http://ift.tt/2r1p7ZT
The Best Social Media Conferences You Can STILL Attend In 2017 http://ift.tt/2s4chtX And just like that, we’ve already flown through half of 2017! With the end of the year looming closer and closer, your team might be taking another look at those yearly goals you made 6 months ago. Haven’t made as much progress as you hoped for? All is not lost! The middle of the year is actually a great time to reset and re-strategize your marketing efforts. You have half a year’s worth of experience to better understand the issues you’re tackling and enough time left to make some real impact on those initiatives. Regardless of the specifics of your 2017 social media goals, there’s a good chance that learning about the industry’s best practices can give you a leg up. What better way to do that than to attend some top-notch conferences? Here’s a round-up of some of the best social media conferences you still have the chance to attend this year: 1. VidConJune 21-24; Anaheim, California For online video marketers, there’s no better conference to attend than VidCon. This conference attracts thousands of online video viewers, creators, and industry representatives from around the world. While the largest crowd at VidCon consists of video fans looking to meet their favorite creators, the convention also offers an Industry Track. These tickets give you access to 27 master classes taught by social media experts from companies like YouTube, Nielsen, and BuzzFeed. 2. Content Marketing WorldSeptember 5-8; Cleveland,Ohio It’s no secret that a major driver of social media success is quality content. At Content Marketing World Conference and Expo, you’ll have the chance to hear from industry titans from brands like GE and IBM about how they extract the most value from their content across various channels, including social. This is the largest content event ever, with over 4,000 attendees, 225 speakers, and 550 brands expected to be present. Don’t miss it! 3. Spredfast’s Smart Social SummitOctober 16-18; Austin, Texas If you’re in the social media marketing game, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with Spredfast’s social software. The company has infused its focus on integrating social strategy with the science of data into its Smart Social Summit. Last year’s conference saw panels from a diverse group of influencers, from comedian Trevor Noah to web psychologist Nathalie Nahai. If you’re looking to learn from innovative leaders in social, Smart Social Summit is the place to be. 4. Social Media Strategies SummitOctober 17-19; New York, New York Often times, the best way to master a craft is by seeing how the experts do it. That’s exactly how Social Media Strategies Summit approaches its conference. At this year’s event, thought leaders from companies like Viacom, Microsoft, and BNY Mellon will share what social media strategies have helped catapult their brand’s marketing efforts. The summit also offers training sessions for lead generation, analytics, and strategy development on social, so you’ll definitely leave with tangible skills. 5. Incite Marketing Summit EastOctober 24-25; Brooklyn, New York If you’re looking to attend a more general marketing conference, Incite Summit is your best bet. This convention organizes its panels into four categories (personalization and experience, content and storytelling, attribution and insights, and omnichannel integration), so you can customize your experience based on your marketing needs. Social Media Explorer covered last year’s Incite Summit East; click here to get an idea of the incredible insight offered at the conference. The post The Best Social Media Conferences You Can STILL Attend In 2017 appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://ift.tt/xMddWR June 7, 2017 at 02:38AM
0 Comments
http://ift.tt/2qWEPkC
Teen conquers her biggest fear with radiant bathing suit Twitter post http://ift.tt/2sSQhyp A British teen took on one of her biggest fears with a single tweet and her response to her haters has been inspiring. 13-year-old Paris Harvey suffers from a metabolic condition that makes her put on weight quickly. She also has hip dysplasia, which — when combined with her condition — makes losing weight difficult. The teen has struggled with body confidence due to her weight. "I got bullied in the past and after a while, you start to believe what people say," she said in the Huffington Post. "I became really insecure about how I looked." While on a trip to the beach last weekend, Paris decided she would confront her insecurities head on. She bared her body in an adorable patterned pink bathing suit and posted the pictures to her Twitter account. The post went viral, garnering more than 335,000 likes and over 46,000 retweets. Paris' bathing suit photos were met with both positive and negative feedback, but the teen has chosen to ignore the haters. "There were some bad comments and I read them at first, but then I thought, ‘Why am I wasting my time on those?’ I chose to focus on the support because hate is nothing compared to love." And the love from Twitter was overwhelming.
The experience and the teen's positive attitude has given Paris wisdom beyond her years. “I feel like we should embrace who we are. You shouldn’t have to change yourself to make others feel comfortable around you. Focus on yourself." That wisdom has rubbed off on her father, too. "I am very proud of my daughter. Paris has been through a lot but she is just a normal girl and she carries on with it," Bill Harvey, 38, said to Kent Online. "I'm self conscious about things but I look at what she has done and it shows me that I shouldn't be. She is an inspiration." Mashable has reached out to Paris and will update the story if we hear back. Social Media via Social Media http://ift.tt/1N1mMj1 June 7, 2017 at 02:02AM
http://ift.tt/2rTTj8k
How to Protect Your Blog Content From Copyright Infringement http://ift.tt/2sRRFBx Want to protect your blog content from being stolen? Wondering how to respond when your blog content is scraped? As a blogger, you put hours into creating original content. Having it stolen can be frustrating and upsetting. In this article, you’ll discover four steps to legally safeguard your blog content from copyright infringement, including what to do when your content gets stolen.
