Is Linkedin Right for Your Business?

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Abby Hartig

A common misconception on the business side of social media is that companies should take on all the different type of social media profiles to have a wide swath of social presence, pervading all parts of the social Web.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely an advocate for a big social presence, but there are limitations. Many businesses don’t need to be on Linkedin. There, I said it. Now, gather around and I’ll tell you why.

With most social media, the effort and time you put into it is indicative of the results you will inevitably see from it. However, with Linkedin, the effort and level of results does not stop with the person posting on the company profile, it’s the whole team effort of the employees that make your presence there a valid tool or a complete waste of resources. That’s what sets it apart.

If you want your company to be involved on Linkedin, not merely as a passive content distributor, your employees need to be engaged on the site. This is especially crucial if your company is B2B, but salespeople and most employees of any company on the site should be versed in Linkedin and be using it on a daily basis, acting as advocates for their company by sharing company updates, engaging in group discussions, etc.

Not only is it a fantastic networking resource, but Linkedin can also be a place to share newsworthy company updates. I think of it an extension of your company’s ‘newsroom’ where you can funnel PR updates, product launches, management transitions, employment opportunities, etc, giving them a wider audience than their usual static reach of the News section of your site and press releases most people will never read.

However, it should by no means be seen as a content dumping ground from the posts you are broadcasting on other social networks. That post you just made about spring cleaning tips is perfectly fine for Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, but is most likely not appropriate for Linkedin. This can go both ways, as the industry jargon-filled report you just posted to start a discussion on Linkedin may fall flat with your Facebook fans as the audience may be completely different: employees and industry peers vs. consumers.

Oftentimes, people who are encapsulated on a daily basis with their industry and company have a distorted view of what is important and interesting to them and what is actually interesting or social-friendly and appropriate for social media. Not every move your company makes should be broadcasted on social media, but Linkedin is a more appropriate arena than most for company updates.

To reiterate my main point from earlier, Linkedin success goes beyond company profile updates sharing your latest blog post. To truly benefit from this unique site, your employees need to be active on it, sharing and conversing: building relationships.

To benefit from Linkedin, your company needs to do the following:

- Post regularly about company updates, industry news, etc.

- Completely fill out and optimize your company’s profile with products/services, design elements and more.

- Employees connect with your company profile and utilize the site to network, recruit, engage in industry discussions, etc.

Remember, don’t feel like your company has to spread itself too thin throughout all the different social media sites. Excel at a few, and forget the rest, rather than weigh yourself down in mediocrity with a pervasive and overwhelming, but ultimately milquetoast presence.

How are people in your industry using this powerful networking tool? Tell us in the comments below.

How Much Value Does Social Media Really Have?

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Jim Barry

Many clients and conversations we have with marketers ask us: Is social media worth any investment? The answer is yes, but maybe not from every channel that’s available. Just make sure you set up measurement data points, implement tracking tags from Google Analytics (or some other program), and post relevant content to your audience(s) and not just “clutter.”

You also have to look at what you deem as having value to your organization. If you see your audience, followers, comments, “retweets” are growing, and your Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube/Vimeo, Linkedin and Instagram are all growing in numbers and in some cases driving people to your website, then it’s valuable and driving awareness. More than likely, you will find a few of them are not worth any direct time investment.

True, social media doesn’t allow you to measure it as closely as other Internet marketing pieces such as banner ads, Pay-Per-Click, or email marketing, but you can track direct leads and/or sales from each social media medium you use – if that is what you need to make sure the time, money, effort you spend on it is worth it. One key piece…don’t be lazy. Don’t just use a feeder system (like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite) that cuts off posts or uses hashtags where it’s not appropriate. Dedicated users will know you did not intend that message for that medium and it can lose some impact.

You also have to find what works for your organization – every business is different based on size, geography, client demographics, etc. You need to watch the data and optimize for what works specifically for your business. We can tell you – just a bunch of self-promotion is NOT going to generate social media strategy that will maximize the efforts you are putting into it and there is no “cookie cutter” solution that will maximize results.

Social media also allows people to use the Internet on their terms. They may never leave Pinterest or Facebook until they are ready to transact. If you aren’t there in that space, you could be missing 10-20% of your desired audience that didn’t know about you because you weren’t there and part of “their conversation.” If you could get 10% more sales from having a solid strategy here, that could be a lot of growth – but it won’t happen overnight.

