TwitterToolsReviews |
- 18 Ways to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Performance
- How to Run a Successful Social Media Sweepstakes
- How to Get Employees to Embrace Social Media
- Facebook Engagement: How to Get Seen in the Facebook News Feed
- Twitter Chats: How to Create a Successful Tweet Chat
| 18 Ways to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Performance Posted: 28 Feb 2014 11:35 PM PST By John Haydon
Do you feel like you're being forced to buy ads to reach your audience? While Facebook change is the rule rather than the exception, this article gives you 18 ways you can improve your Facebook news feed performance—and gain the upper hand. How Reach Is Created on FacebookFacebook defines reach as the number of unique Facebook users who see your updates. To see your page's reach, go to Facebook Insights and look at your page's Reach report. You'll be able to see how your reach is improving over time (as shown below).  How much reach does your Facebook page have? Reach is generally influenced by one or more of the following actions:
All four actions are interrelated. For example, if you publish content (organic reach) that your fans react to, friends of those fans will see that content (viral reach). If you decide an update is worthy of a Facebook ad, then the ad creates paid reach. The more kinds of reach you generate with an update, the more people see that update. And that's where these 18 ways you can beat Facebook's news feed algorithm come in. #1: Create a Content StrategyYou've heard this before, but what really matters in the end is the content. Your fans don't share a post just because they see it the news feed. They share it because it's useful and interesting to them. In the nonprofit world, fewer than 25% of pages have a content strategy, and I'll bet that's true for most small businesses as well. If you need guidance on creating a content strategy, read these Social Media Examiner articles: #2: Know When Your Fans Are OnlineWhen is the best time to post on Facebook? When most of your fans are actually using Facebook. In general, Facebook shows the most recent content at the top of the news feed. If you post an update at 2am, but your fans are using Facebook at 8am, you can be sure they aren't seeing your updates. You can find out when your fans are online by going to your Facebook Insights and clicking Posts.  Post when your fans are on Facebook to ensure maximum reach. #3: Pay Attention to Post FrequencyAfter looking at your Post Insights, you probably noticed there's never a period when none of your fans are using Facebook. This means you should post at least once per day. Socialbakers recommends no more than twice a day, based on their research. #4: Let People Post Content on Your Facebook PageWhen Facebook users post updates on your page or mention your page, their friends see that activity in the news feed. That's important viral reach. In the update below, Max has posted an update on the Libraries Are Essential Facebook page. Many of Max's friends will be exposed to this page through viral reach because his post shows up in his friends' news feeds. If you're worried about spam or negative content being posted on your page, don't worry. You can easily configure your page to block content that contains specific keywords or profanity.  Any time someone posts on your page, it shows up in their friends' news feeds, which results in viral reach. #5: Host a "Caption This" ContestOne thing I've done that's consistently worked well is to host caption contests as a way to generate an instant flood of comments, which in turn creates a flood of viral reach!  Fun and easy contests or giveaways result in higher organic and viral reach. I give away copies of great books, but you can give away anything you want. Just make sure it's useful and relevant to your community. #6: Reply to CommentsTo build community, you have to listen to and respond to community. People use Facebook because they want to be heard! Responding to comments is important.  Reply to your commenters so they know they're heard. Your Facebook page has an optional threaded comments feature. This means that when a fan leaves a comment on an update, you can reply specifically to that comment. When you respond, that fan receives a notification, which is incentive to revisit your page to read your response. Increasing the frequency of visits to your page is a key part of developing a core Facebook page community. You can turn on threaded comments in a few easy steps:
#7: Tag CommentersNormally, pages can't tag people on Facebook, but there is one exception: If a Facebook user leaves a comment on an update, you can tag the user when you comment on that same update.  Tag commenters in your reply to bring them back to the conversation. Depending on the users' privacy settings, they'll receive notification that they've been tagged, prompting them to revisit the thread. #8: Tag and Give Props to Other PagesHuman beings are hardwired for reciprocity. Generally speaking, when you promote another business's agenda on Facebook, they receive a notification so they know the good deed you did for them. If they're a good partner, they'll return the favor.  This update tagged RazorSocial. #9: Repost Previous Top-Performing UpdatesYour content strategy doesn't have to only include new content; you can also recycle your most successful posts to reengage fans. To find and reframe your top-performing posts, you need to know post engagement rates—the percentage of people who saw an update and liked, commented on or shared it. To find post engagement rates, go to your Insights and click Posts. Scroll down to the All Posts Published table, and click the Engagement column to quickly sort your posts by engagement rate. To really get a feel for which updates your fans loved, export at least six months of post-level data and study it. To bring fans back to your most brilliant and engaging content, you can:
An important note here: Don't recycle recent content. You don't want fans to feel like they're seeing reposted content too frequently. #10: Boost Previous Top-Performing UpdatesThere's no way to escape it. If you're serious about Facebook marketing, use ads. What I will say is this: Only promote awesome. Investing in posts that already have a high engagement rate is more likely to give you the biggest bang for your buck—more likes, comments and shares—which translates into more engagement and reach in the long run. Whether you have experience with Facebook ads or not, make time to read Jon Loomer's articles on using Facebook Ads and the Power Editor to promote your top-performing posts.  Promote your best Facebook content easily right from Insights. #11: Feature Your Posts in a Like BoxMost people don't know that the Facebook Like box in their website's sidebar has a setting that lets you display your most recent page updates. When people see your Facebook updates in your sidebar, it not only encourages them to like your page right there, but to click over to your page and take part in the conversation. To update your Like box, visit the plugin page and configure the settings to Show Posts (as shown below).  Sharing your Facebook updates in your sidebar Like box lures people to your page. #12: Embed Top-Performing Updates in Blog PostsOne constant challenge for most bloggers is finding topics to write about. Take a look at your most recent high-engagement Facebook updates and write blog posts that expand on those topics. Within the post, embed one or more of your best Facebook page updates (as shown below).  Write blog posts around your popular Facebook topics and provide a way for readers to revisit the conversation on Facebook. This approach not only creates more reach for your best Facebook updates, it gives you blog post content that's already been vetted by your community! #13: Message Your Friend NetworksHave you hit a wall on your way to getting engagement? Depending on the strength of your collective friend network, try asking for shares or comments from within your personal networks. Now, obviously you can't force people to do this. But you can have willing parties message their friends at a time when you know your fans are mostly likely to be online. These network shares cause a trending effect among friends connected to your business. When people see several of their friends talking about a topic, they're more likely to be interested in that topic and click over to read more. #14: Guest Post on Sites That Send You TrafficIf you're a regular reader of Social Media Examiner, you know how powerful having a guest blogging strategy can be for growing your business. But did you know you can find potential leads for guest-post opportunities right in Facebook Insights? Within the Visits report, scroll all the way down to the External Referrers section. This graph shows you which websites are referring the most traffic to your Facebook page (shown below).  Keep track of who's sending traffic your way and make the most of those partnerships. Contact the sites sending people your way and see if you can write a guest post for them. Don't limit yourself to guest blogging. Feel free to explore other co-marketing opportunities that may work as well. #15: Pin Top-Performing Pictures on PinterestWhen you post images to Pinterest, you have an option to include a URL. When a user clicks the image, they go to that URL. Try reposting a few high-performing photos from your Facebook page onto Pinterest and linking back to your Facebook update. Make sure you use the correct permalink for the post! You can find that by clicking on the post's publish date on Facebook (as shown below). You'll be taken to a new page that shows just that post. Copy the URL for this page to use as your Pinterest link.  Use eye-catching images on Pinterest that link back to your Facebook page. Keep track of how much traffic Pinterest is sending to your Facebook page via your Insights' External Referrer graph. Then you'll be able to determine how effective this approach is in boosting reach for your Facebook page updates. #16: Tweet Your Top-Performing UpdatesSome of my clients have had success scheduling tweets with links to their high-performing Facebook updates. Two or three tweets in 48 hours is plenty. Tweet recent Facebook updates rather than older ones.  Tweeting a Facebook post drives external traffic. Make sure you're able to measure clicks from Twitter to the post. #17: Use Email Marketing to Promote Top-Performing PostsThis is one of my favorite strategies to use for my Facebook page. It's so simple and effective, I'm surprised I don't see it done more often. Every time I write my weekly newsletter, I include a link to a Facebook page update. For example, I recently asked my subscribers if they'd like me to write more about blogging, then I provided a link to a Facebook post where they could answer.  People who open and read your emails are highly likely to engage with you on Facebook as well. #18: Identify Best Tactics With Facebook InsightsIn the end, you have to find the tactics that work for your Facebook page. Export the last six months of your Facebook Insights and study them to see what works for your page, then replicate that success with the tips above. Pay attention to which updates resulted in new fans. Look at which posts produced specific kinds of reach and engagement (shares are more important than likes, for example). Over to You Use these tips to generate more interaction through your page and reach more people with your Facebook marketing. What do you think? What tips do you have for increasing reach and engagement for your Facebook page? Let us know in the comments. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. The post 18 Ways to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Performance appeared first on Make Money Online With Twitter Marketing. |
| How to Run a Successful Social Media Sweepstakes Posted: 28 Feb 2014 05:23 PM PST By Adeel Vanthaliwala
Do you need a guide to ensure that you don't miss the crucial elements of a successful sweepstakes promotion? Sweepstakes, contests and giveaways are increasingly popular among marketers who are vying for the attention of their social media audiences. Choosing a prize is the easy part. Whether you run your promotion on Facebook or Pinterest, it's easy to overlook something. Making sure you've got all your planning, technical and legal "i's" dotted and "t's" crossed is critical to your success. In this article, you'll learn the five steps of running a successful social media sweepstakes. #1: Assess Sweepstakes ObjectivesThis is where most companies shortchange themselves. How? By focusing on superficial objectives that may not benefit their business. For example, does it make sense to run a sweepstakes to increase your already-large fan base or do you want to jumpstart your social engagement process? Here's a list of potential sweepstakes objectives to choose from:
Her Campus is a good example of a company that's using sweepstakes to increase their social media engagement.  Her Campus is an excellent example of using a sweepstakes to increase social media engagement by requiring followers to tweet a picture of their dorm room along with a description of their dorm room style. Often-Overlooked Objectives Increase customer micro-insights: For example, tweet to win: "If I win a $500 Visa gift card, I'll spend it on __________ #ABCgiveaway @yourcompany". Not only does this increase social media engagement, it also gives you a much deeper understanding of your target market. Increase customer survey participation: Brick-and-mortar businesses regularly use sweepstakes to increase customer survey participation, but this practice is rare for online businesses. Hipmunk is a good example of an online business that is successfully utilizing sweepstakes to increase the level of customer survey participation.  Hipmunk, a travel booking company, frequently uses small sweepstakes to increase customer survey participation. #2: Plan the LogisticsThis phase can be a lifesaver. If you get this phase right, you'll be breathing a lot easier during the promotion. Here are the major steps in the planning phase: Select a Sweepstakes Tool: This is the most important step in the planning phase because the right tool streamlines and automates your sweepstakes tasks. There are some key features to look for when selecting a vendor for your social media sweepstakes.
Comply with sweepstakes laws: It's imperative to understand the regional and social media platform rules pertaining to sweepstakes. Sarah Hawkins has a series of articles that serve as excellent guides on these topics. Determine sweepstakes duration: 21-28 days is the ideal duration for a sweepstakes promotion. Two weeks is often too short and more than a month is too long. Select a prize: It could be your own product or a product that really fulfills your target audience's needs. Here's a good example of this from Dove. Instead of offering a cliché prize such as an iPad, they focused on providing a home upgrade to attract a targeted male audience.  Dove attracts a targeted male audience by using a home upgrade as their sweepstakes prize. Determine sweepstakes location: Where will you host your sweepstakes? Depending on your objectives, does it make sense to host the promotion on your website, Facebook page or some other popular blog? These are not mutually exclusive choices. You can host your sweepstakes on multiple online destinations, but having it in one place often leads to an easier and more efficient execution of the promotion. Set promotion budget: How much money do you want to spend to promote your sweepstakes? How does that divide across different marketing channels? For example, do you want to advertise on specific blogs to drive traffic to your sweepstakes or does a Facebook ad campaign make more sense? Often-Overlooked Planning Steps Associate sweepstakes with an event: Is the sweepstakes being held to celebrate your business's third anniversary or the joyous spirit of Christmas? Associating your sweepstakes with an event provides context to your audience and makes a deeper emotional connection with them, which increases the chances of your sweepstakes creating a positive buzz in social media. Here's a great example of Family.com associating their sweepstakes with Christmas.  Family.com associates their sweepstakes with Christmas to connect with their audience on a deeper level and ensure positive social media exposure. Create a short and enticing viral loop: A big prize attracts attention, but it's the viral loop that continues the momentum—which is why it needs to be thought out in considerable detail. A viral loop is the workflow that maximizes the probability of one contestant attracting another contestant from their social network. Here are the key elements in each stage of a viral loop: Stage 1: Activate visitors into contestants
Stage 2: Remove entry barriers
Stage 3: Entice the contestant to share
Stage 4: Attract new visitors through shared messages
Make sure every shared message has a link to the sweepstakes. #3: Launch the SweepstakesYou've done all the heavy planning work. Now, it's time to execute. Here are the most important steps for a flawless launch: Conduct a test run: Once you've set up the sweepstakes, ask a few of your friends and colleagues to enter and perform every primary and secondary call to action. Confirm that you see their entry in the sweepstakes tool's analytics; that the messages being shared are not cut off due to character limits and that the sweepstakes links within the shared messages are working. Contact influencers: Reach out to social media influencers and ask them if they will promote your sweepstakes. The more you convince them that the prize and the associated event of the sweepstakes appeal to their readers, the higher the chance of them promoting your sweepstakes. There is a great list of tools for this purpose in this article written by Jason Falls. Request listing on sweepstakes directories (with caution): Submit your contest to a sweepstakes directory. This may make sense for some audiences, but not for others. You really need to think through what kind of audience you're trying to attract, because sweepstakes directories often bring in "professional sweepers" who use fake accounts to submit multiple entries or immediately reverse their entry action; for instance, unlike, unsubscribe, etc. Determine launch day: Your promotion gets an early boost if you launch your sweepstakes at the right time and the right day of the week. While you'll have to rely on your own data to determine the best time and day for your audience, these research articles from Marketing Profs and Beth Kanter's blog will help you get started.  According to a study published by Marketing Profs, Sunday evening is the best time to launch a sweepstakes. Often-Overlooked Launch Steps Create a support plan: Despite your excellent planning and execution, things can still go wrong, and usually they'll have to do with technical glitches. If you're using a third-party sweepstakes tool, make sure you have their phone number and email address handy so you can quickly resolve the technical problems. Contact Facebook influencers: There's a lot of focus on finding Twitter or Pinterest influencers, mainly because of the ease of finding influencers on these platforms. Finding Facebook influencers is more challenging, but it's worth the effort, especially because many of these influencers don't have their own dedicated websites or blogs. Raven Tools has an informative blog post on how to navigate Facebook's search feature to find relevant Facebook pages.  