitter co-founder blogged at the time). There was a lot of backlash at the time, and a lot of confusion. It’s generally assumed that Twitter introduced a 2,000 following limit, which means you could only follow up to 2,000 users. But, this isn’t strictly true.
The Following
Ratio
According to
researches, the magic number is 1,819! This
means if you have 1,819 followers you may break through the 2,000 limits. Below
1,819 you are capped at following 2,000 users.
I haven’t examined
this, but I’m not sure that the same policy will be used for this new limit. To break through the limit, you’ll have to get more than 4545 users
following you before you can go through the 5,000 limits. Let me know what you
think!
Unfollow limits on Twitter
So, how many users
can you unfollow? This is a difficult
question since Twitter doesn’t say.
It’s possible to bulk unfollow using automation tools, but you
have to click on each user manually, and then click unfollow.
Yes, various
javascript hacks are using Google Chrome, but to be honest, you should stay
away from this because it’s likely to get you banned.
So, use your common
sense. I’ve unfollowed over 600 people in one day, but that was a one-off- I
wanted to unclutter my feed, but if I unfollowed 600 people each day I’d get
banned.
So, there you
go. Remember, Twitter is a social network platform- these limits are for our protection.
Do you think these limits are suitable, or do you think they should be changed? Let me know in the comments below.
Years ago, the page category of Facebook was chosen when you created it. You’d have to decide whether you wanted a page dedicated to local services, books, and magazines, to sports, or whatever. Once you picked a category, you would get locked in, or at least almost locked in; there was some compliance within your general category, but if you needed to change the overarching super-category, you had to jump through a bunch of hoops.
These days, setting a category for your Facebook page is much more flexible. You are not limited to one type, either; since Facebook lets you fit multiple categories into your page, you can choose up to three. For instance, a local newspaper could choose a magazine category, a local services category, and a website category, and all of them would be legitimate.
Facebook page categories
Facebook has turned the page category box into a pretty
free-form and open selection. There are a lot of different categories to choose; so many I cannot possibly
list them here. Every keyword seems to have a dozen various categories attached
to it. For instance, if I type in these keywords, here are suggestions Facebook
gives:
Local: Farmer’s
Market, Government Building, Government Official, Local Travel.
Music: Artist, Song,
Music Award, Music Video, Music Venue, Music store, Musician/band, Arts and
Entertainment.
The list goes on and on and on. Facebook also lets you put in three different but specific
categories. As they claim, they only hold the three most particular categories. So, for instance, if you added
“music” and “song,” it’s possible that they would only keep “song.”
This means it’s
important to dig down to three relevant and specific categories to fit your
brand. A general contractor for different home repairs might plug in
electrician, plumber, and carpenter, though this might leave out some of their
essential services. Alternatively, they could put in house renovation, overall
contractor, and landscaper.
It’s a good idea to think about three different phases of your Brand and find categories that include as many of the fields as possible to get a general overview of your page type. Remember, though, that different categories can implement various features.
The features of Page Categories on Facebook
Facebook’s limitations on what pages can do is a little of an old system, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they remove or revamp it in the next year or two. I’ll sum up how it works now, but don’t be worried if it changes; just let me know in the comments and I will look over what they have changed. For now, you can use their table as a reference here.
Right now, ten features
of a page are “variable” depending on your page category. But actually, only 4
of them are changeable. According to Facebook, every page has:
The ability to compose a
short description of the Brand or entity that it represents.
The ability to link to a particular website for the Brand or entity the
page represents.
The ability to list special
services that the brand or entity provides.
The ability to turn on
review system and ratings (previously attached to being a local business) so
that fans and followers can review and give star ratings to the brand or
entity.
The ability to add an email for people that use it as a method of
contacting representatives of the brand or entity.
The ability to enter a
phone number, again for people to use to contact the brand or entity the page
represents.
Also, some categories
have access to extra features, such as:
The ability to include an
address is only available to Facebook pages in categories that intimate a
related business address, such as brands and organizations, companies, people
or sports entities, and local services.
The ability to display a location map with a mapping system powered by
Facebook, beneficial for people to locate a company branch near their location;
available to the same categories as above.
The ability to list
particular business hours of operation, where hours of service can mean the
distinction between a customer making a drive or being disappointed when they
arrive.
There is some adaptability in what is and isn’t allowed, and I think that Facebook defaults to “allowed” whenever possible. For instance, a page that represents a book would not be allowed to include business hours, but if they are also registered as a local service, they should be allowed.