The ultimate goal is to get a post in front of thousands through their networks – through the use of tagging, timely posts, and community/industry cross promotion. Marketing is the sum of all parts and the number of touch-points – something known as frequency – the number of times someone has to be exposed to something before they are willing to take an action. Through social media, you can increase those touch-points and be in front of them more often, which helps speed up the frequency time-period until an action will occur.

With an agency/resource who can monitor and report on social media for you (and also bring some creativity to your strategy), it can be the most effective $500-$1,500 a month (local-to-national type budgets) you spend out of your marketing budget and go a heck of a lot further than any advertising dollar could with reach. Just make sure you give it a few months and your resource for this is showing you the data and how it is moving in the right direction on the way there. Happy posting…

How to Optimize Your Blog for Social Media

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Abby Hartig

Social media’s possible impact on your blog traffic is something you ignore at your expense. A big driving factor for your blog’s strategy should be how posts will be disseminated and shared on social media sites. Distributing your blog posts on social media can gain your blog a larger readership, as well as, wider reach and exposure.

Optimizing your blog posts for social media is not only good for your exposure and reach but can benefit you when it comes to search ranking. Search engine algorithms factor in social indicators, favoring content that receives a lot of attention on social profiles. Plus, the more your content is shared, the more traffic is driven back to your blog, which may contribute to boosting your site’s ranking, and provide a gateway to your reader’s turning into leads.

Tips for Writing Social-Friendly Blog Posts:

Think social with your content – Before you even start writing your blog post, think about how it will look, and be received on social media. What do you like seeing on your Facebook Newsfeed? What are you more likely to share? Think of a social audience when composing your posts and how you can start a conversation around your topic.

While you’re writing, it also doesn’t hurt to think of a particularly catchy phrase or angle that you can use as the teaser or status for promoting the post on social media.

Thumbnails, Meta Descriptions & More - There’s nothing worse than the sinking feeling social media managers get when they find amazing content, go to post the link on a social network, only to discover that the thumbnail doesn’t match the content, or worse yet, there’s no thumbnail at all, making it a very aesthetically unappealing post.

A general rule of blogging is to that you should always add some sort of visual in the post to keep people’s interest. Now there’s the added advantage of having a relevant thumbnail in link previews for Facebook, Google+, Linkedin etc. that will be more enticing than if you simply had the Blogger or WordPress logo as the default thumbnail on the post.

Remember that on social networks you’re essentially fighting against many different factors to get people to actually see your post, let alone pause their scrolling and take in what you have to say and share or interact. A compelling thumbnail, nicely worded meta description and title are all simple tactics that can have an impact on people stopping to take in your content and will show that you take care in what you’re sharing, making people more likely to pass it along.

Pinterest adds another incentive to feature strong visuals in your blog posts,since Pinterest posts are all about photos and graphics. If you don’t have a photo or video in your blog, then Pinterest won’t pick up anything that it can use to ‘pin’ the link to, rendering the post unusable for the site.

Social Outreach - When it’s appropriate, to further the conversation your blog has started, promote a Twitter hashtag at the end of your post. Make it concise, the shorter the better, to allow for more characters in the user’s post. People are going to share your blog on Twitter anyways, wouldn’t you like to be able to put forth your own hashtag for people to use, so you can search for it and monitor what people are saying? This also allows you to join in on the Twitter conversation, start discussions, thank people for sharing your blog, and retweet their own Tweets mentioning your blog post.

In general your blog should feature a social media call-to-action, icons and/or follow widgets to promote your social sites. You should also have a plugin that facilitates social sharing for your blog posts, such as WordPress’s ShareThis to easily allow your readers to post your content.

Tips for Sharing Your Blog on Social Media:

Don’t be an auto-posting robot! - People don’t like automated messages, whether it’s an election-time robo-call or a plug-in pushed post from your blog to your Twitter or Facebook. It looks lazy, unoriginal and will likely decrease the amount of people who interact with the post or even click-through to your content, which is the whole point of sharing your posts on social media!

