What the heck is a “dark post” ?

13 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Content Marketing, Facebook

Tags

20% Rule, Dark Posts, Facebook Tips, social media tools

Why should you use Facebook Dark Posts?

If you have a fan page, you can use dark posts to optimize posts for better results before going “live” on your fan page, improve the quality of your fan page and avoid spamming your existing audience.

What is a Facebook Dark Post (Unpublished Post)?

When you have a facebook fan page, you can use the power editor to create a “dark post.” A dark post is a post that exists but doesn’t show up/go live on your fan page wall, but acts just like a post; people can like it, share it and comment on it.

You then promote the dark post via ads.

Why would you want a post that doesn’t show up on your fan page?

Better User Experience for People Who Have Liked Your Page:
You can promote the same product over and over again via a newsfeed ad, without annoying the people who have liked your page by constantly posting about the same thing over and over and filling their newsfeed with the same offer (looking like a spammer). You just exclude the people who are connected to your page in your targeting and promote away.
Better User Experience for People Who Visit Your Page:
You can avoid having your fan page be filled with posts about the same offer over and over (looking like a spammer), and instead have a high quality fan page that people will want to visit again.
Optimization:
Now, you can now split test your post promoting that product (or any other kind of post) for social engagement, conversion rates etc and then “publish” the best version of the post on your fan page once or once in awhile.

A tutorial on creating dark posts – a technique many big brands are now doing newsfeed advertising.

Facebook has become quite the place of the dark arts in recent years as brands seek to outdo each other in the advertising wars.

One of the features available to those in the know is the art of the “dark” or “unpublished” post. What this actually means is that the post will not appear on your timeline but can be accessed by anyone with a direct link (or by clicking through from an ad). They are used extensively by advertisers to create copy that then appears as a “Sponsored” piece of content.

A few months back, dark Image posts were the only way advertisers had of getting results into the newsfeed with images that took up a decent amount of real estate. In recent months, links with appropriately sized images have also been rewarded with a decent chunk of screen space on newsfeed.

Dark link posts are, in my opinion, a better bet partly because nowadays you still get a nice big image but crucially users clicking anywhere on the ad go to the post itself rather than a photo (with photo posts they have to actually click on the url you have pasted into the caption to go anywhere other than to the image in your photo albums). You also have significantly more options for copy in the link post option and likes and comments will show up on the post rather than on the photo. I reckon you also stand a higher likelihood of users liking your Page from a link rather than an image post.

Creating a dark or unpublished post

You’ll need to be using Power Editor, an essential Chrome app for anyone doing regular advertising on Facebook. Power Editor gives you way more control and functionality than Facebook’s Self Serve ad platform.

This article is not intended as an introduction to Power Editor so if you’re not yet using it you will possibly need a basic tutorial in that first but see how you get on. If you are fairly IT savvy you can probably pick it up from here.

Having loaded the Chrome Power Editor app and synchronised with your Page and account, first of all you need to go to Manage Pages in Power Editor (left of the top nav)

Select your Page and hit “Create Post”. I’m creating a Link Post here. Ensure the photo you upload is 1200×627 pixels. And make sure any text it contains is within Facebook’s 20% rule (My ad is over that but we got away with it!).

Here’s a useful tool for you to use to check that your ads are within the 20% rule. You’ll see the obvious problems with my initial ad where the text occupied more than the allowed 5 boxes (copy in pack shots doesn’t count but logo copy is included in the 20%). The tool has split the screen into 25 boxes (rather unhelpfully here they are orange on top of my orange background but if you look carefully you will see I actually have text in at least 7 (if not 9) boxes so am over the 20% rule. Of course I went back and changed my ad to comply.

The 1200×627 size will surface nicely both on desktop and mobile devices. The screen clip below is an explanation of where all the elements show up. You may need to test a few to work out maximum line lengths. Unfortunately once created you can’t edit an unpublished post so you need to start again from scratch.

I would leave the targeting options blank – you can then select targeting by country when you come to create your ads.

So here is my finished unpublished post:

You can see what your post looks like by hitting the “View Post” option a the bottom of the ad. Take note of the url as you may want to go back to it later. Here’s the post I created: https://www.facebook.com/222807424432/posts/10152078177919433

If you click through you’ll see you are taken to a page on our website which has some clever coding designed to datacapture email addresses and then present the free gift. We’ve done this in conjunction with our Mailchimp database.

