Hashtags Across Platforms

Hashtags are one of the greatest tools social media has to offer, but also one of the most challenging to use correctly. Similar to most social media platforms, balance is key both in quantity and quality.

Marketers are fans of repetition, but using the same self-promotional hashtag in every single tweet might not be the very best strategy. At the same time, connecting with like-minded individuals, potential employees, and promoting your brand to the best of your ability often includes a strategy using hashtags and catchy phrases that could potentially go viral.

Early adopters are more likely to be familiar with how to use hashtags well than those just beginning to use social media as a tool. Even after spending a few months or years on Twitter, people still aren’t quite sure what hashtags are for or why they see them everywhere. And with the advent of Facebook hashtags and Instagram hashtags and yes, even Pinterest hashtags, there are plenty of places to be confused by them! 

Ready for a bold statement? Twitter is kind of like life—it all comes down to relationships with other human beings. The goal of social media is to build relationships in some capacity, and hopefully those relationships lead to something even more valuable in the future. The essence of hashtags is giants like Twitter and Facebook trying to help users create relationships and engage in conversation with people you know (and those you don’t). As long as your brand understands that hashtags are about more than feeding clicks or hoping for retweets, you’re using them well. They are the key to having more permanent experiences and listening to what the world is saying with the click of a button, which is actually an incredibly lovely concept.

So here’s how to use these challenging, rewarding little friends. First of all, Twitter recommendsno more than two hashtagged words or phrases per tweet. This might not seem like many, but it’s very true to Twitter’s central strategy– choose your words wisely, because you don’t have many. Additionally, don’t feel compelled to add a hashtag to every single tweet you write. If you tweet something only vaguely related to interior design, it truly does nobody any good to add the hashtag just in case.

And finally, check hashtags that you frequently use to find out what others are saying and how your brand can be a part of that. Hopefully as you use hashtags, related businesses and people will discover you and you’ll discover others as well. Twitter is the new word of mouth—the only difference being that the words are lined up nicely in your newsfeed.

To learn more, read our recent post about the #icebucketchallenge and how charities are benefiting from the use of hashtags. And look for future posts on hashtags in Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram– that’s right, it’s one big, complex conversational world! 

Maggie has a love-hate relationship with hashtags. She’s a writer at Social Media Contractors.
Aticle Source http://www.socialmediacontractors.com/hashtags-across-platforms/

Strategy Breakdown: Developing Your Platform Strategies

The strategy development process is by far, the most important element of the social media planning process. In fact, it may be the most important element of your social media presence in general. Without a strategy–and without regularly checking in to make sure you're staying on strategy–your social media presence will often end up as a decentralized, off-message, resource-sucking mess.

But it's not just as easy as developing an overarching strategy and calling it good. You need to take that general strategy you just developed and turn it into real, actionable guidelines. That means adapting it to each platform you hope to be on, and figuring out how your messages will best translate on all of them.

That can be a chore, but it's certainly not impossible–not when you take the right steps, at least.

Have a look below for some tips on developing your platform strategies, as well as some examples to help you get started:

Facebook

Facebook is great for images, emotion-driven content, videos, and other content that may be a little less serious than the rest of what you curate. The great thing about Facebook is that more than any other platform, you can use analytics to see very clearly who's viewing your page and interacting with you. Use this to your advantage in crafting your content, and even individual posts. Our best practices show that posting no more than twice a day is best, spread out at different times throughout the day. Blogs are good here, as are images from curated articles. Don't count on organic reach being super high, but do at least practice posting regularly and making sure you stay involved.

Example: Segment: People who want to work at SMC; potential clients vetting our SM presence. Purpose: Recruiting. Content: Videos and vlogs, photos, stories from around the office, and content that's on-message but doesn't necessarily fit our Twitter stream.

Twitter

Twitter is far and away my favorite platform, and it's also the dominant publishing source for most of our clients. On Twitter, you can post frequently and with a wide variety of content, making it an ideal stream for your efforts relating to thought leadership and brand awareness. Off-the-record, professionals tend to be more sophisticated here than they do on Facebook (Twitter is more rational in our experience), but don't fall into the trap of posting content that's only for folks in your industry. Remember: you are trying to market your business to clients, not to fans in your space.

