Whether you’re targeting other businesses or marketing directly to consumers, your social media posts can help your audience get to know your company in an informal, no-pressure environment. That’s why it’s crucial for online businesses — or any company that maintains an online presence — to understand how to write a social media post that catches and holds the attention of their target audience.

Why Writing Good Copy for Social Media Is So Important

Learning how to write a social media post for your business takes practice, but great content can be an integral part of an online marketing strategy — and for good reason. Social media platforms let you reach a large audience within seconds without breaking the bank.

By getting the right copy in front of your target demographic, you can potentially reap numerous benefits, including:

• Lead generation
• Increased brand loyalty
• Higher conversion rates
• Improved customer satisfaction
• Enhanced brand and product visibility
• Insight into customers’ likes, values and interests
• More accurate metrics for marketing and advertising campaigns

Social Media and SEO

It’s also important not to underestimate the importance of social media in SEO. Although social media posts don’t directly impact search engine optimization, they can influence it in other ways. For example, social shares, likes and comments may signal to search engines that you’re providing useful content to your target audience, which can ultimately influence rankings. This can increase your brand’s visibility and help generate organic traffic to your website.

What Makes Social Media Copy Great

Although each company’s approach to creating content for social media may differ from others in the space, great social media posts typically have several key attributes:

• They entertain
• They inspire engagement
• They’re attention-grabbing
• They’re easy to digest

However, what defines great social media copy is likely to change depending on the platform, and what works for LinkedIn may not be ideal for Twitter. 

How to Make a Tweet Stand Out

The key to writing great tweets is keeping it short and conversational. Although Twitter permits up to 280 characters per tweet, the sweet spot is typically closer to 100 characters, including spaces.

Twitter is also a hotbed of hashtags, so give your tweet context and promote engagement by including relevant hashtag phrases. Just be sure to limit yourself to one or two, and keep them short. If you aren’t sure where to start, Twitter offers free tools for monitoring trending conversations and events, which can help you keep your brand current and relevant on this crowded platform.

Using Facebook to Your Advantage

Facebook remains popular across numerous age groups and demographics. However, because users’ feeds tend to be cluttered and change quickly, you won’t have much time to attract attention, so it’s important to keep posts short, sharp and clear. Many Facebook users access the platform from smartphones or other handheld devices, so optimizing your content for mobile is crucial.

When creating Facebook posts, avoid industry jargon and marketing speak, which can negatively impact content in the platform’s algorithm.

Facebook users have come to expect visuals, so include creative elements, such as eye-catching photos and videos, with your posts. Just be sure not to use overused stock images, which can be off-putting to customers.

Building Authority Through LinkedIn Posts

As a professional networking platform, LinkedIn is useful for positioning your business as an authority on a subject. Consequently, great LinkedIn posts often contain business or career advice, intellectual property or links to crucial press releases.

Many successful LinkedIn posts also use mentions (which begin with the @ symbol) to tag influential or notable connections. This can increase your reach if the mentioned person shares or comments on your content. And, if you’re interested in presenting long-form content, you can also benefit by learning how to write an article on LinkedIn.

How to Write Social Media Posts That Capture Your Target Audience

Because most social media platforms are crowded with content, you’ll have to compete for attention. By learning how to make social media posts pop, you can cut through the noise and help your brand stand out. Fortunately, writing catchy social media posts isn’t difficult. By following these basic social media content writing tips, you can write posts that stand out from the pack:

• Know your audience. Understanding your target audience is a crucial step in creating relevant, attention-catching social media posts. Although knowing your target audience’s age, income range, and educational background is crucial, you should also understand their needs and likes. Fortunately, many social media platforms, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, provide free analytics to help you learn more about your audience’s online behavior.
• Be intentional. Before you write a social media post, you should know what message you want to send or what result you hope to achieve. Great posts ultimately reflect your intent, whether that’s highlighting a product, improving your brand’s reputation, or driving traffic to your website.
• Use a consistent voice. Your writer’s voice reflects your vocabulary, tone and syntax, and a strong voice can make you uniquely identifiable. By developing a clear, relatable voice that’s consistent across platforms, you’ll influence how your audience views your business.
• Add personality. While being professional is important, using a casual tone that highlights your personality lets your audience see your business as friendly, relevant and approachable.
• Don’t waste words. In today’s fast-paced world, time is a commodity. Keeping posts short, simple and catchy demonstrates an understanding and respect for your readers’ time.
• Never create clickbait. Sensational headlines or hooks are great, but any linked content must live up to the hype. Otherwise, you’re creating clickbait, which is a major red flag for a potential customer.
• Edit and proofread. Editing and proofreading to minimize errors and clarify your message should be a standard part of your writing process. Even a single typo can convey carelessness and diminish your credibility.

What Should a Social Media Post Include

Regardless of the platform, most effective social media posts contain some key components. If you want to create copy that draws and keeps a reader’s attention, incorporate these vital elements.

The Hook

Your post’s first sentence or phrase, known as the hook, is often your best chance of drawing in readers. A good hook should pique a casual browser’s interest so they stop scrolling. Fortunately, an eye-catching hook doesn’t have to be difficult to write if you incorporate one or more of these elements:

• Headlines: A great headline creates promise, enticing potential readers to continue.
• Fascinating facts: Lead with an interesting fact about your chosen topic. Besides catching a reader’s attention, an interesting fact can define you as a reliable source of information.
• Strong statements: Set an authoritative tone for your post by hooking readers with a strong opening statement. Try statements that are intriguing, compelling or polarizing for added impact.
• Great quotes: Inspiring, controversial or insightful quotes are a great way to introduce a post. They can evoke an emotional response and convince a follower to continue reading.
• Metaphors and similes: Hook readers by inspiring them to look at a topic differently. Good metaphors and similes can surprise and delight an unsuspecting social media user.
• Open-ended questions: Start with an open-ended question to get people thinking. Questions naturally keep followers reading because they want to discover the answer.

Valuable content

When you provide valuable content, your social media posts are more likely to be read, discussed and shared. However, what defines valuable content can vary by reader, industry, platform and whether you specialize in B2B or B2C products and services. 

Valuable content may be original or curated and can include:

• Giveaways
• Industry insights
• Educational content
• Career or business advice
• Inspirational stories
• Tips for product use
• Links to unique articles
• Inside information on your company
• Solutions for pain points
• Previews for forthcoming products or services

Links

Interesting links can drive traffic to your website and may even improve its SEO. You can increase the chance of click-through by using relevant anchor text and/or enticing, accompanying images.

Don’t just link to your homepage, though. Link deep to specific pages and posts on your site. By using deep links to direct readers to specific pages, you can draw attention to product information, exclusive offers and other value-added content.

If you aren’t using anchor text, make sure visible URLs are clean and concise. Long URLs take up space and can look suspicious, so it’s important to convert them to shortened or branded links. URL shorteners, such as Ow.ly or Bitly, compress or customize URLs, optimizing them for social media.

Hashtags

Hashtags, which begin with a # regardless of platform, are words and phrases that identify a post’s topic or theme. They help people follow online conversations and find interesting or relevant content, particularly from accounts they don’t follow.

To effectively incorporate hashtags in your social media posts, remember:

• Hashtags don’t use spaces, symbols or punctuation marks, so if you need to include more than one word, just mash them together. 
• Hashtags should be simple and easy to remember.
• A blend of trending, branded, popular or industry-relevant hashtags can have more impact. 
• Avoid choosing only overused hashtags, as your post may get lost in the sheer amount of traffic they generate.

White Space

Because white space is essentially the empty space around your content’s other elements, it may seem odd to consider it a crucial component of a social media post. However, long walls of unbroken text can be off-putting to even diehard followers. Posts that incorporate plenty of white space are usually more readable and easier to navigate. Plus, when used well, white space can draw attention to important aspects of your content, such as brand messaging or calls to action.

Creating white space can be easily accomplished by:

• Shortening sentences
• Aligning text
• Incorporating bulleted or numbered lists
• Using plenty of line breaks
• Limiting paragraphs to two or three sentences

Visual Elements

Although not every social media post should or will contain visual elements, images are an effective tool for drawing attention. The right image can also provide context for your words, evoke emotions and ensure your brand stays in readers’ minds long after they’ve read your post. 

When choosing a visual element for your post, make sure to complement the tone, message and intent of your content. Options include:

• Photos
• Artwork
• Video clips
• Memes
• Cartoons
• GIFs
• Animation

When including creative content in your posts, always use copyright-free images or material that you own, and make sure the resolution is compatible with the platform.

A Call to Action

A call to action is a prompt that invites the reader to take a recommended action. Although a CTA isn’t essential, or even relevant, for every social media post, in the right context it can cue a follower to take a crucial next step, such as:

• Claiming an offer
• Answering a question
• Visiting a landing page
• Subscribing to a newsletter
• Requesting information
• Ordering or preordering a product
• Connecting with your business on other channels

Outsourcing Your Social Media Posts

Learning how to write for social media can help you broaden your business’s reach and connect with your customers, and it doesn’t have to be a chore. In fact, your audience can usually sense when you’re trying too hard, and the most engaging social posts are often written when you relax and let yourself have fun.

However, writing for social media isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. If it’s time to refresh your content strategy, why not give professional content writing services a try? Connect with Crowd Content’s network of talented writers for compelling content that gets results.

The post How to Write a Great Social Media Post appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

But managing numerous social media profiles across a half-dozen platforms entails numerous activities. These might include writing and scheduling social media posts, replying to comments, monitoring the success of social campaigns and more.

In other words, social media management is a lot of work.

Successful social media management requires constant attention. For many, it’s a full-time job. Fortunately, there are several tools available that help with your business’s social media presence. A social media management tool can help you maximize your social presence while minimizing your efforts.

What Are Social Media Management Tools?

Social media management tools simplify your social media presence across platforms. They give you a single platform to manage all of your profiles from. And they provide some excellent tools for getting the most from your social efforts. For big businesses, they’re incredibly useful. And for small teams and freelancers, they’re lifesavers.

Some of the most popular social media management solutions feature a variety of user-friendly features to help you manage your social presence. A few of the things they offer are:

• A central tool to manage profiles across social media networks
• Planning and scheduling social media postings
• Automated monitoring and moderation
• Improved analytics

Sounds good, right? It gets better.

The Benefits of Using Social Media Management Tools

The ability to see all your social media feeds in one location is likely the biggest advantage of social media management software. Being able to monitor customer conversations and campaign performance from a single platform saves time. And probably your sanity.

You can also save time by generating social media postings in advance and scheduling them to go live at a specific time. You won’t have to stop what you’re doing throughout the day to post on multiple platforms. You’ll also be able to better plan your content releases according to optimal posting times.

Stay Organized

Spreadsheets are popular among social media marketers for planning and managing their posts. But it’s far more effective to utilize a social media management tool. Most of them come with content planners to help you stay on top of things. They enable you to:

• Balance different types of social messaging
• Publish posts when they’re likely to receive the highest engagement
• Curate compelling content to share with your followers
• Plan for seasonal and release-specific messaging

These planners allow you to schedule posts when your target audience is most likely watching their feeds, ready to engage. In most cases, adjusting your schedule is as simple as dragging and dropping.

Analyze Social Performance

Another crucial component of successful social media management is analytics. Every major social platform offers analytics reporting that shows you how well your social marketing efforts are doing and where they need improving.

But the built-in analytics on individual platforms don’t show you the big picture of your broader social marketing efforts.

With a social media management tool, you can leverage cross-platform analytics to find out what content performs best across multiple networks. You can create custom reports based on the requirements you need rather than network-specific data.

Finally, maintaining consistency on every social network is a significant time sink. Social media management tools offer content libraries that can help keep things organized across networks. It also helps ensure your social presence is on-topic and brand consistent, regardless of the network.

Streamline Social Feeds and Messaging

Staying on top of the conversation is a cornerstone of effective social media marketing. It’s not just about engaging with your customers — you need to know what the conversation is surrounding your brand.

While many platforms allow you to filter conversations based on keywords, doing so across multiple platforms is a chore, to say the least. With a social management tool, you can listen for keywords across social networks, email lists and other channels, all from a single dashboard.

This kind of integration enables you to engage and do the following:

• Monitor post interactions, such as likes, shares and comments
• View and send messages
• Examine profiles and monitor follows
• Monitor and respond to conversations

All from a single platform. You’ll never find yourself bouncing through browser tabs again.

For bigger businesses, social management tools are invaluable. Not only do they consolidate messaging across platforms, but they also provide routing options to get each message to the appropriate person or department. All of which interface with your business’s CRM.

The 5 Best Social Management Tools for 2023

There are countless social media management tools in the wild. As is the case with other business solutions, choosing the right one depends on your brand’s needs.

Perhaps you need a tool to manage multiple profiles. Or maybe you’re more interested in content scheduling. On the other hand, you might want something that integrates with your CRM and provides in-depth insights.

Whether you’re a freelancer, a small business with ambitious marketing plans or a thriving enterprise, you’re covered. These five social media management tools have what you need.

The Best Overall: Sprout Social

Sprout Social offers robust publishing features, detailed analytics and a wealth of scheduling options. The platform supports all major social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest. All in an easy-to-use package that won’t break the budget.

Some of the biggest benefits that Sprout Social offers are:

• An excellent dashboard for managing social media postings, feeds and schedules
• Tools for social media optimization
• Reports and analytics for measuring user engagement and returns on investment
• Excellent scheduling tools for batching and posting content

Sprout Social also provides great social listening features, including tools for identifying influencers. There’s even CRM functionality focused on social media contacts. Impressive analytics capabilities and an easy-to-use interface round out Sprout Social’s offerings.

This makes it a fantastic all-in-one social media management program. With a commendable balance of cost, features and analytics, Sprout Social is a great choice for most small and medium-sized businesses.

Best for Freelancers and Small Businesses: SEMrush

SEMrush is best known as an SEO platform, but it also offers extremely capable social media management tools for all the major social networks. The social management tools cover posting across networks, including automated scheduling and content editing tools. There are also ad management features for Facebook and Instagram.

SEMrush’s social media tracker enables marketers to track user engagement across networks. It covers post reactions as well as mentions across each network. It also aggregates analytics data, so you can monitor performance from a single dashboard.

Being an SEO tool at heart, SEMrush is keen on competitive analysis. As such, its social media tools include features for monitoring your competitors to see what kind of posts they’re putting up and how often.

The biggest benefit of using SEMrush for social media management is its SEO integrations. You can manage your social media presence and your SEO efforts from a single tool. And integrations between the two are robust and seamless. Perfect for freelancers and small businesses with limited budgets and manpower.

Best for Analytics: Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a complete social media toolkit with some of the best analytics available. With support for over 20 social networks and an App Directory that provides even more, you’re never left wanting. The platform also provides integrations to other popular tools, such as Mailchimp, Zendesk and Canva.

The comprehensive analytics that Hootsuite offers are some of the best available, providing detailed tracking tools, customizable reports and performance metrics. They help paint a clear picture of your social marketing efforts by pulling from over 200 metrics. Once generated, you can export the reports to Excel, PowerPoint or PDF to share with colleagues.

It’s worth mentioning that adding analytics capabilities increases the platform’s price. But for businesses that depend on social media for most of their marketing efforts, the cost is worth it.

Best for Automation: HubSpot

HubSpot is an all-in-one solution geared toward enterprises. Along with its social media marketing offerings, it provides SEO management, a CRM platform and even email services.

The biggest selling point of HubSpot is its full line of marketing integration and automation tools. While you can certainly manage your social presence with ease, the platform also has tools for:

• Editing and creating landing pages
• Content management
• Lead management
• Automated content posting on your website

HubSpot’s bulk scheduling feature makes queuing up and posting to various networks a breeze. With a provided template, you can add your batched content, select a post schedule, choose which networks to post to and select your campaigns. The template even shows you the character count of each post. When you’re ready, you can drag it back over to HubSpot and you’re all done.

From social media to web conversions, HubSpot lets you optimize every step of your sales funnel. It’ll even help you create targeted CTAs to improve ROI. There’s also full Canva integration, which allows marketers to design attractive images with a few clicks. For full-scope marketing efficiency, HubSpot is difficult to beat.

Most Affordable: Buffer

If you’re looking for a tool that’s a little less complex and a little more affordable, Buffer might be the one for you. Since it’s one of the few tools that offers a free plan, it’s a great solution for freelancers. It’s also a great option for younger businesses just getting into social media marketing.

Despite its low cost, Buffer still provides a lot of value. It supports all the major networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest. In addition to accessing all your feeds from the platform, you can schedule all your social media posts using a full-featured content scheduler. There’s also an optimization tool for hashtags and mentions across platforms.

