Basic Guide and Free Resources for Using Social Media

Sections of This Topic Include

Introduction
– What is Social Networking?
– What is Social Media?

How to Get Started With Social Media
– Which Social Media Tools Should You Use?
– What Are Uses of Social Media?
– How to Get Started With Social Media

Communicating on Social Media
– Whom Will You Communicate With?
– How Will You Communicate It?

Social Media Plans and Policies
– Build Your Social Media Plan Right From Scratch
– Plan How to Evaluate Your Social Networking
– Social Networking Policies

Example Use: Social Media for Marketing
– Social Media for Marketing – Part 1 of 2
– Social Media for Marketing – Part 2 of 2

Social Media Tools
– Categories of Social Media Tools
– Major Social Media Tools
– Other Popular Social Media Tools
– Social Media Management Tools

Online Reputation Management
– How to Monitor Your Reputation
– How to Fight Back When Needed

Get Help from Experts in Social Media?

Also consider
Computers
Marketing
Marketing On-Line
Networking
Public and Media
Relations
Related Library Topics

Learn More in the Library’s Blogs Related to Social Networking and Social Media

In addition to the articles on this current page, also see the following blogs
that have posts related to Social Networking and Social Media. Scan down the
blog’s page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog Posts”
in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next” near the bottom of a
post in the blog. The blog also links to numerous free related resources.

Library’s
Career Management Blog
Library’s
Coaching Blog
Library’s
Human Resources Blog

Introduction

What is Social Networking?

MarketingTerms.com
defines social networking simply as “The process of creating, building,
and nurturing virtual communities and relationships between people online.”
So social networking is the broad type of networking that so many of us consider
networking to be; however, it is conducted virtually via tools on the Internet.

Online social networking is viewed by many as the next new paradigm in personal,
professional and organizational networking and marketing. The following link
provides a broad overview of social networking.
Social
Networking (Wikipedia)

The social network is a vital resource for organizations and is accessible
to us all. Organizations can usually control the assets that they use, but who
controls the social network?
Who Owns the Social Network?

What is Social Media?

Whatis.com
defines social media as “the collective of online communications channels
dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration.
Websites and applications dedicated to forums, microblogging, social networking,
social bookmarking, social curation, and wikis are among the different types
of social media.” So essentially social media refers to the tools that
used in social networking.

This article helps you to take a broader — but more conversational
— view of social media.
28
Telling Responses to 27 Things About Working in Social Media

Here are some articles that explain why social media is so important to organizations.
How Social Networking Has Changed Business
Company
Culture: It Cannot Run and It Cannot Hide (from Social Media)

How to Get Started With Social Media

How to Get Started With Social Media

It can seem overwhelming to think about even where to start, especially because
it seems that social media can be used for so many applications — and because
the number of tools seem to expand so rapidly. Fortunately, a lot of the advice
about getting started seems similar to advice about starting other ventures:
start with planning. That is the topic in the next section, but for now, it
will help to read some advice about getting started.
17
Tips For Getting Your Small Business Started With Social Media
Getting Started with Social Media
6 Essential Steps for Executing Your Social Media Strategy
How
To Get Started In Social Media

What Are The Uses Of Social Media?

As with any widely used set of tools, it is sometimes difficult to know where
to start when using the tools. As you can imagine, the uses of social media
are vast. Perhaps the most visible use is for networking with friends and family.
Many of us are also used to thinking about social media as being used for marketing,
public relations, advertising and promotions, and research for a wide variety
of purposes. People also enjoy immediate access to a wide variety of news media
and journalism about current events.

However, more recently, the tools are also used to cultivate citizen participation,
including to enlighten citizenry about various social causes, as well as to
mobilize and organize citizens to have a strong voice in their communities and
nations.
What
Are the Uses of Social Media?
More
Uses of Social Media

As beneficial as social media has been, there have also been a variety of negative
uses and impacts.
The
Negative Impact of Social Networking Sites
How
Social Media is Bad for You
Social
Media Overload: When is Enough Too Much?

