Category: Social Media

Explore our library of social media articles and discover the social media marketing tips you need to attract followers and boost engagement.

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Social Media

Clubhouse App 101: What Is It?

The Clubhouse app is a social networking platform based on audio chat. Users can join virtual rooms to listen or participate in live discussions, ranging from casual conversations to expert panels on various topics. Launched in 2020, it quickly gained popularity for its unique format, enabling real-time, voice-based interaction and networking opportunities, distinguishing it from text-based social media platforms. Clubhouse fosters a sense of community and immediacy in digital communication.

Growing up, did you ever accidentally hear a neighbor’s conversation through the baby monitor? That’s kind of what Clubhouse is like, except everyone knows you’re listening – and it’s completely legal. Plus, it’s significantly more secure than baby monitors.

Clubhouse is the new iPhone-only invite-only social media platform. It’s recently gotten a lot of buzz thanks to celebrities like Elon Musk and Bill Gates popping into the platform to say hello. Jordan Minor of PCMag says it’s like Twitter was a podcast you live in. Others equate it to a Zoom where everyone’s cameras are off, since it can be difficult to keep up with who is speaking.

Though it was initially founded in March 2020, it is quickly gaining steam as a beta-only platform… just like Pinterest did many years ago…. Except with visual media.

Clubhouse contains no images or video. The only images on the platform are user profile pictures. That’s part of what makes it so different from the heavy hitters like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Before we take a look at how you can include this app as part of your social media strategy, let’s discuss how it works, and how to jump into the conversation… if you’re lucky enough to get invited.

How Clubhouse Works

Getting an invite means a fellow iPhone user has given the app access to their entire contact list. It means whoever invited you trusts you and thinks you’ll appreciate the network – since invites aren’t easy to come by until you’ve been using the app for a while.

Users can create or join Clubhouse rooms. Creators serve as moderators who can speak freely or address other members who wish to participate. You can see who is talking by looking for a halo around their photo.

Any user is free to create an “open” room that allows any other users to join. “Social” rooms are only for people you follow to join. “Closed” rooms are invite-only, so only the guests who accept the invitation can participate. “Clubs” can create recurring rooms (weekly chit-chats, anyone?) with members.

You can follow other users or clubs, to find out when they are participating or moderating in a room.

The Clubhouse Hallway is the Facebook Newsfeed, where you can get updates about what your followers and audience are doing – and take a look at what is popular.

The Clubhouse calendar is where you’ll find a list of upcoming events. Any Clubhouse user can add to the calendar. When you add a room of your own to the calendar, it will notify your followers for you.

Frequently Asked Questions About Clubhouse

Are the Conversations Permanent?

No, the conversations disappear after the moderator ends the chat. However, many users are finding workarounds so that they can record conversations. To be sure you’re not breaking any laws, make sure you mention in the room description that the conversations may be recorded. This way, people who don’t want to be recorded can know upfront whether they want to join the room or not. It’s best to assume clubhouse conversations are being recorded, just to be safe.

What can I listen to on Clubhouse?

If you can imagine it, chances are, someone is talking about it on Clubhouse. And if there’s a niche, there’s likely room for it. If you can’t find anything to listen to, you can always start your own.

How many people can be in a Clubhouse room?

There can be up to 5,000 people in a Clubhouse room at any given time. Thankfully, though, not everyone is allowed to speak at once. Moderators control who can speak and when.

Do I have to talk? Can I just listen?

You’re not required to participate in any conversation unless you create the room and serve as a moderator. Moderators aren’t required to let you speak, though if you want to try, you can virtually raise your hand. Plenty of people just listen.

Can I delete my account if I change my mind?

Right now, the only way to delete your account is to send an email to the company to request it.

Any word on when it’s coming to Android?

As of this writing, there is no indication of when the app will become available to Android users. We just know that it will eventually open to everyone.

Can I monetize it?

Not directly. I’m sure that just as all other social media platforms before it there will eventually be a way to earn money from your Clubhouse rooms, but right now, there isn’t. That’s not to say you can’t use it to nurture your audience of prospects and current customers into purchasing your products or services, though. Use it as a way to establish your expertise, trust, and authority. Then, direct your Clubhouse followers to your other resources online.

Using Clubhouse as Part of Your Social Media Marketing Efforts

Clubhouse isn’t something that just any business should rush to be part of. It’s not the right fit for all businesses, and trying to be everywhere at once isn’t the right way to approach social media. Ultimately, it’s best to use it to establish your expertise, rather than trying to get creative with it. You can expand brand awareness and your audience overall.

Search to see what others in your niche are doing channel-wise. Are they creating their own clubs? Jumping into relevant conversations? Do you have enough of a following to bring in listeners, or should you just be participating in other chats?

Alternatively, it can be a great way to get market research. Listen to the questions people are asking, and find ways to provide answers – not just within Clubhouse, but for blogs, ebooks, and more.

It will be interesting to watch this social media app. If you’re part of the pilot program there, I’d love to hear from you. How are you becoming part of the conversation? Are you using it to build communities?

And for you, Android users, are you interested in the idea that Twitter is rolling out Twitter Spaces – something similar to Clubhouse? What about the rumor that Facebook is too, building something similar?

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Social Media

Using Pinterest for Blogging

Practically every time I read a blog post, I see a Pinterest button somewhere that gives me the option to pin the post.

I started to wonder why Pinterest is so closely connected to blogging.

It’s likely because Pinterest is useful for education. Users create boards to save things like inspirational quotes, recipes, home decor ideas, blogs, and even future purchases. It makes sense that helpful blog posts are an excellent choice for pinning.

If you’re not already blogging for your business, there are plenty of reasons to get started.

All of these things translate to more potential for your audience to discover you, higher potential for better ranking in the search engines, and ultimately the potential for more revenue.

If you want to get started blogging or you’re already doing it, let’s take a closer look at how to use Pinterest for blogging.

Set Up A Pinterest Business Account

This is a free account. Unlike the personal account, you’ll get access to Pinterest analytics to give you detailed information about how your pins are performing. The Pinterest business account also gives you the option to apply for rich pins, which is an upgrade from the standard pin. There are five types of rich pins – movie, place, recipe, products, app, an article. The article rich pin is the most effective option for blogging. Article rich pins provide tools that allow you to add a larger logo image, and it has lines promote your post as well as a link to your website.

Using Pinterest for blogging allows you to promote posts, product offers, send traffic to your blog, and ultimately engage with your followers.

Getting Started

When considering how to leverage Pinterest for your blog, think about how you want your users to find your account and what you believe they want to see. Pinterest should be a compliment to your blog and reflect your brand.

Create And Name A Board After Your Blog

It’s crucial to keep things consistent with how you name your boards. It helps not only SEO but organization and readers. Both search engines and readers will have an easier time finding your blog on Pinterest if it has a similar name. Use your blog board to highlight posts that don’t fit into other categories as well as making Roundup pins for a week’s worth of posts.

When you pin to this board, group your posts that are similar to one another to keep things organized. For instance, if someone wants to find posts about protein powder, they should be able to find that in the supplements section of your board or something similar.

Ideally, your pin should have one to two sentences about your post in the description, such as a quote from the blog, a featured image, and a link back to your website. Pinterest business handles the link back to your website for you

Structure A Winning Pin

Pinterest says pins that earn high engagement are optimized, branded, well written, and, most importantly, structured the right way.

Optimized

Describe your blog post or use a quote that tells pinners what they will gain from the pin.

Branded

Include your logo and ensure the featured photo has to do with the product or service you offer. This way, users will know its your brand they’re looking at before they even open the pin.

Well Written

Always include a call to action. Even something like click this link to see more will do the trick. Use sensory-related words to connect with users emotionally.

Structured The Right Way

Pay attention to Pinterest aspect ratios for photos, and make sure you’re taking advantage of the linkable options on standard pins to increase your traffic.

Check The SEO On Your End

Make sure your Pinterest account is set for public search within your privacy settings so that search engines can find the account.

Remain consistent when it comes to titles of your pens, boards, and blog posts. Keeping consistency makes it easier for Google to understand Pinterest.

Use as many relevant keywords as possible when naming your boards. Provide all text for Featured images in your pens to tell the search engines what your image is. Describe it using keywords if and when possible.

Create Related Pinterest Boards

As you create different boards, categorize them by your blog post categories. You can also make new boards that relate to other areas of your audience’s interest. Think about what your buyer Persona would be interested in seeing and make boards accordingly.

Going back to our protein powder example, you should create boards that have to do with other areas of health and fitness, such as cardio, nutrition, and accessories. These can include recipes, tools for working out, etc.

Create A Staff Board

This provides a wonderful opportunity for fostering emotional connection, so you may wish to consider creating a staff board. This helps you to show the faces behind your brand. Seeing those faces will help consumers feel more like they know the business, which makes them more likely to follow.

Create a staff pin with a headshot as the featured image of the employee. Use a short bio that’s engaging for the descriptions and have each employee link to their favorite or newest blog posts to get you more traffic.

Ensure Your Blog Is Pinnable

Using Pinterest means your blog has to be pinnable. You need to have buttons with the Pinterest logo that allow users to pin a blog post from your website. This will enable viewers to explore your blog, find posts they want to read later, and save them to their Pinterest account to find later. This gives you more traffic on your blog and Pinterest.

Engage With Your Followers

To keep your profile welcoming and active, interact with followers to make your Pinterest more targeted towards your audience. Follow new followers back. Conduct a little market research by looking through their pens and board. This can help you make targeted content later.

Repin posts that have to do with your blog. If you see that one of your followers has an awesome pin that would fit well into one of your categories, engage with it. Like, comment, and repin. Repinning is essentially the same as retweeting or reposting it in general. Users can save up on their page or to one of their boards.

Take time to follow influencers and Industry leaders as well. Doing so demonstrates your interest, support, and knowledge of the industry to make your Pinterest look credible. Repinning influencers’ posts allows you to begin building a community around your industry

Include Interesting Visuals

Your images must entice the reader to open the pin. Choose photos that are in the correct aspect ratio of either 2:3 or 4:5. If you’re cropping things manually, you should have a width of 650 and a height of 975 pixels.

Images are the most crucial part of a pin, so they have to fit Pinterest as much as possible to catch a reader’s eye. You can use templates from Canva and other services to help you get started on the right foot.

Post To Pinterest On A Regular Schedule

Keep to a schedule as you post on Pinterest. You don’t have to make it as consistent as you do on your other social channels, but it does need to be repetitive. Research suggests that Pinterest posts get the highest amount of traction between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Because you don’t need to be as frequent with pinning, you have more time to make sure the pens you do post are of the highest possible quality. Use your Pinterest account to focus on quality rather than quantity, and your frequency goals don’t need to stress you out.

You can use Pinterest for your blog as a resource for showing off your new posts or create a bridge between e-commerce and blogging. Regardless of which path you choose, Pinterest remains a powerful distribution channel for your content, and ignoring it means missing out on an opportunity.

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Social Media

Instagram Guides Now Available to All Users

In May, most of the country was used to the idea of working from home, with the understanding that this isolation would be indefinite. Instagram used this to launch its Guides feature, focusing on mental health.

Initially, Guides were only available to certain content creators, organizations, publishers, and public figures. It allowed those accounts to create curated collections of content, using their own profile as well as the profiles of other Instagram users.

Earlier this month, Instagram announced they’ve expanded the Guides feature to all users.

What is Instagram Guides?

According to a press release, “After Guides were first introduced in May, Instagram saw strong community response and requests for increased availability. Guides provide another way for the community to connect with their favorite accounts, discover new products from people they may not already follow, and get inspired by what content people are loving on Instagram.”

Guides, as a concept, was intended to target travel content. However, because of the pandemic, leaving the country isn’t allowed. Instagram pivoted the direction to promote self-care tips and suicide hotlines. As Black Lives Matter protests started unfolding across the country, Instagram Guides began to include an array of resources for the black community.

The goal is to provide users with another way to post longer-form content going beyond photo and video. Not only can creators dive deeper, but they can also create a multimedia experience to engage and expand their audiences. Guide creators are able to include their own tips and commentary alongside the content they curate.

The expansion tells us though, Instagram is focusing on keeping users on its platform, rather than directing traffic to content creators’ blogs or websites.

Types of Instagram Guides

Back in August, TechCrunch reported changes to Instagram Guides. Users can choose between:

  • Places Guide: This guide recommends a person’s favorite places.
  • Products Guide: A guide for recommending your favorite products to others.
  • Posts Guide: A guide showcasing a variety of posts on a similar topic.

Right now it seems most people are using the Posts guide type. They make a great way to show step-by-step processes, so they are wonderful for recipes, DIY projects, crafts, etc.

Where Guides Display on Profiles

At this point, Guides are currently featured prominently on account pages. They are generally placed between IGTV and Tagged Photos. They may also be featured in the Instagram Shop. The Instagram Shop is another new feature within the app that connects creators with new customers.

By linking guides to shopping, there is plenty of space for brands and influencers to build style Guides. Linking these guides to their IG shops may help boost sales during the pandemic recession.

When visiting another person’s profile, you’ll see a Guides icon on the feed tab that will take you to all the guides they have published.

How to Create an Instagram Guide

  • Tap the + icon on the top-right corner of your profile page. Select “Guide.”
  • Choose your guide type.
    • If you choose Posts, you’ll recommend posts that you’ve either created or saved in the past.
    • If you choose Products, you’ll only be able to curate products available from an Instagram Shop.
    • If you choose Places, you’ll be able to share location-based recommendations, such as a city guide or restaurant.

After you create your Guide, you can share it to Instagram Stories, or share it with other uses. Tap the paper plane icon at the top right of your screen.

Are you excited to see what you can do with this new feature? I’d love to hear your thoughts and see your guides in the comments below.

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Social Media

Instagram Saves are the New Super Like

Likes are a thing of the past. Saves are where it’s at – and brands like yours need to pay attention. Instagram has been testing the removal of likes for a while now, which left brands scrambling, at first, to find a replacement success metric. That success metric is here – the private “saves” metric.

Instagram saves are a signal for how the Instagram algorithm works. The more saves your posts get, the more people will see it, according to the algorithm. That means, if you want to grow your account, focus your efforts on getting people to save your posts. Understanding how certain signals work can mean the difference between successful social media development and a campaign that lacks results.

How do you do this? Before I get into that, let’s take a closer look at what Instagram saves are and how the algorithm uses them.

What are Instagram Saves?

They’ve been around for a couple of years, as a way for people to collect and save their favorite posts. All it takes is tapping the “bookmark” icon at the bottom right corner of a post. It gets added to Saved posts so it is easy to find again.

What are Collections?

Collections provide a way for users to categorize saved posts. You can create a collection based on any classification you want to organize your posts with. The goal is to allow users to create a personalized library of their favorite posts.

How the Algorithm Uses Instagram Saves

The more saves your posts get, the more likely the Instagram algorithm will position your posts within the Explore page and higher within people’s feeds. Saves are one of the seven key factors the algorithm uses to rank posts in a feed. These factors include views, likes, comments, and saves. It sees the number of saves as an indicator of quality. The more likes, comments, and saves a post gets, the better – and it’s even more powerful if that engagement occurs quickly after the content is posted.

Why Instagram Saves are so Crucial

Instagram is testing removing post likes from a number of countries. The experiment first started with Canada but has expanded to include Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Ireland, Italy, and New Zealand. As this shift continues, the number of likes a post gets is less important, and the focus is now more about the overall engagement the posts get, including the number of saves and comments it gets.

Businesses are now starting to track the number of saves as part of their engagement rate calculation.

Engagement Rate = (Likes + Comments + Saves) / Impressions x 100

The “super like” term comes from James Nord, the CEO of the influencer marketing platform Fohr. A like is a way for a user to tell brands they’ve seen and enjoyed the content, but a save is an indication that this value is so strong they want to come back to view this content again later.

If you look at the posts that get the most saves on your profile, you can see the kind of content your audience is most connected with, which helps further fuel your content strategy.