Once you are happy that the post looks good you can create an ad.

Creating a Facebook ad using a dark post

Go to Power Editor and create a new campaign and then create a new ad within the campaign. Having created the campaign upload it by pressing the green button (note you have to upload any changes in Power Editor otherwise your work will be in vain).

Once you are happy that the post looks good you can create an ad.

Creating a Facebook ad using a dark post

Now with that campaign selected in the left hand nav, create an ad. I tend give it the same title as the campaign (and it’s not good practice to have more than one ad in a campaign – I know, it’s very annoying). As you start to create a lot of ads you will want to create a naming system that enables you to easily sort and compare them.

Use the wizard going from Creative through to Audience to Optimization and Pricing. You can see the settings I used in the screen clips below (note that I have conversion pixels set up – it’s good practice to do this).

Creative

You’ll need to select your unpublished post from the Page Post drop down. It will be the one with the half moon symbol.

I am selecting News Feed (Desktop and Mobile). Having tested Right-Hand column ads I’ve not found them cost effective for my audience. And even if I was using them I’d want to create different ads for them to the News Feed ads.

Now progress to Audience

You’ll see that I am selecting various countries to target, adding in age and gender as well as targeting people with different interest categories. For this example I’m using a broad category of people who like Christian and Gospel Music. And I don’t want to advertise to people who are already fans so these are excluded.

Optimization & Pricing

Now progress to Optimization & Pricing. You have lots of options here. I’ve tested extensively and for this kind of ad, with my audience I find CPC to be the most cost effective. I wouldn’t always go for the lowest option either. I have often gone for say 20c (my account is set in USD) and found my average CPC to be a lot lower.

Now press the green Upload Changes button. Facebook will take anything from minutes to days to check and approve your ad. You may also find that it is initially approved and then unapproved (often due to violation of the 20% rule).

Results – checking effectiveness

Measurement of ad spend has improved a lot in recent years on Facebook. As well as using conversion pixels you can also use custom utm tracking codes in the links you create in your ad. For this ad I used both a mailing list sign up pixel (see below for where to create these in Power Editor) as well as a checkout conversion pixel.

I tend to use the self serve ad manager rather than Power Editor to look at the results of my Facebook ads but with the right utm codes set up you can get quite sophisticated with tracking in Google Analytics too. Crucially with the tracking pixels set up you are not only seeing resulting clicks, Post Likes, Page Likes etc but also conversions to (in this case) mailing list and sales.

7 Obsolete Social Media Tactics – by NEIL PATEL

13 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices

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Best Practices, Marketing, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, social media tools, Strategy

You already know social media marketing is a channel that can drive traffic and sales, but the question is: are you actually seeing an increase in traffic or sales?

Chances are you are not. Why? Because you are using obsolete tactics that aren’t effective anymore.

If you want to change that, just avoid these 7 strategies:

Obsolete tactic #1: Posting whenever you’re free

Posting daily or whenever you have time isn’t ideal. Why? Because your followers may not be online when you are posting.

That means no one is going to see the content you are promoting.

Simply Measured has some free tools that show you when you should be posting. It will analyze your user base and tell you the days and times the most optimal for engagement.

Here is an example report for Instagram:

Once you figure out the ideal days and times you should be posting, sign up for Buffer (free), and start scheduling your posts.

Facebook posts are the exception. If you schedule them, you’ll see your share and like counts drop. Instead, you’ll have to post on your Facebook profile yourself and schedule posts through Fan page by clicking the clock icon.

Obsolete tactic #2: Selling directly to your audience

Once you have a big following, you’ll want to start convincing them to buy whatever you are selling. But just posting a link, telling your followers to buy your book, product, or service, won’t do much for you.

The only time I’ve seen it work is when a sale or a discount is offered, which isn’t an ideal scenario.

What you need to do is drive your social media fans through a funnel. First, collect their emails, and then offer your products or services through email.

A good example of this is Josh Flagg. He started driving people to a blog, where he collected emails. Within a few months, he collected just over 2,000 emails.

