To celebrate the launch of our new social media strategy guide, Dave and I thought we'd share our top 21 tips to help with social media planning. We'd love to hear your thoughts from recent experience, too…
This post follows on from the new research on how businesses use social media from the CIM we summarised yesterday. It showed that while some companies have a clear champion or a dedicated resource for social media, few have this focus. That's where our recommendations start.
Social media marketing plan recommendations
1 - Have a purpose and a vision - why are you doing this, what are your goals? Is it a marketing directive, or are you evolving into a social business? Make sure the vision is communicated across the business so that people are comfortable and understand who,…
New European Facebook marketing pages launched
Value/Importance: [rating=3]
Recommended link: Facebook UK Marketing page
We’ve found the global / US Facebook Marketing Page useful for ideas on Facebook Marketing - it seems others do too - there are nearly 900,000 Likes for this page - that's a LOT of people following Facebook marketing.
Until recently, most posts and examples referenced, the US market, but similar sites have now been created in some European countries which we thought we’d alert you to - it could be worth putting them in your Feeds.
In the UK version, it’s good to see Facebook practicing Permission Marketing with a gated page to get access to their resources.
These are the other countries which now have a special marketing page - you can access them from the bottom of the UK page:
…
How to use Facebook for a friendly B2C 'webinar' alternatives
Facebook is 'the' social media platform for communicating with consumers in 2012 and looks set to continue well into the future. Many brands have moved away from microsites and instead have invested heavily in a page presence on Facebook.
There are so many options available - Facebook's opengraph technology offering has not yet fully hit the mainstream.
Facebook webinars
One technology option I've seen in recent months and adopted for my own businesses is the use of Facebook events as a form of webinar- it impressed me so I thought I'd share it.
Here are two examples of the Facebook webinar; one for my own business, Musicademy, and the other for Vets Now, which I described in a previous post showing the awesome ways they encourage interaction on their pages.
…
Examples showing how building your network in Google+ gives you more visibility in the search results
This post highlights part of the importance of Google+ for SEO purposes. It does so by contrasting 2 screengrabs of Google search results pages, illustrating how H&M have managed to use Google+ to radically affect results for their network of followers, or circlers if you prefer.
About the Images
Both images are from Google.com, where the feature which makes this important to SEO, 'Search Plus Your World' have rolled out more fully than in other countries.
The first image shows search results for 'David Beckham' when not logged into Google+
The second image shows search results for 'David Beckham' when logged in. The important thing to note here is that H&M's business page is circled by the account I've used to take the screengrabs.
Image 1: Not Logged In to Google+
…
A short guide to help review if and how you use Pinterest
Prompted by interest in my first post on the marketing opportunities for Pinterest a couple of weeks ago, I thought a more considered ideas post might be useful. So I've summarised the key points that I feel are relevant to consider if you're set on taking your brand onto Pinterest. I've not got into the mechanics of how it works, others do it better already. First things first…
A reminder - what is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a platform for crowd sourced visual content grouped into topics (mostly lifestyle at the moment). From a broader perspective, it's a social network that allows users to visually share new interests by 'pinning' images or videos to their own or others' 'pinboards' (a collection of 'pins' that have a common theme).
Maybe this cartoon explains it…
Questions to ask to make sure you're following the best approach to social sharing
Social Sharing tools are the technology behind embedding of buttons and other widgets onto your website to encourage social sharing, recommending or bookmarking within your site and blog.
We have a separate post on the social networks that are most important to shares in different sectors and countries.
Despite their ability to spread your content, increase your traffic and even aid your SEO efforts, many sites are still ignoring or not using the right sharing tools. The infographic below from popular sharing service AddThis shows why it is essential to implement these tools effectively.
Why do people share content?
Making the best use of Social Sharing technology requires content that is worth sharing in the first place. A great piece of research was conducted by the New York Times…
Who should be in your circle for the best quality advice?
Ever since Google+ burst onto the social media scene in July last year, the blogosphere has been awash with debate on the pros and cons of the new social network.
But what can’t be disputed is the calibre of digital experts publishing their latest thoughts Google+ and the amount of insight and expertise they offer up on a daily basis.
If you’re new to Google+ or just looking for some ideas on who to follow (or ‘Circle’, as it’s known on Google+), I think these are some of the best. The focus does tend to be on social media and search, so if you're looking for advice on more specific channel's see Dave Chaffey's post on the best marketers to learn from on Google+.
So here is my list of 10 great digital experts to get you started or check against your…
This new advice and tools for journalists could be useful for marketers and bloggers too
Value/Importance: [rating=3]
Recommended links:
Twitter for Newsrooms (Shows Grid Above)
Twitter for News
Twitter Media
Twitter announced new advice on the best approaches to communicate using Twitter on Friday.
The advice is intended for journalists, but we though we’d alert you to it, since some of the tools are relevant to companies or bloggers regularly communicating with their audience. After all, many companies effectively have their own journalists today as they compete with online newsrooms and publishers to engage their fans.
Some examples of the tools include greater interactivity on your site:
1. Embedded tweets - we're seeing more of these now - they're a good way to feature promotions or quotes within your site or landing page.
Here's an example -…
7 techniques to drive website interactions that generate leads and how to measure them
We find that there's lots of discussion online about how to reach and convert audiences, but not so much about encouraging the softer interactions. We reference this as "Act" within the RACE framework, it's about encouraging interactions on site or within your social outpost. You can think of Act in the context of the Forrester Social Technographics Ladder, where you are encouraging those that are watching or “lurking” to contribute, to get involved. These are people most likely with a problem or question, maybe a passion for a topic area; your challenge is how you get them to contribute.
These are the tactics I'm talking about:
Blogs
Social networks integrations
Widgets, tools and objects
Community
Content
Gamification
Review and ratings
The whole idea is to design specific communications techniques that encourage interactions on your websites or social outposts, an area we feel is more often…
In this case study, we talk to Kate Webb, the Online Marketing Manager at Vision Express. Kate talks about how they have developed a strategy and manage social media marketing across the Vision Express teams. Thanks for sharing your experiences, Kate!
How big an impact has the increase in popularity of social media with consumers had on Vision Express?
It’s had quite an impact in terms of time and resource, especially in the early days.
As a company we’re relatively new to social media, we’ve only been active for just over eighteen months. We spent a lot of time during the first 3-6 months listening, watching and learning what consumers were saying about our brand/looking for from our brand, in order to decide on how we should communicate, and where – which platforms.
During this…
