townsend.bunksite.com

Tag: social media marketing

6 Second Marketing: Using Vine for Your Business
In today’s fast-paced society, your business doesn’t have much time to grab the attention of potential customers. Can you do it in six seconds? Millions of users are racking up views and attention for their six-second masterpieces on Vine, Twitter’s ultra-short video sharing app that fits in well with the social network’s theme of keeping things brief—and businesses are using Vine to amplify their social media marketing campaigns and boost visibility.

What is Vine? A Brief History

Launched in January 2013 by Twitter, Vine was originally a mobile app that capitalizes on smartphone cameras, allowing users to capture and share up to six seconds of looped video. The platform gathered steam quickly, becoming the fastest growing app of 2013 with millions of users and several viral clips.

Today, Vine has more than 67 million users. Vine videos can be posted to other social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and earlier in 2014 the platform introduced a desktop interface similar to YouTube, with searches, playlists, popular users, and trending tags.

The Benefits of Using Vine for Business

Some companies view the Vine platform as too short to be useful—but many said the same about Twitter. There are several benefits to using Vine as part of your marketing strategy, and they extend beyond the platform itself.

Here are just a few of the advantages Vine can give your business:
- Video works. Several studies have shown that video consistently performs better as a marketing tool, with higher engagement and more click-throughs. Regardless of your business type, video can help you promote it: 90 percent of online shoppers find video helpful in buying decisions, and 75 percent of executives watch work-related video.
- Shorter is better. Online viewers are often pressed for time, or multitasking and switching between several windows. Long videos tend to see fewer views—so at six seconds a pop, viewers are far more likely to watch a Vine video.
- Boost social sharing. Vine videos don’t have to stay on Vine. They can be posted on multiple social sites, or your business website or blog, and including hashtags in your description can help you improve discoverability and encourage sharing.
What Can You Do with Vine?

Just how much marketing can you pack into six seconds? With the right mindset, you can deliver a powerful message through a Vine video. For example, Lowe’s home improvement store created a series of Vine videos called “Lowe’s Fix in Six,” with each video delivering an interesting home do-it-yourself (DIY) tip. UK fashion retailer ASOS engaged their followers with an “unboxing” video of their products that invited customers to upload their own unboxing, incorporated the hashtag #ASOSUnbox, and entered participants in a drawing for a goodie box.

To create effective short videos, consider:
- The types of videos you want to offer—you might have helpful tips, product showcases, customer contests, or even content that’s pure entertainment
- How you’ll communicate your message briefly and visually
- The best way to tie your short videos to your company brand or theme
Remember that like all social media marketing, Vine should be used to share more than just your products or services. Consider offering quick behind-the-scenes video that shows your workplace culture, your employees in action, or where your products are made. Or get your followers to participate and invite six-second testimonial videos, which you can display on your website in addition to posting on Vine and other social platforms.

Regardless of your social marketing strategy, the Vine platform can make a powerful, visual addition to your current efforts and help increase your business visibility and reach. All you need is a smartphone or digital camera, and six seconds.

Image courtesy of Frank Gruber

Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.
September 2, 2014
Let Your Business Be Known: 5 Tips for Improving Your LinkedIn Presence

LinkedIn is a great resource for business-to-business companies to increase brand awareness and build valuable connections. You may have set up a Company Page, but are you really making the most of the networking site? Use these tips to maximize the benefit of your company’s LinkedIn presence!

Set Up Showcase Pages

If your company has a certain brand or product you’d like to emphasize, set up a Showcase Page. Showcase Pages are extensions of your Company Page that spotlight specific products, brands, divisions and more. This allows users to follow the aspects of your business that most interest them. Use this feature to share updates and maintain dialogue with a highly targeted audience.

Share Your Content

LinkedIn’s publishing platform was originally only accessible to about 500 select influencers. Now, this feature is open to all LinkedIn users. If you’re already writing blogs for your website, this is a simple way to reach and engage even more users. Additionally, sharing on LinkedIn gives you the benefit of showcasing your expertise to others in your industry. Share your content, earn followers, and expand your influence online!

