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How to Refine Your Facebook Audience for Better Ad Targeting http://ift.tt/2lXpa58 Do you want to improve your Facebook ad targeting? Interested in learning more about the audiences you’re already reaching? Refining your Facebook audience options will help you reach the right audience without wasting ad spend. In this article, you’ll discover how to build three valuable Facebook custom audience segments and analyze them with Audience Insights. Creating a Custom AudienceIf you advertise on Facebook, it’s helpful to look at different customer segments in the context of the platform. Facebook lets you create custom audiences based on your customer list, website visitors, and engagement. You can then use Audience Insights to learn more about those audiences. Note: To protect user data, Facebook doesn’t offer insights for audiences of fewer than 1,000 users, so keep that minimum size in mind when creating audiences. To create a Facebook custom audience, go to the Audiences section of your Facebook Ads Manager. Then click Create Audience and select Custom Audience from the drop-down menu. Next you’ll see a list of audiences you can create. Here’s how to create three types of custom audiences and get detailed information about them with Facebook Audience Insights. #1: Upload an Audience of Current Customers or LeadsIf you want to upload a list of customers or leads to create a custom audience, select Customer File. Facebook will match these contacts with Facebook users and create an audience based on those matches. Facebook lets you upload a CSV file or copy and paste the data. If you don’t have a lot of customer data (maybe you offer guest checkout options or are looking at cold leads or a mailing list), you can just provide email addresses. Alternatively, you can do a direct sync with MailChimp. When you upload your customer list, the more identifiers you can provide (name, zip code, phone number, etc.), the better your match rate will be. While it’s helpful to get a holistic view of your customer base, you may want to try segmenting out a higher lifetime value type of customer. Most ecommerce platforms (such as Shopify) let you filter customers by number of orders. Alternatively, if you work with an email marketing platform (like Klaviyo), use filters to create custom user lists based on purchase behavior. #2: Base an Audience on Website Visitor BehaviorIf you’ve taken the steps to install the Facebook pixel on your site, Facebook lets you build audiences based on site traffic. You can set rules for Facebook to populate audiences based on how people behave on your site. Select Website Traffic to set up this type of custom audience. In the Create Audience box, you can choose from a number of targeting options in the Website Traffic drop-down menu. Based on Time Spent on Your Website One option is to target the users who spend the most time on your site (i.e., the top 5% to 25% of most active users). This audience segment is likely to be more interested in branded goods or new product launches, subscription products, or product bundle packages. Of course, you don’t want to ignore the other 75%+ of site visitors, so use this audience of super-active users along with some of the other retargeting methods discussed. Remember, the greater the traffic volume on your site, the greater the scale and returns will be. People Who Visit Specific Web Pages You can also set URL rules to target visitors of specific web pages. Either specify the exact URL or define specific keywords. By using browsing activity for retargeting, you can promote new products to people who have visited similar collections or products. Additionally, if you have new features or variants launching for existing product offerings, you can retarget users who have viewed the product in the past. If you have a product- or collection-specific promo running, this is the perfect way to tell interested users about it (i.e., buy one get one free, 3 for 2, etc.). People Who Visit Specific Web Pages but Not Others You can also build an audience of people who visit specific web pages but not others. However, this isn’t recommended because you can exclude any custom audience at the ad set level and there’s more room for customization that way. Custom Combination If you choose the Custom Combination option, you can do dynamic versions of your segmented customer lists. The audience will update almost instantaneously as it receives real-time data from the pixel, but the caveat is that the pixel operates on a rolling 6-month timeframe. This means that you’ll have the most up-to-date data, but it only dates back 180 days. This is the trade-off between using static customer lists and dynamic website custom audiences. With a static customer list upload, you reap the benefits of lifetime customer data, but it will saturate quickly without pulling and uploading frequently. Even if you’re using a large lookalike audience, it’s better to have a dynamic custom audience as your source so the audience continues to refresh and doesn’t grow stale. However, if your business doesn’t collect significant customer data in a 6-month window, customer list uploads will be the better option here. To capture repeat purchasers, simply choose your main conversion event (“Purchase,” for example) and set it to a minimum occurrence of 2. Try to incentivize these customers to buy more often with limited-time promotions. This audience typically responds well to sales and is interested in new product offerings. It’s also valuable if you’re promoting subscription and product bundles. To identify high average order value (AOV) purchasers, set the main conversion event to Purchase and add an extra parameter-defining value, setting this to a minimum dollar value. This is a great audience for promoting premium products and a strong source for a lookalike audience if you want to drive higher AOVs across the board. In the example below, we chose a $70 minimum AOV, which was about 25% higher than the sitewide AOV for this business. People Who Haven’t Visited in a Certain Amount of Time Another worthwhile test is to build audiences of users who haven’t visited in x number of days. Target these users with an exclusive promotion and see if you can win them back. #3: Generate an Audience Built on Facebook EngagementsYou can create a sweeping audience that includes anyone who has engaged with your Facebook page or its posts (including ads) in the last year. Click Engagement on Facebook. Then click Page. Now you can refine your audience using the following interactions:
Because these audiences are based on various engagement metrics, they’re most useful for getting people to take action within Facebook, not necessarily onsite. If you want to improve reach and engagement for your page and its content, these are valuable targeting audiences. If you’re running an exciting promotion and only want to drive awareness, it can be worthwhile to target an audience of people who have engaged with your posts/ads in the past and just bid for impressions to reach as many people as possible within this audience. Similarly, if you’re trying to generate site traffic, target this previously engaged audience and use CPC bidding to maximize clicks to your website. Analyze Your Custom Audiences With Audience InsightsAfter you’ve created your custom audiences, head over to Audience Insights to find information about the users within those audiences. After all, the more you know about your customers, the better you can market to them. Under Custom Audience in the left sidebar, select your custom audience from the drop-down menu. You’ll then see a detailed breakdown of the users in that audience. Below the insights, you’ll see six categories of data: Demographics, Page Likes, Location, Activity, Household, and Purchase. For prospecting campaigns where you’re trying to win over new customers, let lookalike audiences do the work of refining your target audience. However, if there’s a clear skew for any of these data points, excluding a certain age group or gender can make your campaign more efficient. Suppose that the graph above represents one of your custom audiences. You can see that only 6% of people in the audience are men, so you would just target women with this campaign. If you want to attract more male customers, you should work on more male-focused products and ad creative. You might also exclude the 55+ age group because few customers fall within this age range. The demographic insights are particularly interesting. If you’re using oCPM bidding to target, Facebook will seek out the users most likely to convert anyway, so don’t worry too much about purchase activity or household data. Conclusion Use Facebook Audience Insights to educate yourself on the characteristics of your most valuable customer segments. By doing this, you can better cater to the needs of existing customers and scale your business by targeting new potential customers with similar characteristics. What do you think? Have you created some of these custom audiences? What have you learned by analyzing these segments in Facebook Audience Insights? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Social Media via http://ift.tt/eZnnjC February 26, 2017 at 09:03PM
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Instagram Multi-image Posts: This Week in Social Media http://ift.tt/2lGknTv Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention. What’s New This WeekInstagram Rolls Out Ability to Add Multiple Photos and Videos to One Post: Instagram announced that users can now “combine up to 10 photos and videos in one post and swipe through to see them all.” A new icon on the Instagram app allows users to select multiple photos and videos, which can then be reorganized, edited, or layered with a filter one by one or all at once. A row of blue dots at the bottom of these posts indicates to your followers that “there’s more to see.” This update is available as part of Instagram version 10.9 for iOS in the Apple App Store and for Android on Google Play. .