Most, if not all, of your primary messages from your strategy will appear here, and this may very well be your most developed target market. If you're going to spend time in one place besides your blog, do it here. Count on posting anywhere from six to twenty times a day. The sweet spot is right in between.

Example: Segment: Decision influencers in marketing departments. Purpose: Thought leadership and brand awareness. Content: Psychology of marketing, sophisticated marketing content, data from our own observations, blogs, stories of culture change, branding successes, etc.

Google+

Our professional opinion? Don't spend too much time developing a strategy for Google+. For most companies, replicating (yes, cross-posting, even though we don't usually recommend it) Facebook is a good strategy. Be sure to post your blogs with Google authorship. Otherwise, this is a back door to SEO, and not much more. The big exception would be tech companies, though even their presences are often underutilized. A good thing to have, but not a great platform to spend too much time on.

Example: Segment: The gods of SEO. Purpose: Paying homage to Google gods. Content: Blogs and duplicates from Facebook.

LinkedIn

Ah, LinkedIn–the professional network that's trying to be a publisher. Count on using this primarily as a recruiting tool, but don't count out its utility as a platform for showing off to potential clients who bias towards the professional side. We like to publish long-form content and job openings on Twitter. (You can use it as a publishing platform, too.) Remember, however, that LinkedIn users have a low tolerance for bullshit. If you post too often or spam conversations, you'll quickly find yourself in a race towards the bottom.

Example: Segment: People who want to work at SMC; decision influencers in marketing departments. Purpose: Recruiting, thought leadership, and brand awareness. Content: Recruiting-related posts, job openings, and long-form content that fits our overall marketing strategy.

YouTube

YouTube is a bit of a crapshoot for most businesses. If you have unique content–webinars, vlogs, event recaps, etc.–to show, then give it a shot and try updating it once a month or so. But don't just transcribe text to video and expect it to do well–videos are most effective in short, easily digestible bursts. Remember, too, not to half ass your presence. If you can't do it well, stay off. But again, if you do have the capacity for it, YouTube can be a great value add when executed correctly.

Example: Segment: Same as Facebook. Purpose: Recruiting and brand awareness. Content: Vlogs, videos of events, short content summaries, sales videos, and webinars.

Instagram

Instagram should probably not be your primary platform (unless you're a cupcake shop, maybe), but it should be used as a supplement to your broader story. Remember, pictures are very impactful, and you'd be wise to use them. Demographics are somewhere between Facebook and Twitter. Use Instagram to show your lighter side and contribute visually interesting content to the rest of the text to which you've grown so attached.

Example: Segment: People who want to work at SMC; potential clients vetting our SM presence (though not as much of a concern as elsewhere). Purpose: Recruiting, brand awareness as it relates to culture. Content: Photos that show we have personality while also showing we're professional. Everything from company outings to service events.

Blog

Count on your blog being the source whence all your thought leadership comes. Your social media pages are an opportunity for you to showcase your knowledge of your industry and your clients; your blog is your opportunity to really show your stuff and contribute your own facts and opinions to the broader picture you're painting. Ideally, you'll have a mix of content here that adds value across the board. This is the one place where all of your messaging and target audience should roll into one. Don't leave anyone out. If you can swing five posts a week, do it. Otherwise, two or three should do.

Example: Segment: Decision influencers in marketing departments. Purpose: Thought leadership and brand awareness. Content: Case studies, data and observations, article commentary, news, stories about culture change, stories of branding successes, etc.

All Others

The platforms you see above are more than enough to get started, but it never hurts to at least be aware of other platforms out there. If you're a restaurant, you'll probably want to check out Yelp. Eventbrite and company are good to be on for larger companies that put on a lot of conferences. And don't discount that up-and-coming platform, either. Stay aware of the space to make sure you're not missing anything big.

Example: None for now. Address as needed.

While your overarching strategy should inform your strategy on each social media platform, it shouldn't necessarily be the same across the board. Twitter is different than Facebook is different than the blog, and you'd be missing out if you weren't catering to the unique audiences of each. 

