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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.

How to Reach Influencers With Facebook

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How to Reach Influencers with Facebook

Social media is an ever-changing landscape and influencer marketing is a trending topic. Business owners, brands, and marketers know that they must evolve or eventually fail. Influencer marketing is a hot topic but it is not new. Celebrities have endorsed and pitched products at us since television was in black & white. We are just using other channels to reach out to our audience. Look below at a graph of Google Trends influencer marketing [Figure 1] and it is easy to see that searches for the phrase “influencer marketing” has been increasing especially since 2015.


Figure 1

Brands and marketers are increasing their budget for influencer marketing. Depending on the source, some 50 to 60% of online marketing strategies plan to incorporate influencers. Although product launches and promotions are some of the most common reasons to work with influencers, there are other purposes for influencer marketing too. Finding and targeting influencers can be a challenging and time-consuming task, but there are a few money saving strategies to use on Facebook and Instagram to get in front on influencers.

Why Facebook for Influencer Marketing?

Instagram is typically the social channel that brands want to incorporate in their influencer marketing strategy. However, the influencers themselves have a slightly different opinion of influencer marketing strategy. According to a SheSpeaks survey of influencers, Facebook was their most preferred social media platform for influencer marketing! It is no surprise Instagram was a close second. Twenty-four percent of those surveyed saying it was an important channel. Proof that Twitter is still alive, Twitter ranked third with 18% saying it was best. Surprisingly, Pinterest came in at 10%.

How to Get in Front of an Influencer on Facebook

Organic social posts are free, but due to algorithm changes, they are probably the least effective way to get your content front of the desired audience on Facebook. The reach just is not there anymore. If you have a Facebook page that is liked by influencers or an email list of influencers – there are strategies that can be utilized to target them with a Facebook boosted post.

Be sure to install the Facebook tracking pixel on your landing page first to track the campaign. If you have an email list, upload it to Facebook and create a custom audience of Facebook users that are on your list. Targeting your email list of influencers can get your content in front of them easily, assuming the list is good.

Upload a Facebook post that resonates well with your followers. If you don’t already have a good idea of what content works, then try posting a video that gets your message across.

Next, boost that post. Target the Facebook audience of influencers you just created. If you do not have enough influencers following your page, then use Facebook interests and behaviors to develop your target audience. Alternatively, target those who like your page and their friends. Your customers can be your best advocates. Many of them may already be micro influencers who are interested in working to promote your brand. A good influencer is a genuine user of your product.

Boosting a social post at a targeted audience is cheap. Below is a screenshot of a post we recently ran. Their content was seen by over 5,000 influencers and had a 25% conversion rate. All for $20. [Figure 2]


Figure 2

How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business

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How to Choose the Best Social-Media Platform for Your Business

How to Choose the Best Social Media Platform for Your Business

There are common questions every business asks when setting up a new social media strategy. One common question is, “Which social media platform is best for my business?” What is really meant is, which social media channel is going to drive the most website traffic and sales for the business.

First, determine what resources your business has to devote to social media and other marketing efforts. Are you a solopreneur who is going to work on a do-it-yourself (DIY) strategy and little or no budget? You will need to invest in some free or low cost tools to your social content creation does not suck up the day, every day!

Brands have a full marketing team and art department that works together to produce content and measure results. A brand will most likely going be on all major social channels. They will also experiment with some of the more promising flash-in-the-pans in case one sticks. Remember Meerkat of just one year ago? Vine is gone now too, with Periscope barely hanging on. Trailblazer Snapchat is in a copycat battle with brazen Instagram.

Start with the largest social channel, Facebook. Founded in 2004, Facebook has over 1.18 billion daily active users on average. If a brand wants to have a real strategy on Facebook, they will have to optimize the mobile user’s experience too. Facebook has over 1.09 billion mobile daily active users on average. [1] The largest social channel also has the widest age range, although younger users favor Instagram and Snapchat.

What is the age range of your target audience? Whom do you need to reach to acquire more customers? Snapchat skews toward the younger audience with 46.8% of its users between the ages of 18 and 24. However, there are. More recent surveys shows 31% of 25 to 34 year olds use the mobile-only app. [2]

Can you represent your products well in photos? Visual social media platforms such as Instagram make photo sharing easy. If you r brand is about food, travel, beauty, or fitness these social channels are a good fit!

Like Snapchat, Instagram is also a mobile only social media app. As of June 2016 Instagram boasted over 500 million monthly active users! Any service can do well on Instagram with a little creativity and imagination.

The other highly visual app is Pinterest. The mobile and desktop social media channel has surpassed 150 million monthly active users, which is a 50% increase over last year’s numbers.
The social media site recently announced it has surpassed 150 million monthly active users,

Even if your business or brand is social media veteran, do not ever stop asking those first questions. Many start posting on social and never take the time or do not have the resources to assess their efforts and regroup. Periodically check analyze your metrics too see which social media channel is working best for your brand. Try to at least estimate the ROI and consider repositioning as needed.

Sources:
[1] Facebook Company Newsroom
[2] Comscore 2016 U.S. Cross-Platform Future in Focus
[3] Pinterest Blog

Social Media for Live Events

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Social Media for Live Events

One of the most common questions businesses working on a social media strategy ask is, “What do I post?” I am asked this by businesses of all sizes; from startups to established multi-million dollar brands. Social media users of all experience levels want to know what type of content works well for their followers and how often to on various social media channels. Early social media consisted of simple text posts that may or may not have included images. Now, an imageless post is a sure way to watch your content get lost in an endless newsfeed or stream. Images must be well thought out to attract and hold a reader’s attention. Enter the social media video!

Live events are excellent ways to connect with your customers, vendors, and social media following. Of course the events have to be well chose and relevant to your business too! Live events give you a chance to talk directly to your audience, in person. Social media helps gets your audience to your venue.