How to change your page category on Facebook?
While creating a new
page, or editing your existing page, you can choose or change your categories at any time. To edit your page’s category, you should follow these steps:
Click “about” on the left side of your Facebook page.
Click “Edit” right next to the “Category.”
Enter up to 3 categories and choose what you want from the
dropdown list that appears.
Click “Save.” And voila!
You can change your
page’s category as many times as you like, there are no limitations for that.
If you can’t find a category that
describes your Page, try to choose the closest available option.
If you have any other questions about Facebook
categories, you know you can always ask us in the comments below.
We have all been there, right? Around a dinner table, around a campfire, held captivated and speechless while listening to a great story. Why? Because we all love stories. So if you could use storytelling on social media, then why wouldn’t you be doing so? You can get the advantage of the most basic part of human nature! So, let’s look at some ways to use storytelling on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. Let’s break down storytelling in each social media. You can perform different methods in every social media platform to make the most of your storytelling.
Here are tips on using digital storytelling on your social media accounts today:
1- Show your company’s Human side
People connect with other people, not brands. So to connect your audience, you should show your brand’s
human side. The goal is to form a personal brand that resonates with your
customer and to do that; it’s essential that your brand tells a story.
Share:
What you are learning
What you are doing
A look behind the scenes
And at the same time, do not share too much personal
information. You should always remember that social media is not your diary. Whatever you choose to share with your audience,
just make sure you are comfortable with
the whole world knowing about it.
2- Share your brand’s story
Customers don’t buy into brands; they buy into the story behind the brands. Just as you use your
blog and website to tell your brand’s story, so the same thing with your social
media. Improve your brand’s message and share the ideas you stand for. For
example, if you run an organic store, known for the focus on overall health and natural products, then you should use
social media to share information that is related to that message. Everything
you post is a way to reinforce the story you are communicating. This can build credibility for your brand and
makes your content relevant.
3- Be narrative in your updates
One of the best ways to tell a story on
social media is to do exactly that, tell a story. You can do it on Facebook by
turning your status updates into minimal blog posts. But it’s not just Facebook
that is open to digital storytelling. Even twitter with its 140 character
limits, can be a great tool for digital storytelling. Actually, working within a character limit can encourage creativity
in you. Do you really think it isn’t
possible to tell a story in 140 characters? Consider these examples which prove
that writing stories can still be short:
Even the photo-sharing
platform, Instagram, can be used for storytelling. Just as you post your photo,
write a caption that tells a good brief narrative. While a high-quality picture
is necessary for an Instagram post, a
good caption can help you complete the story by sharing a narrative. For your next Instagram post, you can share a brief
story about the picture within more than three sentences. Instagram captions
are limited to 2200 characters, and after three lines, the caption becomes shortened with an ellipsis.
4- Share Consecutive Posts to Tell a Broader Story
Another good way to share a story on social media is by using
continuous updates to tell the story,
like a story series, from the beginning to end. For example, on twitter
you can first tweet:
“Came home to a house so
quiet I could hear a pin drop.”
Followed by:
“But then we walked into
the bedroom, where a big surprise was waiting.”
Followed by:
“Both kids had constructed
a giant fort & fallen asleep in the middle of furniture & blankets.”
5- Contain elements of your story into posts
The concept of “story” is so
simple; it can feel hard to understand and break down. So, if writing
stories feel complicated, try to focus on
the basic elements of story and try to contain them in your content. Elements such as:
Relatable characters:
The reason you like to share the
human side of your brand is that it makes you more relatable. Each good
story has relatable characters with interests and personalities. You can make
your business that sort of character by
letting your followers in. Furthermore, creating figures in your narratives is an excellent way to develop people your audience finds engaging.
Conflicts:
People like drama! So stories are more compelling when they
include resolution and conflict. So whatever you are sharing, contain details
about the conflict associated with your
work will drive more readers in.
Structure:
The most basic building blocks of a proper story are pacing. First,
this happens, then this, then this. The beginning,
middle, end. Use this kind of narrative arc any way you can. Any story which
tries to drive action should have an
introduction, a body and a CTA at the end.
Backed by purpose:
A story with no purpose
is just claptrap. It would be easy to get
lost in the background noise and lose track of why you are telling it. Why are you telling
a story? What is the critical takeaway you aim for the reader?