Developing your platform strategies and making sure all of your platforms tell different sides of the same story will make your social media presence richer, and it will also help ensure that you take full advantage of the unique opportunities presented on each platform. If you post the same things the same ways regardless of platform, your story will tire quickly and you'll lose the attention of those you're trying to get in front of.

Does each platform have to be 100% unique? No–absolutely not. But a little bit of distinction will go a long ways towards making sure you hit your targets and, above all, stay interesting and fresh in the minds of your target audience.

John's favorite platform is Twitter, by a long shot. He's Managing Editor at Social Media Contractors.
Article Source http://www.socialmediacontractors.com/category/smc-blog/how-to/

Using Social Media Profiles to Rank Higher in Search Results

Experts in digital marketing often specialize in search engine optimization, social media outreach and online reputation management. While providing professional services, such Internet gurus also use Web-based platforms for personal use. Social network pages allow successful IT entrepreneurs to connect with friends, relatives and co-workers. On a personal profile, it’s still a good idea to post official information about employment history and current status. Social network users sometimes seek services provided by fellow friends.

In a sense, personal social media profile pages allow individuals to make professional connections. At the same time, such profiles could also be used to make friendly connections with fellow colleagues and co-workers. These days, it’s common for employers to find out more about each other by checking out social network pages. Additionally, social networks allow co-workers to stay in touch with each other in an indirect way. Making direct phone calls to newly acquainted co-workers might be considered somewhat disruptive, but browsing online is quick and discreet.

When it comes to getting online exposure, entrepreneurs should understand that their professional websites and other profile pages should overshadow personal ones. When people search for specific businesses online, official websites are expected to appear on the search engine results page. Potential customers can confidently contact businesspeople and ask about the services offered. By contrast, it would be inappropriate to contact a business owner via a personal profile page on social media.

An entrepreneur like Brent Franson and other businessmen are examples of SEO experts who use social media for personal and professional reasons. If you were to search for “brant franson” in the search results, you would clearly see the power of social media profile ranking and how it helps your name or brand stand out from others who might have the same name as you.

Search engine optimization is used to ensure that official websites and networking profiles appear on the top of results pages in search engines. There is usually no need to buy advertisements for keywords that only contain the name of a business person. Instead, organic SEO methods can be used to enhance professional sites. HTML tags can be optimized with proper descriptions that clearly identify the person being featured on a site. It’s also important to put an actual human face on the landing page of a professional website for a business person. High-quality images featuring head shots should be embedded into landing pages that provide brief information.

Entrepreneurs should ideally use a nickname or alias for their personal profile pages on social networks. This allows the professional sites and networking pages to have better chances of appearing on the results pages of search engines. When a user searches for a full name of a businessman, the social network profiles with aliases would not appear in the results. A virtual alias creates a barrier between personal and official identity online. It’s sometimes important for businesspeople to protect their privacy in order to prevent any scandalous accusations and rumors with the abuse of controversial personal photos or statements.

Social media can also be used to do much more than just provide official contact information for an entrepreneur or business. Calls of action can be posted on official profile pages that promote products and services offered online and in local brick-and-mortar establishments. High-quality images and descriptive articles can be posted on social media pages that are dedicated to building a loyal customer base.

Article Source http://www.bloggingtips.com/2014/09/14/social-media-profiles-rank-higher-search-results/

How to Effectively Use Social Media for Blog Interaction?

Social media is something that every blog would require in order to grow their reader base.

With the ability to concentrate on a wide userbase and their problems, social media works like a magic wand. If this magical wand is used appropriately, it can make your blog readers stick with you for long.

Let’s see how you can effectively use social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter for blog interaction.

 Advantages of Using Social Media for Blog Interaction

There are three:

• Provides common interface to interact with various users through social media.
• Readers are actively using social media.
• It has the ability to bring in valuable readers.

How to Effectively Use Social Media for Blog Interaction?

Now, it’s time to talk about the strategies that you should follow in order to gain interaction from your followers.

Social Media to Increase Blog Traffic

1) Investment of Time in Social Media

Most of the readers are already active on social media and investing your time in the interaction with them would give beneficiary results.

Before investing your time, you must get some knowledge, do research and find out what are the techniques that are best suitable your blog. What are the ways that are making your blog interaction more productive? What is the time when you get most reactions/interaction from your readers?