He then launched a webinar course for $499 dollars, and within 24 hours, he made $12,974 in sales. When he promoted his webinar product directly to the group, he didn’t even generate $1,000 in revenue.

The reason this works is because you are getting your fans to make micro commitments. Eventually, when you ask them to make a purchase, they are more likely to say yes.

Obsolete tactic #3: Trying to game your follower count

I’m continually seeing people follow thousands of users in order to build up their accounts on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Some people even go as far as buying thousands of fans. The big numbers may make you look cool, but they will eventually hurt you.

Why? These social sites are getting smart at analyzing how many of your followers are actually engaging. And if the ratio is poor, your content won’t spread much, which will cause you to get less traffic compared to having a smaller fan base that actually engages.

So, instead of trying to game the system, start looking at your competitors. See what types of content they are posting that causes engagement. Test posting similar types of posts. And avoid posting content that doesn’t get likes, comments, or shares.

Obsolete tactic #4: Sharing without optimizing

Sharing content from your site isn’t as simple as copying and pasting your URL on a social site. If your website code isn’t optimized for social media, you’ll notice that when you share your content on these sites, no images appear:

When you optimize your code, social sharing will look more like this:

So, how do you ensure your site is optimized? You add social media meta tags to your content.

The difference is huge. When I implemented this on Quick Sprout, my Facebook traffic went up by 174%.

Obsolete tactic #5: Being self-promotional

I started participating on social sites because I wanted to grow my brand, traffic, and sales. I didn’t really care about anything else, and people saw it.

People started to unfriend and unfollow me, and I wasn’t getting any social traffic. But once I started sharing other people’s content, answering questions, and just helping people out, I quickly noticed that I started to build a loyal following.

The loyal following eventually converted into traffic and sales once I started to build a funnel similar to Josh Flagg’s. But when I was just being self-promotional, I didn’t generate one sale.

Make sure you help people out, answer their questions, and share content from others within your industry. You don’t have to promote competitors, but you should be promoting news and content sites.

Obsolete tactic #6: Linking directly to someone’s site

When you share someone else’s link, you are driving traffic to their site and generating no traffic in return. That kind of blows.

What if I told you that every time you promote someone else’s site, you can actually drive more traffic back to your site?

There is a cool social tool called Sniply, which puts a promotional box on any site you share.

When you drive traffic to others, there is a chance that some of those visitors will come back to your site.

Obsolete tactic #7: Adding one too many social sharing buttons to your site

If you want people to share articles on your site, what do you do? Add social sharing buttons to your site, right?

But did you know adding one too many social buttons to your site can hurt your traffic? I tested placing 3, 4, and 5 different social media options on Quick Sprout. When I reduced the button count from 5 to 3, I was able to increase my click-through rate by 11%.

So, instead of treating your site like Nascar and promoting every social site out there, focus on just 3. Pick the sites that resonate most with your readers. Chances are it is going to be Facebook, Twitter, and one other social site.

And if you are wondering what kind of social buttons you should be using, try the plugin Flare. It’s flexible, it looks pretty, and it’s free.

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.”

What is Action-Gating? And How Can I Use it to Drive Results on Facebook?

04 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Facebook

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Best Practices, Engagement, facebook page insights bug, Social Media, social media tools

Did you hear, Facebook is dropping like-gating, or more to the point they will no longer allow companies to practice like-gating. If you have not heard, about Facebook’s decision to prohibit the practice of like-gating on its site, read on.

what you need to know:

On August 7, Facebook announced an update to its Platform Policy to prohibit the practice of like-gating — or requiring someone to like your Facebook Page in order to receive an incentive.

Facebook’s decision to ban like-gating is based on a simple but an important idea — “to ensure quality connections and help businesses reach the people who matter to them.”

Facebook has given businesses 90 days (until November 5, 2014) to comply with this policy change.

Why is this important?

If you’ve been on Facebook for a while, you won’t be surprised to hear that Facebook has undergone a lot of changes in recent years.

As Facebook grows, the social media company has come to understand how important ensuring quality connections between users — and the businesses and organizations they follow — is to their own long-term success.

One of the ways that they have done that is with the News Feed algorithm, which controls the content users see in their feed. Facebook uses a series of factors to determine which content users will find interesting, and as a result, only show your content to a portion of your Facebook audience.