Test it out – Before hitting ‘post’ take a look at the link preview that pops up when you copy and paste the link into a Facebook, Google+, Linkedin status field. This allows you to see how your link will look once it’s posted, so you can doublecheck important aspects like meta description, thumbnail and title errors (html code replacing punctuation).

Be a tease – A common mistake is bogging your social post down with all the important information featured in the blog. You want to give people an incentive for clicking through to your post, not gain everything they needed to know just by scanning your post in their Newsfeed.

In the same vein, avoid simply rehashing the title of your blog in the status promoting the blog. People will see the title in the link preview; writing it in the status content is redundant. Twitter is the exception to this rule, since you should be shrinking the link to make more room for the written part of your post that should be enticing your followers to click through to the link.

Prioritize for the most compelling post - Sometimes you may want to let your actual blog link take a backseat in a social media post. If an image or video that you feature in the blog is more compelling and more likely to draw in people to the post, then you should have that be the main part of the post. Shorten the blog link using a tool like bit.ly and insert it at the end of your written status with a call-to-action to gain maximum click-throughs, i.e. “Learn more: [shortened link].” Check out the image for a good example of this method of social posting.

Social media should be a crucial part of your blogging strategy: Writing interesting content with a social audience in mind, content that people will want to socially endorse by sharing. Doing this and leveraging your own social networks for content distribution can grow your blog’s readership, boost exposure and give posts a longer shelf-life.

Facebook Introduces Graph Search: Social Discovery’s New Frontier

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Abby Hartig

Facebook has always emphasized the importance of the quality of your followers, versus playing the pure numbers game with your fan-count. With its latest feature, Graph Search, this is more true now than ever before.

The upgrade in Facebook’s search, which was notorious for its face-palm-inducing qualities in the past, will now allow you to scour Facebook for people, places and things – from not only your personal social network of Facebook friends, but the entire site, depending of course on the geo-modifiers and your search’s wording. Thanks to its partnership with Bing, Facebook search can also serve up results that expand past the limitations of the social site’s information.

Facebook’s business model is built teetering on top of all the personal information we willingly submit into its network, making it, in theory, a fantastic engine for personalized advertising, and personalized business recommendations. Graph Search is a sign that the site is moving further in the footsteps of Google, with a more search savvy, business recommendation direction, bad news for sites like Yelp, whose stock plummeted the day Facebook made its big announcement.

Graph Search takes the traditional idea of Google’s search and turns it on its head. It’s search results will inevitably be more about the ‘Who’ not just the ‘What.’ In true Zuckerberg-type fashion, the new search is in theory allowing you to gain deeper value from your Facebook social network.

Where you would Google the somewhat impersonal, “Indian restaurants in Grand Rapids,” now with Graph Search you can go one step further with “Indian restaurants in Grand Rapids that my friends Like.” Which one do you think is more powerful, the search controlled by site authority, Google advertising and various SEO factors, or the one governed by a friend’s endorsement? The idea of ‘Like’ as endorsement has always been there, but now it’s more potent and tangible, because the act of social discovery for your social group’s endorsements are as simple and fast as typing in a search query.

New Graph Search’s Implications for Personal Privacy

Be aware of your search record – Keep in mind that your search history, although not publicly displayed, is visible under your Activity Log section. If someone gains access to your account, they can easily review all of your searches, unless you take the effort to manually clear them on a regular basis.

No option for opting out – Recent privacy changes took away the ability to remove your name from searches; presumably to make Graph Search more overall effective in its depth of valuable social information. Now there’s no saying ‘No’ to Zuckerberg with using Graph Search. In this case, the best offensive is a good defense, so as always, be conscious of your ‘Likes’ and how they may appear to others. If you wouldn’t want your boss or significant other to know that you are a fan of a particular page, don’t associate yourself with it.

How will Graph Search Affect Businesses?

On Facebook it is easier now than ever to pinpoint what local businesses, major brands, non-profits, etc. that your social group likes and ‘Likes’ which has changed the core idea at the core of ‘word-of-mouth’ recommendations. Graph Search makes these ‘Likes’ even more powerful, because now consumers can search exactly for what restaurants, boutiques, toothpaste brands, etc. that their friends interact with on Facebook, making judgments and/or purchasing decisions from what a social media site suggests, rather than from what Google, or pay-per-click advertisements tell them.