Simplicity
Try to keep it simple. Cut out all the unnecessary parts. It
doesn’t matter how good you think a sentence, photo or video is. If it doesn’t
add any value to your story, ditch it.
Authenticity
First, you should decide if the story is true to you. Don’t
try to embellish it or draw out a facade to cover the truth behind the story.
People will be able to tell if you are lying and it will fail.
The environment for telling a story
If you’re telling a story to your friends during a lunch
break, you’re going to be telling it
differently than in front of a full auditory at the Olympia London’s Conference
Centre. The structure of a story depends on the environment you are in. When you’re storytelling on social media
platforms, the user’s screen is your room for the context. So you should create
something good enough for them to stop scrolling and pay attention.
6- A mix of practicality and passion
Create, try, test, do! You can always create as much content
as possible and see which works best. It needs a lot of work and a flaming
passion. But it isn’t practical. Passionate people are so focused on spreading
their message that they burn out their budget, resources, and eventually their own passion. And with such a crowd of content
shared on social media, it’s effortless to get lost in mixed signals and
disorganized data.
You need to understand your audience and scale their engagement. Map out significant performance indicators to recognize the success of the stories you’re telling. Storytelling on social media won’t get you immediate response. It’s not like hanging around a campfire telling a story and observing people’s reactions. You’re restrained by things like numbers of likes, shares, comments with which you are trying to “measure” the user’s retention, engagement rate, and the chance of conversion.
7- Teamwork
Working with a team will help reduce the workload; still,
the production and approval processes can get very complicated. For example:
You have a story outline
planned.
You seek out an audience to
target and test it.
You collect feedback,
mostly unstructured.
You gather information into
a structure and make proper adjustments (to the story, audience or both)
You publish the story and
analyze results and engagement.
Although a mere framework, each step holds a lot of
synchronization, approvals, resources, time and effort. With a loyal team, you
are decreasing the logistic needs, but it gets confusing to onboard new
members.
Final thoughts
The world today is driven by social media, we’re all in the
“always online” state of mind. No matter how liberated we are as people, in the end, we
are all driven by emotions. Self-actualization and validation are our primary motivator for sharing a story. Do not
mix digital storytelling with content marketing;
it shouldn’t be marketing itself. Just try to connect with your audience
and have fun!
What do you think?
What is your social media secret ingredient?Tell us your story of
social storytelling in the comments below.
Facebook is just like an onion. You can use its features at face value, but if you dig a little deeper, you will find things typically hidden in your day-to-day interactions on the platform, such as Messages. “I use Facebook Messenger and check my inbox constantly,” you may say. Still, you may not know that you have some hidden messages on the Facebook messenger waiting for you to read.
Usually, when you check your Facebook Messages, you are only
seeing chats from your friends. That isn’t actually
all of your them. Facebook filters messages from people you aren’t friends with
on the platform. Typically, this is helpful—many of those messages are just
spams. However, every once in a while, a specific message from a
not-yet-Facebook-friend ends up in that no man’s land.
How
to find hidden messages on Facebook?
You can follow these steps to check your hidden messages:
Open Facebook on the desktop.
Tap on the message icon at the top right of your screen.
In the menu that pops up below, you can see that “message requests”
is grayed out next to “recent.”
Click on message requests. Here are the messages from users who
want to chat with you, but aren’t yet your friend on Facebook.
You can also click “See filtered requests” at the bottom of the
menu for more missed messages.
You can also receive these messages from the Facebook messenger:
in the app, go to your settings, then tap “people.”
tap “message Requests” then “Filtered Requests.”
This will show you all the
messages Facebook considered unworthy of your time.
Once you find out about this secret inbox, it’s a good idea
to check it every once in a while, just
to make sure you didn’t miss anything
important.
What do you think about this hidden inbox? Are you curious who have messaged you? Go ahead and check your hidden messages on Facebook.
The social media content forest is getting a little scary for brands who don’t have content strategies. Because it is noisier and more crowded than ever, the methods that worked in past years wouldn’t work in 2019. Social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Twitter are being made to use stronger algorithms and filter out the noise, fluff, spam, and irrelevant content so that they create the exciting conversations, organic engagement and elicit feelings of connection to the social network. The social network platforms are feeling the pressure as much as any social media marketer working in any business.
Boost your social media marketing
with a good content calendar
If you want to get a grip on your social media marketing in 2019 and see
unbelievable, measurable results, then you should employ a content calendar.