Blue Cross Broad Street Run 2016 Event

When I am out speaking at public events or developing content for my blog and my Metrony and PinTalk YouTube channels, I make it clear that I am a big proponent of video content. I have been working hard on my own YouTube channel – yes, please subscribe –as it allows me to answer readers’ questions and to demonstrate features of social media channels. It took me over a year just to get set-up with audio-visual equipment that I like. I did not have someone to show me what to do, until I sat and spoke to a photography expert at a conference. Since then I have been building up my video and social media content, as I know how useful it is.

Video is one of the best ways to convey your brand’s message to an audience. It is great for ecommerce selling, as stats support that users are more likely to buy after watching a video of a product. The cost of video production has come way down too. All but the big brands used to shy away from video because the cost was prohibitive. Fortunately, quality video content is much cheaper to create thanks to smartphones and followers love to experience events with you!

Three major social media channels – Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat – have made it easy for us to connect with fans via images and live video. Below you’ll find a short list on what works well as well as the strong points of all three.

Facebook Live

Facebook is nets over 8 billion video views daily. It is a fun and engaging way to share an event, such as a trade show, sporting event, or news event with your audience. Facebook is the largest social media channel and therefore gives a brand access to the largest audience. Although Facebook has the largest audience, remember the younger segment of users favor Instagram and Snapchat. This will help determine what content to post on Facebook and what to use on Snapchat. Yes, content should be customized for each channel. One easy way to do this is by changing who is narrating the video. A 40-something may connect with your Facebook audience, while a millennial is perfect for Instagram, and Snapchat would do well with a teen. Another way to connect to multiple age groups is to vary which products are featured.

Blue Cross Broad Street Run Event

The advantage of Facebook Live is that a video’s viewing audience can be restricted by age range, gender or location. Restrictions help you ensure that brands do not lose followers by blasting the wrong audience with orrelevant or too much content. Facebook Live continuous videos have no time limit.

For example, if a brand is at a trade show and has a giveaway or offer where the winner must be present to win, it makes no sense to broadcast to their entire Facebook audience. Instead, restrict the giveaway to those who are nearby.

Facebook Live lets viewers can post questions to the live stream giving the broadcaster time to respond during a live stream. The speaker can answer question in real time providing fabulous audience engagement.

Snapchat

Although Facebook has a much larger number of users, the youngest segment has moved on to other social media channels, namely Snapchat. This social channel’s users watch 10 billion videos daily. Yeah, 10 BILLION! That is significantly more than the number of daily video views reported by Facebook.[1]

Snapchat reaches a different audience than Facebook. Sixty-percent of U.S. 13- to 34-year-old smartphone users are also Snapchat users [2]. Do not ignore Snapchat if you think your brand only fits an older audience. The average age is increasing as older smartphone users embrace the social media mobile app [3]

So how do you use Snapchat for at a live event? The content on Snapchat is like no other social media channel. It is clever, creative, unique, and frequently humorous. Use Snapchat to allow viewers to experience the event with your brand! In the days leading up to an event, post teaser photos and videos announcing that your brand will be on-site. Show with images and videos what you are doing to prepare for the event and where your fans can expect to find you.

Brands can use photos, videos, or a combination of both to lead users through the live event. Coupons and promotions, although not clickable, can be communicated by drawing on snaps or having the narrator say it during a video. Snapchat users can control who sees their stories by changing the privacy settings on their accounts.

Instagram Stories

Instagram launched Instagram Stories in early August 2016. Instagram did not attempt to rename anything their new update as many Snapchat ideas were used in the creation of Instagram accounts. Even the name “stories” was copied. Instagram Stories allow brands to share events in ways pre-story Instagram could not. Like Snapchat, Instagram Stories have text and drawing tools available. Also like Snapchat, the photos and videos disappear after 24 hours. The use is the same as it is for Snapchat posts.

The advantage of Instagram Stories over Snapchat is that Instagram has a much larger user base; 500 million versus Snapchat’s 100 million. It is the best social channel for connecting with millennials. To enhance the strategy, Businesses can also run ads on Instagram via a self-service portal. Whereas on Snapchat, the ad portal is only open via agencies with access to the API and with large budges.

Sources:
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-28/snapchat-user-content-fuels-jump-to-10-billion-daily-video-views

[2] https://www.snapchat.com/ads

[3] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2016/04/15/a-sneak-peek-into-snapchats-advertising-revolution/#3926c5845ead

social-media-live-events

How to Remove a Facebook Pixel

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How to remove a Facebook pixel

Yesterday I came across a question in Facebook help section. The user asked for directions on how to delete a Facebook Pixel. The person asking for help had made a mistake when they set up the pixel and wanted to remove it.

A Facebook pixel is a snippet of tracking code that tracks a Facebook user’s activity on a website. Website owners use the tracking pixel to improve their ad campaigns by remarketing to Facebook users who have expressed an interest in their products or services.

How-to-Remove-Facebook-Pixel-440

Although there was a lengthy response, the question was never accurately answered. Multiple replies to the answer asked for more information on how to delete a Facebook pixel. I use the Facebook Business Manager to manage pages and accounts. The answer is written from that perspective:

How to remove a Facebook pixel:

To delete a pixel:

  1. Go to the Facebook Business Ads Manager at Facebook Ads Manager
  2. Choose the account you are working with
  3. Then go to tools --> pixels
  4. In the lower menu, choose “actions”
  5. Then choose “edit pixel”
  6. A small pop-up box comes up with the pixel’s name
  7. Click on the “X” to the right of the pixel’s name to remove it

That’s it! That is how to remove a Facebook pixel.

How-to-Remove-Facebook-Pixel

How to Increase Social Media Engagement

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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