The removal of like-gating takes that a step further.

Facebook believes that if people like your page only to receive an incentive, then they may not be engaged or interested in what you’re sharing after the promotion is over. Instead, Facebook wants businesses to encourage customers and potential customers to like their page without requiring them to do so.

They believe that this will allow you to build a fan base that is more engaged, and as a result, more likely to interact with your business and act on the content you share on Facebook.

How does the change impact your business on Facebook?

Well you will want to take steps to update both your Social Campaigns product and your Facebook Fan Promotion campaigns prepare for the November 5 deadline.

This change in particular will affect those people who like me use Constant Contact to collect an email address from new fans after liking my Page. The belief being that the best way to build a meaningful relationship with fans on Facebook is to move them beyond liking your page and onto your email list.

This allows you to take ownership of your contacts. It also keeps you from having to worry about further Facebook changes that make it difficult to reach your audience.

So while we they will be removing the ability to like gate a piece of content, coupon, or sweepstakes; You can still continue to make it easy to grow your email list on Facebook with our email action gate.

What is an action gate?

With an action gate, you can still require users take some specific action before redeeming a coupon or entering a Facebook contest, without forcing them to like your Page.

There are a number of benefits of using an action gate on Facebook.

One of the biggest benefits is that you’re able to engage your current fans beyond the traditional like, comment, or share. This means that you’ll not only have the opportunity to grow your email list, but you’ll also be able to strengthen relationships with the people who like your page and even turn them into new or repeat customers with an exclusive offer.

In addition, action gates allow you to think differently about the campaigns you decide to run. While like-gated offers limit your ability to extend your reach beyond Facebook, action gates allow you to easily promote your offer across different channels and drive people to an offer, hosted on your Facebook Page.

This is a great opportunity to encourage your connections on different social channels to like your Page, without requiring them to do so. Even if they don’t choose to like your Page at first, you can still use email to continue the conversation and potentially include links back to your page in future messages.

Here are a few examples of action-gated campaigns you can run:

Capture leads on Facebook with an exclusive download: While a like gate only allowed you to add new fans, an action gate allows you to capture new leads on Facebook and nurture them with email. One of the best ways to capture a new lead on Facebook is to offer an exclusive download with helpful information. After adding a new contact to your email list, you can easily send a follow up email with more information, or even create an autoresponder email series to help introduce them to your business.
Turn current fans into paying customers with a special offer: Because you’re not just focused on adding new fans, an action gate is a perfect way to reward current fans with an exclusive offer. We all know how difficult it can be to turn all those likes, comments, and shares into actual business results. Think of a special discount your fans would love and promote it to your fan base. After providing their email address, they will receive a coupon in their inbox.
Run a sweepstakes and keep the conversation going: With an action gate, you can run a sweepstakes on your Facebook Page that people can enter by providing their email address. When the winner is chosen, you can contact them via email and even reach out to non-winners after the contest is over. You can create a separate list within Constant Contact, and send targeted emails to introduce new subscribers to your business. You can also reward non-winners with a separate offer, and encourage them to visit your store, restaurant, or office.

Ready to get started?

There are a number of ways you can use action-gating to drive real results on your Facebook Page.

The use of like-gating will end on November 5, but you can start planning your action-gated campaign today.

What does Google say about keywords, should they drive your blog or should content?

11 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Advanced Search, Bloging, Content Marketing, Google SEO, Google+, Online Marketing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Best Practices, Blog, Blogging, Engagement, SEO, social media tools, Trending

Form over fashion, chicken or the egg, and keywords before content are just some of the intellectual debates that have raged as humankind attempts to come to grips with the big questions that plague our times. While the relative merits of comfort over appearance are well known, the chicken versus egg chronological lineage is still up for debate when people bend their thoughts to more esoteric contemplations. What is not up for debate is the importance of quality content over keywords when it comes to writing engaging online copy that will appear high in search engine results. Indeed, the old days of stuffing a 500-word article with 122 examples of the exact same keyword are long gone thanks to changes made by Google to their search algorithms, which punish the practice of keyword stuffing and rewards content that it perceives to be relevant and helpful to the end user.

