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Social Media Mistakes – Are You Doing Any of These?

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Social Media Mistakes – Are You Doing Any of These?

All websites should have social media share and connect buttons. It doesn’t matter if the site is a retailer or not, social media is a form of communication for people of all ages. We use social media to make purchases, as a customer service tool, for public relations, and to share reviews of brands we care about. Website social media buttons help your readers share your content – including images and posts – across social channels. They also help you build up a following. If you are indeed a retailer or blogger, then these are a must-have for your web presence!

There are two types of social media buttons every website should have. The first is a social connect button. The second type is a social share button. Social connect buttons are the ones that say something like, “follow me” or “let’s connect” When you tap in a social connect button, you become a follower of an account on a social media channel. These are different from social share buttons.

There are a few configuration mistakes common in social media share and connect buttons. Fortunately, they are easy to fix, especially if you are using a content management system like WordPress or Shopify. Watch this YouTube Video on Social Media mistakes and find out!

Five Common Social Media Mistakes

  1. Missing Social Share – Social share buttons allow users to tap a button on a website and share your content to the social channel of their choice. A properly configured button will have the attribution already set. For example, if you tweet this post using the button on the page, then the post will be attributed to me @metrony. Two taps and the post is shared. Done!
  2. Social Connect Buttons – These buttons are a close cousin to the above social connect buttons, but they are for building up a following rather than sharing. Social connect buttons are the buttons that you click or tap and they automatically have your profile like the profile associated with whatever you are reading. For example, if you tap the Facebook icon in the “let’s connect” section of this webpage, you’ll “like” my Facebook page.
  3. Broken Links – Have you ever gone to a website, hit the social connect or social share button only to have it pop up a window to Facebook.com rather than “like” the page or even land on the brand’s profile page? It happens all the time. The share buttons are set up before the profiles, and configuring them properly gets lost on the madness of getting an e-commerce site set up properly.
  4. Open in New tab – Sometimes social connect buttons take users away from the website. The goal of social media is to get users to the website and take a certain action (buy something, give an email address, get directions, download something, etc…) Social media should NEVER take users away from a website. Many times, a misconfigured connect or share button opens a new tab or window and takes users away.
  5. Add Attribution – Now that we have the social share buttons working correctly – they pop open their own standalone tab – add your user handle to each social share button. Whatever your user handle is per social media channel, that should be tacked onto the end of the post. Be sure that your user handle is correct for each individual channel.

LinkedIn.com Privacy Update: Posts Are Now Public!

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LinkedIn.com Privacy Update: Posts Are Now Public!

When sharing a post on LinkedIn.com, you can control who can see it by using the drop-down menu below the share box. [Figure 1] Previously, if you posted using the “public” setting on LinkedIn it was visible only to those users who were signed in to their LinkedIn account.

As of the third week of July 2017 posts shared as public on LinkedIn are visible to people who are signed into LinkedIn. In addition, they are now also visible to people who are not signed in as well as to people on other sites as well. Posting something to the public is beneficial as it will get your post in front of more people as they are no longer restricted to only logged-in LinkedIn users. It’s also a privacy concern, as you may not want the information you share going beyond this social channel.


Figure 1

LinkedIn.com is a business oriented social network that boasts over 500 million users come from more than 200 countries. The site was recently acquired by Microsoft. It’s a good site for a career change too as there are over 10 million LinkedIn job postings.

Before a post can be shared off-site, you may have to change your LinkedIn.com privacy settings. To see if your post can be shared publicly, on LinkedIn, go to:

  1. Privacy settings – Set to Everyone on LinkedIn. Note: If you’ve blocked another member on LinkedIn, they may be able to see your public posts off LinkedIn or in guest mode (not signed in) on LinkedIn
  2. Public profile visibility – Change to “Make my public profile visible to everyone” and checkmark Posts & Activities to make your posts visible to the public

The ability to change the visibility settings for sharing posts to public – making them visible on and off LinkedIn.com – is only available for posts created natively. This means to use this privacy feature you must be using LinkedIn.com, or post using the LinkedIn iOS and Android mobile app. Posts created with other third-party apps that use the public setting, like Buffer, still only post to those signed in to LinkedIn.

Recently I produced a YouTube video about important LinkedIn privacy settings and how to adjust them. If you are updating your profile on www.LinkedIn.com then watch the above video and check on these settings. One of the most important is whether you want other www.LinkedIn.com users to see your updates. This along with your location are important privacy settings if you are looking at posting for LinkedIn jobs.

LinkedIn Privacy Settings – Guide to Important Settings

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LinkedIn privacy settings – Important LinkedIn Settings to Check

Have you visited your LinkedIn profile lately? No? Then it’s time you checked on your LinkedIn privacy settings. Keeping your social media privacy settings is important if you want control over how much information the public sees about you.

One of the most common LinkedIn settings to turn off concerns the updates themselves. By default, when you make a change to your LinkedIn profile, everyone on your network is notified. If you are looking to leave your current employer, you may not want them to notice your profile edits. On the other hand, if you are looking for recognition for a new skill, then keeve this setting on! Another little know setting change is your zip code. If you are seeking a new job or at least open to new opportunities, then make sure your LinkedIn account’s zip code matches the area you want to work in. This makes it easier for recruiters to find you.

This LinkedIn Settings video shows how to change settings such as

  • Who can see your connections
  • Profile visibility
  • How other users see you when you are browsing connections

Changing careers is not the only reasons to visit your LinkedIn privacy settings. Keep in mind that hackers looking to social engineering cyber attack their way into some other account information use social media to learn about you. Things like hometown, current city, birthdate, and pet’s names are common password reset questions. You may want to consider restricting who sees your personal information. I keep my hometown information private (but if you know me or ever met me in person, where I grew up is obvious!

