• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

METRONY.COM

Digital Marketing Consultancy

  • Home
  • Consulting
  • Contact
  • Digital Marketing Audit
  • Social Media Review

social media

How to Increase Social Media Engagement

by Admin

How to Increase Social Media Engagement

The world has a love of visual communication. People of all ages and cultures share photos and videos of their everyday lives. We cannot get enough of pouring over photos images of travel destinations, fashion, and food. Do it yourself videos are the go to for many trying to master a new skill.

This is evidenced by the popularity of well-trafficked social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, and SnapChat. Video is expected to surpass images in popularity in 2016 so we have to include video is on sites such as YouTube and maybe even Vine in our marketing strategies! Images are only optional in two of the social sites I listed – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+.

How-to-Increase-Social-Media-Engagement-440

We look to be entertained with no down time. If we are not engaged in an activity, we are heads down looking at something on our smartphones.
According to the US Department of Commerce, US E-Commerce Sales accounted for only 7.40% of retail Sales in the third quarter of 2015. However, many businesses are 100% online must do all they can to drive ecommerce traffic.

Data supports that including images on social media posts increases engagement. Figure one shows that by including native video, that post engagement increase by 8.71%. Including images increases post engagement by 3.71%. This number is a bit of a reversal for images. Facebook’s Edgerank prevents the majority of posts from ever appearing in Facebook users’ newsfeeds.

Improve-Facebook-engagement

Figure 1

Including images also increases the likelihood of a Twitter Tweet will be retweeted! (Say THAT three times fast!) Tweets with images and native video simply stand out on the Twitter stream. They receive more retweets than Tweets that only include text. [Figure 2]

Improve-Twitter-Engagement

Figure 2

How-to-Increase-Social-Media-Engagement

Filed Under: Facebook, social media, Twitter Tagged With: facebook, increase social media engagement, social media, twitter

Pinterest for Business Webinar

by Admin

I’m pleased to announce my “How to Use Pinterest Pintalk for Business” webinar! The webinar, Pinterest for Business: Everything You Need to Know, takes place on Tuesday November 24, 2015

For MORE about Pinterest and how to use it for your business, visit my blog Pintalk.net

How to use Pinterest for business webinar

You’ll get a FREE business checklist! I will cover Pinterest topics for business users, such as:

  • Top Pinterest topics
  • How to maximize sharing
  • Optimizing Images
  • Pinterest Analytics
  • The best times to pin
  • Group boards
  • Specialized pins for businesses (Map pins, Rich Pins)
  • Promoted Pins (paid pins)
  • NEW! Buyable Pins
  • Tips for local Pinterest optimization
  • Analytics

You’ll get a Pinterest for Business Checklist and lots of helpful tips! There will be special offers from our sponsor, SEMRush, MetroNY and Pintalk.net. The webinar is free and registration is required. Click here to sign up today!

Thanks to my sponsor, SEMRush!
semrush-logo-2014

Pinterest-for-business-webinar

Filed Under: Blog, social media, speaking Tagged With: Pinterest, webinar

The Top 10 Ways to Promote a Business Online

by Admin

Looking to promote an online business, or to give a brick-and-mortar store a digital advertising boost? Below are ten effective and proven methods to bring more traffic to your website or drive foot traffic to your physical store. Email campaigns, social campaigns and content marketing are all effective ways to advertise online. Pick one and master it, or better yet, choose a few that work well together. Understand how to optimize each technique or hire an expert to help you.

Top-10-ways-promote-busines-online-440

Ten effective and proven digital advertising techniques

  1. Social media: Social media is used to connect with potential customers, vendors, investors, or other stakeholders. Social media is free in the sense that it only costs your time, but a serious social media strategy will require time, creative graphics, a writer, and possibly a dedicated manager to be effective.
  2. Video: Video is my new favorite for promoting businesses, products and brands. Video does not have to be commercial quality to be effective. Audiences are receptive to homemade do-it-yourself videos, shot from a webcam or smartphone as long as the video provides value or entertains.
  3. Blogging: Blogging is a cheap and easy way to promote yourself, products, story, or brand. For under $30 you can get a website setup and begin writing. Everyone has a story to tell, or is an expert in something. This is a way to get started today! Blogs can be added to existing ecommerce websites to add value and give customers information, tips and tutorials. Blogs turn an ecommerce into a resource.
  4. Guest blogging: Guest bloggers write content for someone else’s website. The advantage is that writers potentially get more readers than they would on their own, as long as they can secure a spot on a better known blog. The only downside to guest blogging is that the content does not live on the writer’s website, but the increase in credibility from a carefully chosen website is worth it.
  5. Content marketing: Content marketing is creating and distributing informative and valuable content in the form of whitepapers, studies, videos, and other downloads in order to attract a targeted audience. It encompasses many of the ideas mentioned above, but the content is written to share knowledge, not as an advertisement. Readers usually give their contact information to get the content.
  6. Public speaking: Public speaking is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field, to network, and to subtly advertise. Public speaking does take time and practice. You will have to speak for free for a time unless you are amazingly famous. If you can keep your travel expenses down, this is a great way to promote yourself.
  7. SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of adjusting a website’s content and programming to fine tune it so it is favored by search engines such as Google and Yahoo!. SEO is a skill that has a big learning curve and many businesses outsource this to an agency.
  8. PPC: Pay-per-click (PPC) or paid online advertising can bring new viewers to a website. When done well, PPC is cost effective, but it takes skill, understanding, and monitoring to fine tune a campaign.
  9. Social advertising: Social advertising is paying for promoted spots on popular social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. These ads have different names and a few platforms offer more than one option. For example, on Facebook, users can “boost a post” or pay for a targeted ad in the news feed or right-hand sidebar. Pinterest has two options as well. Social advertising is also useful when you don’t have a lot of followers.
  10. Email marketing: email marketing remains one the most effective forms of online advertising. A legitimate list, cultivated from actual customers and leads, yields the best results. As the list is used, additional information is recorded, like purchase history, preferences, and spending habits.