Facebook Announces New Messenger Platform Policies and Faster Review Times: Facebook Messenger announced some “new policies for the Messenger Platform” that will provide “more defined engagement models on the platform, including time-based criteria for businesses to respond to messages and standards for subscriptions in Messenger.” These include giving businesses a 24-hour window to respond to live chat messages initiated by customers in Messenger with standard messaging and continuing to test subscription messaging “to learn more about people’s subscription preferences before fully opening up this capability.” Facebook also rolled out a “streamlined review process for app submissions, with a review time of five days or less.” Pinterest Expands Promoted Pins to More Markets: Pinterest announced its “continued international expansion of Promoted Pins into three new countries: Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.” Pinterest’s launch partners include Aer Lingus, Tesco Ireland, Jo Malone, Avoca, Superdry, Colourtrend, Daintree, The Ark, and Lost my.Name. According to Pinterest, they “have already seen lots of new engagement from their content on Pinterest.” WhatsApp Updates Status Feature: Facebook-owned WhatsApp rolled out a “new and improved Status feature” that allows users “to share photos and videos with your friends and contacts on WhatsApp in an easy and secure way.” Like with any other WhatsApp messages, the status updates are “end-to-end encrypted.” TechCrunch reports that the new Status tab also removes all shared images, videos, or GIFs within 24 hours and “could also open up new advertising opportunities for WhatsApp… [by allowing] full-screen ads in-between friends’ Statuses” just like on Snapchat and Instagram Stories. WhatsApp is rolling out this new feature worldwide on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. Facebook Rolls Out Three Updates to Video Monetization: Facebook shared three updates to video monetization on its site and through the Audience Network. Facebook announced that in-stream video is now available to “all eligible Audience Network publishers who have available inventory” on their own websites and apps. With this rollout, “publishers can bring relevant video ads to people all over the world, on both mobile and desktop.” Facebook is also expanding its beta test of Ad Breaks in Facebook Live and on-demand video to profiles and pages in the U.S. This means that a select group of creators testing this new experience can now take short breaks for ads during their live or existing videos and “earn a share of the resulting ad revenue” for it. Our Take on Top News This WeekIn this week’s show from Friday, February 24, 2017, Michael Stelzner and guests discuss the top news in social media. Topics include new multiple image and video posts on Instagram (7:33), updates to marketing policies on Facebook Messenger (27:08), and WhatsApp Status feature (39:28). Subscribe to future shows here. More News to NoteTwitter Releases Periscope Producer to All Users: After four months of testing, Twitter announced that its Periscope Producer service is now available to all users across mobile and the web. This tool allows “broadcasters to incorporate high-quality live video from sources other than their mobile device… into the normal Periscope live video experience.” VentureBeat reports that creators can now “share video from external cameras, an Xbox One, virtual reality headsets, a computer, a webcam, or other devices right into their broadcasts streaming through Twitter.” Periscope Producer is supported on the web and on iOS and Android.
Google Removes Report Limit on Google Data Studio for All Users: Google removed the five report limit for all users on Google Data Studio. When this dashboard and reporting tool was initially launched, Google offered free and enterprise versions of it. With this update, all businesses can now “get full value” from Data Studio and “create and share as many reports as you need – all for free.” Snap Inc. Makes Spectacles Available for Online Purchase in the U.S.: Snap Inc. is now exclusively selling its new Spectacles online in the United States. These Snapchat-enabled sunglasses with a built-in camera were announced last fall and previously only available from pop-up stores and traveling vending machines found in limited locations. VentureBeat reports that “Snap had 158 million daily active users in the fourth quarter, up just 3 percent from the previous quarter… [and] new gadgets that offer more ways to interact with Snapchat could help attract new users and get existing users to spend more time on the app.”
Crowdcast Launches Mobile App for iOS: Crowdcast officially launched the Crowdcast iOS app, which allows audiences to watch an event; engage through chat, Q&A, and polls; and browse replays “just like they can in a browser or on Android devices.” Crowdcast’s new iOS app currently only allows users to attend events but the company states that it’s “working on an updated version to let you host events through your iOS device so you can go live from anywhere.” Google Rolls Out New Tool to Combat Abusive Online Comments: Google rolled out a new tool called Perspective that “helps publishers combat online abuse.” This new API can integrate into any platform and combines a “human-generated database of comments that have already been tagged as abusive or toxic” and machine learning technology to rate and flag comments. Google presents multiple uses for this new tool. For instance, comments could be flagged and manually reviewed by moderators or the community or a publisher could alert a commenter in real time that what they’re writing is abusive. According to Google, Perspective will “improve as it receives more feedback from people using it.”
Facebook Adds National Flags to Profile Frames: TechCrunch reports that “Facebook has added nearly 200 flags to its Profile Frames feature, which lets you overlay imagery filters atop your profile photo.” With this update, Facebook users now have a subtle and simple way to show support or demonstrate pride for an individual country.