Ways to Get More Saves on Your Posts

Not getting a lot of saves on your content? Use these tips to help boost your numbers.

Create Infographic Style Images

Photography is important, but mixing things up is never a bad idea. Infographics are a great way to make data-heavy or educational content more digestible. People may want to save it for later so they can take a closer look at the information on their own time. They serve as good reference material.

Write Better Captions

Your captions need to be more than emojis. Use the space to create value for your followers. Make your captions longer and richer. Think of each caption as a mini-blog post. The more valuable and interesting the content, the more likely your audience will save it. Go above and beyond.

Ask Your Audience

Just like you would ask your audience for likes, you can also ask them to save your content, too. The key is to include a call to action in your post caption. When done correctly, it not only acts as a friendly reminder to your audience that your content is worth saving.

Create Quotes

It may feel a little like filler content, but they’re a great way to increase saves. People love to have a collection of quotes to share with their friends and family, so you should create some to include in your regular content rotation. They can be inspirational, funny, or otherwise related to your brand or products.

Aim for Evergreen Content

Instagram moves quickly, and you should never assume that your followers will ever see your post more than once. Timely and new content is important to the algorithm. That’s why you have to create content your audience wants to come back to again and again. Whether it’s a year-long calendar of events, a tutorial, a reference sheet, a checklist, a workout, or something else – it should be something that is relevant to your audience today, next week, month, and year.

Create Tips and Hacks Posts

Who doesn’t love an industry tip or something they’ve found online to help them save time? I’ll never forget when I learned how easy it was to pop popcorn in the microwave in a brown paper bag. Not only is it cheaper, but it also eliminates the chemicals in pre-made microwaveable popcorn bags. It was something I learned online, and I come back to again and again.

If you can craft educational content in this format, you can help users to get to know your products or services while also helping them learn something along the way. That is the perfect way to boost saves.

While there’s no official word on where “likes” stand in the United States, making adjustments to your strategy now to boost saves will certainly help if and when they disappear from the platform here. If you have an international brand, accounting for it now is essential.

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Social Media

Ads for IGTV Are Coming

IGTV ads are a monetization feature on Instagram, allowing creators to earn revenue by including short advertisements in their IGTV (Instagram TV) videos. These ads, typically lasting up to 15 seconds, are inserted at natural breaks in content, offering brands a new avenue to reach audiences. This feature not only benefits advertisers with increased visibility but also supports creators financially, fostering a thriving content ecosystem on Instagram.

Instagram is promoting IGTV videos in its main feed in an attempt to increase popularity among advertisers and influencers. IGTV is Instagram’s foray into long-form vertical video content on mobile devices. It launched last summer and was the first major update to the platform since Instagram stories was released in 2016. It helps to move Instagram into a space that has long been dominated by YouTube.

In the constant rivalry between Google and Facebook, IGTV represents a new attempt for Facebook to compete with YouTube and set up as an alternative destination for both content creators and businesses in the $1.7 billion Instagram influencer marketing industry.

IGTV is closely connected to the main Instagram platform as the same accounts are used across both formats and can be exist either through the stand-alone app or Instagram. Instagram has also worked to ease fears about IGTV struggle to attract eyes by featuring aspects of IGTV with the main app by including previews of IGTV videos in the main Instagram feed which cause subsequent views to Skyrocket.

Why IGTV and Not YouTube?

For brands thinking that they should just use YouTube, it’s important to understand how IGTV has differentiated itself from YouTube. IGTV content is presented in a vertical format with an aspect ratio of 9:16 rather than horizontal that is seen in most video platforms. IGTV focuses on mobile first which is a lucrative opportunity for Instagram and marketers alike. With Instagram, the videos on IGTV can range anywhere from 15 seconds to  10 minutes. Verified or larger accounts can record for up to an hour with the eventual intention of providing this video link to all users. Creators are not limited to what kinds and formats of content they can produce.

Influencers who have a following on Instagram may struggle to translate that popularity to YouTube where the space is crowded so an Instagram based video-sharing platform can give existing Instagram influencers a launchpad for moving into video without starting from scratch. it also gives them a chance to carve out a new Niche and expand the types of content they create which in turn allows them to diversify their sponsored content and brand partnerships.

Brands will have the opportunity to reach their target audience the new ways and increase their visibility with new audiences. Google has been encouraging longer-form video on YouTube for years now and Instagram understands the marketing potential of the longer content for developing the all-important positive influencer and brand connection. IGTV is just another way for brands to exercise their marketing muscles.

Unlike Stories which took off quite well in 2016, IGTV has had a harder time getting the ball rolling. Long-form video on Instagram is still in its early stages so many creators are reluctant to start devoting their time and energy into the platform. IGTV content takes longer to shoot and edit than a simple photo or a 15-second story.

Only recently has Instagram discussed adding ads to IGTV so until now there have been limited marketing options for brands. For creators, without the advertising platform, Instagram isn’t paying for the content made by influencers, so there are few financial incentives.

The Catch-22 for Instagram

Why has it taken so long to get here? Instagram wants to make sure the platform has legs and that people are willing to stick around and view the content. If IGTV uses ads too soon, then the users may not want to stick around through mid-roll ads to see if the content is good enough. They have to make sure that they’re content creators are creating high-quality content that their audience is interested in and watching. However, when the content creator has other avenues for monetization, it’s hard for them to justify investing their resources in IGTV content creation.

Instagram has plenty of money – they earned $20 billion in advertising revenue last year, which was a major portion of Facebook’s income. But they’re not going to throw money at the platform if it’s not going to get a return on investment.

Instagram is under a lot of external pressure, from content creators who are making money on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook Watch, and Byte, with revenue-share options. IGTV needs content if they want to grow and stay relevant, but can’t expect that people will provide it without revenue-sharing.

Internal Experiments with Monetization Programs for IGTV Creators

In an interview with TechCrunch, Instagram confirms that it is prototyping an option for IGTV creators to earn money by showing advertisements with their videos. By giving creators a sustainable and hands-off way to generate earnings from IGTV, Instagram hopes they will be inspired to create more high-quality content on the platform.

Right now, Facebook watch video producers earn a 55% cut of the revenue from their ad breaks that are inserted into the middle of their content. There is no word on what the revenue split would be for IGTV, but because Facebook tends to run its ads across all of its apps with the same buying interfaces, it may stick to that 55% approach so that creators get the majority of the money earned.

In the past, Instagram only words with a limited set of celebrities paying to offset small production costs for IGTV content but did not offer a way to earn a profit. That left creators looking to sponsored content or product placement to earn money or trying to push their followers to platforms like YouTube where they could earn money from their ads. This lack of monetization may have contributed to the absence of great content on IGTV.

It’s not clear as to whether IGTV monetization policies would be different but for Facebook, they require users to:

  • Follow all normal Community standards
  • Share authentic content without clickbait, sensationalism, misinformation, or fake news
  • Share original content they made themselves
  • Avoid restricted content categories including tragedy or conflict, sexual or suggestive activity, strong language, explicit content, misleading medical information, politics, and government, and debated social issues.

What are your thoughts about IGTV ads? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

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Social Media

A Closer Look at LinkedIn Live

LinkedIn Live is a feature on LinkedIn that allows individuals and organizations to broadcast live video content to their network. This platform is ideal for hosting real-time discussions, interviews, and presentations, enabling direct engagement with professional audiences. It’s a powerful tool for thought leadership, brand promotion, and community building, offering interactive elements like Q&A sessions, which foster deeper connections and conversations within the LinkedIn community.

LinkedIn recently announced updates to LinkedIn pages including the ability to stream live video. Originally launched last year, LinkedIn live was only for individual accounts, but now it’s going to be available for pages.

You can use it on your own LinkedIn page or on your company’s profile. Either way, you decide to go, this feature has a high potential for making a major impact on your LinkedIn strategy. According to LinkedIn, those who use LinkedIn Live get seven times more reactions and 24 times more comments than users who rely on standard videos.

What is LinkedIn Live?

LinkedIn Live is the social media platform’s live streaming option. Users rely on a variety of third-party streaming tools to create their content and then broadcast it to their LinkedIn network. It’s similar to live versions of other platforms like Instagram and Facebook and that your video content goes directly to the page in real-time and people can interact with you.

Some major companies have found unique ways to make use of it. For instance, Best Buy used it to highlight an interview with the company’s CEO. Others have used it to host ask me anything sessions to interact with customers.

At this time, you can live stream on LinkedIn for up to 4 hours. Once the live stream is over, it becomes a native video on LinkedIn. after that, you can include the link in follow-up materials or promotions. Though direct sponsorship of the content remains unavailable, there is analytics information including the number of views, watch time, and unique demographics including the company’s, rolls, and locations of the viewers.

How to Create LinkedIn Live Streams

Before you can go live on LinkedIn, you must apply for approval via an online form. Once you’re approved, you’ll get an email that will point you toward the approved streaming platforms you can use. You’ll choose the one that best suits your needs and sign up for an account, then connect your service to your LinkedIn account.

From there, you’ll log into the streaming service you chose and start your live video. Be prepared to interact with viewers on LinkedIn as that’s one of the main benefits of live streaming. It’s a good idea to have a script or general outline so you can make sure your video content is helping you work towards your company’s goals on LinkedIn.

Ways to Use LinkedIn Live

Answer Questions

Perhaps the biggest benefit of using a LinkedIn Livestream compared to a standard video post is the ability to interact with your audience in real-time. If you find that you get a lot of questions from your followers are customers, you can host a live stream to answer them for your entire audience.

Introduce Staff

Putting a face to a name creates a stronger connection between the audience and the people you mention. Followers may feel more comfortable interacting with you and your team after you put a face to the name. Live video can introduce your employees with Q&A or just some basic information about each person.

Show Your Company Culture

LinkedIn is a powerful recruiting tool and can help you bring new talent to your company. Live streaming on a regular basis can help people be what it’s like behind the scenes and your company, which may make it more appealing for applicants.

Special Events

If you attend or host any special industry events, using LinkedIn life is a wonderful way to share the experience with your followers. It can make people want to attend the event in the future or share valuable information from the sessions.

Announce New Products or Services

if you want to get people excited about a big announcement for your business, you should go live to make your announcement. Promote the launch of new products or services with extra posts that lead up to the big reveal.

Demonstrate Products or Services

If your business offers products or services that require a bit of an explanation, live streams could be the perfect format. Demonstrating how to use your products or services in a video Lets people see how everything works firsthand. And because you’re alive, they can interact with you or ask you questions throughout the process in the event that something isn’t crystal clear. This is a worthwhile strategy for companies that offer software tools and related products that have a lot of features to go over.

Interview Industry Experts

If you have connections with others who have a lot of influence in your industry or with your target customers, using a live stream to interview them could be an effective strategy. They will likely share insights that are valuable to your audience and they may share it with their followers as well to help you increase your reach even more.

Discuss Industry Issues

LinkedIn is a wonderful place to make industry connections and establish yourself as an expert. Going live to discuss a trending topic in your field can help start conversations with other professionals while also giving you credibility on a variety of subjects relevant to the industry.

Start a Recurring Series

You’re likely to get more viewers in a live stream if people anticipate your content. Rather than just going to live whenever you feel like it every now and then, consider starting a series that goes live at the same time every week or month. And remember, promote it in the days leading up to the Stream. This gives people a better chance to actually be logged in when you go live especially on a platform like LinkedIn where people are not checking in as often as they would on say Facebook.

Share Tips or Tutorials

Tutorials are among the most popular format for online video because they give your audience actionable tips that will help them accomplish a specific goal. On LinkedIn, gear your tutorials toward a B2B audience with topics such as setting up an account on a new advertising platform, or editing photos for social media.

With live streaming, the possibilities are nearly endless. If you need help coming up with content ideas that you feel may resonate with your audience, look at your website analytics. What pages or areas of your website are most popular? What are the most commonly asked questions on support tickets? Do a little keyword research to find out more about questions people are asking as they relate to your industry, products, or services. Plan your live streams in advance just as you would plan any other kind of social media content for the greatest chance of success.

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Social Media

How to Optimize Your Twitter Profile for Your Business or Brand

To optimize your Twitter profile for your business or brand, start with a professional, brand-aligned profile picture and cover image. Craft a concise, impactful bio that clearly conveys your brand identity and includes relevant keywords. Utilize pinned tweets to highlight key messages or campaigns. Regularly post engaging content and interact with your audience to build a consistent, active presence that reflects your brand’s values and mission.

Are you looking to enhance your brand’s presence on Twitter?

In this article, you will discover how to optimize your Twitter profile for your business, unlocking the full potential of this powerful platform.

Imagine your Twitter profile transformed into an engaging, brand-reflective powerhouse, drawing in followers and amplifying your message.

Dive in now to learn the key strategies for making your Twitter profile a beacon for your brand!

How to Optimize Your Twitter Profile for Your Business or Brand

More than 330 million people use Twitter every month, and more than 350,000 tweets are posted every single minute. There’s no doubt that potential clients and customers are there, and if they are, your business should be, too.

But beyond your potential clients and customers, there are others you should be looking for and paying attention to on Twitter, as well. It’s also a place where influencers, bloggers, and journalists are looking for fans, brands, and company stories. When they look for something in your industry or vertical, you want to make sure your business shows up.

Don’t forget about the passionate customers who go to Twitter to voice their concerns, complaints, and opinions. If conversations about your brand are taking place, you want to monitor them, participate, and steer them in the right direction. Social listening tools make it possible to keep an eye out for mentions of your business whether or not you’re tagged in the tweets.

The first step to succeeding at Twitter is creating the right kind of profile.

1. Pay Attention to Your Twitter Bio

You have 160 characters to wow your potential audience with. You need to use relevant keywords and hashtags. However, if you choose to use hashtags they will be clickable and may distract from your bio. If someone does click through to the hashtag make sure you’re not inadvertently driving them to your competition if you’re using an industry hashtag.

2. Include a Header Image

The Twitter profile header image can be likened to a magazine cover. You want to change it on a regular basis and use the space to showcase your brand. It’s much larger than your profile image – with the recommended size being 1500×1500 pixels, so you can do a lot more with it. No matter what you choose to do, however, make sure it coordinates with your profile image for better aesthetics.

You can use your header image to feature:

  • New products
  • Top-selling products and services
  • Book launch
  • A team photo
  • Your store or office
  • Your business at a trade show
  • A special event

Regardless of the photo you choose, optimize all of your images by saving the image filename with branded keywords. This increases your chances of being found in an image search.

3. Carefully Select Your Profile Image

Your business or brand needs to use a version of its logo that is easy to recognize and represent your brand. If your logo features a lot of text or doesn’t show up well in the small square of your profile image, you may want to consider creating a secondary logo to use with Twitter and other social media profiles you.

As you determine whether or not you need to create a separate logo, you need to consider image size, color, and how it will look from a mobile device. the recommended file size is 400 by 400 pixels. Twitter supports JPEG, GIF, and PNG file formats up to 2 megabytes in size.

4. Drive People to Your Website

You can use the link space in your bio to drive people directly to your home page, but you can do more than that. Consider sending Twitter followers to some specific pages on your website instead of the basic homepage. Because Twitter is often used to store stories, You may wish to consider linking to your blog or company newsroom. As an alternative, you can point your followers to download a free ebook or checklist, subscribe to your email list, or sign up for a webinar.

5. Add a location to Your Profile

If you are a local business, make sure to fill out the location part of your Twitter profile. This allows Twitter’s algorithm to match your content with other locally-based audiences so your content gets in front of the right people. If you’re not a local business, you can still enter the location of your corporate office, or, you can opt to skip it altogether.

6. Make Sure You Have a Public Profile

Take a second to make sure your tweets are public. Within your settings, look at the privacy and safety section. Make sure the box next to tweet privacy is unchecked. If you do not have public tweets, your business or brand will not get discovered.

7. Pin a Tweet to Your Profile

If you equate your Twitter cover image to a magazine cover, the pinned tweet is your featured story. Pinning a tweet to the top of your profile is an option that many people tend to skip but it is valuable in terms of optimizing your profile. It gives you a space to showcase content.