What follows is that Graph Search can give an advantage to companies, particularly local businesses, who lack the proper site authority or search engine savvy to make it to the first page of search results. It changes the playing field, since the Facebook results will often depend on what businesses the searcher’s Facebook friend group has interacted with on the site, rather than SEO factors.

A large portion of Google searches include local geo-modifiers, “Best places to eat Chinese food in Grand Rapids” – so it only stands to reason that people will use Facebook search in a similar manner: “Chinese food restaurants my friends from Grand Rapids Like.” What better way to find a restaurant than to mine your friend’s recommendations from their endorsement of ‘Liking’ a particular local restaurant’s Facebook page?

If your business isn’t on Facebook, you need to definitely re-think your marketing strategy. You wouldn’t ignore Google, would you? (If you are ignoring SEO, you may have bigger problems.) If a particular restaurant is a superb eatery, but doesn’t have a presence on Facebook, or worse yet, has not been promoting its presence, essentially nullifying its efforts of existing on the site, then chances are it won’t show up in the search, because none of the searcher’s friends will have ‘liked’ it on the site. If you don’t promote your Facebook, you will essentially be limiting the amount of reach your business has through your followers’ network.

It’ll be interesting to see as the new search fully rolls out to the public, (it’s currently in beta) just how the new search will be utilized. Will it increase page Likes and other measures of engagement due to smoother social discovery? Will people use it in a more narrow, less business-friendly way – a new tool to aide in people’s digital voyeurism? I’m sure there will be a mix of both uses, but businesses should be conscious that the new search capability can mean a new level of fan growth, brand awareness, and ultimately, get people in the door, or through your online shopping cart process.

Graph Search’s reception and uses may vary, but one thing is certain: With Facebook getting more into the search game, you ignore it at your business’s own peril. Being a social media wallflower, you risk missing out on exposure that can translate into a greater following and ultimately new clients impacting your business’s bottom-line.

How do you think Graph Search will affect users and businesses?

Drive Engagement with New Google+ Communities

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Abby Hartig

Google+ recently introduced Communities, its latest feature designed to connect and group together like-minded users to share content and discuss subjects they are truly passionate about. There is a lot of room for growth with this feature and it could mean not only an excellent resource for all manner of passionate foodies, fishermen, knitters, yoga enthusiasts, gearheads, etc. but a cross-promotional tool for brands and an overall increase in engaged Google+ users.

What it can offer to Google+ users:

From a user standpoint, the new communities may be a welcome alternative to many people who are burned out from the more pervasive social channels. It can be positioned as the social network offering for those who are looking for a more meaningful social experience. A more active experience where you can find personal value and engagement, rather than a stagnant parade of ill-targeted Sponsored Stories and condescending corporate pandering, something that Facebook is becoming more and more aligned with.

Why your brand should join:

A self-segmenting audience that is passionate about a subject enough to spend their time sharing content and engaging in discussions; what marketer could ask for more?

Businesses that tailor to lifestyle or recreational activities can take the most advantage of this new social media tool. Similarly, blogs can foster a wider audience in an environment that not only allows additional promotion and links for their content, but offers an alternative to the more traditional, static nature of their blog’s comments section.

This distinction is partly thanks to a Community’s unique ability to foster genuine discussion and interactions that are more conversational and have a presumably longer shelf-life than the more transient nature of the constantly shifting Facebook Newsfeed and Twitter stream. Plus, the user endorsement of someone joining your Community, versus simply clicking ‘Like’ on a passing piece of content is much more valuable for your company.

The very conversational nature of a Community represents more of a two-way relationship, allowing users to contribute a more significant investment of time and emotion, because it is much more about what they want to share and discuss, compared with the less natural, often one-way Facebook/Twitter posting relationship. Content is broadcasted and often passively consumed on those channels, whereas Communities are comparable to an open discussion forum that breaks down the traditional power relationship of brand and consumer, page admin and casual consumer.