Facebook’s search feature is a powerful tool to help you determine the right Facebook influencers for your sweepstakes promotion. #4: Follow-up With ContestantsSo you've launched the sweepstakes and the entries are rolling in. In this stage, your focus needs to shift to following up to meet your primary and secondary objectives. Here's a list of the major steps that are needed for a successful follow-up process: Follow up with autoresponders: Sending a follow-up email adds more credibility to your sweepstakes and dramatically increases the chances of contestants taking the secondary action that you'd like them to take. Schedule automatic follow-ups via the autoresponder features of email marketing tools such as MailChimp and AWeber. Determine reminder frequency: Your fans and subscribers are really busy and they'll either forget to enter your sweepstakes or miss your announcements. That's why reminders are vital to maximizing the number of contestants. To ensure that you don't annoy your audience, a good rule of thumb is:
Conduct daily test runs: Technical glitches are often unreported, which translates into fewer contestants. That's why it's important for you to enter your own sweepstakes on a daily basis (with a test account) to verify that all of the sweepstakes procedures are working as planned. Perform weekly modifications: As the sweepstakes progresses, you're sure to learn a lot and generate ideas on how to make your sweepstakes better. It's important to set aside some time each week to make adjustments based on those lessons. It could be something as simple as changing the tweet message to make it more enticing, or something as effective as reducing the number of actions required to enter the sweepstakes. Often-Overlooked Follow-Up Steps Reach out to contestants on Twitter: At the end of each day, look at who entered the sweepstakes on Twitter, check out their Twitter bio and see if they are the right target to engage with. Breaking the ice is much easier since their sweepstakes entry serves as a starting point for conversation. It's simple to do and you'll never know who you'll find, so why not give it a try? Follow-up for soft-selling: Sweepstakes draw a lot of traffic and attention. Why not encourage them to buy from you? Here's a list of things for you to do on your Thank-you page or your follow-up emails to increase your sales:
#5: Ending the SweepstakesYou're almost done. A few more steps and you'll have the pleasure of communicating with the winner and watching him or her respond to you with joy and disbelief. But before that point, there are still a few things you need to get right: Send final reminders: Send out final reminders via email and social media about when the sweepstakes ends. Reiterate what the sweepstakes was for and how easy it is to enter. Select a winner: If you're using a sweepstakes tool, it should make the winner selection process very simple. Otherwise, export the contestant data into an Excel spreadsheet and upload it to Random.org to help you select a winner. Remove the tool: Now that the sweepstakes is done, remove the widget from your website and/or your social media pages. Send winner announcement: Announce the winner to all contestants via email, blog and social networks. Contact the winner: Send a separate email to the winner asking him or her to respond within a specific time period. Also ask about the person's age and location. This step needs to be done within 7-10 business days of the sweepstakes' end. Mail the prize: Once you've confirmed all of the details with the winner, mail the prize to the winner's address and let him or her know the estimated date of arrival. Often-Overlooked Ending Steps Create an internal assessment report: This is the moment of truth. Did you meet your objectives? What was the return on investment for the amount of money you spent? Would that money have been better spent on direct ads or other PR activities? What worked very well and what would you do differently? Sweepstakes are not a one-hit wonder. They're supposed to be done with some regularity and these kinds of post-sweepstakes assessments ensure that your next sweepstakes generates even better results. Share your results: Everyone loves to see stats, a final report card or a set of lessons learned during a promotion. Now that you have completed your sweepstakes promotion, you're sitting on valuable data. Why not share that data on your own blog or with a different audience through a guest blog post to gain additional coverage of your business?  The contest widget that had the fuzzy image collected 22% more email subscribers than the widget that had big text and no image. Unbounce has a good article on post-sweepstakes statistics on 8 factors that lead to the best results. Add Your Tips These are important steps to follow when running a successful sweepstakes. However, these steps aren't the only ones. Running sweepstakes is a social activity and there's a lot of room for creativity. What do you think? Do you have some tips of your own? What successes have you had with running a sweepstakes? Please share some of your own tips in the comments below. Image from iStockPhoto.This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends:
The post How to Run a Successful Social Media Sweepstakes appeared first on Make Money Online With Twitter Marketing. |
| How to Get Employees to Embrace Social Media Posted: 28 Feb 2014 11:03 AM PST By Stephanie Shkolnik
Do you want to get more people inside your organization to support your social media activities? If so, you're not alone. Small businesses to Fortune 500 companies find themselves facing these challenges. In this article, I'll show you how to create an internal social media structure that will help you develop an effective long-term social media presence. #1: Define the End GoalFirst, identify how and why social media will be used to meet specific business and brand goals. For example, a business goal is to increase revenue by 10%, whereas a brand goal is to create deeper relationships with your existing clients. Clearly define realistic, concrete and measurable goals to give your team objectives to pursue.  Define your goals to create the internal structure you need for your social media presence. Image source: iStockPhoto. #2: Create a Social Media Task ForceDepending on your company's size, one person or a group of people will lead your social media efforts. Assign the following roles to group members:
Kathleen Ngo, social media specialist at Sony Electronics, says: "At Sony, we recognize the impact social can have in terms of driving brand awareness and even conversion. Having a team devoted to social allows us to be nimble and responsive. We're able to implement real-time marketing efforts to supplement our larger brand campaigns, as well as to understand the voice of the customer and pass valuable feedback along to our product teams. We can go beyond content creation and focus on other verticals, including events/sponsorships and influencer relations." All of these individuals work closely together to collaborate on content approaches that appeal to your target audience(s) and decide how to execute campaigns and find the most valuable and relevant tools your brand will use.  Your social media task force will work together for successful social media campaigns. Image source: iStockPhoto. #3: Develop a Holistic Social Media StrategyOnce the team is assembled, strategists lead and work with all team members to lay the groundwork for your social presence through a holistic social media strategy. The team answers questions such as:
The team will develop company-wide social media guidelines, which are applicable to both the social media task force and employees. These rules are shared and approved by senior leadership, and made public to the company through a staff email and on the company intranet to minimize risk of how your brand is represented across social media channels. This strategy is referred to during each team meeting to ensure all individuals are collectively working toward the same goals. #4: Consistency Is KeyTo ensure content is consistently developed, published, tracked and analyzed, hold weekly one-hour social planning meetings where each resource spends 10 minutes to update team members on what he or she has recently learned.  Regular social planning meetings facilitate the success of your social media marketing. Image source: iStockPhoto. Devote the meeting's last 20 minutes to brainstorming. One-half of the month's meetings focus on strategy to ensure all parties are on the same path toward the brand's long-term social media footprint. The other two meetings focus on content ideation to identify new ways to deliver content through creative assets, contests, etc. #5: Use Tools to Your AdvantageWhether you do or don't have a budget, various tools are available to effectively support content publishing, tracking and optimization: Free tools:
Paid tools:
#6: The Team Should Be "Social"Create awareness of your brand's social presence to support the growth of your community and engagement rate online, and create appreciation among peers for how you manage your company's digital brand presence. Tips for getting your company involved in your social media presence: Whether you're a small or large organization, the social media task force is critical to ensure content is published from a consistent voice on a regular basis. However, opening up the conversation to other employees creates a new platform and way of collecting points of view and content sources to support the content manager. Set up an email alias specific to social media content submissions, curated by the content manager, to provide new content opportunities and fresh thinking on a regular basis. Remind team members of their ability to contribute through company meetings and staff emails to energize and enable creativity.
Send out monthly staff emails with top-performing content or announcements you would like employees to propagate. If you request sharing of specific content across employee social media channels, draft 1-2 sample posts for easy copy and paste. Add brand social media channels to your company signature with hyperlinked URLs, encouraging other employees to do so. If you are a part of a larger organization, altering the official signature may require coordination with HR.  Add links to social media accounts to your company email signature. Regardless of where social media sits within your company, craft simple-to-digest emails to send off to executives and senior leadership. This keeps them in the know about what is happening across social. Depending on your goals and target audiences, consider training senior leaders about how they can personally use social media as a voice for the brand and to achieve specific objectives. Keep their busy schedules in mind and provide solutions for how they can consistently be active; perhaps with the support of an assistant, for example. A few more thoughts… Creating a social media account takes seconds, but maintaining a presence is a long-term commitment. When you set up an account and fail to consistently publish fresh content and points of view, your brand is hurt. This is particularly true when key audience segments and media follow the account. From the start, create an internal plan to set up your company for long-term social media success. What do you think? Do you have a social media plan in place? What would you add to this list? Please leave your questions and comments in the box below. Images from iStockPhoto.This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends:
The post How to Get Employees to Embrace Social Media appeared first on Make Money Online With Twitter Marketing. |
| Facebook Engagement: How to Get Seen in the Facebook News Feed Posted: 28 Feb 2014 04:49 AM PST By Michael Stelzner