Google Introduces Shopping With Google Assistant on Google Home: Google announced that consumers can now shop for “everyday essentials – from paper towels to vitamins… from participating Google Express retailers, including Costco, Whole Foods Market, Walgreens, PetSmart, Bed Bath & Beyond and more than 50 other national and locally available retailers” with Google Assistant on Google Home. To get started, users simply have to say “Ok Google, how do I shop?” or “Ok Google, order paper towels” and the Google Home device will set the order in motion. The company will continue to add new features and enable purchases for other apps and services “over the coming months.” Facebook Adds Two New Reporting Features to Analytics for Apps: Facebook rolled out “two new ways to help product managers, marketers, and developers more easily discover insights in Analytics for Apps.” The first of these new features offers developers a side-by-side comparison of customer segment data such as active users, revenue, and events. The second provides app developers with domain-level reporting, which offers insights into the websites that are driving people to a business. Upcoming Social Media News Worth FollowingTwitter Beta Tests Personalized Custom Profile in Direct Messages: Twitter is beta testing personalized custom profiles in Direct Messages, which allow businesses to make “private conversations more human and personal by showing the real face, name, and title of the care agent who is speaking.” The new custom profiles can also “more clearly indicate when a bot is speaking,” which will help manage [customers’] expectations about the types of replies they might receive” in Direct Messages. Businesses that are interested in testing custom profiles in Direct Messages on their accounts can submit a request online. Developers looking to build on this new API platform can apply for access here.
Skype Announces Skype Lite for Low-connectivity Areas: Microsoft-owned Skype announced the upcoming launch of Skype Lite, “a retooled version of its voice and video calling service, designed for use in areas with limited connectivity on Android devices.” This new app only requires 13MB of space, supports nine regional languages and chatbots for connected services, and tracks mobile data usage. It also allows users to read and reply to SMS messages. Skype Lite will “soon be available” to download for free from the Google Play Store and will roll out to India first.
Facebook Tests Shortcut Buttons to Other Social Media Platforms: Facebook is currently testing shortcut buttons to other social media accounts displayed prominently on users’ Facebook profiles. The Next Web reports that users have been able to add links to other social media accounts under the Contact Info portion of the About section. However, this limited test is “the first time said links have taken button form and been displayed so blatantly on your profile’s front page.” Facebook hasn’t provided any details about this test or shared any plans to roll it out more broadly.
News From a Partner, Simply Measured:How to Increase Digital Brand Awareness: Are you looking for strategies to exceed your digital brand awareness goals? Do you want to learn what data to focus on to understand your web and social audience? If yes, download this guide to learn the steps you need to take to research and segment your audience(s) across social and the web, generate visibility by aligning your web strategy with social, and build the right content for your brand. Some Interesting Studies to Note:Vocativ Facebook Instant Articles Test: Digital publisher Vocativ used data sourced from Facebook and Google Analytics to evaluate how well Facebook’s Instant Articles platform can deliver published content to a larger audience. Over a period of six weeks, Vocativ published 100% of its eligible content on the platform and found that referral traffic increased by 53% and returning visitors increased by 37%. The results also showed a 48% increase in comments and an 11% increase in average reach per post and shares. Snapchat Quarterly Report Q4 2016: Snaplytics analyzed over 500 brands posting more than 24,000 Snapchat stories consisting of more than 217,000 snaps to “establish a blueprint of how much is being posted [on Snapchat] and how often.” Along with case studies from major brands and influencers on Snapchat such as McDonald’s, Scary Mommy, and BBC One, this new report provides insights on how users find the brands on Snapchat, how often brands share snaps, and the open and completion rates for stories. The Current Content Ecosystem: A new white paper from CopyPress explores “the state of the content marketing industry” based on data from CopyPress’ State of Content Marketing survey and insights from 300 in-house marketers, agencies, and freelance creatives. The report breaks down content marketing from each of these three different perspectives and provides recommendations on where each should be putting their time, money, and content marketing efforts. Eight User-generated Content Trends We Learned From 25 Million Facebook Posts: A new report from micro-influencer marketing platform Mavrck examined more than 25 million Facebook posts from personal profiles throughout 2016 and found a 29.39% decrease in original posts per Facebook user. Although a shift in Facebook’s algorithm gave greater priority to personal posts and delivered a 26% increase in engagement per post over the course of the year, there was still a 15% decline in engagement per post in 2016 when compared to 2015. The findings also suggest user-generated content containing a brand garnered a 6.9 times higher response rate than brand-generated content and the more “influential users” earned a “significantly higher” average engagement per post. What do you think of the upcoming customer engagement updates on Facebook Messenger? Have you seen multiple images and videos in a single Instagram post? Please share your comments below. Social Media via http://ift.tt/eZnnjC February 24, 2017 at 09:07PM Secrets of Effective Brand Storytelling http://ift.tt/2lMT3Fa Storytelling, as explained by Douwe Bergsma, Georgia Pacific’s CMO, is indeed a different way of looking at marketing communications, one that requires new processes, metrics, and staff. Below, you will find some fascinating details that often separate a good story from a great one, including three secrets to crafting a successful marketing story, specifically. H4> Drew: Are your KPIs different than you would have had in a pre-storytelling era?Douwe: On a high level, I don’t think so. We still look at brand awareness and key brand attributes and the impact it has on penetration, loyalty and ultimately our profit. We just noticed that the way we were approaching it, we were not optimally achieving our KPI. We still want to see how Brawny does with the idea of toughness and gentleness. We still want to know if our core consumers—our key target segments—still appreciate Brawny in a way that they are receiving the right value for their money, compared to their alternatives. At the highest level, it didn’t change. At the lower level, it did, because before we were single-mindedly measuring the impact of a 30-second ad on this metric. Now we look at the combined impact recognizing that at the end of the day, it’s still about driving conversion from intent to purchase. Drew: Do marketers need to be more patient with storytelling?Douwe: Good question, I haven’t thought about that. In the development, yes. It takes longer for a fully integrated story to develop because design plays a key role. One of the things we’ve learned is that a story needs to be holistic including the design of the brand packaging as well as the design of the products inside. One example of this is the way the Brawny giant comes to life on our packaging. And packaging, in our industry, has a longer lead-time. So in order to do it right and holistically, it takes longer to prepare and develop. In actuality, I don’t think the level of patience is different from what we used to do. Drew: Let’s get specific. What’s your leading example of storytelling?Douwe: Brawny is the only brand where we have completely overhauled our packaging as well as our other touch points. We’ve