A standout feature of Buffer is its available browser extension for scheduling posts. With the extension installed, you can click a browser button, compose an update and add it to a queue.

Who Should Use Social Media Management Tools?

If you spend more than a few hours per week managing social media, a social media management tool is a good idea. If you spend more than a few hours per day doing so, you need a social media management tool.

These tools are excellent for freelancers and one-person marketing teams — people who are accustomed to wearing multiple hats. When you’re juggling multiple tasks across numerous platforms, simplification and automation are essential. This gives you time to think about strategy rather than dealing with daily busy work such as posting and content creation.

For small businesses, social media management tools offer big benefits. If you have a marketing team, these tools help them collaborate better and more securely across platforms. They also give smaller businesses the power to run with the big dogs, so to speak. Even if you don’t have the staff hours to do so, you can run campaigns with daily posts.

Social media management enables secure cross-platform collaboration, CRM integration, message routing, and more for larger companies. They also provide permission controls so businesses with compliance concerns can keep PR incidents to a minimum.

The bottom line is that social media management tools provide more than just a single platform to manage your social profiles. All the tools listed here offer advanced scheduling features for managing posts. More importantly, they provide integrated analytics that can synergize your marketing efforts across networks.

In marketing, where even small improvements can equate to big returns, social media management tools are invaluable.

Conclusion

Your social media presence has a big impact on your brand. Social media management tools give you the power to manage, automate and optimize that presence without making it your full-time job. They’ll also provide you with insights to help amplify your brand’s impact and grow your business.

If you’re looking for other ways to free up your time so you can focus on the bigger picture, let Crowd Content help. Our team of professional freelance writers can provide you with in-depth articles, engaging blog posts, compelling web copy and more. We’ll even write your social media posts for you. In other words, we’ll supercharge your content strategy. Go ahead and take a look at what we offer or get in touch with us to find out more.

The post Here Are the 5 Best Social Media Management Tools for 2023 appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

How Pinterest Affects SEO

Is Pinterest good for SEO? The short answer is yes. Because Pinterest has evolved into a digital search engine, it can be a great source of organic traffic if you understand how to use it. One of the biggest reasons Pinterest should be a component of your SEO strategy is because the site has more than 450 million active monthly users. If even a tiny percentage of these users see one of your pins, you have the opportunity to drive more traffic to your website than ever before.

Another reason Pinterest is good for SEO is that many users are already primed to buy something or request more information about a product or service. If these users see your pins, they’re more likely to visit your website than a search engine user who doesn’t want to buy anything or isn’t sure what they want to do. You can take advantage of their intent by incorporating buyer keywords into your pins and descriptions. A buyer keyword is a specific word or phrase that someone uses when they want to buy a product or service.

Finally, Pinterest provides an important opportunity that other social networks don’t: the ability to create product pins. When you write a Facebook post, you can mention your products and services, but there’s no way to create individual product pages and promote them to other Facebook users. Product pins allow merchants to highlight their products, making it easier to convert Pinterest views into sales. In some cases, it’s even possible for customers to purchase products without leaving the Pinterest website, eliminating an extra step in the purchase process and making it more likely the user will complete the transaction.

Improving SEO With Pinterest

Now that you understand how Pinterest affects SEO, it’s time to create an account. It’s best to register as a business so you can access Pinterest’s scheduling, advertising and analytics tools. When it’s time to choose a user name, the decision you make can have a big effect on your SEO results. It may be tempting to choose something clever or quirky, but you should create a user name based on the needs of your target audience.

If you’re promoting a cookbook, for example, you may want to include a keyword like “chicken recipes” or “slow cooker meals” to help people understand what your content is about. Including a relevant keyword can also help drive traffic to your profile, making your Pinterest SEO strategy even more effective.

Setting up a Pinterest Profile

After you create your account, it’s time to write an attention-getting profile optimized with relevant keywords. For best results, your company logo and any other images you use should have the same logo, colour scheme and other elements as the photos on your website and other social media profiles. Using the same design elements across all platforms ensures customers know what to expect from your brand.

The profile header should contain your formal business name, but there’s a trick you can use to make this headline more effective for SEO. After your company name, add a vertical bar (the | character) followed by a keyword related to what you do. If you operate a plus-size boutique, for example, your profile headline will be more effective for SEO if it reads “Daisy’s Boutique | Stylish Clothing for Plus-Size Women” instead of just “Daisy’s Boutique.”

Conducting Keyword Research

General keyword research software isn’t as effective for Pinterest optimization as it is for identifying relevant keywords for your website. Fortunately, Pinterest has built-in tools to help you understand what kind of information Pinterest users want to find. For example, the Guided Search tool is similar to Google’s autocomplete feature, which makes keyword suggestions based on what you type into the search bar. A search for “sofa” brings up suggestions like “sofa set designs,” “sofa table decor” and “sofa design living rooms.”

You can also use Pinterest topics to identify keywords that are relevant to your audience members. When you look at the category page, it lists more than 30 topics, from art to women’s fashion. Click your desired category to look at some of the most popular pins; you can get keyword ideas from the subtopics and pin titles. The wedding category, for example, has subtopics for wedding decorations, bridal party attire, wedding cakes and wedding flowers. Within the wedding decorations subtopic, you’ll find pins focused on gold wedding tablescapes, affordable wedding favors, wedding photo display ideas and rooftop wedding ideas, all of which make great keywords.

Verifying Your Website

Claiming your website can help you take advantage of additional SEO benefits. In addition to giving you access to Pinterest analytics, verifying your site also ensures your profile photo appears with the pins that come from your site. Once you’re a verified merchant, a blue checkmark will appear next to the website URL in your profile, increasing trust and making Pinterest users feel more comfortable clicking a link to your site or buying one of your products and services.

Pinterest Marketing Tips to Improve Your SEO

Once you set up your profile and determine which keywords to target, how you use Pinterest can make or break your SEO strategy. Following these tips can help you drive organic traffic to your website and bring positive attention to your business.

Pin Frequency

Pinterest isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it platform. For best results, you should be pinning several times per day, as every pin represents a new opportunity to connect with a potential customer. It’s natural to be concerned about pinning too much, but remember that Pinterest is very different from Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. You won’t be overwhelming potential customers by posting multiple pins per day. Try to space out your pins so you have a steady flow of new content, rather than a quick burst of content that users may forget about within a few hours.

Keywords in Descriptions

Pin Descriptions

When you create a pin, you have an opportunity to write a description that captures attention and helps optimize your content for the search engines. Fortunately, Pinterest allows you to write several sentences, making it easier to incorporate relevant keywords and help users understand what your pins are all about.

First and foremost, your description should be aimed at helping readers. Keywords are important, but they aren’t helpful if they make it difficult for people to understand what you’re trying to say. Your description should also be written in a positive tone. You don’t want potential customers to think you have a negative outlook or spend your time bashing people online. Every pin description should contain the following:

• Your brand name, preferably in the first sentence
• Keywords that relate to the pin or board content
• Valuable information about the topic
• A request for the reader to do something (click, read, learn, etc.)

As with any other type of content you write, your descriptions should be free of typos, spelling mistakes and grammar errors. If proofreading is one of your weak areas, have an employee or a trusted friend review each description before you publish it.

Board Descriptions

Pinterest also allows you to write a description for each board you create. These descriptions appear just below your profile picture when someone views one of your boards, so they’re prime real estate. Each board description should contain some of the same information as your pin descriptions: your brand name, relevant keywords and a clear explanation of the content.

You should also describe your target audience by explaining who’ll benefit from viewing the pins on your boards. If you run a budgeting website, for example, the description for your meal planning board might be aimed at busy moms who want to spend no more than $2 per serving on each family meal.

Content Quality

Keyword-rich pin and board descriptions are great, but they can only get you so far. You need to focus on writing high-quality content on Pinterest, on your website and on your other social media profiles. If a user clicks a Pinterest link and ends up on a page lacking substance, they may not trust you enough to buy from you. Publishing quality content can also help you reduce your bounce rate—the percentage of people who land on one of your pages and leave without viewing other pages on the site—improving your search engine rankings.

As always, it’s important to meet the needs of your audience members. Not all visitors prefer the same types of content, so try to publish a mix of blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, reports and e-books. If you don’t have a professional writer on staff, hire an experienced writer or editor to write content or review your drafts. Taking this extra step can help you position your brand as one that always puts its audience members first.

Is Pinterest Good for SEO? Best Practices to Follow

Like any other endeavour, Pinterest is most effective when you follow established best practices. These practices can help you improve your search engine rankings, position yourself as an expert in your industry and better meet the needs of your audience.

Image Orientation

Something as simple as image orientation can make a big difference in how people perceive your pins. That’s why you should use vertical images. Otherwise, the image may get cut off, making it difficult for Pinterest users to see what you were trying to share.

Business Logos

Pinterest is an essential component of your branding strategy, so don’t miss out on the opportunity to share your brand image with users. Add your business logo to every pin so audience members start to associate your brand with your content. Just be careful not to put it in the bottom right corner of a pin; this is where Pinterest puts its product icons.

Linking Practices

The purpose of using Pinterest for SEO is to drive organic traffic to your website. To do this, you must make sure the content on your linked pages matches the content on your website pages. Imagine if you were using Pinterest, clicked a link on a pin about the best shoes for flat feet and ended up on a page about holiday decorations. You’d probably be confused, and you might even get annoyed with the pin creator for sending you on a wild goose chase. Make sure the links you include in each pin are highly relevant to the reader’s intent.

Using Pinterest to Your Advantage

Pinterest has made it much easier for business owners to compete with large corporations when it comes to building their audiences and driving organic traffic to their websites. Pinterest can also help you build trust with audience members, making them more likely to buy from you.

If you have a small marketing team, it can be difficult to find time to create several new pins each day and update them as needed. The expert freelance writers at Crowd Content can help. We provide a variety of writing services, from creating social media posts to helping business owners improve their search engine rankings with quality content. Crowd Content also has subject matter experts to help you with keyword research or fact-check your content before you publish it.

The post Is Pinterest Good for SEO? How to Use Pinterest to Drive Traffic appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Content creation and hashtags — when you’re talking about social media strategy, these terms need to be on the top of your mind. You already know that in order to be successful, social posts need to be built around high-quality, valuable content that gets people talking, but you can’t rely on social shares alone to get your content in front of new audiences. That’s where hashtags come in.

Now, many marketers understand why you’d use hashtags to boost your content marketing, but understanding how is a different story.

In this piece, we’ll breakdown the basics of using hashtags and content marketing in perfect harmony: why it’s important and how to maximize their effectiveness.

ALSO – Social Media: How Does it Impact Your SEO in 2019?

Content Marketing Hashtags: Why and How?

Most people understand what hashtags are — words and phrases marked by a # sign that group together posts and conversations about common topics. For the less socially-inclined marketers, the reasons why brands need to use them may not come as naturally.

Think of a social media site like a search engine and hashtags like keywords. What happens if you produce an organic blog post or web page without keyword optimization? It flops in the search rankings, and fewer prospective leads and customers will see your content. The same goes for social media. No matter the platform, posts without hashtags will be limited in their effectiveness if your goal is to maximize reach.

Imagine you run an optical retailer and you want to advertise that you have the largest selection of glasses in the industry, so you post on your Instagram about it. The problem here? This post will likely only be seen by your followers and these people may already be aware of this leverage point. With hashtags, on the other hand, you could see your engagement skyrocket. Even the addition of #glasses at the end of your post copy could put your content in front of thousands of new eyes.

Getting Your Content Seen By Your Target Audience

Let’s take the analogy a step further and talk about using hashtags to target your content to the right audience. This is where hashtagging tends to confuse people — is it more important to use common hashtags, or uncommon ones? As it turns out, a mix of the two types may work best, depending on the platform in question.

“Choosing more “niche” Instagram hashtags (ones that aren’t used by as many people) than popular tags might feel like you’re going to appeal to fewer people. However, the truth is that you’re simply making sure that you’re attracting the right people.”

That’s Jill Potasnik, a Social Media Marketing Strategist and Visibility Consultant for her own company, SocialElevator, LLC. She specializes in helping content reach the eyes of a brand’s audience, which she says is harder than it seems, and takes a deep understanding of your audience:

“Instagram hashtags help your posts to appear in front of your target audience, but only if you know what they are searching for.”

And, the results tend to speak for themselves:

Sneh Ratna Choudhary, Senior Content Marketer at Beaconstac, executed a test with one of their posts. Measured before and after optimizing a piece of content creation with hashtags, they observed a 351% boost in reach and a 1000% increase in engagement.

ALSO – 6 Expert Secrets to Make Your Social Media Posts Pop

Not All Social Platforms Use Hashtags the Same Way

Here’s why you won’t find us telling you the optimal number of hashtags to use on different platforms: like Google’s algorithm as it pertains to SEO, small changes in these platforms and the way they elevate certain posts means that things — like hashtagging best practices — change fast. Just like how a Google update made keyword stuffing harm a page’s SEO ranking, Instagram changed its algorithm to detect posts that use too many hashtags and penalize them for being “spammy”.

It would be easy to read this article and immediately start jamming hashtags in with your content on every platform. A reasoned, strategic approach means understanding the shortcomings of some social media platforms.

For example, Facebook doesn’t support hashtags like Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin do.

According to Taras Prystatsky, Content Marketing Strategist at Respect.Studio, “Facebook’s hashtag search is merged with the general keyword search… I find it a bit ineffective to use hashtags on this platform. That is why I use no more than 3 niche hashtags.”

Instagram is a different story — Prystatsky recommends using around 15 keywords to optimize content in the post itself, and more in the comments.

Here are some of the most important sites for using hashtags as early as possible to grow your reach:

• Pinterest: Pinterest marketing is not as widely applicable for brands, but the platform’s reliance on categories makes hashtags an important ingredient for marketers.
• Twitter: On Twitter, the latest trends and news are hidden behind hashtags — find the latest trending topics, and you have a world’s worth of engagement at your fingertips.
• Instagram: Instagram, like Pinterest, relies on finding your audience in their preferred category or community. When you’re just starting out, putting your posts in front of as many eyes as possible is key, and hashtags help you do that.

ALSO – These Social Media Fails Really Happened

How to Find the Right Hashtags for Your Audience

Strategies to find the best hashtags to use in posts do vary from platform to platform, but not too much:

• Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and other platforms have lists of the top (or “trending”) hashtags being used. Once you find a top hashtag, look at posts for that hashtag and identify how it’s being used
• Finding leading influencers and authorities in your industry and look at the hashtags they’re using to drive engagement
• Follow competitors in your industry and do the same thing
• Study your customer avatars to try and predict their interests on social media
• Survey customers and clients to see what types of hashtags they pay attention to
• Simply learn via trial and error — social media is cost-effective enough that you can afford to make a few mistakes, as long as you’re learning and optimizing your content as a result

Use Tools to Find the Best Hashtags

There are countless tools out there to help you find top-performing —meaning they allow you to maximize engagement — hashtags. Here are a few examples:

• RiteTag
• Hashtagify
• All-Hashtag

These are databases that use software to generate thousands of hashtags for any brand in any industry.

The Bottom Line

If you’re looking for ways to increase your ROI on social media — especially without using paid ads — hashtagging is a great way to start. But content marketing hashtags is a lot like anything else in the content marketing sphere: without valuable, high-performing content to start off with, your social posts will fall flat.

The post The Complete Guide to Using Hashtags to Boost Your Content Marketing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Although social media usage doesn’t directly influence your page rankings, it can help you drive more traffic to your website, making it an essential component of an SEO plan. Keep reading to learn more about the importance of social media SEO for business.

How Social Media Usage Affects SEO

Just because social media usage doesn’t directly influence your rankings doesn’t mean you don’t need to use Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to grow your business. Social media SEO affects your rankings indirectly in the following ways:

Backlinks

Backlinks are one of the most important factors in determining how well a page will rank compared to competing pages on the same topic. In simple terms, a backlink is a link that refers to another website. If you cite a subject matter expert in one of your blog posts and link back to that expert’s site, you’re giving them a backlink. Google and other search engines place a lot of emphasis on backlinks because these links represent a “seal of approval” of sorts. Linking to a site shows you think the site has something worth reading or viewing.

Done right, social media SEO gives you an opportunity to collect backlinks from authoritative websites, increasing your site’s overall authority. For example, if one of your blog posts “goes viral,” you’re likely to receive backlinks from major media outlets and established influencers.

Site Authority

Social media SEO also helps you build a positive reputation and establish authority in your industry. Think about the process you follow when you need to buy something online. You probably type product-related keywords into your search engine, look through the results and visit the website with the most relevant information. But what if multiple sites sell the same item at the same price? You need a way to determine which site to visit. That’s where authority comes into play.