Join Groups (Or Make Your Own!)

Groups allow you to make connections with users who share your interests or work in a similar industry. Use groups to network, stay up to date on industry news, and share content with a targeted network. There are over 1.5 million groups on LinkedIn, but if you can’t find one that’s a good fit for your business, then you can create your own!

Engage With Your Followers

Gaining followers is important, but it’s only part of the puzzle. Remember to engage with your connections. Maintain dialogue through regular posts to your Company Page, Showcase Pages, or groups. Share relevant resources, industry news, and your valuable insights. Make sure the content is engaging and gives people a reason to share or comment on your update. Keep the conversation alive by responding to audience comments.

Get Ideas From Others’ Successes

Feel like you could use some more guidance? Get inspiration from successful company pages! Check out LinkedIn’s 10 Best Company Pages of 2013 to see how top companies are making the most of the network. Also, take a look at some of LinkedIn’s social media case studies to learn about businesses who have used LinkedIn to their advantage.

LinkedIn can be a valuable resource for your business if you apply these tips. Are you using LinkedIn for your business? Do you have any additional tips? Share in the comments!

Image Sources:

Linkedin logo

Showcase

Paper Planes

Penguins

Idea bulb

August 20, 2014
#AmIDoingItRight?: Hashtagging for Businesses
Hashtags allow you expand your business’ reach, and engage with customers in a new way. Check out these quick tips on using and creating hashtags for your business’ #socialmedia accounts.

1. Do More KISS-ing:

In 1960, the U.S. Navy enacted the “Keep it simple, stupid” principle. Simplicity can go a long way in the world of hashtagging, whereas complexity can get lost in the shuffle. The United States Naval Academy does a good job of keeping it simple on their Twitter page. Here are some rules of thumb:
- Keep it short: A good hashtag is typically under 10 characters and only 1-3 words long. Good: #thatwaseasy vs. Bad*: #itainteasybeingcheesy
  - *This is okay if you are actually in the cheese business
- Keep it simple: Try not to use words with too many repeated letters, or words that look funky without spacing. #santaanaarts #wheatthins (Side note: Don’t be afraid to use capital letters at times. They can save your hashtag. #SantaAnaArts #WheatThins)
- Keep it straightforward: If you want to use an acronym, you can, just don’t get wild with it. The Naval Academy uses #USNA18 to depict their incoming class of plebes. It’s easy for plebes, family, and friends to remember, and it leaves plenty of room for commentary in the tweets.
2. Get a Second (and third) Opinion:

Despite the saying that “All publicity is good publicity,” the last thing you want to do is create a hashtagging nightmare. If you haven’t been invited to Su’s anal bum party (aka #susanalbumparty – aka Susan Boyle’s Album Release Party), you may want to have someone from inside, and outside your company take a second look. There are lots of ways that brands can go viral in a negative way, so it’s best to double check before becoming the butt of a joke.

3. Make Consistency a Priority:

No matter what hashtag you choose, be sure to keep it consistent across all of your platforms. It is frustrating to the consumer when they don’t know what to hashtag. A popular TLC show, My 600-lb. Life, incorporates live tweets into the show, but they fail to communicate what the official hashtag is. While #My600lbLife and #my600poundlife aren’t that different, half of the population is missing out. Pick one and stick to it.

4. Commit to Your Hashtag Offline:

Once you’ve decided on a hashtag, be sure to get the word out. Many big brands push their hashtag out on all different forms of media, including packaging, print, and TV commercials. You can find ways to do this on a smaller scale, such as adding it to your email signature, including it on an event invitation, or even holding a contest (internal or external) to let your customers and employees know.

5. Follow Through:

Once people are using your hashtag, don’t forget to thank them! A quick follow-up with your consumer via like, share, retweet, +1, or repin can go a long way. Hashtags are great because you can see the most popular, and the most recent, posts using the hashtag. It’s also a great way to find influencers and followers in your industry. Here are a few of my personal favorites:
- #nola, #seo, #rollwave, and just for laughs, #blessed
Have you ever completely failed, or succeeded, with a hashtag? Let us know in the comments.

