Firstly…

The Key To Social Media Begins And Ends With Listening

There are thousands of social media platforms online and already millions of businesses that utilise them. Begin by doing your research and always be alert. Ask questions, watch out for your competition, focus on what works for businesses and what doesn’t and know your target market.

Target Market

In order to captivate your audience, you need to know who it is. Your online audience may be completely different to the one your traditional audience is. Do your research and find out who you already reach and who else you want to reach. You may even need to create a number of different pages to target your different audiences (if you have more than one).

Identify Your Persona

Next you need to figure out the personalities, online habits and attitudes of your TM. For example, if you find that the main chunk of your target market accesses certain platforms at certain times, then post your content then! If your research demonstrates that your TM responds well to a certain style of writing, then find someone who can write that way! Knowing your audience is what will generate amazing feedback for you.

SWOT Analysis

Your online SWOT analysis again might be completely different to your traditional plan, it’s best to take what’s relevant and start on a separate social media one. Know your online strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Being aware of these crucial aspects is what will allow you to avoid mistakes and gain success.

Define Your Goals And Objectives

Write down what you would like your business to achieve when creating your social media presence. Do you want to increase your profit? Do you want to increase your online traffic? Do you simply want to create more brand awareness? By knowing what you want to achieve you’ll be more likely to accomplish your goals.

Create A Short Term Timeline And Stick To It

While your goals and objectives may be long term, you must understand that social media is constantly changing and adapting to current issues and trends. Setting a year long timeline won’t help your business as the content you might want to post in 6 months might not be relevant then. Set up a 2-3 month time line and stick to it, but allow for changes if you know it will assist in your company’s online presence.

Find A Message That Defines Your Business

Every business would have a particular image they want to promote about themselves, and it’s imperative that you decide your online personality before you start posting. Once you have decided upon the type of content you want to post and how you want your audience to perceive your brand, then you may begin. Just make sure your social media content constantly reinforces your message, but keep an eye out for any negative reactions.

How Much Work Is A Social Media Plan?

Before your company implements a social media plan, you must be aware of the work that’s involved in maintaining a thriving page. Ask yourself how much time you’d like to spend on content posts, competitions etc. You may be surprised at how much time, thought and creativity will go into a single post. You will need someone creative enough who knows your business that can manage your posts and analyse feedback from your audience.

Keep It Conversational

Social media platforms are used to update and inform your TM, however no one will read your content if it’s dull and too formal! Ask questions, use informal language and consider how your TM would want to be spoken to.

Don’t Ignore Feedback

Feedback from your audience is absolutely crucial to how your social media identity will evolve, so make sure it’s well monitored. Ignoring any positive or negative feedback can cause damage to your customer loyalty base, so make sure your replies are sensitive to the issue at hand.

Track Engagement

If you find that a lot of your content is being ignored by your audience or you haven’t received any more fans/followers etc. then it’s time to mix it up. Go back over your content and focus on what has received the best response. Your content should mainly focus on your particular message that represents your brand, however sometimes to gain a larger audience you need to modify your approach! Try running a competition or even writing about something fun (i.e. funny/shocking news) in order to gain more ‘likes’, ‘retweets’, ‘shares’ etc.

Social media marketing is an incredibly innovative way to communicate with your audience, but remember, it’s still relatively new! Don’t disconcert yourself if your initial strategy doesn’t work out the way you expected, simply try again! Many marketers and researchers that use these platforms are basing their outcomes on trial and error, it’s just up to you to recognise your successes and your failures! Take the initiative and focus on how you can improve these strategies.

Social Media Team specialises in creating social media strategies and managing campaigns for businesses and brands. Give us a call on 1300 753 353. We’d be glad to help!

Just as businesses were finally getting their head around Timeline, Facebook has made another change to its platform. What could they possibly change now you ask?

Well… the placing & the sizing of your profile picture. That seems like such a minor change however for some businesses the most minor of changes make a massive difference especially if you have spent time, money & resources designing the look & feel over your cover image & profile picture ensuring that they integrate in together for user experience & branding of your page.

Should we have seen this coming? Could it happen again?