The more social media accounts you maintain, the more opportunities you have to share your brand. If people search for what you sell and see your company’s name showing up on Facebook, Instagram and other networks, they may feel more comfortable buying from you or at least visiting your website to get more information.

Search Results

With many people now using social networks as search engines, it’s more important than ever for your business to have a strong social media presence. This is especially important if you run a business that makes the bulk of its revenue from local customers, such as a restaurant or roofing company. Instead of opening a separate browser window, navigating to Google or Bing and searching for companies, products and services, some users just type their queries right into the search bar of their favourite social network. If you don’t have a profile on that network, you won’t show up in these searches.

Traffic Source

The more pages you control, the more opportunities you have for people to find your business and learn more about what you do. If you have a single website with a few pages on it, you have few opportunities to show up in search results for relevant keywords. When you use social media, however, you’re producing additional content that can help people find your business. If someone searches for relevant keywords, they may find one of your Facebook posts, tweets or Instagram photos.

Social Media SEO Tips to Grow Your Business

It’s clear that social media SEO has positive benefits for business owners, but it’s important to develop a cohesive strategy that helps you achieve your SEO goals. Here’s what we recommend. If you need help writing tweets, Facebook posts and other types of content, our team of experienced professionals can help.

Partner with Influencers

According to Neil Patel, an influencer is someone who serves as an expert within a specific community. On social media, influencers may write thought leadership pieces, review products related to their areas of expertise or promote specific brands. Partnering with influencers in your industry has several potential benefits for your business. One of those benefits is exposure to a much larger audience. Influencers may have hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of followers. If just a small percentage of an influencer’s audience sees a post about your products or services, you could experience a surge in site traffic and sales.

Working with an influencer also gives you the opportunity to strengthen your brand. Depending on how you structure the partnership, the influencer may agree to post about your product a certain number of times or do a video review that features your product prominently. Every post is an opportunity for an audience member to see your logo or hear your company name. Partnering with an influencer can even help your brand seem more legitimate, especially if you work with someone who has a positive reputation in your industry.

Christian Anderson, president of Lost Boys entertainment, offers the following tips for identifying influencers in your industry and partnering with them to promote your brand:

1. Check with an agency. Some agencies represent multiple influencers, so contacting a single agent could help you identify several potential partnerships. Agents also have experience making sure an influencer’s content aligns well with a brand’s goals. Therefore, working with an agent can help you avoid partnering with an influencer who could damage your brand instead of helping you build it.
2. Contact influencers directly. This takes much more time than contacting an agency because you need to research your industry and determine which influencers have the largest audiences. You also need to determine if each influencer posts content that aligns with your goals. Although this is time-consuming, it can also help you get better pricing.
3. Be clear about your goals. You must provide enough information for the influencer to make an informed decision about whether they want to partner with you. It’s important to be clear about what you expect in terms of content type, content length and publishing frequency.

Focus on Engagement

Many business owners make the mistake of thinking content frequency is more important than content quality. That couldn’t be further from the truth. While the search engines do take publication frequency into account when determining page rankings, they also look for quality signals to tell them if one page is more relevant than another for a specific keyword. It’s better to publish high-quality content three times per week than low-quality content every day.

One way to make your content more engaging is to include photos and videos. Huge walls of text are a barrier to engagement because they make your content more difficult to read. It also takes a lot more time to read a long post than it does to look at a photo or view a 30-second video. Another way to increase engagement is to skip the stock photos and do your own photography. You don’t have to be the next Ansel Adams to take photos for Instagram or Facebook; simply use a point-and-shoot digital camera or the built-in camera on your cell phone to snap photos of your products or employees.

Pick the Right Platforms

Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram…the list of social media platforms seem endless, especially if you don’t have experience using social media for SEO. The good news is that you don’t need to be on every single platform—just the platforms where people in your target audience are likely to hang out. Nearly 80% of adults between the ages of 30 and 49 use Facebook, but only 48% of them use Instagram. If your target audience includes adults in this age group, using Facebook is a better use of your time than using Instagram.

Age is an important consideration, but it isn’t the only factor you should use to determine where to spend your time online. You also need to consider race, ethnicity, sex and household income. If you sell a high-end product, it’s important to know that 50% of adults who earn more than $75,000 per year use LinkedIn. Adult women are more active on the top three platforms—Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn—than adult men, a fact that can help you determine the best way to spend your time and your marketing dollars.

Repurpose Your Content

You shouldn’t post the exact same thing on multiple platforms; that would defeat the purpose of using more than one social network to improve your page rankings, drive traffic to your website and connect with members of your target audience. But that doesn’t mean you can’t repurpose your content to save time. Repurposing involves taking your existing content and using it as the basis for new content. This eliminates the need to “reinvent the wheel” and keep coming up with new ideas. Here are a few examples of content repurposing:

• A few years ago, you wrote a blog post on how to use your product to save time or increase efficiency. You can repurpose the content by updating it with recent statistics and editing some of the content based on current best practices in your industry. Sharing a link to the updated blog post gives the content new life and eliminates the need to come up with a brand-new idea and write a blog post from scratch.
• You have an e-book that introduces potential customers to your business and provides an overview of your products and services. If the e-book contains statistics, you can add those statistics to infographics and share them with your social media followers.
• If you have a podcast related to your business, you can link to the transcripts on Facebook or post “behind-the-scenes” videos on your Instagram account. Not only does this help you repurpose your original podcast content, but it can also help you appeal to new audience members.
• You can even turn existing infographics into short blog posts by using the infographic content as an outline and filling in each section with new content.

Repurposing content saves you time, but it can also help you improve your search engine rankings, as Google is more likely to see your site as an authority if it has several pages of content focusing on closely related keywords.

The Takeaway

It’s easy to write off social media as something teens do after school, but the truth is that social media is an effective way to market a wide variety of products and services. SEO content creates more opportunities for search engines to find your pages and determine how relevant they are to specific search queries, driving traffic to your website and giving your business more authority.

The post Social Media SEO: Essential for Businesses in Every Industry appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Want to spend even less time creating content? Check out our range of content creation services.

It’s easy to make blunders on social media, and there’s very little you can do to stop the momentum once the bad press starts. Fortunately, one brand’s pain is another brand’s gain. Let’s take a look at some of this year’s biggest social media fails and what you can do to avoid similar situations.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”22qDy” via=”no” nofollow=”yes”]Know your audience well before posting on #socialmedia, or the backlash can go more viral than your posts. [/ctt]

U.S. Department of Education Failing at – Education

Companies need to put their best foot forward when posting on social media, but that’s especially important when it’s a reflection of their core brand or service. If a butcher misspells “Angus,” it’s not really a big deal. But if that same butcher calls a New York strip steak a filet mignon, it could turn ugly really quickly. That’s what happened for the U.S. Department of Education earlier this year.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was already struggling with her public image when the U.S. Department of Education that she spearheads made this tweet in honor of Black History Month:

The typo sparked quite a bit of attention:

What we can learn: Do your homework. No matter what you’re posting — but especially if it’s directly related to your business — get it right. There are no backsies when it comes to social media. If you can’t get your industry bits and baubles correct, consumers are going to lose faith in your brand.

Related: Social Media Stars – Love’em and Learn From Them

Uber and the Immigration Debacle

In response to President Trump’s immigration ban, taxi drivers decided to stop service to New York’s JFK International airport and demonstrators gathered in protest. Once it was over and drivers returned to work. Uber opted to capitalize on the development by tweeting this:

Consumers — including many celebs — saw this as Uber trying to profit from the controversy (although Uber claimed it was trying to do the opposite), and they weren’t having it. The #DeleteUber movement was born, and the Twittersphere was filled with screenshots of users deleting the Uber app and making their contempt known.

In fact, within a few days after the original tweet, more than 200,000 had deleted the app and pledged their loyalty to Uber’s top competitor, Lyft. I think Lyft was the genius in this whole scenario. It was also trying to capitalize on the situation but did so in a way that was meaningful to its audience. It publicly pledged a $1 million donation to the ACLU to help it defend the Constitution.

What we can learn: When it comes to politics and cultural issues — tread carefully. You may have the best intentions and truly mean to show empathy, but your followers may not see eye to eye with you. When making important statements about current events, don’t do it in a vacuum. Get several pairs of eyes on what you plan to post or risk offending your audience.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”qcUre” via=”no” nofollow=”yes”]#Socialmedia done right can get great exposure for your brand. Done wrong, and you’re in for a PR nightmare. [/ctt]

Asleep at the Wheel at Walkers

Popular UK snack brand Walkers learned a lesson in user-generated content with its recent #WalkersWave campaign. The company invited consumers to snap selfies of themselves with the Walkers brand. The photos were then turned into short videos starring former soccer player Gary Lineker.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though anyone at Walkers was vetting the images, and Lineker was seen across social media holding up photos of and interacting with the likes of serial killers, dictators and well-known sex offenders.

Though a Walkers representative responded immediately, the damage was already done. Three months later, and the brand’s campaign is still being actively mocked across social media.

What we can learn: Never put your social media on autopilot. Whether you let your audience generate content for you or you have a leading industry expert in charge, your social media channels need constant oversight.

Ted Cruz Gaffe

Senator Ted Cruz is publicly known for his ultra-conservative stance, but that may or may not be a reflection of his personal life. Earlier this year, his official Twitter account apparently liked a porn video. His staff was paying attention, fortunately, and they were quick to delete the post and apologize:

Cruz was quick to lay the blame, stating that a member of his staff had inadvertently made the error.

What we can learn: If you constantly switch back and forth between your personal Twitter account and that of your brand, stop. It’s not a question of if this could happen to you; it’s a matter of when. To prevent this from happening, sign up for a service such as Hootsuite that posts for you, and only register your brand’s Twitter address. Trust me – it will save you a lot of pain and embarrassment down the road.

The post These Social Media Fails Really Happened appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

PewDiePie

Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, just loved playing video games, and making videos of himself playing video games and posting them to YouTube sounded more fun than working at a hot dog stand. He started posting those videos in 2010, and it only took two years for his YouTube channel to hit 1 million viewers.

Clearly something clicked with his fans, who have propelled him to the pinnacle of YouTube stardom. While he’s paid a pittance for each view, PewDiePie has 11 billion views and a net worth of $61 million.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”TJluL” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Are #socialmedia stars more influential than traditional celebrities?[/ctt]

Smosh

The comedy duo of Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox started their website as Smosh in 2005 with little Flash animations. Soon they migrated to YouTube, where they started performing live action comedy bits, and they’re still going strong in 2017, with 22 million subscribers and seven different YouTube channels, including an animation channel and a gaming channel. Their slapstick comedy hits their viewers where they live, focusing on pop culture, especially video games.

With a net worth and a yearly income of $7 million, the duo of Smosh is clearly doing something right.

VanossGaming

More gaming is going on at the YouTube channel of Evan Fong, who plays online under the name of VanossGaming. Unlike PewDiePie, Fong doesn’t attempt to put much of his personality online. Instead, he entrances his viewers with skillfully edited montages of his game playthroughs that make a connection to his audience by carrying them through an entire game in record time, often with a lot of humor. For his gaming and editing prowess, Fong has racked up well over 20 million subscribers.

Related: Social Influencer Marketing: A Must Have or a Waste of Time?

What You Can Lean From These Internet Rock Stars

Make an Emotional Connection

What’s the lesson big brands can learn from these newbie stars? It’s not what you might think. The lesson is that fancy production values may not matter to Millennials in the way that they’ve typically impressed and swayed previous generations.

Instead, this generation wants an emotional connection. They want to experience emotional authenticity. The sloppier production values of today’s internet stars don’t matter much if they can make that connection.

Your brand, too, can relate to Millennials by focusing on the emotional draw of your products and services. Avoid any sense of the fake to make a true connection.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”6qe3G” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Leverage #socialmedia stars to make an emotional connection with your consumers.[/ctt]

Connect With the Social Influencers

Authenticity and emotional connection matters as well when you want to ask one of these social influencers to represent your brand in some way. Most of these influencers are already earning enough money that big offers may not sway them, and some of them may fear that linking with your brand — or with any brand — will diminish the control they have over their lives and careers.

Because of this, to connect with them, you need to persuade these social media stars that your collaboration will be mutually beneficial. Show them you respect them and their audience, and make it clear that you won’t force them to deliver a message they don’t agree with. Once you do that, you may be able to jump on the social media success train.

The post Social Media Stars: Love ’em and Learn From Them appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

All of that is fine.

When done right, it helps you build brand culture and engage with consumers. But before you jump into those waters, make sure you know how to build a brand without alienating the market or turning consumers against you.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”ZAOm4″ via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Learn to leverage trending topics and hashtags to engage consumers. #brandbuilding[/ctt]

Avoiding the Point Where Politics Meets Trending

There’s a difference between what’s trending online and what’s trending politically, though sometimes the two meet in what invariably becomes a Web brawl played out across media blogs and Twitter posts. For many brands, that central clashing point in the diagram is to be avoided. Here’s why:

• Politically hot topics may garner attention, but there are a lot of people crowding the stage. What little awareness you can get for your brand may not be worth the risk.
• Trending politics tend to evoke raw emotions from those who follow or respond to it online, which doesn’t always translate into conversion or even good will for your brand.
• When emotions are running high, it’s too easy to step slightly outside someone’s perception of where the lines are, and tagging along for the hashtag trend could quickly turn into a nightmare PR situation for your company.

Related: Newsjacking 101: Crafting Killer Content with News

Staying Safe to Build a Brand Online

While most brands may want to steer clear of content cocktails that feature a mix of trending and political, choosing one or the other as a consistent foundation isn’t always a bad thing. Brands that play up fun, trending elements online take the safest of the two routes, though you should never underestimate the power of fandoms. If you’re going to join in as a way to build a brand online, make sure you’re part of the fandom and not preaching to the fandom from an outside soapbox.

How do you do that?

Consider REI’s Zombie Survival Gear infographic. The brand, which sells adventure and camping gear, jumps on The Walking Dead wagon with this clever content piece. It works especially well because REI incorporates both realistic gear and a clear understanding of zombie fandom, even creating a recommended research list containing links to the show and other books and comics on zombies.

On the other side of the diagram are brands that are consistently political, and not necessary only in a trending way. These brands choose a cause or political vision, and they stand behind it at all times; sometimes the product or mission itself is political in nature. Other times, the founder just has a very specific outlook and is happy with maintaining a customer base of like thinkers.

Often, this type of branding becomes outreach or philanthropic in nature, such as TOMS giving away shoes for every purchase made. Historically, this is where “politics” stopped with most brands, and it’s still the safe area for those that don’t want to risk alienating potential customers.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”CPE82″ via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Take risks when building your brand, but know when not to cross the line. [/ctt]

How to Build a Brand By Taking Risks

Of course, safe and slow isn’t always the way to win the race, and some brands do want to take risks and shake things up. Brand strategist Gareth Fox even says many consumers want brands to get more political. If you plan to build your brand online with a political bent, here are some tips to keep out out of the middle of a virtual riot:

• Work with or hire someone with political branding expertise. It’s not enough to know what’s trending: you need someone who can help you predict the response to certain messages so you know when your brand can get involved without risking everything.
• Incorporate political polling into your market research. If you’re going to champion a cause for your audience, ensure it really is a cause for your audience.
• Be sincere. Brands that engage in backlash marketing just to get a cut of the pie are typically found out by the market. One thing the internet does seem to agree on: it doesn’t like brand fakery.
• Always be prepared for the response. Taking up a political cause will alienate someone, so do the marketing research to ensure your brand won’t lose more than it gains.

Unless your brand is politics, remember that political stances should take a back seat to the ultimate goal of your business, which is likely serving or providing for customers in some way. If you’re so embroiled in a riot related to current events, fandoms or any other emotion-heavy topic, you can’t serve your customers or even engage them in the best possible manner.

The post How to Build a Brand Without Creating a Riot appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Does this type of marketing work? You’ll hear a lot of debate from brand marketers. Take a look at some of the most up-to-date influencer marketing statistics, and form your own opinion.

The Audience for Social Influencer Marketing

The Stats: Teens are tuning in to social influencers in a big way. They consider YouTube stars up to 17 times as engaging as mainstream stars, and 70 percent of teens trust influencers more than they trust opinions from more traditional celebrities.

