Archive for the ‘Social Media Marketing’ Category

Marketing Tip Monday: When to Post on Social Media

Posted by bert

You don’t need to be a marketing expert to know that content is king on social media.  To get the most interactions and reach out of your social media strategy, you need to be posting content that your fan base responds to.  However, what is the point of having this great content if you aren’t posting it when your audience is active?  In this Marketing Tip Monday, we answer the question of when to post on social media.
Timing is everything.  This mantra rings especially true in your social media marketing efforts.  Even though Facebook and Instagram have an algorithm in place that will show content based on a variety of factors, it is still very important to look at the times you post on social media.
 According to this infographic from Surepayroll, the best time to post on Facebook is between 1 and 4 pm.  Twitter is most active Monday-Thursday between 9 am and 3 pm.  Late night/early morning posts perform much worse than posts during the middle of the day.  The weekends are a fine time to post as long as you stick to posting in the middle of the day.
This information seems to be rather common sense.  By following these best practices you can certainly get more mileage out of your posts.  If you want to maximize your efforts though, you need to dive deeper into your analytics.  Most social media platforms provide built in statistics showing when your content is being interacted with.  Experiment a little bit and see what times your audience is responding.  If you’re marketing to mostly college-aged people you may be able to post a little later at night and get away with it.  If you’re marketing to professionals, you may want to only post early morning, during lunch times or towards the end of the work day.  Knowing your audience and their behavior patterns is the key to having a deeper understanding of your posting strategy.  It takes a little leg work, but it is totally worth it in the long run!
To summarize, there are definitely best practices to follow when it comes to when to post on social media.  To get the most out of your campaigns though, you will have to do some research and analysis in order to really figure out when your audience is there to engage with your content.

 

 

Instagram Stories: Facebook Continues to Dominate Social Media

Posted by bert

instagram stories

 

Facebook is the social media behemoth and with the addition of Instagram Stories that doesn’t seem like it’s going to change any time soon.

It seems to happen every time.  As soon as a social media platform arrives on the scene and starts to take some of the spotlight, Facebook swats it away like Godzilla with a fighter jet.  While previous social sites like Myspace and Friendster had a brief moment in the sun before fizzling out as users gravitated to the next big thing, Facebook has remained the number one social media service for years and doesn’t appear to be losing any steam.  In fact, as of the second quarter of 2016 Facebook boasts 1.71 billion monthly users (Statista).  The next two closest are messaging service WhatsApp (1 billion users per month) and Facebook’s own messaging service at 900 million users.  Safe to say that Facebook has a stranglehold on the social landscape, and is looking to continue this with Instagram Stories.

While the numbers that Facebook can boast are staggering, there has been a movement away from the platform: young people.  Maybe it’s the ads, or the fact that their parents are active on Facebook, but Snapchat has been the platform of choice for teens and millennials, who account for 70% of Snapchat users (eMarketer).

Many people were taken aback at the $1 billion price tag Zuckerberg and Co. paid for Instagram.  At the time, Instagram was simple photosharing app with a medium sized user base of 30 million.  However, it was growing fast and starting to capture the younger fan base from Facebook.  After the acquisition, Instagram continued to grow into the brand it is today, boasting 500 million monthly users and surpassing other popular social media platforms such as Twitter and Pinterest.

Looking at the past, it’s no surprise that Facebook has made a move to directly compete with Snapchat. Instagram Stories are fairly transparent in their attempt to ape the functionality of Snapchat.  Users can take photos and videos (or use existing captures), insert custom overlays, and post for all of their followers to see.  Stories get rotated out, so that users have to keep uploading new content.  Anyone who has used Snapchat would be instantly familiar with the way Instagram Stories work.

While Snapchat users may just opt to use Instagram rather than another app, what does any of this mean for advertisers and brands?  Advertising on Snapchat has had mixed results for brands, due to a lack of user data to be used for targeting as well as the limited scope of the Snapchat audience.  It would seem that having the advantage of Facebook’s robust advertising platform, in addition to a larger, more diverse built in audience has Instagram Stories poised to overtake Snapchat in terms of brands on the platform.

Of course, only time will tell whether Instagram Stories are the “Snapchat Killer” some expect it to be. What is clear is that Facebook has once again poised itself to dominate social media for years to come.

Social Media Addiction: 10 Signs you Have a Problem

Posted by bert

social media addiction

 

Social media has become so ingrained in our every day lives that you have to actively go out of your way to avoid it.  From Facebook to Snapchat, most people in the world use some form of social media multiple times a day.  But do they have a social media addiction?  Let’s take a look at 10 signs that you may have a social media addiction.

 

1. You’ve been hit in the head with your phone/tablet because you fell asleep checking social media before bed.

2. You don’t remember anyone’s birthday anymore because Facebook tells you when it’s time to celebrate.

3. You’ve never been in a fight in your life, but you have multiple Twitter beefs going at any given time.

4. You have your entire dream wedding day planned on Pinterest, despite not having a significant other.  This also applies to people who pin recipes but never cook, and pin workouts without ever having stepped foot in a gym.

