Facebook will soon be officially launching a new feature on the desktop version (soon to be released to mobile I’m sure) where you can now search for local services based on your current location. For those of you that have a Facebook Business page/profile you’ll want to really see how you rank for your business. For now it seems the ratings is what is driving the business listing priorities. This means if you don’t have any reviews yet for your business on Facebook, you’re going to want to spend some time asking your customer and clients to log in and submit positive five-star reviews so that you can start to rank up your profile.
I’m sure there are other algorithms Facebook is using to rank profiles, but at first glance the ratings seems to be driving it. You’ll also want to see how your traffic is doing with people getting to your page, posting, and engaging there.
This new feature should be interesting to see how this affects Yelp since this does exactly what we use Yelp’s website and ratings for choosing a restaurant or business service. Check it out and let me know what you think, is this a good new feature, is this something you’re concerned about? Leave your comments below.
Just this morning Bess Auer and I hosted a show on Blab. If you’re not familiar with Blab, it’s a cool new video platform that works with Twitter in the like of Periscope, yet can allow for up to four people to be shown “Brady Bunch” style at once. My first time being on a Blab was with Bess the week of Florida Blog Con. We got on there to talk about the upcoming conference, the speakers, what attendees could expect and more. Viewers are able to sign in via Twitter, and engage with us and others via the chat bar on the right and ask questions, comments, share and more.
Below is a Blab from this morning where we spoke with Joshua Johnson, Dan McGaw, Chef Dennis, and more about how to use Blab, as well as other ways to tell a story about your brand or initiative online. It was a great show and I insist you click play to watch and listen.
Bess and I will be continuing this #BlogTalkTuesday show each Tuesday morning at 10:10AM. Be sure to subscribe here for our next show for October 20th.
These days in just about everything we do, we’re just about accustomed to seeing a commercial, banner, popup, or some type of advertisement trying to get our attention. Even if the attention is only for a few seconds, winning our eyes for just those seconds can change our buying patters and perceptions to brands in a big way. While I won’t get into the science of marketing and mind control, I’ll keep this on topic for social media and the landscape.
I don’t think any social network can solicit ads better than Facebook. They’ve integrated targeted ads at the bottom of images, post threads, and the sidebars. While to most avid users of Facebook, one can train themselves to continue to use the social network and easily ignore the ads. Today I noticed my first sponsored ad in my stream of Instagram. I was a little shocked because I pretty much know all the people I follow and used to the normal content. That all changed when I saw this ad for a TV show that took my by complete surprise.
There have been plans for incorporating ads into IG I think before the Facebook buyout, but with Facebook doing what they already do well, I think ads were inevitable. Anyways, so the ad (see the screenshot below) was a high resolution photo with a TNT logo embedded and that was my first tip off. While a bit subtle it was noticed. There wasn’t enough for me to get a real gist of the program but there was a hashtag and a time and date for the next show on the network.
There was about 42 comments and I think there is where all the comedy was. Some people were complaining for seeing the add, some identified the actor with praise, and of course plenty of sarcasm.
But What Does All This Mean for Avid Instagram Users?
Will you entertain paying big money to advertise your brand, services, products on the powerhouse that is IG? I’ll ask you a better question, how are you currently selling or reselling your brand to your existing audience? Your website is your information stream. People come to it daily for information, there should be subtle ways for you to turn something into revenue. Whether that stream comes from eyes to your website, then a call to action, then an email to buy something at a discount, there should be something in place. Especially if your business is structured to have reoccurring or frequent users – you have their eyes at attention that should be introduced (softly) to strategically placed similar products, well placed ads, or something that encourages an emotion to further engage with your business.
Why You Shouldn’t Be Afraid
Sure I mentioned earlier that most of us are trained to ignore ads and commercial offerings, you must remember why people are using a service, website, or app in the first place. They’ve already been sold on it. So unless something comes around offering a better experience all around, and everyone they know have moved, they’re not going anywhere. Sure some will complain but they’ll continue to use it because all of their friends and coworkers still use it.