Image Sources:

Jimmy and Jonah Hashtag Gif

Doctor Who Hashtags Gif

https://flic.kr/p/c3caJY
August 14, 2014
Google+ Crush Saga: Your Guide To Social Media Sweetness
Google+ is SO complicated! That’s what a lot of our clients tell us. They get frustrated and, to be honest, so do we.
There are so many questions! It can be overwhelming.

What kind of Google+ page should you create?

Which Google+ page should you use for posts and updates? Which page should you connect to your YouTube channel? How many types of Google+ pages are there?

To simplify this Google/YouTube situation, we’ve created this sweet little infographic to show:
- Which pages you should create
- Which page(s) you should use for regular posts and updates
- Which page you should connect to YouTube
As a reminder, there are three types of Google+ Pages:
- Google+ Profile
- Google+ Local/Social Page
- Google+ Brand Page
Explore the sweet and colorful world of Google+ Crush.

Mix and match pages to form the correct combination, create the appropriate profile, and send the right social signals. First, choose how you’d like to play the game by selecting one of the paths.

If Google+ Crush Isn’t Your Type of Game, Just Read the Manual:
- Are you looking to use your G+ profile for personal reasons (not associated with a business)? Start posting on your Profile Page and connect this page to your YouTube Channel.
- Are you a business with just one location? Start posting on your Local/Social Page and connect this page to your YouTube Channel.
- Are you a multiple location business? Create a Local/Social Page for each location. You should post to your Brand Page and connect your Brand Page to your YouTube Channel.
Sugar crush! Remember, Google likes it when you play in their sandbox, so go ahead and start posting on Google+ and use YouTube channel to create your unique videos.

And, above all, crush it!
August 7, 2014
Five for Friday – Google Launches Click & Drag for Maps, A New Twitter Record, & Pinterest Gets Even Easier!

Marketing Land publishes new research on tweet indexing in Google search results. Google Maps rolls out handy “click and drag” update. Why your content needs images to get the attention of engaged readers. The most talked about World Cup game breaks a Twitter record. Big brands begin testing a new way to interact with Pinterest followers.

1. Twitter A-Listers Are More Likely To Have Their Tweets Indexed In Google Search Results
-Marketing Land

It’s official: your tweet will never be on Google search. A study by Stone Temple Consulting reveals that Google will likely only index your Tweets if you have over one million followers. After analyzing 963 Twitter accounts, the study found that tweets from accounts with a million+ followers were indexed 30% of the time. As the number of followers increased, so did the indexing percentage. Although there were a very small percentage of tweets indexed by Google from accounts with fewer than a million followers, the amount is negligible compared to Twitter’s heavy hitters.

On the bright side, we can all rest assured knowing the wit and wisdom of Kanye West in 40 characters or less is only a quick Google search away.

2. Click And Drag To Measure Distance In New Google Maps Update
-Search Engine Journal

Do you often take the road less traveled, only to be frustrated by not being able to measure just how far you’ve gone? Relief has arrived! Google announced a Google Maps update this week that allows users to click and drag to measure distances.

Google might call me a perfectionist, but I’ve already thought of five practical applications for the new feature:

1. Settle the argument whether you or your friend lives closer to your favorite hangout, and see if it’s truly in the middle (shortcuts finally included).

2. Calculate how long it will actually take to detour from your road trip to see the world’s largest ball of twine.

3. Get an accurate distance when Google’s driving directions fail because you know Maple Street is closed for repairs but it insists on sending you there anyway.

4. Enjoy your next run (or bike or leisurely stroll) sans Nike app and still be able to calculate how far you went.

5. Answer the age-old question: how far would it be if I wanted to walk in the shape of my name through this park?

3. Use Images (Not Just Words) to Turn Your Distracted Visitors into Engaged Readers
-Copyblogger

It’s an adage as old as time: a picture is worth 1,000 words. Pamela Wilson makes the very relatable analogy of the oversaturation of words in content marketing to an overstimulated child (if you don’t have kids, think about the one throwing a temper tantrum at the park last week). We are visual people, so why aren’t we incorporating images while producing content online more often?