#1: Protect Your Content and Website With Terms of Use and DisclaimersTerms of Use is a website policy (which sometimes is also called Terms of Service or Terms & Conditions) that protects your blog content (and your business) by outlining what visitors can and cannot do with the information on your site. You may think the necessity of saying something like, “You agree that you will not modify, copy, reproduce, sell, or distribute any content in any manner or medium without permission” is obvious. However, having this legal language on your website strengthens your position when someone does steal your content. Your website is often the storefront of your business, and specific legal policies will protect not only your content but your business and income as well. As a blogger, keep in mind that although you may not own the content that readers share in your Comments section, you still have the right to manage it so your Terms should outline this as well. To create the text for your Terms, you can hire an attorney who understands websites and online businesses (not all do) or buy a template from an attorney or company that offers attorney-drafted templates. Do not copy terms from another business because that’s copyright infringement. Also, do not try to write your own; lawyers went to school for several years to learn this stuff for a reason. After you have your website Terms, put your Terms in the footer on every page of your website, including your blog. You also want to have Disclaimers. These vital paragraphs (often included within the Terms) protect you from liability (that is, getting sued) should someone misuse any content you post on your blog. Bloggers need to make it clear that their content is information they’re putting into the world and they aren’t liable for what readers happen to do (or not do) with that information. Think of the reader who uses a health blogger’s green smoothie recipe and ends up hospitalized. Obviously, the hospitalization is not the blogger’s fault, but people have certainly been sued for less. With Terms and Disclaimers, you protect your blog content and have easy access to evidence of your business policies should you need it. #2: Register Your CopyrightRegistering your blog posts with the U.S. Copyright Office gives you legal grounds to bring a lawsuit for copyright infringement. If you’re familiar with copyright basics, you know that copyright protection is automatic and your posts are YOUR property the minute you publish each post on your blog. However, to have legal standing to bring a lawsuit, you must register that post with the U.S. (or other) government. To register on the U.S. copyright registration portal, submit an application, payment, and your blog posts. You can register a whole pile at once. Many bloggers get into the habit of registering a bundle of posts every quarter. The cost is minimal ($35-$55) and comes with big peace of mind. If you don’t register your blog posts, your recourse if someone steals your blog posts is somewhat limited to a cease and desist letter or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). (You’ll learn about those options in a moment.) However, if you register your posts, you can bring an action in court and automatically be awarded statutory damages (read: money, money, money). Copyright infringement is a serious crime, and registering your blog posts gives you rights against (and monetary reward from) anyone who steals your content. Awards for copyright infringement can range from $750 to $30,000, or even as high as $150,000 under certain circumstances such as willful infringement. #3: Send a Cease and Desist LetterIn the online world, content and images get taken and used all the time. Whether someone does it on purpose or by accident (still not sure how that happens, but some people claim it does), your first step is to reach out and ask them to stop, assuming you know who did it. You can send a simple email to the perpetrator outlining the content taken. Often the realization that they’ve been “caught” is enough to resolve the issue. If sending an email doesn’t work, the next step would be to send a formal cease and desist letter. This letter is a bit heavier-handed than an email, and can be drafted and sent by a lawyer. You don’t have to hire a lawyer to do this, but sometimes bringing in a lawyer results in a quick takedown of the stolen content. A cease and desist letter will specifically outline and reference the posts taken (with links, summaries, etc.) and usually give a 72-hour window to comply. If you’ve registered your content, you can include your copyright registration number in the letter. If the letter doesn’t work, you can proceed to the DMCA. #4: Use the Digital Millennium Copyright ActFortunately, laws in place protect bloggers and their content. From almost the beginning of the Internet (okay, not quite that far back, in the late 1990s), the U.S. government passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA. This law contains all sorts of fun stuff, and the main provision that protects content is the Notice and Takedown rule. With this rule, if someone takes your blog post and puts it somewhere else on the Internet without permission (whether that’s another platform like YouTube, or another website), you as the owner can let the platform or web host know via a takedown notice and the content will be removed. If a content scraper is involved or you aren’t sure who’s behind the infringement, you can search on Whois and figure out the owner and/or the domain host. After you know the platform or host where your posts are landing after someone or a content scraper swipes them, you can contact the owner or host directly. Some sites like YouTube have DMCA takedown procedures; others you can email. The DMCA provides “safe harbor” language for platforms and hosting services. As long as they comply with certain rules in the law (e.g., to have a designated agent for takedown notices), then they won’t be held responsible for hosting infringed material. The good news is that this information must be public on their website so you know whom to contact, as shown in the YouTube takedown procedures above. Social media platforms and other websites are usually not interested in hosting stolen content, so often the takedown process is successful in getting your content back where it belongs: on your blog. Conclusion Having these four steps in your back pocket will help you prepare should that day come when your posts end up somewhere else without your permission. Note: Nothing in this article is intended to be legal advice and is for educational purposes only. What do you think? What tips will help you further protect your blog content? Do you have any experience successfully taking down content stolen from your blog? Please share your thoughts in the comments. Social Media via http://ift.tt/eZnnjC June 6, 2017 at 10:06PM
http://ift.tt/2rICjQm
Facebook Live introduces closed captions for deaf and hard of hearing users http://ift.tt/2rxKXCQ Facebook Live introduces closed captions for deaf and hard of hearing usersImage: Mashable composite: Facebook/Shutterstock
By Matt Petronzio2017-06-06 18:23:30 UTC
Facebook just got a little more accessible for deaf and hard of hearing users. The social media giant is adding closed captioning capabilities to its Live product, USA Today reported Tuesday, allowing viewers to see automatically generated captions on broadcasts that show up in their News Feeds. To see the captions, both publishers and viewers need to activate the setting. It's a welcome addition to Facebook, which has already offered automatic closed captioning on regular videos and advertisements for a few years. When Live launched in 2016, some deaf and hard of hearing users noted the lack of captioning, which rendered the videos inaccessible. More than 5 percent of the world's population — or about 360 million people — are deaf or hard of hearing. While Facebook's new effort likely has at least some commercial interests behind it (captioning could also draw in more viewers wanting to watch videos on mute), it certainly allows for deaf users to more fully experience videos on the platform. It also helps broaden publishers' audiences, and could push them to make their content more inclusive. FCC rules and guidelines for captioning exist for TV, but not for online media like Facebook and YouTube unless it's also broadcast on TV in the U.S. Nevertheless, Facebook's new feature will support the CEA-608 closed caption standard for broadcasters.