You will not
achieve goals you don’t plan for and can’t measure. A media calendar will let
you organize and prepare your content so that you can use content to attract your target audience and
achieve your brand goals.
Content is not a random set of words, videos or pictures you pay an intern or
an SEO agency to create and hope it magically boosts your community and
generates more leads and revenues although
some inefficient agencies may try to sell you on this fact, run from them.
“Create it, and they will come running” has never worked, and it’s absolutely not a strategy for success in 2019.
You’ll get out of
your content marketing what you place into it. The best place to begin if you want to get a grip
on your content is by a content calendar. You should also make sure that your content is part
of your more significant business and marketing and strategy.
Your content marketing must be the air you and your target audience
breathes as they explore your brand, not just purchase your products.
Organization and Planning is your solution to success in the crazy noisy online
world of today, trust me!
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is an umbrella term embracing all marketing forms that
include the production and sharing of content to engage target audience bases.
Content marketing contributes to the impression that producing high-quality,
relevant and valuable data to prospects and consumers drives valuable consumer action. Content marketing
helps you retain user attention and improve your brand awareness.
In simple terms, content marketing lets you sell to your client without
actually selling to them. You instead have a communication with them that draws
them to you and your brand with relevant, high quality, and valuable
information.
How a Content Calendar Helps You
handle Your social media Marketing?
The purpose of this blog is not to give you an MBA level education on
content marketing. Doing this much in one simple blog post would be impossible.
So here are some tips to help you so through planning your media calendar. There
are three things you need to consider while evaluating your channels:
Where is your target audience? If your audience is
more active on one social media platform over another, that platform is where
you need to be adjusting your efforts.
Which
platform had the most growth in the last year? If you see enormous
growth on a platform, look through your analytics to understand why. Is it a
particular content type that’s attracting people’s attention? Alternatively,
maybe a precise campaign boosted your growth?
Where are
your engagement and traffic coming from? Is there a specific
social channel that seems to be engaging your customers and driving more traffic to your website? What is your brand
doing on that channel differently than others that are causing that difference?
Find Out Which Types of Social Media Content You’ll Create
you have to decide which types of posts you’ll be sharing across each of
your social media channels.
There are four different post types that your brand can publish on social
media:
Pictures: Including single photos or gallery posts.
Videos: Including live video streaming or natively uploaded video content.
Text: Sometimes one catchy copy is all you need.
Links: Links to external content (curate or downed) would fall under this
category.
Depending on your brand’s abilities and which
platforms you’re on, some of these content types might be more valuable to you
than others. If you’re already posting consistently on different social media
platforms, use in-app analytics for each platform to look for spikes in traffic
and engagement.
Here are some tips to create the best content
calendar in 2019:
Take a brand selfie
Brands need to see the art and value of first-person or “selfie” video content. Customers are becoming less accepting of old promo-based messaging. A selfie approach to video content on Instagram stories, Snapchat and IGTV, make your brand more relatable. Users spend hours watching their friends on IG Stories and Snapchat, so encourage them with content that offers a firsthand look at your business.
Understand Your Social
Audiences
Most brands don’t ever consider this when they are
running ads. Find out where the prospect is about their problem. When marketing
to someone who doesn’t understand they have a problem vs. someone who realizes
they have a problem, the message is very different. Social media is about
segmenting people so you can be relevant to the right customer at the right
time.
Quality Over Quantity
As platforms grow, brands jump onto these trends
and flood the social media platforms with average content in an attempt to ride
the wave. This causes the audiences
they’re trying to attract to tune out before they’ve even processed what brands
are trying to reach. Control the impulse to create content for the sake of
doing so. Be profitable.
Invest in Data Research
Invest your money and time in data research. Companies that understand and continuously optimize their social media marketing strategy are winning the customer retention war. They’re targeting the correct audience. Numbers don’t lie — businesses that prioritize trends and stats will be the ones we notice in 2019.
Craft a Significant
Brand Narrative
Optimize your business narrative to step up social
in 2019. It’s not enough to generate a content calendar based on product or
brand messaging. Your content needs to be compelling and evocative to lead
people to action. Evaluate your brand story and make sure it’s inspiring and
stands out between the social clutter. Ground your content in that message, and
it will undoubtedly rise above.
Engage with Relevant
Influencers
As social networks like Instagram continue to get
impressive audiences, it’s time to think outside of the old advertising box.
More users, look to influencers for their suggestions on products, what to
watch, experiences, etc. Reach out to a public figure in your industry and ask
if they will promote your product in a post.
