01 Tuesday Jul 2014
I run across these random tips for various social media channels quite a bit. So I decided to start a post dedicated to them.
Twitter Tip 101: Use hashtags & links together. Tweets with hashtags+ links outperforms Tweets with just one or another.
11 Wednesday Jun 2014
Posted in Advanced Search, Bloging, Content Marketing, Google SEO, Google+, Online Marketing
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:
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:
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
03 Saturday May 2014
Tags
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.
1 | Facebook
3 – eBizMBA Rank | 900,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 3 – Compete Rank | 3 – Quantcast Rank | 2 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
2 | Twitter
12 – eBizMBA Rank | 310,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 21 – Compete Rank | 8 – Quantcast Rank | 8 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
3 | LinkedIn
18 – eBizMBA Rank | 255,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 25 – Compete Rank | 19 – Quantcast Rank | 9 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
4 | Pinterest
22 – eBizMBA Rank | 250,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 27 – Compete Rank | 13 – Quantcast Rank | 26 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
5 | Google Plus+
30 – eBizMBA Rank | 120,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | *32* – Compete Rank |*28* – Quantcast Rank | NA – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
6 | Tumblr
34 – eBizMBA Rank | 110,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 55 – Compete Rank | *13*- Quantcast Rank | 34 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
7 | Instagram
77 – eBizMBA Rank | 100,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 49 – Compete Rank | 145- Quantcast Rank | 36 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
8 | VK
97 – eBizMBA Rank | 80,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | *150* – Compete Rank |*120* – Quantcast Rank | 21 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
9 | Flickr
123 – eBizMBA Rank | 65,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 138 – Compete Rank | 139- Quantcast Rank | 91 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
10 | Vine
581 – eBizMBA Rank | 42,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 237 – Compete Rank | 335- Quantcast Rank | 1,172 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
11 | Meetup
596 – eBizMBA Rank | 40,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 791 – Compete Rank | 701- Quantcast Rank | 296 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
12 | Tagged
702 – eBizMBA Rank | 38,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 1,082 – Compete Rank |615 – Quantcast Rank | 408 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
13 | Ask.fm
779 – eBizMBA Rank | 37,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 2,046 – Compete Rank |113 – Quantcast Rank | 179 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
14 | MeetMe
1,457 – eBizMBA Rank | 15,500,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 1,407 – Compete Rank |635 – Quantcast Rank | 2,328 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
15 | ClassMates
1,487 – eBizMBA Rank | 15,000,000 – Estimated Unique Monthly Visitors | 153 – Compete Rank |*285* – Quantcast Rank | 4,022 – Alexa Rank | September 1, 2014.
The Most Popular Social Networking Sites | eBizMBA
14 Monday Apr 2014
Posted in Political
Tags
Best Practices, Community Management, Engagement, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, Politics, Public Opinion, social media tools, Strategy, Trending
The use of social media is becoming a feature of political and civic engagement for many Americans. Some 60% of American adults use either social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter and a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project finds that 66% of those social media users—or 39% of all American adults—have done at least one of eight civic or political activities with social media.
Overall, there are mixed partisan and ideological patterns among social media users when it comes to using social media like social networking sites and Twitter. The social media users who talk about politics on a regular basis are the most likely to use social media for civic or political purposes. And the social media users who have firmer party and ideological ties—liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans—are, at times, more likely than moderates in both parties to use social media for these purposes.
Some of these activities are more likely to be pursued by younger social media users compared with the social media users who are ages 50 or older. Younger users are more likely to post their own thoughts about issues, post links to political material, encourage others to take political action, belong to a political group on a social networking site, follow elected officials on social media, and like or promote political material others have posted.
Here are the key findings in a recent nationally representative survey:
13 Sunday Apr 2014
Posted in LInkedIn
Tags
Best Practices, Engagement, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, LinkedIn Insights, social sharing, Strategy, Trending
While new social networks are sprouting up constantly, LinkedIn is a powerful platform that often gets underutilized or put on the back burner.
But the truth is, LinkedIn can be extremely powerful — especially when you’re aware of all the little hidden tricks that don’t get nearly enough exposure as they deserve. To help youmaster LinkedIn, below is our ultimate list of 35 awesome tricks you may have been overlooking.
We’ve divided these tips into three main categories — optimizing your LinkedIn presence,using LinkedIn for professional networking, and using LinkedIn for business and marketing. Click these links to jump to individual sections.