developed our story framework—the conflict is really between tough and gentle. And then the fundamental human truth is about protecting yourself and those you love. This requires you to be understanding and open to what life throws at you, but also have the tenacity, toughness, and strength to tackle any challenge. We were inspired by a quote from Roosevelt: “speak softly and carry a big stick, you will go far.” We translated that into a campaign, featuring the Brawny giant. How do you tackle and handle life’s challenges? By staying strong while continuing to be gentle as these challenges come at you. We showcase The Brawny® Man with the larger-than-life look he had in the 1970s — so there’s kind of a double meaning here—in our campaign, which represents kind of a gentle giant, which is gentleness and strength in there. Drew: Tell me more about your partnership with AOL.Douwe: With AOL, we were able to develop and sponsor content that helped tell our various brand stories. For example, in Brawny®’s Everyday Giants series, we featured Khali Sweeney, who started the Downtown Boxing Gym in Detroit, which basically became an afterschool academic support program, where he gives kids free boxing lessons after they finished their homework. The program was for inner-city kids in Detroit and every student who went through his program that’s been going on for several years now, there’s a 100 percent graduation rate and 80 percent went to college. Drew: In a programmatic real-time world, how do you adjust to storytelling or does that play any kind of role in all of this?Douwe: Programmatic is more into where and when and what frequency; it’s less about the content. And our storytelling predominantly focuses on the content of our communication, which closely relates to our media placement. So programmatic has not really impacted the story we’re telling, more when and where we telling it. And obviously, it allows us to find those people that are in our target audience. It allows us to find our specific audience better and faster than we normally do. Drew: What are some of the pitfalls to be avoided?Douwe: First and foremost, it’s very tempting to just focus on the storytelling. You first need to really focus on the story framework. Because our whole industry is so used to drafting a brief to develop an ad. Draft a brief; write a Tweet. But before you do the brief, you actually need to know your story’s framework. It’s like sending an improv artist on stage who doesn’t know what a story framework is. Second, with storytelling, there is not a single linear pass to it. You need to be very agile and experimental and embrace the mistakes and the failures you have along the way and have a very experimental mindset. You need to do a lot of trial and error and go down specific pathways to figure out what’s going to work for the brand or what doesn’t. And last but not least, we’ve learned that you also need to make sure that you recruit and cherish the few storytellers in the building who have the passion and the talent to develop story frameworks. I discovered that there are quite a few people that have that innate balance at companies like Coca-Cola. In fact, Shari Neumann, who leads all our storytelling here at Georgia-Pacific is a former Coca-Cola person. The post Secrets of Effective Brand Storytelling appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://ift.tt/xMddWR February 23, 2017 at 11:39PM Video Blogging: How to Create Consistent YouTube Content http://ift.tt/2lCv8pV Do you create videos to promote your business? Have you considered starting a regular video blog? To explore vlogging, I interview Amy Schmittauer. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing. In this episode, I interview Amy Schmittauer, an online video expert. She founded Vlog Boss Studios and regularly produces awesome content for her YouTube channel, Savvy Sexy Social. She's also the author of the brand-new book, Vlog Like a Boss: How to Kill It Online with Video Blogging. Amy explores how video blogging can help your business. You'll discover what you need to start your own video blog. Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below. Listen Now You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher, or SoundCloud. Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show: Vlog Like a Boss What Is Vlogging? The term vlog builds off the word blog, and a vlog is simply a blog in video form. In a vlog, you can share anything you might do in a blog post, such as a tutorial or a story from your life. Consistency is best for vlogging. If you post a vlog here and there, you won't gain much traction. Amy says most vlogs that do well have a regular schedule. I ask Amy about how using YouTube for vlogging is different from the other ways people use YouTube. Amy says the purpose of a vlog is to help people discover you. Videos that may be suitable for YouTube but that don't help people discover you, such as a product commercial or an introduction to your company, don't make great vlog posts. To be discovered, think of the users who are searching for a concern, a specialty, or the answer to a question. Think about what a potential customer or audience member might want to know, create a video about the topic, and upload it to YouTube. Listen to the show to discover Amy's thoughts about vlogging on mobile apps like Snapchat and Instagram, which have video and social. Amy's Vlog When Amy launched Savvy Sexy Social, she was just getting started as a social media marketer. She thought teaching people the best way to do things on social media would to attract an audience and potential clients. She wanted her vlog to be informative and fun. She didn't want social media to feel like a chore. To juggle her content marketing with her client work, Amy says she scheduled her vlog posts to appear three days a week but she created the week's videos all in one day. She would pick three topics (which could be an app, a product, or a general social media tip), record the videos sitting in front of her bookshelf, and then edit and schedule them for the rest of the week. Amy emphasizes that people didn't have to know who she was to find her videos via search. They just needed to have a question about a topic in her videos. For instance, Amy created a video about a hack to make tweets a little longer. She thought the topic was something new that people didn't know much about, and the video became one of her popular vlog posts. The video's headline focused on the Twitter tip but the video also introduced viewers to Amy. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJRp22IXqXY Amy shares the simple vlog format she used for a long time. She introduced her topic, delivered information about the topic that her viewers would value, and gave an actionable item that would give them results right away. Then she wrapped up with, "By the way, I'm Amy. Hope you can subscribe and stay tuned." In the last year, Amy says she's been having fun with her format so her community could get to know her a little more personally. For instance, throughout January, she documented the journey of launching a book. This approach was more of a lifecasting vlog, but her audience was learning through Amy's experien... Social Media via Social Media Marketing Podcast helps your business thrive with social media http://ift.tt/eZnnjC February 23, 2017 at 10:24PM