These are the questions that you should ask yourself before investing your valuable time.

Once you’ve the answers to such questions, you yourself would be able to decide on number of hours that you should allot to your social media blog readers.

2) Presentation

There are quite a few techniques to present your or start your interaction. The best way to know which techniques are working out – TRY THEM ALL!

For example, when Facebook comes in picture, a simple status update might not get attention but a status update along with an eye catchy image might attract attention and trigger your interaction. In case of Twitter, there aren’t many choices left but what about having a catchy headline?

This task isn’t simple but requires thorough trials. Things that did work in the past for one social media may not work for another. You got to keep trying and at the same time, keep an eye on which style worked well.

3) Meaningful Reader Interaction

At the end of the day, what counts is that the blog readers are satisfied with the kind of content delivered by your blog. Focus on making the content reader-friendly and engaging.

Once the reader initiates interaction, you should ensure to make it lively.

Endnote

Social media is driven by PEOPLE who are eventually your blog readers. If they like your blog engagement then there is a possibility of spreading word about the same.

You must be aware how important a Facebook Like is? If gone viral, it can reach thousands of people in few minutes. In the same way, other social media platforms also have their own advantages. The only thing you need to dig in is how to use them perfectly.

The biggest mistake most of the bloggers make is sharing on social media without knowing what their readers love.

Finally, I would simply suggest to research thoroughly and put your time and money on the right strategy to build and manage blog reader relationship as it is the backbone for the blog’s success.

Use every social media network at your disposal.

Article Source http://www.bloggingtips.com/2014/09/15/effectively-social-media-blog-interaction/

The Social Shake-Up 2014 Recap

This week I was at the W Midtown Hotel in Downtown Atlanta for Social Media Today’s Social Shake-up Conference. I knew to expect a great event as this was my second Social Shake-Up, following the Social Media Today event in Austin during SXSWi in March. So, let’s get to it. Disclaimer – Most of these notes will be from just one panel. Also – please excuse my phone’s picture quality. Can’t wait for the iPhone 6, also to avoid spending most of my time charging during events.

Guess I Should Have a Portable Charger By Now?

10:30am Data & Creativity: Defining Your Data-Driven Social Campaign

Laurent Francois moderated the panel consisting of Adam Naide (Cox Communications), Tracy Bell (Bank of America), and David Schweidel (Emory University)

This panel explored creativity and data, and their combination for deeper story telling. Also discussed was social analytics, and the importance of having clear goals in social media campaigns. Laurent began by apologizing for his French accent, and the way he pronounces “Adam,” although both Adam and I agreed it was a nice twist on the American pronunciation. Once the discussions were underway, Adam was quick to note the heavy lifting and social listening done by his Cox social care team, including Frankie Saucier, who I had the pleasure of sitting next to during the panel. Make sure all interactions are handled, and handled correctly – your brand sentiment is on the line! Consumers connect around their passions and creativity, social connects the two. David, with a background in statistics and market research, explained how he’s basically paid to be a skeptic. David piggy-backed and agreed with Adam’s thoughts on how to best engage with customers, and that the right way has yet to be determined. How do we engage customers at each touch-point?

Tracy noted that social can fill your gaps in customer service, as well as aid in sales and lead generation. Perhaps my favorite quote from this panel came from Adam when asked about social media tools, though. He stated, “Tools are tools, but people run social [media]. That’s why it’s called social media.” Adam went on to discuss how Cox customers who are engaged on social media are 33% more valuable than a typical customer, and score 32 points higher in NPS (net promoter score). The goal here is to turn your social customers into advocates! Another interesting note from Adam came in that social is now the first place people go for customer servicing. It can’t be any simpler than sending a DM, and seeing immediate resolution (again, props to the Cox social care team). Imagine a world where social media is the #1 place to go to seek technical support, and where brand advocates reply and assist even before the brand can.

What do you think when you hear the words engagement and organic? You probably think it’s just some marketing buzz word lingo, but you’ll be happy to hear that Adam Naide agrees with you. If he had it his way, he’d retire these words because they’re “fluffy and everyone has a different meaning for them.” Agreed!