Create a Perfect Social
Media Strategy
Snapchat Story Ads, IGTV, Facebook features and
everything else are methods, not strategies. The best way to up your game is to
up your strategy. Do some research and Learn more about your audience.
Creating a stable, research-based plan will help you leap in 2019.
Be an Early Adopter
Do not hang around to observe if anyone is going to
leap to use a new feature and if it works for them before trying it yourself.
Experiment with every new feature that rolls out. You will quickly discover if
it will work for you or won’t be a big hit, and you’ll receive a massive boost
as a trendsetter by being the first one to try it in your industry.
Conclusion
Now, I understand this seems like much work. It
takes time to put features, systems, and workflows in place. These updates will
make things faster and more productive, but the implementation still needs some
time commitment. However, you know what? It’s well worth it! A well-planned and
well-organized content calendar will make a significant difference when it
comes to traffic and leads coming to your site. Most brands share content
without any purposes or thinking behind it.
Having a good content calendar gives you a considerable advantage and develops your social media authority. Try it, give it 4 to 6 months and come back here to share your results!
One of the most significant forms of social media currency
is a verification badge on top platforms like Twitter and Instagram. Though both are administered by different social media
entities, the similarities as far as successfully being verified are
very related. For those who don’t know, a blue verified logo on Twitter shows
that an account is authentic. A Twitter badge is always placed next to the
username and can only be applied by
Twitter.
Usually, verified Twitter accounts are celebrities or brands in the fields of fashion, music, acting, politics, government, religion, journalism, sports, media, business, and other key interest areas. If your brand can make use of the blue check mark, here’s a step by step guide on how to get verified on Twitter:
Step
1: Fill out the Verification Request Form on Twitter
First, you should fill
the twitter’s verification
request form to start the process of getting verified on twitter. Remember
that you have to be logged into your target twitter account to fill the form.
For your Twitter account to be
considered for verification, you should have the following elements
presented on your profile:
Verified phone number:
This will help you confirm your identity and connect your target audience to
your office entity.
Confirmed email address:
if your twitter account belongs to your business or organization, the email
address associated with your account
should be an organization or company email address (i.e., info@yourwebsite.com).
Profile picture: if you already have a strong presence on
another social media platform (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) make sure
they all have the same profile picture. In platforms like Instagram, they grab
relevant information from other social media platforms to make a verification decision.
Header picture: When
it comes to brand verification, Twitter accepts those who complete their
profile in the highest level. An incomplete profile will decrease your chances of
getting the badge on twitter, even if you fit all other verification inquiries.
Your birthdate: This only includes individual accounts. You can choose whether to display this information
on your profile or not. Similar to your phone number, this just helps you confirm your identity.
Your website: if you are a brand or a public figure, you really need to have a site. Twitter won’t think of you as a professional if you don’t
have one.
Public twitter account: You can’t be considered as a
public figure if your tweets are private!
Once you make sure that your profile is fully set up with
all required information, you will be asked to enter your username. Also, if
you are trying to have your business account verified, remember to check the
box at the bottom left of your screen to
indicate this.
Step
2: Fill in The Missing Requirements
If you still haven’t filled out the information required (as
I mentioned above), you’ll be prompted to do so. You will know right away if this is the case with your profile
information, as Twitter will display a
message that says “Account Not Eligible for Review” if you lack anything
important mentioned above. You will have the opportunity to fill the missing
parts to submit yourself for Twitter verification.
How to increase your chances of getting verified on twitter?
Here are a few additional tips that will help
you get verified on Twitter:
If you’re trying to get
your personal account verified, your
account name should reflect your real or stage name. Similarly, if your account is
about your brand, it should indicate the actual name of your brand.
Your profile and header picture should reflect you or your
company’s branding. If you’re trying to verify
your personal account, make sure to use a profile picture that matches
other social media profiles. If you’re trying to verify your business account, you should use your logo, and include
other elements of branding (like color theme) into your cover picture.
Your bio should define your skills or your brand mission. If
you’re just starting out, use these tips to optimize your Twitter bio.
Make sure that you are active on Twitter.
The platform rolled out the verification feature to help people find authentic, high-quality accounts to follow. If you aren’t tweeting on a regular basis, you
won’t let twitter reach this goal, and they won’t recommend you for
verification.
Use professional pictures. Having a consistent brand photo will
make your account more recognizable, and will help twitter confirm your
identity.