I remember when the threat of photo ownership was at risk in IG and people had a mass exodus from the site deleting photos and terminating accounts like it was an Occupy Wall Street protest. I was in the number by the way – (no shame). Then I came back with a new handle and a new perspective on what I decide to post and what I’ll reserve for my own publishing.
You can’t be obnoxious with your offerings and sales pitches. You’ve gotta slide them in there in a real subtle and non-obtrusive way. You also have to make it something that will spark engagement. Even if some it will be negative. Some of the negative will serve as good feedback on how to do better.
How Can You Tell If It Is Working?
Google Analytics is your best friend. Use it. Setup a benchmark for when you’re going to launch your new campaigns and compare that to what was happening on your website a month prior. Even to the week before, see what your numbers look like. See what your sign ups look like. See what your sales are like. See what your emails are like.
Sales Trigger Ideas?
Here are some ideas you can use:
A call to action with a form
A popup window on entry or exit of your website tied to your mailing list (I would suggest MailChimp)
Create new and keyword rich landing pages
Once a day try offering a special deal to one of your more engaged followers on each of your social media accounts. (tell them they one a free something or discounted something)
Create a timed sale or discount. One that has to be used within a certain period of time that day or within the next 24 hours. This will create a sense of urgency
Cross promote your brand with an associated business or service
Invite your followers to post pictures on their social apps with your products (something branded) and tag/mention you
Create your own ads that are linked back to your products when sending out emails
These are just a few ideas, there are plenty more out there. Why not share your efforts and ideas in the comments below and lets have a discussion!
Ah, the beauty of a New England fall season…The crisp air, apple cider donuts and many trees display the multifaceted colors of fall. Content consumption trends this fall are just as varied as trees lining I-90 to the Berkshires. As a device dependent nation, the consumers of content have pushed both manufacturers and marketers to infinite boundaries – a flurry of multifaceted demands to have everything we want (or think we need) at our fingertips all hours of every day. So for mobile technology, Fall 2013 is blowing in with many winds of change for the content consumption marketplace.
Will the PC become obsolete? According to Digital Trends, “research firms have been informing us for some time now that sales of desktops and laptops are on the decline, with consumers turning increasingly to reasonably priced tablets and smartphones that do more than enough to keep them happy.” Even Morgan Stanley analysts have predicted that mobile web use will outgrow stationary device browsing by 2015. This is great news for mobile device makers while stationary PC’s and even laptops sales may continue to fall to below expectation when it comes to content utilization.With the impending November 29th, 2013 Black Friday and Cyber Monday on December 2nd just around the corner, its predicted that consumers’ choices are definitely shifting from PCs to handheld tablets for daily content consumption.
What’s everyone humming about? Yes it is finally arrived – Google Hummingbird. By replacing the old algorithm, Google has answered the call for easy search queries for people on-the-go. Hummingbird is essentially an entirely new ranking algorithm that understands the relationships and relevance of words and phrases, instead of just considering a bunch of individual words. Thus, making it more “human friendly” than ever. So it focuses on ranking information based on more intelligent and naturalistic search requests – providing more useful, intelligent and higher quality content in the digital world.
Seemingly Unlikely Bedfellows – Adobe & Data Analytics? Adobe Marketing Cloud is the latest user interface and in the new Adobe Analytics with an iOS operating system for mobile devices reports the baseline norm from historical user trends and then identifies data points that fall outside that norm. This super smart app offers real-time reporting capabilities to give marketers and copywriters/editors solid intel on readers content consumption, marketing campaign success and on-site conversion as it happens. An SDK mobile app will provide unparalleled opportunity analyze data collected from mobile apps in Adobe Analytics, giving marketers the ability to serve location-specific content to customers based on their location when they access a mobile app. I noticed this most recently while on Pandora. An audible ad, that was specific to my location, popped up to gain my buy-in on their services. This is perfect for true lead generation efforts and capturing the right demographic for a successful campaign.
