Social Media Personas- What are they and how do I use them

02 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, community manager, Content Marketing

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Behavior, Best Practices, Business, Community Management

Social media platforms allow different facets of your audience’s personality to shine through. These traits are useful to incorporate into your marketing personas to better understand and develop targeted communications and content. These characteristics form a social media persona.

Here are three attributes that influence social media persona development.

Motivation for social media participation. One way to assess your social media audience is to understand what drives them to engage with your company on these platforms. By doing so, you can more effectively fulfill their objectives. Here are five of the major categories of participants who interact with firms on social media.

Fans. These participants like your product or firm. They’re willing to show their association with your organization. But don’t assume that their willingness to raise their hand translates to purchase.
Information seekers. These social media participants are focused on finding out more about your products and organization. They actively look for additional information to make the optimal purchase decision and to maximize product usage.
Discount hunters. These are the price savvy shoppers. They associate with you on social media only to get access to discounts and promotions. They’re only loyal so long as you’re giving them the best offer.
Thought leaders. When these social media participants communicate, others listen. They tend to have influential blogs and large numbers of followers. They’re popularity can be social media based or from real life. They’re in-the-know trendsetters. They can move the social activity needle when they endorse your product or blog. Their comments and shares drive traffic.
Detractors. These people have issues with your firm and want others to know it. Often they’ve tried other routes to get their grievances addressed.

Function in the purchase process. It’s useful to know if the people who engage with you on social media platforms are in the market to buy from your organization. If so, how does this influence what they seek on social media platforms?

Prospects. These are potential customers checking out your firm. They may have heard about your company from friends and colleagues.
Customers. These people have bought from your firm recently or in the past. They may be looking to see your current offering, to get more information regarding product usage, or just want to associate with your firm.
Influencers. These people help make the purchase decision. They may do the research or just give their input. In large organizations, especially B2B and not-for-profit, their opinion can sway purchase decisions.
Decision makers. These are the people who ultimately make the purchase choice. Within a company, they have a lot of authority.
Fans. These are past purchasers who like your company and/or products. They’re worth their weight in gold because they tell others to buy from you. They want to engage with your company on social media.
Employees. The people who work for your firm. Train them to represent your company, particularly your social media team and customer service reps, to participate in a way that’s consistent with your organization. Have a set of social media guidelines so employees know how to identify themselves on social media platforms when they represent you and when they’re engaged in their private lives.
Competitors. These participants work for your competitors. Unless your competitors have high visibility thought leaders, you may not be able to distinguish them since they’ll engage through personal social media accounts. Assume your competitors know what you’re doing on social media.

Type of social media interaction. On social media platforms, participants act in one of three major ways.

Lurkers. Comprising roughly 90% of your total visitors, this is the great silent majority. While many marketers and bloggers are disappointed that these people don’t “do anything,” in reality, these lurkers can be your loyal readers or visitors. They just don’t do anything public on your social media platform. Notice, I didn’t say trackable. They are the bulk of your visitors generating the bulk of your pageviews.
Commenters. Accounting for about 9% of your visitors, these people take a small action. It can be a social share, voting or short comments. The easier you make it for them to do something, the more likely they are to act. These participants may exercise their creativity in terms of curating other people’s content since this is a low involvement way of distributing content.
Creators. Comprising a mere 1% of your base, these people actively engage. They leave comments, review your products or write guest posts. For most marketers, these participants are nirvana. Of course, you have no control over whether what they say is positive or negative. This small percentage of active contributors is one reason that marketing plans based on user-generated content are challenged.

To more effectively engage with your firm’s prospects, customers and fans on social media, it’s useful to create a social media persona or to augment your marketing persona with this information. Specifically, consider what motivates them to engage with you on social media platforms, understand their function in the purchase process, and the way they interact on these platforms.

Five social media skills millennials don’t have

10 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, community manager, Content Marketing, Hootsuite, Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Listening

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Best Practices, Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social media networks, social media tools, social sharing

Shared from Ryan Holmes

Don’t assume younger staff will know everything about running a clever social media campaign.

They’re the generation brought up on Facebook. Some have never known a world without the Internet. The innermost details of their lives have been exhaustively Instagramed and they get their news from Twitter, not TV.

