Month: March 2013

How your social media content can drive traffic to your fans’ content

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Social media marketing is about getting the most exposure and engagement for your business to help you spread word of mouth, create community and grow your business.

Notice I said the word “your” twice.

What about the people who follow those businesses? We don’t often talk about exposure, engagement and growth for the customers and fans.

Recently, I had a few interactions with businesses that helped me get a little social media love, and it was a great thing – it’s nice when a brand or businesses send some clicks, views and followers your way.

Sharing followers’ content

One of those interactions was with the Content Marketing Institute. I retweeted their post about creating engaging content using Facebook’s Graph Search. They answered me and asked for more tips. I just happened to write a blog post on this topic a few weeks before (wink, wink), tweeted it to the CMI, and they retweeted it.

Content Marketing Institute Retweet

Score!

Thanks to their huge readership, I got a bit of blog traffic. In the next 24 hours, I had 54 unique views to my blog, and that post is my third most viewed post. That may not be a whole lot for some people, but that’s fantastic for me and my little blog.

The Content Marketing Institute did not have to retweet my post. They could have said nothing or a simple thank you. The fact that such a prominent marketing blog shared a post on a blog from one of their followers who they’d never interacted with before made me feel pretty special.

Putting the spotlight on what others are saying

The second thing that happened was also Twitter-related. I tweeted about a recent episode of the NPR show Radiolab (if you have not listened to it, make some time to check out their podcasts – amazing stuff).

Radiolab’s website had an embedded widget that didn’t promote their tweets – the widget found tweets that included the search term Radiolab. My tweet appeared in their stream, which, according to HootSuite’s analytics, led some visitors to the link that I shared:

HootSuite Analytics for Referrers

The important part of this example is not the number of clicks (I know, it’s a small number). It’s the fact that Radiolab shared what their followers were saying, not their own Twitter content. Yes, it’s still content that promotes the show, but it was a nice way to spotlight what their fans were saying about Radiolab. Embedding your fans’ tweets on a site that gets a lot of traffic has the potential to direct readers to any content the fans share, whether it’s their own or yours. It’s nice exposure for the people who provide positive word of mouth for what you do.

Share the love

I know this is another item to add to the Social Media Marketing To Do List, but helping your followers get a little social media love is a win-win. Awesome Merchandise, a UK promotion and printing company, does this well – they asked fans to send them photos of their products, and then promoted the fans’ businesses in a Facebook photo album.

Keep an eye out for the people who tweet your stuff, comment on your Facebook posts, or share your pins on Pinterest. Ask them for their tips or blog posts, and share them with your audience. Take a look at your followers’ profiles, check out their work, and link to it. Carve out a little space on your social profiles to show off your fans. It makes the loyal supporters even more loyal, and gives those fans a wider audience for the work that they’re doing.

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Stats, source and a new look: 3 things you should know about Pinterest

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I have an on-again-off-again relationship with Pinterest. It’s mostly due to my on-again-off-again relationship with online shopping. I prefer to shop in person, try things on and see them face-to-face.

But sometimes I am curious about what’s new without having to leave the house (like tonight when we got a foot of snow). And then I see a ton of things I want, so I pin them to my boards (hello 30 dresses and skirts from ModCloth!).

I’ve noticed an on-again-off-again trend with Pinterest. You hear a blip here and there, and then there’s a period where Pinterest is everywhere – that’s what’s happened in the last month. So here are 3 things that you might want to take a look at if you’ve put Pinterest to the side lately. Log in and crank it up!

1. Stats

There are actually 2 things in the stats category. Here’s the first. An infographic I saw today with data from the Pew Center for Internet & American Life confirms what most people know about Pinterest: Most users are women. However, Pinterest use is very common across geography (urban, suburban and rural), race, education and income. When I think about the people I know who use Pinterest and their demographics, that really fits the bill. Some of those people could care less about Twitter or Instagram, but they are regular pinners.

Here’s the second stats item: As of last week, Pinterest added an analytics platform. Right now, it tracks pretty basic activity of content from your site that’s been pinned: number of pins, pinners, repins, impressions, reach, clicks and visitors. I’m interested to see how this develops over time. My little blog has a small amount of Pinterest data – my busiest times are the days that I pin blog posts, and a day or two after that:

Pinterest Stats for azurecollier.com

2. Source

Here’s a cool little trick to find out what content from your website is getting pinned. Use this URL: http://pinterest.com/source/YourWebsite.com/. This is a screenshot from my blog’s content that’s been pinned – mostly by me! But as my blog grows, it will be nice to see what’s being pinned so I can get a better picture of what content readers want.

