Monthly Archives: January 2014

18 Ways to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Performance

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Best Practices, Content Marketing, Facebook, Marketing, Online Marketing

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Are you frustrated with Facebook’s frequent changes to the news feed algorithm?Do you feel like you’re being forced to buy ads to reach your audience?

While Facebook change is the rule rather than the exception, this article gives you 18 ways you can improve your Facebook news feed performance—and gain the upper hand.

How Reach Is Created on Facebook

Facebook defines reach as the number of unique Facebook users who see your updates.

To see your page’s reach, go to Facebook Insights and look at your page’s Reach report. You’ll be able to see how your reach is improving over time (as shown below).

facebook reach

How much reach does your Facebook page have?

 

Reach is generally influenced by one or more of the following actions:

  • You post content to your Facebook page. Yes, most of your fans don’t see it, but it still generates reach. Facebook calls this organic reach.
  • Facebook users take action on that update (like, comment, share), which creates a story in their friends’ news feeds. Facebook calls this viral reach.
  • You send visitors to that update using your own marketing channels. An example would be linking to a specific Facebook update in your email marketing newsletter. This also falls within organic reach.
  • You buy reach with Facebook ads. Facebook offers a variety of ad options, including boosts and targeting custom audiences. Facebook calls this paid reach.

All four actions are interrelated.

For example, if you publish content (organic reach) that your fans react to, friends of those fans will see that content (viral reach). If you decide an update is worthy of a Facebook ad, then the ad creates paid reach.

The more kinds of reach you generate with an update, the more people see that update. And that’s where these 18 ways you can beat Facebook’s news feed algorithm come in.

#1: Create a Content Strategy

You’ve heard this before, but what really matters in the end is the content.

Your fans don’t share a post just because they see it the news feed. They share it because it’s useful and interesting to them.

In the nonprofit world, fewer than 25% of pages have a content strategy, and I’ll bet that’s true for most small businesses as well.

If you need guidance on creating a content strategy, read these Social Media Examiner articles:

#2: Know When Your Fans Are Online

When is the best time to post on Facebook? When most of your fans are actually using Facebook.

In general, Facebook shows the most recent content at the top of the news feed. If you post an update at 2am, but your fans are using Facebook at 8am, you can be sure they aren’t seeing your updates.

You can find out when your fans are online by going to your Facebook Insights and clicking Posts.

when facebook fans are online

Post when your fans are on Facebook to ensure maximum reach.

#3: Pay Attention to Post Frequency

After looking at your Post Insights, you probably noticed there’s never a period whennone of your fans are using Facebook.

This means you should post at least once per day. Socialbakers recommends no more than twice a day, based on their research.

#4: Let People Post Content on Your Facebook Page

When Facebook users post updates on your page or mention your page, their friends see that activity in the news feed. That’s important viral reach.

In the update below, Max has posted an update on the Libraries Are Essential Facebook page. Many of Max’s friends will be exposed to this page through viral reach because his post shows up in his friends’ news feeds.

If you’re worried about spam or negative content being posted on your page, don’t worry. You can easily configure your page to block content that contains specific keywords or profanity.

viral reach

Any time someone posts on your page, it shows up in their friends’ news feeds, which results in viral reach.

#5: Host a “Caption This” Contest

One thing I’ve done that’s consistently worked well is to host caption contests as a way to generate an instant flood of comments, which in turn creates a flood of viral reach!

caption contest

Fun and easy contests or giveaways result in higher organic and viral reach.

I give away copies of great books, but you can give away anything you want. Justmake sure it’s useful and relevant to your community.

#6: Reply to Comments

To build community, you have to listen to and respond to community. People use Facebook because they want to be heard!

Responding to comments is important.

comment reply

Reply to your commenters so they know they’re heard.

Your Facebook page has an optional threaded comments feature. This means that when a fan leaves a comment on an update, you can reply specifically to that comment.

When you respond, that fan receives a notification, which is incentive to revisit your page to read your response. Increasing the frequency of visits to your page is a key part of developing a core Facebook page community.

You can turn on threaded comments in a few easy steps:

  • Go to your page and click Edit.
  • Choose Edit Settings.
  • Find the Replies heading in the list and click Edit.
  • Click Allow Replies to Comments on My Page.
  • Click Save Changes.

#7: Tag Commenters

Normally, pages can’t tag people on Facebook, but there is one exception: If a Facebook user leaves a comment on an update, you can tag the user when you comment on that same update.

tag commentersTag commenters in your reply to bring them back to the conversation.

Depending on the users’ privacy settings, they’ll receive notification that they’ve been tagged, prompting them to revisit the thread.

#8: Tag and Give Props to Other Pages

Human beings are hardwired for reciprocity. Generally speaking, when you promote another business’s agenda on Facebook, they receive a notification so they know the good deed you did for them. If they’re a good partner, they’ll return the favor.

tagging other pages

This update tagged RazorSocial.

#9: Repost Previous Top-Performing Updates

Your content strategy doesn’t have to only include new content; you can also recycle your most successful posts to reengage fans.

To find and reframe your top-performing posts, you need to know post engagement rates—the percentage of people who saw an update and liked, commented on or shared it.

To find post engagement rates, go to your Insights and click Posts. Scroll down to the All Posts Published table, and click the Engagement column to quicklysort your posts by engagement rate.

To really get a feel for which updates your fans loved, export at least six months of post-level data and study it.

To bring fans back to your most brilliant and engaging content, you can:

  • Click Share on the original post and share it directly on your page.
  • Copy and paste the original post into a new status update.
  • Modify the original post, then post as a new status update.

An important note here: Don’t recycle recent content. You don’t want fans to feel like they’re seeing reposted content too frequently.

#10: Boost Previous Top-Performing Updates

There’s no way to escape it. If you’re serious about Facebook marketing, use ads. 

What I will say is this: Only promote awesome.

Investing in posts that already have a high engagement rate is more likely to give you the biggest bang for your buck—more likes, comments and shares—which translates into more engagement and reach in the long run.

Whether you have experience with Facebook ads or not, make time to read Jon Loomer’s articles on using Facebook Ads and the Power Editor to promote your top-performing posts.

boost a post

Promote your best Facebook content easily right from Insights.

