Content Marketing on Pinterest

26 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Pinterest

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This article will explain 3 Uses For Pinterest Secret Boards in Content Marketing. Pinterest is an ever-growing tool that marketers are beginning to truly love. Why is that? Because the only point and use for Pinterest is sharing content, and visual content at that.

Social media is a varied and unique animal, with many different incarnations that target specific needs in the marketer, and engaging in different demographics. Lately, the lines between those demographics are becoming blurred. The videos watched by men in their 40′s tend to be similar (or the same) as woman in their early 20′s. Facebook games have a wide appeal with people of all ages, genders and social backgrounds taking part. LinkedIn is aimed at professions in any industry.

Pinterest has a more particular groups of users, with most being women between the ages of 18 and 30. But it is an important – and ever-growing tool that marketers are beginning to truly love. Why is that? Because the only point and use for Pinterest is sharing content, and visual content at that. It is an online marketers dream site, and slowly the appeal is spreading to more people than its original fan base.

There is a feature that not everyone is utilizing, however. Maybe it is because they don’t know about it, or they just don’t see the potential it holds. These are secret boards, where you can pin images that are only visible to yourself or people you specify.

First, 2 things you need to know about Pinterest private boards before getting started:

You can have no more than three secret boards
You will always be able to switch your currently secret board to public mode (e.g. when your exclusive offer or beta period expires)

How can you use the feature for content marketing?

View SOURCE LINK to the full article Written by Ann Smarty

Top Professionals’ Best Practices for Building Facebook Apps

24 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Facebook

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Online Marketing, SEM, SEO

Tips brought you from the good eggs at Social Stacked!

We’re in the business of app building, so it only makes sense that we’d fill you in on some best practices when it comes to creating apps that increase engagement and drive Likes to your Facebook Page.

Since we wanted insight from experts who build our apps all the time, we reached out to four of our ShortStack Masters and asked them to give us their advice. ShortStack Masters are independent designers who are available to build custom Facebook apps on a per-project basis. They’ve been building apps since the beginning and are some of the best in the industry. Their best practices are for general app building and apply to any business owner who is looking to create apps for a Facebook Page.

Here’s what our Masters had to say:

Best Practice #1: Build the Buzz

Provided by: Marc Preston
Company: Social Media 180
Website: http://www.socialmedia180.com
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/socialmedia180

How many of you have built a Facebook application first and started marketing it second? In the past this was exactly what we did. These days, Social Media 180 begins by building the buzz around upcoming promotions before the actual launch.

Here’s what we do:

1. Create a basic email capture application to pre-register fans for any upcoming promotion.Then we let fans know they’ll be the first to know about an upcoming giveaway. This allows us to start creating status updates to drive traffic to the pre-registration application and capture email addresses on day one.

2. Use the captured email addresses to connect a third-party database to the clients in Mailchimp or Constant Contact. Include an auto-response outlining all the publicly available details about the upcoming promotion. Using proper messaging and a pre-registration page, two weeks is plenty of time to make sure your entire fan base has seen your status updates while you work on completing your app. Once you’re ready to launch, you have access to a larger percentage of your Facebook audience than you would with a normal post on the day your app is released.

Best Practice #2: Strategize

Provided by: Judith Cohen
Company: Fresh Buzz Media
Website: http://freshbuzzmedia.com/
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/FreshBuzzMedia

A user-drive strategy is the key to building a successful Facebook app. Prior to building your app and announcing your new app to your fans, take some time to think about your audience and what they seek out in your brand.

Here are three things we do:

1. Do user tests. If you’re not sure what your audience likes, you can do some user tests with different Facebook posts. Design the experience or intended result from there. Different markets require different approaches. For example, a restaurant app would be great for a voucher or contest, while a hotel app would be great for a room offer or photo contest app. The more in-tune you are with your audience the better response you’ll get.

2. Think sharing. Share, don’t sell, your brand and your message. Your fans and guests will appreciate the authentic social aspect and will want to share your app with their friends more readily. In addition, always make sure you’re using a “Smart URL” to share your app on your Timeline so your fans can access it from their desktop or mobile device. Also include an image because images are viral inducing.

3. Pay attention to user experience. We understand that graphic design is not every person’s forte, but there’s nothing that turns a fan off more than an unattractive app. Stay committed to great brand/graphical aesthetics and UI design. If you don’t have the design skill set yourself, seek out someone who does, the investment will be worth it for your business.