But when it comes to using social media in the workplace, millennials – the generation whose birth years can range anywhere from 1980 and 2000 – can be surprisingly, even dangerously, unprepared. “Because somebody grows up being a social media native, it doesn’t make them an expert in using social media at work,” says William Ward, professor of social media at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. “That’s like saying, ‘I grew up with a fax machine, so that makes me an expert in business.'”

For students and recent grads, some social media 101 is definitely in order.

Lacking in critical areas

According to Ward, who teaches a series of popular undergraduate and graduate courses on social media at the university, millennials are lacking in a number of critical areas. While they’re very good at connecting with people they already know, they often fail to understand the professional opportunities and pitfalls posed by networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

“Companies hire millennials because they think they’re good at social media. Then their bosses discover they don’t have those skills and get frustrated,” Ward says, noting that social media expectations are often higher for millennials than for older workers, who may be just as inept.

For students and recent grads entering the workforce, some social media 101 is definitely in order. In particular, career-minded millennials desperately need to brush up on these five social media skills:

1. Knowing when not to share

Recently, Business Insider attracted attention for firing its CTO, Pax Dickinson, because of comments he made on his personal Twitter account. While Dickinson’s Tweets on women and minorities were especially offensive, the situation hints at a larger issue. Millennials sometimes fail to appreciate that personal profiles can have professional repercussions. Twitter, Facebook and other networks are largely public platforms; comments made can – and often do – get back to bosses. As the Dickinson case shows, few employers are eager to associate themselves with off-color or offensive content, even when it may be intended as a joke.

2. Using social media to actually save time

According to a 2013 Salary.com survey, the most frequently visited personal website at work is – you guessed it – Facebook. As networks proliferate – and millennial employees not only check Facebook but post on Twitter, browse Instagram and more – social media has the potential to be a devastating time-suck. Yet it can also be a time saver in the office. A recent McKinsey reportnotes that social media has the potential to save companies $1.3 trillion, largely owing to improvements in intra-office collaboration. Internal social networks like Yammer enable employees to form virtual work groups and communicate on message boards. Instead of endless back-and-forths on email, co-workers can post and reply in continually updated streams. None of this is revolutionary, but millennials are often still in the dark on ways Facebook-like innovations are being taken behind the firewall.

3. Understanding how to crunch the numbers

While millennials often have an intuitive understanding of what resonates on social channels (hard to go wrong with cat GIFs), quantifying what works and what doesn’t is another matter. Should the success of a Twitter campaign be measured on the basis of retweets, mentions, replies, referral traffic or sales leads? What are the best times of day to post on Facebook and what is the optimum post frequency? Which analytical tools are best for crunching the numbers? While social media is about authentic, human interaction, it’s also an arena where data can easily be collected and applied to improve results. Knowing what data to look for, where to find it and what to do with it separates real experts from mere social natives.

4. Mastering the multi-network shuffle

It’s one thing to be a Twitter guru or have a huge LinkedIn following. The real talent lies in orchestrating different platforms to work together and in understanding the niche each fills. Visual networks such as Instagram and YouTube, for instance, are increasingly the foundation of campaigns by social-savvy brands such as Nike, Red Bull and Mercedes. Catchy images and videos are, in turn, seeded onto traditional text-based networks such as Twitter and Facebook. From there, links lead viewers back to blogs and company pages, sending customers spiraling deeper into the sales funnel. Meanwhile, uniform hashtags across platforms help unify and track the overall campaign. Even millennials with deep social credentials often fail to understand the profound multiplying effects of integrating different networks.

5. Networking professionally on social media

By the time millennials graduate, many have dutifully filled their LinkedIn profiles with part-time positions, internships, extra-curriculars and academic accomplishments. But the network’s true job-finding power is often overlooked: Hiring managers and CEOs who would normally be out of reach are often just a connection or two away. In fact, you don’t need to be connected at all. A paid feature called InMail, for instance, enables users to send emails directly to any one of LinkedIn’s 277 million members. Truly enterprising job seekers can hunt down big fish like Richard Branson, Bill Gates and Deepak Chopra, then send a pitch straight to their inbox. Notoriously footloose millennials – forever in search of the next job opportunity – might well take this tip to heart when searching for greener professional pastures.