Are you looking for Facebook engagement tactics that lead to news feed visibility? To learn how to better use Facebook, I interview John Haydon for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast. More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing. The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting). In this episode, I interview John Haydon, author of Facebook Marketing for Dummies and founder of Inbound Zombie, a consultancy focused on small- and medium-sized nonprofits. John shares why Facebook engagement is so important. You'll learn how to better engage Facebook fans. Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below! Listen NowPodcast: Play in new window | Download You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher or Blackberry. Facebook EngagementWhy Facebook engagement is so important John says that his definition of engagement—from a Facebook perspective—is like, comment and share, because that's what really matters.  Facebook engagement is made up of likes, comments and shares. In his experience working with Facebook and nonprofits, which is slightly different than the for-profit world, John encourages an organization to work with existing community and get that community talking about them. He says he thinks about engagement, as it pertains to Facebook, as word of mouth. John explains that when your current customers or donors engage with content from your Facebook page (or talk about that content), their friends see that content. That's increased exposure for your organization. John says that exposure starts by getting your current community, the people who already love you, to engage first. Listen to the show to find out how the news feed algorithm impacts engagement. How Facebook page managers should spur engagement John wants to change the word posting to planting because when you plant something, like a bush, you have to stick around and take care of it. If you post an update on Facebook, you want to pay attention to how it's performing. If people are commenting, liking and sharing, you want to be involved in that comment thread.  John understands the importance of replying to comments to spur engagement. Recalling Amy Porterfield's words from a few weeks ago, John says the more people notice that you stick around, the more they'll engage with your content. John agrees that community management on Facebook comes down to identifying the best-performing content, then tweaking and experimenting with content to optimize how you're posting, topics, times that you're posting, etc. Listen to the show to hear what you're missing by not interacting with what people are saying on your Facebook page. The Talking About This metric and how it's calculated John explains this metric as anything that a Facebook user does to create a story in their news feed for their friends to see.  This post was shared into another user's news feed. He says that when a user shares something, likes a page, RSVPs to an event a page has published or tags that page in a photo or a status update, all of these actions put content into the news feed of that user's friends so that they become aware. It's really what you might call viral reach. Anything that creates viral reach is Talking About This. Listen to the show to learn more about Talking About This. How a Facebook page used engagement to achieve a goal Three years ago, the Brain Aneurysm Foundation was doing Facebook upside-down. John worked on a strategy that started with letting people use the page to express who they are. The foundation tapped into the passion around the issue and encouraged people to share their stories on the page. One of the first posts was, "If you've had a friend who found out they had a brain aneurysm, what would be your number-one tip?" Now their Facebook page is mostly made up of posts by others who come to share their stories. The next issue was how to translate that engagement into email subscribers, donors or fundraisers. On one end of the engagement spectrum, they had people liking, commenting and sharing. On the other end, they had people creating a peer-to-peer fundraising page—the highest level of engagement in the organization. To bridge the gap, they created a Facebook app with ShortStack that allowed people to post a memorial image. The app collected the user's email, then prompted him or her to share the memorial with their friends and create a peer-to-peer fundraising page. In the nonprofit world, the number-one converting medium is email. John says that the biggest mistake he sees organizations make is that they discount Facebook as a fundraising tool because no one wants to donate on Facebook. John says they need to understand that Facebook is part of the path to bring people to the point of donating. Listen to the show to find out how Facebook works in the conversion path. Engagement tips and tactics John recommends the Forrester Research POST method for social media.
John shares his thoughts on some specific tactics. His rule on updates is to post at least once a day. He says that if you're not posting once a day, you're missing out. You have to start that rhythm and research shows that 1 to 5 updates a day is what you need to get exposure. When you share a photo, make sure it has more than one person in it doing something. Those images will get more reaction than a photo of people standing shoulder to shoulder, smiling nicely. If you post a text update with an open question, fewer people will respond. John says closed questions are the way to go: yes or no, true or false, fill in the blank. When you post questions like this in fewer than 80 characters (keep it short, sweet, concise), you take advantage of the brain's auto-complete feature and people respond.  This closed question generated 2 shares, 53 likes and 84 comments. Listen to the show to find out the best way to post links to your latest blog article. What to look for in Facebook Insights and what you can gain John says the typical busy small business needs to know what their best content is. What gets the most likes, comments and shares and how they can get more of the same. That's the business problem. John tells you how to find the Engagement Rate metric for all of your posts in Facebook Insights (the percentage of people who saw an update and liked, commented, shared or clicked on it in some way), so you can see the types of posts that perform best.  You can track post engagement in Facebook Insights. Look at the engagement rate for your posts and experiment so you can see what your audience seems to be more engaged with. Then use that information to do more of those and fewer of the things that don't get engagement. The higher the engagement rate, the better-performing the post. John shares that he limits his analysis to people who like the page. Focus on finding who, of the people who are fans that you reach, is liking, commenting and sharing. Listen to the show to find out about other Facebook metric reporting tools. What one message about engagement do you want people to take with them? John says to give people something to talk about. Don't just post stuff about you and treat Facebook as a free email list. Be useful. He recommends Jay Baer's book Youtility, because it discusses this issue right down to the core. John believes that Facebook is changing how marketers approach things. Marketers can no longer just push stuff out there. They have to listen and pay attention and get to know their people. Understand them, THEN reply. John points out that Social Media Examiner provides a tremendous best-practice example of this. Listen to the show to find out what questions will help you think about your customers first. Discovery of the WeekAre you looking for a great way to integrate Facebook into your blog? The Official Facebook Plugin for WordPress allows you to do some really cool things. One thing you can do is integrate a Like button, a Send button and/or a Follow button into your WordPress blog. Each of the buttons has its own custom integration, so you can show a Like button at the top of your page and a Send button at the bottom.  