Rise of the Machines…

In the “Wild West” of early internet interaction, it was discovered that the search engine rankings could be “gamed” into recognizing, and singling out, websites that practiced the art of keyword stuffing. Simply stated, keyword stuffing is the practice of writing online copy to be read by a machine rather than copy designed to be consumed by a human user.

This old formula was predicated on the notion that search engines scan the internet looking for certain keyword density in response to search inquires. When the engines located articles displaying such keyword density, they posted the results in search rankings for the end-user to consume. Unfortunately, this practice dictates that copy be written for machines rather than humans, and the results rarely offered compelling or helpful information.

Recognition that People Are Using the Machines…

Search engine giant Google sought to change this reality by tweaking their search algorithms in early 2012. Known as a Panda Update, the changes affected nearly 12% of all search inquiries, and the results have transformed the way people write copy on the internet. Under Google’s new protocols, the sure fired methods that drove search rankings in the past, no longer guarantee the lofty heights that they once achieved. In much the same way that you cannot discount the movements of an elephant when you are sleeping together in a twin-sized bed, the shear size of Google has assured that their changes are felt throughout the online search world.

Google based their changes on observations of social media. The propensity to share valuable information on such platforms as FaceBook, Pinterest, and Twitter drove the recognition that the yardstick for high search ratings is quality content rather than the ham-fisted tactic of keyword stuffing.

The Nuts and Bolts of a Panda Attack…

If your site is negatively impacted by a Panda update, you will know almost immediately, and it will manifest itself in the form of dramatic drop in traffic. It is possible to bounce back from a panda hit, but it takes some diligent work and a little time. Google recommends reviewing your site for substandard material as that is the new yardstick in determining high search rankings. Further, it should be noted that quick fixes would not provide a solution:

Panda is not about back links and anchor texts.
Tidying up a messy back link profile will not help.
Reconsideration requests won’t help.
Recovery will be re-measured once Google rolls out another update.

Webmasters can expect a Panda roll out every four to six weeks on average, and continuously upgrade their sites in the interim to achieve better results. Specifically, they should keep an eye out for content that would draw Panda’s ire:

Remove material that would probably not be shared by readers.
Get rid of duplicate material on your site. This might apply to content that has been pilfered from elsewhere on the web, or it could mean pages have been duplicated across your site.
Scour the site for thin material with an eye towards replacing pages that only have a sentence or two with quality engaging content.

Improved Literary Frontier…

These new rubrics have resulted in a marked improvement of the quality of online copy. While the use of keywords has not been removed, their use is within the framework of a natural, in-depth discussion of the topic that leads to their use in a naturalistic way. As such, copywriters and SEO professionals are scrambling to develop superior copy that represents an improved literary frontier for those looking for quality online information and content.

Written by Danny BenDebba

CEO of http://www.daasn.com and http://www.daasnlocal.com

What is a winning blogging strategy

27 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Best Practices, Bloging, Content Marketing, Google+, Marketing, Online Marketing

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Best Practices, Blog, Blogging, Google Analytics, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing, SEM, Social Media, social media tools

t’s pretty much common knowledge that these days, any business, particularly an online business, should have a blog. But how? And why? What is this platform going to do for your brand? Are you selling products? Are you building a community? Is it about building awareness? And most importantly, who’s it for?

These are all questions you should be asking yourself before you put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboards. Now let’s get onto the how… Check out our first five easy steps to a winning blogging strategy below:

Brainstorm

Whether you’re starting from scratch or you’ve already got something up and running, stop and get your team together! A brainstorm between your writers, marketing gurus and whoever else might be involved is a must for any successful blogging strategy. This brainstorm should be happening about once a month. If you’ve been blogging previously, get your analytics up in front of everyone – what posts have been successful? Which have been the most shared on social media? Take these factors into account when you’re coming up with topics for the next month.

If you haven’t started with content yet – no problem! This next tip’s for everyone: Have a close look at your competitor’s posts. Jot down any articles that have high share-rates. You should take inspiration from these, and write a related post.

Another one for the newbies: if you haven’t already decided on how many posts per week you’d like to publish, now’s the time to do it. Keep in mind you’re going to want to stay consistent, posting the same amount each week and on the same days too. Knowing these details will help you come up with a content calendar.