#11: Feature Your Posts in a Like Box

Most people don’t know that the Facebook Like box in their website’s sidebar has a setting that lets you display your most recent page updates.

When people see your Facebook updates in your sidebar, it not only encourages them to like your page right there, but to click over to your page and take part in the conversation.

To update your Like box, visit the plugin page and configure the settings to Show Posts (as shown below).

display latest posts in like box

Sharing your Facebook updates in your sidebar Like box lures people to your page.

#12: Embed Top-Performing Updates in Blog Posts

One constant challenge for most bloggers is finding topics to write about.

Take a look at your most recent high-engagement Facebook updates and write blog posts that expand on those topics. Within the post, embed one or more of your best Facebook page updates (as shown below).

embed facebook posts

Write blog posts around your popular Facebook topics and provide a way for readers to revisit the conversation on Facebook.

This approach not only creates more reach for your best Facebook updates, it gives you blog post content that’s already been vetted by your community!

#13: Message Your Friend Networks

Have you hit a wall on your way to getting engagement? Depending on the strength of your collective friend network, try asking for shares or comments from within your personal networks.

Now, obviously you can’t force people to do this. But you can have willing parties message their friends at a time when you know your fans are mostly likely to be online.

These network shares cause a trending effect among friends connected to your business. When people see several of their friends talking about a topic, they’re more likely to be interested in that topic and click over to read more.

#14: Guest Post on Sites That Send You Traffic

If you’re a regular reader of Social Media Examiner, you know how powerful having aguest blogging strategy can be for growing your business.

But did you know you can find potential leads for guest-post opportunities right in Facebook Insights?

Within the Visits report, scroll all the way down to the External Referrers section. This graph shows you which websites are referring the most traffic to your Facebook page (shown below).

referrals from guest posts

Keep track of who’s sending traffic your way and make the most of those partnerships.

Contact the sites sending people your way and see if you can write a guest post for them.

Don’t limit yourself to guest blogging. Feel free to explore other co-marketing opportunities that may work as well.

#15: Pin Top-Performing Pictures on Pinterest

When you post images to Pinterest, you have an option to include a URL. When a user clicks the image, they go to that URL.

Try reposting a few high-performing photos from your Facebook page onto Pinterest and linking back to your Facebook update.

Make sure you use the correct permalink for the post! You can find that by clicking on the post’s publish date on Facebook (as shown below). You’ll be taken to a new page that shows just that post. Copy the URL for this page to use as your Pinterest link.

finding a post permalink

Use eye-catching images on Pinterest that link back to your Facebook page.

Keep track of how much traffic Pinterest is sending to your Facebook page via your Insights’ External Referrer graph. Then you’ll be able to determine how effective this approach is in boosting reach for your Facebook page updates.

#16: Tweet Your Top-Performing Updates

Some of my clients have had success scheduling tweets with links to their high-performing Facebook updates. Two or three tweets in 48 hours is plenty. Tweet recent Facebook updates rather than older ones.

tweeting a facebook update

Tweeting a Facebook post drives external traffic.

Make sure you’re able to measure clicks from Twitter to the post.

#17: Use Email Marketing to Promote Top-Performing Posts

This is one of my favorite strategies to use for my Facebook page. It’s so simple and effective, I’m surprised I don’t see it done more often.

Every time I write my weekly newsletter, I include a link to a Facebook page update.

For example, I recently asked my subscribers if they’d like me to write more about blogging, then I provided a link to a Facebook post where they could answer.

facebook poll

People who open and read your emails are highly likely to engage with you on Facebook as well.

#18: Identify Best Tactics With Facebook Insights

In the end, you have to find the tactics that work for your Facebook page.

Export the last six months of your Facebook Insights and study them to see what works for your page, then replicate that success with the tips above.

Pay attention to which updates resulted in new fans. Look at which posts produced specific kinds of reach and engagement (shares are more important than likes, for example).

 

From our good friends at Social Media Examiner –  Keep up with all the news http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/improve-facebook-news-feed-performance/

9 Ways Social Media Marketing Will Change in 2014

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Best Practices, community manager, Content Marketing, Facebook, Google+, LInkedIn, Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing, Online Marketing, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube

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This in from Mashable. Mashable asked nine successful entrepreneurs how they are planning on altering their social media marketing strategies in the next six months, based on their predictions for the new year. Here’s what they had to say.

You tell me what you think about what they think…That’s a lot of thinking I know…

From the decline of Facebook use among teens (ok this one right off the bat is a rather misleading statement) to Twitter’s IPO, if there is one thing we know for sure about social media, it’s that few trends hold on for long — so marketers need to stay on their toes.

1. Graphic software will rise.

Laura Pepper

Posts on Facebook with photos get 53% more likes, 104% more comments and 84% more click-throughs than text-based posts, according to Kissmetrics. With the rise of Pinterest and Tumblr, it’s going to become increasingly important to produce content in visual form, whether it is infographics, images with text overlay or pretty quote graphics. We’ll be using more graphic software to turn our written content into visual content to make it more shareable on social media.

– Laura Pepper Wu, 30 Day Books

2. Social won’t be use for sales.

Charles Gaudet

People love to buy, but they hate to be sold. Companies currently celebrating the most success in social media focus on engagement, nurturing relationships and sharing value through their social outreach. Customers and prospects will seek out companies offering value, entertainment, discounts, help and engagement.

– Charles Gaudet, Predictable Profits

3. Automation will explode.

Brennan White copy

A lot currently rides on the shoulders of social media marketers. They have to be on top of brand voice, any current company promotions or marketing campaigns, the tools they measure social media with, the various communities on the platforms, etc. It’s a lot, and it’s more varied than most people are capable of doing well. In 2014, we’ll see a lot of automation of the tactics (think timing, platform, structure, etc.), so social media marketers can focus on the content and the genuine social interaction. Autonomics is being adopted now and will only explode as more technologies come online in 2014.