Make your profile look more professional (and easier to share) by claiming your LinkedIn vanity URL. Instead of a URL with a million confusing numbers at the end, it will look nice and clean like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pamelavaughan. Customize your URL by going here and clicking Customize your public profile URL down on the right-hand side.
If you have your own personal website or blog, you can promote your personal LinkedIn presence and help grow your professional network by adding a Profile Badge that links to your public LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn has a few different badge designs to select from, and you can configure your own here.
Instead of using the default “Personal Website”-type anchor text links in your LinkedIn profile, you can change the anchor text to make those links more appealing to people who view your profile. So if you want to increase clicks on the website links you display on your profile, change those links’ anchor text to something more attention-grabbing than the standard options LinkedIn provides.
For example, if you want to include a link to your blog, rather than choosing LinkedIn’s standard “Blog” anchor text, customize it to include keywords that indicate what your blog is about, like “Inbound Marketing Blog.” Each profile can display up to three website links like this, and they can be customized by editing your profile, clicking the pencil icon next to your website links, and selecting Other in the drop-down menu.
You can also optimize your profile to get found by people searching LinkedIn for key terms you want to get found by. Add these keywords to various sections of your profile such as your headline or in your summary.
Did you know LinkedIn allows you to add a variety of media such as videos, images, documents, links, and presentations to the Summary, Education, and Experience sections of your LinkedIn profile? This enables you to showcase different projects, provide samples of your work, and better optimize your LinkedIn profile. Learn more about adding, removing, and rearranging work samples here.
LinkedIn also enables users to reorder the sections of your profile in any way you prefer. When in edit mode, simply hover your mouse over the double-sided arrow next to theEdit link for each section. Your mouse will turn into a four-arrowed icon, at which point you can click, then drag and drop to another position on your profile.
You can also customize your profile with sections that apply only to you. Find a full list of sections to add to and remove from your profile here.
LinkedIn allows users to save up to ten job searches and three people searches. After conducting a search, clicking the Save This Search option on the right allows you to save a search and easily run it again later. You can also choose to receive weekly or monthly reminders (+ daily for job searches) via email once new members in the network or jobs match your saved search criteria.
Job seeking is one of the most common — and beneficial — uses of LinkedIn. Were you aware that LinkedIn enables you to turn your profile into a resume-friendly format in seconds with its Resume Builder tool? Just choose a resume template, edit it, and export it as a PDF that you can print, email, and share.
Now that you’ve generated that awesome new resume from LinkedIn’s Resume Builder tool, you can use it — and LinkedIn’s Job board — to help you land an awesome new position. LinkedIn allows you to search for jobs by industry and location. It even suggests jobs you might be interested in based on the information in your LinkedIn profile. Save some job searches like we suggested in number 7 to get alerted when new jobs pop up, too!
Back in 2012, LinkedIn launched a feature called Endorsements, which enables users to endorse their connections for skills they’ve listed in the Skill & Expertise section of their profile — or recommend one they haven’t yet listed. These endorsements then show up on your profile within that same Skills & Expertise section, as you can see in the screenshot below.
Okay, so you can’t guarantee your connections will endorse you for those skills, but because it’s so easy for your LinkedIn contacts to do (all they have to do is click on the + sign next to a particular skill on your profile), you’ll find that many of them will do it anyway. Just make sure your profile is complete and you’ve listed the skills you want your contacts to endorse you for. It will definitely give your profile a bit of a credibility boost. You can also remove endorsements if you find people are endorsing you for skills that aren’t very applicable.
Aside from the exception of group members (more on that later), LinkedIn only allows you to send messages to people with whom you share a first-degree connection. But did you know some people let you send them messages anyway, even if you’re not connected? The ability to be part of the OpenLink network is only available to premium account holders, but it allows them to be available for messaging by any other LinkedIn member if they choose to be. OpenLink members will appear with an icon that looks like a small ring of dots next to their name in search results and on their profile.
Found on your LinkedIn homepage, Network Updates are essentially LinkedIn’s version of the Facebook News Feed. Check this feed periodically for a quick snapshot of what your connections are up to and sharing. You can also sort by various criteria as well as customize your feed to show only the types of updates you want to see.
Allow others to see who you are if you view their profile. To allow this, go into your settings and click Select what others see when you’ve viewed their profile. Make sure you check off Your name and headline (Recommended). This allows you to take advantage of the next feature we’re about to mention …
How? With the “Who Viewed Your Profile” feature, of course! This tool, which is accessible in the main navigation via the Profile dropdown, enables you to drill down into which other LinkedIn users have visited your profile page (so yeah, exactly what it sounds like). In fact, LinkedIn gave this coveted creeper feature a facelift in February 2014, so the information it provides is better than ever.
