Automated social media posting systems – Why do you need it?

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The newest trend is social media is automated posting systems that manage your posting to your social media accounts. When this initially started there was a big “hooray!” sounding from the offices of social media experts. Finally there is a way to schedule posts to various platforms without having to sit online and wait for the optimum time for this post to go on Facebook. And yes – this definitely is reason to celebrate, BUT it doesn’t mean you can now sit back and scratch social media posting completely off your to-do list. Let’s look at why you need this system and how you can make it work for you.

The first and very important thing to notice is what I’ve mentioned – this does not mean your work is done. It’s like doing washing. You put your dirty clothes in the washing machine and it’s great, but nothing will be washed until you tell your washing machine what it needs to know. You need to set the programme, choose hot or cold water, washing cycles and so on. It works the same with social media automation. The goal is not to take your work away, but rather to help you work smart. So in order to work smart, there are a few things you can do to use your automation system to its fullest capacity.

You need to understand when to automate. Once you start automating, you can find that you may become a little addicted. When you’ve discovered its efficiencies in one area, you might want to keep going with this automation thing until your entire workflow has been automated – not cool. One way of building a brand and an audience on social media is sharing great content. Automation helps here, because it helps you to post this content online when your target market is in the best position to read it. It also frees up some time to find more content. T.A. McCann has a very interesting rule called the 5-3-2 rule of social media sharing. This concept states the following:

For every 10 updates you post to a social media channel;

• 5 should be content from others that is relevant to your audience
• 3 should be content from you (no, not a sales pitch, just relevant information)
• And 2 posts should be personal and non-work related that shows your audience your human side

The great thing about this concept, or rule if you like, is that it forces you to focus more on your audience instead of on yourself. It helps you to convey the right message.

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Is Social Media Marketing Still Viable?

Facebook recently had businesses up in arms and nearly saw many a social media consultant pack their bags. All of a sudden no-one sees business posts, likes are plummeting faster than Husain Bolt can run and reach stats cause sleepless nights. What is happening? Should you take social media marketing off your to-do list?

The simple answer to the first question is that Facebook is trying to limit business accounts. All companies came flocking to the platform to join in the conversation and reach the millions of relevant people waiting to buy their product. Well, Facebook saw this and have now introduced a price tag on what used to be an open floor.

The second question depends on your business. The best place to find justification for or against social media marketing is the cost-benefit ratio. Are your costs in line with the benefits you receive from marketing on Facebook?

In the old days, someone who likes your page, would implicitly see your content in their newsfeed. Then Facebook started using an algorithm called EdgeRank, which tries to figure out what should be the most relevant information a user wants to see. As a result, many businesses have seen that any post of theirs only shows up in the newsfeed of 15 – 20% of their total followers. This is less than ideal, but if you have a large following, this percentage might still be manageable. Since October 2013, EdgeRank has been put into high gear. Now your post will only be seen by 5 – 6% of your page followers and independent studies revealed a staggering 2% range for pages with more than 500,000 followers. This just shows that larger businesses’ posts are being held hostage and paid advertisements is the only ransom.

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What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

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The importance of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is something that should not be overlooked when creating your website, no matter what you’re selling or promoting. In order to get as much traffic to your website as possible, you will need to convince search engines like Google and Bing that your content is well thought out and user-friendly. Learning the basics of SEO will go a long way towards giving your website the best chance of being ranked on the first page of Google or Bing’s search results.

Depending on how you structure the content on your website, search engines will give you a rating that will affect how high your website or content appears on the results page when users search for keywords relevant to your product or service. Since there can potentially be millions of results that appear once the ‘Search’ button is clicked, you’ll want your content to be as visible to users as quickly as possible.

Effective SEO involves every aspect of the website, including the overall performance of the website, how fast it loads content and responds to input, originality of content posted, authority of your website (which us judged by how many other sites use yours as a reference or find your content worthy of linking to), and the user rating, which is based on how easy your content and website is to navigate, how long users stay on the page for,  how safe it is from malware, etc.

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SNAPCHAT: 101

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"Snapchat is a photo messaging application developed by Evan Spiegel and Robert Murphy, then Stanford University students.  Using the application, users can take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list of recipients. These sent photographs and videos are known as "Snaps". Users set a time limit for how long recipients can view their Snaps (as of December 2013, the range is from 1 to 10 seconds), after which they will be hidden from the recipient's device and deleted from Snapchat's servers." 

Yet there is much more to Snapchat than a simple snap and share.

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How to leverage holidays for your social media campaign

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Many companies use the holiday season, whether its Christmas, Halloween or Valentines Day as a way of getting customers more involved with their products and services. By doing this, they not only allow their customers to interact with them, but they show their clients and potential future clients the lighter side of their business. Here are a few ideas on how you could use the holidays as a marketing tool to help boost your social media coverage and interaction on your pages.

1.     Build up to the day

A lot of people tend to forget about holidays, not because they don’t enjoy them, but simply because we all get so busy doing other things. Use your social media profiles to create a build up to the day for one or two weeks before the time, perhaps with a competition or a series of posts that count down to a climax or a product giveaway, etc. Remember not to go too far overboard too early, since people may get fed up and just ignore your posts until the shenanigans are over.

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How to use LinkedIn as an effective marketing tool

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LinkedIn prides itself on being the social network most focused on building a professional presence online. The following is a list of ways in which you could use LinkedIn in order to promote your business to your network and build a strong marketing profile.

1.     Create a strong professional profile

One of the best ways to keep your connections informed about your happenings is by posting ‘status updates.’ Status updates are brief statements that you feel your connections will find useful. In addition, they can include links to related content on your website. To appear active in the LinkedIn community, post useful and actionable status updates on a regular basis. LinkedIn also allows you to easily syndicate your Blog posts to your profile. As you post to your blog on your Website, your LinkedIn profile will be automatically updated with your posts’ title, abstract and link to the full post on your Website.

If you are an active participant in Twitter, you can integrate your LinkedIn status updates with your Tweets to keep your connections and followers informed. LinkedIn makes it easy for you to request recommendations from your connections. A collection of glowing recommendations that underscore your expertise and experience will significantly enhance your profile.


2.     The LinkedIn Community

LinkedIn Groups help you stay informed and keep in touch with people that share your interests. You can create your own LinkedIn groups or join any number of groups that focus on your area of interest or expertise. Participating in LinkedIn Groups by adding value to the discussion is a great way to expand your circle of influence.

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Social media is the new word of mouth

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Any business owner will tell you that the best way to steamroll your way through the competition is through improving word of mouth exposure. 

Potential customers tend to trust the advice given to them by their friends and family more than anything a company might say to convince them of the superior quality of their product. Most of the time, these tactics are seen as marketing tactics that are used to hype up the product and downplay anything bad on the part of the seller. 

It is easier to convince someone to buy your product if they are already aware of it working or being good quality from experience, or from the experience of those they trust.

In the 21st century, what better place is there for any one person to communicate easily and effectively with as many people as possible than over the Internet – more specifically, on social media networks? 

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