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Video Blogging: How to Create Consistent YouTube Content http://ift.tt/2lCv8pV Do you create videos to promote your business? Have you considered starting a regular video blog? To explore vlogging, I interview Amy Schmittauer. More About This ShowThe Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing. In this episode, I interview Amy Schmittauer, an online video expert. She founded Vlog Boss Studios and regularly produces awesome content for her YouTube channel, Savvy Sexy Social. She’s also the author of the brand-new book, Vlog Like a Boss: How to Kill It Online with Video Blogging. Amy explores how video blogging can help your business. You’ll discover what you need to start your own video blog. Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below. Listen NowListen now: Play in new window | Download You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher, or SoundCloud. Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show: Vlog Like a BossWhat Is Vlogging? The term vlog builds off the word blog, and a vlog is simply a blog in video form. In a vlog, you can share anything you might do in a blog post, such as a tutorial or a story from your life. Consistency is best for vlogging. If you post a vlog here and there, you won’t gain much traction. Amy says most vlogs that do well have a regular schedule. I ask Amy about how using YouTube for vlogging is different from the other ways people use YouTube. Amy says the purpose of a vlog is to help people discover you. Videos that may be suitable for YouTube but that don’t help people discover you, such as a product commercial or an introduction to your company, don’t make great vlog posts. To be discovered, think of the users who are searching for a concern, a specialty, or the answer to a question. Think about what a potential customer or audience member might want to know, create a video about the topic, and upload it to YouTube. Listen to the show to discover Amy’s thoughts about vlogging on mobile apps like Snapchat and Instagram, which have video and social. Amy’s Vlog When Amy launched Savvy Sexy Social, she was just getting started as a social media marketer. She thought teaching people the best way to do things on social media would to attract an audience and potential clients. She wanted her vlog to be informative and fun. She didn’t want social media to feel like a chore. To juggle her content marketing with her client work, Amy says she scheduled her vlog posts to appear three days a week but she created the week’s videos all in one day. She would pick three topics (which could be an app, a product, or a general social media tip), record the videos sitting in front of her bookshelf, and then edit and schedule them for the rest of the week. Amy emphasizes that people didn’t have to know who she was to find her videos via search. They just needed to have a question about a topic in her videos. For instance, Amy created a video about a hack to make tweets a little longer. She thought the topic was something new that people didn’t know much about, and the video became one of her popular vlog posts. The video’s headline focused on the Twitter tip but the video also introduced viewers to Amy. VIDEO Amy shares the simple vlog format she used for a long time. She introduced her topic, delivered information about the topic that her viewers would value, and gave an actionable item that would give them results right away. Then she wrapped up with, “By the way, I’m Amy. Hope you can subscribe and stay tuned.” In the last year, Amy says she’s been having fun with her format so her community could get to know her a little more personally. For instance, throughout January, she documented the journey of launching a book. This approach was more of a lifecasting vlog, but her audience was learning through Amy’s experience. Amy says that her approach in January is an example of “show, don’t tell,” which is a powerful formula. VIDEO Whatever your format, include your call to action at the end, whether it’s to buy the product, join your email list, or follow you somewhere. However, the majority of the video should deliver value. That’s what makes the video a vlog and also powerful on YouTube. Listen to the show to hear Amy and I talk about the power of YouTube as a search engine. What It Takes to Vlog I ask Amy about her advice for anyone who isn’t sure they’re funny or have what it takes to appear on camera. When you feel that way, Amy says the most important thing you can do is develop a strong message before you begin your video. (Amy thinks this point is true whether you do a video, written, or photo blog.) She stresses that when you know what content you need to deliver, sitting in front of the camera (or a blank page) doesn’t feel as intense. Amy says you develop a presence on camera through practice and by focusing on the camera as if it’s a person. Amy says the camera is a vehicle delivering your message to people. When you talk to viewers the way you talk to another person, you do much better on camera. Amy believes people have trouble being on camera for two reasons: They feel silly sitting alone in a room talking to a camera or they feel like they’re talking to thousands of people. Either way, these mindsets can make a person appear unnatural on video. Amy says you should instead think about having coffee with someone. Next, Amy and I talk about whether you need to be an extrovert to be on camera. Amy believes being on camera is easier for an introvert and she shares that she is an introvert (which totally surprised me). Amy reiterates that you simply need to respect the message you’re delivering. If you can talk to people about what you do and how you can help them, you can absolutely make video. Listen to the show to discover Amy’s thoughts on the difference between speaking on camera and in front of a large audience. ROI on Vlogging As you’re considering the return on investment for vlogging, Amy says you need to focus on your goals. Don’t worry about vanity metrics such as followers, likes, and subscribers. Instead, measure what actually matters for your goals. For example, if your goal is to get clients, consider how many clients you need to acquire to make the hours you put into vlogging worthwhile. Amy says this focus on goals made starting her vlog easy. Instead of focusing on how many people were following her, she focused on how much business she was getting because of her vlog. By focusing on her goals, Amy was motivated to make videos that offered value and use her network to get referrals. To use her network, Amy would message people saying, “Hey, if you know anyone who would find this tip useful, could you please share this video with them?” When someone from her network shared her video, the share acted as a referral and the video demonstrated that Amy could do the work. With this approach, vlogging has brought Amy more clients than her other marketing efforts. Amy stresses that goals and milestones are important for determining your ROI. Your goals help you determine what needs to happen for vlogging to be worthwhile, how much time to give vlogging until you start to see a return, and when you need to reassess. Amy also thinks the ROI conversation is tough because people can be a little lazy about measuring things. Don’t just post a link. Post a trackable link that enables you to see whether your video has led to traffic or a conversion. Ask your viewers to take the natural next step after watching that piece of content. If they don’t, find out why. Listen to the show to hear Amy’s advice about encouraging video viewers to follow a call to action. The Benefit of YouTube Subscribers Amy says YouTube wants to help growing channels be successful, and subscribers help your channel and videos gain momentum. When Amy posts a new video, subscribers receive a notification or see the video in their feeds, which encourages them to watch. These early viewers help the video succeed for your channel and in search on YouTube. Without subscribers, you have to attract viewers to your video by sharing it elsewhere. Amy says proving that you can start sessions on YouTube is also important. (In other words, your video attracts a viewer, who then stays on the channel or YouTube and keeps watching videos.) Starting sessions makes you a powerful channel to YouTube, which in turn makes YouTube want to send more people to your content. Consistency is another element for raising your channel’s profile on YouTube. If you post a video only here and there, you don’t consistently bring traffic and grow. Your view time, watch time, and view count don’t regularly increase. Amy believes the key to consistency is starting on YouTube with intention and a plan. Uploading a video whenever you have something to post won’t be beneficial. I ask whether community development through comments helps Amy build her reach. Amy says community development on YouTube impacts what people see on the home page much like it does on Facebook. Each Facebook user sees more of the friends, pages, and other content that they