An early takeaway from this panel was that customer’s comments and thoughts are incredibly valuable social offerings. Cox ran a Facebook brand campaign with Nielsen to promote that Cox has doubled their internet speeds. By reading comments and listening to what customers thought Cox was able to gather feedback in their customer’s context that they would’ve otherwise never known.

Tracy pointed out that your social media efforts support your creative processes. Listening to people and seeing how they react to your advertising is invaluable! How are they talking about the music in the background of a video? What do they think about the imagery? These are good to know data points gained through social that you may otherwise over-analyze. Feedback is different when it’s live.

The panel went into a great discussion on feedback, and Adam actually played moderator for a bit, asking Tracy the questions. The takeaway – find real reactions buried in data. Use what you have and bring it back to a simple human reaction.

Adam then quoted Maya Angelou. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I love this, and the same goes in social. Your followers may associate with you because of one emotion-bringing post, but never actually remember what it was. This relates, in a way, to Cox’s social strategy of using content like Game of Thrones as click bait, with an ultimate call to action behind it. Adam knows that Cox’s fans share clear emotions about their shows, so why not go where they’re already talking and sharing feelings? Another great example comes through the World Cup earlier this summer. Cox curated simple posts around existing conversations, just letting people know how to catch the games on their phones at work. Genius. Speaking of Game of Thrones, look who favorited one of my live-tweets…

Article Source http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/social-shake-2014-recap

How Secure Is Your Password?

First Adobe and now Gmail?

If you’re not familiar with the latest privacy scandal that’s got the world on edge, just last week it was discovered that over 5 million Gmail usernames and passwords have apparently been leaked and shared on a Russian Internet forum.

Slightly unnerved? Freaking out?

You wouldn’t be the only one.

Password protection has become a hot topic in recent months, what with the leak of naked celebrity selfies and the constant threat that one wrong click will send our most private of communications into the wrong hands.

So what can you do about it?

Well, let’s just say that cold turkey isn’t an option. We’ve all become just a little too entrenched in the digital world to start pushing for a complete withdrawal.

The truth is, now everything from paying your bills to RSVPing to your friend’s wedding will probably take place online. There’s very little we can do to completely remove ourselves from the influence of the internet.

Prevention trumps avoidance

Knowing that simply closing up shop and permanently absconding yourself from the internet isn’t an option, the onus now comes down to you making an effort to adequately protect yourself.

Just as we get insurance to cover our houses and cars, passwords are a form of protection to keep safe our online information.

So for heaven’s sake, don’t take them lightly!

With the rise of cloud-based platforms, more and more people are entrusting their treasured photos, personal emails and private documents to the security of 8 or more characters.

Why not make the most of those 8 characters?

In the wake of the Adobe password scandal that rocked the digital world, Mashable published a piece listing the 20 most popular passwords used by Adobe customers that had been hacked.

No surprises, some of the offenders featured in the Top 10 were the all to familiar ‘password‘ and the classic ‘1234‘

How do you protect yourself from a password hack?

Get creative with the shift button and start adding a variety of numbers and symbols to your passwords.

If you find that tricky to remember, substitute numbers or symbols for letters that look similar (i.e. m@keb3le1ve instead of makebelieve)

Are you one of those people that uses the same password for their internet banking as they do for their Facebook page? Well, I’ve got three words for you: stop doing it!

If someone hacks just one of your accounts, they will literally find themselves with all-you-can-eat access to a smorgasbord of personal information.

I cannot stress the importance of ensuring you use a variety of passwords online. Having the same password across multiple platforms is like building your security on a house of cards, if one falls the rest quickly follow.

I know it’s a pain, but so is having the entire contents of your iPhoto folder shared with the world. Set yourself a calendar reminder to change passwords periodically so that if any account is compromised, it doesn’t stay that way indefinitely.

A fantastic security measure that is definitely worth the hassle of setting up. Several services now offer two-factor authentication to protect yourself from a remote hack.

Google offers two-factor authentication with a handy Google Authenticator app that automatically generates unique codes on your tablet or smart phone.

Everyone knows your maiden name or your husband’s date of birth. And even if they don’t, those answers are pretty easy to find out with some basic snooping.