The Takeaway: Add another stat to the mix: 73 percent of Millennials feel responsible to help friends make purchasing decisions. Now you can see the ripple effect start to grow. Teens find influencers more authentic than traditional advertising, so they pay attention. If you’re trying to reach that market, better start looking for some influencers.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”y31mJ” via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Today’s teens place more trust in social influencers than traditional celebrities. [/ctt]

The Products of the Influencer World

The Stats: It’s all about the look. Beauty and fashion brands are deeply into influencer marketing, with 86 percent of the popular YouTube beauty videos coming from influencers rather than fashion brands.

The Takeaway: Beauty and fashion brands have been paying attention to the rise of the influencers. As a result, 57 percent of them now incorporate social influencers into their marketing strategies.

What Platforms Host Social Influencers?

The Stats: YouTube isn’t the only place where influence is sizzling. Marketers point to Facebook and Instagram (which Facebook owns) as crucial in the influence world, and the 32 percent of the influencers themselves call out Facebook as the place to be. In addition, Twitter users are more than five times as likely to purchase when they see influencers there.

The Takeaway: If you want to use social influencer marketing, choose your platforms wisely. And whatever you choose, don’t neglect Facebook. In addition, plenty of influencers have well-trafficked blogs, so take a peek into the blogosphere when you’re looking for the right influencers for your brand.

Related: How Facebook is Changing the Marketing Game with Influencers

The Cost of Influencer Marketing

The Stats: U.S. marketers have been increasing the portion of their marketing budgets allotted to social media, up to almost 12 percent from an initial 3.5 percent in 2009. In 2016, the average cost of an influencer marketing program ranged from $25,000 to $50,000, with those numbers expected to double in 2017.

The Takeaway: The barrier to entry in social influencer marketing is very low, so now is the time to start experimenting with it, if you haven’t already. If you’re still skeptical, keep reading.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”7U1E0″ via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Every dollar spent on influencer marketing generates $6.50 in return.[/ctt]

The Bottom Line: The ROI of Social Influencer Marketing

The Stats: Here’s some encouraging influencer marketing statistics: Studies show that influencer marketing content delivers a return on investment that’s 11 times higher than that of traditional digital marketing. Every dollar spent on influencer marketing generates $6.50 in return.

The Takeaway: One final statistic: 94 percent of brands using social influencer marketing find it effective. Given the low cost, there’s not much reason to avoid it and plenty of reasons to give it a try.

Social influencer marketing is here to stay, and it’s becoming increasingly mandatory in certain consumer goods categories. Dip your toe in this market (easy to do, given its relatively low cost), and see what kind of ROI you might get.

The post Social Influencer Marketing: A Must-Have or a Waste of Time? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

1. Care2: a networking site for socially conscientious brands

What: Since 1998, Care2 has brought people together socially to do good. It currently has around 40 million members and encourages individuals to inspire each other to act, often via petitions.

Demographics:

• Adults of all ages
• More females than males
• Nonprofits, brands and individuals
• Primarily from English-speaking nations

Brand Opportunity: Care2 provides brands with a ready audience of activists, making it a great place to connect organically with people who are most likely to take action on socially conscientious CTAs. The network also offers advertising opportunities for lead generation, donor recruitment, list growth, and conversion, and brands with eco-friendly, health-centric or human rights products or services might be a good fit.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”wR5N2″ via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Up your social media game with these niche social media sites. [/ctt]

2. AngelList: the social media site for startups and investors

What: AngelList caters to start-ups and those who want to work for and with fledgling companies. The site currently includes investment opportunities, social networking and job boards.

Who:

• Entrepreneurs
• Investors
• Freelancers

Brand Opportunity: AngelList has always been a who’s-going-to-be-who list, with up-and-coming brands and entrepreneurs rubbing virtual elbows with well-established investors and start-up leaders. It’s a good place to find support for a new brand, connect with specialists and find people who can help your company grow from start-up to household name.

Related: 3 Brands That Are Killing It on Social Media, and What You Can Learn From Their Success

3. Allrecipes: bringing good food and people together

What: Allrecipes is a site for foodies of every level. From basic home cooks to gourmet pros, people on the site connect to share recipes, cooking tips and food reviews.

Who:

• Older teens and adults of all ages
• Primarily women with some men
• Mostly from English-speaking nations
• Disparate backgrounds and cooking skills

Brand Opportunity: Brands can get involved in sharing recipes, making this a good network for food and cooking bloggers. Allrecipes also offers advertising opportunities, and brands can take part across the entire Meredith publishing network to reach a wider audience.

4. Catster/Dogster: social networking for pet lovers

What: Catster and Dogster are separate social networks catering to those who love felines and canines, respectively. The sites are filled with endearing videos and images and plenty of chit-chat between pet owners and wanna-be pet owners.

Who:

• Individuals of all ages
• Primarily women
• Majority of users have some college education
• Primarily from English-speaking nations

Brand Opportunity: Both sites also run Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages where industry brands can connect with Catster/Dogster and their followers, creating opportunities for brand awareness. Lumina Media, the parent company of both sites, offers advertising opportunities for brands. Brands in the pet niche can also find out about partnerships with Lumina Media, which works with distributors and thousands of retailers on product placement.

[ctt template=”4″ link=”U3e48″ via=”yes” nofollow=”yes”]Social networking is critical, but follow-through is the rope that hauls in the revenue. #socialmedia [/ctt]

5. Doximity: a social network for health care companies

What: Doximity is where more than 500,000 health care brands and professionals go to connect, find information and locate niche talent. As of 2014, the network claimed a 50 percent reach for all U.S. physicians.

Who:

• Doctors, nurses, physical therapists and other specialty providers
• Hospitals, clinics and other facilities
• Medical supply and pharmaceutical companies

Brand Opportunity: Doximity offers a unique opportunity for brands in the health care industry to connect on a B2B basis. Companies might leverage the site to provide educational information to professionals and engage doctors and others with products and services that can help their patients.

Remember that social networking is critical, but follow-through is the rope that hauls in your revenue. Need help creating landing pages that convert more leads? Check out our marketing writing services.

The post 5 Promising Niche Social Media Sites You Need to Check Out Today appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Building Social Media Infographics for Specific Platforms

According to a Vennage study, infographics and other original visual content perform much better than GIFs, memes and stock photos when it comes to engagement. They even outpace videos, presentations and charts, making them something many content marketers want to integrate into social media strategies. The problem is that complex visual elements don’t always play well on social platforms, partly because of image size limitations.

If you want to upload an entire infographic to a social network, realize that the platform may crop or resize it. Platforms that don’t rely on a square image typically resize the image to fit a required width and then proportion the height accordingly.

On Facebook, for example, if you upload an image that’s 1024 x 512 pixels, it’s converted to an image that’s 470 x 235 pixels. Most of the time, the difference isn’t a big deal. Infographics filled with images and icons, though, might be hard to read when uploaded to social.

To avoid this problem, start your infographic design at the appropriate width for each site.

Optimal Widths for Social Media Infographic Images

• Facebook – 470
• Twitter – 506
• LinkedIn – 350
• Google Plus – 426
• Instagram – 1080
• Pinterest – 736

On some platforms, you can make an image as long (or high) as you like. If you go too far, though, it could impact readability. Instagram recommends a height of 1350 pixels to go with its recommended width. Pinterest simply gives aspect ratios as ranging between 2:3 and 1:3.5. Choose a height that seems to fit the layout of your infographic, but test as you design it to ensure its legibility.

Related: 6 Expert Secrets to Make Your Social Media Posts Pop

What About Infographics from Blog Posts, Web Pages or other Platforms?

When sharing an infographic, it’s best not to upload the same image across all profiles and call it a day. First, it’s kind of lazy — and lackadaisical content marketing doesn’t cut it in today’s market. Second, it can frustrate your followers. An image that appears perfect on Pinterest could leave Facebook or Twitter users squinting, scrolling or facing a sudden cutoff.

For best results, don’t try to share all of it at once. Snip the most important bits — enough to share at least one fact, but not the entire story. Then post that image to social media with a link back to the full graphic. This is especially helpful if the purpose of your social marketing is to drive traffic to a site. Sharing only part of the infographic follows that advice about not giving the cow away for free.

For marketers who do want the entire cow on social, try the album or multi-pic features. Upload small sections of your infographic in an order that lets users see the story unfold as they click through.

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A Few More Hacks Before You Go

• Expand your social media infographic’s reach by tagging any person or company that’s involved in any way. If you used a stat from a HubSpot study or the infographic was inspired by a recent post from an industry influencer, for example, tag them.
• Consider “micro infographics” for social media sharing. These are more concise infographics that are typically smaller in size and cover a very narrow topic.

In the end, getting your social media infographics to engage more users boils down to making them relevant, legible and easy to access.

The post The Secrets to Getting the Most Out of Your Social Media Infographics appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Step up your social media strategy by getting a good understanding of the Facebook followers and fans who are actually reading your posts and (hopefully) interacting with them. Armed with that information and some insight into Facebook user behavior, you’ll be in great shape to craft posts that resonate with your audience and dramatically increase engagement.

Learn About Your Facebook Followers and Fans via Facebook Insights

Using Facebook’s analytics, you can get a top-level view of who’s reading and liking your posts. Click Insights at the top of your page, and then choose People from the menu on the left sidebar to see basic demographics:

The Page Views and Actions on Page options let you see who is reading and interacting with your posts by age and gender, location or device.

To break things down even further, navigate over to Facebook’s Audience Insights via the Business Manager page. This tells you a lot more about your audience, including lifestyle, relationship and education metrics, as well as job title.

Facebook User Behavior

All of those demographics tell you who you’re reaching and what they do, but it doesn’t tell you anything about how they use — and consume — social media. Understanding user behavior makes it even easier to bump up audience engagement, as you can take your targeted posts and fine-tune them even further.

Though there are many types of Facebooks users out there, including the Power Users and Contributors, I believe that these are the groups you should put a bit more effort into as you start to build out your social media strategy:

Related: How Facebook is Changing the Marketing Game with Influencers

The Lurkers

Who They Are: This segment of the Facebook population is simply not interested in interacting with brands very often, even though they read your posts and watch your videos. They’re voracious consumers of social media, but you won’t see them liking or sharing your posts often – if ever.

Why They’re Important: Of the 263 million people who use social media, lurkers are the largest segment. Some estimates put the group’s size at 90 percent of all social media users. This gives them dramatic power when it comes to making – or breaking – your brand. They may not show their loyalty with likes and shares, but they will when it comes to choosing which brands to spend their money on.

How to Engage Them: The truth is, you probably can’t. The only way to keep them loyal is to continually provide them with the content they want to see. Use Facebook Insights and blog and website analytics to get a feel for what this powerhouse segment likes and doesn’t like, and tweak your content strategy accordingly to keep them around.

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The Influencers

Who They Are: These popular people have a high level of knowledge and credibility in their niche and a large group of followers because of it. Influencers are typically bloggers, activists, industry experts or celebrities, but they can also be ordinary people with a specific expertise. The people who follow influencers tend to be a loyal bunch and typically have a lot of trust in the person.

Why They’re Important: Influencer marketing is slowly edging out the traditional advertising trio: television, radio and print ads. In fact, a full 54 percent of companies now have a budget line item for sponsored social media for their brands, and much of that is devoted to partnerships with influencers. Having an influencer (or two or three) engaging with you publicly on social media or talking about your products exposes your brand to an entirely new audience and gives it almost instant credibility.

How to Engage Them: It’s always wise to create an organic relationship with influencers before reaching out to them. Build that initial relationship by engaging with their content across platforms, including likes, shares and comments. You can often get their attention by crafting high-quality articles that expand on topics they’ve written. Mentioning them or linking to their content in your articles is also a good idea.

The Superfans

Who They Are: This tiny segment of the Facebook community is passionate about the brands they love. Marketing Land likens this group to those football fans who don’t just attend games; they show up at the stadium at dawn and spend the day tailgating. They also make it their mission to convince their friends to attend with them. During games, they’re the first ones to start the wave to cheer on the team.

Why They’re Important: On social media sites, superfans are the ones writing reviews about your products and commenting on your posts. The result is an amplification of all your social media efforts with almost no additional effort on your part.

How to Engage Them: Use social media monitoring tools to find out who your superfans are, and then get to know them. Follow them on the social media platforms they’re active on, and always respond when they comment on your posts. It’s also in your best interests to build up your superfans as brand experts. Make sure they have the media and information they need to be loyal brand ambassadors.

Information is key in the digital age – and especially in the world of social media. Once you know who your fans are and how they consume social media, you’ll be better able to engage them. Remember that some of your most loyal fans may not be vocal and, in fact, may not interact at all. But ignoring this group is not an option.

The post Who Are My Facebook Followers, and How Do I Engage Them? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

GE and the Volcano Sensor Videos

Known for innovation and technology, GE brings its key strengths to content marketing efforts. The brand recently scored big across social media channels by integrating its own products, high-quality videography and an interesting story. The result is a web video series that follows a team as they descend into an active volcano to install GE sensors; the sensors are designed to capture data science hasn’t been able to record from the volcano in question before. The videos are engagement gold on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

Lesson: Find interesting, dramatic or surprising ways to integrate your products into social content. Make products a key element, but not necessary the focus, of all the content. Natural beverage company Califia Farms does a good job incorporating its award-winning packaging into an Instagram feed without making every post about the drinks, for example.

The #FollowMeTo Instagram Campaign

#followmeto wonderful Dubai! ?Breathtaking pic by very talented and very crazy @olegcricket ? #следуйзамной в Дубаи! ? У нас сердце замирает от такого снимка! Кадр на высоте от очень талантливого и очень бесстрашного @olegcricket

A post shared by Murad and Nataly Osmann (@followmeto) on May 23, 2017 at 10:45am PDT

A husband-and-wife Instagram team has found digital fame by capturing their adventures via a simple pose. The motif, which appears throughout their channel, positions Natalia in front, one hand trailing behind her, touching or clasping husband Murad’s had – Murad, who takes the now iconic pictures, is only seen when the couple shares behind-the-scene shots. On top of a recognizable motif, the couple leverages creativity and stunning editing to make their images pop. #FollowMeTo has almost half a million followers as of June 2017 with less than 500 posts on the page.

Lesson: Create unique branded elements for your social media marketing campaign that can repeat as motifs across your channel, and back those components with professional content, design and editing. The goal is for users to recognize your content immediately.

State Bicycle Company’s Commitment to Consistency

On first glance, the Facebook page for State Bicycle Company is akin to any comparable brand: it’s sleek, professional and on-topic for the bicycle manufacturer and cycling enthusiasm brand. What sets State Bicycle Company apart is consistency: it posts more than 80 items every month, ensuring some of those posts are engagement-inducing challenges for the target audience. The brand publishes a weekly theme and invites followers to send in photos related to the theme, boosting the amount of visual appeal on the profile without increasing work. Consistency has paid off: the brand’s follower number is close to half a million as of June 2017.

Lesson: Consistently post relevant, quality content, and ensure you’re posting within the right time slots and at the right frequencies, so all followers are likely to see your content.

Simply slapping daily posts up on social media isn’t enough to ensure social media marketing ROI. Instead, brands should work on integrating products in engaging ways, developing recognizable elements that resonate with audiences and being consistent.

The post 3 Brands That Are Killing it on Social Media, and What You Can Learn From Their Success appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Producing social media posts isn’t quite the same as writing content for a blog or website, but your social posts and web content should complement each other. The goal isn’t just to drive up your rank in the search engines, but also to drive traffic directly to your site from social media platforms. If you want to maximize the impact of your social media, here are six ways to really make your posts pop.

1. Go Visual

Social media users love visual posts, so include a photo, video or infographic to draw eyes and encourage sharing. Choose compelling images that tell a story or make the reader curious about what’s going on.

2. Focus on Every Word

Tight writing is required when you only have 140 characters or a small text box to get your point across, but simply stating the facts doesn’t get anyone excited enough to interact with your brand. You don’t have to go the click-bait route to get your audience engaged, but you do need to give them a reason to continue scrolling through your social media posts or visit your website. Use leading questions, maintain a conversational tone and imply what’s beyond the link without revealing everything to incite curiosity in your social media followers.

3. Tailor Your Content

Different types of social media posts work best on different platforms. A photo that works well as a Pinterest pin might flop as an Instagram image, while a clever Tweet may not quite be the right fit for your Facebook fans. Research and understand the demographics of each site before posting to ensure each post ends up where it belongs.

4. Use Hashtags Wisely

Whether or not to include hashtags, and how many you should use, is extremely platform-dependent. On some platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, too many hashtags makes a post feel cluttered. Instagram users expect lots of hashtags and use them to find new accounts to follow. Trending hashtags can draw eyes to your post if the tags are relevant, or they can turn off potential followers if the connection between hashtag and post is too tenuous.