As a brand, wouldn’t you rather have a social media follower that makes a conscious effort to actively engage, create and/or post content, in a conversational format, rather than passively clicking ‘Like’ on a piece of content that you pushed out to them? The value of this higher level of consumer engagement is not the traditional business sense of ‘value’ because the ROI will most likely be just as elusive for Communities as it is with most other social media. However, there is a lot of value intrinsic in a positive brand reputation, top-of-mind awareness, etc. that can be derived from an active and conversational brand on this type of forum.

Another advantage of this feature is that Community members will view and interact with other people’s content, not just the brand’s; therefore making it a holistically different experience than the traditional social network, where user’s content contributions are generally relegated to visually small, awkward-to-find sections of profiles. This type of engagement endorsement routinely provided by users that they can relate to, will bring a wholly different level of experience than Facebook and Twitter can even hope to offer.

The set-up process is simple, with probably the biggest decision being what level of privacy you want to place on the membership. It’s also crucial to optimize your Community name for Google+ search and the description clearly outlines why it is valuable to become a member once they’ve found it. Once the entry barrier level and name is established, Community admins can create categories, begin to post content, initiate discussions and promote Hangouts.

How to Promote Your New Community:

Post links on your brand’s social profiles
Create an e-blast announcing the new Community
Add an ‘invite’ to join the Community in your staff’s email signatures
Utilize your site to draw people to the Community with buttons and links
Use your company’s blog to announce your new Community
Encourage your social media savvy employees to join, share content and promote it through their personal pages

Google+ Communities have great potential to offer aggrieved social media users a true alternative, with the promise of a less cluttered, more relevant and socially-valuable content stream. I like to think it’s more about the genuine roots of social media: Bringing people together to interact about the interest and passion surrounding your brand’s subject matter.

What are your first impressions of Google+ Communities?

Twitter Adds New Header Images

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Abby Hartig

If the highest form of flattery truly is imitation, then the social media giants seem to be in a constant complimentary war. The latest ‘battle’ features Twitter following both Facebook and Google+’s leads with the addition of ‘Headers.’

The advent of Twitter headers alters the overall layout of your profile page and allows you to feature a dominant image besides your profile picture and Twitter background. The Header acts as a cover photo, centered above your main Tweet timeline, with your profile photo and basic profile info overlaid on top of the header. It’s important to note that the default font color is white so your cover photos need to be a darker color to prevent clashing. However, keep in mind also that Twitter has been automatically darkening header photos to account for this, which can be problematic if you’ve already chosen a darker photo.

The new Headers allow for some creative uses, such as integrating your header with your profile picture, similar to how many Facebook user’s came up with fun ways of connecting their profile pictures with their cover photo. As usual with social media marketing, all of the visual elements should be consistent with your overall brand personality and offer an interesting visual viewpoint for your company, without overly pushing your logo and/or promotional content, which may seem too pushy for Twitter’s social and conversational atmosphere.

The adoption of Twitter headers does not simply reflect a layout change, but essentially a bigger emphasis on the visual aspect and images in general. For Twitter’s mobile apps, your photo stream, something I believe is sadly underutilized in corporate Twitter-land, will be prominently featured under your most recent Tweets. This will cause photo streams to be looked through more often, since it is easier to access and peruse with a mere swipe of your finger. This is something to remember when developing your Twitter content strategy: Don’t underestimate the need for using photos, as you do with typically more photo-friendly mediums ala Facebook, Pinterest, etc.

The new Twitter headers have been rolled out to all users, but the site has hot forced the layout change. Therefore, you do not have to immediately add a header photo to replace a default that Twitter created.

Conclusion: Use Twitter headers to your brand’s advantage, connecting it with your social presence’s overall design personality. Be sure to cross-promote your strong visual content, not just on Facebook, Pinterest and Google+ but on Twitter where images are now displayed more prominently, both in the desktop and mobile versions.

For more information regarding the changes and to check out some great examples, visit Twitter’s official blog. Tell us in the comments below: How will you use the new Twitter Headers?

Making Social Media More Valuable for Your Business

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Jim Barry

So you have dabbled in this. You get some people to follow you. How do you know if it is worth your time and really, what can you do to maximize what kind of web traffic you get from these mediums?

What if you changed your website experience based on how the visitor found you? The data is there to do this, you just need to interpret it and adjust accordingly. Set up correctly, you would be able to profile how your Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, YouTube/Vimeo, Google+, Pinterest, and Blog readers all use your site and based on looking at your traffic’s referring source. You can then change the experience, path, content, etc that they have to maximize your conversions and exposure by utilizing what that data tells you.