Of course, updating your public facing LinkedIn profile information is also a good idea. Do you have your current employer and job title listed? Swap out that five-year-old headshot with something more current so we know who to look for at conferences! Revisit your job description and add any new awards and achievements, and job duties! Videos make a nice addition to profiles too. It gives readers and recruiters a chance to know you better before they decide to send a connection or message.

The Best Time to Post on Instagram

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The Best Time to Post on Instagram

The best time to post on Instagram depends on your individual audience. Like any social media channels, different users are active at different times of the day. The best time to post is when your users are online and posting themselves. You may have viewers from all over the globe or if you are a local brand, then your followers may all be in the same time zone as your place of business.

Instagram has over 700 million active users. The mobile app social channel is owned by Facebook. Although it was once unique, many features have been copied from rival app Snapchat causing Snapchat usage to decline. There are two ways to post on Instagram – through stories and on a profile. Like Snapchat, stories disappear after 24 hours. Wall posts are permanent unless deleted.

To understand the best time to post, you’ll need some metrics to look at when your users are most active. It’s true, you can use a third-party app like SEMRush for example to track your audience. However, it is possible to see their active times, without paying for another service.

The first thing you’ll need to do to understand when your followers are active and when they are not. Converting your Instagram to a business account will get you the stats you need – popular days of the week and time of day. Converting to an Instagram business account is free and only take a few minutes.

After changing over to a business account, users can swipe through the account and see that stats on each post, including likes, comments, reach, engagement, and impressions. In addition, an Instagram business account also shows admins which days of the week are most popular and which hours users are watching.

How to Get Snapchat Filters

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How to Get Snapchat Filters

Snapchat is a social media channel famous for its disappearing photos. Users can also engage in one-to-one chats, send snaps directly to one of more users, and of course posts images and videos to their own disappearing story. Brands and online marketers can also use Snapchat and the additional features Snapchat is also a source of news and information, depending on which accounts users subscribe to. Snap began trading as a public company in March 2017. According to Omnicore the social media channel now boasts over 100 million daily users and reaches 41% of 18 to 34 year olds in the United States.

Snapchat offers fun ways to add interest to photos and images before they are shared. Videos and images. Users can add text, draw on, add stickers to, and trim photos. Users can also add filters to photos and videos. Snapchat filters are essentially overlying images that add interest. There are free filters for geographical locations such as New York City. There are also sponsored filters that are purchased by advertisers to promote and event or product. For example, a retail store in a shopping mall may buy a Snapchat filter to promote a sale.

How Do I Get Snapchat Filters?

Getting a Snapchat filter is easy once you know how to do it. Users can actually add two filters. To add a filter to a Snapchat Photo or video:

  • Capture the photo or video with your smartphone (or other mobile device)
  • Before posting to your story or sharing it with another Snapchatter, tap the image and hold
  • With another finger, swipe the image, right or left, to see what filters are available

Note: You may have to cycle all the way through the available filters to start seeing geo filters. IF you are not seeing the same filters that your nearby friends are getting, then keep swiping a few times through.

How Do I Add More Than One Snapchat Filter?

  • Capture the photo or video with your smartphone or another mobile device
  • Add the first filter per the steps above
  • Once you have chosen the first filter, keep one finger on the image to “hold” the selected filter
  • While holding the first filter, use another finger to begin swiping again
  • Select a second filter
  • Once both filters are selected let go of the image

Stickers, text or drawings can be added before or after the filters to increase audience interest. Filters, stickers, text, and drawings are a good way for brands and businesses to highlight information on their Snapchat stories. Filters can make it easier to read text. Drawings can highlight certain areas of an image. Certain text characters, like the letter “O”, can be used as circles to create frames on images. Other letters can be used to create colored backgrounds. With a little imagination brands, can use Snapchat to reach out to the 18 to 34 year old audience. Of course, videos make for an excellent way to convey a story or demonstrate a product. Images and videos can share an event storyline, share a promo code, connect at a tradeshow, or introduce a product to this coveted audience.

Google To Stop Reading Emails for Gmail Ads

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Google To Stop Reading Emails for Gmail Ads

Have you ever received an email and then noticed a Gmail for the same or similar topic? Scanning Gmail for content and then using the findings to serve ad content is a controversial practice that Google is stopping. Finally! Google scans Gmail users email content and then uses that information to tailor the ad content that is shown to users. These targeted ads appear within Gmail itself as promoted messages.

The decision was made to boost the appeal to business users in order to promote Alphabet’s G Suite products. Google never served Gmail ads in the G Suite (paid) version of Gmail, this practice was only for the free version. However, there was much confusion about the ads and free versus G Suite versions of Gmail. Many G Suite users believed their emails were also scanned for content. Alphabet believes this costs them many corporate clients who are rightfully concerned about online privacy and protecting their corporate secrets.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, decided to pull the email scanning practice. Advertisements will still show inside of free Gmail accounts. These ads, however, will not use scanned content to target audiences. Free Gmail users won’t be ad free though. Instead, Gmail will still show ads using the other data that Google has on you! Google collects data on users such as location data, browsing behavior when logged into Chrome, Behaviors, and interests on YouTube. Much of this data is used by marketers to target advertisements through AdWords.

Google is an innovator in audience development and targeting. Although social media channels like Facebook and Pinterest also offer audience targeting, Alphabet’s products and ad platform (AdWords) is far more advanced.
G Suite has more than 3 million paying companies. Gmail now has more than 1 billion monthly active users. How much revenue loss this will costs Alphabet is unclear, as Google does not break down its numbers for the public.

G Suite has more than 3 million paying companies. Gmail now has more than 1 billion monthly active users. How much revenue loss this will costs Alphabet is unclear, as Google does not breakdown its numbers for the public.