Of course, this means thinking strategically when pinning tweets. Include a strong visual with a clear call-to-action and relevant keywords along with strategic hashtags and a link back to your website or blog for more detailed information.

New users landing on your profile will see the pinned tweet as the first thing in your Twitter stream, so you wanted to make a good impression. Like your cover image, you can change it up regularly to draw attention to whatever you need to promote.

8. Make it Easy for People to Direct Message You

To optimize your accessibility and make your brand more approachable on Twitter, remove the privacy from your direct messages. In the settings area, head to “Privacy and Safety.” Scroll down the page and look for the direct message option. Check “Receive Direct Messages from Anyone.”

Without this option checked, you and the person sending the DM have to follow one another. That can be difficult to manage if you’re trying to use Twitter as a customer service vehicle.

Taking these actions will make it much easier for you to build a Twitter following and engage with your audience there.

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Social Media

Questions to Boost Your Social Media Marketing

There are several questions to boost your social media marketing. Effective social media marketing hinges on asking the right questions. These include understanding your target audience’s preferences, determining which platforms they frequent, and identifying the type of content that resonates with them. Questions about engagement metrics, such as which posts generate the most interaction and why, are crucial. Regularly assessing these aspects can significantly enhance your strategy, ensuring your social media efforts align with audience needs and marketing goals.

**This post was selected as one of the top digital marketing articles of the week by UpCity, a B2B ratings and review company for digital marketing agencies and other marketing service providers.**

Companies of every size are looking to improve their social media marketing effectiveness. Digital platforms are constantly innovating the way brands are found, shared, and experienced. The number of global social network users is expected to reach 3.09 billion monthly active users by 2021, and global Internet users spend about 136 minutes per day on social media websites.

Many organizations have responded by spending more of their resources on digital marketing. Technology now accounts for 29% of total marketing expense budgets according to a recent study. And digital ad spend for 2020 is estimated to reach about S385 billion.

Consumers today react to services, products, and ad campaigns and real-time through social media which creates new to bans on companies. It’s important to generate and sustain high engagement and enthusiasm which requires clarity around your company’s goals and values.

Successful digital strategies are not about looks or style but if it between what your brand’s promises and what it delivers. If you want to develop or improve your current social media strategy, here are several questions to boost your social media marketing:

What Are Our Goals?

When it comes to startups and Niche products, your social media marketing strategy may start by testing ideas, creating awareness, and building anticipation for new products and services. In other situations, your goals may be far more specific such as increasing real-time brand engagement, generating Quality Sales leads, boosting sales, or working on geographic expansion.

After you set your goals, you must identify your metrics for success. Are you looking to gain likes? do you want to start an online conversation around a certain issue? or do you want to inspire people to make a behavioral change,  for example encouraging your followers to drink more water? the metrics you choose muscle I’m with your marketing goals.

The volume of data available can make choosing the metrics challenging. Clearly defining your metrics, along with the timeline and budget ensures that your campaign is on track. Not only do goals allow you to clearly measure your progress, but they make it easier to figure out where you should focus your time and effort on social media.

How Are We Currently Performing?

Assuming you’re already launched on social media, it’s a good idea to take a look at where you are now to set benchmarks for your growth and engagement goals. Take a look at all of the social media networks where you currently have a presence and see how things are going. Take a look at how often you’re posting, how much engagement you’re getting, and the types of posts you are creating. Compare it to the competition for an idea of how well you’re doing.

What Platforms Should We Use?

Making decisions around platforms you should use needs to be based on your understanding of your customer’s identity and preferences. Different social media platforms appeal to different demographics so you need to research and find out which one’s your audience use online.

If you have a younger audience, you may be able to more effectively reach them on newer platforms such as Snapchat or TikTok. However, health and wellness brands that emphasize aesthetics might want to focus on Instagram with a more visual strategy. The same logic applies to geography. If you want to reach people in China, you need to focus on WeChat or Weibo but if you want to reach people in India, WhatsApp is the popular choice.

It may be tempting to try to be everywhere, but spreading yourself too thin means you’re spending less time on each network overall. In the end, it’s better to do one or two social media platforms well than to have a subpar presence on three or more.

What Does Our Content Strategy Look Like?

A lot of the time, companies have the budget, team, agency, and ideas in place but they haven’t really considered content. Not doing so leaves goodwill and revenue on the table as one survey showed that 46% of customers say they follow brands because of the inspirational content. You need to understand the kinds of contents for instance videos, pictures, or articles that will drive engagement with your audience.

A great content strategy creates conversation and sharing with the brand and other users. To be effective, your content needs to be useful, unique, insurable. if you have content that is sensitive, your content strategy needs to consider that. For example, if you are in the mental health industry, you may experience the lack of engagement on your Facebook page because the users aren’t comfortable engaging on those issues on a public platform.

To combat this, the strategy was adjusted to encourage users to chat with the brand by using private messaging options are social network sites. They also created resources that allowed people to get answers to their questions securely with expert articles shared be exclusive password access through the private Chats on the social networking platforms.

Are We Ready to Talk with Our Audience in Real-Time?

Social media interactions are two way –  driven by both consumers and brands. That means your company needs to show that it is listening and engaging with concerns, suggestions, and questions. Organizations that can seize the moment will generate Goodwill and brand awareness. For instance,  when a Twitter user recently mocked a South African man for proposing in a KFC,  the company stepped in and provided the couple with the wedding planner. Other brands such as Audi, Woolworths, and Coca-Cola chipped in to support the couple providing them with gifts and experiences.

Today’s brands have a much bigger responsibility and ability to connect with and inspire customers. Trusted plans are more likely to attract business and social media is a powerful tool to create that trust with your audience. By taking the time to answer the questions covered in this blog post, you can make sure your social strategy aligns with your goals and ultimately adds value for your audience.

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Social Media

Twitter Offers More Support to Researchers for Accountability

Twitter offers more support to researchers for accountability. Twitter’s initiative to support researchers reflects a commitment to transparency and accountability. Providing data access helps study platform impacts on public discourse and misinformation. It includes sharing tweet datasets, user engagement metrics, and algorithm insights. This support aids in understanding social media’s role in society and developing strategies to combat harmful content.

Twitter has kicked off 2020 with a new hub for academic researchers. The new hub is designed to make it easier for them to access information and support around its APIs. You can find the new page, called Twitter Data for Academic Researchers, here.

There you’ll find links to apply for a developer account to access Twitter’s APIs along with the details of the different APIs offered and links to additional tools for researchers. Those tools cover data integration, access, analysis, visualization, infrastructure, and hosting.

Twitter says that over the past year they’ve worked with a number of people in the academic research community and learned about the challenges they face. They also learned about how Twitter can better support the research community in their efforts to further understanding of the public conversation. Twitter has created this feature in an effort to make it easier to learn from the public conversation.

Twitter also says that they will provide more enhancements and resources for researchers throughout the year.

At this point, tracking conversation flow on Twitter still means playing a game to determine whether you’re dealing with a bot or not. In Europe, Twitter is one of several platform giants that, in 2018 signed up to a voluntary code of practice on disinformation. It is committed to addressing fake accounts and online bots. It’s also committed to empowering the research community to monitor online disinformation through access to platform data that remains privacy compliant.

On the new landing page for researchers, the company writes: “At Twitter, we value the contributions of academic researchers and see the potential for them to help us better understand our platform, keeping us accountable, while helping us tackle new challenges through discoveries and innovations.” They also pat themselves on the back with the claim that, “if it exists, it’s probably been talked about on Twitter.”

If Twitter can live up to its promises of active engagement with researchers, it could capitalize on Facebook’s parallel missteps in academics support.

Facebook was recently accused of transparency washing with its own API for researchers. A group of 60 academics said the ad archive API was as much a hindrance as a help.

Months later, Facebook was still being reported to have done little to improve the offering.

What Academic Researchers Can Expect

If you qualify as an academic researcher, you can apply for an account. Twitter believes that making their data available to the academic research community will improve their service and make it easier to learn about the world. Twitter says they value the contributions of academic researchers and see the potential for them to help the company better understand the platform, keep them accountable and help them tackle new challenges through innovation and discovery.

Levels of API Access

Standard APIs

This is the free, standard APIs that are ideal for getting started, testing and integration, or validating a concept.

Premium APIs

Twitter’s premium APIs provide scalable access to Twitter data for organizations that are looking to experiment, grow, and innovate.

Enterprise APIs

The Enterprise APIs provide the highest level of access to those who depend on Twitter data. This is what you’ll need access to as a researcher.

Ads APIs

The Ads API provides partners a programmatic way to integrate with the Twitter Ads platform.

When you apply for Access, you will have to indicate the primary use of Twitter data. When it comes to academic research, you’ll have the option to choose between doing academic research, teaching, or selecting a student option.

You’ll verify the Twitter username details associated with the developer account. You’ll need to fill in all the required data about your organization including your legal entity name, the organization Twitter name, optionally, your website URL and a few other details.

From there, you’ll describe your intended use of the Twitter API. You use your own words to indicate how you plan to use it. You’ll also describe your plans to use the features, indicating whether you will plan to display tweets or aggregate data about Twitter outside of Twitter.

From there, you will check your information and accept the developer agreement then verify your email account. your application will be reviewed and you will receive a notification with the result.

In more recent news, Twitter has rebranded to X.

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Social Media

Making the Most of Your Social Media Calendar

Making the most of your social media calendar is essential to creating social signals around your brand. Effectively utilizing a social media calendar involves planning content, aligning posts with marketing campaigns and key dates. Regularly updating content types (images, videos, blogs) keeps the feed fresh. Timely engagement with trending topics and audience interaction is crucial. Analyzing performance data helps refine future content and posting schedules.

To make the most of your social media marketing efforts, it helps to have a calendar with a plan of the content you want to share, and when. Thanks to automation tools like Hootsuite and Buffer, it’s even possible to load a number of posts in advance and schedule them to post at certain times.

But having a plan to post content and knowing when it will go live is one thing – and making that calendar and schedule work for you is another. Let’s take a look at some of the things you should consider as you plan out your social media content – whether for the next day, week, month,  or year at a time.

To get started, take a look at our guide on How to Create a Social Media Content Calendar.

How Many Posts Per Day? Per Network?

Organically, your posts aren’t going to show to the majority of your social media following. That’s because the platforms want to have their fair shot at getting you to pay for advertising, so they can boost their revenue.

But, if you have content that your social media audience responds to and engages with, you’ll increase the likelihood that a larger portion of your audience will see what you post.

That’s why it’s important to strike a balance between the right number of posts on each network you include in your social media strategy, and your overall post frequency. If you post too much, you run the risk of people feeling like you’re the only thing they see. If you don’t post enough, few people may see your content at all.

And certain networks, like Twitter, move so fast that your new content doesn’t last long before it gets lost in feeds. That’s why it’s expected that you will post more there every day than you would on Facebook or Instagram.

Uses these informal guidelines to help you decide how often to post to each social platform you use. There are no strict rules to follow. Post frequency and timing tends to vary from one niche to another.

  • According to Socialbakers, post once a day for best engagement.
  • Plan on up to 15 tweets per day, according to research studies summarized on CoSchedule.
  • LinkedIn data, courtesy of Buffer, tells us you’ll reach 60% of your audience if you post there 20x/month.
  • If your brand uses Pinterest, Buffer suggests you should pin five to 30 times per day.
  • Brands can easily post to Instagram up to 15 times a day, where it is relevant to their niche to do so.

Looking at your calendar tells you where to fill in gaps and where to remove the extra messages on the days and times that are overcrowded.

If you want a guideline to follow that’s specific to your niche, take a look at your top competitors. Pay attention to any patterns you see. Look at the dates and times on the posts that have the most engagement, and test your own activity based on that.

Post Timing Matters

In addition to post frequency, the time of day your content goes live matters, too. Think about it. If you post at night when the majority of your audience is asleep, you are not likely to get a lot of response.  By the time your audience wakes up and browses through social media, your content will be buried in their feeds, by content that has been posted more recently.

You can use your social media analytics to see the times when your audience is most active. Base your posting time around that, so your audience is online to interact with the content as it goes live. The more engagement you get right away, the more likely your content will be shown to a larger percentage of your followers.

Post timing varies for each social network,  and for each niche or industry.

The majority of the studies analyzed data in the United States. 80% of the population lives within the Eastern and Central time zones, so those two time zones are likely the best bet for optimal reach – unless you know for sure your target audience is outside of those.

Run some tests of your own to find out what works best for your personal audience, starting with guidelines for your niche and adjusting from there. Here is another place where studying your main competitors can help.

Repeat Shares Are Okay

Social media posts, especially on Twitter, have a short life. It’s okay to share some of your old content again. Do you want to share the same thing on Facebook twice in the same day? Probably not. But something you shared early in the morning on Twitter could easily be shared again in the evening hours.

That said, you should still make the majority of your social media content new and original. Between your content and stuff you’ve curated from others to provide value to your audience, you’ll want to wait a bit before you start sharing older content again.

When you update an old post on your blog, definitely share it on social media again to let your audience know that you’ve breathed new life into the post.

Don’t Blanket Post

As tempting as it may be to share the exact same thing to all your social media networks at the exact same time, it’s safe to assume that if someone is following you on Facebook, they are also following you on Twitter. You don’t want to bore your audience with the same thing over and over.

Each social media network is different, and with it, come nuances that call for you to adjust the way you post slightly. On Facebook and Instagram, you have enough room to write a mini blog post that describes your content. But on Twitter, you have a character limit. Even though that character limit has been extended compared to what it was when Twitter launched, it’s still highly restrictive compared to what you can do on other platforms.

You’ll get far better results by adjusting your content slightly, to better fit the needs and aesthetics of each individual social platform you’re using to share the content.

Measure Your Results

To ensure you’re getting the best possible ROI on your social media efforts, it’s important to continue to measure your progress. Keep track of your follower growth, engagement rates, which hashtags get the best response, and so on. Add UTM tags to your links and track their progress in Google Analytics. Or, use a URL shortener so you can track link opens.

If you’re not getting the results you expect, experiment with one thing at a time so you can determine what factor influences your results. For instance, adjust your post timing without adjusting content type or frequency. Testing too much at once will make it hard to figure out which change produced the results.

If you’d like help with your social media marketing strategy, get in touch with us today.

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Social Media

How to Get Approved for Instagram Shopping and Product Tags

If you are in the e-commerce space and want to take full advantage of Instagram, you must apply for Instagram shopping and product tagging. However, if you don’t do things correctly, you could find your application has been denied.

If you have been denied for Instagram Shopping and product tagging in the past, follow these steps to reapply and get approved.

Were You Denied Instagram Shopping and Product Tagging?

Instagram product tagging is a feature available to Instagram business accounts. It allows you to tag products and post and link them to your website so users can make purchases directly from Instagram with just a few clicks.

A couple of years ago, Instagram rolled out the product tagging feature exclusively to the Shopify platform users and beta to test the idea and make sure the technology ran smoothly. Almost anyone who sells products on their website can apply for product tagging with Instagram. This allows users to browse products, save items they want to purchase later, and buy items all within the Instagram app.

Instagram has come a long way in terms of e-commerce, and for many businesses, denial for Instagram shopping and product tagging has been an issue they’ve been dealing with for months, and they don’t have a solution. The problem is that if you’re denied, there’s nowhere to see why you were denied and get help. All you get is a default message from Instagram telling you that your application has been denied and to view their policy or contact them for more information.

If your account has been denied product tagging, it’s important to read Instagram policies and ensure you comply with what they do and don’t allow for product tagging. This will be the first place to gain insight into why you were denied.

Instagram has a variety of helpful materials for most situations users. Still, when it comes to setting up Instagram shopping, tagging your products, and selling your items on the platform, answers aren’t always easy to find, meaning many people are frustrated.

If you’ve been struggling to resubmit your account for approval and still have issues, look at this step-by-step solution for getting your account approved for product tagging and shopping. You must have a website where you sell your products before you are approved for product tagging.