Try to be precise with your location, especially if you own a
local business. This is how Twitter
connects you to people nearby.
Step
3: Enter Websites as References
The next step for getting verified on twitter is entering up to five websites that can be used to identify you
and associate you with your Twitter account. As you have listed your site in your profile, you don’t have to enter that again.
It would be a better use of
space to enter additional websites that are considered proof of your public influence. Such as
high-traffic websites or instances of appearances in the news sites.
Step
4: Explain why you should be Verified
At this point in the platform, Twitter will provide a section where you should make a case for why you should be verified on Twitter. If you are applying as
an individual, explain your impact. Display your public reach, as well as
examples about where you have made waves in your community. For brands and
companies, you should highlight your mission and what you have been trying to
achieve.
You only have 500 characters to use, so don’t overthink and just write something down. In general, just focus on mentioning the ways that you or
your company adds value to the twitter community.
Step
5: Submit your verification request
Once you have confirmed the
validity of your information, all you should do is wait. Twitter will
email you as soon as they make the decision. Also, you will know that you have been verified once the @verified Twitter
account follows you.
If your request is declined
the first time around, don’t worry, you can apply again after a month. And if
you get verified, remember that verified accounts which do not follow the Twitter terms and conditions can have their
verified badge revoked.
Conclusion
Before this, the twitter verification process was complicated. Now, the platform lets you
request verification, all you need to do is to make sure that you have prepared
all the requirements before applying. A strong online presence can be helpful,
even if you don’t have many followers on twitter just yet.
So what do you think?
Why do you want to get the blue badge on your twitter
account?
Comment us below and let us know what do you think about
verification on social media platforms.
A few years ago, I posted an article about writing the perfect LinkedIn summary. A lot has changed since then. LinkedIn has made many revisions and updates, and lately, they launched a whole new interface. Also, the world of work has developed even more into a place where the free-agent mindset is necessary for success. So it’s time for a significant update to my last post on this topic.
Before
we get into the methods of crafting a brilliant summary, let’s begin with why
your LinkedIn summary is so important for
your success:
LinkedIn is usually the first place people go when they are looking to estimate you in a professional position.
If people search your name on Google to learn about you, your LinkedIn profile will likely show up in one of the top places in the search results. Since 78% of Google clicks go to the top three results, those who begin at Google will end up at LinkedIn.
For most of us, a LinkedIn profile is the most extensive bio we have online. Your LinkedIn summary will likely be seen by more people than any other social media bio. This added exposure gives you an outstanding opportunity to catch the attention of decision-makers — but only if you have a relatable summary.
A
valuable LinkedIn summary does three things:
It shows the connection.
It attracts the right audience who are crucial to your career success, letting
them know what you’re about so they can decide if you are related to their
goals.
It differentiates you from competitors. With so many people
presenting the same services as you, standing out is important.
It makes people want to learn more about you and eventually
interact with you one-on-one. Of course, this means congruence with the
real-world you is essential.
I have had the chance to
help a lot of professionals describe their story in their LinkedIn summary, and
what I write here is the proven process we use. It’s a simple method that makes
your summary shine:
Step
one: Set the scene
First
of all, you should decide what you like your summary to say and want you want
visitors to do. These questions will help you set the scene for your summary:
Who is your target
audience? Who are the most important influencers and decision-makers in your
world?
What do you want them to
know or do?
How do you want to make the
visitors feel?
Write
our responses to these questions so you can begin gathering your raw data.
Step
two: collect your content
You
may feel overwhelmed by the different choices for writing your bio. I recommend
organizing your content into these seven
buckets:
Skills: write a few sentences about what you do to provide value for your team, brand, and internal or external customers. (I’m the content manager. I have a team of best and brightest writers. I brought them together to write about the most important updates in the world!)
Victories:
write about your achievements in your career. Be sure to describe the value you
brought. (I saved my company $100k by using a better and cheaper version of blogging
software.)
Passions:
values and passions. write your
operating principles and the things that inspire or energize you (for example,
“diversity, creativity, and developing win-win relationships” along with UNICEF.”)
Your
superpowers: Explain the things you do better than anyone else – the
talents that allow you to be a hero for your colleagues (for instance, “I make
team conferences fun and productive, making everyone feel involved; I have been told I am the best listener”).