The plug ‘n play myth

Of course, amassing these skills is no short order, and millennials aren’t the only offenders. “The real problem is that we expect people to know these skills without providing any training,” social media professor Ward says. As the number of social networks expands and platforms are used in more sophisticated ways, it’s unreasonable to expect anyone – even the most plugged-in users – to just intuitively get it.

But there are options for millennials hoping to brush up on social media skills. “There are lots of online training programs out there,” Ward explains, “though some are better than others.”

He cautions learners to stick to programs offering industry-recognised certification, like the most widely used offering, Hootsuite University, an offering from my company which has seen 50,000 people enroll since it was started in 2011 and is also used in 400 higher education programs.

For millennials competing in a tight market, these skills – unheard of just a decade ago – can mean the difference between finding and keeping a job. “Students using digital and social media professionally in an integrated and strategic way … have an advantage,” Ward says. “[They’re] getting better jobs and better internships.”

Insight into the state of Social Media Marketing 2014

04 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, Bloging, community manager, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing, Online Marketing

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Audio, content marketing, Podcasting, Rich Marketing, Sales Conversion

There are three times during the year that I step back and spend some time evaluating my social media marketing efforts. One is right at the beginning of the year. I always have high hopes to do this in the first few weeks of January but as the saying goes, the best laid plans… The next is May which is roughly a third of the way into the year and once more in September.

When May came around this year I decided to document some of the steps I take to evaluate my social media marketing health so to speak. These will change from year to year as the tools of the industry change so plan on doing a little pre-evaluation research each year to make sure you are keeping up with trends and the ever changing landscape of social media.

I will be using results shared via the 6th annual social media marketing industry report. You can download the entire report from the link at the end of this post. Here are the gauges that I used this May to evaluate the state of my social media:

Visual Storytelling:

No surprise here. This point of view has been on the rise steadily since the beginning of social media and continues to be a cornerstone of content marketing. With the introduction of platforms like Instagram, Pinterest and even Google+ it has gained popularity in leaps and bounds. What has become more prevalent however is the use of both audio and video in the visual arena. While social media has always recognized and rewarded rich content it is now critical. It is by far the main advantage that social media has over marketing channels.

Facebook advertising is a must:

Gone are the days of unlimited organic reach on Facebook. It was a great ride while it lasted but if you want to be effective or even noticed on Facebook you will have to pay. When Facebook first introduced “paid” advertising it was a extremely cost effective way to really get the jump on your competition. As marketers and businesses began to see the advantage of Facebook advertising and increased their budgets according, Facebook took notice and like any good free market company they used it to their advantage. I personally have no problem with the paid advertising model that Facebook is using and that others are sure to follow. It helped to weed out the players from the dabblers. Accordingly Facebook advertising has become more sophisticated, targeted and effective. If you have not spent time learning the new tools that Facebook has added to their advertising tool box you should do so, it is well worth it.

Google+ learn it, use it, embrace it, it’s not going away:

I have been telling my clients for the last 3 years that although Google+ may not appear to be a significant player in the social media arena, you ignore it to your own detriment. The primary reason Google+ is important is due to the general understanding that Google+ presents unique opportunities for building your online identity and authority.

If you have not heard of Google+ recently change in leadership, well you might be living under a rock but that aside this change has some questioning its future. Let’s be clear about one thing: All of the social networks should be considered “rented land.” So, be sure you are building an online presence on a site you own and control. When it comes to Google+, I’m confident of two things. The nature of Google+ will change just as the other networks will. However, there is no question Google+ will survive as a resource for growing your business. Why? Google is in the content business, and social provides valuable context that adds value to that content. This is why Google co-founder Sergey Brin took over the CEO role at Google in 2011 to focus specifically on social search.

Email Marketing is alive, thriving and the preferred tool for sales conversion:

If you think of social media in the same terms of the “circle of life” you begin to understand how email marketing plays a critical role in your content marketing circle of life. The majority of leading marketers name their email newsletter as their number one sales conversion tool. This is why everything else is designed to drive subscriptions to it. Podcasts are great for getting information out to the masses especially if they are free, but you will find statically that they very rarely convert. On the other hand email, good email does convert. Now it has to provide inherently great value for it to convert, after all subscribers want and deserve your very best. If you consistently honor that, conversion becomes a natural by-product of the ongoing conversation.

