Facebook's updated inbox will allow marketers to manage messages across different Facebook-owned networks on a single platform.
As social has grown, it has diversified. Where once a marketer focused on social media may have just had to manage the company Facebook and Twitter accounts, with LinkedIn on top if they were B2B, now there is an abundance of networks. We can add Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat to the list of major platforms, and then there are Messenger apps likes Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp that also require attention. More niche sites like Reddit, Tumblr, SoundCloud, SlideShare and Imgur may also deserve a social presence, depending on the brand in question.
No one ever had success on a social network by quickly setting up a profile, posting a few times and then forgetting about it. To drive results these platforms need constant attention and effort from marketers, so inevitably the increasing number of platforms that…
Facebook's new analytics tool for Chatbots signals its desire to make bots a key part of Messenger's attractiveness to brands
Chatbots are the hot new trend that's got marketers excited this year. Their success comes from the confluence of two separate trends - the massive growth in the popularity of chat apps (which is in turn driven by the rise of mobile & social), and the development of ever more powerful AI technologies. Since Facebook announced it would support Chatbots on its Messenger app in April 2016, over 34,000 Messenger bots have been created. Whether it's Taco Bell's bot giving menu recommendations, being able to order an Uber via tapping a car icon in Facebook messenger or getting a rundown of the day's news from CNN's chatbot sent straight to you, brands have been quick to seize the potential afforded by building Chatbots within the Messenger platform.
It easy to see why…
Reddit users don't take too kindly to self-promotion, but they love quality content when they see it.
Are you tired of the same old marketing channels and want to try something new?
Reddit might be just the thing you were looking for. It's a place where users share interesting news, cool links and insightful comments.
Sounds perfect, right? Sure, but there's a catch.
Reddit users are a community that hates advertising. If you fail to follow the “reddiquette”, your content will get downvoted and you might easily get banned.
But if you do it right, you'll be on your way to tapping into the potential of the platform and generating a stream of targeted traffic to your website.
Here are 10 actionable tips to help you make the most out of Reddit for your marketing strategy.
1. How it works
Reddit is a platform where people…
How the ‘brains' behind the 45th President of the United States turned out to be a robot
In 1973 I went to a cinema in London to see “Westworld” starring Yul Brynner. Last week I watched the first episode of the 2016 TV series remake. As with the movie, the series concerns a future where robots act as hosts at a Wild West theme park.
Hosting paying human guests, the bots are so realistic that it is difficult to spot the difference between them and the humans. The bots play the roles of cowboys and citizens of highly realistic frontier towns - enabling humans who visit the theme park, to act out their greatest fantasies. The interesting thing about the programme is whether, guests who, given the chance to act out no-limits fantasies choose to shoot bad guys – have flings – start a brawls at saloons – or…
A New Definition of Edgerank
Facebook Pages are not what they used to be.
It may (or may not) come as a surprise to discover that only a tiny proportion of the content published by Pages that you “Like” actually reaches your News Feed. Some studies put this percentage (known as “reach”) at as little as 2%. Even the most optimistic of studies suggest that little over 11% of a Page’s fans will see its content.
This is due to the existence of a filtering mechanism Facebook uses that employs a complex algorithm. Without the algorithm in place you’d be overwhelmed with something like 1,500 posts a day on your News Feed. And a lot of those would be from brand Pages.
Facebook is well aware that users like to see content from friends and family first, and dislike a News Feed cluttered with promotional messages from…
Businesses need to properly measure social ROI, or stop wasting their time on it.
What's the point in doing something you're not sure is going to work? Well there's plenty of good reasons. You might have a great feeling about it. You might feel like you have to give it a try, or else you'll never know. You might think failure is just success in progress, or other nice luvie dovie sentiments, and honestly believe you'd better give this thing a go and if it doesn't work then it's just a great learning experience.
All perfectly noble reasons. However, what usually isn't a good reason for doing something is because everyone else is. Yet that seems to be the picture we see when it comes to brand's use of social media, according to marketing consultancy the Brand Gym.
Shockingly, 62% of brands are only using social media because it makes them look…
Conversational research takes social listening to the next stage
It is more important than ever now to raise brand awareness through conversations. Modern consumers are not as susceptible to advertising and product placement as in the past. Therefore, smart marketers generate brand awareness via influential social media strategies.
Good social media marketing depends on how thorough the keyword research is. It is important to use the best keywords in context, and then monitor them to see how effective they are. Also, the strategy should also employ "social listening." It is a way of getting real-time feedback relating to keywords to perfect the long-term marketing campaign.
The point of using the tactics mentioned above is to monitor your brand’s appeal and efficacy on social networks. Brand monitoring will help your company to gain a distinct leg up over the competition.
Now let’s look at how you can monitor your brand through a useful tactic…
Facebook advertising is traditionally best for B2C marketers, but now B2B marketers can get in on the action.
Move over B2C marketers, the B2B crowd is coming to Facebook advertising, and they’re ready to play hardball!
Traditionally, Facebook advertising has been somewhat useless to B2B marketers. It’s a great tool for B2C marketers, who can offer discounts, promote sales and retarget buyers who have left items in their carts through adverts on Facebook, but these tactics don’t always work for the B2B crowd.
When it comes to advertising, B2C and B2B marketers have different goals in the back of their minds. B2B marketers are out to:
Generate increased knowledge and awareness of a product or service. You can create buyer personas to help you better understand who you’re targeting.
Reach out to a company advisors, decision-makers and others involved in a…
Are you making any of these 5 common Instagram marketing mistakes?
300 million active users! 1.2 billion likes per day! 1000+ comments per second! Who would have thought that the Facebook-owned app could drive such a massive amount of social media engagements within a short period of its inception!
Humans love visuals, and that has played a key role behind Instagram's huge popularity. Instagram unveiled itself to the world of social media in 2010, and since then it has become one of the fastest growing social channels with more than 300 million active user count.
Instagram's impressive growth rate has made many online marketers, entrepreneurs and social media influencers to realize the huge potential that it presents. As a result, more and more businesses today are taking the advantage of Instagram's extensive reach to engage their target audiences like never before.
Being a fairly new platform on the marketing scene, there are some rookie…
How Do Thought Leaders & Social Media Influencers Use Hashtags On Twitter?
Last week I published a seemingly controversial article and infographic about how hashtags have become almost worthless for businesses. I found that many generic hashtags like #Marketing or #SocialMedia were magnets for bots or spammers. What I did not expect was such a fevered pushback from some of commenters and readers. They felt I took to harsh of a stand on hashtags and that they were still the best thing since sliced bread. And there were a lot of people who believed that.
Since so many people thought that hashtags were still relevant in business, I decided to take a look at how thought leaders and influencers are using them. For this sample I selected 30 thought leaders analyzed 15k of their most…