Before you follow these steps, you’ll temporarily switch your Instagram Business account to a personal profile. In doing this, you’ll lose content and insights from your promotions. You won’t be able to access the insights for current and future posts and stories, but you can switch back to a business account at any time. Because of this, you’ll need to decide whether getting Shopping approval is worth losing that data.

If you find all of this overwhelming, consider working with a team of digital marketing professionals specializing in social media development.

Step One: Disconnect Your Instagram Account from Your Facebook Page and Business Manager

Get a fresh start by disconnecting your Instagram account from your Facebook Page and Business Manager.

Disconnect your Facebook page from your Instagram account by going to the top right-hand menu on your profile. Navigate to Settings > Account > Linked Accounts > Facebook. Tap “unlink account” to disconnect your Facebook page.

You also need to disconnect your Instagram profile from the settings on your Facebook page. Open your Facebook page and a web browser. Click “Settings” at the top of the screen. Then select “Instagram” in the left menu.

Step Two: Revert to a Personal Account

In the Instagram app, you’ll need to switch your account to a personal profile. Just switch account types in the app, tap the settings icon on your business profile. Select account. And tap “Switch to Personal Account”. Starting from scratch resets everything is so you’ve never done this before and erase everything you’ve done previously.

You will also need to remove your Instagram account from Business Manager. Open Business Manager and navigate to Business Settings. On the left side of the screen navigate to Accounts >  Instagram accounts. Click your Instagram account name and then click “Remove” in the upper right corner of the screen.

Step Three: Set Facebook Page Template to Shopping

Many Facebook page owners set their Facebook page to be a general business page. But if you’re trying to get approved for Instagram product tagging, you need to use the shopping template on your page.

Navigate to the settings for your Facebook page. In the left menu, select “Templates and Tabs”. On the right side under Templates, select “Shopping”. If you have a different template in use, click the edit button under the templates section and switch to Shopping.

Step Four: Switch Back to a Business Account

After a few days, open your Instagram profile and switch it back to a business account. Don’t reconnect your Facebook page yet because you’ll do this in a later step.

When you switch your Instagram profile back to a business account, Facebook often automatically pulls it back into your business manager. If this happens you don’t need to worry. It won’t prevent your account for being approved for Instagram shopping as long as you don’t connect your Facebook account to your Instagram right now.

Step Five: Manually Build Your Product Catalog in Facebook Business Manager

At this point, you’ll open Business Manager and manually create your product catalog. There are several ways to connect catalogs to your business manager depending on the platform you use. In the first step when you disconnected everything, the same goes for any apps you have connecting your products on your website to your Facebook catalogs.

For instance, if you use Shopify to sell products, you’ll need to disconnect a delete your Facebook Shop app and Instagram shopping app so you have nothing connected to your products that would automatically update a catalog inside of your business manager.

The reason you need to do this is Instagram likes data and information displayed in a specific way when it comes to product tagging. Instagram doesn’t like titles of products to display in all caps and Instagram will deny you for product tagging if your items are listed this way.

Instagram also doesn’t like links to other products in the product description and requires your items to be listed and described as shown in the product image. If you have color variations are several sizes of your products that aren’t filled out correctly or left empty on your website, Instagram can penalize you and deny you for product tagging.

Anything from the way your products are listed, your naming conventions, problems with pricing, missing product variations, and more can get you denied for product tagging over and over again.

If you import your product catalog using an app that connects to your Facebook catalogs and business manager and you are not sure if there is use with your code or other things that need to be fixed, you can look in the catalog manager under Diagnostics. There you can find issues that may be preventing your catalog from displaying properly giving any potential reasons why Instagram denies you for product tagging.

That’s why it’s best to create a manual catalog of your products so you can be sure all the information in your catalog is correctly listed and filled in properly before applying for product tagging on Instagram and potentially getting another denial.

Step Six: Setup Commerce Manager in Facebook Business Manager

For your Facebook shop to start working and be approved for product tagging on Instagram, you must set up Commerce Manager. Sign in to your business manager and click on the Commerce Manager under the create and manage section.

From there, all you have to do is follow the prompts. Validate your business when you set this up. Facebook will request your EIN, bank information, business address, and other business details so that Facebook knows you are a shop with real products and you are a legitimate e-commerce business.

Step Seven: Connect Facebook Catalog to Facebook Shop

Once you’ve manually created your Facebook catalog, you’ll need to connect the catalog to your Facebook shop. You’ll do this by going back into your catalog in Business Manager.

When you select the catalog you want to use, you’ll be brought to the use cases area of that specific catalog. This is where you will connect your Facebook page to the new catalog. Follow the instructions under the Facebook page shop section.

It’ll take about 5 to 15 minutes for your catalog to starts playing on the Facebook shop tab on your business page. If you aren’t sure you completed this step correctly, you can check your work by clicking on the shop tab on your business page. You should be able to see all of the products displayed from your catalog there.

Step Eight: Add Shop Now Button to Your Facebook Business Page

A lot of people miss the step because there is nothing anywhere on the internet that tells you you need to have this button in place before applying for Instagram product tagging. All you have to do is add a button for shopping on your Facebook page under your header image. Take care of this step was your catalog is displaying on your Facebook page.

Open your Facebook page and click add a button or click your existing button. In the pop-up window, select shop with you and then shop now. This will add the button or change your existing button.

When prompted, Facebook will ask if you want to direct users to the shop on your website, or your shop from Facebook. It’s important to select the shop on your page option rather than your website.

Step Nine: Reconnect Your Facebook Page to Your Instagram Business Profile and Facebook Page

When she’s made it this far, it’s time to reconnect your Facebook page to your Instagram account. Before you do this, however, make sure you’ve updated to the most recent version of the Instagram app on your mobile device. If you’re not running the most current version, you run the risk of being denied for product tagging again.

You need to make sure your account is reconnected to your Facebook page into places on the Instagram app. First, check in the Settings > Account> Linked Accounts > Facebook. Then check in the edit profile section on your Instagram account profile screen.

Now, reconnect your Instagram account to your Facebook page via Facebook. Open your Facebook page in your web browser and click settings. Select Instagram and click “Connect Account.”

Reconnecting your Instagram account is the final step in reapplying for Instagram shopping. The weight can be anywhere from a few hours to a few days. In some cases, it may take up to two weeks for Instagram to review and approve your account for product tagging. If you haven’t heard back from Instagram after a couple of weeks, reach out to Facebook and see what the problem is.

It’s possible that after completing the above steps, some people will still see the not approve screen when they go to apply for shopping. If this is the case for you, contact Facebook directly for assistance because sometimes Instagram does not reset properly and will stay on the screen even after you’ve completed all the steps you need to get approved.

Facebook customer support is great. It’s best to contact them through their messenger chat service because they are quick to respond and have approved on the same day, many shop accounts that have run into this issue.

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Social Media

New and Upcoming Twitter Features You Need to Know About

There are several new and upcoming Twitter features you need to know about. Twitter continuously innovates, introducing features to enhance user experience and engagement. Recent and upcoming features include improved algorithms for more relevant content, enhanced tweet analytics for better engagement insights, new ad formats for increased visibility, and advanced tools for combating misinformation. Features like voice tweets and increased character limits for select users are also being tested, aiming to diversify user interactions on the platform.

Data shows Twitter has 330 million monthly active users and 134 million daily active users. An estimated 63% of Twitter users worldwide fall between the ages of 35 and 65 years old making it appealing for brands with a more mature demographic compared to Instagram or SnapChat. In the US, the average adult Twitter user appears to fall closer to the lower end of that age range with a median age of 40.

For brands that have a target audience on Twitter, it makes sense to stay up-to-date with new and potentially upcoming features on the platform. It has been around since 2006, making it one of the oldest social media platforms online today. To keep up with the competition, they must continue to innovate and improve the platform. Much of what you see on this list aims to do just that.

Conversation Insights Tool

Twitter added a new tool to the Publisher Insight portion of Media Studio. With it, publishers can see tweets they may have missed using the social network’s content listening tools, which go beyond Hashtags and mentions.

Tweets that are found are displayed on a customizable dashboard that allows publishers to see what people are saying about them minute-by-minute, over time.

The conversation insights tool includes a number of features such as:

  • An interactive graph that displays the number of tweets there are about the publisher
  • The top accounts that are talking about the publisher or engaging with its content, filtered by frequency or follower count
  • A timeline of tweets about the publisher that can be filtered by follower engagement thresholds as well as tweet format, language, and verification status.

In the future, publishers will be able to engage with tweets, share tweets or reply directly using the tool.

Follow Specific Topics

After several months of testing, Twitter is launching the new topics option which allows users to follow specific topics and have the two appear within their Twitter stream along with the specific accounts they follow.

On your home timeline and in search results, users will see prompts to follow topics. Tap the follow button in the prompt and your Twitter experience will be personalized based on your interest in the topic. The platform may also match you with other topics that they think you would be interested in and based on your activity and profile such as the tweets you view or like.

This feature is intended to improve tweet discovery and boost engagement. By highlighting more relevant content instead of putting it on users to find the key accounts to follow, Twitter is trying to make it easier for users to stay in touch with conversations of interest while cutting out some of the junk that flows through their Twitter stream.

Remove Me From This Conversation

According to Twitter’s VP of Design and Research, Dantley Davis, there are five main features that he’s looking forward to in 2020. Of course, this doesn’t mean they are definitively on the way, but considering the source, there’s a good chance that we can expect to see the remove me from this conversation along with several other features to be rolled out within the next 6 months.

This option would allow you to remove yourself from a tweet exchange the same way you can currently remove yourself from Twitter’s direct messages. At this time there’s no way to remove yourself from a conversation if you’re directly mentioned or tagged in an image so you can mute the conversation which does have a similar effect. This approach, however, would provide a clear separation to help you remove yourself from spammers.

Tweet This Only To These Friends, Hashtag or Interest

This feature has been discussed before Twitter’s Head of Product discussed it in an interview with The Verge and followed it up with a tweet poll posted by Twitter product designer Brittany Forks. This option would allow you to choose specific audiences for your tweets which may provide a new range of considerations for tweet communication. This approach would allow for morning close chats and discussions that don’t take over the feeds of other less interested followers.

These additions would give Twitter users more control over their conversations while potentially opening up new use cases for the platform. Of course, there’s nothing definitive here because they have not been confirmed but they do offer interesting food for thought on additional features.

Remove This @Mention from This Conversation

With this approach, the other people mentioned in your tweets can remove themselves from the conversation. Though it seems similar to the remove me from this conversation option, the fact that this is also an option leads us to believe that you would not be able to remove @mentions from other users’ tweets.

Don’t Allow People to @Mention Me Without My Permission

This is a safety measure that would allow you to stop people from adding you to a tweet thread unless you approve it. This may be helpful for those dealing with abuse or bullying or to get rid of trolls who are only mentioning your profile to get under your skin. This option allows you to avoid blocking them outright but gives you more control over your on-platform presence.

Don’t Allow RT of This Tweet

At first, there doesn’t seem like there would be a lot of situations where you wouldn’t want your tweet to be amplified. However, if you’re replying to someone directly and you don’t want it taken out of context, it could be useful to turn off retweets. Or if a tweet of yours is blowing up for the wrong reasons, you may be able to turn retweets off after the fact. Getting rid of the option to retweet could also prompt more direct engagement. If you are unable to quote tweet or retweet someone, you may be more inclined to reply to them about it instead.

Testing Emoji-Like Reactions for DMs

Twitter is testing the use of emoji-like reactions for direct messages. It is highly similar to what Facebook added to Messenger in 2017. That feature allows users to designate an emoji response to each specific message.

Testing a Switch Accounts Option

In early November, it was noted Twitter is testing out a new option that would enable users to switch accounts within the tweet reply process. Doing so makes it easier to manage multiple account interactions on the go which is a wonderful option for social media managers who handled multiple accounts.

this feature could help those who manage multiple accounts keep tabs on relevant mentions and activities but also act on the same at any time. This is functionality similar to what’s already available in TweetDeck where you can switch over to an alternate account and any time when responding to a tweet. At this time, there is no word on a full roll-out of account switching within tweet replies.

Categories
Social Media

Top Social Media Trends to Watch in the 2020s

Social media has been evolving quite drastically over the past decade. In the early days, it was all about MySpace. Facebook, launched in 2004, was limited only to college students and Google+ came and went (RIP, Google+) as Google attempted to take their slice of the pie.

What began as a way to stay in touch with friends and family has evolved into a branch of marketing. As social media continues to mature, and we move into the next decade, here are a few trends I expect to see in the coming years.

More Privacy and Better Security

Privacy has always been a concern for many social media users as has security. With major data breaches happening on a regular basis, users are becoming more cautious about the information they are making available via social media. Though not limited to just social media, data shows that as of the first half of 2018 there were 609 global data breaches pertaining to identity theft. In 2018, there were 1,244 data breaches in the United States alone.

When we sign up for Facebook, we are required to provide basic information about us and as we continue to use the platform, we are prompted to fill out other information as well. The data has been collected by the social media giants and used for advertising dollars among other things.

In response to Facebook’s data breach, additional privacy and security measures are being taken to protect user-information, however, we can’t be sure any of these solutions will be foolproof. As technology continues to grow, we can expect privacy and security to continue to improve. Still, it’s advised not to put anything on social media that you want to keep completely private.

New Social Media Platforms

I’ve already written about TikTok and how it has grown massively. Within the past two years, the platform has become a great hit among teens and now businesses are capitalizing on it. But beyond Tik-Tok, there are a number of new social media platforms popping up. Many of these promise not to sell your data and will not be ad-based because they want to be different from Facebook and Twitter.

The lack of advertising dollars puts a struggle on the ability of the new social media platforms to stay afloat,  so it will be interesting to see what happens to them. Recently, the founder of Wikipedia launched WikiTribune – where people are currently on waiting lists for access unless they contribute a monetary donation of $12.99/month or $100/year.

Beyond WikiTribune, other social media platforms that are gaining traction include:

Social Media TV

We consume more online content than ever before, with the Internet going to great lengths to replace TV. With streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and the latest Disney+, along with YouTube, there’s no reason to believe that social media video content doesn’t have the potential to completely replace TV.

YouTube data shows that among 18-34-year-olds, YouTube on mobile alone reaches a wider US audience than any television network. Data shows Netflix has over 158 million subscribers as of Q3 2019, and Disney+ had 10 million subscribers within one day after launch.

Millennials are consuming so much online mobile content that Samsung believes they want vertical TVs – and they may be right!

Engagement Becomes More Important

Engagement is already vital to your success on social media. Without it, you’ll have a hard time convincing the social media algorithms that your content is interesting and people enjoy it. In the past, it was a simple as getting a bunch of likes and followers to make your content appear authoritative and popular on social media.

The algorithms have since shifted away from this strategy since it is clear that these can be fabricated by purchasing likes and followers that are from fake accounts. Because of this, it’s becoming more and more crucial to focus efforts on comments, shares, and live features across Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Take advantage of video features available to you, because the video will rank better in feeds than text or images, even text and images that have a lot of likes but no comments.

To foster more engagement, ask a question in the post and do your best to reply to all the comments. If you can’t reply to them all, at least make sure you’re replying to as many as you can so that your audience knows you’re paying attention and the social media algorithms see that interactivity and engagement.

As time goes on, we can expect to see the way we engage with our social media audiences shift, but no matter what, the actual engagement will always be an indicator of quality and interest.

Social Media Becomes the Primary Source of News Information

As the internet works to replace TV and newspapers, more people turn to consume information, especially news, on the internet. Many users find the breaking news stories on their feed and use that to navigate to the main news site for more information.

With social media, the news spreads fast, with Facebook and Twitter becoming the main sources of news. Forbes conducted a survey that revealed half of the internet users surveyed say they hear about the latest news on social media before they ever hear about it on a news station. The survey also found a 57% increase in traffic to news sites from social media websites.

“Social on Social” Communities

We already see a lot of social on social activity, because of groups within Facebook and Twitter parties on Twitter. As social continues to evolve, it will become even easier to build a small social community around a niche or topic. As more of these communities form, it will be easier to find and filter information on various topics and niches.

