Social Media: The Free Beginner's Guide from Moz Chapter 1 Introduction What is social media? "Social media" is a way for people to communicate and interact online. Publishing content has become exponentially simpler over the last several years, which has helped skyrocket the use of social media. For businesses, the shift in web consumerism and accompanying rise in social media brings both opportunity and responsibility. Is social media just a fad? Over the last several years, there has been an explosion of growth in popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and many others. Looking for sources? Why does my company need social media? Whether you are running a small, local operation, or heading a global, enterprise-level effort, the statistics above make it clear: Your customers are online. There are tons of opportunities to add value—even to delight! If you ever find yourself in a bind, your advocates will help remind the rest of the world who they're rooting for. Relationships Feedback
How To Keep Your Online Presence From Making You Cry Your online presence means a lot and it could very well be the one important anchor in determining if a potential customer or client decides to spend money with you, trusting you. The reputation you establish can rely squarely on the first reaction of their introduction to you and your company. The way products are displayedThe way the website is presentedThe conversations or items posted on social mediaThe way customer service is handled Maintaining an online presence and excitement about your services and/or product can take up quite a bit of time, effort and sometimes it’s a little stressful. What’s Your Intention? Have you created a plan around your online presence yet? Is your plan just for your website, and have you included the social aspects of building your reputation? There seems to always be a plan for websites, but not necessarily for the social side of creating an online presence. Determining how and what to post can be confusing, especially if there isn’t a plan.
Essential Twitter Marketing Resources: A Complete Guide A Guide to Quality Social Media Sharing: What, When and How to Share 6.7K Flares Filament.io 6.7K Flares × The currency of social media is the share. We all want to be the go-to person with the latest news, the most intriguing viral content, or the best hidden gems followers wouldn’t have found otherwise. Some people just have a knack for finding and crafting the perfect share. The rest of us have to work a little harder. Really, great social media sharing is a skill. While this post can’t help you with the practice (hey, that’s what your Buffer queue is for!) What to Share Every day, all of us are inundated with lots of stuff – stuff to read and watch and see and think about. The average American consumes 34 gigabytes of content and 100,000 words of information in a single day. That means the biggest challenge of great sharing is to make sure your stuff is better than all that other stuff. 1. According to Ann Handley, Head of Content at MarketingProfs and author of Content Rules, this is a good place to start. 2. 3. 4. “It’s an extremely simple proposition.
Social Media, Go Minimal 179 Flares Filament.io 179 Flares × I got so riled, in fact, that I wrote not one but two posts in response on one of my other blogs, Stage Presence Marketing. There was a lot of grandstanding and just-plain-wrong advice in that BI piece – there was a lot to disagree with. But one passage in particular made me do the Captain Picard facepalm: A real social media expert will capitalize on all avenues of social media, including Pinterest, YouTube, and Flickr. Um. Here’s why. You’re Not Running For President This should be obvious, but let’s get it out of the way right up front: Business is not politics. You, the savvy biz owner, are not out to get as many subscribers and followers and likes and pins as possible. You’re trying to get the right amount of the right prospects to meet your business financial goals. Were you running for “Most Popular Person on the Web,” you would have to be everywhere. And so forth, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. It’s Not About Quantity – It’s About Quality AND Qualification
8 Types of Twitter Cards Businesses Are Using Do you know what a Twitter card is? Do you wonder which one is a fit for your business? Twitter cards enrich your tweets with additional content, media and calls to action. In this article I’ll share eight types of Twitter cards, how to install them and their analytics options. #1: The Summary Card If your business has a blog or any page devoted solely to information, then you need the summary card. There is also a summary card with large image, which includes just that—a larger image from the page, as opposed to a square thumbnail image. If you have a global audience, @Google‘s tips for internationalizing homepages is worth reading: Search Engine Land (@sengineland) May 13, 2014 It also includes three ways to click over to the article: the image, the post title and the View on Web link. #2: The Photo Card The photo card is great for any business or website featuring art or photography. Twitter photo cards showcase photos and art. #3: The Gallery Card #4: The App Card
Beginner's Guide to Landing Pages A well-designed landing page can greatly increase conversions for your PPC or email marketing campaigns. Rather than directing visitors from those sources to your general website (where they may have a hard time finding what they’re looking for), you can direct them to a specially-designed landing page that steers them in exactly the direction you want them to take. But creating effective landing pages isn’t the same as crafting a successful website or email newsletter. There are certain guidelines you should adhere to in order to maximize your page’s success. What is the Goal of Your Landing Page? Landing pages, like any other part of your online marketing arsenal, need goals. You also need specific expectations for your landing page, on which to gauge its success. A Clear Call to Action is Vital Once you know what your goal for the page is, you need to come up with a clear call to action. Simple is Best Landing pages need to be greatly simplified compared to many other website designs.
6 Smart Ways to Capture Emails 47inShareinShare Email lists are key assets for most businesses, any 4-year old knows. The bigger your list and the better your relationship with the list, the more money you make. Growing your email list starts with a great lead magnet – without it no tactic mentioned here will work. You should also have a kickass email capture form – here’s how to design a good one. MarketingSherpa study from 2010 says these are (were) the most effective ways to capture customer emails: Capturing emails when they buy something or sign up? However, most of your traffic is not buying or signing up right away, and we need to entice them to give their email in exchange for something. #1 Give them an incentive to buy now E-commerce stores often struggle with lead magnets. Here’s where: If you’re like most e-commerce stores, the bulk of your visitors are going to be “new”. Made.com does a good job with this popup (yes, even though people say they hate them – they work well). #2 Insert hooks into blog posts
How to Use Pinterest Rich Pins: What Marketers Need to Know Do you use Pinterest for your business? Have you heard about Pinterest Rich Pins and how they can help your marketing? In today’s post, I’ll show you how businesses can get more from Pinterest Rich Pins. Get to Know the New Pins Pinterest is continuously expanding their functionality for businesses, from creating business accounts to marketing materials to help businesses get more from Pinterest. The latest additions to Pinterest are the introduction of rich pins to include more information about pinned images and the integration of the Pin It button with mobile apps. There are three types of pins that now allow you to share more information: products, recipes, and movies. For example, major brands whose product pins have extended information include Anthropologie, Home Depot, Nordstrom, Overstock, REI, Sephora, Sony, Target and Walmart. Product pin example from Home Depot. Links on regular pins only show up when you hover over the image. An enhanced product pin from Etsy. How to Get Rich Pins
The Complete Guide to Using Social Media for Customer Service 2.9K Flares Filament.io 2.9K Flares × Ready to do something really groundbreaking and revolutionary in social media marketing? I’ve got just the thing: customer service. We talk a lot at Buffer about customer happiness, and it’s because we truly believe in it. Here’s how our Leo Widrich puts it: “Customer support is the very rare opportunity to connect to your customers on an emotional level. And while there are a growing number of other awesome companies who feel the same way we do, there’s still a pretty big gap between what customers want from social media customer service and what many brands are delivering. “I genuinely believe that any business can create a competitive advantage through giving outstanding customer care.” – Gary Vaynerchuk Exceeding expectations may be easier than you think. Why customer service matters on social media First, the bad news. Pretty convincing, eh? Even more intriguing is how social media customers diverge from other customers in terms of expectations. 1.