Top-10-ways-promote-busines-online

Filed Under: Blog, SEO, social media, video Tagged With: blogging, business, content marketing, ecommerce

We’re now on Entrepreneur Network!

by Admin

I’m proud to announce I’m now a contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine’s YouTube channel, Entrepreneur Network video channel. We kicked off the series with a fun Halloween video describing one of our worst business nightmares. In Entrepreneur Network video I talk about dependency, a risky situation a business of any size can find itself in. It’s dependency on one or two large accounts.

EN-Dependence

I’ve made this mistake in the past and found my business in dire straits. Years ago, the revenue generated by my largest account far outweighed all the others put together. My largest client was dependent on private investors and was chasing government contracts. A few years into our relationship, they were hit with the perfect storm: a recession, a copyright infringement claim, and a shift in federal funding.

It hit them hard. They had to move out of their prestigious Park Avenue office, and back into a three story walk up – right where they started five years prior! My business and employees were hurt too. That this was our largest contract, plus the recent economic downturn, made it hard to find replacement clients. I had to reinvent my business. It was not the first turnaround I had endured, but it was the most stressful, and after a year of barely getting by, I enjoyed my best years ever!

The video about my worst business nightmare is on the Entrepreneur Network YouTube channel. My own video channel is now rolled up and featured so I will be posting videos in both areas! I can’t wait to share my business experiences, including how to incorporate video into your business strategy!

Filed Under: social media, YouTube Tagged With: entrepreneur, video, YouTube

Get started

by Admin

Recently I was working with someone who is looking to change careers. His goal is to broaden the type of projects he can work on and put his impressive journalism skills back to work. After a large financial setback, he now is committed to becoming financially stable and independent. Or is he?

We had lunch and then reviewed the check list of tasks we had agreed upon last time we met for a mentoring session. Completed LinkedIn profile. Check! Making attempts to network. Sort of! Building a personal brand through blogging (he wants to make the jump to written journalism after all). I was told there are some journal entries but they are not public. Posting on social media? There is only a Twitter account with 4 posts from last year and six followers.

Get-started-on-your-career--440

So what has he been working on for the past eight months? Well, he was on vacation twice, and sold some personal belongings to pay bills and is now in a romantic relationship.

What could he be doing differently?

  • Follow through on his goals
  • Master the skills he needs to make the career change
  • Devote time each to prospecting for new clients
  • At some point he needs to start functioning in his new role

After we reviewed his goals, he told me he is new goal is to start a social media management company where he will just pay others to do the work. I inquired about how he intended to position and sell himself as a social media expert when he has nothing but an unused Twitter account. That’s when he went on to ask if we could be partners.

It’s time for him to get started…on his own!

Get-started-on-your-career

Filed Under: career, social media

ASW16

by Admin

The talk at Affiliate Summit West is full-day workshop I conduct on what to use for content and how to optimize the content stuffed into a 30-minute speech. Figuring out which social channel your business should be using, how to build a following, what to post, or how to use it effectively can be a challenging and time consuming! Social media marketing is effective, but can take your time away from your ore business.

Below are links to blog posts about the topics, the image sizes, and the social media templates. Feel free to reach out to me via the contact us page, for if you have any more questions!


How to Optimize Images for Social Media Sharing Michelle Held ASW Jan 2016
Optimize images social media tutorial

How to Increase Social Media Engagement
How-to-Increase-Social-Media-Engagement-440


Social Media Profile Image Sizes

Social-Media-Profile-Image-Sizes-440


How to Use Social Video to Turbocharge your SEO and Promote your Business


Which Images to Optimize Images for Social Media Sharing
Which-Images-to-Optimize-Images-Social-Media-Sharing-440


Social Media Profile Templates

Facebook-Cover-Photo-Template

How to Add Open Graph Meta Data to Your WordPress Website
Improve-Facebook-engagement

Filed Under: social media, speaking

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5
  • Go to page 6
  • Go to page 7
  • Go to page 8
  • Go to page 9
  • Go to Next Page »

Copyright © 2022 · METRONY, LLC

  • Home
  • Consulting
  • Speaking
  • Book
  • Social Media Marketing
  • Articles
  • Contact