Best Practice #3: Consider Permissions and Mobile Capabilities

Provided by: Nick Vassos
Company: Juice Boxd
Website: http://www.juiceboxd.com/

When examining the most successful campaigns that we’ve been able to develop for our clients, two main factors have stood out: the number of permissions requested and the ability to access the application from a mobile phone.

Two things to keep in mind:

1. Limit permissions. People have become hesitant to enter contests or use applications because of the daunting number of permissions that many businesses request. It’s important that the client identifies the “must have” permissions and remove anything extra. (For some additional information on Facebook permissions and what marketers need to know, check out this guest post by Jim for Social Media Examiner: Facebook Permissions.)

2. Make it mobile! When it comes to mobile access, we know that more than 50 percent of people access Facebook from a mobile device. ShortStack provides the smartlink [Smart URL] to bridge the gap between your Facebook app and mobile devices and really increase adoption by the audience.

Best Practice #4: Keep it Simple!

Provided by: Lea Heckley
Company: ShortStack
Website: http://www.shortstack.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/shortstacklab

The point of an app is to get users engaging and talking about your business or product. The easier it is for them to do so, the better. Whether your app is a contest, a gallery of photos or products, or a video you would like users to share, keep usability in mind.

Here are two things to remember:

1. Keep everything clear. How can you make it as easy as possible for your users to understand and interact the way you want them to? Are your Submit and Share buttons large and easy to see? Are there clear calls to action? Is the entry form easy to see and find or do users have to scroll through four screens to get to it.

2. Limit text. Less text is better! This is part of the usability factor. Users aren’t clicking on your app to read a novel. They want to see what to do, do it, and move on. Try to keep descriptions, instructions, etc. as short and sweet as you can. Use visual elements to steer them along.

So there you have it, top tips from the best in the industry. What are some best practices you’ve learned in building your own apps?

Twitter today took the latest step in its bid to build up its advertising business…

17 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Twitter

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PPC, SEM, SEO

This latest Twitter news is brought to you by the fine people at TechCrunch

New Keyword Targeting Lets Twitter Ads Chase Purchase Intent, Similar To Search Ads

Twitter today took the latest step in its bid to build up its advertising business, which some estimate could reach $1 billion in revenues this year: it has introduced keyword targeting to the platform. This means that brands and others can now plan and serve ads to users based on specific words in users’ tweets. Twitter says the service is rolling out across all of its ad network, mobile and desktop, covering 15 languages and all markets where it currently serves Twitter Ads. However, it is careful to point out that this will not mean more ads, but simply ads that are more specific to what you happen to be mentioning on the site.

As Twitter notes in a blog post today, perhaps one of the most important aspects of this new feature is that it will be useful for brands and advertisers to use it to target intent.

“It lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context,” the company notes. In Twitter’s description:

Let’s say a user tweets about enjoying the latest album from their favorite band, and it so happens that band is due to play a concert at a local venue. That venue could now run a geotargeted campaign using keywords for that band with a Tweet containing a link to buy the tickets. That way, the user who tweeted about the new album may soon see that Promoted Tweet in their timeline letting them know tickets are for sale in their area.

keywordtargetingintimeline

Twitter says that early trialists, Everything Everywhere, Microsoft Japan, and Walgreens saw that “users were significantly more likely to engage with Promoted Tweets using keyword targeting in timeline than other forms of targeting in the timeline.”

eMarketer is more modest about what Twitter might achieve in ad revenue this year. It believes that it will globally make $582.8 million in 2013 and approach $1 billion in 2014. Twitter made $288.3 million in global ad revenue in 2012, it estimates. Some 83 percent of that will come from the U.S. this year — perhaps a proportion that will drop with universal launches of new features like this one. It believes that by 2015, non-U.S. ad revenues will be $319 million.

What the new keyword targeting feature does not address, however, are the many people who use Twitter but do not themselves tweet. Nor is it clear how instantaneous “the right moment” will be, and for how long those targeting moves will remain after you post a tweet. Given the fleeting nature of Twitter in general, how will we know if what you think about in one burst of 140 characters will stay on your mind long enough for a follow-up, targeted keyword tweet to stick, rather than feel stale or creepy?

The new keyword targeting tool will be available both through the Twitter Ads dashboard and through Twitter’s ads API.

12 Tricks The Pros Use To Hack Facebook…damn hackers.

05 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Facebook

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Online Marketing, Social Media

Dennis Yu on April 5, 2013 6:08 PM

40 percent of all interaction on Facebook occurs in the News Feed, yet most brands experienced a 47 percent drop in reach in the last 6 months. How can you get your reach back?