Has someone been checking out your profile that you might want to connect with? This might be the “in” you’ve been waiting for to connect. (Remember, if you don’t make yourself identifiable via our tip in number 13, you won’t have access to this feature. It’s a two-way street!)
Want to transfer your LinkedIn connections to another contact management system? LinkedIn enables you to easily export your connections. Under Network in LinkedIn’s top navigation, just click on Contacts, click the settings gear icon on the top right, and clickExport LinkedIn Connections under Advanced Settings on the right. You’ll have the option of either exporting as a .CSV or .VCF file.
Speaking of connections, the Network tab in the top navigation offers a variety of tools to grow and connect with contacts in your professional network. Click Add Connections in the drop-down menu to import contacts from your email accounts, and use the Contacts tool to connect with suggested new contacts, stay in touch with current connections, keep track of your communications, and get notifications when contacts in your network change jobs, have birthdays, or when you haven’t chatted with them in a while — on desktop or in the Contacts mobile app!
Did you know that if you’re a member of the same group as another user, you can bypass the need to be a first-degree connection in order to message them? In addition, group members are also able to view the profiles of other members of the same group without being connected. Join more groups to enable more messaging and profile viewership capabilities.
LinkedIn’s Advanced Search feature provides a much richer search experience. For example, say you want to find out if you’re connected to anyone who works at a specific company. Type the company name in the company field in Advanced Search, then filter the results by “Relationship” to see if you have any first- or second-degree connections to any employees.
Ever since the LinkedIn/Twitter breakup of 2012, you can no longer automatically sync your tweets to publish on LinkedIn (or even selectively by using the hashtags #in or #li in specific tweets). But don’t fret — the opposite is still possible! So if you’re ever posting an update to LinkedIn that you’d like your Twitter followers to see as well, you can easily syndicate that update to Twitter by selecting the Public + Twitter option in the Share With dropdown before clicking Share in the LinkedIn update composer.
In 2013, LinkedIn rolled out the ability to tag or @mention other users and companies in status updates — much like the way it works on Facebook and Twitter. Want another LinkedIn user or company to see your status update? Include the @ symbol immediately followed by the user’s/company’s name in your status update. As a result, that user/company will get alerted that you mentioned them, and their name will also link to their profile/page in the status update itself.
The design of Company Pages has changed a lot over the years. Make sure yours is set up correctly and optimized for the newest layout. We’ve published an entire free ebook about optimizing your page for the latest design, so check it out. Also, keep in mind that as of April 14, 2014, LinkedIn is no longer supporting the Products & Services tab of Company Pages. Unfortunately, this means your product recommendations will also be going away. Learn how to save copies of existing recommendations here (which must be done before May 30, 2014). This also means you’ll want to set up and take advantage of LinkedIn’s new Showcase Pages instead, which leads us to our next tip …
Showcase Pages are niche pages that branch off your main LinkedIn Company Page. They allow you to promote specific products or cater to your individual marketing personas, providing a more personalized experience for your Company Page visitors. LinkedIn users can also follow specific Showcase Pages without having to follow a company’s main page or its other Showcase Pages, allowing your business to tailor the page closely to the audience specific to the page. To create a Showcase Page, click the Edit dropdown at the top right of your Company Page and choose Create a Showcase Page. For more information about creating Showcase Pages, check out our beginner’s guide.
Make the most of your LinkedIn Company Page by publishing company status updates for all your page followers to see. This will give LinkedIn users even more reason to follow your Company Page, growing your LinkedIn reach. To learn how to enable LinkedIn Company Status Updates, read this post.
Been using Company Status Updates for a while? Why not step it up a notch and leverage the power of segmentation with LinkedIn’s targeting options, which enable you to target your status updates to the Network Update feeds of specific users. Page admins can target their updates by criteria like company size, industry, job function, seniority, geography, or by including/excluding company employees. In fact, according to an internal LinkedIn study,companies have shown a 66%+ increase in audience engagement as the result of targeted updates.
Pulse is an awesome section of LinkedIn that provides you with the most popular articles shared on the social network. Follow specific Influencer contributors, publishers, or topic-related channels to stay on top of news and stories in your industry. You can also sign up for daily or weekly email summary notifications of Pulse news, or instant notifications when Influencers you’re following post something new.
Get a sense of which types of content are most popular on LinkedIn in your industry withLinkedIn’s Trending Content tool, unveiled in March 2014. The interactive tool highlights the most popular content being shared on LinkedIn for various audiences and topic segments. Monitor this to understand what content your company should be creating and sharing on LinkedIn to generate the most engagement.