Her tips vary from basic (remember to actually use images and not just words) to creative and insightful (doctor up a purchased stock photo to make it more unique). Much like the sight of an image itself, lost in a sea of text, the blog is refreshing in its take on reaching your audience through content production.

4. Germany’s Stunning World Cup Win Over Brazil Is The Most-Tweeted Sports Game Ever
-TechCrunch

The spirit of Brazil’s soccer team wasn’t the only thing broken after Tuesday’s World Cup match against Germany; the game was the subject of 35.6 million tweets, breaking the record for the most-discussed single sports game on Twitter. At the peak of the Twitter fury was Sami Khedira’s goal against Brazil to bring the score to 5-0 Germany, which resulted in 580,166 tweets per second.

The record replaces this year’s Super Bowl, which garnered 24.9 million tweets.

5. Pinterest Makes It Easier to Follow E-commerce Brands
-Adweek

Pinterest has been busy working towards winning the title “Big Brand’s Best Friend.” Following the release of its API in November, they’ve now tweaked the “follow” button to make it easier for consumers to connect with eCommerce sites.

Currently being tested by Wayfair, Whole Foods, ModCloth, and GoPro, the new “follow” feature improves user experience by pulling in the company’s latest pins in a pop-up window instead of taking the shopper off-site.

As a lover of Pinterest, I say bring it on! Anything that lets me connect with my favorite brands quicker and more easily is a winner in my book.

July 11, 2014
New Preview Will Have You Pinterested

On Tuesday, Pinterest for Business’ Jason Costa announced the rollout of a new follow button that will give users a preview of what it will be like to follow the business.

Tell Me How It Works

The new button will trigger a pop up window that will include a preview of the most recent pins along with a confirmation button to follow that business. The exciting thing about the pop up window, Jason says, is that “ your visitors won’t ever have to leave your website to follow you.”

Costa says, “If you have the original Follow button in place, you won’t have to do anything to get the new version—it’ll just work!” Just like the old follow button, this button can be added to your site with just a couple of lines of code.

Tell Me How It Will Look

Want to test out the new widget for your business’ Pinterest page? Lucky for you, you can! Just go to Pinterest for Business. Then click on “Tools” and “Widget Builder” in the menu. From there you can select the “Follow Button” on the left, and type in your Pinterest User URL along with your full user name and then click “Build it!” Now see for yourself how awesome this update really is.

Let the Experts Weigh In

Martin Beck from Marketing Land believes Pinterest made a smart update, “which is working to turn its popular image-based social network into a money maker.” UX experts like Sarah Horton from UX Magazine might say that this animation necessitates ”keyboard-focus management for custom controls.” However, because the image animation comes to an end on its own, I would argue that controls are not necessary for this animation. If anything, it should just get the viewers excited to see more pins!

July 10, 2014
#Ibelievethatwewillwin #Ole! #WorldCup

As the world gathers in sport bars across the globe to watch the gorgeous and very talented FIFA team members, I’ve realized that the World Cup is kind of like the Super Bowl, just bigger, better, and hotter!

Besides the commercials and the fact that the Super Bowl is only something America partakes in, one distinguishing difference between the World Cup and the Super Bowl is the branding. While the Super Bowl has consistent branding and logos every year, the World Cup continuously changes. For example, the Super Bowl uses a consistent hashtag (#SB14) that is created by the NFL and encouraged by fans to use in the days leading up to the big night. With the World Cup, there is no consistent branding. Which is ironic since this is the one sport the world comes together to participate in and cheer on — the original football league. Which got me thinking, sports franchises should be treated just like any other business, as should the structure of their social media campaigns. The leagues should maintain a consistent brand, continue to publish content throughout the series, and encourage fans to get engaged.

1) Consistent Branding

It’s funny how one word can change your branding so much!