Here are a few tips that the pros use:

David and Goliath. The smaller guys buy the names of their larger competitors in Facebook’s search. Just try typing in “Eloqua” to see Marketo’s ad — also try “Canadian Music Week” or “Get Satisfaction” to see our fun message. Costs pennies to do.

Surfing credibility. My friend Ekaterina just wrote “Think Like Zuck” to surf on his name. Let’s say you have a thought piece on Apple vs. Samsung — maybe have a subject line like “7 Things Steve Jobs is Mad About” or “Samsung’s 10 Ways to Compete with Apple”. Make it classy, of course.

Post frequency management. Of course, there is no magic time to post for all brands or magic words of a magic length. Folks like Being Liberal and I F****ing Love Science know a post lives for 40-60 minutes in the newsfeed. So they wait until a post is starting to trail off in activity before posting again. If a post it hot, they wait a bit longer for the next post. This way, they’re alwaysriding the peaks.

Asking for shares. Just like saying RT on Twitter increases retweets, many brands are asking users to share, sometimes in all caps. More sneaky, they say click LIKE to agree or comment to disagree. They win either way. Great taste, less filling.

Blending content. We’ve seen community managers use a ratio of 1 in 4 or even as low as 1 in 8 for promotional posts. The high engagement posts raise your average engagement, letting your sales-ish posts get through.

Run ads to boost organic exposure. Did you know that paid reach significantly impacts organic and viral reach? Not true in Google, but completely true in Facebook, since their algorithm looks at engagement, paid or not. But make sure these are News Feed ads that are highly targeted — with clickthrough rates above 3 percent.

Leverage your Facebook contacts. On Twitter, if you spend enough, you get a verified badge, which is also taken away if you stop spending. Facebook is not quite like that, but certainly you get more attention when you’re spending money. Your rep has an interest to make you happy, to change your page name when you’re above the fan limit, fast track ad approvals, or tell you about new features.

Have users ready to comment back on brand posts. This gets the initial folks on the empty dance floor, so to speak. Some agencies have community managers that do this to jumpstart engagement. We don’t think this is necessary on naturally social brands (entertainment and CPG).

Use FBX to increase conversion rates. Only a couple thousand accounts so far, so the traffic is cheap on Facebook retargeting. If you’re a real pro, you’re running your Google retargeting pixel on your Facebook app, to get retargeting both ways. Direct marketers, you hearing this?

Passion Pages. @marismith was telling me that groups/pages like “I like turning the pillow so I can sleep on the cold side” can get millions of fans. Wouldn’t you be more likely to engage with that vs “Serta Mattresses”? The Mormon church has passion pages that celebrate family values with bumper sticker like names. They funnel to the central page in a hub-and-spoke, of course. High engagement!

Make a mistake intentionally. The title said 12 tips, but there are only 11 here. A friend of mine had his Facebook printed upside down on his business cards. Of course, people would point that out — it made him memorable. But don’t take it too far, such as Burger King faking getting hacked on Twitter, after Taco Bell actually was hacked.

Readers: What’s your favorite tip to game Facebook engagement rates?

Dennis Yu has helped brands grow and measure their Facebook presence. He has spoken at Search Marketing Expo, Search Engine Strategies, Web 2.0, The American Marketing Association, PubCon, Conversational Commerce Conference, Pacific Conferences, HostingCon, Affiliate Summit, Affiliate Convention, UltraLight Startups, MIVA Merchant, and other venues. Yu has also counseled the Federal Trade Commission on privacy issues for social networks. Yu has held leadership positions at Yahoo and American Airlines. His educational background is finance and economics from Southern Methodist University and London School of Economics.

And now a from Socially Stacked – Facebook Advertising Updates You Should Know About.

03 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Facebook, Uncategorized

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Advertising, Online Marketing, Social Media

Here are the most recent Facebook Advertising changes you should know about.

#1: Lookalike Audiences

Facebook has added a new feature, called “Lookalike audiences,” that helps advertisers target users who are similar to their existing customers.

This feature is available to advertisers who are using Facebook’s Power Editor and allows businesses to target users similar to those in their Custom audience databases. A Lookalike audience can be created after an advertiser has uploaded first-party data which includes email address, phone number or user IDs for a custom audience. Facebook’s algorithms then analyze the custom audience information and produce a second audience that has similar profiles. Check out the article about Lookalike audiences that Jon Loomer recently wrote on his blog.