In an internal study of HubSpot’s customer base, we found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate (2.74%) of the top social networks, almost 3 times higher (277%) than both Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%).So yes — LinkedIn can help you generate leads. To get the most out of LinkedIn for lead generation, promote and share links to your landing pages in your company status updates, where appropriate in LinkedIn Groups, on your Showcase Pages, and in calls-to-action placed in posts you publish via LinkedIn’s publishing platform (see number 32 coming up).
If you’re looking to complement your organic marketing efforts with some paid advertising,LinkedIn Ads aren’t a bad choice to consider. We wrote about why B2B marketers might want to cozy up to LinkedIn ads, and one of the biggest benefits is … you guessed it … the targeting options! LinkedIn’s PPC ads let you target specific job titles, job functions, industries, or company size, to name a few options — you know, the people who are more likely to need what you sell. If you want to get started with LinkedIn’s advertising platform, here’s a simple guide to setting up your first LinkedIn ad campaign. To learn specifically how to use LinkedIn’s newest form of advertising — Sponsored Updates — this is the post for you.
Another little LinkedIn gem that not a lot of users or marketers are aware of is the fact that you can access statistics for any LinkedIn Group — even groups you’re not a direct member of! To access the Group Statistics for a specific LinkedIn Group, click on the group, then click the i icon in the group’s top navigation. Then click Group Statistics in the About section.
Not only do LinkedIn Group Statistics tell you how many members are in a group or how active those members are; they also provide other key insights about the group’s members such as locations, seniority, function, and industry. Use this data to analyze the makeup of a group before you decide to join, identify which LinkedIn Groups you should target in your LinkedIn Ads, help guide you in the best ways to segment your Showcase Pages, or gather insights about your buyer personas to help you do better marketing outside of LinkedIn.
Or you could just create a LinkedIn Group (as well as subgroups if you’re so inclined) of your very own, like HubSpot did with our popular Inbound Marketers Group. Create a group based on an industry-related topic, and become a LinkedIn Group administrator. You can then use this group to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, grow a community of advocates, generate new marketing content ideas, and even acquire new leads!
Acquire new leads from that group, you say? That’s right! One of the perks of managing a LinkedIn Group is the fact that you can literally email the members of your group — up to once per week. These emails take the form of LinkedIn Announcements, which are messages sent directly to the email inboxes of group members (if they’ve enabled messaging in their settings). This is a prime opportunity for generating leads from LinkedIn, particularly if you’ve built up a robust group of users. In fact, at HubSpot, our best performing LinkedIn lead gen days are usually the days on which we’ve sent a LinkedIn Announcement. Here’s how to get the most out of your LinkedIn Group emails.
In addition to emailing, you can also poll your group members. Just go to the group in which you want to publish a poll (it’s up to group managers to decide whether everyone can publish polls regardless of group membership), and in the Discussion section of a group, click the poll icon (it looks like three horizontal lines) within the discussion composer.
Then enter your question/answer choices and schedule for how long you’d like your poll to run. (Hint: If you’re trying to increase membership for your own LinkedIn Group, make use of the Group + Twitter sharing option that allows you to share your poll on Twitter to generate more traffic and activity to your poll/group.) Use polls to generate blog and content fodder, collect feedback, conduct research, attract new group members, or get ideas for new marketing offers.
You don’t have to be an influencer to publish a new article to LinkedIn Pulse. Publishing is now available to all users, ever since a February 2014 feature announcement. Experiment with how this feature can support your marketing goals by creating content for the platform and promoting it via your Company Page. Learn more about it here.
Looking to fill a position or two on your marketing team — or anywhere else within your company, for that matter? Then be sure to build out the Careers section of your Company Page, which you can use to promote your available job openings. For more robust Careers section customization options, you can also purchase a Silver or Gold Careers package, which allows you to add a large, clickable cover image that can be transformed into a call-to-action. This image can direct users to a specific job, a list of jobs and opportunities located on your website, or examples of your company’s culture. The Silver or Gold packages also enables dynamic, customizable modules (that display different version of the page based on viewers’ LinkedIn profile), analytics on who is viewing the page, direct links to recruiters, video content, etc.
The look and feel of your Careers page depends on what information and images you choose to include, such as a list of jobs, people at your company, a summary section for your careers, what employees are saying about working at your company, and recent updates. Furthermore, if you’re actively recruiting candidates with specific skills and expertise, don’t forget about LinkedIn’s Advanced Search feature (see number 18)!
