Alert - new research shows popularity of sharing types for different content types and formats

Value: [rating=3] Recommended link: The Social Intelligence Report: Adobe Digital Index Q3, 2013 Interested in finding out how content is shared across Facebook and how to improve engagement, then Adobe Digital's regular consumer research report will provide some of these answers. Adobe Digital's quarterly report analyses consumer Facebook data, over two years, from retail, media, entertainment, travel and websites. Their survey analysed 131 billion Facebook ad impressions, 400 million unique visitors, 1.04 billion Facebook posts and over 4 billion Facebook comments, shares and likes. These are some highlights on Facebook engagement, though the full report shares information on ROI, click volume, geo-targeted posts, geographical and industry social sentiment.

Types of Facebook posts that engage?

Social engagement increases when posts include an image or video; posts with an image increase by 600% compared to a…

Using custom audiences to improve Facebook targeting 

How would you like to target advertising to people with similar characteristics to your existing customers and prospects? Like subscribers on your mailing list for instance? Well, that's the offer of Facebook's custom audiences. It's no longer new, in fact, checking the Smart Insights alert when it was launched, it dates back to March 2013 - Facebook launches "Lookalike Ad Targeting".

Custom Audiences are one of the more advanced features Power Editor users get to enjoy, Facebook gives you the lowdown on Custom Audiences in its help section but I'll attempt to provide you with a step-by-step guide here.

Firstly, this is not an introduction to Power Editor. If you've not used it before, this tutorial is not necessarily going to make a lot of sense. Power Editor is a useful Chrome app that gives you way more control and functionality than Facebook's…

3 tools to find out the most popular and relevant topics

Before we look at tools for finding the best hashtags for twitter growth, I thought it best to explain what a hashtag is (I still often get asked this when talking to clients): A hashtag is simply a way for people to label and search for social media updates. It may be a trending topic such as #cybermonday or a campaign-specific label such as a discount or campaign name.  In most social networks if you click on the hashtag you see updates where others have used it. Hashtags originated on Twitter, but their popularity means that they're now ubiquitous across social networks as this History of Hashtags shows. Hashtags can help get your message across and engage your audience in a concept. For example, we recommended Smart Insights used #PlanToSucceed as a hashtag to highlight the importance of planning and to…

The growth in popularity of hashtags 

Hashtags describing a topic or campaign offer prefaced by '#' are now a common feature across most social media platforms. So no longer just Twitter, but including Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+... If used correctly, then they can improve reach and social sharing of content for brand awareness and lead generation.

There are many Twitter tools to find trending hashtags and to ensure you use relevant hashtags.

Offerpop's Infographic provides a timeline history for the use of the #Hashtag from its initial use on Twitter to later adoption on Facebook and Google+. Greater engagement with hashtags is suggested by research referenced in the infographic which shows that 'Tweets that contain hashtags are 55% more likely to be retweeted than those that do not, and more than 70 percent of people use hashtags'. We don't…

I recently covered the main trends in social media marketing which should affect your approach in 2014 in a webinar. If you couldn't make it, the Slideshare gives a summary of the 7 key issues that I covered in the webinar: 1. Google+ will be a major player among the social networks 6 2. Facebook isn’t going anywhere! 12 3. We’ll think twice about what we publish 17 4. Social Networks will crack down on promotional material 22 5. Social Media will be viewed as a sales tool, not just a marketing tool 25 6. It will be accepted that you can measure ROI on social media 28 7. Content will be key to the success of your campaign 32 Social media marketing trends 2014 from Smart Insights…

A tutorial on creating dark posts - a technique many big brands are now doing newsfeed advertising

Facebook has become quite the place of the dark arts in recent years as brands seek to outdo each other in the advertising wars.

One of the features available to those in the know is the art of the "dark" or "unpublished" post. What this actually means is that the post will not appear on your timeline but can be accessed by anyone with a direct link (or by clicking through from an ad). They are used extensively by advertisers to create copy that then appears as a "Sponsored" piece of content.

A few months back, dark Image posts were the only way advertisers had of getting results into the newsfeed with images that took up a decent amount of real estate. In recent months, links with appropriately sized images have also been rewarded with a decent…

How to increase engagement for your Facebook posts

In this post, I'm going to take one skill from the list I curated in my article 'The Ultimate Guide to becoming a great Social Media Manager' and demonstrate to you exactly why it is essential for a Social Media Manager - that skill is graphic design.

How to improved the design of a Facebook Post in 10 minutes

So, let's start with an example. From a social marketing point of view, how effective do you think this Facebook post is? You might think it's not too bad. You might think it's terrible. You may also be thinking about a similar post that you shared and how this compares to it. But the answer I'm looking for is – it could be improved... You…

Facebook pushing quality content to the top on its newsfeed

Value: [rating=3]

Recommended Link: Facebook's Newsfeed changes

This Facebook update should be of particular interest to content marketers since it can potentially help businesses drive more traffic to their site based on their content. Facebook can already be effective in driving traffic given its reach. Indeed, in this update, Facebook announced that average referral traffic from Facebook to media sites has increased by over 170% - almost tripled - in the past year.

Facebook has introduced two new ways to highlight quality content on its newsfeed as it says it can now identify 'high quality articles' that are linked to rather than less newsworthy content such as what it calls 'meme photos'. The main changes within the feed are: 

1. Links to articles display more related articles

Selecting an article on the Facebook…

A briefing and examples of how to use Twitter Cards to boost leads and sales

With the recent Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Twitter on the New York Stock Exchange,  there has been a great deal of attention on the micro-blogging site and how it plans to increase its profitability (likely through advertising) to satisfy hungry investors. Although there has been much publicity regarding the company's recent move to preview images directly within a timeline feed (seemingly a move to court advertisers who can push their brands more), the introduction of 'Twitter Cards' in June 2012 seems to have gone almost unnoticed and still represents a missed opportunity for brands and bloggers alike who are yet to take advantage of them.

Twitter cards

The power of Twitter cards cannot be overstated. Twitter says: ;They make it possible for you to attach media experiences to Tweets that link to your…

In Part 1, we looked at the main features of YouTube Analytics (YTA) and how they can be used to a) build an audience and b) improve the engagement of your existing audience. In this article, we are going to look in more detail at 5 of the key reporting features available in YTA. To get ideas and inspiration on creating the right type of videos and YouTube brand channel to maximise video plays and sales, see our new guide to YouTube Marketing. Recommended Guide: Smarter YouTube Marketing Create a content plan and setup your brand channel correctly to make better use of YouTube. Download our YouTube Marketing Guide.

1 Youtube Traffic Source…