Go for something that’s more subjective, a favorite teacher or best childhood friend. That way, even if someone was familiar with all the names of your high school faculty, they still wouldn’t know which one was your top teach.

Keep em’ guessing!

• Numbers and symbols are your friends
• Don’t use the same password across different platforms
• Change your password every couple of months
• Start using two-factor authentication
• Make those password recovery questions tricky                                                                  

Article Source http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/how-secure-your-password-0

Social Media Tips #3 | How To Use Google Plus For Business SEO| Social Networking Marketing Tricks

The 7 Elements Of An Optimized Twitter Profile [INFOGRAPHIC]

Twitter has revolutionised marketing for brands of all shapes and sizes across almost every industry around the globe – used intelligently, this deceptively simplistic microblogging platform can raise awareness of products and services, drive website footfall and generate leads.

For best results, businesses should ensure that their Twitter profile is optimized and that they are following best practices to maximise return on investment (ROI). This would include:

1. Using your company logo as your Twitter avatar

2. Using your company name as your Twitter username

3. Trying to tweet 5-20 times per day (every day!)

4. Always being sure to tag/mention relevant users in tweets

5. Using shortened links with tracking (i.e., bit.ly)

6. Using high quality images

7. Making sure that all responses are timely and relevant

Check the visual below for more detail, which comes courtesy of Hubspot.

Article Source http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/optimized-twitter-profile-tips_b60098?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

How to Find Your Target Audience on Instagram

Whatever your goals are on Instagram, if you’re using the platform to market your business in any way, you need to make sure that you’re reaching your target audience on Instagram.

But how do you find them? Where are they? How are they using Instagram? How do you reach out to them?

Here are some ways to go about finding your target audience on Instagram and actually connecting with them.

Follow Event Hashtags

Whatever your industry, there are events related to it. They could be conventions or conferences. They could be seminars or announcements. They could be shows or celebrations. Whatever your events are, find the event hashtag(s) and follow them on Instagram.

For me, being that my target audience is business owners and entrepreneurs looking to learn social media, I follow social media conference hashtags closely. The Content Marketing World (#cmworld) conference just happened recently. I checked the hashtag on Instagram daily to find ideal target Instagram users.

I recommend you do the same, for whatever your industry events are.

But you have to do more than just follow the hashtag. You have to be active. It can be as simple as liking a bunch of photos tagged with the event hashtag. Go through the stream and “like” photos and posts.

Take some time to read the captions of the posts and engage in response. Answer a question. Offer a helpful piece of advice. Compliment the user. Or ask them a question about the event.

Taking the time to engage with these event attendees will usually result in a significant bump in those who follow you – and best of all, they’re your target audience!

With the recent #CMWorld event, I garnered about 10-12 new followers in a couple days. Other events I’ve used this method with have easily resulted in 20-30 new followers in a couple days.

Follow Interest or Hobby Hashtags

Much like the method for event hashtags, follow hashtags related to hobbies or interests that are relevant to your business.

If you provide health and nutrition coaching, follow tags related to health, like yoga, or pilates, or barre, or P90X, etc. If you sell pet specialty items, follow tags related to pets, pet fashion, grooming, etc.

Knowing your target demographic, you should know what they are interested in. Use this information to find those people on Instagram. Then use the same methods I just described above to engage, like, and have conversations with them.

See Who’s Following Your Competitors

If you’re looking for your target audience on Instagram, chances are they’re already engaging with and following your competitors. This makes it easy – they’re in one place.

Go to your competitors’ profiles, and click on their “Followers”. You can see the whole list of people who follow them. Depending on how many people follow them, this could be more time intensive than other accounts.

Scroll through the list of followers and find people that are your ideal clients. Look for people that are active, engaging, and match your ideal customer profile. Then scroll through their posts, like some of their posts, and join in the conversation by responding to comments, complimenting them, or answering a question.

This method is more time consuming than following hashtags but works just as well.

It’s important that you have the right, engaged followers on Instagram. Having 5000 followers who don’t care about your business or who never actually use Instagram are useless to you. Instead, focus on finding and building relationships with your ideal target customer to see real results on Instagram.