The Official Facebook WordPress plugin makes it easy to integrate the Like button. Not only does the plugin allow people to like the content from your blog, it also lets you show the names and faces of other people who liked your content. You can find it here and try it out. Call in and leave your social media–related questions for us and we may include them in a future show. Listen to the show to learn more about how we use this at Social Media Examiner and let us know how it works for you. Other Show Mentions
The conference features more than 60 sessions in 4 major tracks, which include social tactics, social strategy, community management and content marketing. Here are some of the newer presenters we've recently added: Joel Comm, Jonathan Fields, Syed Balkhi and presenters from Hershey's, Citrix, Cox Communications and the Huffington Post. This is truly a global conference. We are expecting 2000 marketers in San Diego, doing nothing but living and breathing social media and having a lot of fun and connecting with fellow marketers. Be sure to check it out. Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:Ways to subscribe to the Social Media Marketing podcast: What do you think? What are your thoughts on using Facebook to achieve viral reach? Please leave your comments below. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. The post Facebook Engagement: How to Get Seen in the Facebook News Feed appeared first on Make Money Online With Twitter Marketing. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Twitter Chats: How to Create a Successful Tweet Chat Posted: 28 Feb 2014 03:00 AM PST By Michael Stelzner
Wondering how Twitter chats can help market your business? To learn more about Twitter chats and what they can mean for your business, I interview Pam Moore for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast. More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing. The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting). In this episode, I interview Pam Moore, founder of Marketing Nutz, an agency specializing in social media marketing. One of Pam's areas of expertise includes Twitter. Pam shares why businesses should host Twitter chats and the marketing benefits of running them. You'll discover how to get started, where to find participants and ways to promote your Twitter chats. Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below! Listen NowPodcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher, SoundCloud or Blackberry. Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show: Twitter ChatsWhat Is a Twitter Chat? A Twitter chat is a way to get people together at a predetermined time and talk about a subject. Their purpose is to organize conversation and connect people.  Use tweet chats to connect people around a particular subject. Image source: iStockphoto Pam says that if you're new to social media, and to Twitter specifically, then Twitter chats are a great way for you to learn how to use it. Twitter chats not only allow you to form a deep connection with a community, but Pam has also seen people empower their lives and businesses faster than they thought possible. When you plan a tweet chat, you can make them formal or informal. You'll find out why Pam recommends that you have a combination of both. You can also do tweet chats in a series, which can help with your brand's positioning. With this type of tweet chat, you need to put together a strategy over several months. One of Pam's clients, IBM, recently held an event called IBM Connect in Orlando, where they hosted tweet chats with some of the influencers and speakers for the event. The aim of these tweet chats was to generate awareness and excitement for the event, plus drive registration.  IBM used tweet chats for the IBM Connect event. This particular chat had over 40 million impressions over the course of a few days, and included 2500 tweets. Nearly 600 people took part in the conversation. You'll find out what comes after the tweet chat that is just as important as the chat itself and why you are left with a social asset. Listen to the show to find out what IBM added to the front and back ends of their tweet chat for IBM Connect. Why host a tweet chat? One of the marketing benefits when you host your own tweet chat is that you can start to a build a community around it. You can capture the mindshare of that audience for a specific time on a regular basis. This gives you an opportunity to communicate and support your marketing objectives.  You can build a community around tweet chats. Image source: iStockphoto Your core goal is to focus on the needs of your audience. When you provide great content, which can bring good people to the community, then they'll begin to depend on you and want more. Pam has seen so many people—clients included—grow their businesses and make connections and partnerships. It easily puts you in a leadership role. Listen to the show to discover how a tweet chat can easily go viral. How to prepare for a tweet chat Pam says that the process includes both art and science. As the chat leader, you need to provide some framework, but you don't want it to look like you have planned everything that you say. You have to balance structure with flexibility and agility. In a structured-style tweet chat, you have a list of questions. Pam usually creates a list of questions and has a specific topic to talk about. Pam is the leader of the GetRealChat, which is held weekly to educate and help the audience. As the leader, you can share your expertise and also leave the questions open for the community to answer.  