Schedule

Once you’ve decided on the number of posts you’ll be publishing per week, and per month, you’ll be able to create a rough plan for a content calendar. Do some research! Look into when your target audience is online the most. This is when you should be posting and promoting.

Clients

We know that we’ve talked about knowing your audience and clients before, so we’ll keep it brief. If you know your clients, you’ll know what they’re after in a blog. Whether it’s craft DIY tips, quirky ‘behind-the-scenes’ footage or informative marketing advice, you’ll know it and you’ll be able to provide it. Knowing your audience is also knowing the purpose of your blog, which is something that should be decided straight away in order to get your strategy underway. Check out these 5 Critical Tips for Identifying Your Target Audience from Technori.

Writers

If you’re just starting out, or your business is relatively small, you may have already decided that you’ll be writing the blog yourself. That’s completely understandable! Just be aware that there are a few things you should get your head around when it comes to creating great content. Firstly, you should make sure that you’re an avid reader of other blogs. This is great in terms of keeping an eye on the competition, but also knowing what’s out there in general, and knowing what’s possible within a blog platform. Reading will provide you with inspiration in terms of both structure and subject matter. Make sure you’ve got a list of go-to blog examples to devour.

The above still applies to writers that you’ve hired, but hiring the right writer is also crucial. Obviously, the right person depends on the purpose of your blog. For example, if your aim is to sell a complicated product, you’ll need a writer who is also an expert in what you’re selling. This writer will need to provide a lot of insight, and so it may be appropriate that in this instance, your product manager take on the blog themselves, or at least train the person you’ve brought on board.

Make sure your writers are great at creating catchy headlines. Obviously, these are the first things your audience are going to see – you want your headlines to inspire enthusiasm and interest, as well as be optimized for SEO (but we’ll get to that).

It’s one thing for you to know your audience, but make sure your writers know it too. Make communication with your writers a big priority – they should know not only your audience, but the goals of the business itself, what’s it all about? Check out these guidelines for creating great content.

Style Guides & Editors

The importance of the language you use on your online platforms should never be underestimated, but in this case – this isn’t all an editor and a style guide are for. Of course you don’t want spelling and grammatical errors throughout your content, but there’s something as equally important: consistent style and tone. It doesn’t matter if you have one writer or twenty – you want all your written content to be of a similar nature, it needs to represent your brand after all.

Early on in the content creating process, put together a style guide for your writers. This can list everything from preferred spellings and topics to cover to how to format headings. If your writers follow this carefully, you will be rewarded with consistency throughout your whole blog, no matter how many writers you have.

Analytics

Installing analytics is a must for every website owner. These are brilliant tools that allow you to track and measure your success, enabling you to identify successful posts, and use this information to create similar posts. The most commonly used tool is Google Analytics, which offers an extensive breakdown of your site, traffic and audience. Some of our favourite features?

Audience. This lets you view your demographic, their interests and behavior.
Acquisition. See where your traffic is coming from – is it direct or from an organic search? Is it from social media or an email marketing campaign?
‘Real Time’. See how many people are on your site at this exact moment; what they’re looking at and where they are in the world.

It’s amazing what you can learn about your audience and your own content by reviewing your analytics on a regular basis. Did we mention it’s free?

Keyword Research

If you know your audience you’ll have a rough idea of what they’re searching for when they hop onto the world wide web. Once you’ve got this in mind, you can play ball seriously. There are a number of keyword planning tools available for you to choose from. There’s Google Adwords Keyword Planner which can tell you how often a term is searched for each month, as well as suggest similar terms to use. This is one of the few free tools available, some of the paid services include Market Samurai and Raven, which also offer SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Packages.

Another tool we’ve just discovered is ReSearch.ly. This service filters conversations from 1000 days of social data so you have insight into your target audience’s “influence, sentiments, demographics and psychographics”, allowing you to “get inside your reader’s head”. ReSearch.ly offers newbies 10 free searches before they have to subscribe, so have a play around, and see if it’s something that could work for you.

Once you’ve done your keyword research, you can get your writers on board and discuss how to integrate these terms into your written and visual content. Think outside the box here, use your keywords in your image captions and alt tags, if possible have a category title using a keyword… Be sensible though, you still want your content to be super easy to read and share-friendly.