 Article Source http://jennstrends.com/find-your-target-audience-on-instagram/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

4 Ways To Make Readers Come Back For More June 24, 2014Social Media

Blogging isn’t exactly easy. Some people try to make it out as something anyone can do well. Sure, anyone can set up a blog and update regularly, but

Not everyone has the power to capture the attention of their audience and make them read more.

You always hear about bounce rate, and you always hear them say that your site must have a low bounce rate. But how do you do it exactly? How will you make people click another link on your site? How will you engage them to read on and to come back for more blog posts? How will you convert them from visitors to actual readers?

There’s no shortcut here. There’s no easy tricks that you can accomplish in under five minutes. It’ll take you time and a lot of patience, but once you’ve established your site, there’s a bigger chance to grow your audience and encourage them to drop in again and again.

1. Write Informative And Compelling Content

It’s always the content that will attract the readers. It’s not in the amount of times you post in a week that makes people go to your site. It’s the quality of the content that people will actually visit your website. Though you may update regularly, people may not be interested if they didn’t like what they read the first time. So make sure that each and every article you write is made of quality.

No one expects you to be the Mark Twain of the blogging world, but at least make your posts worth their time. You wouldn’t want to read comments saying that you’ve just wasted 15 minutes of their time, do you? Just give every piece of article enough attention and care when writing. Research your content and find an angle that’s interesting, something that hasn’t been tackled repeatedly by other sites. Make sure that you provide content that they will actually read instead of just skim.

2. Proofread Thoroughly

You don’t need to have a perfect grammar. You just need ample time to re-read and proofread your work. It’s not just in the grammar, too. Oftentimes, it’s the spelling and wrong information that reduce the credibility of an article. Double-check every fact you include in the post or people will call your bluff for it. It’s not enough that you read it once. If you have to let someone else re-read it for you, then do so.

A tip on editing: Read it out loud.

It’s very easy to miss mistakes, and sometimes, the only way for you to notice them is if you re-read your work thoroughly. Writers are often blind to their own mistakes, so it won’t hurt to be too cautious. No one would want to go back to a site that posts articles peppered with too many grammatical errors.

If you’re still not confident with your writing, there are many online tools that can help you proofread your works. However, these tools only focus on the mechanical side of editing such as spelling, grammar, and syntax. Technical editing is a lot more complex, and oftentimes, you’re the only one who can do it.

3. Encourage Your Readers To Subscribe And Follow Your Social Media Accounts

Now, it won’t be easy to entice readers to directly drop in your site regularly. If you think they’ll type in your site’s URL everytime they log in, then I’m afraid I have to dash your hopes. First you have to find a way that will easily help them find you.

One way to do that is by encouraging them to subscribe to your updates. Many readers don’t like receiving too much email updates, so it’s best if you give them the chance to choose whether to receive daily or weekly updates. Place the subscribe button prominently on your website. The trick is placing it on the top of your site instead of having readers look for.

[Note from Editor: Our subscription box is located top right.]

Do it via social media. Make sure that your social media buttons are prominent in your websites. Though no one appreciates a pop-up box, during the early stages of your blog, it might be to your best interest if you do this. However, remember that to use social media effectively, you have to update it often, too. Answer queries and share useful links to your followers.

Don’t forget to share old articles to also drive traffic to old pages. Engage your readers by posting about things that interest them. Keep your social media pages alive even when you don’t have an update for that day.

4. Create An Easy-To-Navigate And Readable Website

This is often neglected by many website owners. They’re so keen to publish as many post as possible. They focus so much on SEO and how the search engine will read their site that they forgot that they also have to think of their readers. Is the text easy to read? Are there enough white spaces to let the eyes breathe? Are the buttons easy to find? Does the page load fast enough? Are the graphics loading properly?

Before web masters worry about Google, they have to think of the readers first. After all, they must write for humans, first and foremost, before they write for machines. It’s great if you can figure out how Google works, but there’s a delight to know that you’re gaining readers due to the fact that they actually your website.

It’s great to know how to drive traffic to your site. But the next step is to make the visitors stay and the harder part is to make them come back.

Readers are very difficult to please

so you must exert an effort to make sure that you capture their attention. Besides, it’s the frequency of their visits that make them actual readers and not just visitors of your blogs. It’s a lot better if you aim to increase your readership and not just the number of view count.