Podcasting the great differentiator:

Serious marketers are getting into podcasting so if you consider yourself a serious marketer read on. Podcasting is on the rise for a variety of reasons, with one of them being that its much easier for audio content to stand out because there is far less of it available than other formats. On a practical level, every person you interview for your podcast becomes a willing marketing partner, at least for that show. Podcasting is also a great way to meet other industry leaders as you effectively collaborate to help each other. Probably the best reason for creating audio content is that it tends to be more personal. Think of it as the future of talk radio. Your personality will naturally emerge as you communicate your message to your audience that is giving (nearly) their full attention as they commute, exercise, or just pass the time.

That is my process in a nutshell, now as promised, here is where you can download the 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Check it out, as there is a whole lot more to learn about the myriad questions that small business marketers share.

Three Social Media Rules Your Business Needs to Break

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, community manager, Facebook, LInkedIn, Online Marketing, Pinterest, Yelp, YouTube

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Best Practices, Community Management, Facebook, Google Analytics, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, Pinterest, SEM, Social Media, social media tools, Strategy

If you stay up to date on social media trends and advice, you have likely heard that you need to post a lot of content, get as many fans/followers as you can, and post when most of your fans are online. Rules are meant to be broken, and I’ll explain why it is necessary to break each of these rules.

1. Post a lot of content

Yes, you need to post content. A lot of it. But this stress on always posting can result in substandard content. On Facebook, you should never post more than twice a day, and even twice a day can be too much. Instead, aim for 5-7 times a week. When you post too much content, you increase your chance that you are just adding to the social media “noise”. Instead focus your effort on creating smaller amounts of high quality content. Quality over quantity.

Why to break this rule
The Facebook algorithm works in a way that it tries to guess what you want to see. One way this is accomplished is that if you normally click on a business’ Facebook page, it is more likely to show you their content. If your business is posting too much low quality content, people will stop clicking. And when you actually do post good content, less fans will see it.

Real world example
There is a restaurant I frequent that I “like” on Facebook. They post any and everything on their Facebook page (they post about 5-10 times a day), whether it is related to the restaurant or not. The result is that I NEVER see their content in my news feed because I first ignored their nonsense posts. What good is my like if they never get their message to me?

2. Get as many fans as you can

We all want more fans. But if these fans are never going to purchase your product or service, what good are they? Social media can easily become a popularity contest: “we have more fans than you.” But worthless fans are, well, worthless. Actually, they can be much worse than worthless….

Why to break this rule
Remember that Facebook algorithm? Another way it works is that when you post content, it shows it to a handful of your fans. If these fans interact with your content, Facebook then shows it to more of your fans. If you have fans that don’t actually like your product/service, they won’t interact with your posts. This means that it will be more difficult to reach your fans who actually are actually interested in your business.

Real world example
While doing consulting work with an Italian restaurant, we quickly learned that if we focused our Facebook advertising to the local area, we received two-three “likes” for every dollar we spent. When we just aimed for total likes, we doubled that number. We could have spent a relatively small amount of money and gotten hundreds of likes. The problem was that the likes all came from Italy, a demographic that was unlikely to ever visit the restaurant or interact with the content. Aim for quality fans over a large quantity of fans.

3. Always post when the most fans are online

You want to get your message out to fans, and you want that message to reach the most screens as possible. Knowing when your fans are online is essential. The Facebook newsfeed works in a way that rewards current content, and makes older content unlikely to show in a person’s newsfeed.

Why to break this commandment
You certainly need to post when most of your fans are online, but you do not need to do it religiously. Focus most of your posting at peak hours, but switch up your timing once or twice a week. This is important because certain fans have different Facebook use habits. This means that if you always post at the same time, you are likely missing fans that have different schedules.

Real world example
We found that a sports rehabilitation physician had more success with his posts after he varied up his posting schedule. He often included exercise tips, and saw his engagement increase after he started posting later in the day. By posting later in the day, he was able to reach fans that otherwise had been missing his posts. Now, these fans are more likely to see all of his posts, no matter the time of day he posts.