If all of this is new to you and you’re a little confused – no problem! Check out Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO & Keyword Research here.

Link

There’s one more thing to consider before you put your blog post out into the world: Links. Your post should be an authority on whatever subject you’ve chosen, but there will always be offshoot subjects you haven’t covered, or have covered in the past… Never miss an opportunity to provide your readers with more information, whether it’s from your own site or a fellow blogger’s. Creating internal links (these connect from one of your posts to another post on your site) are great because they keep your visitor on your site, exposing them to more of your content. This also means that you and your site keep more of the ‘link juice’ (yes, that’s a real thing). Alternatively, by linking to an external source, not only are you showing your readers that you’re a good sport, but you’re also starting a relationship with like-minded bloggers and paying it forward. This encourages others in your industry to interact with you and your brand, which ultimately brings more traffic your way.

Publish

That’s right, we’re finally here. You’ve done all the grunt work; the brainstorming, the researching, the writers’ training, the style sheet and you’ve trawled through your analytics… Now’s the moment you’ve been waiting for. Hit ‘Publish’ and give yourself a pat on the back, a cheeky afternoon beverage or a nap (or maybe all three). You deserve it.

Promote

Unfortunately, the work doesn’t end there. Now you’ve got to give your latest post the best shot of reaching the most people on the web. Firstly, be sure to include sharing options at the bottom (and top) of your posts. You want people to share your content quickly and easily, which means making sure there are as few steps for them as possible. Next, promote your new post across all your social media platforms – use call to actions to grab attention and prompt interest. Another detail to remember – get your writers on board with social media sharing as well. It’s equally beneficial to them, as it gets their name and work out there for readers, but creates brand awareness for you as well.

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.

Audience Insights: Facebook’s New Feature

09 Friday May 2014

Posted by leonidesignoryblog in Facebook

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Best Practices, Facebook, facebook page insights bug, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing, social media tools

Marketing is all about delivering the right messages to the right audience at the right time. Facebook For Business has just announced yet another enhancement to their platform that will deliver even more granular customer information to anyone advertising on this platform.

Audience Insights makes it possible to view an audience by age, gender, lifestyle, education, relationship status, job role and household size, and also by where they live and what language they speak. Audience Insights will also track Facebook usage – how often people log into Facebook and what devices they use to do it, along with which categories of Pages they like (restaurants, sports, etc.) Even more impressive is the feature that allows marketers to track purchase behavior, what and how they buy (For Example: online or in-store).

Facebook addresses privacy issues by offering only aggregated information that people are already sharing on Facebook, along with data from “trusted third-party partners.” They do not share information on specific individuals. This aggregate anonymous information can be accessed three different ways: People on Facebook; people connected to certain Pages or events; and custom audience of brands (current customers).

This new targeting strategy differs from the present Page Insights in that Page Insights gave only information about interactions with a Business Page. Audience Insights looks at people across Facebook.

Facebook believes that these targeting enhancements will not only help marketers speak to the people they want to reach, but will also help consumers by displaying ads that will be of interest them.

For example, retailers can now find out not only how many people live near their store, but also information about what types of products they tend to buy (high end vs. economy) and whether they prefer to buy in the store or online. This will give business owners a window into their potential customers that they have never had before.

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.

A tutorial on creating dark posts – a technique many big brands are now doing newsfeed advertising.

Creating a dark or unpublished post

Creating a Facebook ad using a dark post

Creating a Facebook ad using a dark post

Results – checking effectiveness

Other types of dark posts

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Obsolete tactic #1: Posting whenever you’re free

Obsolete tactic #2: Selling directly to your audience

Obsolete tactic #3: Trying to game your follower count

Obsolete tactic #4: Sharing without optimizing

Obsolete tactic #5: Being self-promotional

Obsolete tactic #6: Linking directly to someone’s site

Obsolete tactic #7: Adding one too many social sharing buttons to your site

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Shared from Ryan Holmes

Lacking in critical areas

The plug ‘n play myth

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what you need to know:

Why is this important?

How does the change impact your business on Facebook?

What is an action gate?

Ready to get started?

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Brainstorm

Schedule

Clients

Style Guides & Editors

Link

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