Promote your company’s LinkedIn presence and help grow the reach of your Company Page
by adding the Company Follow button to your website. Furthermore, consider adding theLinkedIn Share button to your various content assets like blog posts, emails, and landing pages to extend the reach of your content to LinkedIn users. To build these buttons and more, check out our cheat sheet for creating social media buttons.
So … how are your LinkedIn marketing efforts faring? Use LinkedIn’s Page Insights to evaluate the performance of your Company Page. Page Insights offers data into the effectiveness of your page’s status updates, engagement, and reach, as well as information about your page’s followers — demographics, where they came from, how your following has grown over time, how your data compares to other companies, etc. Access your Page Insights by clicking the Edit dropdown at the top right of your Company Page and selecting View Page Insights. For even more analytics about how your LinkedIn marketing efforts are helping you generate traffic, leads, and customers, you’ll need a closed-loop marketing analytics tool like HubSpot.
Furthermore, LinkedIn offers a “Content Marketing Score,” which measures member engagement with your Sponsored Updates, Company Pages, LinkedIn Groups, employee updates, and Influencer posts (if applicable)” and ranks you against your competitors in those same categories. You can request your Content Marketing Score from LinkedIn here.
28 Friday Mar 2014
This is an amazingly insightful article about a subject that it near and dear to my heart (for obvious reasons) and some not so obvious reason. I love to learn new thing, I always have. In fact I have had to practice quite a bit of restraint, and condition myself to not chase after every new trend and tool. Having said that I do agree, completely with Kelvin’s assessment of the Social Media Marketers landscape. In a nut shell, evolve or die.
Almost three years ago, right after university, I talked to an awesome HR professional about my career prospects. While she gave me a lot of great info that day, one thing that stuck to me was her advice not to pursue positions that are only about social media. Her reasoning was that more and more marketing and business professionals were learning social—meaning, the need for professionals who specialized in this space was about to decrease.
Persuaded by this reasoning, I avoided roles such as “Social Media Manager” and even “Community Manager.” I ended up with a position in PR, which had some elements of social but mostly included media relations.
Fast forward to last year and I’ve decided to leave the world of PR to take on a social media role. The thing is, I liked PR—and quite frankly, I excelled at it—but it wasn’t my number one passion.
Last year, Hootsuite’s Ryan Holmes proclaimed the role of social media manager dead. He cited a study that found that the growth in positions with the title “social media manager” has slowed down by 50% between 2012 and 2013.
Reading Ryan’s blog post—and now that I’m fully entrenched in social media management—I can’t help but re-visit that HR person’s advice. What if she was right and my current role becomes obsolete soon? What can I do now as a social media manager to make sure that I’m still in demand in the future?
After thinking about this, I’ve come to a simple conclusion: To remain relevant and employable, I have to evolve from a social media specialist to a marketing leader.
I brainstormed a few ways social media managers can make the transition successfully. If you work in social media and want to thrive in your career in marketing, here are some tips to keep in mind:
1. Acquire new (but related) marketing skills.
Content marketing has been hot for a couple of years now—and for good reason. Many marketers are learning that providing true value through content is a great way of increasing brand awareness and turning prospects into leads. Influencer marketing is another trend that will likely grow in the next year or so.
The point is, there will always be something new in marketing. Learn these trends because some of them will stick.
You also want to acquire older—but still very essential—marketing stills. The lessons I’ve learned in PR in my previous role are applicable to influencer marketing, for example. My basic SEO knowledge helps me drive organic traffic to our company blog. Email is still very hot, and learning MailChimp and other similar systems is a good skill to have.
Keep learning. Take some time everyday to peruse blog posts, to try new apps and networks, and to get your hands on new technology. Embrace your inner geek. Readinsights from creative and successful business leaders.
We have a lot of opportunity to keep on building on our hard skills. If numbers isn’t your thing, something like Analytics Academy, a program provided by Google Analytics, is a good option
By diversifying our skills and acquiring new ones, we can ensure that our marketing skills are up-to-date and relevant.
2. Become the customer advocate in the marketing team.
In an IBM C-suite study, 55% of CEOs said that customers have influence on a company’s strategic vision and business strategy. Executives are waking up to the fact that they need to involve their customers in every business process.
So how does this relate to you? Social media managers fundamentally understand the value of listening to and engaging customers. Together with the folks at customer insights, we’re in a good position now to be the customer experts in the marketing team.