– Brennan White, Watchtower

4. LinkedIn will become the most important publisher.

Trevor Summers

Imagine a publication with more than 100 million captive readers and writers, such as Bill Gates and Richard Branson, all natively hooked into and targeted to a social network. LinkedIn will become a premium destination for industry news, and you need to take part in that ecosystem early and often. Publish original content, network among peers in groups and raise your profile now.

– Trevor Sumner, LocalVox

5. Content will be bigger and better.

Andrew Howlett

Simple messages and simple questions aren’t enough anymore. To achieve a deeper connection with your customers, a company needs to engage on a deeper and more intelligent level. Short videos, infographics, quality imagery and polls are all ways to engage deeper. Companies need to look at the content they put out and ask themselves, “Is this shareable?” An example of a huge company that’s doing this really well right now is Wal-Mart. Its content is smart and engaging, and the fan engagement is very high by comparison to its competitors. Also, companies need to focus on the fans they have and not the fans they want. If your message is always trying to reach out, you’ll bore the fans that have chosen to connect with you.

– Andrew Howlett, Rain

6. Social will need to stand out.

Wade Foster

Social media has really started to mature. Therefore, it will be a lot harder to stand out. To win big in social media, you’ll have to think outside the box and find ways to get your content to stand out in all the noise.

– Wade Foster, Zapier

7. Social media campaigns will have to be paid.

Kristopher Jones

I assume that the most effective social media campaigns in 2014 will be paid. The key is learning how to use Facebook and Twitter’s paid tools now so that you’ll have an edge on the competition. For instance, are you using Facebook’s advanced audience tool? It allows you to upload your email database and send specific response messages directly to your focused audience. Imagine being able to segment both email marketing and Facebook ads to your target audience. Facebook already offers these types of advanced tools, and they will become more mainstream in 2014. Similarly, Twitter is now public and has been making an aggressive push into paid advertising. If you are a brand and want to succeed on Twitter in 2014, get ready to pay for it.

– Kristopher Jones, ReferLocal.com

8. Interactive content will trump static content.

Chuck CohnCreating static content is too easy. In 2014, the bar will be raised on the type of content people choose to engage with. Expect to see content become more interactive (think software-like). The year 2013 was the year of “Top 10” lists. To get users to engage to the same degree in 2014 and subsequent years, publishers will need to make it increasingly engaging, and one effective way to do that is to make your content interactive.

– Chuck Cohn, Varsity Tutors

9. Google+ will merge into the social scene.

Nicolas Gremion

As Google continues to merge its products, it’s becoming more and more important in the social media landscape. There are so many benefits to using Google+. It creates a strong community that allows you to use your brand and identify consumers who share an interest in your products. It also allows your brand to become more social with like-minded consumers. They provide like-minded consumers a platform to connect with one another. This builds a strong community, which is a great way to get feedback on new and old products from real-time consumers.

How to Be Found on LinkedIn

27 Monday Jan 2014

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Whether you’re mastering social selling, making yourself easier for future employers and clients to find, or recruiting top talent, it pays to be a LinkedIn power user. But do you know how to be found on LinkedIn? The trick is in understanding how LinkedIn works and how you can take full advantage of the search algorithm. Searching LinkedIn is not much different than searching Google—SEO matters! It matters so much that it bleeds outside of LinkedIn and into Google. BrandYourself released findings that show LinkedIn is the social network most often appearing at the top of Google search results.

Image by Esther Vargas.

A LinkedIn profile has an ever growing number of different sections, but LinkedIn’s Search algorithm weights some of these heavier than others. Keywords in your Name, Headline, Company Name, Job Title and Skills rank higher in the search results. In no particular order, let’s look at some of the criteria that LinkedIn uses when determining its search results.

Your Headline

Your headline is the first thing people see in your profile, your first chance to make an impression. Although LinkedIn autopopulates it with your current title and company name, you can edit this headline at will. Show a bit of personality and set yourself apart. Just make sure you include key terms, as LinkedIn’s algorithm crawls your headline for search keywords.

My own LinkedIn headline.

My own LinkedIn headline includes key search term “social selling.”

Your Profile Completeness

LinkedIn favours profiles that are 100% complete. This means that if you want to be taken seriously by LinkedIn’s search algorithm you must keep your profile complete and updated when LinkedIn adds new fields and options.

Your Job History

While computing search results, LinkedIn also looks at your current and past job description to see if or how many times the keyword appears. This contributes to your search-ability for that specific keyword, meaning that if you work in sales, you should use the word “sales” consistently throughout your various job descriptions. The same applies to more specific titles—if you’re in “exotic reptile sales,” don’t call it “python sales” in one job description and “snake sales” in another.  Remember, you want your title to reflect what people will search for in an employee or contractor. Chances are that they’re after an “expert” more often than a “ninja” or “samurai.”

Your Connections

You should approach this section of your LinkedIn profile with Jill Rowley’s ABCs in mind: Always be connecting. The search results returned to each and every person are unique to them in that it will display people in your network giving weight to how distant they are to you. This makes sense since the chances of you connecting to someone with a mutual contact are higher than your chances of connecting with a complete stranger. Put simply, the more contacts you have, the more likely you are to appear in searches by members of your extended network.

Keyword searches will bring up the most relevant results among your connections first.

Keyword searches will bring up the most relevant results among your connections first.

Your Skills

LinkedIn allows you to choose up to 50 Skills. If you’ve selected anything less than 50, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage. It seems simple, but the more relevant skills present on your profile, the most likely you are to appear in searches for those specific skills. Don’t be humble, share all of your skills and abilities.

Don’t Get Flagged

While making the most of each of these sections will help you rank better in search, it’s important that you don’t abuse LinkedIn’s algorithm. Spamming, misrepresenting your name or work history, and sending inappropriate messages whether publicly, via InMail, or in groups puts your profile at risk of being flagged. Once LinkedIn flags your profile, you will have a much harder time finding and connecting with those valuable prospects.

 

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How To: Implement An Editorial Calendar For Your Facebook Page

23 Thursday Jan 2014

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When we speak to small businesses trying their hands at Facebook marketing, one of the most common complaints we hear is “I don’t have time for Facebook!” It’s true – being good at social media is time consuming. However, if you are organised about the way you manage your social media, you will not only save time but also have better content to post.