[Image: iStockphoto]

Article Source http://socialmediarevolver.com/4-ways-make-readers-come-back

Social media make money online 2014

What can marketers learn from Facebook’s Audience Insights?

The value of social has always been reaching consumers in a unique environment where they are deeply engaged and generating a meaningful conversation between those engagers and a brand. To do this well, we have to deeply understand the passions, preferences and interests of the brand’s audience and how these affinities relate to the brand itself.

Major opportunity lies in making sense of the social data created by the billions of consumers who willingly broadcast their affinities and brand connections daily across social channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.  These social channels account for the planet’s largest and least biased focus group ever created. Affinity data holds the secret to how consumers want to be engaged, leading not only to better social media marketing, but a more engaged consumer across all channels.

A Giant Affirms Affinity

It is in this vein of thinking that Facebook recently launched its Audience Insights tool for advertisers, which was “designed to help marketers learn more about their target audiences.” To see the largest player in social bring forward a product aimed at better harnessing social media audience data is exciting and reaffirms what my company has already found to be true: social data, when harnessed correctly, is the most valuable source for consumer insight across any channel.

So, what can Audience Insights help marketers learn? Some highlights include:

• Understanding what demographic traits index highest for your page audience vs. the entire Facebook population
• Identifying the other pages liked most often by the audience that has liked your page
• Viewing the Personicx lifestyle categories that index highest for your brand page audience

General feedback on Audience Insights seems positive, and shows the hunger for a better understanding of what social data tells brands about their customers.

Next Steps

Facebook Audience Insights is a great first step for brands who want to understand their customers better through social data.  Social intelligence tools exist today that allow brands to take an even greater step forward in their social data strategy by adding value in five key areas:

1. Data Scope: Facebook is a large slice of the social media pie, but it isn’t the whole thing.  In order to have the most accurate picture of your customers, you need to look at the data they are generating across multiple social networks while being able to differentiate the affinity connections to your brand within each social network separately.  This latter part becomes increasingly important when using the data to better target marketing within each social network.
2. Data Depth:  It’s becoming more important that you look for and work with platforms that are founded in data science. “Page likes” are a weak signal for predicting future engagement and action.  People who have actively engaged with a brand socially via sharing, commenting, retweeting etc. are the best predictor for future social action and lead to the highest ROI. If a platform provider is offering you page likes in their affinity lift scores, ask for more specifics around what other metrics they employ to prove that lift.
3. Action: Data without action is like a light bulb with no switch –completely useless.  Search out a platform that identifies a brand’s top affinities and easily applies those targets to social ads across Facebook and Twitter in minutes, leading to more effective social media targeting and campaign results.
4. Competition: It’s great to understand how your brand’s affinities compare to the general population, but it is even more powerful to know how they compare to your competitors.  By better understanding the motivations of your competitors’ most engaged customers, you can more effectively grow your own audience and increase category market share.
5. Offline application: Social media has become an always-on companion that mirrors offline media consumption, especially in TV.  A huge opportunity exists in utilizing social affinity data to better understand the strongest connections between your brand’s audience and specific TV elements (shows, networks, genres, actors). Using this data allows advertisers to make smarter offline media buying choices while strengthening their social buys via alignment based on brand affinity.

The market is just scratching the surface of using social data for more effective brand advertising within social media and across offline channels.  Facebook’s new Audience Insights tool offers a great first step toward this opportunity, but more work needs to be done and platform providers are available today that can help. Look for partners that canshowcase the additional scope, depth, action, competition, and offline application and you’ll be prepared to take advantage of the power social data can bring to your marketing activities.

Grant Parker is the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at 4C. 4C is powered by over 27 years of university research in big data science and predictive algorithms to help companies understand and use social data and connections. Grant’s previous experience includes positions with Ziff Davis, inPowered, NetShelter Technology Media and Resolution Media. Learn more at http://4cinsights.com/. 

Article Source http://www.insidefacebook.com/2014/09/11/what-can-marketers-learn-from-facebooks-audience-insights/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InsideFacebook+%28Inside+Facebook%29&utm_content=FaceBook