At this point, your social media platform won’t just be a platform, but a platform that supports a platform. It presents the chance for these mini social communities to represent their social media presence as their own platform.

What are your thoughts on these trends? Do you have any other ideas about how we can expect to see social media evolve over the next decade? Share them with me in the comment section.

Categories
Social Media

An (Almost) Exhaustive List of Social Media Abbreviations and Acronyms

Understanding social media abbreviations and acronyms is essential for effective communication in an out of your social media marketing department. 

If you’ve been observing social media conversations, you have undoubtedly seen these acronyms and lingo. We’ve all had that awkward moment when we’re staring at something that we don’t understand.

Many of the social media acronyms get thrown around casually in captions, comments, and conversations between people. Social media acronyms and abbreviations are essentially the airport codes of the internet. You must know them to start and you generally have to pick them up on the fly.

When you’re in charge of creating social media marketing content or responding to your customers, you must know the most common social media acronyms. This helps you understand what your audience is saying and allows you to better speak their language.

There are of course some acronyms that may find their way into business meetings, marketing, or sales report this makes it even more important to know what they stand for so that you can become better at your job.

That’s why we have compiled this extensive list of social media acronyms and abbreviations to help you stay current with the latest lingo.

Network Specific Abbreviations

Let’s begin with the common acronyms that are related to specific social media networks and go from there. Though these network specific acronyms are intuitive, it’s important that you know them well.

FB: Facebook

IG: Instagram

TW: Twitter

YT: YouTube

LI: LinkedIn

While participating on social media across any of these networks, you may also come in contact with acronyms that refer to features on them. These are especially important if you are on Twitter where abbreviations are commonplace due to character limits. Knowing them helps you improve Communications with followers and your team members.

DM: Direct Message

This refers to a message that is sent between two users. These are mostly used on Instagram and Twitter. Users and companies generally ask followers to DM for more information.

PM: Private Message

This term is a more generic phrase for one-on-one communications that are not visible to the public. This could also be used to describe DMs.

RT: Re-Tweet

When you share someone else’s tweet to your own feed, you are retweeting them. Companies, celebrities, and influencers alike often after followers to “RT” a post to increase its visibility.

MT: Modified Tweet

This is similar to a RT, except you’ve made some changes to it for brevity, or added your own thoughts to it. It’s also known as a Twitter Quote.

Social Media Abbreviations and Acronyms

AFIK: As Far as I Know

AMA: Ask Me Anything

These refer to social question and answer sessions. Brands and influencers often host AMAs on Reddit, Twitter, or in a live stream.

BRB: Be Right Back

This is a relic, but it is seen on social media when the time is right.

BTS: Behind the Scenes

If you want to show your followers what a day in the office is like, use this to give them a behind-the-scenes look.

BTAIM: Be That As It May

BTW: By The Way

This is a quick and easy way to add more information, throw shade, or go on a tangent.

DAE: Does Anyone Else

DYK: Did You Know

Offer a fun fact to your audience but save valuable character space with this one.

ELI5: Explain It To Me Like I’m Five

Most commonly used on Reddit, this is a way to say that you want someone to take a complex topic and simplify it so it is easier to understand.

FBF: Flashback Friday

This is one of the many ways to throw back to throw back to the past. There’s also TBT for Throwback Thursday, and WBW for Way Back Wednesday, if you want to share something and it’s not Friday yet.

FBO: Facebook Official

When a person or people decide to become public enough about their relationship to put it on their Facebook profile.

FF: Follow Friday

A tradition in which people send tweets recommending other Twitter users they think are interesting to follow.

FOMO: Fear of Missing Out

This is a social-bred phobia that demonstrates the anxiety of missing out on something while you’re away from social media or the internet. There’s also its opposite, JOMO, which stands for the joy of missing out – the happiness you feel when you’re not so hyperconnected.

FTW: For The Win

The sometimes sincere, sometimes sarcastic declaration at the end of a post to signify something positive.

FYI: For Your Information

This abbreviation is usually delivered with sass.

HT: Hat Tip

This is a virtual nod for credit to the original source, or the place you got the material from. It may also be written as H/T.

HTH: Here to Help/Happy to Help

This is used to show that you are available to help someone with something, or that you were glad to be able to be of assistance.

ICYMI: In Case You Missed It

This is used to re-share content that followers may have missed before.

IMO or IMHO: In My Opinion or In My Humble Opinion

This is used as a disclaimer for sharing a hot take on something. Some people think the H stands for honest, though we’re not really sure why anyone would share a dishonest opinion.

IRL: In Real Life

Some people will say that the internet is real life, and prefer to use “away from keyboard” (AFK) as the better way to refer to things that happen offline. But IRL is used to indicate that something is happening in the reality that exists outside of the internet – such as when two friends who’ve only known each other online meet in person.

LMK: Let Me Know

When someone uses this, they want feedback, or need to know the details about something that has yet to be determined.

NBD: No Big Deal

Typically used as a humble brag for something that is really a big deal.

NSFW: Not Safe for Work

This one is literally not safe for work. You’ll want to really think about using it on a corporate account.

WFH: Working from Home

Most often used in online chats with friends and coworkers, but has some use in social media, too.

SMH: Shaking My Head

For those moments you’re shaking your head behind your computer screen.

TBH: To Be Honest

Used to soften the blow of a negative opinion or a humble brag.

TBT: Throwback Thursday

Like FBF for Flashback Friday, but on a Thursday

TFW: That Feeling When

Generally used ahead of something that you relate to – usually with a meme.

TGIF: Thank God It’s Friday

Not the 90s ABC television lineup – just an expression of happiness that the weekend is almost here.

TIL: Today I Learned

Used when someone learned something new.

TL;DR: Too Long; Didn’t Read

Used to share content that’s too long for most people to want to read, usually accompanied by a short summary of the important part.

WBW: Way Back Wednesday

Like Flashback Friday and Throwback Thursday, but on a Wednesday.

Business Specific Social Media Abbreviations and Acronyms

These are acronyms that are frequently used in a business setting. While you’ll generally use these acronyms in your marketing meetings and communications, they are also useful for social media communications in certain niches.

B2B: Business to Business

This refers to companies that cater to the needs of other businesses.

B2C: Business to Consumer

This refers to companies that sell products or services directly to consumers.

CMGR: Community Manager

Community managers are responsible for managing and nurturing a brand’s relationship with a community. This should not be confused with a social media manager. Social media managers are responsible for managing a Brand’s social media presence across multiple platforms.

CTA: Call to Action

A written, verbal, or visual prompt to do something. “Sign up”, “Call us today”, “Subscribe”

KPI: Key Performance Indicator

A measurement to determine how effective something was at reaching the intended benchmark or goal.

ROI: Return on Investment

The amount of profit made as a result of a purchase or expense. This is one of the most common ways a business tracks the success of its campaigns.

SEM: Search Engine Marketing

A method of advertising on the internet that refers to purchasing ads on search engines to drive traffic to your website

SEO: Search Engine Optimization

A tactic to try and improve where your site appears on the search engines for relevant keywords to drive organic traffic (traffic that you didn’t pay for) to your website.

SERP: Search Engine Results Page

The paid and organic results a search engine delivers on the page for any given keyword.

SMB: Small and Midsize Businesses

Small businesses – those with less than 50 employees. Mid-size businesses – those with less than 250. You may also see them referred to as small and midsize enterprises, or SMEs.

SMP: Social Media Platform

Used to refer to the site of a particular social media network

SMM: Social Media Marketing

The practice of using a SMP to build brand awareness and consideration through building relationships and lead generation.

SMO: Social Media Optimization

Much like SMM, this involves using the appropriate SMP for your marketing efforts and making adjustments to attract the right kind of followers and leads

SoLoMo: Social, Local, Mobile

The convergence of mobile with locally targeted social media marketing that becoming more popular because of geolocation technology.

SRP: Social Relationship Platform

A centralized platform that allows companies to post on multiple social media websites, monitor, moderate, and analyze their activity. Examples include Buffer and Hootsuite.

TOS: Terms of Service

The legal rules you agree to follow when you use a SMP.

UGC: User-Generated Content

Any content – posts, videos, images, etc. that is shared by users of a SMP or other website.

WOM: Word of Mouth

The viral buzz of brand conversation through a company’s active encouragement.

Technical Abbreviations and Acronyms You May See on Social Media

API: Application Programming Interface

A set of tools and protocols that allows software developers to connect the backend of one system to another. For instance, Google Maps makes APIs available to allow other companies to integrate map technology.

CMS: Content Management System

Platforms like WordPress that allow for content creation and management.

CPC: Cost Per Click

Also known as pay per click (PPC), this refers to the price advertisers pay for each click they earn on a campaign.

CPM: Cost Per Thousand Impressions / Cost Per Mile

This refers to either the cost of 1,000 impressions on an ad, or the cost per mile driven.

CR: Conversion Rate

The percentage of people who have taken action. This is a key metric when calculating ROI.

CRM: Customer Relationship Management

The act of (or platform by which) creating and managing customer relationships from lead through conversion.

CRO: Conversion Rate Optimization

Measures taken to improve conversions.

CTR: Click-Through Rate

The percentage of people who click on a link after being given the option to do so.

CX: Customer Experience

The relationship a customer has with a company through all touchpoints.

UX: User Experience

In digital design, this refers to how effectively people interact with systems. Good UX aims to understand values, needs, barriers, and abilities.

ESP: Email Service Provider

A third-party company that offers email services such as newsletters and marketing campaign services.

GA: Google Analytics

Analytics platform for websites that allows you to track website visitors, bounce rates, referral sources and more.

PV: Page Views

The total of how many visitors have landed on any given page. The total number of page views along with unique page views is tracked.

RSS: Really Simple Syndication / Rich Site Summary

A format for syndicating web content that makes it easier to share content with a wider audience.

SaaS: Software as a Service

Cloud-based applications that are available to users anywhere there is an internet connection.

SOV: Share of Voice

The amount of exposure a company owns in comparison to its competition.

UI: User Interface

The visual part of the system that has been designed for the end user.

URL: Uniform Resource Locator

The global web address of a website or webpage.

UV: Unique Views

The number of individual views of a page, image, or video. If a single user views something 10 times, it results in one unique view, but 10 page views.

Categories
Social Media

Global Launch of LinkedIn Events

In October, LinkedIn announced the global launch of LinkedIn Events. This feature allows members to create, share, and discover professional events. This program hopes to foster offline community building and help members nurture deeper professional relationships. LinkedIn data shows the chances of people accepting connection requests on LinkedIn increases two-fold if they have attended a face-to-face meeting.

What is LinkedIn Events?

With LinkedIn Events, all members can create and join professional events. They will be able to have conversations with other attendees on the platform and stay in touch online after the event ends. LinkedIn Events also allow members to create private events to enable members to have safe conversations in a trusted closed-door environment. Invite filters allow members to tap into their professional network and find members based on their industry, school, company, and location to help curate their guest list.

Ajay Datta, Head of Product, India at LinkedIn had this to say:

“At LinkedIn, our core focus is to help our members connect and build lasting professional relationships. Face-to-face interactions are key to realizing this vision and bringing online communities to life. With this launch, our members now have a safe and trusted avenue to engage with their network online and offline. We see them using this product to host networking meet-ups, workshops, alumni meet, product launches, and other face-to-face gatherings.”

LinkedIn Events is the first product to be built out of the Bengaluru Research and Development Center for a global audience. The Bengaluru R&D Center also conceptualized and built the LinkedIn Lite Android app. Since 2017, it has scaled to more than 70 emerging markets across the globe and supports more than 21 languages. As of October, the app had seen more than 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store.

Datta added this to his statement:

“After the launch of LinkedIn Lite, I am excited to roll out our first ‘made in India, for the world’ product out of LinkedIn’s Bengaluru R&D Center. With Events, we are now taking on a larger mandate of building products to foster offline communities and help our members connect offline. This launch showcases LinkedIn’s commitment to the Bengaluru R&D Center and in the team’s talent in building world-class products.”

In addition to LinkedIn events, the team is developing and testing other methods to connect members such as business cards, proximity-based Bluetooth beacons, and QR codes.

How to Create a LinkedIn Event

  1. Visit the “Community” panel found on the left side of the newsfeed and click “+Create.”
  2. Enter a description, date and time, and venue information for the event.
  3. Invite your connections using a number of filters including location, company, industry, and school.

Though optional, sharing the event as opposed is highly recommended. This allows you to leverage the power of the feed to reach relevant attendees.

You can easily track attendees and invitees from the event page. The event page also allows you to post updates and interact with other attendees. The LinkedIn algorithm automatically provides timely and relevant notifications to attendees to ensure they don’t miss any important updates about your event. Members who have joined the event can also invite people from their own networks to attend.

Finding Relevant Professional Events to Attend

As a member, you can also search LinkedIn to find professional events. You will see invites in you’re my network tab. You can do the event and choose to attend from there. Look through your LinkedIn feed to discover events that people in your network have shared. Once you have chosen to attend an event, you will be able to see the details of who else is going so you can connect with other attendees. You’ll be able to share updates along with photos and videos on a dedicated event page and in your main feed. You will be able to continue to interact with other attendees and organizers both during and after the event.

LinkedIn began running a pilot program of LinkedIn Events in key metropolitan cities around the world last November. Two members share their experiences in the blog post announcing the global rollout.

Michael Quinn, Ernest & Young Senior manager said:

“What I really like about LinkedIn Events is the fact that I can plan an event with my network and not be required to go to another platform to organize the event. I’ve organized events all across the country, and LinkedIn Events made it incredibly easy for me to market those events and invite my local connections to that specific location. Since I was sharing the event through a post, it also enabled my network to share the event with people they felt would be interested in attending.”

Anna McAfee, a community creator, and educator said:

“What I really like about LinkedIn Events is the fact that I can plan an event with my network and not be required to go to another platform to organize the event. I’ve organized events all across the country, and LinkedIn Events made it incredibly easy for me to market those events and invite my local connections to that specific location. Since I was sharing the event through a post, it also enabled my network to share the event with people they felt would be interested in attending.”

Now that you can use LinkedIn Events much the same way you can use Facebook Events, will you be interested in finding events to attend in your local area? Will you be using it as another platform to share the events you are hosting?

I’d love to hear thoughts. Talk to me in the comments below.

Categories
Social Media

Creating Personalized Content for Social Media Marketing

Advertising to the prospect or consumer on social media is a growing craft—and an increasing area of competition. Consumers prefer content tailored to them, making them 40% more likely to make a positive buying decision after seeing that content. With so much riding on catching the audience’s attention on social media, creating personalized content for social media marketing has become a major area of focus for many marketers, particularly in the ecommerce sphere.

What is Personalized Content for Social Media Marketing?

Personalized content is a means for building interest, engagement, and trust in a brand via personalization on social media channels. That is, to the prospect or customer, personalized content is not only targeted, but feels bespoke and valuable. It creates familiarity, reflects the desires of the viewer, doesn’t at all annoy the consumer, and establishes a personalized ad delivery experience.

Above all, personalized marketing is centered around real, relevant data collected via survey, buyer persona creation, or real-time analysis.

Why Invest in Personalized Content?

The statistics have it: customers want brands who know them by name and deliver specific recommendations based on past purchases and cart items. A majority (63%) of customers don’t like generic ad content. To get the consumer’s attention, providing personalized experiences, particularly in a way relevant or not disruptive to their social media experience, has become key to sales conversion.

They’ll Trust the Brand—Even if They Don’t Trust the Platform

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and other revelations about who controls, posts, and sways public opinion using persuasive content and data on platforms like Facebook, a post-2016 election American audience remains dubious and skeptical about content posted to their social media platforms. It’s understandable that they wouldn’t trust the platform—which means your brand trust needs to supersede their trust of social media platforms.

After all, they won’t trust the platform, but they still understand that it’s a primary advertising space for brands like yours.