The key is in the planning. A good social media marketer will plan out their content with an editorial calendar for their Facebook page. Have you got one going for your page yet?

Why Do You Need An Editorial Calendar?

The most time consuming part of maintaining a Facebook presence is usually finding and posting interesting and relevant content. An editorial calendar will:

  • Let you plan ahead and be prepared.

  • Give you time to source and create quality content in advance.

  • Save you from having to labour over your Facebook page daily.

  • Allow you to get others involved if necessary. Sometimes two heads are better than one and you can involve someone else in the content creation process when you have the time to plan ahead.

Top Tips For Your Editorial Calendar

Having an editorial calendar in place is not just a social media practice. Magazines, newspapers and blogs have been maintaining such calendars for years. It only makes sense to be organised when you have so much content to publish and such little time!

Here are some tips to help you get started –

  • Plan Ahead

Posting ad hoc on your Facebook page can be very time consuming so the best advice we can give you is to use your calendar to plan your content in advance. Depending on the nature of your business, you can plan content a week in advance or even a month. Usually, it’s not a good idea to plan content more than a month in advance as things change and a lot can happen in a month.

  • Topics

What sort of topics do you want to focus on, on your Facebook page? Creating a calendar is an excellent opportunity to identify a theme for your page. By clearly outlining a theme for your page, your content will stay on topic and on brand more often.

  • Types of Content

When you’re short on time (and ideas) for content, do you find yourself falling back on internet memes? Are you finding there isn’t much variety in the content you post on Facebook? Laying out your content within an editorial calendar gives you the opportunity to plan out the types of content (images/ videos/ links etc.) you would like to share with your audience.

  • Timing

When are you going to post your content? You can plan out your content for each day of the week or you can plan out types of content for particular days of the week. For example – food posts for Fridays. You can even drill down further and

  • Analyse and Adjust

Don’t be afraid of change. Analyse your content and your calendar on a regular basis to see what’s working and what’s not. Change things that don’t work. Also, if something else comes up during the month – don’t be afraid to discard your planned post and insert something more timely or more relevant.

Editorial Calendar Template

It’s a good idea to start your editorial calendar with some sort of structure in mind. The structure will help you create and plan out your content for the long term.

You can include as much information as you need within your calendar. When starting out, it’s a good idea to cover the basics. As you start using your calendar more frequently and get more used to the process, start making tweaks wherever necessary. As you become better at planning your calendar, you will figure out what works for you and what doesn’t and this will allow you to change the process as you go.

Click here to download a sample of the editorial calendar

Editorial Calendar Template – Connect Social Media

Also, watch out for an upcoming blog post in which we will cover how to put this calendar to use. We will show you how to source and create your content and build a content schedule that you will be proud of!

Get the most out of LinkedIn with these 10 tips

23 Thursday Jan 2014

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Business professionals to make connections and build their network. At times though, it can seem like only big businesses or recruiters use LinkedIn.

However, LinkedIn offers plenty of great tools for small and medium-sized businesses to connect with current customers and find new customers as well. In fact, LinkedIn can help your business look bigger, extend your marketing efforts and drive growth for your business.

LinkedIn and other social media tools allow you to get your messages out more quickly and easily than ever before. While most small businesses can’t compete with high-scale advertising campaigns that large companies produce, leveraging social media levels the playing field as the tools available are the same for all companies, big and small. Even niche small businesses have the potential to do well on social media, because you can find customers anywhere in the world interested in your unique offerings.

The following are 10 tips for growing your business on LinkedIn:

1. Create your company page. If your business doesn’t have a company page, create one right now. Follow the steps here to get your page set up quickly. You will need to verify that you are an official representative of the company during the process. Make sure you build out your company page completely by adding a header image, logos, a detailed description about your business, industry, website link and contact information.

2. Maximize your presence. Add products and services to your page and include detailed descriptions and images. Once you’ve created your products and services, ask your connections to recommend them through the tools offered by LinkedIn – it’s easy. Having recommendations on each of your products and services allow prospective customers to see who’s finding value in your business. Also, add job openings to your company page to let potential employees know that you’re hiring. Your current customers and followers may also see these openings and have the perfect candidate in mind. LinkedIn also recently created Showcase Pages that allow companies to highlight brands, products and services with dedicated pages that allow for specific content updates about each product.

3. Update your personal profile. Like it or not, you and your employees frequently become the “face” of your business. A professional-looking profile on LinkedIn goes a long way to present the image you want for your company. Make sure your profile – and the profiles of your key employees – includes:

  • Professional photo.
  • Concise description about you and your position at your company.
  • Industry keywords and terms to further demonstrate your business expertise and what makes you different.
  • Complete education and work history with description of each role at previous employers.

4. Make connections. A key for growing your business is networking and making connections. And chances are, you know many of your customers personally. Invite them to connect on LinkedIn and grow your personal network. One note though – resist the urge to use LinkedIn’s “stock” connection invitation. Instead, write a short note telling the individual why you’d like to stay connected on LinkedIn. Once you’ve built up your connections, LinkedIn’s “People You May Know” tool can help you find even more connections. Having more connections gives you more opportunities to get introduced through LinkedIn to people you’d like to know – future customers.

5. Engage your followers. When posting updates to your company and your personal profile page, make sure you’re following best practices to create content your followers will read, comment on or share. Make sure you:

  • Use images – According to LinkedIn, posts with images have a 98 per cent higher comment rate.
  • Include links – Posts with links to other content have twice the engagement rate than posts without.
  • Add videos – Adding a video in your company page update can result in a 75 per cent higher chance of that update being shared by your followers.
  • Post frequently – Companies that post 20 times per month reach at least 60 per cent of their audience. That works out to about once per business day.
  • Pose questions – When adding links to content, don’t just post them and hope someone replies. Ask your followers questions relative to the information you post to get them to engage with you.

6. Attract more followers. First, invite your customers and your connections to follow your company page. Explain that you’ll be providing valuable content and updates on your company page, making it easy for them to stay informed. Add a LinkedIn icon to your website and email signatures and link the icon to your LinkedIn company page. Give your current followers a reason to share your content with their connections. This provides your business with exposure to a greater audience and the opportunity to gain new followers. You can always view who is following your company by clicking on the number of followers near the top of your page. Try experimenting with sponsored updates to reach additional new followers as well. LinkedIn provides great segmentation tools to help you reach your target audience.