like, share, or comment on. On the YouTube home page, people see the channels they watch and interact with almost exclusively. As a result, someone who watches, comments on, and shares Amy’s videos might not realize they’re not subscribed to her channel. They’ll still see her video in their feed. Because YouTube always wants you to have something interesting to watch, Amy says YouTube is one of the few platforms where a two- to five-year-old video can still work for you today. Again, momentum helps the life a post. One of Amy’s most popular videos is from four years ago and it still brings in a lot of traffic every month. Listen to the show to hear more of Amy’s thoughts on how YouTube rewards useful content. Examples of Great Vlogs Today, show-don’t-tell videos, where people shoot video throughout the day, are among the most powerful. Amy watches many business vloggers and thinks Gary Vaynerchuk does a fantastic job of vlogging about what it’s like to run his business. (Gary caught onto vlogging from his friend Casey Neistat, who’s another great example, although Casey isn’t vlogging daily anymore.) Both Gary and Casey turn the mundane and basic into a compelling story. However, they’re also high-profile examples with skills and resources beyond what most small business owners have: Gary employs a full-time cameraperson and Casey is a filmmaker. For an example of a vlogger creating interesting video with just a basic camera, Amy suggests checking out Justine Ezarik (iJustine). Justine captures video while she’s out and about, and stitches together stories from that content. She also sets up her camera at home for things like baking. Justine became popular in Twitter’s early days. She started by live-streaming her entire life and is now a YouTube veteran. Amy says that if you really break down what’s happening in Justine’s videos, it’s not a big deal. However, Justine makes everything she does interesting, funny, and entertaining. VIDEO We also talk about examples focused on technology. I mention Steve Dotto, who does simple software reviews in his own folksy style because he knows people search YouTube for these reviews. Amy says her tech-focused friends review the latest devices on camera. This approach is fantastic because a lot of people go to YouTube to see hands-on demonstrations and because the reviews help you build credibility as a tech expert. Minecraft and unboxing are topics for which people usually don’t appear on camera. In Minecraft videos, players share cheats and techniques for playing. Unboxing videos tell a short story about receiving and opening a package. Amy says one of the most subscribed channels is a kid unboxing toys. The channel has become so popular that everyone involved quit their job and makes money with YouTube. VIDEO Steve Spangler’s Sick Science is a popular channel focused on education. He does one-minute experiments and follows up with a question. Amy says having a product is helpful, but you can create popular vlogs about any topic. You just have to tell a story. Listen to the show to hear Amy discuss YouTube’s demographics. Types of Video Content To clarify the different types of video you might create, I ask Amy what videos someone could create for a hot-air balloon business. Amy says you need to remember that the customers you’re trying to attract may not yet know if they want to ride in a hot-air balloon. However, they might be thinking about going to your town for a destination vacation. Therefore, Amy suggests doing videos about things that are relevant to your city, such as events or cool touristy things that may include you. The science and logistics of hot-air balloons are also interesting and behind-the-scenes videos might attract customers who are curious about hot-air balloons but haven’t thought about taking a ride. For people who might be afraid of riding in a balloon, you could create a video that helps break down common fears. Amy says a real estate agent is another good example of clarifying the different types of content you can create. Real estate agents want to talk about the properties they’re selling but that content focuses only on the product. Instead, real estate agents need to think about what’s happening in the neighborhood, the school system, and nearby attractions. When a real estate agent becomes an expert on his or her area as a whole, the content can attract a broader audience. For instance, someone who discovers a cool video about a great thing to do in Seattle might be relocating there and need a realtor to help him or her find a house. Amy says the key is to think bigger than your product. Listen to the show to hear about the types of videos Amy offers each week. Discovery of the WeekNarro is an app that converts text articles into audio files so you can listen on the go. To convert a text article into an audio file, you can use the Narro bookmarklet, Chrome browser extension, or iOS or Android app. Narro then adds the audio file to your listening feed. You select from a number of male and female voices, and you can alter the speed to make the voice sound more natural. For example, if you don’t have time to read today’s article on Social Media Examiner, you would either click the extension or bookmarklet. Narro will then scan that article’s text, convert it into an audio file, and put that file into your personal feed. If you subscribe to a feed (like Overcast), your audio file of the article shows up in your feed after a few minutes or so. Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how Narro works for you. Listen to the show! Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:Ways to subscribe to the Social Media Marketing podcast: What do you think? What are your thoughts on vlogging? Please leave your comments below. Social Media via http://ift.tt/eZnnjC February 23, 2017 at 09:05PM How to Be Successful on Social: Prime Your Pump! http://ift.tt/2kRha6n In a previous post, I mentioned Napoleon, and how just as many battles are won through logistics and planning as by bullets and bombs. Success in battle, as in social media, comes from having an army of supporters before you even take one step onto the field. But how do you begin to assemble that network in the first place? How do you command attention, convey authority and earn your followers’ respect? You have to look, act, and be the part. You must be confident, capable—ready to address the naysayers and yet leverage those who look to you for leadership. In short, you have to prime your pump! Keep Your Followers From Getting CrankyRemember those old hand-cranked water pumps you’d often see on farms or campgrounds? Perhaps you even grew up with one in your own front yard. Think back to a time when you ran to one of these pumps in thirsty anticipation of a cold drink, only to find that when you cranked the handle, nothing came out. Crank-crank. Nothing. Crank-crank. Nada. Along comes your friend who cranks the handle once and—whoosh! Out comes the glorious, crisp, cold water from what seems like the depths of the earth. From that point on, the water flows unabated. You drink with abandon with every new crank of the handle, and you can literally fill barrels with the rewards of your efforts. Getting thirsty yet? Similarly, when you present yourself to the world on social media, don’t disappoint your followers by not being ready to provide value right away. Prime your pump so that when people come to visit they’ll reap the rewards of interacting with you on the first pull of the handle. Prepare your public profile and persona so that it clearly states your mission and your value to your target audience. Have a great picture that speaks volumes about you without having to say a word. Craft a snappy bio that doesn’t require a dictionary or a degree in fine arts to figure out. Above all, don’t make your audience have to do a bunch of work before you provide them a payoff. A Primer in Personal BrandingPop quiz: think of a soft drink. Now think of a running shoe. Chances are you thought of Coke and Nike, respectively. These brands have spent considerable money over the years so that whenever you think of getting a drink or going for a run you immediately think of their brands. To achieve business or personal opportunities in the world of social media, we need to think of ourselves as our own personal brands. When our target audience thinks of the products or services we sell, or the ideals that we stand for, we want them to immediately think of us. The good news is that with the power of social media, building a brand no longer takes millions of dollars and dozens of years. You can start building your personal brand and priming your pump by following the simple steps outlined above. Be ready for greatness, because greatness is ready for you! The post How to Be Successful on Social: Prime Your Pump! appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://ift.tt/xMddWR February 23, 2017 at 05:39AM