Branding, Media Style This fall, many companies are beginning to understand that they need to think more like publishers and not just marketers. Connecting brands with online audiences is essential for true consumer, marketing integration and growth. More brands will use sizeably more video and mobile-friendly content in response to the growing number of smartphones and tablets. Media integration helps businesses generates revenue and strengthens customer relationships by leveraging the latest technology and draw on a full range media marketing resources. Since content consumption is at an all time high, using social video resources like Vimeo, YouTube, Instagram, or Vine ads flavorful social content that reaches your audience in quick and impactful ways.
Content Curation Marketing For those who don’t know, content curation goes way beyond just making sure website content is both up-to-date and SEO rich. Content curation is the process of connecting content creators, i.e. marketers, bloggers and writers, to easily and quickly target relevant content. Since content is king, content curators oversee and manage the entire landscape of content – from driving product development and marketing strategies to social networking integration, Notably, this is a fantastic tool to boost social media presence and true engagement for key target audiences.
So there you have it folks – all things content and dominant trends for the Fall season of 2013.
What do you think? Are there other content trends you see fading like the leaves of fall or flourishing in full bloom for 2014?
This may come as a shock but, what I’m about to lay out is very much true. Not everyone should be getting involved in social media. I’m not saying this to be mean, however I am going to shed some light for those who may be thinking of using social media in their business, but don’t really want to invest in doing it right.
Here at Design Theory, we use a LOT of social networks, apps, tools, and more to reach our audience. Through time we’ve learned what works for us, what to spend most time on for better feedback, and what networks may not be worth much effort for the target audience we want. How can you learn some of these things? A lot of trial and effort. If you’re not in it for the long haul, here are some reasons why you may not want to start.
You May Not Really Have Time
This is a classic and very human reason why not to get involved. You’re a business owner or freelancer. You’re already focusing on so much to get your business off the ground, legal paperwork, contracts, advertising. Though all of these can be helped or you can find help through social media, but we won’t go there right now. Thing is, it will eat up your day. When’s the last time you went on Facebook and spent less than 5 minutes on the site? Checking friends status updates, funny videos, wishing friends happy birthday. Well imagine spending about 10-15 minutes on at least 5 networks once or twice a day. Oh it adds up very quickly. Why do you need to spend that much time? Well because each network has users that are on it for a certain time. Finding the right time of day to post is crucial for your engagement. And you’ll also want to be available to respond whenever you get a tweet or post or message. Strike while the iron is hot to lead your visitors and followers back to your site to sell them on something.
You Think You Can Automate Everything
If there was one single app or service that could take what you’re thinking and edit it down to 140 characters, or create a cool viral video that gets shared among millions instantly, I’d be rich because I would develop it. So no one stop shop maybe, but there are social media agencies all around that if you spend time with them and allow them to get to know you and your business they’d be able to be effective at this for you and your brand. But that would cost some serious money to be done right. I don’t want you to fall for the social apps that let you post everywhere at once with the same message. Think about it; the people who follow you on Pinterest want to see pictures and video and not much text. Twitter followers are going to be looking at what you type, maybe a link to find more info or download something for free (and that’s if they see your tweet among the hundreds in their timeline). We all know Facebook posts that have pictures and video get much more attention than just text-only posts. And the biggest issue, what time you post to what network.
You Think It’s All About You
Unless you’re an already established brand, people aren’t going to be super interested in just you or your business. This interest is something you’ll have to sow, water, and grow (if you get what I mean). Chances are there are already known name brands that dominate your industry that your audience is quite familiar with. Its going to be an up hill battle for you to break in and make a name for yourself. Having a good client/customer base will be crucial at the beginning, and making them your “superfans” will be just as crucial to your social engagement. Your potential audience is going to be interested more in what you can do for them (free first then paid) than about who you actually are at first. Spend more time offering great tips and help on your industry and services and less time trying to sell directly.