Which Social Media Tools Should You Use?

Start by taking a broad view of your most important needs in addressing your
strategic priorities. For example, is it most important now to expand your markets
and products? If so, then use market research to identify new markets and use
product development to produce products and services for those new markets.
In that situation, use social media tools that have has a large number of users
in order to pose your research questions across a broad range of people, for
example, use Facebook and Twitter. If, on the other hand, your most important
priority is to cultivate stronger relationships with your customers, then you
might use Twitter to regularly send short messages to them. So before you start
selecting which tools to use, first you should determine what “success”
even means.
What Does Real Social Media Success Look Like?

So to best identify which tools to use, it is important to:

1. To do planning to know what are your most important strategic needs now?
2. Think about “success” means, for example, what goals would be
   achieved.
3. Consider the categories of social media that most closely match your needs.
4. Consider some of the most popular tools in that category.
5. Perhaps get some quick expert advice to narrow down your choices.
6. Start simple, but start.

The remaining subtopics will help you to select the best tool to use.

Communicating on Social Media

The most important part of using social media is not selecting the right tool.
It’s knowing whom to write to and what to write to them.

Whom Will You Communicate With?

Think about:

1. The different groups that you want to communicate with, for example, customers,
   suppliers, investors/funders, collaborators, community leaders, researchers,
   etc.
2. What do you want each group to believe about you and/or your organization?
3. What messages need to be conveyed to each group in order for them to believe
   that?
4. How does each group prefer to get their communications, for example, short
   emails or tweets, brochures, research reports, etc.?
5. Who will communicate to which groups, how and by when?

Put the answers to those questions into an overall communications plan that
you begin to implement.

How Will You Communicate It?

People know that first impressions are extremely important. That is true not
just in in-person communications, but in writing, as well. The following links
are to articles to help you ensure that your writing is high-quality.

Building Blocks of Composition

Vocabulary
Spelling
Grammar

Writing Process

Planning
and Organizing
Writing
for Readability
Formatting
Your Writing
Getting
Starting With Writing
Reviewing
Your Writing

Writing Online

Email
versus Voice
Email
Writing
Netiquette
Styles
of Writing
Writing
for Readability

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Social Media Plans and Policies

Build Your Social Media Plan Right – From Scratch

© Copyright Lisa
Chapman

How to Reach Your Target Audience

In addition to your primary site, social media sites leverage your messages
online. The wonder of social media is that it naturally connects people who
have similar interests. You want to reach your friends, and your friends’
friends.

When you engage in discussions online through social media, your message can
even “go viral”, gaining momentum and reaching well beyond your
friends’ friends. The ultimate goal of an internet marketing campaign
is to create a meaningful message that reaches its target audience and is virally
spread to others who are interested in the topic.

Social Media Plan Fundamentals

Build your social media presence and interaction very deliberately. Certain
basic fundamentals will make your social media efforts most rewarding:

• Write down your business goals.
• Find and listen to the conversations that are already taking place online
  about you, your products, your competitors, and your competitors’ products.
• Find and listen to your ideal customers’ needs. Remember, when you
  offer a solution that solves a pressing problem, fulfills an urgent need,
  or gives them hope and joy, people will eagerly buy it.
• Choose key social media sites for your target niche and establish your online
  profile.
• Integrate those sites for maximum exposure, brand-building, and traffic.
• Engage in conversations.
• Build your network or following. Build your email database.
• Track and monitor activity and results.
• Tweak to continually improve results.
• Repeat.

Listen, Engage, Add Valuable Content

A site that allows users to interact and add content (comments, links, photos,
video, etc.) is social. Use first person. Make your interaction sound and feel
genuine. The people you meet online will be attracted to you (and what you offer)
when you add helpful, meaningful input. If you’re new to social media,
it is widely recommended that you first LISTEN to the conversation in order
to become familiar with its unique style and flow.