 

The Art of Good Blog Writting

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Bloging, Google SEO

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Do you blog? Feel like you’re trying to reinvent the wheel time and again?blogging
Looking for some ideas to simplify your content creation process?

What follows are 26 tips, from A-Z, to help you create optimal blog posts every time you sit down to write.

Anatomically Correct

A blog post contains several areas that require our attention and care. Pamela Seiplerefers to six parts of the anatomy of a lead-generating blog post:

♣ Eye-catching title
♣ In-text links to landing pages
♣ Sidebar/banner calls to action
♣ Social sharing buttons
♣ Call to action at the bottom
♣ Relevancy—making sure the post is relevant from top to bottom

Parts of the blog anatomy.

Example of more anatomical parts to include in your blog posts.

Blogging Platform

By knowing the ins and outs of your blogging platform, you’ll ensure that your posts look as good as they can. Take the time to master the visual editor (or raw HTML, if you prefer) so that you know how to format a post, insert an image and embed a video or podcast.
Whether you’re working in platforms such as WordPress, Tumblr or Posterous, it’s good to stay up to date on the features and new versions.
If you’re not comfortable with the more technical aspects of blogging, try to find someone who can be a resource for you to answer questions as they arise.

Categories

Whether your new blog post is a stand-alone article or part of a series you’re writing, it should fit into your blog categories as well as your overall corporate content strategy. Meaning that you want to stay on topic and have your posts fit into the categories you’ve established.

For example, HubSpot has nine categories on their blog. Posts are written to fit in with each of these categories. Writing about category topics such as analytics, blogging, email marketing, HubSpot TV, etc., allows both readers and writers to stay focused on what they can expect to see on HubSpot’s blog.

When you choose your categories, ask yourself, do they make sense, and do they fit into the objectives of my business? Having clearly defined blog categories will help youcontinue generating meaningful content and topics for your blog.

Write posts that fit into your categories.

Description

Most search engines will use a maximum of 160 characters for your post description on their results pages. If you don’t create a meta-description (defined as a “…concise summary of your page’s content”), a search engine will often take the first 160 characters it finds on your page instead.
Note too, that when you create a meta-description that is fewer than 160 characters, you’ll see the full description in the search engine. Otherwise it will be cut off.

An example of how a post’s description appears in Google search results with and without the meta-description.

Editorial Calendar

Bloggers find editorial calendars helpful for scheduling and organizing topics for posts. Some people use their calendars to track more elaborate details.
Michele Linn suggests using specific tabs in a spreadsheet to track info for each post such as: post date, author, tentative title, keywords, categories, tags, call to action and status. She says “By tracking more than topic and date it will help to make sure the key elements you need for SEO, digital optimization and conversion are accounted for.”

Fine-Tune and Revise

Like other forms of writing, a blog post is rarely completed in one draft. Many writers find it helpful to take a post through several revisions and fine-tune the post as you go along. Check grammar, spelling and punctuation, and make certain that all of your links are working.

Guidelines for Writing for Search Engines

By following a few tips and best practices, you can increase the chance that your blog post will be found by search engines—by Google in particular.

The State University of New York at Plattsburgh offers these helpful writing tips:

♣ Google likes text
♣ Google likes formatting
♣ Google likes freshness
♣ Google likes accessibility
♣ Google likes outbound hyperlinks
♣ Googlebot isn’t psychic, so remember to link your pages
♣ Google likes you to tell it where you are
♣ Google likes experts

Headings

Joost de Valk offers some good suggestions regarding blog headings. He writes, “The heading structure of your pages is one of the very important aspects of on-page SEO. It defines which parts of your content are important, and how they’re interconnected. Because they have different goals, a single post needs another heading structure than your blog’s homepage or your category archives.”
He offers five basic principles about heading structure:
♣ The most important heading on the page should be the H1
♣ There is usually only one H1 on any page
♣ Subheadings should be H2s, sub-subheadings should be H3s, etc.
♣ Each heading should contain valuable keywords; if not, it’s a wasted heading
♣ For longer pieces of content, a heading is what helps a reader skip to the parts that he/she finds interesting

Headings should contain valuable keywords.

Images

Blog posts are made up of more than words and headings.
Judy Dunn recommends five ways the right photo can increase readership and blog views:

♣ Convey the overall feeling or emotion of your post
♣ Illustrate a metaphor or analogy that is part of your main idea
♣ Evoke surprise or curiosity
♣ Complement your headline
♣ Make your reader smile
Judy points out too that readers are visual learners and images can help people take in and retain information better.
#10: Journalistic Approach
Bloggers can learn a lot from traditional journalists and the ways that they approach their news stories.
Mickie Kennedy offers five things that bloggers can learn from journalists:
♣ Get your facts straight
♣ Trust has to be earned
♣ Give credit to your sources
♣ The inverted pyramid works (basic overview in first paragraph and then delve into more details in subsequent paragraphs)
♣ Editing and proofreading are essential

Killer SEO and Blog Design

Cyrus Shepard makes an important case for having a beautiful blog. He says, “…the overall design of your site is the first thing visitors see and it significantly influences bounce rate, page views and conversions.”

Cyrus suggests that certain elements on the page will add to a blog’s success:

♣ Search box
♣ RSS feed
♣ Breadcrumbs (helping users navigate),
♣ Flat site architecture by minimizing the number of clicks it takes to reach your content
♣ Images
♣ Keep your best content above the fold
♣ Link to your best content
♣ Don’t overdo links
♣ Watch ad space
♣ Encourage comments
♣ Add sharing buttons
♣ Test the blog for speed
♣ Check your blog in different browsers
♣ Pick a powerhouse blogging platform (e.g., WordPress, Posterous, Tumblr)
For a resource that will help remind you of these killer SEO suggestions, check out Cyrus’ infographic, Blog Design for Killer Search Engine Optimization.

Lists

Lists have become a very popular type of blog post.