"It's absolutely an imperative for the deaf and hard of hearing community, so our hope really is that we can continue to build more and more tools in the captioning space that increase the amount of videos that have captioning both real time and otherwise," Jeffrey Wieland, Facebook's director of accessibility, told USA Today. But while these captions do increase accessibility, they aren't a catch-all solution. Auto-generated captions can be riddled with inaccuracies, jumbled words, run-on sentences, and no punctuation. That's why Rikki Poynter, a 25-year-old deaf YouTuber, created the #NoMoreCraptions movement last year. Poynter wanted to call out "crappy" automatic captions and encourage fellow YouTube creators to write their own in order to make their videos even more accessible. "If you truly want all of your viewers to get involved in your content and your channel, captioning is the way to go," she told Mashable last November. For Facebook Live, broadcasters can work with third-party captioning companies to write and insert closed captions. Publishers can also use their own captioning technology. Poynter is optimistic about Facebook's new feature, telling USA Today she thinks it's a great idea. "It's something that people have been wanting for YouTube live broadcasts, but haven't been able to get it," she said. She added that the captioning can be particularly helpful for weather announcements and forecasts, as well as politics-related content. Regardless of subject matter, deaf and hard of hearing users deserve to have the same access to news, resources, and fun as much as anyone else. That simple fact makes this a move in the right direction for Facebook, and a model for other companies in the tech and social media space. You can learn how to enable Facebook Live captioning here. WATCH: Facebook's Community Help tool in actionSocial Media via Social Media http://ift.tt/1N1mMj1 June 6, 2017 at 06:32AM
http://ift.tt/2sdsooF
In search of meaning for the Facebook Like http://ift.tt/2sPqFm3 What're you saying when you "Like" a story about the Syrian Civil War in your Facebook News Feed? Maybe that you enjoyed reading the story. Or maybe the fact the story's even being covered in the first place. Or just the idea that whoever posted the article is spreading some kind of awareness. Of course, you could just be expressing your approval for the war in Syria. And then: What are you saying if the next thing you "Like" is a picture of a friend's baby? Facebook's the most pervasive single entity in the history of the world—nearly two billion worldwide users. It's already had a massive impact on advertising and media, to say nothing of the way we interact with one another, and it could end up playing a critical role in a paradigm shift of the entertainment business as we know it. And of course, Facebook's dramatic impact on politics (or lack thereof) has been argued ad nauseam since November. Central to that experience is the Like. Introduced in 2009, the feature's become so ubiquitous that "like" now tends to be associated with Facebook, as a proper noun: A Like. In 2010, Facebook claimed it saw 1 billion likes per day. And that was seven years ago. Some of those Likes have consequences. A court in Switzerland recently fined a man 4,000 Swis francs (about $4,100) for hitting the button on a series of Facebook posts falsely accusing an animal rights activist of being a racist and fascist. "The defendant clearly endorsed the unseemly content and made it his own," the court said in a statement. America's had a run in with this issue, too. In 2013, a group of employees at a Sheriff's department were laid off, sometime after having "Liked" the Facebook page of the sheriff's opponent in an upcoming election. The employees sued. They lost at first, with a judge ruling that a Like on Facebook is not, in fact, protected speech. They then won on appeal, with a three-judge panel unanimously finding that a Like is indeed speech, and therefore, protected under the First Amendment. "On the most basic level, clicking on the 'like' button literally causes to be published the statement that the User 'likes' something, which is itself a substantive statement," wrote Chief Judge Williams Traxler in the judgment. At the core of both these causes is what a Like actually means. In Switzerland, the legal precedent is now that it's an endorsement. In the United States, a Like is speech—and according to at least one judge, a literal expression of liking something. But let's be real: There's no possible way this jives with the experiences of anybody who's ever actually spent time on Facebook. Parsing intent from someone hitting a button on the Internet is, at best, a faulty calculus of context. Trying to figure out what a Like means is a question that requires knowing everything about the time, place, content, and people involved in said Like. In a world where Facebook networks often include friends, family, colleagues, frenemies, old friends, and whoever else is around, that's an incredibly messy proposition. The reality that pressing "Like" isn't the same thing as saying "like" wasn't lost on Facebook. After years of jokes about needing a dislike button, the company introduced a variety of responses in October 2015, including anger and sadness. There's still no Dislike button, but people had been given a way to issue a subtler, more meaningful response than just hitting "Like." And yet, the Like reigns supreme, with way more use than those emotional responses (thanks in part to Facebook's design choices). It remains dominant and vague. In that sense, it's taken on meaning unto itself. A Facebook Like is a Facebook Like, and no two Likes are the same. Where the Like has very definite meaning, though? Inside Facebook. We know that Facebook's almighty algorithm takes Likes to mean that the post should be amplified, shown to more people. Where Facebook's concerned, a like is more than an endorsement—it's a positive signal.