Your profile image when you uploaded it needed to be a minimum of 180×180 and then Facebook compressed it down to find into a 125px x 125px box. The new profile image will now be displayed as 160px x 160px & the image shall sit 23px from the left & 210px from the top of the page. There has been no word from Facebook if the minimum 180px x 180px is still required.

If you receive Facebook page updates you would have received this message from them in your inbox.

“On April 26, we will be updating the size of the pro­file pic­ture on all Pages. We are let­ting you know about this small change in advance so that you can update your pro­file pic­ture on April 26. The new pro­file pic­ture will be 160 x 160 pixels and will sit at 23 pixels from the left and 210 pixels from the top of the Page.”

Facebook making changes isn’t a bad thing. In fact, we welcome changes. It keeps our jobs exciting & it’s one of the things we love about the social media industry.

Well, now is the time to get in the know: with the new Facebook Timeline companies can fully harness the power of Facebook for their brand. Using cover photo’s to draw people in; highlighting the latest and greatest information about your company; and with full editing capabilities, Timeline really is the next best thing in social media strategy.

Let’s break it down:

Cover Photo: First things first; the cover photo is bigger, better and more prominent than any profile picture has ever been. Negating the need for potential consumers to trawl through your photo albums, this little gem sits on the rooftop of the page and shouts out to anyone who visits your page.

Highlights: The capacity to highlight information means that not only can you announce all the important changes on a week-by-week; day-by-day, minute-by-minute basis (just like “old” Facebook), but instead of the need to copy and paste posts back to the top of your page, now you just highlight them and they hang there for as long as you want. And you can add posts retrospectively so that you can post your full company history too.

One Page, ALL Your Info: The Timeline gives businesses the chance to present practically everything. Bam! On one page. For the average internet trawler and Facebook user that’s perfect – no time wasted flicking through pages. Instead they can read your “About” description and all your highlighted posts and everything else.

Apps: If your company is one which uses third party apps (like NetworkedBlogs or Hootsuite), you may be pleasantly surprised to see that the Timeline now groups these entries together. Overall, it is a more organised and efficient means of communication – there’s less of the messing around.

Face Time (well, sort of): One of the biggest leaps forward with the Timeline is that companies can now send and receive private messages with users. This shouldn’t be seen as just another opportunity for potential consumers to bombard you with a whole lot of noise. Instead, it provides you with the chance to respond much quicker to real inquiries, and means that potentially disgruntled consumers don’t have to be dealt with publically. On a positive note, you can also interact one on one and bring new consumers into the fold, making them feel included on a personal level.

Power At Your Fingertips: With the set up, the Page Admins can track all of the activity on their page in one convenient place: you can respond to comments, edit page settings, check your page analytics and even change the name of your page (if you really need to).

One point to remember is that you’re not allowed to include any call to action, encouragement to buy, or to like your own page or any content on it. But really, this seems a small price to pay for all the new benefits Timeline has to offer! And you can always use specific posts for promotional incentives. 

Get to know your target audience! Gain trust and credibility by answering questions and acknowledging comments. If you can find out what else they’re interested in, you can use it to your advantage and create statuses that will attract hype.

Always have an eye catching status AND try to include an image or link with it. Include pictures and links to your status updates that will appeal to your audience and can somehow be linked to your business. Whether it’s some incredible image or a hilarious video, you need to get their attention.

In 2011 Oreo (made by Kraft Foods) set out for the Guinness World Record for ‘most likes on a Facebook status’ in a 24hr period. Within that 24 hours, they received 114,619 ‘likes’ for their status and were awarded the title. However just a few hours later rapper Lil’ Wayne attempted the same record, and received an astounding 588,243 ‘likes’ in just 24 hours. While Oreos may taste better than Lil’ Wayne, he cheekily used the same status and kicked their, well, icing I guess. This goes to show how much influence one person can have after building up a loyal fan base.

Check out the story here… http://mashable.com/2011/02/16/lil-wayne-facebook-record/

As Facebook has advanced, businesses should take advantage of the ‘share’ button. Like I said before, try and post an image or video (memes are great!) along with your status. If even one ‘friend’ sees it, ‘likes’ it and ‘shares’ it, you may receive a whole new boulevard of traffic. Another incredibly easy way to do this is to tag people and places on your profile. People will relate to your page as you’re showing that hey, you too are just a human being, sitting behind a computer and hanging out with your friends (unless you’re Rebecca Black in which case you only hang out with your friends when you’re ON a computer, and of course, when it’s Friday).