2014 Top Social Media Channels

03 Saturday May 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Bloging, community manager, Facebook, Google Analytics, LInkedIn, Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing, Online Marketing, Pinterest, tumblr., Twitter, Yelp, YouTube

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Community Management, Engagement, facebook page insights bug, Marketing, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social media tools, Trending

My clients are always asking me “What is the best social media channel” and I always answer the same, “the one that works best for you. Truth is that not all social media channels are the same, just as not all businesses are the same. I recommend using the channel(s) that best suite your particular business. However to keep the the ranking monkeys happy here is the industry list of social media channels ranked by use, and popularity.

9 Ways Social Media Marketing Will Change in 2014

28 Tuesday Jan 2014

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

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Community Management, Engagement, Facebook, Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Creating 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.

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 Brands Use Infographics To Create More Powerful Messaging

19 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Bloging, community manager, Email Marketing, Facebook, Google+, LInkedIn, Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing, Twitter, Uncategorized, YouTube

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Infogrphics

With numerous different types and formats available, infographics provide ample space for creativity and analysis for brands, both in the kinds of information they capture and in their approach.

For customers, the form helps them quickly visualize complex issues. Together, that’s a recipe for engagement and messaging, making creative visualizations an ideal marketing format.

That said, not all infographics are created equal, and any quick search of the genre is sure to source any number of hilarious “fails.”

Here’s a deeper look at the kinds of approaches the most successful brands are taking for a lesson or two in how to get infographics right.

The Hard Data Infographic

Designed by mycleveragency using data collected by Brandwatch, the data visualization above entitled “Language on the Internet” explores a topic that’s of interest to just about anyone with a Twitter account: how social media is changing the way we speak.

In visualizing these stats, both Brandwatch and Mycleveragency can reach a broad base of people who are inherently interested in this subject and are highly likely to engage in sharing (I mean, who wouldn’t want to know what all those LOLs and ROTFLs mean for humanity?).

The precision of the stats chosen and the logical, seamless layout and flow of the infographic help establish both brands as marketing and design authorities — go-to experts for anyone looking to market their brand or just learn a little bit more about marketing best practices.

In this way, the engaging choice of topic and design help to expand the reach of both agencies, while the excellent research and communication that undergird the project establish both companies as niche authorities not to be ignored by the industry.

That’s the best of two worlds, in one infographic.

The Timeline Infographic

If you’re a music fan of any stripe (so, if you’re human), you’ve probably wondered how we’ve moved from gospel music to grunge.

oncertHotels, a booking service that helps you find rooms near events, capitalizes on this curiosity in the above infographic, “100 Years of Rock”, which helps viewers visualize the timeline of rock in less than a minute.

Though it doesn’t directly discuss what ConcertHotels does, it stays within the brand ecosystem, which is built on a passion for music.

And because the timeline also provides samples of music, the infographic provides a fully interactive experience in a single interface for a totally dynamic experience, ensuring the infographic will be well-shared.

That’s sure to sell a lot of rooms (and maybe some MP3s) in the long term.

The Guide or Process Infographic

One of the most popular forms of content on the internet falls into the “how to” genre, and the guide or process infographic is no exception.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as it reflects the shift from passive to active media consumption; viewers want their content to help them create or learn, not to pitch to them.

In “How to Create Perfect Posts on Social Platforms”, mycleveragency again takes a very popular yet mystifying subject and breaks it down in a step by step, highly-visual manner that makes it easy for just about anyone to follow.

In doing so, the infographic reinforces the brand’s influence as a social media expert, ready to help both novice and advanced users, both of whom are more likely to develop brand loyalty thanks to this helping hand.

Again, the infographic is inherently shareable, especially in niche social media groups, and it’s sure to get followers engaged.

The Location or Map Infographic

London may be one of the world’s great shopping capitals of the world, but few working people have the time or energy to expend on dashing all about the city to find that perfect gift.

Online shopping is one solution; using this interactive map entitled, “Where Should I Go Shopping in London?” is another.

Just click the stores you’d like to visit on the sidebar and they’ll automatically populate on the map so that you can head to the areas with the densest concentration of your target shops.