Nate Riggs offers three types for bloggers to consider: brief, detailed and hybrid lists.
The brief list has little description but can entice readers to bookmark the post to use the list as a resource down the road or to share it across their own networks.

In a detailed list, each bullet is a complete thought and serves as a good way to communicate complex information.

The hybrid list combines the elements of short and detailed lists, often with descriptive narratives or explanations in paragraphs between the actual lists.

Nate’s post has a lot of useful information about lists as a powerful content marketing tactic and is a good example of a hybrid list.

Metrics for Blogging

Magdalena Georgieva identifies five metrics to keep an eye on to know how your blogging is going: visitors, leads, subscribers, inbound links and social media shares.
As Magdalena says, “Measure the performance of your business blog regularly toidentify weaknesses in the content you’re producing, what topics your audience truly cares about, and what blogging tactics work for you.”

When you find topics and approaches that work particularly well, try to replicate those efforts and be willing to let go of features that aren’t performing well. Magdalena recommends looking at your five most successful blog posts and asking, “What do they have in common?”

Names, Titles and Bio

Not only are readers interested in the content in your blog post, they also want to know who wrote the post and their role at your organization.

Sometimes you’ll come across a thoroughly researched and well-written post only to find an attribution of “admin.” Even if the blog is only written by you and you’re the administrator of the blog, be sure to include your name, title and a way for readers to contact you.

Original vs. Curated Content

The type of post you write can contain completely original content or can consist of content that you’ve curated.

Pamela Seiple addresses the issue of curated content and makes an important point when she says, “There’s a misconception among marketers that curated content is lazy and unoriginal, but we think it’s the complete opposite. It takes time and careful evaluation to create quality curated content and the result is oftentimes a very valuable piece of content that helps people seeking information on a given topic to cut through the clutter on the web and save time.”

Publish and Promote

Kristi Hines speaks about the publishing and promoting stages of creating a successful blog post. Kristi says that one thing you want to do during the publishing stage is toensure that your post has some kind of call to action. “Think about what you want people to do once they’ve read the post….”

Promoting a blog post can involve a fair amount of thought and strategy, as you’ll see from Kristi’s approach. She has a different plan in place for “averagely awesome posts, awesome posts and killer awesome posts.”

What differs for the three types of posts is how many social networks she shares the posts with, whether she includes the post in her writing portfolio and whether it’s included in her custom RSS feed or utilizes blog commenting promotion and direct messaging partners in social media to see if they’ll help spread the word.
Kristi describes promotion as taking from a few minutes to a few hours, and recommends taking the time to build a good foundation before you expect to execute a successful blog promotion.

Questions

What are you going to write about post after post, week after week, year after year? Sometimes thinking about content for your blog can seem daunting.

Lee Odden offers a great piece of advice: “One particularly effective way to get content ideas for blogging comes from reviewing web analytics for the kinds of questions people type into search engines like Google or Bing that deliver visitors.”

In one example, Lee said that he noticed that numerous visitors each month were typing in the question “What does a community manger do?” and search engines were sending them to one of his posts about that topic. He used it as an opportunity to explore other related questions about social community managers and providing content in the form of answers.

What questions are your web visitors asking before they arrive on your pages? How can you maximize your content to answer readers’ questions?

Research

Well-researched blog posts can differentiate your content from your competitors’. Being known as a go-to source in your industry will help make your blog stand out. Where do you go to research posts?

I find that utilizing a variety of sources helps me gather the information I’m seeking.
For example, while I can often find a lot of useful content via web-based searches, sometimes there’s nothing like a visit to the library or a bookstore where I often will discover a helpful book on the shelf that I wouldn’t have known existed if I hadn’t been standing there physically eyeballing them.

Oli Gardner makes a good case for using social media research for your blog posts. He suggests ten social media research strategies:
♣ StumbleUpon
♣ Infographics
♣ Twitter real-time searches
♣ Facebook events
♣ Experts who are using LinkedIn
♣ Uncovering quotes with Delicious
♣ Letting users tell you within the comments section of your blog and others
♣ Creating roundup mega-lists with Delicious and StumbleUpon
♣ Apps on Facebook
♣ Delicious and Google Marketplace
♣ YouTube and the UrbanDictionary

Stand Out

When you’ve been blogging in a competitive marketplace for a while, chances are good that you’ll see other bloggers writing on topics similar to yours. It doesn’t mean that you have to stay away from the topic completely; rather you can use it as an opportunity to see what worked and didn’t work in their post and write yours in a way that will help you to stand out in the topic area.

By reading the comments on similar blog posts, you will get a great view of what questions and thoughts people had after reading the post and you can take a slightly different angle by making sure you cover those areas in your article.

Title

How important is the title of your blog post? Simply put, very important!

Brian Clark writes that the title is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective reader.

He says, “Without a headline or post title that turns a browser into a reader, the rest of your words may as well not even exist.

But a headline can do more than simply grab attention. A great headline can alsocommunicate a full message to its intended audience, and it absolutely must lure the reader into your body text.”

User-Centered Content

Possibly one of the worst mistakes a blog post can make is missing the mark of its readers, forgetting who they are and their needs and interests.

Georgy Cohen goes as far as to say that content can serve as customer service and that to be helpful, content should be user-focused (asking what our users’ problems and priorities are), communicated clearly and presented in succinct language.

Valuable Content

In the perfect blogging world, creating valuable content would be at the top of every blogger’s list for their post objectives.

While our definitions about valuable content may vary, Ahava Leibtag has created a very helpful step-by-step checklist that reminds us to ask five questions:

♣ Can the user find the content
♣ Can the user read the content
♣ Can the user understand the content
♣ Will the user want to take action
♣ Will the user share the content
She suggests:
♣ Findable content includes: an H1 tag; at least two H2 tags; metadata including title, descriptors and keywords; links to other related content; alt tags for images.
♣ Readable content includes: an inverted-pyramid writing style, chunking, bullets, numbered lists, following the style guide.
♣ Understandable content includes: an appropriate content type (text, video), indication that you considered the users’ persona, context, respect for the users’ reading level, articulating an old idea in a new way.
♣ Actionable content includes: a call to action, a place to comment, an invitation to share, links to related content, a direct summary of what to do.
♣ Shareable content includes: something to provoke an emotional response, a reason to share, a request to share, an easy way to share, personalization.
Download the checklist for future reference.