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Lessons in Social Marketing From My 80 Year Old Dad http://ift.tt/2kIVnO4 In the age of Instagram and Snapchat, there’s something really anachronistic about flipping through old picture albums, but you just never know what treasures they’ll reveal. For example, I was recently going through some old family albums and I came across a photocopy of an old newspaper ad from 60′s (I added the text because the original was too faded to reproduce here): I didn’t really know what it was, or why I had a kept it, until I looked down a little further and saw who the ad was from: “Frank Power – Picture Framer.” Frank Power is my dad. He wrote this ad/poem over 40 years ago — and somehow convinced the local newspaper to publish it — long before the advent of social media or “storytelling ads.” In many respects, my Dad was always ahead of his time. These days he’d probably be referred to as a “serial entrepreneur.” Back then, he was known simply as a businessman. Don’t State Facts — Paint PicturesIn the remote province of Newfoundland, Canada, in the 1960′s, writing ads with pictures and poems made for some interesting comments in the letters to the editor section of the local newspaper. Some people loved these ads and looked forward to a new one every week. Some people hated them. Others scratched their heads and asked their friends if they’d seen the ads in the paper from “Frank Power – Picture Framer.” What my Dad realized, is that these ads helped to paint a picture in people’s minds about the person behind the ads. People’s imaginations turned out to be much more vivid and flattering than any dry, fact-based ads that spoke about my Dad’s skill as a picture framer. People could call the number at the bottom of the ad to find out about his services, hours of operation and so on — so my dad figured, “Why take up all this valuable space with mere facts?” It’s About Who Your Are — Not What You DoToday, social media marketing allows us to do the same thing my dad was doing over 40 years ago — using a powerful medium to convey an advertising message in a more personal, emotional way. Today, people want to get to know the owner of a business before they walk in the store. Or they might feel better about buying a guitar at the local music store, for instance, knowing that the staff all play in bands around town. Use the power of social media to connect with people, as opposed to simply conveying facts. Let people know who you are, and they’ll find out for themselves “what you do.” If you let people know, through social media, that you’re a decent, caring person with integrity, they’ll already have these positive preconceptions when it comes time to do business with you. So, to practice what I preach, I encourage you to get to know me via Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. No reason needed, let’s just connect. Oh, and one more thing…thanks, Dad! The post Lessons in Social Marketing From My 80 Year Old Dad appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://ift.tt/xMddWR February 22, 2017 at 10:18PM 4 Advanced Automation Tools To Streamline Your Social Media Without Sacrificing Your Voice2/23/2017
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4 Advanced Automation Tools To Streamline Your Social Media Without Sacrificing Your Voice http://ift.tt/2lshTYJ According to Social Media Examiner’s 2016 report, “At least 90% of marketers want to know the most effective social tactics and the best ways to engage their audience with social media.” Here’s what I say to that: Automate as much of your social media marketing as you can, so that you do have time to test different strategies and find the approach that works best for you. Automation Tools: The Key to Social Media SuccessView automation like you would a new personal assistant. You know they’re there to relieve some of your workload, but you’d never send them into a meeting with your largest client and tell them to pretend to be you. Social media is just like that. The random tasks that require more data entry and repetition can be automated easily enough; everything else should be personalized. Now, in terms of which automation tools you should use, I always suggest starting with the more affordable options first. If you’re new to the social game, it’s best to get your feet wet when first testing the waters. Here are my favorite cheap tools to get started: Jetpack by WordPress.comJetpack is a fully-loaded plugin for WordPress that helps users automate a whole host of items for their website. One of those items, as you may have guessed, is social media. Once you’ve downloaded the plugin for your website, visit the Settings tab within WordPress and click on “Sharing”. This is your new Publicize tool, courtesy of WordPress. It will enable you to:
As I said, too much automation is never a good thing on social. While it’s great to have a tool like this to automatically share your new content on social media, people will start to notice if that’s the only activity you’ve got going on. HootsuiteHootsuite is a great way to manage the activity on your social media accounts from a single platform. It’s also a fairly comprehensive tool when compared to some of the other social media management tools available. So if you’re looking for a tool where you can:
Start with Hootsuite. FeedlyIf you haven’t heard of Feedly before, this is what’s known as an RSS feed aggregator. In other words, if you enjoy reading content from 11 different websites, but don’t want to visit each site separately in order to do so, use Feedly. People want to engage with businesses like they would with people. If your social media page shows post after post of your own content, your audience may get the sense that you only care about pushing your own agenda. But if they noticed that you share relevant and interesting content from other sources… Well, then, they’d see you as a well-informed and impartial thought leader who simply wants to talk about important matters, even if they don’t come from your own blog. In other words, when you find something share-worthy on Feedly, add it to your Hootsuite. ZapierZapier works similarly to the Jetpack Publicize tool. The main difference is that Zapier automates the connection between a lot more than just WordPress and your social media.
Think about all the different ways you could connect your social media tools to everything else you use. Google, newsletters, WordPress, cross-social platforms, and more. Just create a Zap to make the connection, and you’ll be ready to go! Wrapping UpSocial media has been the source of many headaches for marketers, entrepreneurs, and others just trying to figure out how to make this marketing channel work for them. Rather than spend too much time navigating the basics, automate as much of that as you can with the tools above. Then you can focus on being strategic about where to post, when, how frequently, and with whom you should share it! The post 4 Advanced Automation Tools To Streamline Your Social Media Without Sacrificing Your Voice appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://ift.tt/xMddWR February 22, 2017 at 10:18PM
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3 Ways to Find Prospects Using Twitter http://ift.tt/2lbPcym Need more leads and prospects? Looking for creative ways to generate leads with Twitter? Because Twitter is discontinuing lead generation cards, now is the time to put new lead funnel techniques in place. In this article, you’ll discover three ways to find your next customers on Twitter.