#football vs. #soccer
#brazil vs. #brasil

Regardless of which country a team is from, the league should constantly present their branding on a worldwide scale. T-shirts, jersey logos, mugs, soccer balls (or footballs) and of course, hashtags. The most commonly used hashtags for the World Cup is #worldcup with a 71.8% of tweets containing #worldcup in content published on Twitter. Other popular hashtags include:

#brazil – 31.5%
#fifa – 17.22%
#football – 19.09%
#fifta2014 – 13.29%
#brazil2014 – 3.8%
#soccer – 3.8%
#brasil2014 -3.8%
#france – 3.5%
#fifawordcup – 3.5%
And my favorite #Ibelievethatwewillwin

Although the league has no control over what countrymen and women are going to post or which team they are going to support, encouraging a hashtag is one way to control the branding of your business.

2) Content is king

The biggest social network participating in the World Cup is Twitter

With 645,750,000 people on Twitter, fans are just waiting for the latest tweet by a team member or the team. Publishing content to keep fans informed is key to a successful social media campaign. Publishing updates to the team’s status such as posting superstitions of the game results, or posting pregame photos, is what the soccer fans want. Don’t forget that your employees — or team members! — are extensions of your brand too. Encouraging employees to publish content and post pictures is also important to the overall brand image, and its success.

3) Keep ‘em engaged!

In addition the informational content, make sure you are keeping your fans engaged with your brand. Many brands encourage engagement by asking fans to participate in poles, questions, or even contests. One of the biggest World Cup sponsor’s, McDonalds, jumped on this bandwagon in their offline “Peel, Play, Ole, Ole” campaign.

For those businesses that aren’t FIFA sponsors, engaging with fans on Instagram and Foursquare are great for brand awareness. Asking fans to post pictures with your product, or check-in specials at locations are easy ways to increase a brand’s presence while engaging with fans.

Regardless if your business is in a worldwide event that only comes around once every four years, or if it is the neighborhood corner grocery, these three tips can benefit any social media campaign.

So y’all get ready Russia! #fifa2018 #worldcup #fifarussia #USA #USA #USA

June 23, 2014
5 For Friday – Backlinks, Knowledge Graph, And Privacy!

1. Matt Cutts: Google Won’t Devalue Links Anytime Soon

-Search Engine Watch

Well, you’d certainly hope this is the case with the way Google is initiating hundreds of thousands of manual actions every month…But in Matt Cutt’s recent video, he explains the value of those quality links while Google continues to better understand and define what determines quality content. As it stands, Cutts sees the value of quality links to be a relevant ranking factor for the time being. So fear not, if you are working to improve the quality of your content along with improving and diversifying that backlink profile with authoritative links, you’re certainly protecting yourself from future menacing Penguin updates.

2. Google’s Knowledge Graph Expands into Google Maps

-Search Engine Land

Google’s knowledge graph is expanding from organic search results into their map results. Much like the results from regular search queries on google.com, the knowledge graph will now pull information cards with quick facts about certain places searched in Google maps results. But hey, don’t just take Search Engine Land’s and my word for it, run a maps.google.com search for New Orleans’ own St. Louis Cathedral and check it out for yourself!

3. European Court Requires Google to Delete Personal Info

-Search Engine Roundtable

Hey SEOs! Reputation management just got easier! If you live in Europe that is. In a recent ruling, a bill so cleverly titled “the right to be forgotten” requires that search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing must remove links from search results for a person’s name if that person requests to have that result removed.

4. How to Dramatically Improve Your Google Authorship

-KISS Metrics

This article provides some great tips for improving your Google authorship. As with any authorship improvement tip article, though, do keep in mind that excessive guest blogging is a definite no no. Keep the list of sites you contribute to condensed and featuring only those important and authoritative sites you write for. Guest blogging, if done incorrectly, can be seen as a spammy link-building tactic. A definite highlight of the tips provided in this article was “feature your most flattering picture…you don’t have to be good looking. You just have to…’put your best face forward.’” So no worries—you don’t have to be Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, or Jon Hamm. You just want to ensure your thumbnail image is clear.