Word Count

How many words should you have in your blog post? Some blogs have set parameters for optimal length and put a value on whether a post is short or long.

Corey Eridon has an interesting perspective on word count and suggests that focusing on blog word count might not be as important as you think it is. “Some topics take 100 words to explain, some take 1,000, and that’s okay.”

Corey suggests that writers focus instead on whether posts are optimized for mobile, use effective formatting, communicate in a clear manner and that outlining the points you want to cover may ultimately be a better use of your time and energy.

If you’re restricted to shorter posts by the parameters set up in advance for your blog, then you could also follow Corey’s advice to link to longer-form content you’ve developed around the topic.

Bottom line: Don’t let the quantity of words dictate the quality of your post.

(E)xcerpt

On the heels of our discussion about blog word count, a shorter blog post can also be an excerpt or summary of what readers will find in your longer-form content—e.g., eBook or white paper—but it needn’t be restricted to words.

You can also use an excerpt of the transcript or a brief description to demonstrate what information the users will learn if they watch your video or listen to your podcast.

Your Story

Readers like to get to know how writers tick and often appreciate hearing a few personal details and insights from the person who has taken them on a journey through a post. While business blogs shouldn’t be thought of as personal journal entries, you can tell your readers a little bit about how you operate.

For example, I stated above that writing curated posts like the 26 tips series here on Social Media Examiner is one of my favorite types of posts to write. (Truth be told, curated posts are also some of my favorite types to read.)

In the description of “research” above, I also shared how research is one of my favorite parts of blogging and how I enjoy researching both online and offline by doing the footwork of visiting libraries and bookstores in search of materials.

Zone for Writing

Ideas for blog posts come at all times—when you’re driving in your car, sitting at your desk, and yes, even in the middle of the night!

Chances are good though that the actual writing of the post will happen in multiple drafts and revisions, and depending on how you work, it may take place over a period of days.

What can be helpful is to create a time and place where you can get into the zone for writing and allow yourself to go with it, with as few interruptions as possible.
What do you think? How do you keep your blog posts consistent and dynamic? What tips would you add? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Have you ever wondered how your Facebook page stacks up?

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

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How to Evaluate Your Facebook Page

 

Facebook Page Checklist: 

  1. “About” section: is your website URL the first thing listed?
  2. Additional “About” section: Are you providing links to your company’s other social channels, like your Twitter account and blog?
  3. Cover photo: is it well-designed and does it meet Facebook’s Guidelines?
  4. Cover photo description: when someone clicks on your cover photo, do you have a photo description with information, a call to action, or links?
  5. Profile photo: does it clearly reflect your brand?
  6. App thumbnails: are the three most important apps featured as “favorite” apps, and do the app thumbnails include a call to action or have a promising label?
  7. “Talking about this number”: Divide your “Talking about this number” by your Page’s total number of Likes. This will calculate your Page’s engagement from the past seven days. Average Page engagement is two percent. If you’re below two percent, your content strategy needs to be adjusted.
  8. Content strategy:
    1. What type of content is your business sharing?
    2. Are you using a photo or another type of media to accompany each status update?
    3. Are you sharing valuable, relevant information with your fans?
    4. Are you implementing the 70/20/10 rule?
    5. Does your content speak directly to your target audience?
  9. Exclusive content: What are you offering your Facebook fans that they can’t get anywhere else? A free eBook? Exclusive industry advice and tips? Frequently updated entertaining content?
  10. Branding: What does your brand say about the users who like your Page? Remember: people Like a Facebook Page not because they like a particular product or service, they do it because what they Like says something about their own identity.
  11. Commenting: Are you engaging back with your Facebook fans? You should be Liking their comments and responding to all their questions.
  12. Industry opportunities: What opportunities does your industry present; meaning, what type of industry-relevant content should you share on your Facebook Page? For an example of what we mean, we evaluated Kevin Bhookun’s Photography Page to see what opportunities he has as a photographer on Facebook.

How to Determine Your Industry’s Opportunities:
There are four questions to answer to determine what type of content opportunites your industry presents.

  1. Who is your target market? Try to segment your market based on interests.
  2. What does your target market like, want or need? The content you share should address these things.
  3. What can your brand or company offer?
  4. What do you want your Facebook Page to do for you?

Kevin Bhookun is in the photography industry. His industry allows him to showcase his photography portfolio and other creative works. His target market is segmented into the following:

  1. People who appreciate photography
  2. Potential clients
  3. Models looking for job opportunities

After answering the four above questions that relate to his industry, he will be able to determine the type of content to share on his Facebook Page that will yield the best engagement.

For Kevin, some great content to share would be things like tips on best makeup for flash photography, advice on what to wear for headshots, and tips on how to prepare for a photoshoot.

To further engage his current fans– and earn more new fans– he could also run a Facebook contest that integrates photography. For instance, an Instagram contest that asks users to submit their photos for a chance to win a photo package from Kevin would be a great way to engage users and encourage more Page Likes.

checklist-infographic-copy-2

– See more at: http://www.sociallystacked.com/2012/12/how-to-evaluate-your-facebook-page-checklist/#sthash.SLNXHutL.dpuf

5 Facebook Promotion Guidelines that No Longer Exist

13 Monday Jan 2014

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Love the wonderful peeps at Socially Stecked!

Facebook is continually changing their Facebook Page Guidelines. They change so often it can be hard to keep up. We still receive a frequent questions about what is legal — or not — when it comes to running a promotion through Facebook. In recent months, Facebook dropped a majority of their guidelines.

Here is a look at five Facebook Page guidelines that no longer exist.

PREVIOUS GUIDELINE: Promotions on Facebook must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or a Page App.

In August 2013, Facebook announced that businesses could administer Facebook Promotions on their Timeline or using a third-party application.  If you decide to host a promotion on your Timeline, but still want to collect some user data, it’s worth looking into a Comment/Like importer tool so you can collect your entries into a database for easy winner selection.

PREVIOUS GUIDELINE: You must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app. For example, you must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a Wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall.  