Use social media to capture trends that will affect your company’s future. Trends like the Internet of Things, wearable tech, the collaborative or sharing economy, and big data have the potential to disrupt many industries. Listen on social to determine how these trends might affect your industry, and then share what you know to your CMO and the rest of your marketing team.
By becoming customer-centric, we do not only demonstrate the true ROI of social media—we’re also positioning ourselves as experts in the organization, which might help when we make career moves in the future.
3. Write—and then write some more.
Marketers require great writing skills, and they will continue to do so in the future. If you’d like to stay in the marketing field, learn how to organize your thoughts and to write well. From blog posts to emails, from landing pages to ebooks, writing has a lot of practical marketing applications.
Whatever is the next hot trend in marketing, you can bet that your writing skills will be required. So if you’re already blogging, keep on doing that, and find a way to improve your craft.
If you’re not blogging yet, now’s the time to do so. I have some tips in the embedded Slideshare. Get writing!
4. Learn how to market to the entire sales funnel.
Let’s face it: most (if not all) social media efforts help with top-of-the-funnel stuff. But many CMOs are looking for people who understand the entire sales process. Those who can drive prospects from awareness to information and evaluation are a lot more valuable to brands. You can provide more business value if you know how your skills can contribute to the entire funnel.
5. Build your online reputation.
Here’s the thing: The more real influence you have—and the stronger relationships you have with people—the less likely you’ll ever be unemployed. As social media nerds, we are experts at building communities for brands. The same marketing skills that allow us to build brands can also help us build our own personal brand.
Don’t wait until you’re in need of a job to start enhancing your online presence. Use LinkedIn to its full advantage. (Some tips in the embedded presentation.) Build your Twitter following (and always keep your eye out for possible future employers). Maintain a credible blog that provides real value and that communicates your expertise.
As long as people use social networks, it’s unlikely that social media managers will completely go away. Yes, social is “part of everyone’s job, or soon will be,” but businesses (particularly enterprises) will need specialists who will keep up with the ever-evolving social media landscape.
Given that social media is still expanding and continues to evolve, it will probably take years before our position becomes 100% obsolete. But just like any other roles, social media managers like myself need to evolve—and the time to evolve is now.
Brands need us: after all, most of us understand the value of engaging customers, and we know how to communicate with people using digital technologies. To prepare for the future—and to bring even more value to our employers and/or clients—let’s also make sure that we’re acquiring the skills that businesses need tomorrow.
P.S. I wrote this article as part of the LinkedIn’s #MyIndustry campaign. For more social media rants, I invite you to read my marketing blog. If you have any comments on this post, please tweet me @kcclaveria.
12 Wednesday Mar 2014
Posted in Twitter
Twitter plays by its own rules.
It has kept it’s 140 character limit despite the jokes , the pressure to change by many of its followers and the demands to be more like Facebook or Google+.
It is is misunderstood by many people who throw stones at it from the sidelines. Despite the knockers it has kept true to its initial design and constraints that don’t seem to fit it into an online world that is about bigger being better.
This succinct reporting has made it the channel of choice for breaking news. Twitter is now often seen popping up on the television screen as viewers interact with a show. The character limitation demands means it lends itself to one liners that are often humorous, pithy and sharp.
Twitter has enhanced the art of comedy and the throw away quip.
Increasing your Twitter followers does have some distinct benefits for business and brands. Here are three worth mentioning
The average Twitter account has a 126 followers and has tweeted 307 times. Doubling that number isn’t hard if you implement some of the following tips. And you can do much better than that if you apply a little focus and discipline.
For some more tips check out the infographic.
Source: WhoIsHostingThis? on Visually
How do you use Twitter? Is it still an enigma? What have you found to be an effective tactic to gain more Twitter followers?
Look forward to your insights and stories in the comments below. Want to learn how to make your blog and content contagious and increase your Twitter followers?
My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.
It is now available to download. I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.
I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 223,000.
Author:Jeff Bullas Jeff Bullas RSS Feed View full profile This article originally appeared on Jeffbullas’s Blog and has been republished with permission.