Pam leads the GetRealChat every week. You'll hear how you can use tweet chats to grow your email opt-in list and subscribers. Listen to the show to find out what led IBM to put together a social buzz chat after the tweet chat, and how the company created a social asset. How to get people to participate live When you lead a tweet chat, you need to make sure you work in unison with any guests whom you invite to join you. Don't ever throw them in at the last minute. The best way is to get on the phone with guests ahead of time, so you can have that voice-to-voice connection first. If it's your first time on a chat, then Pam encourages you to be on the phone while on the chat. You'll discover why Pam likes to get on the conference call 15 minutes before the chat with everybody who is participating. Behind the scenes, the chats are very structured, but to the community it needs to look completely unstructured. The way to get people to participate in a tweet chat is to leverage your existing community using your email list. If you don't have one, then you need to start to build a list.  Build an email list if you don't already have one. Pam likes to do some market tipping to let people know about the chat. The most important thing is to make sure your content is good. You can also reach out to some key influencers within your community and get them to partner with you. You'll hear the story behind how GetRealChat came about. A lot of different tweet chats have arisen from the GetRealChat, created by people who came in 3 years ago and hardly knew how to tweet or retweet. These people now lead their own communities and some even work for Pam and her team. Listen to the show to find out how long a chat should last, and what you need to do to make it succeed. How to find tweet chats If you're new to tweet chats, then head over to the GetRealChat blog to see all of the transcripts from Pam's tweet chats. Pam recommends that you use the TweetChat platform. Once you enter the specific hashtag, it will automatically filter all of your tweets for that hashtag. It will also add the hashtag at the end of your tweets, so you don't have to.  TweetChat will add the hashtag at the end of your tweets. Listen to the show to find out how we use TweetChat at Social Media Examiner. Common mistakes to avoid Pam says that if she were to do it all over again, she would structure her chats more from the start. The objective of tweet chats is to serve and help people. So if you see it start to take off, then you need to think about monetizing your platform. IBM is a client of Pam's because they approached her to participate on her platform and to communicate with her audience. You'll hear the reasons Pam set up the GetRealChat blog.  Make sure you have a platform for your audience to go to. When you first start out, you need at least 10-20 people on a chat. It's about quality over quantity. Pam has always tried to focus on quality, and to ensure that people feel part of the community. You need to keep the people who care about it really engaged, because they are the heartbeat of the chat. It's better to have 100 people who are interested in your content and communicate within your chat on a monthly basis than it is to have 500 who are just tweeting or retweeting because they want to become famous and be part of the hashtag. You'll discover how many questions you should have ready and why five is normally not enough. Listen to the show to find out what turns up the dial on the viral nature of a tweet chat. The strategic use of retweets Pam says that when she runs a tweet chat, she has windows open for TweetChat and HootSuite. You need to make sure you know the key players in your community and give them some social love. Some of the best ways you can do this is to:
Another thing you can do is welcome people back. Pam has people in her community who over time have stepped up into a welcoming role. People just want to be acknowledged. Listen to the show to hear why Pam doesn't consider influence score when replying to people. Tools to help manage a tweet chat Along with TweetChat, there are a few other tools available to help you manage a tweet chat. You can use a platform like Storify to help manage your tweets. Tweets can be collected within Storify and then shared in a blog post. During tweet chats, you or a colleague can favorite some tweets in a separate Twitter window that you know you'll want to pull into a transcript. This will make it much easier for you to go into Storify, do a search and pull up those tweets.  Use Storify to turn your favorite tweets into a transcript. To create the transcript, it's simply drag and drop. Storify then shows you what your transcript will look like. You need to install the WordPress plugin for Storify on your blog, and once Storify gives you the URL for that transcript, you can easily embed it within your blog post.  The WordPress Storify plugin allows you to embed your tweets into a blog post. Hashtracking is another tool that Pam loves. It gives you real-time insights for your hashtag. Some of the measurement features include:
You'll discover why Hashtracking is a very powerful tool when you have sponsors involved in your tweet chats. Pam believes that if you are new to tweet chats, these tools are all you need to get started.  Check out the full podcast episode with Pam Moore. Listen to the show to hear what you can view in the Hashtracking transcript. Other Show MentionsThis week's podcast is sponsored by Social Media Marketing World.
The conference features more than 80 sessions in four major tracks: social tactics, social strategy, community management and content marketing. If you want to see the excitement for this conference, check out our hashtag #smmw14. If you enjoy networking and a key part of your business strategy is to meet people who could possibly become business partners, strategic alliance partners or future customers, you will love this conference. We have integrated networking in so many different ways. 1. Bingo on opening night Be sure to check out more about the conference. Call in and leave your social media–related questions for us and we may include them in a future show. Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:Ways to subscribe to the Social Media Marketing podcast: What do you think? What are your thoughts on creating Twitter chats for your business? Please leave your comments below. Images from iStockPhoto.This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. The post Twitter Chats: How to Create a Successful Tweet Chat appeared first on Make Money Online With Twitter Marketing. |
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