For the company that produced this infographic, Trainline, which helps customers find the best tickets and routes for their travels, this kind of route planning is well within their area of expertise, and just goes to prove so even further.

The Christmas angle makes the infographic timely, relevant and helpful. It’s highly likely that consumers would take this map with them on their shopping adventures, meaning the brand’s messaging will be in the palm of their hand wherever they go.

Note that there are many other effective ways to use maps to illustrate important points. Maps, just like infographics themselves, are a powerful tool for instantly capturing an important point that’s directly relevant to the people who care about the regions pictured.

The Quiz Infographic

There are few things people like quite so much as taking quizzes that reveal something about themselves. All the better if doing so involves a healthy dose of childhood. That’s something Two Little Fleas embraces wholeheartedly with the above “90s Nostalgia Quiz”.

The infographic is bound to be a hit with (you guessed it), a wide audience of ’90s kids who will definitely want to interact with the quiz and share their results on Facebook. That does a lot for the Two Little Fleas brand, as it brings more and more visitors to their site, where they’ll find even more quizzes and other fun games, recipes and quotes with which to engage.

The quiz is a quick, easy way to move potential consumers deeper into the brand.

The Takeaway

From hard hitting research to goofy quizzes, there are just about as many ways to approach an infographic as you can imagine.

But whatever your approach, an infographic is the perfect way to expand your viewership while still satisfying your diehard fans, establishing your authority and reinstating your authority within your niche.

Published by permission via B2B Community

30 Social Media & Blogging Influencers you should follow

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Bloging, community manager, Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing, Online Marketing, Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

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Blogging, Community, Community Management, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing

I do realize that the title is a moving target since social media, influencers and online marketing in general is a moving target. Perhaps I should change the title to the 30 SM & Blogging influencers (for now) you should follow…hum let me ponder that, in the mean time this what I think now.

John Paul Aguiar

Twitter: @johnaguiar Website: http://www.johnpaulaguiar.com/ John is all about helping us make money on our blogs. He learned the hard way by getting himself of disability benefits in 11 months. His advice is gold.

Mike Allton

Twitter: @mike_allton Website: http://www.thesocialmediahat.com Mike knows his stuff when it comes to social media. He is also expert in many other areas: in his own words “Social Media, SEO, Blogging, Writing, Internet Marketing and Business Technology”. You should check out his blog.

Sarah Arrow

Twitter: @SarahArrow Website: http://www.sarkemedia.com/ Sarah is a Social Media and blogging expert, with a few books and blogs to her name too.http://birdsontheblog.co.uk is her group blog featured in the Forbes top 100 websites for women, and it also funds two girls at school in Uganda. If you are looking to get started on a Kindle book, she is your girl!

Meghan M Biro

Twitter: @MeghanMBiro Website:http://www.talentculture.com/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghanbiro/ A knowledgeable lass and a contributor to Forbes, her areas of expertise are: HR, Social Media and Leadership. She is also a host of twitter chats: #TChat.

Chris Brogan

Twitter: @chrisbrogan Website: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/ Chris is another influencer with a lot of klout. Has is co-author of a NYT best seller (The Impact Equation) as well as other books. He is on the board of advisors at Hubspot. and CEO/President of a publishing company (Human Business Works). Chris’ stuff is fantastic, especially in the area of writing and content development.

Danny Brown

Twitter: @DannyBrown Website: http://dannybrown.me/ What more can you say about someone who has the following awards for his blog:-

#1 marketing blog in the world by HubSpot
Social Media Examiner’s Top 10 Social Media Blog in 2011 and 2013.

Jeff Bullas

Twitter: @jeffbullas Website: http://www.jeffbullas.com/ Jeff is another influential blogger who’s blog receives over 4 million hits a year. His blog covers a broad range of topics from social media tips to online marketing advice from.

Lilach Bullock

Twitter: @lilachbullock Website: http://www.socialable.co.uk/ Lilach calls herself three things: business owner, social media consultant and internet mentor. She has published various books and is often quoted by top newspapers as well as the BBC.

Heidi Cohen

Twitter: @heidicohen Website: http://heidicohen.com/ Heidi is all about marketing. She has published over 1000 posts and was named in the Social Media Examiner’s Top 10 Social Media Blogs, two years in a row.