Interesting stats: Mention things you can
quantify – and don’t limit yourself to just the ones that are work-related. (“I
climbed four of the tallest peaks; I speak two foreign languages and travel to
at least eight new countries every year”)
Validation: Cover all those things that help you prove what you say about yourself such as awards and accolades (for example, “Graduated from the University of Harvard; was awarded an innovation fellowship by the Association of Advanced science”)
Uniqueness: One of the most crucial aspects of reliable content is exclusiveness. If the content on your website is duplicated or plagiarized, then you may not get the desired results from it. One of the best and easiest ways to detect piracy in content is the use of an online plagiarism checker. You can find many online duplication finder tools over the web that can assist you in detecting duplication in writing within a few seconds. You can get access to an effective free online similarity checker by clicking on plagiarismdetector.net without any hurdles.
After
completing your content category collection, take a look at them and try
answering these questions:
Is there anything missing?
Is there anything
irrelevant?
Is it aspirational and
authentic?
Make any adjustment, deletion, and additions to your raw content and then prepare to share.
Step
three: showcase your story
Before
writing anything, give yourself a “permission to suck.” we put a lot of pressure on ourselves while
writing, and if we lower the expectations of our first attempt, we can
typically improve, edit, or recreate something that’s really quite satisfying.
I recommend crafting your summary in the first person for these reasons:
Everyone understands you
wrote your own LinkedIn summary, so drafting about yourself in the third person
looks a bit insincere.
Writing in the first
person creates communication between you and your audience, and that’s the best
way to develop a relationship.
The first person version
of your bio seems more like storytelling and less like recording your
accomplishments — and the LinkedIn summary is all about storytelling.
That’s it.
Comment us below and tell
us about your methods of writing a good bio on social media.
There’s still time to run an excellent holiday Facebook contest! If you need some last-minute holiday-contest inspiration for your Facebook, you can find it here. And if you want some motivation for pulling such a contest together, then you should know:
64% of Facebook users state they are likely to share a link
to a holiday contest or giveaway.
Remember to offer a prize related to your brand. If you give away something valuable that isn’t aligned with your brand, you run the risk of reaching a bunch of people who follow and engage with you only because they want to win that expensive prize. Here are some joyful Facebook contest ideas that you can get up in minutes, whether you create campaigns or run simple Timeline promotions.
Facebook
Holiday photo contests
It isn’t hard to get your followers to upload pictures; a typical Facebook user uploads an average of 2017 picture each, every year.
Cutest couple picture contest
Theme: the ugliest holiday sweater, best Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus or
elf couple.
Christmas decorating
photo contest
Theme: nature, handicrafts,
ornaments, animal, patriotic, retro, etc.
Family holiday photo
contest
Theme: most creative or awkward family holiday photos.
Facebook
content contests
An essay contest is just a contest that involves text rather than photo or video. You can let your Facebook community vote for their favorite topic.
Holiday recipe contest
Ask your audience about their favorite holiday recipe.
Holiday storytelling contest
Have your Facebook followers share a brief description of their favorite holiday tradition.
Dear Santa letter contest
Ask your audience to write letters to Santa about why they should win in
your competition.
Status
updates for timeline promotions
“All I want for Christmas is … “, Write the name of the gifts
you want to get this Christmas, and you’re entered to win. The winner will be chosen randomly.
“The movie or song that
best describes the holidays for me is…” Post the title of your favorite
holiday song or movie title here, and you’re entered to win. The winner will be chosen randomly.
“I found out the truth about
Santa…” Tell us your story here, and you’re entered to win. The winner will be chosen randomly.
“The most memorable holiday food I’ve ever had was when…” Tell
us your story here, and you’re entered to win. The winner will be chosen randomly.
“The one New Year’s
resolution that I kept was ….” Let us know the resolution, and you’re entered
to win. The winner is chosen at random.
“My 2015 New Year’s
resolution is ….” Let us know the resolution, and you’re entered to win. The
winner will be chosen at random.
Multi-day
giveaways
In multi-day giveaways, you will give out prizes every day
for a specific period (for example 12days
of Christmas or 8 days of Hanukkah) which can bring you a lot of engagement on
Facebook because people come back again and again to enter
A Product–a-Day Giveaway: line up awards for every day of
your giveaway.
A Promotion-a-Day Giveaway: reveal a specific promotion
code for a free shipping or discount that expires at the end of giveaway day.
A combination Giveaway: share digital prizes such as
coupons, promo codes, and discounts,
during your multi-day giveaway.
That’s it, guys.
You can run one of the contests above and share the
result with us on comments.