"There's no global consensus on what the Like button means —some do it to validate a friend’s photo or a colleague's point of view, others use it to follow a brand or celebrity to ensure that content always pops up in their feed," said Sarah Sampsel, design director at Work & Co. "Either way, the act of liking something is the lowest-hanging fruit of interaction design." Perhaps therein lies the truest meaning of Facebook, if one exists. Facebook wants you to spend time on Facebook, especially in the news feed. If a Like is a positive signal that a post will keep you on Facebook for more time, a Like, in those terms, expresses the value of that post in terms of time. So, again: A story about the war in Syria and a photo of a baby might have nothing in common...except that they might both be worth my time. Or, rather, things I consider worth of the time of others. Look at this baby. Read this story. But, really: Like what I Like. Whether you like it or not. Social Media via Social Media http://ift.tt/1N1mMj1 June 6, 2017 at 06:02AM
http://ift.tt/2qTJ8NC
'Finstas' can be boring or funny or sexy — but they're always real http://ift.tt/2rQJ70l Don't believe everything you read about "finstas," the secret Instagram accounts currently puzzling the internet. Rumours swirl about teenagers sharing pics of sex and drugs on their finstas, but in reality, teens are using these accounts to show their real, authentic selves. And, they're actually pretty damn dorky. A finsta is a second—or fake—Instagram account used by teens and young people to share photos they'd rather not post on their main accounts. These private accounts often have a considerably smaller and select following. For many young people, these public-facing Instagram accounts are often highly curated and can contain heavily filtered and Photoshopped images. So, what exactly are people sharing on these private, and highly mysterious, accounts? The Huffington Post defines finstas as fake accounts used to conceal "scandalous and overtly sexual behaviour" and to "function with anonymity to troll peers." Urban Dictionary's definition is no different, describing finstas as accounts where one can post "ratchet" photos "without persecution from sororities, jobs and society as a whole." But, is it really as sinister as all that? Adrian Varela, 19, says he's read "so many" articles about "how teens do drugs on their finstas" and he's keen to set the record straight. "That's totally false we literally use our finstas to shitpost memes and overshare," says Valera. He says he and his "finsta mutuals" use their finstas "to just like vent and overshare about our personal lives." Weston Windell, 18, also wants to dispel the rumour that these accounts are used to show drug use. "Finstas are used to publicise the real us. Rather that being illegal behaviour, [we're] just posting what we really think about others," says Windell. "They kind of are our opposites of our real profiles. Ironic." Marley Amico, 20, says there are indeed some people who use them for sharing nudes and drug pictures. But for the most part these accounts are a way to share “things they only want their close friends to see.” “It’s really a space to post anything you want, without censorship,” says Amico. Finstas are a place for people to show their true, authentic selves to a group of close friends. But, Sabine Reedy, a 21-year-old student at Drew University, says that the argument that "finstas are more real and rinstas (real Instagrams) are more fake" doesn't quite capture the complex and nuanced nature of finstas. Self-deprecating humour seems to be very prevalent on the vast majority of finstas, and the consensus among many users is that it's a judgement-free space where people can post silly photos of themselves to a select following. That unflattering pictures, close-up selfies, and awkward videos are all par for the course on finstas. Maggie Donnelly, 23, created a finsta after graduation and she uses it to make fun of herself for "being basic." Be it a shot of her Starbucks cup or herself sunbathing, Donnelly uses her finsta to show herself "living that basic life." (Like the picture below.) Reedy says she uses her finsta to post embarrassing photos of herself and to "vent" about things, but generally it's pretty standard for people to be funny on their finstas. "Your followers like to see funny posts or again something that is embarrassing because it makes them laugh," she says. But, there's another dimension to finstas. "People use their finstas for their body positive photos 'cause it's basically like a safe space, ya know?" says Adrian Varela. He says that the idea behind finstas is that on "trusted people" are supposed to follow you. Reedy believes finstas provide a platform away from the pressures that young women feel from Instagram. "I think that finstas provide teenage girls and young women with a space to worry less about being sexualised in terms of navigating how sexy or hot they look when posting a selfie," says Reedy. With Instagram's recent ranking as the worst social network for young people's mental health, due to its ability to cause feelings of inadequacy and anxiety, it's no surprise that young people are trying to escape the pressures and expectations of rinstas. As finstas become increasingly widespread, a definite pattern appears to be emerging. These spaces afford a place where young people can be themselves around a trusted set of people without worrying about the consequences—be it for sharing unfiltered selfies or silly videos. And, what could be more laudable than that? Social Media via Social Media http://ift.tt/1N1mMj1 June 6, 2017 at 04:32AM
http://ift.tt/2szoWSD
An In-depth Guide to Boosting Customer Lifetime Value Using Social Media http://ift.tt/2s0fFWF Are you using your social media presences to keep your customers engaged with you so that they make more purchases, more often, over time? What are the best ways to turn your social channels into customer lifetime value (CLV) boosters, and how do you calculate and track those efforts? As we all know, social media offers marketers remarkable power. But let’s be honest – In all likelihood, you are not effectively maximizing the customer lifecycle optimization potential that your social efforts can deliver. In this article, we’ll discuss what CLV is and why it’s critical to identify, calculate, track and increase it. Then we’ll take a look at exactly how to do that via your social channels. What CLV is and Why it MattersCustomer lifetime value is the amount of money that your average customer spends with you over the course of his or her lifetime. It’s useful to track, because when you know this, you can project the revenue that future customers will send your way, a figure that you can use as a break-even benchmark when compared with customer acquisition costs (CAC). Taking CLV into account can completely shift how you think about customer acquisition. Rather than brainstorming ways to acquire customers and figuring out how cheaply you can accomplish this, a CLV calculation helps you reshape your thinking into brainstorming ways to optimize your acquisition spending for maximum sales value – rather than simply more