Creating awareness for your business through social media can be lots of fun. Don’t try and use fancy lingo to impress, you’ll most likely just annoy and bore. Just ask yourself, what would you enjoy reading?

So many of us have become comfortable and settled into our Facebook accounts over the years; our friends lists have expanded, our albums have been published and photos tagged, our profiles established and we’ve adapted to and familiarized ourselves with the constantly yet ever-so-slightly evolving interface… why should we leave years of work behind to start afresh on a new social media network that seems to be offering alarmingly similar features?

Curious about social media in all its shapes and forms, taking a proper look at Google’s new “project” was a must. Googling reviews on Google+, Google’s overwhelming presence and influence leapt out at me in a moment of clarity. This wasn’t just another social media network – this was Google, where internet users go every day to find the answers to the most and least obscure questions, to find images, websites, information, people, places, videos and news. I’m sure that many would have trouble pinpointing the site they most often visit daily – Google or Facebook.

So, with all that in mind would Google+ be the easier option?

Google+ has a range of features, most of which liken to Facebook’s. It has a Stream, which is just like Facebook’s newsfeed, Messenger and photo uploading. For gamers, the gaming notifications are kept in a separate, closed-off section to the rest of their activities. It’s also taken the aspect of “socializing” a little further and has created Hangouts, which are video chats where up to 10 friends can converse at the same time. Facebook has, though, announced an imminent arrival of video chat to their list of applications.

Another practical feature of Google+ is Circles – literal circles into which users can drag and drop their different friends and acquaintances and through which they can limit and censor the information available to each group. This could be handy when it comes to hindering the activity available to your parents-in-law or boss! It also makes it easier to find your contacts in their organized categories. However, this grouping can also be done through Facebook. It’s probably a slightly more tedious operation, but there’s no question that Facebook will now up its ante with its new competitor rearing its googly-eyed head.

Google+ is also linked, of course, to the Google search engine, and the function “Search in Google” allows users to search for information to which Google will source from the web, as well as other posts and users on Google+. And, conveniently, it’s connected to our Gmail accounts.

So, what’s the verdict? Fancy new Google+ or trusty old Facebook? It’ll certainly be interesting to see how it all pans out.

From your business’s professional LinkedIn profile, you can now post status updates, post links, post photos that are attached to links and share or comment other people’s statuses or comments. Additionally, your statuses will appear on your followers’ homepages and on your company’s overview tab. Followers can then share, like and comment on your updates which, as on Facebook, will appear on their homepages to their followers and networks.

As you can see, LinkedIn is rapidly transforming into a social media network rather than merely remaining a one-way profile of information.

Your business’s status updates must be posted by admins who you’ll allocate in the “Designated Admins only” setting and can be up to 500 characters long.

It gets better! One day after you publish your status, you’ll receive two sets of data. Each calculates the amount of activity produced by the status: Impressions, which shows the quantity views of your status update, and Engagement, which measures the contact and engagement (comments, likes, views, shares) from your status. Each day this data will update.

Remember to engage with your followers with relevant and interesting information, but be cautious of over-posting – this will be notified and assessed by LinkedIn, and you could jeopardize the existence of your profile.

Lastly, don’t think that now that you’re socially networking through LinkedIn you can forget about the other mediums such as Facebook and Twitter. You’re reaching specific audiences through each network, not all of which are accessible through every one. You must combine this account with your others and keep your professional and intended image intact through each one.

Happy Linking!

Is it something you’ve been taking as seriously as you should be?

If you haven’t already, it’s time for you to accept the importance of the online presence of your business. Getting in touch with the do’s and don’ts of your image through social media is equally as important as face-to-face communication with your clients. Don’t be fooled – it’s not as simple as posting a few wordy status updates and tweets every hour. Following the accepted conventions of social media marketing could take your business to a new level and reach audiences you may have never even considered.

Below are a few guidelines that will take you from amateur to media-savvy in a matter of minutes.