Jim Dougherty

Twitter: @leaderswest Website: http://leaderswest.com/ Jim shares great Social Media content and loads of amazing infographics. Not your standard SM blog, you should also add this to your “must read list”.

Enjoying this amazing list? Why not Tweet it?

Steve Farnsworth

Twitter: @steveology Website: http://stevefarnsworth.wordpress.com/ He is your man for Social media, To start with, Steve is Chief Digital Strategist at Jolt. He has also been:-

One of the Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers.
One of the top influencers on Twitter with over 100k followers
Included in The Top 35 “Connectors” on Twitter.

Kim Garst

Twitter: @kimgarst Website: http://kimgarst.com/blog/ A great resource for all things social media, Kim has a strong presence on Twitter and on Google+ with her community Boom! Social Media with Kim Garst.

Kristi Hines

Twitter: @kikolani Website: http://kristihines.com‎ AND http://kikolani.com/‎ Kristi Hines is guest blogger extraordinaire!! You see her everywhere and she knows and researches everything. If you are not reading her posts on SEO, social media, blogging, guest blogging and…..get to it.

Ana Hoffman

Twitter: @AnaTrafficCafe Website: http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/ Ana is all about getting you traffic. I have used loads of her tips and man do they work. She is also on the pulse of social media, SEO and what Google is up to. I think she has Matt Cutts phone number too, if you ask nicely :>

Michael Hyatt

Twitter: @MichaelHyatt Website: http://michaelhyatt.com/ Another of Forbes top 50 social media influencers, Michael’s focus is leadership. That is not to say it’s all he writes about; he also offers advice on social media, personal development and productivity too.

Sté Kewer

Twitter: @dukeo‎ Website: http://dukeo.com/ Sté is all about blogging and online success. His blog will help guide you along the way to making money online. Check it out.

Aaron Lee

Twitter: @askaaronlee Website: http://askaaronlee.com/ Aaron is a strong presence on Twitter, with nearly 500k followers and No. 4 in the Top 100 Small Business Experts to Follow on Twitter.. He is all about using social media to help you grow.

Scott Monty

Twitter: @scottmonty Website: http://www.scottmonty.com/ Scott is global head of social media at Ford. So he has a little experience on the matter. His personal blog shares all his wisdom and is certainly worth a look.

Neil Patel

Twitter: @neilpatel Website: http://quicksprout.com Neil Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics amongst other achievements. He was in the top 100 entrepreneurs under the age of 30 listed by President Obama. If you want to learn about SEO and how to get backlinks – you have to read his posts and guides.

Enjoying this amazing list? Why not Tweet it?

Amy Porterfield

Twitter: @amyporterfield Website: http://www.amyporterfield.com/ Amy Porterfield is a Facebook guru – proof? She is author of Facebook for Dummies. She says on her blog

…after working with Mike Stelzner of SocialMediaExaminer.com, I discovered Facebook. It was a total love affair.

Annetta Powell

Twitter: @AnnettaPowell Website: http://www.annettapowellonline.com/ Annetta Powell is an accomplished blogger. Also known as “the success coach”, she will show you the way to blogging success, no doubt about that. And she will use a variety of media to help you along the way too!

Rebekah Radice

Twitter: @RebekahRadice Website: http://rebekahradice.com/ Rebekah says she is a: social media strategist, content developer, brand manager and social media trainer. I love her posts on social media. She has lots of knowledge to share!

Darren Rowse

Twitter: @problogger Website: http://www.problogger.com/ Darren is Problogger, one of the best sources on how to blog for profit. He is also a fellow Aussie (gotta count for something right!)

Mark Schaefer

Twitter: @markwschaefer Website: http://www.businessesgrow.com Mark has a lot of Twitter and Blogging awards and rightfully so. Like all great influencers, he has also been busy publishing great books! His blog is a little more business oriented, but has lots of gems on Blogging and Social Media as you would expect.

Ann Smarty

Twitter: @seosmarty Website: http://www.seosmarty.com/ Ann Smarty has an industry leading SEO blog. She was previously the editor in chief of SearchEngineJournal.com,and a contributor to SEOMoz. She is founder ofMyGuestBlog.com, a place to find and share guest posts and more recently, she has started ViralContentBuzz.com where you can get your quality content shared on social media.