new customers. Considering it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than it is to keep an existing one, it’s an incredibly valuable metric, as it’s inseparable from your customer retention strategy. According to a 2014 study from predictive analytics firm Implisit, on average, leads captured on B2B websites take an average of 75 days to convert, peer referrals take 97 days, and social media-driven leads only take 40 days to convert. So at least the nurturing process for selling to new sales leads is shortest when social plays a role in B2B product discovery. The 2016 PwC Total Retail Survey, moreover, strengthens the idea that social plays a key role in building positive brand sentiment, which is pivotal when you’re trying to retain customers. Image source: http://ift.tt/171hZ0A Referencing CLV as a metric that you try hard to maximize is vital if you want to increase profitability and retention, because it reveals the true (estimated) ROI on customer acquisition. Segmenting your CLV calculations can likewise help you identify which channels produce the most profitable customers. It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of measuring ROI based on people’s initial purchases. You should be optimizing your marketing activities in terms of the lifetime value a customer contributes to your business. And you should be using your social channels to drive those CLV metrics up. Here’s how. Incorporate Social Media Activity into Your Loyalty Rewards ProgramEncourage your customers to engage with you on social media by rewarding them when they do so. Award points to members who follow selected social accounts, redeemable for discounts on the products they already love. Since 90% of loyalty program members desire communication from the programs in which they participate, give it to them on the channels you want to promote. Empower them to engage with your brand and earn points where they spend their time anyway. The bonus here is that since you’re inevitably already hitting your loyalty program members via email marketing, adding a social touch-point primes your members to build an omnichannel relationship with your brand. The icing on the proverbial cake here is that once your loyalty program members have followed you on your social channels, your brand will keep popping up in their feeds, keeping it in the forefront of your customers’ minds. Image source: http://ift.tt/28ITVmf Of course, you can do this all automatically. Antavo, for example, is a loyalty-marketing platform that rewards the social media behaviors you want to encourage. Your customers can complete the action you want them to take, receive points and redeem awards – all in one place. You can even give them choices with stepped levels of reward points for each action, so they can determine what’s comfortable and worthwhile for them. Offer Discounts to Specific Segments via Social AdsCreating separate buyer personas and pushing out tailored content which will resonate with each audience and drive them to action has the potential to jack up your sales by 124%. You’re segmenting your audience, right? Let’s take that concept one (strategic, profitable) step further. With a social selling intelligence tool like Leadfeeder, you can track your site visitors so you know which products, or categories of products, or content topics, they’re most interested in and therefore likely to purchase when targeted. Anytime someone engages with your website, Leadfeeder does the homework for B2B companies automatically. It integrates with your CRM, empowering you to segment your audience based on their behavior on you website. Then, you can target each segmented audience with social ads and create both upsell and reengagement discount offers on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn. Image source: http://ift.tt/1TuxGT6 For example, if Leadfeeder tells you that that customer companies A and B have visited your website six times in the last two months, consistently lingering on Product Q, but have not returned in the last week, it’s time to target them with a Facebook advertisement specifically for Product Q. Does your CRM tell you that both customers bought Product Q a year ago, and it’s time to restock? Up those click bids! This is a highly focused ad, since you already know who they are, what they want, and how far along in the sales funnel they get before converting. Capitalize on this knowledge. Provide Top Customer Service Across all Social ChannelsWe’ve reached the stage where we need to go beyond a 24-hour response promise and a cheery smile. Customer expectations regarding service via social media have skyrocketed: 32% expect a response within 30 minutes and 42% within the hour. And it gets even more intense: of the survey respondents who have ever attempted to contact a brand, product or company through social media for customer support, 57% expect the same response time at night and on weekends as they do during standard business hours. Thankfully, the technology is now available to take your customer service to the next level and provide exactly what your customers are seeking. Conversocial is an automated, comprehensive customer service platform that streamlines not only direct customer communication but also internal ticket assignment and escalation procedures. Ultimately, this means you can achieve higher productivity, faster decision making, and the big prize: the opportunity to demonstrate superior customer service in comparison to your competitors. Image source: http://ift.tt/z81WYY In addition, Conversocial offers preventative customer service by automatically finding indirect product or brand mentions on Twitter and Instagram. This way, you can proactively resolve issues before they spin out of control. And of course, it integrates with your CRM so you can track all of your touch-points within a single system and review them at a glance. Feature Your Customers in Your Social PostsEverybody wants to feel important. And since 87% of consumers want meaningful interactions with brands, but only 17% believe that brands deliver on those interactions, marketers have some work to do here. Two-thirds of your audience believes that their relationships with sellers is one-sided – they want more recognition and warm feels from their brands. Give it to them. Last year, for example, Coca-Cola marketed personalized soda bottles, but they didn’t stop there. The entire world went crazy for them, and Coke – being the marketing geniuses they are – capitalized on the momentum by encouraging people to share pictures of themselves drinking from their personalized bottles. The pictures stormed social media, and Coke pushed them along by featuring, highlighting and promoting them, ultimately making their customers feel like a million bucks, and (bonus alert!) transitioning Coca Cola’s customers into their advertisers. Image source: http://ift.tt/2s0vBYG In another example, online course sales platform Kajabi is uber-successful at making their customers feel like superstars by featuring them on their social channels. Their #KajabiHero Facebook campaign highlights their customer successes and explains to potential users how this “hero” utilized