5. Get Influencers on Board

Influencers are social media superstars that can bring attention to your site with a single mention. Avoid mega-celebrities as influencers and approach smaller social media personalities that have a group of extremely dedicated fans in your particular niche.

6. Let Your Social Media Team Go Wild

Sometimes, business social media pages can feel too staid and underwhelming. Give your social media team some leeway to be playful, controversial or clever to get followers talking about your brand. Showing off a bit of personality drives engagement, making it easier to get those elusive clicks and shares.

The post 6 Expert Secrets to Make Your Social Media Posts Pop appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Companies have been able to promote branded content through the Facebook pages of bands, media outlets and celebrities for some time, but not through private profiles. This changed with the October update; Facebook announced that verified private profiles could promote branded content to harness the power of influencer marketing. Facebook also added a series of new marketing analytics to a feature called a Facebook sponsor tag.

Here’s a breakdown of how it works and just how both parties involved benefit from this major step forward in Facebook’s marketing policy.

New Facebook Sponsor Tags

When you create content promoting a specific product or brand as the owner of a verified profile, you’re given an option to click on a handshake icon and tag the brand directly in the post. This new feature, which is called a Facebook sponsor tag, works for Facebook’s whole range of posting options from simple text posts to interactive live streams.

When brands are tagged, Facebook provides marketers with the ability to quantify the reach and ROI for sponsoring influencer posts. A brand’s marketers can view their marketing metrics such as reach and unique engageements on individual posts and are given the option to boost or share branded content to extend customer interaction possibilities.

For example, a brand might approach an individual social media influencer asking for a product promotion. Instead of paying the person via an independent interaction and then letting him promote the brand, companies pay through Facebook’s new platform, and the influencer would tag the page for the company using the new handshake icon.

As you can see, the quick summary of a branded post’s reach includes key insights that are crucial to deciding whether or not to keep spending a brand’s marketing budget in a specific direction.

Who Benefits?

In short, everyone. Marketers are given wider options to promote their brands to new audiences, while influencers are given a clearer way to monetize their popularity, a method Instagram has already used effectively.

• Influencers are given new options to market themselves. It’s a sort of symbiotic relationship, really. Notable figures with verified profiles who previously had preferred other social platforms where making money off of their public image was simpler will now use Facebook more often.
• Marketers are able to better understand their reach with the Sponsor Tags feature. Facebook intends to make its platform more friendly to brands by expanding the parameters of their marketing ability and adding a toolkit that makes them able to harness the power of word-of-mouth in a major way.

In essence, Facebook has generated a ton of buzz with its new branded content policy. It fosters a more friendly environment for brands and marketers alike and facilitates marketing transactions that are clearly separated from other posts on the platform so that Facebook benefits, their B2C users benefit and the community benefits.

The post How Facebook is Changing the Marketing Game with Influencers appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Twitter’s CEO is proud to have made history in the recent elections. As the undisputed favorite news and social network of the future president, Twitter now enjoys a privileged status among social platforms in the USA, the world’s greatest superpower.

On Twitter, company-led consumer engagement depends on two things. One is the contents of a tweet no longer than 140 characters. The other is the reach of said tweet, which depends on the global marketing strategy, the types of influencers involved, and other such factors.

Focusing strictly on the first of these variables, namely the tweet itself, there are a few things to consider before you share information on Twitter with the intention to lure prospective customers. Being courteous is just one aspect of Twitter etiquette. Far more important is complying with the guidelines.

Here are three aspects of Twitter etiquette that many businesses mistakenly shrug off:

1. Full Disclosure

Whenever there are tweets that endorse your product based on the existence of a contest, a sweepstake, a promotion or a freebie, it’s your responsibility to check that they include a disclosure, even if you’re not the author. Something as simple as ‘#contest’ could keep the FTC at bay, so make sure you ask all participants to include it in their tweets. Likewise, if it’s your tweet and it makes reference to a person that’s been paid to take part in the advertisement, steer clear of FTC complaints with a simple tag the likes of #PaidAd.

2. Make Replies Public with @

A common Twitter faux-pas is to forget the @ in your replies. This limits the engagement of your consumers and makes your tweets feel disconnected.

3. Give Credit When You Retweet

Whether you intend to use a tweet to draw attention to your product or you’re simply expressing a personal opinion, you must give credit to the original author. To do so, remember to write your reply in the following format: ‘Retweet @author: original tweet’.

ASA, the UK’s advertising regulator, has been monitoring and policing online claims made by companies on Twitter and other social platforms since 2011. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), regulates US companies’ Twitter activites in much the same way. There are advertising regulators in many of the world’s countries, and they are starting to focus on Twitter alongside other forms of media.

The importance of complying with current guidelines and policies is becoming more apparent by the day. While there are regulators who can monitor online business activities on social media platforms, it’s still the duty of all Twitter users to familiarize themselves and to teach others what online etiquette is and how it applies to business.

The post Twitter Etiquette for a Sound Social Media Marketing Strategy appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

What does Zuckerberg’s denial reveal about content marketing? Not only that hoaxing is a profitable endeavor for people who engage in it, like the self-appointed hoaxing guru who claims to have paved the way for Donald Trump’s electoral win, but also that the masses should and probably will be more careful with their fact-checking.

A recent Buzzfeed article claims fake news engagement nearly tripled in the quarter prior to the election, while objective mainstream news saw nearly half of its normal engagement. You may say that with Trump’s knack for saying outrageous things and Clinton’s perceived frostiness, it’s no wonder that fake news started springing up like mushrooms.

Considering that Facebook, Amazon and other online giants are gatekeepers to a vast amount of information, it should come as no surprise that there have always been outcries against their management of this data. Every other year, some of the largest e-commerce and social groups are asked to step up to the plate and reconsider their privacy policies. Just last year Wired released another story discussing poor big data management practices.

Fake News is Losing Ground

Never before have the masses been so vehement about the effect that content marketing has when it’s unchecked and unrestricted. Content marketing brings with it a range of responsibilities. Whether products are promoted on a website, a social platform or by word of mouth, companies and the platforms they choose for their marketing will soon become accountable for their marketing efforts.

Let’s all agree to disagree, find a way to fact-check before we publish and find ways to teach readers what critical thinking is. Unless we have something to hide, there’s no reason not to empower customers to discern between good and bad, between worthy and irrelevant. After all, what good is a product if we need to use underhanded tactics to promote it?

Unfortunately for marketers, this will be hard to do. Save from actively criticizing a competitor’s product, there really aren’t that many ways to ensure that there’s fairness in content marketing. Still, this is undoubtedly the dawn of an era where online scrutiny will become the best way to distance oneself and one’s products from companies with damaging business practices.

The post Facebook, Fake News and the Dawn of Online Scrutiny appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Are You Being Human?

Using a company-branded voice, quite frankly, has an omniscient quality that could be deterring readers from commenting. Let your readers know you’re human and not merely some nameless company entity that handles the Twitter or Facebook account. Who are you? Readers will be better able to connect when they feel that their interaction is with a human being and not a generic business voice.

Ask Questions

Although you may think that your blogs and social media posts invite comments, you might need to take a more direct approach and ask questions or even, if it comes down to it, ask for comments. Let’s say you’re an energy company and you frequently publish helpful informative blogs for your readership like how they can save money on energy bills during the winter. Try a variation on the topic and come out and ask your readership to share what they do to save money on energy costs. In the meantime, you can link back to that old post on the topic while generating some lively discussion.

Try a Content Makeover

No one wants to think their content is boring, but we’ve all snored—or scrolled quickly—through unexciting blog entries (certainly not this one) and social media posts. By making over your content, you could elicit more responses from your readership. How do you do this? You could (get ready for a shameless plug) hire a professional writer to revamp your content for you. A fresh voice could add more color and excitement to your entries. You could create more interest by inserting anecdotes into the content and avoiding topics that are overtly dry.

Be Opinionated

While there are a number of bloggers out there who will advise other bloggers to be controversial to elicit comments, that’s not always possible for businesses that don’t want to alienate anyone. Even so, if your blogs routinely lack opinion, they begin to sound like company speak—a homogenized chunk of text that has had all its metaphorical teeth removed by multiple company censors so that it reads more like a manual and less like a personable conversation starter. There’s nothing overtly wrong in stating an opinion about topics within the sphere of your company—provided you’re tactful.

Comment Back

When your blog or social media posts do receive comments, it’s important to comment back. Discussion is a give and take process, so you have to reward interaction with more interaction. Moreover, people actually appreciate when they’re comment has been read and generates a real response from the post’s author.

If you can incorporate these tips into your blogging and social media platform, you’re likely to stir up more conversation. Remember, too, that generating traffic is key, so ensure that you continually build your readership with timely posts filled with meaningful content.

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The post Hearing Crickets? Here’s How to Elicit More Blog and Social Media Comments appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

It’s the move that took everyone by surprise: Facebook went from social to shopping. For many who have no other means of trading their products locally, this is wonderful news. But how will this change the online social and shopping experience of 1.71 billion active monthly users? And what about businesses? Will it undermine content marketing efforts and push Facebook users to undertake more convenient transactions locally?

The Evolution of the Marketplace

Facebook Marketplace, an online platform for people buying and selling locally, was launched this month in Australia, New Zealand, UK and the USA. Currently available on the mobile app, the platform is due to become available on the desktop version within weeks. A shopping-specific app will also be launched in the next few days.

The official announcement, released on Oct. 3, 2016 claims that it’s trying to tap into a new customer base. That’s the 450 million people who use buy and sell groups every month. Yet Facebook Marketplace had been available to users since May 2007. Two years later, a new version powered by Oodle was featured in the Applications tab. It enabled users to create classified ads that could be seen by people they knew from their Facebook Groups.

Filling that Void

So, why is the social media platform making this bold move, and re-branding itself in the process? Seemingly because peer-to-peer shopping platforms always seem to lack one thing. In the case of eBay, it’s real-time communication. In the case of Craigslist, it’s sociability.

More convenient than an e-commerce platform like eBay, Facebook Messenger enables users to chat in real time with the sellers prior to making their offer. Alternatively, they can send their initial offer and haggle right away, if the sellers are online.

So, instead of frantically trying to outbid other eBay users and hoping that they have the best bid after days of waiting, buyers can reach an agreement within seconds. Of course, some eBay listings feature a bid button that works in much the same way, except the seller is notified of the offer by email.

Secondly, far more child-friendly than Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace does not feature personal ads. It also enables buyers to connect with the sellers, to communicate, and to even see the sellers and the products at work in real-time via messenger. The transparency, the safety and the friendliness that a simple messenger can facilitate are obvious. And their value in a transaction are not to be underestimated.

The Drawbacks Described

Unlike eBay, this marketplace doesn’t allow seller and buyer to rate each other’s input in the transaction. Also, the listing process is rushed and amateurish, making the platform a breeding ground for listing inaccuracies. This, in turn, is bound to affect customer satisfaction. But since there’s no way for buyers to review products, that may not be so terrible for Facebook just yet.

Project Partners

Within weeks of the launch, Paypal announced that it will soon be rolling out its payment option for Facebook Marketplace users in the USA. At the moment, Marketplace doesn’t feature native payment, but it accepts debit card payments.

Users will be able to link their Paypal and Facebook accounts at the checkout, receiving instant notifications in Messenger as well. With Uber and Braintree teaming up with Facebook recently to allow users to book and pay their cab fares via messenger, this rounds off a very nice package.

Effect on Business

Unfortunately for businesses currently marketing their products on Facebook or selling them outright on eBay, Facebook Marketplace poses a serious threat. But let’s not underestimate their power to adapt. There’s virtually nothing stopping them from adapting their content marketing strategies in this context.

One option for them would be to sell returned, refurbished and reconditioned items on Facebook Marketplace rather than dispose of them. Another would be to use Facebook Marketplace as a means of attracting reviews on other websites that accept the opinions of those who bought elsewhere, such as Amazon.

The possibilities are endless, and it’s hard to estimate the long-term impact of Facebook Marketplace. One thing is certain, though: it gives buyers more options in terms of where to source and sell their goods, so that virtually everyone over the age of 18 can become an entrepreneur. And that opens up a Pandora’s box for large businesses that aren’t flexible enough to adapt.

The post Facebook Marketplace: Then, Now and Tomorrow appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

It is not uncommon for a small business to spend much of their budget on advertising. Even with a good product, it can be difficult to sell if the client base isn’t there. Writers and other freelance professionals deal with the same issue, except that instead of marketing a product, they are selling a service.

In 2014, advertisers spent $15.3 billion in social advertising. Interestingly, this amount is less than what many marketing executives spend on print or broadcast advertising and accesses an even larger market. It’s no wonder sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have become so popular among small business owners and freelance professionals.

Social Management Sites for More Efficient Marketing

With the creation of more and more social networking sites, it becomes important for you as a small business owner or freelancer to either choose a couple of platforms to use or find one place where you can manage all of your different social media platforms. Using only one platform minimizes your marketing efforts; as a freelancer, you need to expose your service to as many potential clients as possible.

Hootsuite is one of the more popular choices for managing your social media posts to best maximize your advertising efforts. In fact, it recently surpassed 15 million users globally and is being utilized by 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies. Hootsuite allow you to write messages and post them to your different accounts simultaneously or schedule them for some time in the future. It also provides data that can help you determine the viability of your marketing efforts.

Hootsuite is only one of the social management platforms available for marketing purposes. Others include

• Sprout Social
• Market Me Suite
• Sendible
• Socialbankers
• Crowdbooster

Which you choose to utilize will depend on your personal branding strategy and an intuitive idea of what kind of platform you are comfortable using. You should investigate them all thoroughly to see which would be a best fit for you.

Hiring an Outside Social Media Management Firm

While the above-mentioned management sites allow you to do the work of managing your social media on your own, there are a number of reasons you may want to consider paying these companies to manage your online presence:

You don’t have the time: The importance of social media management cannot be stressed enough. It is, however, time-consuming work to respond to online posts, monitor reviews on Yelp, and moderate discussion boards. You simply don’t have the time to focus on maintaining an online presence without giving up valuable work hours.

Cost: Inevitably you will consider hiring an employee or student to do the work for you. This is costly and comes with the risk of hiring someone who is not qualified for the position. In addition, you don’t have access to the advanced software that management companies have and would have to purchase the software out-of-pocket.

Expertise: Social media management companies know the marketing trends that are “in” right now and have the know-how to tailor your posts to focus on branding your product or service. They also have a more direct knowledge of optimization techniques to put your posts above the competition.

Managing your social media presence gives you the advantage of incorporating a variety of platforms and strategies into marketing your product or service.

The post Social Media Management: The New Marketing Trend appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

A Move for More Control

Following its advertisement moves globally, Coca-Cola is bringing control of social media marketing in-house, particularly in North America. It’s creating a centralized team of 55 staffers to manage social media profiles and activity for all of its soda brands, including Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and Fanta. The news of this shift comes on the heels of speculation that Pepsi is bringing social media control in-house and will work with third party companies on a project basis.

These moves to in-house social media marketing come at a time when control of brand messaging is more critical than ever. It’s easy for messages to become skewed as they skate across the web via shares, likes and comments, and some control over branding is critical for success whether you’re a small business or a giant cola conglomerate. You don’t have to write every word of social media marketing content yourself to exert control, but handing your Facebook or Twitter profile over to a third-party company and calling it a day might be a bad move for your brand.

Following Coca-Cola’s move, keep overall control of your social media in-house and work with freelancers or outside agencies to create brand-specific content, campaigns and messaging.

Engaging Consumers on an Emotional Level

Coca-Cola is also leveraging consumer emotions to boost social media engagement. Emotion-based marketing is nothing new for the brand. The 1971 “Buy the World a Coke” music campaign skyrocketed to success fueled by emotions, and the enduring popularity of the Coca-Cola polar bears also played on common emotions. The software brand is currently phasing in an empathy-based model on social media.

According to reports, Coca-Cola is using an AI-powered model that analyzes a variety of social media factors to predict emotional content. Test data from the brand’s social media marketing indicated that consumers were 26 percent more likely to view, share or engage with posts that were created based on insights regarding feelings about the Rio Olympics than similar posts that were not created with such insights in mind.

The lesson learned here is that real-time social media marketing is as essential to success as well-thought-out campaigns are. To rise above the cacophony of digital data, your business must engage in both, which means working with outside agencies to create top-notch campaigns and content. It also means exerting some in-house control and keeping up with the overall emotional trends of your target audience.

The post Following Coca-Cola’s Lead for Social Media Marketing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

To help build your brand using social media, implement the following tips into the mix:

Choose the Best Platform

With so many different social media platforms available today, you need to figure out which one is going to work the best for you. It all boils down to what type of business you have.