13 Monday Jan 2014
Posted in Twitter
Tags
Twitter no longer displays the actual Instagram image, only a link, due to the rift between Facebook and Twitter.*
However, you can use IFTTT to circumvent this issue.Here’s how:
Here’s what the tweet will look like using IFTTT:
*The best explanation of the politics behind the rift is explained in Wired: It’s all about Twitter cards. Twitter cards are little pieces of metadata that publishers (Instagram, Tumblr, The New York Times) can attach to the things they push out onto the Internet. A Twitter card lets the publisher describe the item — be it a photo, a news story, or a video — and embed it into tweets. This is a system Twitter set up that any publisher can use. But in 2012, Instagram decided to stop supporting Twitter cards, choosing instead to direct everyone who wants to view a user’s photo to the Instagram website. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom said the decision was made because the Facebook-owned company wanted better control over how and where users photos are displayed. It makes sense, but it doesn’t hide the fact that Twitter and Instagram are competitors and probably not the best of friends. Whatever Instagram’s motive, as Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said, “That’s their prerogative.”
Do this, you won’t regret it. Pictures are much more likely to be retweeted. One caveat: If your end goal is to send Twitter followers back to your IG account, stick with the link only method instead of this IFTTT hack.
16 Monday Dec 2013
Posted in LInkedIn
Tags
Business, Lead Generation, LINKEDIN, LINKEDIN FOR BUSINESS, LINKEDIN LEAD GENERATION, LINKEDIN LEADS, LINKEDIN MARKETING, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Trending
Your LinkedIn profile is a place where you can showcase your professional career. It is also a place to actively promote the value of your business to potential leads, so make the most if it!
Complete your profile including past and current employer information, your background summary, special skills, education information plus all contact details including websites and social media networks. Make sure keywords specific to your industry are included.
LinkedIn is an excellent way to connect with potential leads. However, it is important to abide by LinkedIn best practices and avoid being viewed as a spammer.
If you are sending requests to connect, do not send one without adding a custom message. Sending the standard LinkedIn message does not explain who you are or what your purpose in connecting is.
The LinkedIn default message states, “I use LinkedIn to keep track of my professional network, and would like to add you.” If it sounds like an easy way to quickly send random new connections an invite, you would be wrong.
Take your time in identifying who you would like to connect with and be thoughtful in your intentions to connect. Re-work that standard message to include details about you, your company and a short explanation as to why you would like to connect.
Joining a LinkedIn group relevant to your business or niche is a wonderful way to strengthen connections with like-minded individuals and connect with consumers interested in a particular product or with a specific need.
LinkedIn groups offer a space where members can share their experience, knowledge and wisdom in a trusted and credible environment.
Research and join groups that have similar interests to yours. Then actively participate to build credibility within the community. Become an enthusiastic member and network to build trust and relationships over time.
In addition to the above LinkedIn lead generation concept, you have the ability to create your own group.
As the owner of a group, you are given extra privileges to communicate with your members through an email newsletter. This is a powerful way to generate leads by targeting a group interested in your specific niche or product.
Start daily conversations by asking questions, answering a frequently asked question, posting a video tip or providing a resource that consumers are eagerly in need of. Your goal is to provide as much free information as possible and become a go-to resource within your industry or field.
This opportunity might sound simple, but it remains a powerful way of generating the right leads through LinkedIn. You can purchase advertising and target a wide range of demographics ensuring that LinkedIn provides the quality leads you are looking for.
Used effectively, LinkedIn can serve as your main source of quality leads. How will you get started with LinkedIn lead generation today?
Originally written by Rebekah Radice and posted on Steamfeed.
05 Thursday Dec 2013
Tags
Best Practices, demographics, Facebook, Instagram, MOBILE SOCIAL NETWORKING, Online Marketing, Pinterest, Social Media, Trending, Twitter, YouTube
If you’re managing social media for your business, it might be useful to know about some of the most surprising social media statistics this year. Here are 10 that might make you rethink the way you’re approaching social media.
Those are impressive numbers against the prevailing idea that social media is “just for teenagers.” It certainly points to the importance of having a solid social media strategy if these age brackets fit into your target demographic.
Rethink it: Keep older users in mind when using social media, particularly on these three platforms. Our age makes a difference to our taste and interests, so if you’re focusing on younger users with the content you post, you could be missing an important demographic.
Not only does Facebook have millions of users who don’t access it from a desktop or laptop, but mobile use generates 30% of Facebook’s ad revenue as well. This is a 7% increase from the end of 2012 already.
Rethink it: There are probably more users accessing Facebook from mobile devices than you thought. It’s worth considering how your content displays on mobile devices and smaller screens before posting it, particularly if your target market is full of mobile users. Of course, make sure to make sharing to social media from mobilemore straightforward.
Did you think TV was the best way to reach the masses? Well if you’re after 18–34 year olds in the U.S., you’ll have more luck reaching them through YouTube. Of course, one video won’t necessarily reach more viewers than a cable network could, but utilizing a platform with such a wide user base makes a lot of sense.