Organic Search is in Decline

Organic traffic—that is, the search results-oriented website hits that come directly from Google and other search engines—is the holy grail of content marketing, proving content to be worth the investment for many brands. However, your organic searches may decline due to multiple factors, including minor adjustments in Google’s algorithm.

Your organic search strategy may be top notch, but inbound traffic should never be about organic search alone. Investing in personalized social engagement is like a back up plan for your business. Think of it as operating with insurance for your content and product pages.

User Control and Agency

In a world where many internet users feel a lack of control or certainty over their lives, they want agency over their experiences. From “dark mode” to social media polling and selection choices, every opportunity for the audience to personalize their experience on social media is potentially a win for your brand.

Using social media, how can you provide users with a sense of control over their experience?

Examples of Personalized Content

Some of the internet’s most popular services rely heavily on serving personalized content. They include:

  • Netflix: This streaming service serves up recommendations for you based on what you like. They hope you’ll retain your subscription and continue to use the service as a result.
  • Etsy: This boutique forum for independent craftspeople, artisans, and antique dealers does a fine job of suggesting further items for purchase or perusal based on what you’ve viewed. Considering the unique nature of each item, their categorization and word-matching process is top notch.
  • Amazon: The internet’s retail giant got that way for a number of reasons, including personalized content recommendations. Add plugins like Honey or Wikibuy to ensure you get the best bet, and the price-matching is basically built in.
  • Spotify: Like music and want to discover more? Spotify offers a gentle push in the direction of music discovery with their platform. You can listen to an artist radio, for example, “The Beatles Radio,” which will play the artist in addition to similar sounding music.

What makes all of this social, though, are the websites’ abilities to share. With a click of the button, browsers can share to friends, family, and followers via email or social media.

This can result in further ad retargeting—that is, when someone shares a piece of content without buying it, they’re later served an ad for the same product (or similar ones) from the retailer and competitors. That’s pretty powerful advertising—not to mention extremely personalized.

How to Create Personalized Content for Social Media Marketing

Creating personalized content for social media marketing should involve as much data as you have about your existing consumer. If you’re not sure where to begin, try this short exercise to personalize a social media message for your audience:

  • Gather your data: Gather all the available data on your consumers. This includes anything from real-time data to existing information about your customers. Examine how you can leverage this data to personalize content.
  • Define your buyer persona: Who is your average customer? Create and consider your buyer persona when creating personalized content for social media marketing.
  • Choose the ideal platforms: Personalizing the experience is all about making sure you’re finding your customers where they live—that is, on their preferred social media platforms. Before you can target ads, you need to find out where they go. Aside from analyzing existing data, you can use buyer persona and demographics information to determine where your ideal customer spends their time.
  • Determine audience segments: Further segment your targeted audience with ads and organic social media content based on recent searches and interests. This is especially important for ecommerce marketers.
  • Move the user to email marketing: A sale isn’t the only conversion that matters: think about that email marketing list. You can create an extremely customized experience when you make a user feel like they have one on social. Asking for their name and preferences at email list sign up allows you to personalize and distribute extremely relevant messages to the consumer on an ongoing basis—an experience that can loop back to social media content, engagement, and ads.
  • Use Facebook and Instagram Stories: Forget text-heavy advertising. Users gravitate towards ephemeral content, like that which appears on Facebook and Instagram stories. The platforms also seem to be pushing “stories” content, meaning your personalized efforts are more likely to become part of the user’s daily experience on these platforms, even if the individual messages themselves are rather fleeting. Effective stories tend to be low in text, and high in graphic and video-rich content.

Get Personal with Messaging Apps

Chatbots and messaging apps have also increased in popularity due to their level of personalization, engagement, and conversion. Automated messaging apps, or even regular Facebook page messages set to answer with a pleasant greeting, allow your brand to answer your customer 24/7, even if it’s just acting like a modern day answering machine service.

Messaging apps can set personalized expectations by addressing customer concerns and providing a time frame for response.

Since 79% of companies surpassing their revenue goals had personalized content plans in play, if you’re not already personalizing your social media content, it’s time to consider it. Ultimately, you may not need a bunch of fancy tools and metrics to begin personalizing a social media experience today—a solid, personalized reply can make all the difference to a concerned or grateful users on social media. If you’re not sure where to start, begin with that kind of engagement and grow.

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Social Media

Up and Coming Social Platforms to Keep an Eye On

There are several up and coming social platforms worth monitoring including TikTok for its rapidly growing user base and creative content, Clubhouse for its unique audio-based networking, and Caffeine for live broadcasting. Platforms like Discord and Twitch, though originally gaming-focused, are expanding into wider community and content sharing spaces, offering new opportunities for engagement and marketing.

Smart marketers have been relying on the major social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to promote their products and services, share content, and ultimately grow their businesses. However, rival platforms are being developed all the time and while many of them don’t achieve the same levels of success, (remember Ello? It’s still around but has pivoted), a handful of them could give the major players a run for their money. If you are an early adopter of these up and coming social platforms, your company could get the most benefit.

If you want to remain ahead of the curve, these are six social media platforms to watch.

TikTok

I recently wrote a piece about why you need to pay attention to this one – it’s already proving beneficial for many companies who have taken the chance on using it. TikTok is a huge social media platform with a younger demographic. Research shows TikTok was the fourth most downloaded app in 2018. It’s all about creating short form videos that loop similar to the now dead platform Vine. Users can create and share video content but the competitive edge comes in because it is incredibly simple to add music overlays, AR filters, and other fun effects.

Though the platform has gotten a bit of a bad reputation as being nothing more than a silly lip-syncing platform for children, if your target audience is anywhere between the ages of 16 and 24, it’s a wonderful place to promote your business. It is particularly effective for e-commerce and fashion brands who are looking to work with influencers.

Related: How to Use Tiktok for Your Business

Vero

If you’re struggling to gain ground on Instagram, Vero is an alternative that prides itself on the lack of algorithms, data mining, and ads. Vero users can share content such as TV shows, music, photos, links, books, movies and more. Users can decide who can see each post by choosing between four categories including close friends,  friends, acquaintances, or followers.

Despite the fact that there are no ads on Vero, your brand can still work with influencers on the platform and pay to add a “Buy Now” button to posts.

Because it doesn’t use algorithms or ads, Vero is promoted as a more authentic social media platform. It’s a great option for companies that want to build more meaningful and stronger relationships with their audience. Plus, because users are able to share such a wide variety of content, it helps you learn more about your target audience.

Steemit

Steemit is a blockchain-based blogging and social media website that rewards users with the STEEM, cryptocurrency for curating and creating content. When users create content that gets upvoted, they’re paid. When users vote for the content of others, they get paid too. Users can then take their digital STEEM tokens and exchange them for real money.

Though it may seem like this Reddit alternative is all about technology and cryptocurrency topics, it’s not. Users are able to create content on a variety of subjects such as sports, photography, music, and travel.

Though the user base is relatively small right now, marketers can use the platform as an additional channel to share their content and grow their audience while getting paid for it at the same time.

Narrative

Narrative is a direct competitor of Steemit. It too is a blockchain-based blogging platform and social media website that rewards users with NRVE (nerve), cryptocurrency for creating and curating content. Users can suggest niches and bid on them. Niche owners get a certain amount of currency every time someone publishes content to their channel. You also earn cryptocurrency for your social activities such as upvoting content and commenting on it.

Like Steemit, though the platform is relatively small and still in its beta phase, you can use it to expand your reach and earn money in the process. You can publish content that has been previously published on other platforms, as long as you link to the original post to indicate that it was also published elsewhere. In a recent policy change, canonical linked posts don’t qualify for Content Creator rewards – in an effort to reward original content while helping to increase exposure of previously published work.

Caffeine

Caffeine is a social broadcasting platform similar to Twitch. A team of ex-Apple designers created the platform. However, while Twitch focuses mainly on gaming, Caffeine also focuses on the creative arts and entertainment. Users create live broadcasts for friends and followers and viewers are able to interact with people in real-time with emoji reactions and comments.

Research shows 80% of customers would rather watch live videos from a brand than read a blog (thanks for reading this one!), so live broadcasting on a platform like this one could create a lot of attention interaction for you. And, it’s not just limited to gamers. You could host a live Q&A, give a behind-the-scenes tour of your company, livestream product demonstrations and more.

Lasso

Lasso is essentially Facebook’s version of Tik Tok. There wasn’t a lot of fuss about it and it was released in late 2018. Users can create and share short videos with effects and fun filters. They can log in with their Facebook or Instagram accounts to cross-post the videos to their Facebook Stories. The ability to add Lasso videos to Instagram stories is said to be coming soon.

Though Lasso isn’t as popular as TikTok right now, it could become a rival to the top competitors soon. If your target audience is already using TikTok, Lasso is definitely a platform you’ll want to watch.

Though jumping right into all of these platforms at once probably isn’t a good idea, especially if you’re crunched for time or have a limited budget, it is worth taking some time to look at each one of these platforms a little closer. This allows you to determine which ones are best for your business and get in on them while it’s still early. Doing so can give you an edge against the competition.

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Social Media

Why You Need to Pay Attention to TikTok

When it comes to social media, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are probably the biggest platforms you consider. However new social media applications aren’t far behind. Younger internet users tend to shy away from traditional social media channels and look for the next big thing. TikTok is a potentially explosive social media platform that allows for short video clips to be shared and watched by people with similar interests.

Agencies are already beta testing ad tools built around leveraging the user base from this app. To offer additional insight into what makes TikTok popular, here’s what you should be most excited about.

First a Quick TikTok Primer

TikTok is a Chinese-owned video sharing social network available as an IOS and Android social media app. It is designed to create and share sort lip-sync, talent, and comedy videos. It was launched in 2017 for markets outside of China.

Videos can be anywhere from 3 to 15 seconds long and looping videos can be made anywhere from 3 to 60 seconds long.  it started getting popular with the United States in October 2018. The most recent data indicates that it has been downloaded at least 80 million times in the United States and 800 million times worldwide. Celebrities Tony Hawk and Jimmy Fallon are jumping on the bandwagon.

In September 2019, the NFL and TikTok announced a multi-year partnership including the launch of an NFL account that will bring NFL content to fans across the globe.

TikTok is more popular on Android than iOS devices. Though the user base is largely based in India accounting for 43% of all users, 66% of the network’s users are younger than 30 years old. Users typically spend around 52 minutes per day on the app and in-app purchases have increased 275% year-over-year. 26.5  million monthly active users on Tik Tok are based in the United States.

Built-In Creative Tools

TikTok is incredibly powerful for content marketing and storytelling. There are a number of creativity tools built into the platform to choose from. It can be challenging to advertise on TikTok because it requires highly detailed keywords and serious consideration of where and when you don’t want your ad to appear.

Massive Organic Reach

TikTok offers a similar feed to what we’re familiar with in Instagram Stories. The intimacy of the platform is highly appealing for many Brands. And as the platform continues to grow rapidly, the organic reach is huge for now. There is a lot of potential to go viral like on Instagram back in the early days. It will be interesting to see how this social media platform ages overtime and the users who will adopt it as a marketing channel.

Bringing the Fun Back to Social Media

We all remember the early days of each of the most popular social media platforms. Back before they became so mainstream, people found joy in sharing content and creating connections with their friends and family. Tik Tok is user-friendly and fun. It goes back to what we used to love about social media. Instagram has grown into a well-established platform, but TikTok’s young demographic doesn’t care about getting the perfect shot. Tik-Tok aims to make social media fun again and it is a place where you can really enjoy each other’s company online.

Real-Time Content

Constantly investing in new platforms is a good idea because consumer preferences are always changing. TikTok is built on trends and if a certain song is popular there, it’s possible to focus brands around that content to get the brands into the minds of younger audiences. Agencies can capitalize on real-time content in a way that shows brands actually understand their customers.

Forming Real Connections with Your Audience

Think of TikTok the same way you did with Snapchat when it first became popular a few years ago. It’s a newer platform that engages different audiences but provides brands with the chance to get creative and strategic to form real connections with the audience. The rise of TikTok also goes to show that social media professionals are more important than ever for agencies and investments in those skills should remain a priority.

Quick Results

The content on TikTok is incredibly fast which means there is more of an opportunity to make an impression on the audience. You’ll be able to make more of an impression faster which means you’ll have a greater chance of making money. If the younger generation is part of the target demographic you were trying to reach, skipping out on TikTok could be damaging to your bottom line.

More Powerful Influencer Marketing

Some agencies are using TikTok to power influencer campaigns. Results showed that the campaigns were able to exceed YouTube and Instagram benchmarks because organic reach is rewarded. The ability to connect content together with a soundtrack creates virality in a more powerful way than a hashtag because of the emotional impact of sound.

Do you use TikTok? Are you exploring ways to reach your customers with it? Why or why not? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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Social Media

Keys to Running a Successful LinkedIn Group

If you want to or are already using LinkedIn to connect with your ideal clients and prospects, you may want to consider running a LinkedIn Group. Why?  Starting your own LinkedIn group can be a wonderful way to increase your credibility and thought leadership while attracting a highly targeted group of people.

Benefits of Managing Your Own LinkedIn Group

  • You’ll be able to significantly grow your LinkedIn network which makes it easier to find or be found by your target market.
  • You can message up to 15 group members every month to whom you are not directly connected. Remember that if you are managing multiple groups, the 15 messages are split up among all of them.
  • Position yourself as an authority in your niche or on your topic
  • Create the ideal environment for interacting with clients and prospects
  • Increase your visibility. Because groups are discoverable and accessible from the LinkedIn homepage, and relevant group conversations will appear in the main feed, managing your group and help keep you at the top of mind among your target market.

To ensure your group has the power to become one of the most successful groups on the platform, you must remain committed to maintaining quality wall consistently providing value to your group members here are some tips to help you get started with your own group.

Step One: Creating Your New LinkedIn Group

Creating your LinkedIn group is fairly simple. To get started, click work at the top right navigation bar and select groups from the popup menu.

This will open a list of LinkedIn groups you belong to. Click “Create new group” in the top right corner of the page and start filling in the details of your group.

When choosing your group name, consider is the target audience you want to attract. The more focused you make your niche, the more attractive your those people when they stumble upon it.

If you’re looking to attract people from a certain geographic area, include the name of the area or the city. This way some of the keywords people will search for will make it easier to find your group when people are looking for groups to join.

Remember, your group name cannot exceed 100 characters and can only being used by one group at a time so you’ll need to create a unique group. Don’t make the mistake of starting a LinkedIn group named after your business and use it to broadcast your company updates. People who join LinkedIn groups do not want to be bombarded by your updates so reserve those updates for your LinkedIn company page or a status update on your personal LinkedIn profile.

People join LinkedIn groups to be part of a community of like-minded people where they can have conversations about things that are important to them and to the community as a whole.

It helps to remember how LinkedIn defines groups.

“LinkedIn Groups provide a place for professionals in the same industry or with similar interests to share their insights and experiences, ask for guidance, and build valuable connections.”

Keeping this goal at the front of your mind as you build your LinkedIn group will make it that much more successful.

Step Two: Branding Your LinkedIn Group

You’ll want to spend some time branding your LinkedIn group with a custom logo and cover image. This helps it look more professional which adds credibility and encourages new members to join.

Uour LinkedIn logo needs to be at least 60 by 60 pixels and square. The recommended dimensions for the group cover image are 1776 x 444 pixels. Your images need to be either in PNG or JPEG format.

Step Three: Optimize Your Group Profile

It’s also important to spend some time optimizing your group profile for search visibility. One of the main areas you’ll want to focus on is the about this group section. This allows you to define the purpose and culture of your group. There is a 2,000 character limit but you want to take advantage of as much of the space as possible.

In this space, provide people with a good idea of the content they can expect from the group. Keep in mind that when people search for groups on LinkedIn they will see only the first 200 characters or so of the about section. It will be visible beside the group name in the search results.

You only have a sentence or two to capture a potential members attention and encourage them to join the group, focus on certain key details when writing the first part of your “About this Group” section.