You Just Want To Sell, Sell, Sell
Speaking of selling, don’t even bother. Well unless you have a hot product that people absolutely love and you’re having a tough time keeping them in stock, try not to start into social media with an “I must sell” agenda. Most people using social media networks have figured out how to ignore or parse ads from their normal view. Facebook realized this, and they’ve moved to incorporating sponsored and suggested posts in the mix of your news feed. Why? Because they noticed how people were totally ignoring the right side of their Facebook screen because that’s where the ads always were everywhere they go on Facebook. Try to talk more about differences in available products, why your products are actually better than the leading competition, ways your products may save money or time, and how your products or services actually are awesome.
You Anticipate Huge Results Immediately
If you’re thinking that for every tweet you’re going to get 20 new followers, or for every new Facebook post you’re going to have 10 reply comments, or for each board you create on Pinterest you’re going to get 50 new re-pins and followers, or each video you post on YouTube will go viral in a few hours, please walk away now. It doesn’t work that way. There’s no secret formula to what actually becomes viral. And results like that are quite seldom. Even for those that are able to go viral, its more rare for them to do it again. It is going to take some time to develop your audience and following. Regardless of what network it is. I have 500+ connections on Linked In, but I don’t get 500+ likes to ever single discussion I post. It takes genuine content, posted at the opportune times when engagement is most likely for each individual network. And yes social media can be tracked, but no you’re probably not going to get two dollars for every dollar you invest in it.
Agree with me or disagree, I’d still like to hear your thoughts. Lets discuss in the comments below.
Image Credit: GraphicsFuel (download them for free!)
If you’re a web designer or blogger, you know that WordPress (WP) has quickly become one of the fastest growing, most popular content management systems (CMS) around. It’s extremely quick to install as well as easy to navigate and master. And they are consistently evolving across all platforms with simple-to-use themes as well as free updates and plugins that are only a few clicks away via the dashboard Most of us WP users and web designers purchase a theme with majority of the bells & whistles we think we’ll need. But sometimes the theme falls short, you need your website to have certain functionality that you could not have foreseen needing or you need to add functionality at the behest of your client. So this is where plugins plug in-filling in the gap between wishing and less limitations.
In the last year, I’ve begun having more fun in the dashboard and realize that I’ve been missing out on all the cool plugins that make building/editing a site more efficient as well as functional. Some are tried and true while others are indeed new. So here’s my list of my favorite WordPress plugins to date.
All-in-One SEO Pack – All in One SEO Pack Pro v2.1 improves on the most popular WordPress SEO plugin. Not only can you set site-wide defaults in WordPress as well as customize the search engine settings for each individual WordPress post, page and custom post type but now you can manage exactly how search engines crawl each page or post. All in One SEO Pack Pro even gives you complete control over your social meta or OpenGraph meta so you can control what appears on your favorite social media sites.
Custom Link Widget – A Simple, straight-forward plugin that lets you insert links as the widget. Just insert your link, name it and it will convert it to a hyperlink automatically.
Image Widget – A simple image widget that uses the native WordPress media manager to add image widgets to your site. It automatically resizes and aligns your image, allows you to link the image and even allows you to override your theme template!
Post Types Order – You can custom order the posts without making any php file changes or publish date resetting. Simply install plugin, drag & drop.
Widget Logic – This widget gives you extra control field called “Widget logic” that lets you control the pages that the widget will appear on.
Ultimate TinyMCE – A chock full kitchen sink of editorial/functional options.
WP Touch – This plugin reformats your website to a mobile site for easy navigation & shortcuts on Apple iPhone / iPod touch, Google Android, Blackberry Storm and Torch, Palm Pre and other touchscreen smartphones.
Acurax Social Media Widget – This so ridiculously simple plugin lets you define the icon style & add multiple social media linked icons to your Twitter,Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube,RSS Feed,Linkedin, and Google+.
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