5. 5 New and Improved Twitter Features Marketers Should Use

-Search Engine Watch

This article is a fantastic overview of those new Twitter features and how they translate into tactics marketers can utilize. A particularly interesting, stand out feature is that Twitter now allows for engaging tweets to appear larger than others. Now “all” you have to do is make sure your tweets are always relevant, engaging, and interesting to your audience.

May 16, 2014
All The Best Ideas Are Stolen: Take Yours From Facebook’s Success Stories
I was recently introduced to the Facebook for business page and was shown some interesting and educational aspects of this informative page.

Besides giving you an opportunity to create a Facebook Ad or create a page, it gives you the awesome option to see success stories of businesses that have used Facebook to their advantage.

The Success Stories page gives you 5 options to choose from, depending on what you would like your search to include/show. You can search by:
- Business size
- Goal
- Industry
- Product
- Region
The one that I think is the most helpful is the search by goal option. There are so many different goals that businesses want to achieve when promoting themselves on Facebook, and this option lists a variety of them to choose from.

Since I LOVE to shop, I was interested in how small businesses that sell retail succeed on Facebook. When I conducted my search for a retail success story, Blake & Brady Boutique came up.

This success story stated that the boutique, located in South Carolina, uses Facebook Ads to connect with shoppers. This in return has boosted their online and in-store sales. They have achieved a 15X return on ad spend and have gained 10,000 customers through Facebook.

What Do They Have That You Don’t?

After reading those amazing numbers, I had to wonder, how do they have such great success? Reading further into the story, I came across the thing that should start every success story, a GOAL!

Their goal was to boost their in-store earnings and reach a wider audience online and offline. The first step the owner took was to use Facebook’s Start to Success Program to learn about what tools were available through Facebook.

How’d They Do That?

My next question was what did they use? Promoted posts were used to reach women who live close to Anderson, SC area in the News Feed. They also used ads in the right column of Facebook that target people based on their location, gender and interests to gain clicks to the business’s website to help boost online purchases. The owner measures ad results often and then re-invests in the campaigns that gain the most customers. The products they use are news feed placements, boosted posts, and custom audiences.

All in all, it is safe to say this small business is having an amazing experience using Facebook to promote their business. What are some of the ways you promote your business on Facebook? Let us know what works for you in the comments section below.
May 14, 2014
Clear Your Case Of Social Media Acne – Ugly Picture Links

You can go far on 140 characters, but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. For the past year or so, Twitter has been enriching users’ experiences by allowing pictures and videos to be directly displayed on the feed, and with the introduction of the new profile design, it now allows users to visually enhance their profiles as well. As Twitter increasingly becomes a multimedia-friendly social media platform on both web and mobile, research shows that Tweets that include photos or videos receive 5 times more engagement than simple text tweets.

Owly? Oh No! (The Terrifying Discovery)

This week, while doing my routine account manager duties, I was looking over a client’s Twitter account and I noticed that our social media scheduler, Hootsuite, was still displaying images as ow.ly links.

One Does Not Simply Address Hootsuite (Or Does One?)

As a social media fanatic, I did what I do best and voiced out my anguish @hootsuite.

Thankfully, Hootsuite knows the value of connecting with users via social media, and they were quick to respond with a solution.

A Brief & Wonderful Solution To All Our Problems (& World Peace)

As I did more research behind the solution Hootsuite provided, I found out that just 2 months ago, the social media scheduler rolled out the option for Pro and Enterprise users to post photographs via the native pic.twitter.com functionality. This feature will allow any photograph scheduled via Hootsuite to be automatically displayed on Twitter’s timeline, and it will also be included in a user’s photo gallery.

You Too Can Have Beautiful Picture Links

Ready to make the switch? I know Search Influence is! The steps to change your image upload service on Twitter are quite simple, and as studies continue to show us, the rewards of doing this will be quite grand.

Voilá! Your scheduled Tweets will now be posted with multimedia showing up on users’ feeds.

May 13, 2014