Pinterest Content from azurecollier.com

3. New look

If you have a Pinterest business account or have a verified website on your profile, you can preview Pinterest’s new look! There’s some small changes to the navigation – the search bar and categories are on the top left and tools for your settings have collapsed under one bar on the right. When you hover over the categories icon, it opens a window of 2 dozen topics.

The more interesting change is on the pins themselves. When you click a pin, it now shows a menu of other pins from that pin’s board, and suggests other items that people have pinned from that source/website. It’s a great way to explore other items or products that you haven’t seen before.

New Look - Pinterest Pins

That’s the latest about Pinterest! Got some tips that I didn’t cover? Let me know in the comments. Happy pinning!

Make your LinkedIn profile stand out by adding projects

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LinkedIn is the social network that doesn’t get much love.

It’s professional and buttoned-up. It’s not as fun as Facebook, or as pithy as Twitter.

And – aside from your profile photo and any image that shows up as part of a link that you post on an update – there’s nothing visually interesting going on.

Until now.

If you have accumulated a visual, creative portfolio as part of your career, you can absolutely show it off – by using the add a link feature in the Summary or Experience areas of your profile. The Summary area allows you to show off all your projects in one spot; adding to the Experience area allows you to add work to specific positions.

STEP 1

LinkedIn Edit Profile

To get started, make sure you’re in the edit mode of your profile.

STEP 2

LinkedIn Summary Section
Scroll down and find your Summary or Experience section. Click the add a link icon.

STEP 3

LinkedIn URL Title

Enter the URL for your project – you have a wide range of sites to pull from because LinkedIn has partnerships with about 100 providers, including SlideShare, Prezi, Twitter, Pinterest, Issuu, YouTube, and Vimeo. Click Enter, and then LinkedIn will pull the title and description of your item. Edit the title and/or description, and click Save.

FINISHED!

 

LinkedIn Projects

Now you have a new multimedia project to showcase on your profile.

Although you can add specific projects to your positions, I like having them all in one spot in the Summary. I have webinar slide decks, a video, blog posts, and my Twitter stream. It’s a great way to display my skills in social media content creation, writing, editing, presentation design, and video editing.

Voila! Your LinkedIn profile just got a whole lot more interesting and interactive.

Have you tried adding your projects to LinkedIn? What do you think of these tools? Let me know in the comments.

How can your business get noticed in the new Facebook news feed? More visual content

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A look at the new Facebook news feed (image from Facebook)

A look at the new Facebook news feed (image from Facebook)

The most important lesson from Facebook’s news feed upgrade announcement this week is this: multimedia is critical to your business’ success on Facebook.

Photos and videos will appear larger in the news feed – currently that content makes up 50% of the stream. And there’s a good reason for that. Facebook users are more engaged with multimedia than with text updates alone, or with text and a link. MBooth found that videos are shared 12 times more than link or text updates, and photos are liked 2 times more than text updates.

It makes sense. for Facebook users – your fans and followers – photos and videos are a huge part of their social media activity. A recent Pew Internet and American Life study shows that almost half (46%) of online adults post photos and video, while 56% have completed at least one photo-sharing activity.

For small businesses who are already using photos and video, the changes validate the time and effort they spend on creating that content. For those that aren’t, it’s time to take stock of your content creation for 2013, and change those New Year’s content resolutions. The top content types that small businesses in a BusinessBolts.com study planned to increase this year were written content; 53% wanted to focus on video, and 30% planned to increase photo creation. If your business placed multimedia towards the bottom of the list, your smartphone is going to be your new best friend.

The time is right for multimedia content, especially for small businesses on a small budget – no one has to purchase expensive equipment, or hire high-end professionals to show off their business. Everything you need is on your iPhone or Android. The tools are extremely easy to use, and you don’t have to spend hours on your photos or video. A couple of images in a small album or photo collage, or a short video (really short if you’re using 6 second clips from Vine) are all you need. If you haven’t already, download Instagram and Vine, and start capturing engaging, interesting visual content.