• B2B organizations will benefit most from LinkedIn. In fact, LinkedIn is over 250 percent more effective than Facebook or Twitter for generating leads.
• Facebook is an excellent platform for promoting any brand. In fact, more than 75 percent of all people in the US use this platform. If you are looking to advance your brand, you might want to start with Facebook.
• Google+ is aimed at men who are in the technology business. With 68 percent of all users being men, this is the ideal platform for someone who has a business targeted toward men.
• Pinterest is aimed at women. This is ideal for those who have a jewelry or clothing brand.

Social media ads have to be relevant, visual and include a call to action for them to be effective.

Content Has to be Sharable

Content is more important than ever when building your brand. When you have a solid brand, you need to focus on the content aspect of your website. Spend time going over what content is going to draw in the most views. Make sure your content supports your brand. If the content doesn’t relate to your brand and provide visitors with quality information, no one is going to want to share it on social media. Content should be engaging and draw people in to what your business has to offer.

Share Links as Much as Possible

Whenever you can, you should share a link to your website or social media page. The more you can share the links, the better chance you have of drawing visitors to your business. Add a link to your email signature, your business cards and anywhere else you can think of. Make sure your website has links to your social media pages as well.

Be Consistent

Consistency is crucial, especially when building your brand. You need a unique name and logo that markets your business in a way like never before. Finding something that people will instantly identify as being yours is a great way to build brand recognition. One logo should span across all of your marketing materials and social media platforms. The more people see your logo, the more it is going to be engrained into their brain.

By following the tips above, you can transform you brand and start building a solid reputation for yourself.

The post Don’t Ignore these Basics for Building a Successful Brand with Social Media appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

It is interactive in that as the video plays you can turn the device or move your finger within the video to explore every angle.

Facebook 360 has been described as the next evolution of the online video content. Marketers should pay attention to the new trend since it offers them unique opportunities. It offers new ways that one can boost their social media engagement.

1. It offers a different form of telling a story

With Facebook 360 the users get an immersive experience that they do not get with a typical video. The user has control over what they see it can be described as choose your own adventure.

This can be an excellent tool for the publishers that wish to deliver a rich media experience. They are able to give their audience a fully interactive look at your content.

2. Showcasing products

Facebook 360 offers an opportunity for companies to use the full potential of the technology to showcase their products. It can be a creative way to show the process your products go through.

It increases user engagement and it extends the reach of the message they wish to pass across.

3. Use it to promote destinations

This is one of the best applications of Facebook 360. In the hospitality and tourism industries, this technology can help them create experiences for the users.

The best thing about the technology is that even if you are on a limited budget you can use this technology. This has made it very popular among travel bloggers as well as you tubers.

Most of the time the viewers will put more trust in their opinion since they usually feel a personal connection.

4. Sharing adventures

Most people do not have the skills to do some activities, but they are curious how it feels to experience the adventures. It allows the viewer to be part of an incredible experience.

Even though Facebook 360 is relatively new, its use is rapidly growing due to the content versatility and the high level of user engagement.

The post Facebook 360: What It Is and How It Could Help Online Marketers appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

However, there is a line of thought today that Twitter is a dying cause for content marketers and that content marketers should move on to bigger and better things.

The major basis of this line of though is that Twitter growth has stagnated in recent years. Between 2015 and 2016, the numbers of monthly active Twitter users has remained relatively stable at between 304 and 310 million.

And even before that growth since 2013 has been slow. If new users are not joining Twitter, then many people think the next event to occur is that Twitter users will give up and move on to other, newer social media options that are more trendy and exciting.

The question is, will this happen? And should content marketers move on to a bigger and better cause?

The reality is more complicated than a simple predicted trend. While Twitter user growth may have plateaued, this does not mean that it is the beginning of the end by any means. In fact, Twitter and the NFL recently announced a streaming partnership for Thursday night football.

This exclusive partnership is a sign that Twitter is nowhere near finished and content marketers should not be so quick to dismiss the power that Twitter still has to disseminate content and build an audience.

Of course, there are some causes for concern that Twitter may be a problematic content marketing choice because it may put too much focus on engagement with irrelevant audiences.

Twitter has the ability to take a single tweet and make it go viral, meaning that is spreads all across the internet and reaches a huge audience.

The issue is whether or not this translates to an increase in sales. And this is where content marketers may have a problem.

The correlation between Twitter engagement and actual sales is difficult to track. You may have thousands of re-tweets on Twitter but only a slight uptick in sales (or even none at all).

Twitter can be a difficult content marketing option to justify spending time on for this fact alone. Other sites may offer better tracking metrics and a more tangible correlation between sales and engagement.

Now that you better understand the issues pertaining to content marketing and the use of Twitter, you can decide for yourself and your business whether or not Twitter is where you want to focus your marketing efforts.

Do you use Twitter to promote your work or your business? Let me know in the comments section below.

The post Twitter and Content Marketing: Dying or Holding Strong? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Where there used to just be a simple thumbs up icon, you may now see a variety of smiley faces, or even a heart. These new icons are part of the Facebook Reactions that Facebook recently rolled out.

New Icons?

Even if you do frequent Facebook regularly, it is very possible that this review is the first you have heard of Facebook Reactions. The reason is that it isn’t immediately apparent how to use the new options if it hasn’t been explained to you, because the user interface hasn’t changed.

The old “like” button appears on every post, but there aren’t obvious buttons to produce the other reactions.

In order to do anything other than like a post, you have to hover over the “like” button until a pop up menu gives you other options.

Facebook Reactions In-Depth

Facebook Reactions increase the ways you can non-verbally respond to a post. In addition to being able to like a post, you can now also express shock (wow), anger, love, sadness, and even laugh at a post.

There are some limits to this new system, though.

First, you can not express multiple reactions for a post. You can change your reaction, if you want, but you simply can’t laugh and love at the same time.

Second, Facebook Reactions only apply to the initial post. Comments are still restricted to simply being liked or not.

Third, only the top three reactions (ordered by number of reactions given) are visible on the post. Anyone who can read the post can click on the reactions to get a more complete accounting of how many of each type of reaction was given and who gave each reaction type.

Where is the Dislike Button?

Simply put, there isn’t a dislike button. Mark Zuckerberg announced in 2014 that Facebook would never include a dislike button, because he doesn’t think such a button is a force for social good and doesn’t want to see posts getting demeaned on Facebook in that way.

Bullying Concerns

Facebook reactions were released worldwide on February 24th, 2016, which happens to coincide with Anti-Bullying Day in Canada.

This is rather appropriate because there are some concerns that the new system could be used for bullying. Whether this concern is merited has yet to be seen.

There are some who believe that Facebook Reactions can actually be used to fight bullying. And while Facebook hasn’t made any direct statements on the matter beyond those made when referencing a potential “dislike” button, at least one part of the feature does seem to combat bullying.

Since only the top three reactions are visible on any post, even if a few individuals do give inappropriately negative reactions to a post (like anger on a happy post), those reactions are likely to be hidden from view by the positive reactions.

Additionally, at least in the first 24 hours, the system doesn’t seem to be getting abused yet. On one of the most abused Facebook pages in history, Feminist Frequency, not a single person has yet to post an “angry” response to any post.

Final Analysis

It is too early to tell for sure whether Facebook Reactions will become popular, but the initial response by Facebook users shows a lot of excitement.

The system has been thoroughly tested for months in other countries, so hopefully the bugs are fully worked out.

Even if interest fades, the flexibility of Facebook Reactions is sure to increase the overall value of Facebook for private and commercial users alike.

What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments section below!

The post Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Facebook Reactions appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Here’s how you can up your content game and leverage the best of digital marketing.

1. Invest in Content

Not all companies have multi-million dollar marketing budgets, but the good news is that you don’t necessarily need a large budget to do content marketing right. I always recommend that my clients invest in quality writing.

Why?

Because great content is worth every dollar you spend.

With relevant content comes rewards such as increased engagement, increased website traffic, and ideally, increased leads. Content is an investment that has the potential for high reward.

2. Develop a Rhythm

We’ve all seen it. Companies that either spam you each day with their nonstop social media posts or companies we check out and see the last time they posted was July 2013.

Don’t be either of these.

From my experience, business owners are already at their max. Asking them to commit to posting regularly on social media seems like the most daunting task. That’s why I recommend utilizing the power of scheduling programs.

Programs such as HootSuite and Sprout Social can change your life. Crowd Content even has a handy Hootsuite integration, so you can schedule posts that were created by your writing team.

Set aside some time each week to schedule your social content. Mix this in with daily monitoring and responses and you’re set.

Learn More: Social Influencer Marketing: A Must-Have Or a Waste of Time

Twitter Facts

According to Twitter, there are over 330 million monthly active users, averaging 500 million tweets per day. If you’re only tweeting once per day, the chances of your target audience seeing your content is minimal.

The social experts at Buffer recommend posting three times a day on Twitter. After three, tweets, you may see a decrease in audience engagement.

3. Always Review and Make Changes

The most amazing thing about digital media is that everything is in real-time. Traditional advertising left you stuck with an ad that was under-performing with a high price tag.

Digital media lets you see exactly how people are responding to your content as soon as you post it. Not liking the way your latest Facebook ad is performing? Pull it and start over.

The majority of clients that I have worked with say that switching from traditional print advertising to digital has not only increased business leads, it’s actually saved them money in the long run.

According to CMO Council, 28 percent of marketers have actually reduced their advertising budgets in 2015 all thanks to digital marketing.

Goodbye pricey print ads!

Keep Reading: Three Brands That Are Killing It On Social Media, and What You Can Learn From Their Success

4. Be Patient

Content marketing is the best investment you can make in your digital marketing strategy, but engagement and growth does not necessarily happen overnight.

Stick with it. Consistency is key in your strategy.

The post A Social Media Consultant’s Take on Digital Marketing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Maybe you’re great at writing and curating awesome social media posts but if you have a hard time getting even one post per day it’s time to reconsider your process.

Especially if you’re producing rich content, like videos, podcasts or blog posts, your audience wants to know that they can count on you to push out useful or entertaining stuff at regular intervals—links to your Thursday afternoon Youtube video or to your daily blog post at 8am.

If your crazy schedule doesn’t let you market your brand or content regularly, it’s time to start automating your posts.

Today’s best automation tools work like an editorial calendar for journalists, helping to plan when stories go out so they reach the target audience at the right time. But these tools—which are often free—go a step further by hooking up with your social channels to post the content for you at the time you’ve chosen.

Automation gets the job done

When you’re not online, automation tools are busy running on their own so that your accounts don’t flatline while you’re on that silent yoga retreat in a mud hut on the back of a turtle floating through the universe.

Automation helps you market better

Another great thing about these tools is that they let you repeat the same or similar messages for a campaign. If you want to advertise your upcoming webinar or event, you should be pushing that message out regularly, up until the date.

These tools will help you schedule a whole batch of upcoming messages about the thing you’re trying to sell so you can plan how often and at what time the campaign posts go out.

Measure and tweak you campaign on-the-fly

And when you’ve created your posting schedule for the day, week or month, yo u can always edit it. Let’s say that first tweet went out and got 10 re-tweets but the second tweet got no love.

You can view the stats per post using the automation program and then change up the wording or the timing of the upcoming tweets so they have a better chance of getting traction.

One last thing before you automate away: don’t think that automation has to be robotic. Authenticity in your content is always going to show through. Add color, add personality and don’t ever allow your brand to lose it’s voice.

What automation tools have you tried and why do you love them?

The post Why Putting Social Media on Auto Pilot Works appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

What do people see, read and perceive in the first seven seconds when they come across your Twitter bio?

That first glance could make or break your brand. It’s the difference between whether someone follows, or clicks in another direction. Be boring or leave the space blank and your Twitter bio could be driving customers away. The mantra to be repeating as you create (or re-create) your bio is now this: Always be attracting.

The post How to Build a Powerful Twitter Bio appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Start Small But Exciting

Fans of the original “Star Wars” trilogy understand this concept. The first conflict in the original movie was the capture of Princess Leia. Her rescue mission was rather easy to accomplish, but incredibly engaging. It was only due to the completion of that mission that greater conflicts were revealed.

Social media content marketing should work the same way. Social media is designed to express compact ideas, between the 140 character limit of Twitter to the way Facebook only shows the first few lines of long posts. If you try to sidestep these limitations, you are using social media the wrong way. Embrace the format for what it is when posting to social media.

Sharp, witty, exciting, and engaging posts on social media attract attention. And if the posts are amusing, exciting, or powerful enough, your audience will share them with others. By starting with small ideas that attract attention, you help build an audience that will be receptive to larger posts in the future.

Diversify

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when creating a social media plan is focusing on only a single social media platform. While Facebook continues to hold the lead in social media network usage, that lead is shrinking. Networks like Twitter, Google+, and Instagram all also have hundreds of millions of active users.

More important than statistics, though, is the fact that social media users tend to be aggressively attached to their networks. If you don’t support a social media network, you are likely alienating potential customers or clients.

Make Employees Part of Your Plan

Customers and clients love interacting with employees on social media, because it makes them feel like they better understand your business. Not only should you permit employee generated content on social media, but you should encourage and reward it.

If employees are engaging in a running dialogue with your social media audience, that audience is more likely to return in the future.

Keep Up the Pace

Once you have managed to build momentum, it is just as critical that you maintain it. If your social media presence doesn’t keep up with the level of interest that you have created, that interest will begin to fade.

Maintaining momentum means dedicating resources to your social media plan that streamline your social media content. If you don’t streamline, the value gained from your social media plan will be counteracted by the increased costs of maintaining that plan.

The post How to Create a Social Media Plan That Builds Momentum appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

As potential followers and supporters visit different boards, they tend to spend more time on those that are organized and those that have a personal touch to them.

These four tips will help you organize your Pinterest pages and boards to gain followers and interest quickly.

1. Separate Business and Personal Pinterest Accounts

When the page is for business or promotional purposes, it is ideal to keep personal interests on a different profile. It is confusing for followers to distinguish between what the company is about when these two elements are combined.

2. Making Pins Informational

The categories on a promotional page should only pertain to the type of business the company is and the products it offers. Of course, a promotional board is also a good idea to have too. Pinterest can be informational with an about or history section with information and photos telling the company’s story.

3. Choosing Category Headlines and Inclusions

The category headlines chosen on Pinterest do make a big difference in increasing followers.

Generic topics like “Quick Meal Ideas” or “Rainy Day Crafts for Kids” lead content browsers to believe that they’ll see the same items that they’ve seen on dozens of other pages.

Choose words like custom, unique, one-of-a-kind, revolutionary and new to describe the categories so that people know you have something different to offer.

Include product categories, production processes and a section introducing upcoming or new products. It is vital to use photos of the actual items offered by the company and not generic, stock photos. Showing followers the actual product gains more trust within the brand and/or product.

4. Include Your Own Words

Rather than just repinning from others’ profiles, it is ideal to save pictures and add your own descriptions. This makes the pin less generic and shows followers that you do care about the quality of the content shared on your boards.

Pinterest continues to gain popularity within the social media world. Food and wellness posts tend to gain the most popularity as busy families search for quick meal options and cheap home remedies for common illnesses.

Make sure that your Pinterest page is offering something different to gain interest. Also, be sure to keep the categories current. As products are discontinued or sold out, it is ideal to remove them.

The post How to Organize Your Business Pinterest Profile appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Spam has been a serious issue. New laws are continuously being introduced with the aim of reducing spam or eliminating it outright. Different than spam, though not without its similarities, are blended tweets and posts that engage users in a pleasant way, which they consent to, because it offers something of value to them.

On Twitter

There are several techniques that users on Twitter employ to gain more followers. The most important thing, at a very basic level, is to offer at least some real content. Tweet about interesting and intelligent topics. Controversy can be good, but discretion and good judgment are always advised.

One method that is commonly used to gain followers is to tweet hashtags like #FF or #PleaseFollow combined with a list of Twitter usernames. On first sight, these tweets seem very cryptic to the uninitiated. There is, however, some sense behind it all. The person sending the tweet is looking for attention and to gain followers.

The people with their names on the list have indicated publicly that they would like attention in the form of gaining more followers in their own tweets. The person sending the tweet has recognized this trait among a group of Twitter followers and has deduced that they will be agreeable to having their Twitter name in a list because it will help them gain followers.

Other Twitter users who see these lists and understand the purpose of them often re-tweet them, signaling that they too would like to gain followers.