If you’re looking to attract a specific profession or industry, included here. Write a short sentence about what users can expect and the value they’ll gain by joining your group. Make use of specific keywords that will grab your target audience’s attention.

Take some time to consider the various rules you want to implement in your LinkedIn group. Be clear about the rules and guidelines when you set up your LinkedIn group. This ensures you will be able to maintain the integrity of your group and avoid dealing with spammers. Make sure all posts and conversations provide value and are engaging to group members.

You only have a 4,000 character limit for rules. You don’t want to make reading the rules boring and long. For example you can use rules like this:

  1. No network marketing or multi-level marketing of any kind can be promoted in this group.
  2. No political, nonprofit, or religious discussions are allowed
  3. Do not continuously repost the same message in the group over and over again.
  4. No direct sales pictures or spam is allowed. Anyone posting these kinds of content will be warned once and permanently banned upon the second infraction.
  5. Follow this basic rule of thumb: if your message does not provide a contribution of valuable, you shouldn’t post it.

These rules are short, sweet, and only take up 495 characters.

It’s important to police your group rules because if you allow people to spend the group, members will stop visiting engaging because they struggle to find the value. You may even find that lots of people start to leave your group.

All of this in mind, your group number should be encouraged to post if they offer clear value and relevance to your group’s purpose and members.

Next, you’ll set your LinkedIn privacy settings for the group. You’ll have two options standard groups which are visible in the search results. Members are also allowed to invite other members to join. Alternatively, there is an unlisted group that does not appear in LinkedIn search results and only group admins can invite members to join. generally speaking, you’ll want to choose the standard group.

Step Four: Create Seed Content

Before you start inviting members to join or promoting your group, it’s important to post content to the group. If you skip this step, people will assume that it is not active or worth their time to join. It’s up to you as to whether you create the content yourself or curated, but no matter which path you take you should carefully choose the content and make sure it is both of interest and value to your numbers.

Ideally, you should create three or four posts.  these posts can’t include things like solving a key challenge for your target market, discussing current issues a new trends in your industry or choosing topics that you want to create some discussion about using a question or by expressing your opinion.

To make sure all new and existing members always find new content of value, plan to share something new at least once a week. As the group grows and generates more interactivity, you can adjust your posting as necessary.

Step Five: Invite People to Join

With content in place, you’re actively ready to invite people to join your group. The number of LinkedIn members that can join will depend on the type of group you’ve selected.

If you selected an unlisted group, only you and any other group admins can invite people to join the group so you were in complete control of who’s in the group and how big it becomes.

If on the other hand you’ve chosen a standard group there are three ways people can join:

  • You can invite your connections based on how well they meet the membership criteria
  • Other group members can invite them
  • Members can find and request to join your group when they are looking for groups to join.

Any member of standard LinkedIn groups can invite their connections to join. Those members can also approve request to join the group.

While this approach allows you to build your group more quickly, it may also lower the quality of the group so you need to make sure where you are regularly moderating the group by accepting or denying request to join your group, blocking and deleting members who have broken the rules and removing spam.

To help mitigate this issue before it becomes unmanageable, determine membership criteria before you begin inviting people to join. Carefully review member profiles before approval and start with a smaller group and then gauge numbers before you aim to grow your group size.

The default maximum group size is 20,000 members. If you find that your group reaches close to 19,500 members and anticipate that you’ll exceed this limit while still complying with LinkedIn policies, it is possible to contact Linkedin and request that they increase your member limit.

Step Six: Promote the Group

To help your group grow faster, you can promote it by:

  • Encouraging group members to invite connections they believe would benefit from the group as well as contribute value to it.
  • Displaying the group in your profile and encouraged other members to do the same.
  • Sharing the group link with a brief summary in your email marketing messages
  • Including the group link in your email signature.

Take time to welcome new members to your group by @mentioning their name. You definitely need to do this when your group is small and just starting to grow.

To grow engagement levels ask new members to introduce themselves and tell the group what they hope to gain from the community. This helps foster a sense of community among the members.

Once things get up and running you’ll need to spend some time performing group management tasks, such as responding to members, generating new content, and moderating member requests and content.

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Social Media

Memes 101: How Marketers Can Use Them

Memes have taken over social media. Surely, you’re familiar with these short static images, videos or GIFs that depict humorous and relatable content, then spread across the internet like wildfire. People love them. That’s why you should be using them in your online marketing. They’re relatively easy to create and have the potential to really take off. It’s not unusual for a meme to go viral. Meme marketing offers a host of other benefits. Keep reading to learn more about meme marketing, how it works and why you should be using it for your brand.

Benefits of Meme Marketing

The average person spends about two hours a day using social media. Meme sharing has become an ingrained part of online culture. They’re easily recognizable and can be easily modified with your own brand content in a way that makes them appealing. People will want to share them if they find them humorous and relatable. They can provide significant social validation for your business and serve as a kind of word of mouth marketing that works.

You don’t have to invest a lot of money or even time when it comes to creating memes. Half the work is done for you. The key to memes is that they’re so easily recognizable. You have a foundation with an image, video or GIF. You just have to add your brand’s unique touch. Your company can save a lot of money and time by using memes without sacrificing results.

Memes are a great way to engage with your audience. They create a sense of community within your following. People can relate to them and enjoy sharing them with their friends. They also give you brand recognition. People will feel a connection to your brand and will find you more approachable.

A goal of digital marketing is to have your message seen by your target demographic. Memes are a strategic way of doing that. They’re part of the cultural landscape and people naturally relate to them. Memes are meant to be shared, by definition. So it just makes sense to use them in your marketing. Plus, when people share your memes, they are acting as brand advocates and essentially standing behind your product. It shows they like what you have to offer.

Finally, memes give your brand a face. They make you seem more real and invite people to connect with you. These things are essential to building relationships and trust, which are key to online marketing. People will remember your brand and what you stand for when they see your content in the future. Memes lead to brand recognition and can provide a gateway for future interactions or even purchases.

Tips for Using Memes in Marketing

One tricky thing about using memes in your marketing is making sure they adhere to your brand voice. You want them to flow seamlessly with the rest of your content and to be recognizable among your fans. Another issue to consider is maintaining your brand’s values and avoiding offense. Memes are part of the cultural landscape and rely on humor. It’s important to keep in mind that what individuals find funny can vary greatly.

Take time to research current popular memes in order to get a feel for what’s out there and which are commonly accepted. Being edgy and making a statement is absolutely acceptable and is an inherent part of using memes. It’s good to set yourself apart from competitors and to show your brand’s personality. Be sure to take time to research your target demographic and know your desired audience. Those are the people you most want to reach and avoid offending.

Creating memes doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, you can repurpose existing ones. Sites like Giphy or imgflip provide meme templates you can use and modify for free. Just check out their libraries, find the ones that appeal to you or that seem to fit your brand and then add your own captions or alterations.

You can also create your own original memes. If done right, these have a higher chance of being shared for their creativity and novelty. You can find stock images or make your own GIFs, then add commentary or modify the graphics. You can even ask permission from your fans to use their images, particularly ones that include your company’s products. User generated content is often a hit.

There are lots of ways to make your memes relevant and relatable to your audience. Pay attention to current events and holidays, then incorporate them into your content. You can even create your own brand-specific events or hashtags, using those to promote your brand in a completely unique fashion. Pay attention to meme challenges that are happening on various social media platforms. These can be a fun way to get in on a current trend. The trick is to be authentic to your brand, reach your audience on a level they appreciate and incorporate humor in a way that makes people want to share it with others.

Memes are continuing to grow in popularity. They truly are embedded in the social fabric of our culture. Using them in your online marketing offers your company numerous benefits. Chances are, they should become a regular part of your marketing strategy. Consider your brand image and voice. Then find ways to incorporate them that fit.

These visual, fun and relatable images are far more shareable than blog posts or sales graphics. They invoke emotion, which prompts shares. Even if your memes don’t become viral hits, they can still be incredibly effective ways to increase your brand’s visibility, enhance community, engage users and gain new followers.

Don’t be afraid to be original and to make a statement with your meme marketing. That’s what creates a buzz. Just be sure to take the time to reflect upon your content. You want to be able to stand behind its message and feel confident it is worthy of your audience. Have fun with it!

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Social Media

Developing a Social Media Approval Process for Your Organization

Managing social media for your department, organization or for individual clients can be stressful. This is especially true if there is a team involved in the process. Each stakeholder may have different expectations for social media posts, and it’s imperative that everyone is on the same page in order to avoid problems such as misunderstandings or even damage to reputation. Fortunately, there are some processes you can put in place and tools you can use to help streamline communication. Keep reading below to discover some tips for developing a social media approval process for your organization.

Create a Strategy

Before you can establish an approval process for social media posts, you’ll first need to implement some other procedures so that everyone involved knows their role. First, clarify who is responsible for creating posts and for which client. If there are multiple people working on a particular campaign, determine a command chain of who does what and who is ultimately responsible for final approval. Laying all of this out ahead of time eliminates confusion and ensure each individual understands their responsibilities.

It can help to have your entire social media team, from graphic designers to social media specialist, meet with clients so that everyone has a personal understanding of the brand. Having guidelines readily available for such things as logo placement, hashtag use and prohibited language is also important to ready approval of social media posts. Deadlines should be established, as well. When do key organization and client team members need to receive content for approval? Setting expected deadlines will allow your team to work efficiently and stay on track.

Finally, you should have a social media crisis management procedure in place. Identifying a crisis and having standard practices in place for dealing with such issues will also ease the approval process and help to make sure things don’t get out of hand. Everyone on both the organization and client side should have access to this information.

Choose Your Tools

The next part of developing a social media approval process for your organization is to choose the tools you’ll need to help you in this endeavor. Exchanging endless emails and memos simply isn’t an efficient way of communication, especially when there are multiple team members to consult and deadlines to meet. Fortunately, there are a number of resources that can help to automate this process and keep everyone in the loop with regard to communication. Some are paid, while others are free. Finding a solution that works for your team will be a personal endeavor, but there are some things that can help you choose wisely.

Handling your social media workflow requires you to keep track of necessary information like policies and procedures, maintain efficient and timely communication and share assets. Sometimes, you will need more than one app or tool to do the job. Many programs will work together seamlessly and can be integrated to perform various tasks.

A tool like Airtable can help you create a place where you and your team can keep general information. Other popular resources include CoSchedule, SmarterQueue and Sprout Social. Examples of things you might keep track of in these programs include keywords research, frequently used links, documents, assets, images and team member information. These types of tools create spreads and forms that make submitting and sharing information among the team easy. They can be readily customized to meet your team’s exact needs. Having a place where everyone can view content and preparation materials eases the social media approval process tremendously.

Some social media management tools such as Agorapulse allow for real-team collaboration and possess other helpful features that make obtaining social media approval much more efficient. You can schedule content for approval ahead of time and then forget it, in many cases. These types of programs let you send posts for approval to the required team member and set things up so that they can even move through multiple individuals.

Finally, the tool you choose should be able to handle a comprehensive workflow. Aspects to consider include information storage, team involvement, content creation, approval procedures and reporting. You may need to use more than one app or program to achieve your desired results. The more streamlined you can make the process, the better. Paid tools or upgrades are often necessary to achieve the results you desire.

Team Collaboration

The last part of the process streamlining social media approval for your team is to be sure everyone is onboard and understands the process, as well as gaining knowledge of the tools everyone will use in order to perform their duties effectively. This means you’ll need to implement comprehensive training for everyone involved, both within your organization and with outside stakeholders.

Team members should be aware of the client’s backstory and brand. This helps everyone to use a consistent voice when creating posts. They must also understand branding style such as colors, fonts, graphics and logos. Any other client-specific guidelines should be communicated at these meetings, such as wording to avoid. Teaching everyone what is to be expected will save time and frustration later, making the approval process much more seamless.

Next, you’ll need to bring everyone on board with regard to the use of the tools you’ve chosen for team collaboration. Some individuals may be more resistant to learning new methods than others. Emphasize the importance of working together with a tool that keeps everyone in the loop will make each person’s job easier. It will also increase the odds of achieving better results for the client when strategies are put in place to improve the communication processes.

Take time to make sure everyone has a clear understanding of the tools and how they are to be used. This may mean scheduling several social media training sessions or breaking things up by department. You’ll also want to share practical examples of how individuals will use the tools in order to make the experience more relevant and easier to understand. Your team members will be more likely to embrace new tools if they feel a personal relevance and connection to them.

Developing a social media approval process for your organization does require a great deal of research and time investment, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. In the end, you’ll discover your job is much easier and the results you achieve will be far superior than before.

Categories
Social Media

Study: What 100 Social Media Followers are Worth

While a recent study set out to answer what 100 social media followers are worth, it’s difficult to measure the ROI. The value of social media followers lies beyond mere numbers – it’s about engagement and conversion potential. Followers who actively interact with content and align with the brand’s target audience are more valuable. They can increase brand visibility, drive traffic, and potentially lead to conversions. Therefore, the focus should be on building a quality, engaged follower base.

When it comes to the social web, platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram command billions of eyeballs every year. This makes the channels too big to ignore, so you have no choice but to participate in them to avoid missing out on revenue and traffic.

That brings the question of how much time and money should you spend on each social platform. Which ones produce the best return on investment?

Fellow digital marketing expert Neil Patel recently sought to answer the question and surveyed nearly 500 companies who are all using Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter. Each company surveyed has been actively participating in all of the social channels for at least three years and have at least 100 social media followers on each platform.

Out of all 483 companies surveyed 159 of them were in the B2B space and 324 were B2C companies. Revenues varied from as little as $10,000 per year to $250,000 per year.  Before we dig into the data remember all of the stats are broken down based on 100 social followers.

Organic Social Media Traffic Over Time

Compared to when each social platform it made its debut, it has become more difficult to generate organic traffic from each of them. Though it’s possible to still generate organic visits your reach has declined. But how much has it declined?  From 2015 to now, we have gone from just over three monthly visitors per 100 followers to two monthly visitors per 100 followers.

Related: How to Turn Instagram followers into Customers

Traffic By Social Network

While it’s true organic social media traffic is dying as each network wants to earn your advertising dollars, certain social media networks drive more traffic than others.  Which one would you guess drives the most?  If you guessed Facebook or Instagram you’re wrong as these two generate the least amount of organic traffic every month.

Pinterest drives the most organic social media traffic at a little more than four visitors per 100 followers. LinkedIn was a close second driving a little more than two visitors per 100 followers followed by  YouTube also driving a little more than two visitors per 100 followers. It’s worth mentioning that although YouTube drives a decent amount of visitors per 100 subscribers, most people using YouTube don’t experience much traffic because they aren’t linking out to their site within their videos. Though it used to be possible with YouTube annotations, those were discontinued in January 2019. Link to your site in the video description and include a video transcript with your URL.

Do More Posts Mean More Social Traffic?

Even though organic reach is dying down, if you post more often this should in theory increase your traffic. In general, posting more often does increase your traffic but after 8 months of posting on each social network, the data indicates that you will see diminishing returns.

The majority of social media algorithms work is based on engagement. The more people engaged with your content the more of them will see your content as you post it. As such, your goal should only be to post content people love and want to engage with. The second you start posting any kind of mediocre content, it will hurt your overall traffic numbers because it means fewer people in the future will see your new content regardless of how amazing it is.

Engagement By Social Network

Speaking of engagement, Which social media platforms tend to have the most engaged users? like Neil, I assumed Pinterest would win the engagement battle since they are driving the most traffic but I was wrong.

Though Pinterest did well, LinkedIn won.  Instagram also did well but this isn’t really a surprise as most people use it for a social network rather than leveraging it for business. That’s why Instagram engagement is high.

Post that don’t contain a link, such as images or videos tend to get the highest amount of engagement. This is also because social sites tend to promote content that keeps people on their site as opposed to sending visitors to your site.

Which Social Platforms are Best for Videos?

If videos aren’t part of your digital marketing plan, it’s something you should consider starting. Even though they don’t wink well on Google they are the future of the internet. When it comes to video, there are two main types: ones that you upload and ones that are live.