Social Media 2.0 & Web 3.0

This is Social Media 2.0. This is web 3.0. Create a unique experience for every web visitor based on how they got to your site. Combine the social media elements listed above with Search Engine and Content related marketing – you have groups of keywords within a segment to promote something – based on keyword you could adjust what they see and the content they would get – changing their “path”. If they were from Organic search results – same thing – we all know that paid traffic typically differs 25-35% in what they do versus unpaid traffic – create specific content based on those patterns.

Every person, every way, every avenue and it allows them to use the web the way they want while still allowing you to reach them. Will every person do the exact same thing that visits from Facebook – no, but if you study the analytics, traffic patterns , implement goals, and adjust based on history – over time you will be able to predict relatively accurately what 70% of them do and improve their experience with your Brand and site.

5 Things About Using Social

You also need to realize the following things about social media:

1. It might not work for you - not everyone gets the value they need out of it for the investment they make. Just make sure you give it a good try and analyze before making any decisions.

2. People access from Mobile devices most often - so everything should be mobile optimized and easy to consume – especially if you have a global reach.

3. The bulk of social media time is spent on Facebook, - with newcomer Pinterest climbing rapidly. It should be treated as the dominate force it is for any consumer related marketing efforts. B2B marketing should have more of a mix – but the referring traffic reports and analysis will tell you what you need to know and where to best spend your time.

Continue reading →

Social Media Strategy – trigger interaction & response

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Jim Barry

You do not have to be consumer oriented company to be able to use social media to advance your Brand, thoughts, products, and engagement with your audience. There are plenty of people professionally that look for helpful information for their jobs and will share valuable information with their peers when they find it. It some cases, it is even “cool” to be the first to find a great deal or share relevant information for others.

In the B2B world, you can also help aggregate content for your customers, clients, and prospects, by being a filter for them. You can share relevant information with them that has already “passed” your approval or relevance rating. This becomes almost like a value added service for them. They turn to you, a trusted resource first, before they go hunting on the Internet. You want them to say – “if they haven’t said anything about it yet, then I probably don’t need to pay attention to it yet.” And any savvy Internet person can tell you that just because it comes up “first” on Google, doesn’t make it accurate or right.

If you can get your people to interact with you, you can get valuable information about their habits, wants, desires, and interests. If you can get them to follow you or be involved, you can help your message get in front of thousands with a single click or post because it will not only reach your direct followers, but also post to their network of people because they are following you.

You can choose to have different message via each social medium (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, etc), or choose to broadcast your message, which will allow your audience to follow you via the medium they like to use the most and you still get your message out to the masses without requiring them to visitor you website. That is power and potentially all from a single article or click.

If you don’t know where to start or what you should be doing we have several tools on our website to help and we have created an great tool for measuring social media success and value of social media efforts to your organization. This will help you determine which social media efforts should be continued by your organization and give you some ways to help measure return-on-investment.

Social Media allows you to listen like never before & respond appropriately

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Jim Barry

Social Media has made it easier than ever for consumers and business people to get their opinions heard and get them into circulation faster than ever before. It also creates challenges – like should you listen? or what should you respond or how do you get quality responses and exposure?

You have all heard the phrase that the “squeakiest wheel gets the grease”. These are the people who will be everywhere just posting about their experience – especially if it was not a good one. Does that make them less credible? If they are an active poster and only have “complaining” on their mind, they are already less credible and you cannot be worried about everything they say. You should also look to see if they have people agreeing, “liking”, or responding to their posts. If they do, then you have to take action.

If something positive happens, respond and ask for more by more people. If something negative happens, address it and find a way to take care of it – then ask them to post (or update the previous post) after you fix the problem about how you took care of it. Actually have your customer service people ask if you can share their experience with they solve or problem or get a rave from an interaction – it will go a long way to helping you have an unlimited supply of content to use for your blog, Facebook, or social media channels.

Build your brand around building your community of followers and dialogs – the ones utilizing social media are most likely to share experiences and they will be most likely to share – giving you further reach through their network and you definitely want them on your side.