Some Twitter users like Bobbi Dickson, @MisterSalesman, regularly tweet twenty or thirty lists in a short period. They regularly refresh the entries on the lists and expand them as they find more users. Bobbi Dickson has gained over 75,000 Twitter followers using this technique and is highly popular on the social network, with many passionate fans. Bobbi also regularly tweets and retweets about other users writing, artwork and websites.

Share Fellow Users’ Content

Another technique that Bobbi Dickson, as well as Twitter user Eric B. Thomasma, @seams16, who has over 18,000 followers, use, is choosing content by other Twitter users that they like and sharing it with their followers. Some share content by re-tweeting.

Others compose entire unique tweets and sometimes reviews and artwork celebrating the work of other Twitter users. The simple act of copying and pasting a Twitter user’s short biography and tweeting to your followers goes a very long way in expressing goodwill and gaining followers in return.

Follow Back

There are differing opinions on the subject, but following just about anyone that follows you is one of the best ways to keep a steady flow of new Twitters followers running. There are some Twitter accounts maintained by users that like to tweet about porn or drugs; the amount of necessary discretion is advised when choosing who to follow and relies on personal tastes.

But in general, if they aren’t offensive, follow them back if they follow you. If you’re Warren Buffett or Fifty Cent, this doesn’t apply to you. Everyone else, especially business owners, should follow back everyone who has taken the time to follow them. It literally takes two seconds and creates unknowable opportunities.

The post Twitter User Engagement Techniques to Gain Followers appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Between business web pages, blogs, online newsletters, and the glut of new social media options, the available content marketing options are nearly limitless.

Unfortunately, there are also a growing number of hindrances to content marketing like the Google Panda update or various Facebook algorithm updates.

If the latter have hindered your content marketing attempts on Facebook, consider the following content tips.

The Facebook Algorithm Dilemma

If you have ever refreshed your Facebook page, you probably noticed that the stories in your news feed changed slightly. Some new ones appeared and others disappeared.

This is because Facebook uses an advanced algorithm to determine your individual feed. This algorithm is designed to show you posts that Facebook believes will interest you.

While the algorithm is inexplicably complex, in terms of pure numbers, the effect of this algorithm is that whenever you post, only about 6% of your friends or followers see your post.

This is frustrating for content marketing because it means your message isn’t reaching much of your audience.

Using Images to Circumvent The Algorithm

Building social media into your marketing is an effective way to better engage your audience. This makes it important to try to improve the reach of your Facebook posts. One of the simplest ways to improve your reach is to market with images.

Facebook gives higher priority to images on news feeds, especially photo albums of images. Images are most effective when they can express a message without your audience having to read the comment section.

For facebook, where memes are particularly possible, consider using a meme generator site to create images that will engage your audience.

Beyond Facebook

Facebook isn’t the only social media site where images will help improve your content marketing. Images are particularly effective at reaching disparate audience on popular image sites like Pinterest or Instagram. Avoid sites like Twitter, though, where you audience needs to click a link to actually see the image.

The extra step defeats the purpose of using images in the first place.

The post Social Media Content Tip: Use Images to Get More Reach appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

The sites that get massively popular don’t always stay that way, and there are plenty of sites just waiting to take the places of the ones that start to wane .

When you are using social media to market your content, this can make it tempting to use every possible social media site available in order to do that marketing.

Saving Time by Focusing

In the past, using seven or eight social sites for that marketing was common advice to reach a wide audience. Now? More and more of the experts are cutting the fat and getting rid of some of the lesser sites in order to focus on one or two larger ones.

Instead of spending most of your time updating site after site and trying to build a following on all of them, the best advice today is to choose one or two sites and give those your attention.

With more attention paid to a few sites, you can better create a presence than if you dilute your marketing time with every site that comes along.

The Ultimate Goal

When you are marketing your content through social media, the social media itself shouldn’t be the focus of what you do. It’s only a carrier of your message. By simplifying and focusing your social media marketing,  you will keep it easier for people to find what it is that you’re actually marketing.

If someone were to search for what you do, would you want them to find pages of search engine results that are full of social media entries, or do you want them to find your website?

Building a Following

Building a following on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter or another social media site that you’ve taken a liking to take time and effort. Diluting your marketing time by trying to build this following on many sites can lead to unfinished profiles and halfhearted communications with your followers.

But with social media focus, you can begin to cultivate real interest in what you post by communicating with other users and thoughtfully posting about your content. The effort you put into just a couple of sites can pay off long term as you drive traffic to your site indefinitely.

The post Cut the Clutter: Focusing Your Social Media Marketing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

This is a long-standing fact in the freelancing world; posting to a collective site where others can easily share your post is the hottest new “word of mouth” advertising available.

As a tool, there are ways to use it effectively and a few simple ways to make it work better for every blog post you create, increasing your readership.

1. Use Optimal Share Times

This tip comes first because it is most important. Marketers have researched the best time to share content, and as a blogger, you should be taking advantage of this research.

Many bloggers use trial and error to discover the best time to post, but a combination of pre-built research combined with personal research is the best way to discover when your friends are most likely to share content you’ve posted.

2. Tailored Posts

This tip works twofold – tailor the posts to the audience on the social media site, as well as to the specific site. Some sites are more formal while others are more laid back, as are the people that use them.

Consider the blog post, its content, and where it would benefit the most people. Look over your friends’ list as well; are these people the type that would enjoy this content?

Perhaps there is another social media outlet that would accept the content faster. Posts should always be tailored to audience and forum.

3. Post More Than Once

Use this suggestion with caution.  Over posting anything will turn the audience off to all posts. However, there’s no reason to not share more than once. Posting a blog article more than once will increase traffic as more people have a chance to see the post.

Time the double posts, however; perhaps consider an early morning and late night posting. You’ll reach the early birds and the night owls.

4. Ask for Feedback

Don’t be shy – ask your audience what they love about your writing. If you think your writing is great but no one else likes it, it will go nowhere. We all love what we’ve written, and as writers, we are giving a piece of ourselves away.

However, if we want the attention that turns into revenue, we must bite the bullet and ask our audience what makes them pay attention to us. Adjust as necessary in response to the comments.

5. Test it Out

A/B testing is very popular in social media tests, so go ahead and use a popular post to test your audience. Rework the post to test if certain language or topics work better or worse for your audience. Paired with feedback, testing in an A/B fashion will help you understand where your writing should be going.

Remember that time is n important factor in this type of testing, as is the posting strategies mentioned above.

How will you improve your social strategy? What improvements have you already made that are working for you? Let us know in the comments below!

The post 5 of the Best Ways For Your Article to Grab Attention on Social Media appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

A good social media campaign should let a follower know that you understand their perspective and can offer something small that adds to their day.

Let’s take a look at some social media content tips that might help you and your followers have a better experience.

Follow the Conversation

Social media offers people the chance to participate in a larger conversation, and it’s important that whatever content you produce is a meaningful part of the conversation that your followers are having.

There are a variety of social media tools that allow you to get a better handle on what type of conversation you should be trying to have with your brand’s followers.

Once you have a clear idea of what that conversation is, you can craft your social media posts to be more relevant and attractive to readers.

Maintain a Sensible Pace

One of the most important social media content tips to keep in mind during any campaign is to not wear out your welcome.

Always remember that you’re a guest on a follower’s feed and that it’s simply poor form to bombard readers with constant posts about your brand.

Your social media presence is never more than one “unfollow” click away from disappearing from a follower’s life forever.

There are tools that allow you to maintain a reasonable pace of posting on social media. Many social media campaigns rely upon HootSuite to keep up a regular pace.

These types of tools are very helpful when you’re concerned about staying in the conversation while also not overstaying your welcome.

Keep Current

Social media conversations are heavily driven by current events. Just as a brick-and-mortar store has to pay attention to the changing seasons, social media campaigns have to stay out in front of the changing conversation.

It’s always a good idea to have a few go-to posts ready for appropriate times of the year.

For example, a clothing website can drive a lot of traffic and sales with a post about fall fashion ideas, color co-ordination and current trends. A few properly researched posts accompanied with appropriate links can go a long way.

The post How to Craft Social Media Content Your Audience Will Love appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

What does this mean for small businesses? Right now, it means absolutely nothing since the Facebook-owned site is handpicking the companies it allows to advertise in an effort to focus on images by well-known brands and businesses that can afford to produce high-quality photos.

However, it’s not too early for any type of business to get ready for the possibilities of advertising on Instagram or take advantage of existing marketing opportunities available through the site.

What You Can Do to Get Ready Now

Like established social media giants Facebook and Twitter, it’s a safe bet to assume that Instagram will allow other businesses to advertise on the visual social network. The concern on the part of the powers that be at Instagram, apparently, is that advertisers will opt for stock photos and lower-quality images that distract from user-uploaded content.

Instagram is looking for businesses that already have a significant social presence. To get ready now, establish yourself up as a reliable source of post-worthy images.

Mix Original Photos Into Your Content

If you take a look at Pinterest, a visual-based site similar to Instagram, you’ll notice that original photos, even the clearly staged ones, generate more interest than recycled stock images. This doesn’t mean that you have to hire a professional photographer. Even a good cellphone camera can take decent pictures.

While you can usually get away with using some stock art, it’s a good idea to stick to original photos to attract more interest across your existing online marketing platforms.

Marketing with Instagram

Just because Instagram is picking and choosing the businesses that can advertise on the social site right now it doesn’t mean that you can’t use it for marketing purposes. There are already millions of active users on Instagram browsing photos and contributing their own photos and images. Effective marketing with Instagram should include:

• Creating a Profile – Since November 2012, web-based users have been able to create a profile. In terms of SEO, this is a good thing for marketing since it gives you some text to work with in addition to the brief captions you can add to images.

• Engaging Your Audience – Simply ask your followers from your other social platforms to upload photos or images related to a contest with a common hashtag. This is a way to invite participation and establish your brand name without hitting people with a sales pitch.

As with other visual-based sites, the marketing possibilities are nearly endless. You can easily post photos to promote an upcoming event or upload photos of happy customers at your place of business or using your products.

The more creative you are, the more interest you’re sure to generate. As long as your relevant areas of text are optimized for search engines, you’re likely to find interested browsers.

Even though you can’t advertise on Instagram unless you’re selected by the site, you can incorporate the social network into your online marketing efforts right now. Remember that people tend to want to share images more than plain text. The more ways you can visually get your message across, the more of an impact you’re likely to have on the very same consumers you want to attract.

The post Marketing Visually with Instagram and Maybe Advertising Soon? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Character building is directly related to your brand. If you take time to build character that interests your audience, you’re likely to see related results such as increased traffic and more conversions.

Stay Positive

Regardless of what your competitors are doing, you have a better shot at building character if you stay positive and rise above any negativity. Everything you do online related to your business doesn’t have to be about selling something.

You build online character by finding a way to put a positive spin on various issues related to your business. If, for instance, third quarter profits are down, you could post a statement about your expectations for a forth quarter rebound.

Staying positive could also include:

• Ignoring negative attacks by competitors
• Posting a funny or inspirational video and relating it to your business in some way
• Encouraging customers to support a local charity or community event
• Adopting a relevant social cause such as participating in Breast Cancer Awareness Month or supporting an anti-bullying campaign

Be Knowledgeable and Credible

One sure fire way to build character online is to be thought of as a source of information. This is directly related to reputation, but it also says something about your character if you take time to put out useful information without the clear expectation of getting leads or generating revenue in the process.

Being knowledgeable could include:

• Posting “how to” videos
• Answering customer questions left as comments or feedback
• Joining the discuss on related blogs

Letting Others Speak for You

Build character by letting others speak for you with real testimonials sprinkled throughout your various platforms, especially on your website. If you’re going to use testimonials, make sure you use the exact words of the customer, except for minor editing for readability.

There’s something genuine about other people extolling your virtues rather than tooting your own horn.

Using Your Influence

By using your influence to educate the public about certain issues within your industry or relevant social issues, you’re creating a positive brand association. At the same time, you’re boosting your character in a way that doesn’t come across as blatant marketing.

You may encourage others to pass information you provide on to friends or simply encourage others to do a good deed for someone else.

A classic example is from the movie Miracle on 34th Street when Macy’s Santa tells customers where to get the best deals, even if it’s not at Macy’s. The overriding purpose is for the greater good of the public, which in turn reflects your character.

There’s a lot of information out there for consumers to take in at once. This includes many marketing messages found just about everywhere online. What sets you apart from your competitors, other than obvious features such as price and the customer service you provide, is the character you establish.

Just as it takes time to build a solid reputation, it also takes time for customers to get an idea of what defines your brand. It’s an investment that’s often well worth it.

The post How to Build Character that Builds Your Business appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Chief among these is the fact that it allows a company to demonstrate authority, which enhances customer trust and ultimately results in conversions. Content marketing needn’t be a zero-sum game. By promoting other brands’ content, one can bolster their own and become a thought leader that people respect.

Content Curation Defined

Even though many people are at least casually familiar with the term content curation, most lack a basic understanding of what it is and how it works. Broadly speaking, a curator selects a coherent array of quality content out of the massive daily flow of information on the Internet to display to their readership.

Much like a museum curator deciding on which artifacts to display in a certain collection, a content curator arranges articles, infographics and more that revolve around a central theme.

Why It Helps Your Own Content

Many are of the opinion that steering traffic towards other sites is a bad idea. After all, search engine algorithms can actually punish sites with too many outgoing links and it’s usually best to keep visitors on your own site if possible.

However, you can leverage the content of others to enhance your own by giving your followers what they’re looking for most. By doing so, you build a reputation for helping out readers no matter what. Hopefully, those that you’ve helped will help you by consuming your content and eventually patronizing your business.

Establishing Niche Authority

The primary goal of curation is to position yourself as a taste maker and thought leader capable of influencing the masses. Social media platforms like Google+, Facebook and Twitter give ordinary folk the ability to dominate conversations by doing nothing more than promoting interesting content.

You can easily do the same and boost your brand’s notoriety on the web. By establishing your web profiles as the go-to spots for the latest news in your industry, you can create a rabid digital following that’s bound to skyrocket sales.

Getting Down to Business

Climbing to the top of the pile in your specific niche using content curation isn’t tough if you’re proactive and publish prolifically. Long story short, find the best content you can in your niche no matter what form it takes and put it in front of your audience.

The easiest way to do this is by using social networks like Pinterest, Google+ and Facebook to broadcast to your following. Social networks allow you to segment your audience based on their interests and more accurately target them. In addition, social media enables you to rack up massive followings in a short period of time (if executed properly).

Turning Theory Into Reality

While content curation can produce impressive returns, crafting a winning strategy is more easily said than done. To get the most from content curation, you’ll have to make it more or less a full-time job.

Those that aren’t willing to devote a substantial portion of their own time to it should hire someone that knows the ins and outs of curation mechanics to oversee their campaigns. If you curate content intelligently, you’ll ensure that your own content and more importantly your brand get the recognition they deserve.

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The Crowd Content platform now lets you order Tweets or Facebook Posts from our stable of talented writers. We make it easy to get high quality social media messages that engage your audience and drive traffic to your website.

Highlights from this update include:

• Easily order the number of Tweets or FB Posts you need
• Tweets and FB Posts are priced per unit, so you only pay for what you need
• A sophisticated brief ensures writers get the right info about your brand to align messages with your brand
• Writers create Tweets and FB Posts through a special interface that controls character counts to ensure compliance with Twitter and Facebook
• Full integration with HootSuite – automatically send Tweets and FB Posts to HootSuite and then to social channels

Easy to Use, Transparent Pricing

The recent update makes it easy to order Tweets and Facebook Posts. Before, we noticed that many clients were ordering these social media messages through the normal order form.

Although this did work, it was clunky and required a good set of instructions to ensure the writers delivered what was needed. With the recent update, you now see the following options under Content Type when placing a new order:

• Custom – use this option for any content type other than Tweets or Facebook Posts
• Tweets
• Facebook Posts

If selecting Custom, you will see the normal order form and will still see cost per word pricing.

If you select Tweets or FB Posts, you will see unit pricing on a per Tweet or per FB Post basis.

Updated Order Brief and Quality Control Measures

When creating a Tweet or Facebook Post order, we display special options that allow you to provide writers with brand information. This ensures that your writers will create social media messages that engage your audience and align with your existing online presence.

For example, when ordering Tweets, special fields let you list your Twitter handle, competitor or example Twitter handles, and even hashtags that you want mentioned throughout your Tweets.

Maybe the best part of the recent update is that writers now create Tweets and Facebook Posts inside a special interface. The interface provides a separate input field for each social media message to be created.

The Crowd Content system counts and displays the characters for each message (seen above), allowing the writer to optimize the message for the appropriate platform. The system doesn’t even allow the writer to submit their content to the client if one or more messages have exceeded the appropriate character count.