Rethink it: If you’ve been putting off adding video to your strategy, now’s the time to give it a go. You could start small with simple five-minute videos explaining what your company does or introducing your team.
LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, continues to grow every second. From groups to blogs to job listings, this platform is a rich source of information and conversation for professionals who want to connect to others in their industry.
Rethink it: LinkedIn is definitely worth paying attention to. In particular, this is a place where you may want to focus more on new users. Making your group or community a great source of information and a newbie-friendly space can help you to make the most out of the growing userbase.
Make sure you share consistently to your LinkedIn company page and profile by, for example, scheduling your posts.
We all knew social media was popular, but this popular? Apparently it’s the most common thing we do online. So next time you find yourself watching Kitten vs. Watermelon videos on Facebook, you can at least console yourself with the fact that the majority of people online right now are doing something similar.
Social media carries more weight than ever. It’s clearly not a fad, or a phase. It continues to grow as a habit, and new platforms continue to appear and develop.
Rethink it: Putting time and effort into your social media strategy clearly makes sense in light of these stats. If you weren’t already serious about social media, you might want to give it a bit more of your time now.
Although LinkedIn is gathering new users at a fast rate, the number of active users is lower than most of the biggest social networks around. So more people are signing up, but they’re not participating. This means you’re probably not going to have as good a response with participatory content on LinkedIn, like contests or polls, as you might on Facebook or Twitter.
Rethink it: If you’re hoping to get people involved, think about which platforms are best for that. Looking at the latest Twitter statistics and Facebook statistics, these platforms might be a better place for your contest or survey, while passive content like blog posts or slide decks might be just right for your LinkedIn audience.
Only 7% of marketers say they don’t use social media for their business. That means there are lots of people out there getting involved and managing a social media strategy. It’s becoming more common to include social media as part of an overall marketing budget or strategy, as opposed to when it was the outlier that no one wanted to spend time or money on.
Rethink it: If you’re struggling to make your strategy work, or you just want some advice, you don’t have to go it alone. If 93% of marketers are using social media for business, you can probably find someone to give you a hand. Plus, there are lots of blogs, videos and slide decks around to help you out. Be sure to find the right social media management tool for you to stay on top of everything.
It’s pretty clear that mobile is a growing space that we need to pay attention to. And we’ve all heard the cliché of smartphone owners who don’t want to let go of their phones, even for five minutes. Well, apparently that’s not too far from the truth. If 25% of people aged 18–44 can’t remember not having their phone with them, there are probably very few times when they’re not connected to the web in some way.
Rethink it: While you can reach people almost anytime, since they have their smartphones with them almost always, this also means you can interrupt pretty much any part of their lives. Don’t forget that having a phone in your pocket all the time isn’t the same as being available all the time.
Blogging is clearly a big focus for marketers who want to take advantage of social media and content marketing. This is great, because blogging for your business has lots of advantages: you can control your company blog, you can set the tone and use it to market your product, share company news or provide interesting information for your customers. With only 9% of marketing companies hiring bloggers full-time, however, the pressure to produce high-quality content consistently will be a lot higher.
What a lot of people struggle here is how to write the best headlines for your articles, when the best time is to publish posts and lots of other blogging questions that arise when people are starting out.
(Of course, not all marketers work at marketing companies, but the stats are still interesting–how many companies in any industry can afford to hire–or already have–a full-time blogger?)
Rethink it: If you don’t have (or can’t afford) a full-time blogger for your business, be aware that having a content strategy that requires consistently posting on your blog will mean a lot of work for your marketing team and/or other team members in your company to keep up that volume. This can work, it’s just important to realize how big a task it is to run with a full-time content strategy without a full-time content creator.
We’ve seen a lot of news about social media companies and privacy. Facebook itself has been in the news several times over privacy issues, Instagram users recently got in a kerfuffle over changing their terms of service, and the recent NSA news has seen people become more conscious of their privacy online.
But despite these high-profile cases of security-conscious users pushing back against social networks and web services, Velocity Digital reports that 25% of Facebook users don’t even look at their privacy settings.
Rethink it: Assuming that all of your customers are thinking along the same lines could be a big mistake. Especially if you’re basing that on what you’ve heard or read in the tech news. Remember that your customers might have very different priorities than what you expect.
Your social media strategy really comes down to what your goals are, and who your target customers are, but it doesn’t hurt to pay attention to the trends happening across the web. Hopefully these stats will help you to identify trends that will affect your strategy and adjust accordingly.
This post originally appeared on Buffer, and is reprinted with permission.
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