5. Your Snapchat has gotten you in trouble with friends, family or coworkers (looking at you D’Angelo Russell)

6. You spend more time Tweeting, Instagraming or Facebooking about a sporting event, concert etc. than actually, I don’t know, WATCHING IT!

7. You still use Google +.

8. You use hashtags in everyday conversation (please, stop).

9. You spend way too much time trying different lighting, poses, filters, etc. trying to take that perfect selfie.

10. Any videos longer than a six second Vine clip fail to hold your attention.

 

Of course, just like anything in life, moderation is key.  Social media is a great tool and a fantastic way to be connected to the world.  But if you show these signs of social media addiction it may be time to put down the phone and go through a little social media detox.  We recommend going for a walk, playing some music, reading a book, going out to eat with friends, anything that gets your mind out of the social cavern.  You can always post about your adventures in the real world later!

10 symptoms of a social networking addict, are you addicted?

Posted by Christopher Long

 

If the fact that you have profiles on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Goggle + … doesn´t make you think that you’re addicted to social networks, then take the test and see for yourself. These 10 symptoms of a person absolutely hooked on social networks as defined by Jeff Bullas lets you know social addict status.

The 10 symptoms of a social networking addict, are you addicted?
1. – If you leave the phone forgot at home and feel lost, isolated from the world … because you can check updates from Facebook and Twitter on the go, at work, in the office.
2. – If you check your Facebook account roughly 20 times a day on average.
3. – If you do not receive a comment on the last post in less than 12 hours, you think you and your friends or followers you have left and you begin to ask yourself suicide.
4. – If you refuse to go weekend without take your laptop.
5. – If you have more social media icons on your mobile than productivity applications.
6. – If you bought an iPad or tablet and you only use it to update Facebook from a larger screen than the phone when you are away from home.
7. – if you have more friends online than in real life.
8. – If you tweet from your phone while you’re walking.
9. – If you get into Facebook even before brushing your teeth in the morning.
10. – If you check the latest updates on Facebook and Twitter right before going to sleep.
I got 5 out of 10. I’m not as hooked as I thought, are you?

Web Marketing Agency – The Integrated Approach

Posted by Christopher Long

Web Marketing - Many hands clasping image

The New Method Web Marketing: Service Driven Campaigns

 

The word is out and the word is good. We are in the dawn of a new era of Web marketing and nothing could be better for businesses and consumers. The piecemeal perspective of fragmented marketing services is in a state of rapid decline, with the advent of an integrated / holistic approach to creating inbound marketing channels quickly coming into vogue. But, while this new paradigm is now coming to the attention of mainstream marketing, it has long been in practice by any legitimate Web marketing agency.

In the past, the Web was awash with a la carte online marketing service providers. SEO firms, social media marketers, Web developers, email marketers, etc., all battled for the attention of potential clients while jamming statistics down the consumer’s throat about why their marketing services were superior to all the others. But one must ask: how could they possibly know which marketing channel would be most effective for your business without knowing the intricacies of your business, assets and industry? The short answer is that they couldn’t. You cannot take something to market effectively unless you understand the market competitively. Whether through ignorance or arrogance, these firms would tout the benefits of their offerings while having no idea about the most effective areas in which to compete on the Web.

The essence of this paradigm was to sell, sell, and sell, irrespective of the actual benefit they offered to potential clients / businesses. This led to oversold, overpromised and under-delivered marketing campaigns that heaped distrust and greatly tarnished the reputation of competent Web marketing agencies everywhere. What these stand-alone service providers failed to understand was that successful Web marketing strategies looked at the entire process as a chain of events with each step as important as the one precipitating it. Akin to a relay race, if the baton gets dropped you simply don’t win the race.

Even more frustrating were the marketing companies that offered a multitude of Web marketing services but without ever understanding how they all worked together. At the core of their failings was a revenue driven business model that left service distantly behind by the wayside.

Today there is a powerful awakening in the Web marketing industry to this change in strategy… at least it is better late than never. Unfortunately though, by and large this evolution is driven by a reaction to the market instead of being a driving factor of market change. In essence, they are still missing it. They are not catching the glimpse of the bigger picture: Service.

Henry Ford was famously quoted as saying, “The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.” This prophetic little piece is still accurate today and is the true catalyst behind the massive overhaul to Internet marketing currently underway. While this change might be something new to a majority of Web marketers as an obligatory adaptation forced upon them if they wish to survive the transition, as stated earlier, it is nothing new to any legitimate Web marketing agency.

Service oriented business is good business. If you have cared about your clients, understood their business and competitive playing field and treated their budget like it was your own, then you have been adhering to this marketing panacea for some time now.  You’ve understood how social media merges with SEO, how a website’s development supports optimization and how its design maximizes CTR and UX. You know how retargeting advertisements, continuity of branding in email marketing and touching potential consumers respectfully through multiple marketing channels is essential. You have sat down with your clients and understood their strongest assets to leverage, opportunities to take advantage of and what you can do to position their business for long-term growth, achieving the greatest ROI possible. You did not sell them a level 2 / tier 2 SEO package, thus performing a checklist of optimization tasks before cashing their check and never looking back. You were a legitimate Web marketing agency & the emerging trend of service oriented marketing is nothing new. Tip of the hat from Capisco if this has always been your approach.