the platform to bring in significant profits. This strategy allows Kajabi to simultaneously achieve two goals: “pulling their weight” as far as the brand’s responsibility to engage the customer, and exponentially increasing the traffic to their social channels. Win-win. Invite High-Value Customers to Join a Group for SuperfansIf you’re in B2B, LinkedIn might be a better host for your VIP fan group than Facebook, but regardless of your ideal channel, a great way to drive engagement from loyal fans is granting them exclusive and/or early access to sales promotions, pre-launch sales or special events. The women’s fashion brand Zig Zag Stripe did exactly this and sold $6 million worth of products in six months. Their superfan Facebook group boasts 45,000+ members and was established as the antidote to the brand’s diminishing engagement on their main Facebook page. Image source: http://ift.tt/2szWgJh Zig Zag Stripe’s fans feel like they’re part of an exclusive group, and they enjoy giveaways and prizes for recruiting their friends into their “private, closed circle” of discounts and deals. The kicker here is that every brand has the ability to open a (free!) closed Facebook group and sell directly to the group. Soldsie software allows you to take this strategy to new heights, as it allows you to post your products to Facebook or Instagram, empowering your followers to purchase simply by commenting. Items are then automatically added to the customer’s shopping cart, promoting easy checkout. Increase CLV by Channeling the Power of All Your Social ChannelsMaximizing your customer lifetime value in relation to your cost of customer acquisition is challenging but achievable. Get creative; implement one or all of the methods mentioned above and untap the full power of your social channels to incrementally increase your CLV. Focus on the lifelong relationship you’re building with loyal customers and reshape your thinking to focus on maximum lifetime sales value of each customer. They will thank you for it, and so will your bottom line. The post An In-depth Guide to Boosting Customer Lifetime Value Using Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://ift.tt/xMddWR June 6, 2017 at 02:29AM
http://ift.tt/2rw4ymC
3 Ways to Add Facebook Live to Your Marketing Strategy http://ift.tt/2r0UM8G Want to use Facebook Live for more exposure? Looking for ideas to help you broadcast more often? In this article, you’ll discover three creative ways to use Facebook Live.
#1: Join Forces With an Influencer in Your FieldCo-marketing is one of a marketer’s strongest tools. By teaming up with another company or influencer, you can increase your exposure to potential customers. How do you achieve this with Facebook Live? By identifying a key thought leader in the same or similar area as your business and featuring him or her in a Facebook Live broadcast. In their beautiful test kitchen, Food & Wine Magazine hosted a Facebook Live video of chef Marcela Valladolid creating a dish from her new cookbook. The live broadcast allowed Food & Wine to engage with tons of potential new readers and Valladolid got publicity for her cookbook, which appeared at the beginning of the video. To use this tactic in your Facebook Live marketing, locate a co-marketing partner, ideally a thought leader or influencer whom people will recognize and you expect will be good on camera (remember, you want this to be entertaining). Next, identify a topic you want this person to speak about or demonstrate. If you run a gym, for example, find a local fitness personality to show a quick exercise sequence. If your business is in home contracting, work with another professional in a complementary area to create a quick home improvement DIY video. The key to co-marketing is creating a mutually beneficial relationship. During the broadcast, as Food & Wine did, stay involved with your audience to answer live questions either on air or in the comments section. Make sure to mention the audience member by name when you answer questions in the comments (a Facebook-recommended best practice). Takeaway: Facebook Live is a great vehicle to further your co-marketing efforts. Select a business partner to work with and create a live video to move toward your respective marketing goals. #2: Take Your Audience Places They Can’t GoJournalists and news outlets help people experience events and news stories they can’t be part of in real life. Facebook Live takes this to another level by allowing everyday people to see through the eyes of other people who broadcast. The New York Times frequently airs Facebook Live broadcasts, and in one example they live-streamed their TimesTalks event, featuring musician Roger Waters. The Times encouraged viewers to submit questions for Waters during the broadcast. To use this tactic for your business, go live at your own industry event or a conference your customers and partners would be interested in. Be sure to promote your broadcast early and often to ensure people know when you’ll be going live. It might seem counterintuitive to broadcast a lengthy event, but Facebook recommends longer broadcasts because they give users more chances to discover your content. You can broadcast in segments as long as four hours. To engage your audience, encourage questions in the comments and answer those questions if there’s a Q&A session. Keep a steady video image by investing in a mobile phone tripod. Takeaway: Going live at your own industry event or conference session is a great way to give something valuable to your extended audience, exposing them to a moment they wouldn’t be able to experience otherwise. #3: Host a Recurring Talk ShowFacebook Live doesn’t have to be a one-person show. You can run talk show-like live sessions for your business to cover key topics in your industry and engage your users. Creating a talk show with two or three co-workers takes the pressure off of one person, is more engaging for viewers, and can help strengthen customer relationships by increasing familiarity. Refinery29, an online fashion and lifestyle publisher, hosts The Mention, a talk show on Facebook Live that covers entertainment, current events, and other topics. The video below had received around 49,000 views at the time this article was written. Airing a talk show like Refinery29’s takes a little planning, but it isn’t impossible to pull off. Weeks before you intend to broadcast, select your talk show hosts, identify key topics, and then plan each show as far in advance as possible. What subjects will you address? Will you have guests? Will each episode follow a similar format? Don’t plan every detail because you may be able to engage your audience further by soliciting suggestions for future episodes. Entice your viewers to follow you to stay tuned into the series and offer incentives to watch. For example, answer some questions the following week or hint that viewers will get a special discount or surprise gift. Also, it’s a good idea to select one person to monitor the comments for each live broadcast and answer them via a mobile device or on air. This person could be a member of your talk show group or someone off-camera. For the actual recording of your Facebook Live video, consider using a computer and an app such as Wirecast or OBS Studio for a more professional look. Takeaway: The more the merrier! With a Facebook Live talk show broadcast, you can engage your audience and keep them coming back for more content, which over time can bond them closer to your brand. Bonus Tip: Involve Your Audience in the Broadcast There’s a variety of ways you can get your audience involved and participating in your Facebook Live broadcast. Here are a few tactics you might try:
Whatever you do, make your audience feel like they’re part of the broadcast. Conclusion Facebook Live, launched in 2015, is still a relatively new addition to the social media marketer’s arsenal, and plenty of businesses are still unsure how best to use it to their advantage. You can learn tons of great Facebook Live lessons from the original expert content creators: publishers. What do you think? What ideas will you try in your live video broadcasts? What tips can you offer? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Social Media via http://ift.tt/eZnnjC June 5, 2017 at 10:07PM
http://ift.tt/2qTyaMo
How to Build a 25,590 Instagram Following Using This Daily Routine http://ift.tt/2rt4jce Instagram recently announced it reached 700 million users! Of those users, 100 million signed up in the last four months, marking the platform’s fastest-ever growth rate. If you’re wondering how it stacks up against other major networks, see for yourself: It’s currently the third most popular social networking site and has a commanding lead over Twitter. Here’s another visualization of this data: This, of course, means there’s a serious opportunity to build a following. And the beautiful thing is Instagram doesn’t discriminate. If you know what you’re doing, post epic content, and genuinely entertain your audience, your following will grow. But in order to expedite this growth, I find it helpful to establish a regiment, a routine. You need to be practical and tactical with your approach. I’m a huge fan of routines—daily processes you can follow to achieve massive results. Recently, I developed a focused strategy to help one of my clients—a B2C e-commerce brand—to curate a massive following (25,590 to be exact). Here’s the sequence of steps to follow daily that will help you build a 25,590-member following. (For more information on building your Instagram following quickly, be sure to check out another article I wrote on the subject.) Respond to your followers’ comments and questionsLet’s start from the top. I’m not trying to bore you with trivialities, but the first two steps are an essential part of the routine. The first order of business is to spend a few minutes engaging with your followers. Identify all valuable comments and questions, and respond to them individually. If you’re just starting out and currently have a minimal following, you can do this in no time. Leave at least three commentsI like to be on the offense when building a following. Unless you already have a built-in audience, it’s up to you to make the first move. Look through the photos of the people you follow, pick three photos, and leave comments. Stay away from the generic comments like “nice pic!” and say something that stands out and shows you put some thought into it. This will put you on people’s radars and should eventually lead to return engagement. Post at least once per dayOne of the great social media debates is how frequently you should post. This, of course, depends on the specific network in question, but the average Instagram account posts once per day. However, profiles with larger followings usually post more often than that. A 2015 study from Quintly found a correlation between a higher frequency of posting and a higher follower count: Notice that profiles with 10k-100k fans post 41 times per month, or 1.32 times per day. However, those with over 10 million fans post 95 times per month, or 3.06 times per day. By examining these findings, you can conclude you should post at least once a day. But if you can post three times a day, you’ll be in even better shape. The bottom line is you need a steady flow of content. Don’t allow yourself to become complacent and have major gaps between posts. Research proves that brands that post often tend to have bigger followings. You may even want to batch your posting by auto-scheduling on a platform such as Hootsuite to save time. Post at the optimal timeYou probably already know the timing of your posting is a major factor dictating how much visibility your content receives. According to an article from Later,
Here’s a screenshot from Instagram’s blog that confirms this: What are the implications of this algorithm? It means if your content gets a lot of engagement shortly after being posted, this tells Instagram you’re posting quality content. In turn, your content will move toward the top of your followers’ feeds. This means one thing. You need to figure out the optimal time to post. Numerous variables go into determining this factor, including where the majority of your audience is located, when they’re most active on Instagram, etc. Different studies suggest different optimal posting times. For instance, one from HubSpot found that the best time to post on Instagram is anytime between Monday and Thursday, except between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. A 2015 study from Mavrck found that “midnight, 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. were the most popular times to post, with Thursday, Friday and Wednesday being the most popular days.” They also said that “posting between the hours of 6 a.m. and 12 p.m. during off hours when posting is low could work to your advantage, because users are still browsing their feeds.” The point here is that there are different types of logic you can use when determining when to post. I recommend doing some of your own experimentation to pinpoint the sweet spot for your brand. The Later article I mentioned earlier offers some solid advice for doing your own testing. For instance, you can start by posting at different hours Monday through Friday for week one and measuring engagement. Record your results in a spreadsheet. Google Sheets works great for this: Week two, repeat the process, but switch the hours. Again, record your results: Keep repeating the process until you know for sure what the optimal posting time is. Once you’ve figured it out, rinse and repeat. Your engagement level should continue to increase, which will help your content rise to the top. This ultimately translates into a bigger following. Use 11+ hashtagsHashtags are a big deal, especially on Instagram. Countless studies have attempted to figure out the ideal number of hashtags for each social network. While some people may use only one or two hashtags on average, others may use as many as 30 (the maximum). Here’s a post with a ton of hashtags: Although using “X” number of hashtags per post won’t necessarily guarantee you a 25k+ following, it can definitely give you an edge. To determine the ideal number of hashtags, let’s look at the data. According to a study from TrackMaven, “interactions are highest on Instagram posts with 11+ hashtags.” A separate