“There is no additional cost for creating or using Lookalike audiences, but the feature is currently only available for ad campaigns, not page post targeting.”

#2: Reach Users in News Feed with ‘Unpublished Posts’

Advertisers can now choose to target their posts to specific audiences in the News Feed. This option was previously available for ads that appeared on the right hand side of the desktop site; it was not available for feed-based ads.

Using Unpublished Posts, advertisers can reach specific audiences in their News Feeds without overwhelming them with different posts. According to InsideFacebook, “An athletic brand could make an unpublished post about a basketball product and only show that to fans who are interested in basketball, and then do a tennis-related post for tennis fans, and so on.”

This feature also allows advertisers to get more creative with their ads and to test creative ideas. Businesses can use Unpublished Posts to test variations of copy or images. You can create Unpublished Posts through the Power Editor or through Ads API and promote them in any placement.

#3. Updates to Ads Manager

Facebook has announced enhancements to the Ads Manager that allows advertisers to analyze their ad campaigns based on specific metrics. The new features match campaign goals with users’ actions. According to Facebook, “We know that marketers on Facebook have various goals. Some might care about app installs, some might want new fans for their pages, and some might want to increase people’s interactions with their posts. We are now helping marketers better identify what user actions drive their specific advertising goals. When advertisers create their ads in the ad create tool, they can choose from any of the following advertising goals. Now Ads Manager will display the actions they care about most more prominently in their campaign summary pages.”

The updated Ads Manager is expected to be rolled out globally in the next coming weeks.

Photo credit: AllFacebook

#4: Enhancements to Mobile “Offers” Features

In February, Facebook began testing a new version of Offers on desktops. In case you’re playing catch-up, Facebook Offers are ads you pay for to offer a one-time discount, coupon or similar offer to your customers through your Facebook Page.

Facebook has been working on making Offers more effective, and their most recent change includes updates to the mobile capabilities of Offers. Users now have the option to choose “Remind Me” on a business’s offer when it appears on their mobile phone. (This feature has been available on desktops since February.)

When a user selects “Remind Me” on an offer they receive an email at a later date and a notification on Facebook. Retailers can decide when they will remind users about their promotions. Users also have the option to choose “Shop Now” and purchase immediately.

This is a step up from the previous features which only allowed users to claim the offer immediately. It is also an improvement on Facebook’s mobile capabilities which are slowly catching up to the desktop features.

Want more of this good stuff? Check out http://www.sociallystacked.com/

Twitter Announces $5 Premium Service (With Free No Vowels “Twttr” Option For Cheapskates)

01 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Twitter

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Social Media

Yes, you read that headline correctly (no I did not make that up)

LOL ok so it’s April Fools day, but this is funny stuff to us geeks!

Today, Twitter has announced a new two-tier option for its users: a premium, five dollars a month service, and a free but basic version of the micro-blogging platform, known as Twttr, which everyone can use.

The catch? The no-cost Twttr option does not allow the use of vowels, meaning users will now have to get very creative with the letter “Y”.

Yep. This is huge. Twitter has said that they’re doing this because “by eliminating vowels, we’ll encourage a more efficient and ‘dense’ form of communication. We also see an opportunity to diversify our revenue stream.”

Hard to argue with that. Anything to get those profits up, right? Sounds like smart business thinking to me. And let’s face it, 90 percent of Twitter users rarely use any vowels (or punctuation, for that matter) in their Tweets, so for most folks this cutdown version of the service isn’t going to make a lick of difference.

And for those that might struggle, Twitter has some good news: the letter “Y” will be free to all users.

Because our users come first, we believe that “Y” should always be free to everyone — today and forever. You’ll notice in the Twttr example above, the “y” is clearly visible. Also, the vowels in URLs will be also be free for everyone, forever. You can also Tweet in non-Latin characters based languages, like Japanese, Chinese, Arabic or Korean. These languages will remain unaffected by our service change.

Let’s not forget by stripping out those (to be honest, mostly annoying) vowels, you’ll be able to create a lot more room for some amazing 140-character tweets. Like this one from Joan Rivers, for example:

You can see how your own Tweets will look here.

(It’s an April Fool, of course, and a pretty good one at that. Kudos to Twitter for the Google-esque effort. Hop on over to the official Twitter blog for more.)

leonidesignoryblog

~ socially savvy design

Monthly Archives: April 2013

Top Professionals’ Best Practices for Building Facebook Apps

Twitter today took the latest step in its bid to build up its advertising business…

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