Don’t get over-excited – keep ‘em keen! Maintain a constant presence, but an overload of posting could quickly destroy your credibility. There isn’t a specific number of posts you should make per day, but it will vary between mediums. Every single post must be quality. If you’re tweeting it’s acceptable to be more frequent but beware of useless, boring updates – only post if it’s something people will connect to and care about. There’s nothing worse than the boring status update about your new pair of socks. On Facebook, limit posting to one per day, and make sure to vary the content. A single post could either attract or deter prospective or current clients so don’t get lazy!

With the above tip in mind, some ways to keep it exciting are to include different kinds of information and links, such as YouTube videos, images, articles and websites, as well as tips and ideas that your followers will benefit from and keep coming back to. If you’re posting thoughts and suggestions that are genuinely interesting, remember that your followers will share them with their friends and followers which will ultimately link back to your page.

Be reachable and available to your clients and followers. Your online profile is an interactive one. If there’s been a negative or positive comment posted on your page, make sure to publicly respond. Your page is a great forum for displaying your fantastic customer service and prompt reactions. If someone’s incessantly dishing out the dirt, you may need to resort to privately messaging them.

Ban the spam! Leaving spam on your page is totally unacceptable. It’s like keeping a hedge untrimmed – there’s clearly nobody tending to it. It’s essential to keep your page clean and professional and in doing so, your content will be easier to find and read. On that note, make sure your own text doesn’t look like spam. Steer clear of tacky dollar signs and capital-lettered phrases sprinkled with exclamation marks, or the only thing that’ll be missing will be a booming male voice announcing not to skip this ****$$$!! TERRIFIC SALE !!$$$*****.

Be professional – you might be on Facebook or Twitter, but you’re not chatting to your friends. You’re representing a business, and must maintain an appropriate voice. Do not use any language you wouldn’t otherwise use with clients at your workplace.

Following these golden rules and your own intuition, you’ll find an effective voice for your social media image.

Advertising used to be much more straightforward: a convincing spiel from the creators of the product or brand paired with equally convincing images that generated trust and anticipation within its audiences, ultimately gaining consumers. However, with the rise of social media and other public forums where products are discussed, criticised and praised, consumers have quickly turned to the opinion of the customers – the people that actually use the product, rather than the people selling it.

Of course, advertising still has its place in the world of consumerism and can certainly draw your initial interest to a product. Yet these days, with unlimited resources at our disposal, you’ve got to have a screw loose if you’re considering a purchase and haven’t Googled, Amazon-ed, or even Facebooked reviews by other customers. You’d rarely book a trip without consulting with TripAdvisor first and you’d almost always choose the restaurant recommended by all your friends than blindly choosing one you’d never heard of, so why buy a product solely based on an advertisement without hearing what the real people have to say?

This is why it’s exceptionally important to build a loyal customer base through the public forum of social media and to think of new and innovative ways to engage and involve your followers in your business.

Strengthening and expanding your following won’t happen overnight. It takes knowing your audience and how to connect with them, growing your client base and followers, and maintaining a reliable, exciting, inspiring and connective image.

The first thing you want to do is hook in your existing customers.

Offer incentives like freebies or discounts so that they’ll keep following you and sharing your profile. By providing these motivations you’ll be encouraging your clients to become increasingly involved in and loyal towards your brand. In doing so, you’ll also be attracting new customers.

Remember, you’re constructing relationships – long-term, not one night stands! Make sure there are reasons for people to keep coming back to your profile. A pretty face won’t be enough for consumers; variety, enthusiasm and anticipation are keys to your customers’ commitment.

Once you’ve cultivated some loyalty, your followers will become your voice. They will form a community which will drive your name and reputation. They will be the ones that prospective customers will trust. How they review your product will matter the most.

You’ll have also developed a band of devotees who will have grown deeply positive opinions of your business and who will stick by you through inevitable glitches and issues. This will be reassuring to others when their faith in your business is publicly displayed.

You will need to personally connect to your followers. By talking and responding to them, you’ll be creating a level of intimacy between you, making your customers feel significant and heard. When you’re seen addressing an issue or even acknowledging a positive comment, you’ll alter your image from corporate and unreachable to personable and approachable.