Note: Requesting links in your Tweets? Don’t worry. We properly allocate 23 characters for each link, aligning with Twitter’s procedures when processing Tweets with links.

Fully Integrated with HootSuite – Just Click to Post!

As icing on the cake, our integration with HootSuite means that completed Tweets and FB Posts automatically appear on your HootSuite dashboard.

From the HootSuite dash, you can view all content from your Crowd Content account (not just Tweets or FB Posts). We take it even further by allowing you to actually place orders and request revisions from your HootSuite dash.

In other words, this integration is fully functional, allowing users to manage their Crowd Content account from the HootSuite dash or from the main Crowd Content site – it’s your choice.

To learn more about the HootSuite integration, read this announcement on our blog.

Jumpstart Your Social Media Strategy Today

These new features let you source engaging social media content from Crowd Content’s qualified writers and make it easy for you to publish that content to your social media networks.

Engage with a talented writer today who understands your niche. Remember, after sampling writers, it’s easy to work with your favorite writer(s) on an ongoing basis by using the Direct Order feature. When doing this, you effectively create a team of quality content writers that is an extension of your company.

As always, if you have questions or comments about the new features, please don’t hesitate to contact your dedicated Client Account Manager. Thanks!

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In recent years, companies of all sizes have developed a renewed interest in content marketing. Now a $43.9 billion industry, online content is a thriving sector of the e-commerce economy. Brands that allot 50% of their marketing budgets to content report better ROIs than those that don’t. Furthermore, B2B firms that blog regularly boast 67% more leads per month than their non-blogging counterparts. When crafting your own content, the following tools are extremely helpful.

1. Google Trends

Timely content is a key ingredient in any successful online marketing strategy. Figuring out what Internet users are searching for can be accomplished with web apps like the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, but they won’t really tell you anything about the relative popularity of competing topics. For that, you should use Google Trends to see what’s hot and more importantly what’s gaining traction with the general public.

2. Social Mention

Those looking for a “real-time social media search and analysis” tool should take a gander at Social Mention. It allows content marketers to gauge overall interest in various content pieces based on keywords on a variety of social media networks. In a nutshell, it enables you to quantify the effectiveness of content throughout the social media landscape at any given time. Better yet, you can set up alerts for various keywords based on popularity and reach.

3. Toluna

One of the best ways to brainstorm ideas for content is to rely on feedback from real world consumers. The main problem is getting reliable intelligence from your desired target demographics. A paid research service like Toluna can help you to cut right to the chase and discover what kinds of content your audience desires most. Toluna aggregates data from surveys to inform the results it ultimately delivers to customers.

4. Quora

Arguably one of the smartest social networks currently in existence, Quora can be a great place to find inspiration for new and unique content. The hardest part of content marketing is finding a question being asked by your followers that hasn’t yet been answered in a definitive manner. By perusing Quora’s extensive archives of Q&A posts, you can track down burning questions and research the best corresponding answers.

5. Facebook Graph Search

One of the most anticipated tools to hit the search world in recent years is Facebook’s Graph Search. Though fairly new, it has already demonstrated its potential to completely reshape social content marketing. Marketers of all stripes use it to illuminate the connections between followers based on shared interests. It highlights the topics and concerns that matter most to one’s core audience, allowing you to cater to that demand with highly specific content.

The Market Is Crowded

With so many companies rushing to leverage content marketing for their own ends, the field as a whole has become incredibly competitive. Consequently, many businesses are enlisting the help of content professionals to stay ahead of the game. At the moment, 62% of companies outsource their content marketing to some extent. If you need to get up to speed fast with content marketing, a few hired content guns may be the way to go.

The post 5 Killer Tools to Juice Your Content Marketing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

What’s even better, your completed content now automatically appears on your HootSuite dashboard. This allows you to distribute it across Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks in seconds.

Install the Crowd Content App at HootSuite

To get started, you need to connect your Crowd Content account with your HootSuite account.

If you don’t have a Crowd Content account, create one here.

If you don’t have a HootSuite account, create one here.

From the HootSuite dash, go to App Directory > Free Apps > Crowd Content and click Install.

After connecting your Crowd Content account with your HootSuite account, you will be able to manage your Crowd Content account from either HootSuite or from Crowd Content.

Enjoy Full Functionality from Your HootSuite Dashboard

The Crowd Content app at HootSuite is fully functional. You can do almost everything from the app that you can do from the main Crowd Content website, such as:

• Add funds to your account
• Place orders for Tweets, Facebook Posts or other content from Crowd Content’s writers
• Review drafts from writers and request revisions if necessary
• Accept and rate content orders
• Place Direct Orders with preferred writers
• View a Dashboard showing your recent activity

Distribute Content to Twitter, Facebook and Other Social Networks in Seconds

The best part about this integration is that all of your completed orders from your Crowd Content account will automatically appear on your HootSuite dashboard.

You can then simply click the “Share” button beside any completed content piece to share that content via Twitter, Facebook or any other social network supported by HootSuite.

More about HootSuite

A social media management system, HootSuite helps businesses and organizations collaboratively implement campaigns across social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ Pages and LinkedIn from a single secure, online dashboard. Some of their advanced functionality includes tools for audience engagement, team collaboration, account security and comprehensive analytics for end-to-end measurement and reporting.

The post How to Use the HootSuite Crowd Content Integration appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

This situation presents an opportunity for SMBs willing to spend some time learning to use Twitter to market their content and brand themselves decisively. Before embarking on a full-fledged promotional campaign, heed the following Twitter advice.

Identify the Right Hashtags

You’re no doubt aware of the fact that hashtags are how regular Twitter users zero in on conversations and get their tweets found. As such, including the right tags in your own tweets is of paramount importance. There are plenty of free tools available for researching the appropriate hashtags including SeeSaw, Twubs, Trendsmap and even the official Twitter Search. In order to get noticed by the right target demographics, it’s imperative that one adopt an analytical approach to hashtag selection.

Be on the Cutting Edge

As a real-time exchange of news and opinion, Twitter rewards those that time their blasts intelligently. This isn’t particularly surprising and the same has been true of blogging for years now thanks to Google’s increasingly sophisticated algorithms. If your tweets aren’t timely, they’re probably going to be ignored. Stick to what’s happening now and tie it back to your business in a relevant way. If you’re a bricks-and-mortar outfit, make your tweets hyper-local to attract your desired consumer audience.

Become a Trend Setter

Outside of latching onto trending hashtags, the best way to surge ahead in the Twitter standings is to create and popularize some tags of your own. There are many different routes that small businesses can take when creating hashtag memes. For instance, running a giveaway contest using your own custom hashtags will help to brand your business in the local Twitter sphere. Utilities like Bottlenose and HootSuite will help you to manage your Twitter campaigns without neglecting your other online promotional efforts.

Promote Lively Back and Forth

Starting a conversation with your current and hopefully future customers is easy if you’re willing to put in a little effort. As with so many other marketing tacks, consistency is the key. Though the medium of micro-blogging might seem like a frenetic blizzard of incoherent gibberish, you can create order from the chaos by taking charge of the dialog. Don’t just broadcast to your list. Rather, elicit responses from them that will provide you with marketing research that you can build on. Be a bit controversial if you must to get your followers talking.

Slow & Steady Wins the Race

While Facebook is the most popular social network at the moment due to its massive user base, there are signs that others like Twitter are becoming more trendy. Given Twitter’s relatively low utilization as a marketing vehicle, there’s great potential for small businesses to capitalize on an untapped medium. Local Twitter marketing can help a business to go viral in a variety of unpredictable ways. If you’re not using Twitter nowadays to further your SMB’s interests, you’re definitely missing out.

The post Twitter Marketing for SMBs in 2013 appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Simply having a Facebook page or sending out a few tweets isn’t enough. If you start with a solid plan, you just might discover that social media platforms can be a valuable marketing tool.

Focus On a Few Select Platforms

If you are new to social media marketing – or if you have tried it before with less than impressive results – start by focusing on a few platforms. This makes it easier to keep up with the demand for fresh content that drives all things social. Facebook and Twitter may seem like obvious choices, but not always. Consider the potential of various social platforms before you narrow down your selections.

• Facebook – With a billion-plus users worldwide, it’s hard to deny the power of Facebook in terms of the potential audience alone.
• Pinterest – A simple “pin-it” icon works wonders for allowing customers to share your product images or post images related to your product or service. A description is required so you still have potential SEO value.
• YouTube – In addition to being a great place to post “how-to” videos and other videos related to your business, YouTube is a very effective advertising platform.
• LinkedIn – Designed specifically for business, LinkedIn has made several noticeable upgrades recently that make an even more effective platform.
• Twitter – While still a popular platform, Twitter isn’t the most valuable marketing tool for business in terms of revenue generation. It is a good way to quickly engage your target audience though.
• MySpace – Once a haven for aspiring rockers, MySpace has reinvented itself as a go-to platform for businesses – and they did a pretty good job.
• Google+ – While not that great as a social network, Google+ is a must-have when it comes to its SEO potential and new business functions.
• Yelp – The popular online review directory presents excellent SEO opportunities; especially location-based SEO since you can add your business address to your listing.
• Digg – Digg is especially effective for your blogs and webpages. If you add social links too, you have real marketing potential.
• DeviantArt – While this platform is designed for users to share their art, DeviantArt works well for highly visual campaigns.

Have Solid Goals

Aimlessly diving into social media is a surefire setup for failure. Like any other marketing campaign, you have to have clear goals as to what you want to achieve. Do you want to generate buzz for a new product? Do you want to increase brand awareness? Do you to establish yourself as an expert in your field? Each of these goals involves a different approach to using social media. To paraphrase Shakespeare, a marketing campaign without focus is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Having a solid social media marketing plan is great, but it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t measure your results. There are plenty of metrics you can use to measure where your online traffic is coming from, including your social traffic. This gives you a chance to make adjustments and achieve your realistic marketing goals.

The post Creating an Effective Social Media Marketing Campaign appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

It Demonstrates Value

According to search engines like Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo, value is the product of a number of factors. Whatever those specific factors happen to be, a common indicator is the number of people that link to a site and share its content via social media. It’s an unfortunate truth of the SEO game that online content is only as valuable as its appeal to web users. Social media activity in the form of Facebook Likes, Twitter Tweets and up-votes on Q&A sites demonstrate value, and that’s just not going to change any time soon.

The Organic Boost: Post-Penguin Ranking Factors

Like it or not, social media impacts organic search results, a fact that former Google CEO Eric Schmidt readily admits. All those inbound links garnered from the viral sharing of social media matter. Google went on the offensive against cheap SEO tricks and link schemes with Penguin. Now, it’s not only the number of people that share your content but also who’s doing the sharing. Social media SEO is all about link authority at this point.

Constant Content Creation

While the latest Google algorithm updates place a greater emphasis on links and link authority, content is still the most critical determinant of value. More importantly, the freshness of content holds a lot of weight. That’s why sites like Reddit, Quora and Facebook manage to nail down so many keyword queries in organic search. They leverage social media to churn out a great deal of user-generated content without having to do much work. User-generated content is yet another excellent fringe benefit of using social media to enhance your SEO efforts.

Bringing It Together

Just because a billion people find something momentarily interesting and express their fleeting approval of it doesn’t make it a high-value resource online. Likewise, just because something has demonstrable value, it doesn’t make it instantly popular. Social indicators in SEO are just another technique that Google and Bing use when trying to rank content on the web. They’re increasingly important, but they’ll never completely take over. Regardless, webmasters and marketers need to factor in their weight when deciding on how to best promote content for wider dissemination around the Internet.

The post Why Social Media Is Important for SEO appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Small Social Networks = Less Competition

Smaller networks have fewer members. While this means that you will meet fewer people in them, it also means you will find it easier to become the local expert in your niche. As the big fish in a small pond, you will wield authority you can then leverage to the larger networks.

In small networks, the relationships feel more intimate. You will have time to respond to everyone and make them feel important. This can help you establish much stronger bonds than you might be able to build on larger platforms.

Once you have established yourself, you will find your connections turn to you when they have questions in your field of expertise. They will refer others to you when appropriate. They will even help promote you to their Facebook and Twitter streams when they feel your offerings add value.

Greater Focus

Small social networks are often more focused. Many forums target specific niches, but even those forums with diverse subjects organize themselves into topical threads. This allows you to communicate with those most receptive of your content.

On Facebook and Twitter, your messages compete with your followers’ varied interests and personal acquaintances. Many followers will learn to ignore your updates when they are not interested in exploring your topics or are distracted by friends and family. However, when these followers come to a forum to learn more about your niche or choose to spend time in a smaller network, you will not compete with the same distractions.

Finding Small Social Networks

You may have to dig a little to find social networks that suit your purpose because smaller networks are less visible. You also do not want to waste too much time building a presence on a network that is too small to be useful or which does not contain your target customers.

Search for your keywords with the words the word “forum” to find highly targeted forums. For example, searching “accounting forum” will bring up a number of results. You can also look for networks organized geographically, like “Wisconsin business forum.”

Finally, keep your eye on new networks that arise. Establishing your authority early on a new platform that catches on with the general public may make you the big fish in a big pond someday.

The post Why Be Active in Small Social Networks? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Twitter Amplifies Your Message

The beauty of Twitter lies in the ease of social sharing. In 140 characters, you can create a headline your followers may share with their networks with just a click or two. These networks can also retweet, allowing messages to become viral when they strike the right chord. Retweeted messages also attract new followers to the Twitter profile that sent the original tweet.

While you will occasionally see people retweet messages with which they disagree in order to draw attention to a situation, those retweeters rarely become followers of the original account.

Give Target Followers the Info They Seek

People seek to follow those whom they feel enrich their Twitter experience. They look for news, information and entertainment in accordance with their values and interests.

A twitter profile should provide information that resonates with its target audience to attract the right followers in the first place. Then, it should monitor the response of the audience to the content offered, experimenting from time to time to evaluate different strategies. Comparing the types of tweets offered to the rates of retweets and replies received, while also considering the date and time of said tweets, will reveal insights on the messages that touch a particular following.

Provoke Without Attacking

Sometimes a provocative headline grabs attention and stirs up enough controversy to generate a viral response. The challenge is to create these provocative situations without alienating your core market.

If experience reveals that provocative topics motivate your audience, just take care not to put your audience on the defensive too often. Remember, most people seek a positive experience on their social networks. Reinforce their values so they will go on sharing your message.

Stay on Topic

Mixing in a little personal information into a business Twitter stream can help remind followers of the humanity behind the brand. However, if followers are more familiar with the names of your children than the names of your branded products, you are suffering a Twitter marketing disconnect.

Broadcasting the right mix of business and personal content, and including a balance of original, reply and retweet messages in your business Twitter stream can be a challenge at first. However, once the right balance is found for the desired market, tweeting to the choir can help spread your message to all corners of the web.

The post Why You Should Tweet to the Choir appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Identify Your Target Demographic

The more you know about the customer you intend to reach with your content marketing, the easier it will be to target your content to their needs and interests. Start by establishing their age, gender, and income level, then flesh out the profile with details about the media they consume. When planning your online content development, you want to consider:

• Television shows they watch;
• Books and magazines they read;
• And, of course, social media networks they visit regularly.

Content marketing allows you to create very specific and targeted messages, and this in-depth understanding of your ideal customer’s influences will give you the phrases and cultural references that will best succeed for your social media marketing strategy.

Online Content Development

Once you have a clear picture of your ideal customer, you should determine the type of content and the proper format in which to provide it.

A young audience may respond best to YouTube videos shared on Facebook, whereas a tech savvy crowd might gravitate to infographics posted on Google+. A business-to-business audience will be looking for educational material that answers their questions and solves their problems. If yours is a business-to-consumer company, you will want to lean more toward content that entertains or offers discounts.

Look at what your ideal customers are sharing already to learn what content marketing vehicles get passed along to their networks.

Social Media Marketing

Online content development does not end with the content you produce. Your social media posts will be part of the content you share and will affect the degree to which social followers participate in spreading your message.

You will want to keep in mind that each social media platform differs in nuance, and it is often better to have a highly engaged stream on one network rather than superficial, ineffectual streams on several different sites.

Sharing the content of power users in your chosen industry and social platform will you help you grow your social media marketing reach when they choose to return the favor. Many bloggers have seen their subscriptions shoot up the first time a power blogger tweeted out a post for them.

Content Marketing Rules the Internet

Everyone goes on the Internet looking for something. It may be news, information, entertainment, or companionship. Whatever they seek, content marketing makes finding it easier. With highly targeted online content development, you too can succeed with content marketing!

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