study from Max Woolf seems to concur. Here’s what the distribution of likes on 120,346 Instagram photos looks like: This means the odds of engagement increase when you include 11 or more hashtags on an Instagram post. So don’t worry about “hashtag fatigue.” Just be sure your hashtags are relevant to the content and not spammy, and you should be good to go. Research hashtagsMy last point demonstrates that hashtags are a good thing on Instagram. But how do you go about choosing hashtags to populate your posts with? Should you just pick them at random, or is there more of a science to it? Well, of course, each individual post will require certain hashtags to properly describe it. That’s common sense. But if you’re consistently posting around a central theme, it’s smart to do a little hashtag research to spot winners. From there, you can make a list for quick reference. One of the easiest ways to generate quality hashtags is to type a relevant keyword into the Instagram search box and see what pops up. First, click on the search box: Then start typing a keyword. I’ll use “content marketing” as an example: Just like that, you’ve got several ideas for hashtags. You can also gauge how popular a hashtag is by checking how many posts are using it: Another approach is to use a tool called Hash At It. It’s really simple to use. Type in a keyword in the search box, and click “Search”: Here’s what pops up: Scroll down, and you should be able to quickly generate some good ideas for hashtags. I suggest making this part of your daily Instagram routine. This way you’ll always have a rock solid list of hashtags ready to go every time you post. For more tools to help you research hashtags, check out this post from Kickstagram. Kill it with your captionsThe way I look at it, captions can turn a great Instagram photo into an epic one. Some people just have a knack for writing awesome captions that hit all the right notes. Take this one from Doug the Pug for example: It’s super funny! I suggest spending some time looking through lists of captions and recording some you could use in the future. Here are a few resources worth checking out: Of course, originality is important, so try to tweak them whenever possible to fit your brand. Follow three accountsFinally, be sure you’re continually following new brand-related accounts. I recommend seeking out at least three or more each day and following them. Ideally, they’ll be major influencers because any engagement from them can quickly boost your following. This will ensure you stay on the radars of others, which should bring additional exposure to your account. As long as your content is high-quality and relevant, a sizable percentage of people should return the favor and follow you back. ConclusionLet me summarize everything I just discussed in a step-by-step sequence for your daily Instagram routine:
A steady routine like this should help even the most obscure account build a 25,590-member following fairly quickly. If you follow this routine daily, you’ll gain followers steadily and consistently. Having more Instagram followers provides a ton of benefits, including increased brand exposure, continual lead generation, networking opportunities, and ultimately increased sales. How big of a role does Instagram play in your brand’s overall marketing strategy? Social Media via Quick Sprout http://ift.tt/UU7LJr June 5, 2017 at 03:01AM
http://ift.tt/2rLltlH
3 Invaluable Lessons on Transforming a Brand from a CMO http://ift.tt/2swciUg When you think about the changes that have taken place in any given industry – be it marketing, software, retail – everyone today operates on a sped-up clock. Gone are the days of months-long product development cycles. While technology has enhanced many industries, it has also disrupted them as well. In 2014, when VP and CMO Lauren Flaherty launched CA Tech’s “Business Rewritten by Software” campaign, companies were just beginning to understand the importance of reinventing their business models using software, but the technology was still left in the capable hands of the I.T. department. Today, I.T. is no longer separated from the business, but instead uniquely intertwined with its mission. Flaherty recognized that shift, which structured her team’s latest campaign: “Modern Software Factory.” To hear more about transforming a brand, developing new models for demand generation, and other hard earned insights, tune into the latest Renegade Thinkers Unite podcast with guest Lauren Flahery, VP and CMO at CA Technologies.During her four years at CA Technologies, Flaherty also learned three invaluable lessons on transforming a brand that she shares in the latest Renegade Thinkers Unite podcast: Start from the inside, and work your way outFlaherty explains that every brand transformation has to start from the inside, and that it needs to permeate throughout the entire company. For example, employees should be receiving company-related news from the company, not external sources. When CA underwent its own transformation, Flaherty’s team implemented the changes six months prior to going public with them. She found it important to consult with her sales leads and get their unique perspective about the pain points their customers were experiencing. That helped her evaluate whether the transformation they were implementing was on point and would be well received. Practice what you preachBecause CA’s products promised agility, Flaherty found it important to hold the company to the same standards. Rather than operating under drawn-out production cycles, she made sure her team worked in mini-sprints that built on the customer feedback they were receiving. This helped them get the product out to market faster in a way that was always relevant to the customers. During the process, Flaherty found that there was no longer a separation between tech and business – the two were entirely intertwined. The language and medium her department used to talk about their products needed to address both C-suite executives and I.T. teams. Make the brand experience tangibleThe latest campaign, “Modern Software Factory,” built on the patterns Flaherty’s team observed throughout the last three years. This campaign worked to help people visualize abstract software concepts. They used television (an excellent medium for storytelling) to address the C-suite executives and partnered with CNN during the 2016 presidential election in what Flaherty describes as a “co-creation.” While it appeared to be a media buy, what her team actually did was create a seamless experience between two mediums; CA recognized that people would be consuming election coverage through various types of media, and by creating an app experience for CNN, CA was able to show – not tell – what they could do for brands. And in case you were wondering, the engagement and reach CNN experienced during that period would have taken years to develop without the help of the app! The post 3 Invaluable Lessons on Transforming a Brand from a CMO appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Social Media via Social Media Explorer http://ift.tt/xMddWR June 5, 2017 at 02:59AM |
Amazing WeightLossCategories
All
Archives
November 2020
|