The bottom line is, you have to be willing to talk and connect. Building relationships are difficult, so be prepared to commit, stay true, keep it exciting and be eager to please.

Let’s get something straight: your audience on social media networks is not a cluster of your old poetry, English and literature professors. Always remember that you’re writing to entertain, to inspire and to connect.

The first thing you need to think about is traffic and followers on your pages. The reason that you’re posting is to maintain and gain followers. You may have a large following in a certain demographic, but through social media you are given the opportunity to reach out to different audiences. To take advantage of this, you must consider the different ways to provide information. Don’t underestimate the effects of videos, images and links to other articles and sites; each unique post will reach a different audience. Not everyone enjoys seeing words on a page, and nobody can overlook a captivating image. And on the topic of variety, don’t forget about the myriad of social media outlets through which you can express yourself in a range of ways – blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn – the possibilities really are endless!

In this new age of connectedness, it’s rare to find a good product or brand that hasn’t been reviewed and credited by different users, associates and clients. It gives you instant credibility to have testimonials and reviews from your clients, as well as interviews and discussion forums. Include these on your pages in obvious and accessible ways. Your audiences will trust these sources primarily, making them crucial evidence of the value of your business.

Keep up with all relevant news; your followers will rightfully expect you to be as up-to-date as the internet itself with anything that relates to your business or brand. News is immediate over the internet, so you must continually research and keep current as any other news source would. Staying relevant adds credibility and not only creates trust within your audiences, but generates reliance on your page and brand.

Remember, you’re not just telling; you’re conversing. Social media is anything but a one-way street. You are there as a voice, to connect and talk to your followers and clients, and to hear their comments, criticisms, ideas and questions. Keep your posts simple and interesting; lengthy and irrelevant ones will not just deter people but may also lose you some followers.

In short, ditch the prose and start connecting. Speak to your public, not at them.

Follow The Right People
The immediate value of following the right people on Twitter is inspiration and access to collective thought. Everyone has someone that they look up to and are inspired by. In fact, most of us have numerous people that inspire us for a variety of reasons. Following these people on Twitter gives you a quick glimpse into their thoughts and ideologies. Think of everyone that you follow as another pair of eyeballs or perspective on an area that is important to you. Another benefit is that you give potential followers a feel for you and your personal brand. Who you follow has an impact on how you are perceived by others so as a general rule… more Biggie Smalls and less NeYo. The simplest way to find people in your niche is by using Twitter Search https://twitter.com/search Oh, as a bonus, some people have an auto follow attached to their Twitter account so by simply following someone, you can automatically gain a follower.

Get Your Tweet On
And your blog on for that matter! It’s no secret that valuable content is rewarded by shares, retweets, likes, diggs etc. Get into the habit of understanding your audience and regularly providing them with something worth reading albeit limited to 140 characters on Twitter. To get real cred, you need to go beyond 140 characters and attract users to your hub of information (read: blog). You don’t have to let everyone know what colour socks you’re wearing, however, discussing the commonalities of life (i.e The Metro trains running late again) give people easy access points in which to open dialogue with you. Stay regular and stay relevant.

Understand The Lingo
Like everything on the internet, Twitter has a language of its own. You need to understand the significance of @, #, DM, RT lists, via etc, to be able to communicate effectively in this world. It’s easy once you get the hang of it so take the time to learn the jargon, understand the etiquette and talk the talk. Here’s a simple guide to get you started https://support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics/topics/104-welcome-to-twitter-support/articles/215585-twitter-101-how-should-i-get-started-using-twitter

Tell Don’t Sell
Once you have established a loyal following don’t get tempted to start sounding like an infomercial. It’s OK to articulate the benefits of your product/service and communicate special offers, however, it must be done in a considerate way. Don’t bombard people with sales pitches. Your pitch is not more important than sharing relevant information and providing readers with value.

The whole ethos of social media is about building relationships and having meaningful conversations. The way that you interact with others has a direct impact on how you are perceived. Be courteous and respond to others. Be helpful and answer questions. Be generous and share information. Reference people and give credit where it’s due. Be sincere. These types of behaviours will help build trust and credibility in any aspect of life, let alone in the social media realm.