#1: Automate a Search Funnel to Find People Who Tweet Qualifying KeywordsTwitter is a fountain of opinions and questions, and one way to tap into these is through Twitter Advanced Search. Imagine someone tweeted, “Anyone know a good photographer in San Diego?” and you happened to be a photographer in San Diego. Wouldn’t this be the perfect person to connect with? Twitter’s Advanced Search function lets you search for relevant comments so you can jump into the conversation, pick up that lead, and turn it into a sale. Think about all of the different opinions and questions your target audience may have and run advanced searches on them regularly. For the San Diego photographer, here are some other phrases potential clients might be tweeting:
Depending on your niche and specialty, the potential tweets could be endless, and Twitter’s Advanced Search makes them easy to find. Search for Relevant Tweets Go to Twitter Advanced Search and you’ll find a ton of options for your search. The All of These Words field will return tweets containing your search term in any order, while This Exact Phrase will find tweets containing your search in the exact order you specified. You can also search by accounts, location, and the “mood” of the tweet. For example, if you own a local organic coffee shop, you may be interested in finding tweets near your location that mention Starbucks in a negative light. Once you’ve found relevant tweets, interact with the tweeters. The best way to start a conversation is to reply to the tweet directly. You’ll get better results than if you just like the tweet or retweet it and simply hope the person notices you. If you run an organic coffee shop, for example, you might tweet people a coupon for their first purchase. Set Up Email Notifications With IFTTT Searching for relevant tweets on a regular basis can be time-consuming, especially if you have a lot of potential searches. However, have no fear; Daniel Knowlton let us in on a handy If This Then That (IFTTT) hack for this. IFTTT lets you create a time-saving applet to automate your searches. Then whenever a tweeter uses qualifying keywords or phrases, you’ll get an email notification. Boom! To set it up, create an IFTTT account, click My Applets at the top of the page, and then click New Applet. Next, click +this to set up the trigger (the action that triggers the automation). Then choose Twitter as the service and select New Tweet From Search as the trigger. Next, type your search term in the Search For text box (for example, “Photographer in San Diego”) and click Create Trigger. Next, click +that to set up the result of your trigger. Then select Email as the action service and Send Me an Email as the action. On the next page, click Create Action. You’ll then be asked if you want to receive notifications every time the applet runs (whether it finds a new tweet or not). If you want this to happen, turn the switch on. Finally, click Finish and you’re done. You’ll start receiving emails every time someone tweets your chosen word or phrase, and you can repeat this process for all of the keywords you came up with! #2: Use Twitter Ads to Drive Traffic to a Lead Magnet Landing PageAlthough the Twitter lead generation card is gone, you can still use Twitter ads to drive traffic to pages where you give away content in return for an email. The key is to have a great giveaway that qualifies people. You don’t want to pay for Twitter ads to promote a giveaway everybody will want; you want to attract potential customers! To get you started, we’ll show you a short tutorial for setting up a simple Twitter ad campaign. Twitter ads are relatively simple to set up compared to ads for Facebook or Google AdSense. First, set up your account with Twitter Ads and click Create Campaign. In the left sidebar, click Website Clicks or Conversions (it might also be labeled Website Visits). Then click Create Campaign on the right. For the first step, give your campaign a name and decide if you want your ad to be shown only on Twitter or on the Twitter Audience Platform, too. You can also set up conversion tracking here, but for this simple demonstration, we’re going to skip that part. For the next step, choose the audience for your ad. You can set basic targeting options like age, gender, location, and device; and you can also set more advanced targeting such as keywords (users who tweet certain words), followers (people similar to people who follow specific accounts), interests (accounts tweeting about certain categories of interests), and more. Use these criteria to narrow down your audience. For example, you can target the audience of Buffer’s account, as well as your own following and users like your following. Also, choose whether your ad will be shown only in timelines or also in profile and tweet detail pages. Next, decide how much you want to spend on your campaign, per day and total. The minimum daily budget is $0.01, but Twitter gives you estimated reach and website clicks depending on your budget size. You could test at $2/day for 5 days and measure performance before scaling up. Now you’re ready to create your ad. The beauty of Twitter ads is that they’re simply tweets, so you have 140 characters worth of text to work with. Create your Twitter card with the link to your giveaway, add a headline, and choose an image. When you’re finished, hit Publish Tweet and then Launch. You’ll also want to have a remarketing pixel on your website. Then once people leave your lead magnet landing page, you can serve them follow-up ads to get visitors to buy or opt into something. The idea is that by serving your ads to people who’ve already been on your site, your ad cost should be lower than serving ads to a cold audience. #3: Broadcast Live Video to Warm Up ProspectsTwitter’s live-streaming app Periscope is now embedded within Twitter’s mobile app, making it easier to go live. With live broadcasts, you can show your audience the real you and let them chat with you in real time. Live video is a great opportunity to show people your offering, rather than just tell them about it. After all, seeing is believing, right? Think about how you can go behind the scenes for your product or service. Show viewers how to use your product, people’s reactions to it, how it’s made, the team behind it… all of these kinds of things can build trust in your offering. We don’t recommend going straight into a full-on sales pitch all of the time, though. Remember, it’s about offering value and building relationships first. Going live is easy from within the Twitter app. Tap Compose a Tweet and then tap the Live icon. Finally, give your stream a title and hit the Go Live button to start broadcasting. Initiating Conversations With Prospects Twitter is a truly open social platform, which is what made many of us fall in love with it in the first place. In recent times, though, with all of the scheduling tools and automation, it’s lost its way from what it used to be, especially for B2B. Here’s what the Twitter strategy seems to be for most marketers: share lots of other people’s articles, tweet blog posts a few times a day, drop in a couple of promo tweets, slip in some hashtags, set up Twitter lists they’ll never check, and automate the whole thing within an inch of its life… not forgetting the auto DM. Ouch! It seems like this is becoming the norm and it’s diluting what Twitter is all about. The good news is that you can use this to your advantage. Imagine getting a Twitter video message out of the blue from a stranger saying, “Hey, I’ve just been reading your blog, I loved your article about ______.” How special would that make you feel? It’s mind-blowing the effect this has on people because nobody expects it. So the mission for you is to go hunt down your target market; engage with people proactively; and ask friendly, open questions to start conversations. More conversations lead to more potential customers and leads. Don’t go for the sale right away, though. Social media is about relationships, so add your targets to Twitter lists and keep proactively engaging with them until they raise their hand as a lead. To make sure you check your Twitter lists, change the Twitter link in your bookmarks to the direct link for a Twitter list feed. This way, every time you click to go to Twitter, you’re actually going to the feed of people you need to be engaging with and you might as well do it while you’re there! Tip: If you use Hootsuite or similar software, why not set up a column that shows your Twitter lists, too? The key is to build relationships with people and then take the conversation off of Twitter. Send them a message asking for a quick 10-minute call to find out more about each other. Conclusion Even though the lead generation card is no more, you can still effectively generate leads on Twitter. Do you need to use all of the tactics above? Probably not. Pick the ones that work best for your business and focus on doing those well. What do you think? What’s your preferred way to generate Twitter leads? Are you doing something that should make the list? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Social Media via http://ift.tt/eZnnjC February 22, 2017 at 09:06PM People can't can't can't believe how much some are paying for Justin Bieber's concert tickets2/23/2017
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People can't, can't, can't believe how much some are paying for Justin Bieber's concert tickets http://ift.tt/2lIr35C We told you that Justin Bieber is performing in India for the first time. Understandably, there's a lot of excitement, especially in millennials who can't have enough of the 23-year-old pop sensation. But now there's a problem as we discovered once the tickets went on sale. Firstly, there's a queue. Even if you wait, you are never sure that you're going to get a ticket. What if they are exhausted by 2,000 or even 3,900?
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