Seeing as businesses are now allowed to run promotions on their Timeline, Facebook was forced to remove this guideline that said Page admins could not use Facebook features as a means to enter. With Timeline promotions, fans are able to Like or Comment as a means of entering. However, you are still not able to require fans to “Share” a post on their personal Timeline or with their friends as a means of entering a contest.

PREVIOUS GUIDELINE: You must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the Like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion. 

Along with the previous point, once Facebook allowed promotions to be run on the Timeline, they also had to allow Facebook features, such as Liking a comment or post, to be a means of voting on a promotion. For example, you could host a Timeline promotion asking people to comment on the post and then “Like” the comments to vote for their favorite entry.

PREVIOUS GUIDELINE: You must not use Facebook features or functionality as a promotion’s registration or entry mechanism. For example, the act of liking a Page or checking in to a Place cannot automatically register or enter a promotion participant. 

As of today you are allowed to use “Liking” a Page as a means to enter a promotion. The only thing we get hung up on is how you know if someone has Liked your Page to enter your promotion or has Liked it for another reason. We find this very hard to track, therefore we don’t recommend businesses using the “Like” feature as a sole means of entry. However, if you wanted to use the “check-in” feature as a means of entry, that could lead to an interesting and new contest for fans.

PREVIOUS GUIDELINE: You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles (timelines) or Pages. 

Facebook recently decided they were okay with business Page’s notifying contest winners via status updates, private messages, chat, etc. Here are 5 legal ways you can contact winners today.

Now that we’ve gone over the Facebook promotion guidelines that no longer exist, lets take a quick look at the most recent guidelines you need to be aware of as a business Page on Facebook.

TODAY’S FACEBOOK PROMOTION GUIDELINES

Date of Last Revision: December 18, 2013

E.    Promotions
1. If you use Facebook to communicate or administer a promotion (ex: a contest or sweepstakes), you are responsible for the lawful operation of that promotion, including:
a.   The official rules;
b.   Offer terms and eligibility requirements (ex: age and residency restrictions); and
c.   Compliance with applicable rules and regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered (ex: registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals)
2. Promotions on Facebook must include the following:
a.   A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant.
b.   Acknowledgement that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.
3. Promotions may be administered on Pages or within apps on Facebook. Personal Timelines must not be used to administer promotions (ex: “share on your Timeline to enter” or “share on your friend’s Timeline to get additional entries” is not permitted).
4. We will not assist you in the administration of your promotion, and you agree that if you use our service to administer your promotion, you do so at your own risk.If you have never run a Facebook Contest before I  high recommend you take the time and read through this document. Well worth your time.

Screenshot 2014-01-13 15.25.50

*To see the complete list of Facebook’s Page Guidelines, click here.

– See more at: http://www.sociallystacked.com/2014/01/5-facebook-promotion-guidelines-that-no-longer-exist/#sthash.zm4kKYnO.dpuf

Sorry, Google+, We Still Won’t Come to Your Party

13 Monday Jan 2014

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By now, it’s a depressingly familiar business tactic from Google. The search giant changes a feature somewhere in its arsenal of services to make that service integrate more tightly, and annoyingly, with the social network Google+. Sign-ups are required. Engagement is mandated. Then Larry Page gets to claim increased Google+ user numbers on the next quarterly earnings call — perhaps in the hope that having those numbers widely reported will in itself create an inevitable, Facebook-like rush to join the service.

At the end of 2013, it was YouTube comments, which now require a Google+ login. On Thursday, it was the turn of Gmail, that storied, highly respected, 11-year old free email service, to be saddled with a feature nobody wanted. Gmail users can now be contacted by anyone, anywhere on Google+ (they have to add you to their Circles first, but that’s a formality).

You can choose to opt out of this feature, of course. But we know how this movie ends: millions of users will be too busy, or they’ll miss the opt-out email, and the first they’ll know about it is when they get a message from some guy they met at a conference once, someone they didn’t give their email address to for a reason.

What Page and Google seem maddeningly unaware of is that nobody can ever be forced into having a party. That in fact, the forcing is what makes a party impossible. If a host made you promise to go to his party before you could pass comment on a TV show in your own home, if he co-opted your local mail service to send you constant invitations from people you’ve never heard of, if he boasted about how many other people were going because he’d forced them to RSVP — well, would all that make you more or less likely to attend his shindig?

A social network is supposed to be fun. It’s a riotous social affair, full of life and color, a global party where everyone’s goofing off and catching up. Yes, we like to share baby photos and schedule events and share messages with select people, but we do this because all our friends are there. A good party has soul. Google+ has always seemed a little too hung up on the mechanics — the photo sharing options, the event invitations, Circles. At Christmas they make trees twinkle and snow fall on your photos. Neat novelties, but ultimately soulless if none of our friends are there. This party host seems convinced that all you need for a better party than your neighbor is better decorations and spiffy letterpress invites.

I don’t mean to denigrate the people who are having fun on Google+, however many there are (a proper headcount would definitely help, and we won’t get that until Google divorces the number of people who just use Hangouts, which really belongs in the Gmail/Google Chat camp). They’re having fun, it works for them, more power to them. I bet a lot of users are quite embarrassed about the way Google is trying to strong-arm the rest of us into joining.

I’d love to give it a proper go someday. I’d love to see if I could find a use for Circles (but really, why segregate a party? Aren’t our best parties ones with lots of random collisions of people from opposite ends of our social spectrum?)

Every time I visit Google+, sad to say, there’s an unpleasant taste in my mouth. I associate the service with accidentally clicking the wrong button in Gmail or Google Calendar or Google Maps, or being forced to sign in for some random reason. It’s like going to the DMV. You can dress it up as nicely as you like, it’s still the DMV.

There’s one way Google+ could become party central, and that’s for Google to deny us access. Put a velvet rope in front of it and don’t let anyone in without one of a limited set of invitations — a tactic that has worked well for other Google products, from Gmail to Project Glass. It worked well for Facebook, back in the day.

The parties we want to join, it turns out, are the ones that might be just a little too cool and exclusive for us. And right now, that’s certainly not Google+.

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Mashable By Chris Taylor