The data shows that Instagram produces the best results for video and then LinkedIn and YouTube. But, Instagram automatically plays videos while YouTube is much stricter about what they count as a video View. That said if you’re going to create video content, you should plan to post it on all of your social media Networks focusing the majority of your efforts on Instagram LinkedIn and YouTube.

YouTube won’t give you amazing numbers within the first day of uploading a video but by utilizing YouTube SEO you can continually get views that you won’t see happen on any of the other social platforms.

When it comes to live video, the results are similar in that Instagram and YouTube are the leaders. Live videos don’t generate as many viewers as just posting in scheduling them. The main reason wasn’t that social sites don’t want your live content it’s that when it comes to non live videos, businesses are spending more time leveraging keyword research and optimizing videos for the maximum amount of views. That is quite a bit harder to do with live videos.

Putting keywords in your title and descriptions isn’t enough. Social media sites are able to interpret the sound to see what your video is really about.

Building Your Email List

It’s no secret in the marketing world that the money is in the list. If you aren’t using your social media platforms to collect emails, you need to start immediately. Once you have your email list you can always make it to the people on your list and convince them to buy your services or products.

In terms of converting a visitor to an email subscriber, LinkedIn has the best conversion rate but Pinterest and YouTube also perform well. It’s a common misconception that most of the people on LinkedIn only care about B2B. Everyone on LinkedIn is a consumer who buys everyday products.

The most interesting part of the email collection data is the majority of your social media followers will never convert into email subscribers. But as you continue to share and post content on the social web, the followers of your followers may also see your content which then increases the likelihood of getting more traffic and email subscribers

Revenue

Regardless of how you feel about leveraging social media for your business, the truth is these platforms to drive your revenue and you do not have to spend money on ads to generate that Revenue. Ads of course do help but the percentage of Revenue that each business generated from organic social media traffic is quite impressive. while the percentage of Revenue has declined from just under 8% in 2015 to just under 2% in 2018 and 2019, we’re starting to see the numbers even out.

The decline isn’t just related to social media algorithm changes. It can also be attributed to the fact that businesses are diversifying their marketing approach to take an omni-channel approach meaning they are leveraging more channels. Because of that each one makes up a smaller portion of their total revenue.

Social media is still going strong despite the fact that it has become harder to make things happen organically. You may only be able to generate two visitors a month for every 100 followers you have, but as you grow your following that scales and can generate a hefty amount of organic traffic.

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Social Media

7 Ways to Share Links on Instagram

Instagram is one of the most popular social media networks with more than one billion monthly users. If you are in the ecommerce niche, it can be a great source of traffic and sales for you. There’s just one problem. The only place to include a clickable link on your Instagram profile is in your bio. But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways you can share links to drive traffic. Let’s take a closer look  at some of the more creative ways you can share links on the social platform.

Add Link to Your Instagram Bio

Adding a link to your bio is the first and simplest way to share a link. It is the only place where anyone, including private personal accounts can share a clickable link.

The link you place here should be your “home” link. There are other ways to share clickable links but those methods are targeted for more specific audiences. The link you include in your bio is there for anyone who happens to visit your profile. You could change this link at any point in time so a lot of people change it in accordance to the promotions they’re running.

The only problem with changing your leg frequently is that old posts Austin get lost in the shuffle. What if someone finds a post from 6 months ago and goes to your bio to learn more but finds a different link? rather than changing your bio link frequently, I believe it is best to share those links in your stories. If you want to keep the content available, you can save the stories as permanent

highlights to provide clickable links.

Use a Link Service to Add Multiple Links

When Instagram first reached popularity among marketers, it was common practice to use link services. while they are still available, they are not quite as popular as they used to be. To compensate for that, they’ve added additional design capabilities and created a better user experience.

You can choose from a few different formats. Services such as Linktree and Shorby present your followers with a list of clickable buttons. This way you can direct people to your blog, specific landing pages, other social media platforms, or a certain category on your website where you want more attention.

These services allow you to create a screen that matches your branding in terms of aesthetic. there are however others the choose to provide a more native Instagram experience. Rather than  tapping on text buttons, users are presented with a photo grid similar to Instagram. When they tap the photo from the post that caught their attention, the link service directs them to the relevant page on your website.

Share in Post Captions – With a Catch

While it’s true you can’t include clickable links in the captions of your normal Instagram photo posts, you can still use the caption space to get users attention, share excerpts from your content, and extend your reach with hashtags.

You have two options when it comes to using your Instagram post captions. You can use a link shortening service such as Bentley so the link is easy for users to copy or remember. this approach requires more effort from your followers so you should save it for your  top contents or links where you only want to convert a small group of targeted people.

Alternatively, whether you’re using a link in your bio or in stories, make it obvious. Share directions to a  link and included shorten links that people can copy if they want to. Just make sure that the directions are absolutely crystal clear is that even those with limited computer and internet experience can navigate to where you want them to go.

Add Links to Instagram Stories

Business accounts with 10,000 or more followers unlock the swipe up link feature, enabling you to include live links in your Instagram stories. Because stories only last 24 hours unless they’re saved and added to your highlights, this is a wonderful way to share links to new or time-sensitive content. If you’re running a limited time promotion or giveaway, flash sale, or seasonal event, this is a great way to promote it.

You can also save your stories with swipe up links in the Highlight section of your profile. These stories stay pinned between your bio and your photo grid. You can use highlights of the library for Evergreen content such as your top selling products, past events to show new followers what they’ve missed, and FAQs.

Create Links in Shoppable Content

Shoppable posts give you the option to use highly specific links. Each one of your shopping tags links to one product only and it must be a physical product rather than a digital one. Shopping tags are the most targeted conversions possible.

If you sell physical products, start by creating a product catalog on Facebook. Once you have your products uploaded with shopping links, descriptions, and images, you can start adding shopping tags to your Instagram posts.

You’ll also see a shopping tab that appears on your profile next to the standard tabs of your profile grid, tagged photos, and individual photos. Clicking this tab allows users to see your full product catalog. items on the shopping tab appear in a standard PhotoGrid but users are allowed to tap to shop. They can save your items just like they save standard posts or shop immediately.

Instagram Insights allows you to check engagement on individual shopping post or compare shopping post based on a variety of metrics including Impressions, save, and engagement. But Instagram shopping will not add an attribution to individual product links so you may want to experiment with adding UTM time to the links in your product catalog for analytics purposes.

Use Instagram Ads

You can use your Instagram business profile to pay to promote posts and stories with Instagram Ads. This allows you to segment your audience and add clickable links to the captions of the promoted posts. Instagram allows you to share links in your post captions as long as you’re paying for them.

If you use this approach, make sure your links are relevant to the post and the story in which they appear. If people click and then bounce you’ve wasted money on your ad spend. When creating the ad think about the conversion you want. Are you educating users about your brand? Drawing them in with captivating content? Promoting a shoppable post? Different conversions require different designs. Aim for balance between an attractive post design and an obvious call to action.

Add Links to Instagram Direct Messages

Many brands fail to use Instagram direct messages to their full potential. Take time to monitor your inbox every day for message requests, stories Dimension your brands, and customer service questions. Take time to respond, reshare, and build those customer relationships.

Start a conversation by reacting to a user story or reaching out to offer help. Messages on Instagram are private so they are a more personal form of communication. If you reach out to followers in their direct messages, they’ll appreciate you treating them as individuals.

There are several ways you can use these direct messages as part of your strategy. For instance, you can send a message to welcome new followers. You can set up quick replies to handle typing out a new message every time someone follows you. You can share links in both your standard messages and quick replies allowing you to start automatically lead nurturing every new follower.

Though sharing links on Instagram requires you to get a bit creative and spend a little time with set-up, leveraging the platform to its fullest can go a long way to improving your bottom line and helping you build stronger relationships with your customer base.

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Social Media

Building a Multilingual Social Media Presence

English is the most popular language on the internet with 1.1 billion internet users speaking the language. More than 860 million people on the internet speak Chinese, and more than 500 million people speak Spanish, making these three languages the top options on the internet.

If your demographic speaks Chinese or Spanish, you don’t want to promote to them only in English. Nearly three-quarters of global consumers said they would be more likely to buy a product if information for it was written in their own language.

Even if you have a small company, you may benefit from taking a multilingual social media presence approach. One of the best ways to determine if you should consider it for your audience is to take a look at your Facebook and Twitter insights. These social media analytics can help you find out where your people are.

On Facebook, all you have to do is click on the People page from your insights. The page will tell you the country, city, and language of your fans and followers. It’ll also provide demographics of people reached and people engaged so you can see the people who saw your content in the people who reacted commented or shared it respectively. If your page is new or there is not a lot of activity going on, the demographic data will not appear until you reach a certain level of engagement.  If you find that the majority of your engagement comes from a non-English-speaking country, it may be worth considering marketing in that language.

On Facebook, the analytics system isn’t as comprehensive, but third-party applications can help you. Using a platform such as Facebook allows you to map your followers by location all the way down to the city level.

You can also look at your website analytics through Facebook to determine where your visitors are coming from. It is best to put more weight on where your visitors are coming from then where your followers are coming from.

If your company needs to build a multilingual social media presence, follow these tips to help you keep followers while also appealing to a broader audience.

Double Post in Different Languages

You can manage multiple social media accounts each in a different language but that takes a lot of time and effort. One recommendation is to treat the same demographic as two languages.

For instance, if you’re a lawyer in San Diego that caters to both English and Spanish speakers, you may want to use a post title: “abogados de accidentes de carro” rather than “car accident lawyers”. Double posting is a good idea for bilingual account, but you need to pay close attention to how many followers drop off after a Spanish post.

If you notice followers are leaving because of posts in another language, it may be in your best interest to open a separate account for each language.

Use Translations in One Post

As an alternative, if you don’t want to double post or you find that your account is losing followers because of posting in another language, you can offer translations in a single post. This would allow you to cut down on the number of social media resources you’re using while still targeting both demographics without anyone being turned off by a single language post.

Use Professional Translations Only

Whether you decide to double post in different languages, operate different social media Pages for each language, or include translations in a single post, it is critical that you use professional translations only.

Why? Native speakers will know the difference between a professional translation and someone using something like Facebook. Relying solely on Google Translate means that you risk saying something that is improper or even rude to native speakers.

Professional translations will be able to convey your message in a proper way without insulting the audience that you’re trying to appeal to. Paying for a professional translator to assist you with marketing to non-English-speaking demographics is well worth the investment. It is easy to find professional Facebook all over the internet.

One advantage to using a professional translator is that you will be able to convey your message with the same intent and persuasion as you would in English. Relying on a generic translation service may easily lose that undertone so the message no longer has the intended effect.

Rely on Visual Content to Build Your Social Media Presence

Visual content can work well across audiences that  speak multiple languages. this is a particularly good option for broad messages. However, it is important to consider social norms and what may insult some followers and not others on a cultural level.

If your visuals are considered taboo outside of the English language culture, you may insult the followers you’re trying to appeal to and do damage to your online reputation.

Ad Filtering Is Your Friend

If you’re using any kind of paid advertising such as Facebook, make sure to utilize any filtering options that are available.  users will set their desired language when they open their account and the ad filtering will ensure they see ads in their chosen language. Other platforms such as Twitter allow you to do the same thing so that you can target these users specifically.

This type of Facebook allows you to run ads for Spanish speakers in San Diego rather than the ads being shown to English speakers and vice versa. If you are spending money running Spanish ads to English speakers, you’re wasting your money and the user’s time.

Remember Time Differences

An often-overlooked aspect of building a multilingual social media presence is time differences. Different demographics often fall across different time zones. In the United States, the ideal time to post may be at 11 a.m. however, the same post is being seen in Italy at 5 p.m. if you are in Eastern Standard Time. Knowing who your demographic is and where they are allows you to adjust your posting times so that you can Target your individual demographics at the ideal posting times for them. Doing so may be able to slow down the rate at which you lose followers if you adjust your post to the timezone of your International demographic.

Though building and maintaining a multilingual social media presence is not an easy undertaking, when done properly it is well worth the investment. It allows you to truly connect with your audience regardless of which language they speak. International customers will appreciate the fact that your brand has taken time to communicate with them in their native tongue.

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Social Media

How to Make the Most of Your LinkedIn Experience

LinkedIn is a wonderful social platform for those in the B2B space. Once thought of as a tool for job seekers, the platform has evolved into so much more than that. You can publish content as you would on a blog, go live, tag others, create a page for your company, and more. There’s plenty of advice out there as to how to improve your profile to make better connections and build stronger relationships, but this blog post is taking things in a different direction with some tips and tricks you’ve probably never heard of.

Swap the Connect Button for Follow

To change the button on your profile from Connect to Follow, you’ll need to access the LinkedIn mobile app as the option is not currently available on desktop. From your settings, look for the “Who can follow you” setting and then tap on that. Choose the call to action for your profile.

According to LinkedIn, “When members follow you, they are more likely to see your content in their feed. This allows members to stay up to date with topics they care about and join your conversation. We’ve heard from you that it can be overwhelming to receive a large volume of connection requests from people you do not know. This option makes it easy to establish a relationship and share your insights with people who are interested in what you have to say.”

Changing the call-to-action makes it a bit more difficult for people to connect with you. They can still connect but they have to look for The Connect option in the “More” menu. Placing this tiny obstacle can help improve the caliber of the people you connect with. You don’t have to do anything when people follow you. You don’t have to accept or ignore so it’s perfect for people who are busy and cannot handle the volume of requests they get every day. Your network count still increases because when people follow you LinkedIn commingled connections and followers. Followers are basically potential connections so having a follow button is a sign that you are particular about how you’re building your network.

This option was previously only available to influencers but now that it’s available to everyone you can be pickier about who you interact with on the platform while also boosting your overall visibility.

Take Advantage of Mobile App Functions Not Available on Desktop

Using the LinkedIn mobile app is more convenient for many of us, but it also has unique functionality that is not currently available at linkedin.com. Specifically, you can use a relatively new voice message and an introduction of being able to share a video message one to one with your connections. Text is one-dimensional. You can’t see the tone or quality of voice or expression. It lacks personality. Using the video introduction allows you to connect on a more personal level because people can see and hear you.

Check Your LinkedIn Profile on Desktop and Mobile

On the LinkedIn desktop website, go to your feed page and look in the upper left corner. There you’ll notice your photo is centered over your background photo and it’s probably too small to see clearly. Now hold down your control key while pressing the plus key to begin magnifying your entire feed in varying increments with each press of the plus button.

Keep pressing the plus button while holding control until you see the background and profile photos in the upper left corner of the page in better detail. then you’ll be able to tell if anything important on your background photo is covered up by your profile photo when people are looking at your profile on mobile devices. While the method isn’t an exact pixel-by-pixel match between the two platforms it’s close enough.

When you’re finished, hold down the Ctrl key and press the zero button on your keypad to return to the standard 100% view. This ensures the design of your background photo always shows what you want any LinkedIn user to know about you or your brand regardless of which device they use to view your profile.

Trick the Algorithm

Add a photo and post text to your  post and publish it. Then click the edit button to edit the post an ad in the relevant external link. This approach seems to be a good way of getting interactions on your post because it confuses the length in Alberta them into thinking the link is an internal platform link.

Yes, it’s an extra step that takes a few minutes longer to accomplish, but the visibility and potential engagement on the post makes it worth investing a little extra time.

Remember, It’s Not Facebook

This may seem obvious but it’s worth repeating. LinkedIn users must be aware of the difference between LinkedIn and Facebook. though they share many of the same features and capabilities, the purpose for each network is quite different. Treating them as though they are the same network may give your peers and professional contacts a bit of doubt about you. Save the personal ran and photos for Facebook because they are rarely embraced on LinkedIn.

Even if you’re brand-new to the LinkedIn platform and you’re experimenting on how you can include it in your overall marketing strategy, these tips can help you make the most of it as you navigate the platform and make connections.

Do you use any of these LinkedIn tricks to enhance your experience? Do you have any other tips and tricks to share? I’d love to hear them in the comments below.

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