Adrienne Smith

Twitter: @adriennesmith40 Website: http://www.adriennesmith.net/ Known as the “ Engagement Superstar” and for good reason. Adrienne will not only email you when you subscribe to her blog…..she will drive to your house with flowers! Almost. If you want to learn how to engage with your readers – seriously, there is no better place to go.

Ileane Smith

Twitter: @Ileane Website: http://basicblogtips.com/ Ileane is the girl to help you get started with blogging and social media. Heavily involved in the community, she is always there for her readers.

Brian Solis

Twitter: @briansolis Website: http://www.briansolis.com‎ Mashable named Solis one of the “25 Twitter Accounts That Will Make You Smarter”. He blogs about social media and disruptive technology amongst other things. He is a prolific speaker and writer, and has his hand in just about everything.

Mark Traphagen

Twitter: @marktraphagen‎ Website: https://plus.google.com/+MarkTraphagenGoogle+ guru since day 3 and in over 60 thousand circles. If you want G+ info, he is your man. He is also Director of Digital Outreach at Virante.

Gary Vaynerchuck

Twitter: @garyvee Website: http://www.garyvaynerchuk.com Social media guru, entrepreneur, author, speaker and wine afficiondo Gary has been there and done it all. You can certainly learn a thing from him and his blog.

Feel free to add your thoughts to this list.

The Forgotten Social Media Metric: You =

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in community manager, Google+, LInkedIn, Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing, Online Marketing, Pinterest, PR, Twitter, YouTube

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Behavior, Community, Community Management, Engagement, Infographics, Research, Social Media, social media manager, Social Media Marketing

Social Media Managers are a weird species. If you take a look at the LinkedIn profile of any real Digital Marketer or Social Media Marketer, you’ll notice that their skills vary from Analytics, to Marketing and Promotions, to Client Relationships to severe alcoholism. And what’s even weirder – they’re actually endorsed for all of those things (especially the alcoholism).

It’s no secret that there are a vast array of skills you need to succeed in social media – and that every social media marketer and community manager is constantly working at enhacing those skills and picking up some more in the process. Makes you think we should really be getting paid more!

Looking at it from a broad perspective, the following skills are what are probably the most important “buckets” as such that community managers need to focus on:

Interaction & People Skills
Content Skills
Project Management Skills
Analytical Skills
Crisis Management Skills
Technical Skills
Marketing & Promotional Skills
Ethics

That probably covers all the aspects of community and social media management. An interesting infographic from GetSatisfaction I came across also talks about the various duties a community manager undertakes – pretty nifty I thought.

But do you as a community manager know how good you are in each of these skills? Can you honestly say that yes, you’re good at Analytics, or no you’re not good at Project Management?

Circus Social has put together a fairly in-depth quiz, a 40 question multiple choice one that asseses you on these very categories. The quiz has a massive question bank out of which you get 40 questions at random that give you real life social media situations with three options that you can choose from. On completing the quiz, you get a breakdown of your score by each category – how well you did in Analytics, how well you did in Project Management, how well you did in Ethics etc. It gives you an interesting insight into your strengths and weaknesses as a social media manager and gives you the major pain points where you need to focus to become a better and well rounded social media and community manager.

On being graded against other social media managers – you can actually see whether you’re really lacking in a field where everyone is excelleing, or whether you’re lacking in a field in which the general expertise level of social media managers is pretty low.

Sure, you can always measure how well your community is doing or how well your Facebook page and Twitter account are doing when you track engagement and re-tweets – but could it be possible that the reason you’re not getting enough retweets or not getting enough engagement be because you’re lacking something in Project Management and need to rethink the way you execute a campaign?

Could it be that you’re lacking in Analytics – and therefore need to get better at tracking results and engagement to amplify certain parts of your content? Or could it just be that you’re lacking in Marketing and Promotions as a social media manager and need to rethink how the marketing works around your brand.

There are plenty of tools out there that let you evaluate your page performance and track mentions for your brand, but maybe it’s time that we take a look inside ourselves as social media managers and tried to find what part of our personality isn’t making our social media campaigns work.

Cross posted by permission Social Media Today

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