Also see
Gotta
Have A Social Media Strategy
How
To Create a Successful Social Media Campaign
A Worthwhile Social Media Strategy Always BEGINS with Goals
Social
Media Strategies
Want to Lead Corporate Social Strategy? Read This

Getting Social Media Right: A Short Guide for Nonprofit Organizations
21 Ways Non-Profits Can Leverage Social Media
The
Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report – Highlights and My Two Cents

When to Stop and When to Keep Going with Your Social Media Strategy
5 Social Media Blunders That Prevent Brands From Showing a ROI

Planning How to Evaluate Your Social Networking

Remember when you first started planning how to use social media, using the
guidelines near the top of this topic? Guidelines suggested that you identify
what “success” really means. Now is when you can evaluate whether
that success is being met or not.
10 Social Media Metrics for Nonprofit Organizations
5 Essential & Easy Social Media Metrics You Should Be Measuring
Measuring Social Networks
The Klout Score, a Way to Measure Online Influence
Evaluating
Online Activities: Online Action Should Create & Support Offline Action

Social Networking Policies

© Copyright Lisa
Chapman

Blogs, comments and social network postings are very important in businesses’
marketing tactics. They attract audiences and begin to build relationships of
trust and engagement. But employee posts can also inadvertently cause PR nightmares
for business, if even ONE errant post goes viral and causes negative word of
mouth.

Legal Risks of Employees’ Social Media Use

When using social media, companies are exposed to many serious risks from multiple
angles, including:

Defamation
Copyright
Anti-trust issues
Inappropriate use by staff
Intellectual property rights
User generated content
Employment practices

Don’t let your marketing and communications teams run ahead without due
diligence and risk management controls.

EXAMPLE Social Media Policies

Let’s take a quick look at a few companies’ policies and guidelines
on employee use of social networking. The policy excerpts below offer highlights
of their own in-house guidelines:

Yahoo’s Blog Policies – Belief Statement

“Yahoo! believes in fostering a thriving online community and supports
blogging as a valuable component of shared media.”

Mayo Clinic’s Employee Social Media Policy

“The main thing Mayo employees need to remember about blogs and social
networking sites is that the same basic policies apply in these spaces as in
other areas of their lives. The purpose of these guidelines is to help employees
understand how Mayo policies apply to these newer technologies for communication,
so you can participate with confidence not only on this blog, but in other social
media platforms.”

City of Seattle

“To address the fast-changing landscape of the Internet and the way residents
communicate and obtain information online, City of Seattle departments may consider
using social media tools to reach a broader audience. The City encourages the
use of social media to further the goals of the City and the missions of its
departments, where appropriate.”

Many companies are quite explicit, with well-defined, formal rules. Others
adopt a more open, lenient culture.

Why You
Need a Social Media Policy
How
Can Companies Craft the Best Social Media Policies?
Global
Study: Business Policy and Risks of Employee Social Media Use
How to Develop a Social Media Content Strategy
Is Your Social Networking Policy Illegal?
Who Owns the Social Network?
How
to Avoid a Social Media Lawsuit
Your
Organization Needs a Social Media Policy

Example Use: Social Media for
Marketing

Back to Basics: Social Media for Marketing
– Part 1 of 2

© Copyright Lisa
Chapman

Simple Steps will Integrate Social Media into Your Traditional Marketing Plan

As a marketing and small business consultant (https://www.linkedin.com/in/golisachapman/
and social media consultant,
I am continually astounded at how SLOW small business managers really are in
understanding, budgeting, and integrating online marketing into their traditional
marketing plans. Lots of lip service, very little action.

I realize that this is old news, but if this post motivates even a just handful
of small businesses to actually START their trek into online marketing, I will
be thrilled.

For those of you who have already started – congratulations, and please
read this in the spirit of checking yourself. Have you covered the basics?

Why is Social Media Marketing Important?

Traditional marketing has changed and will never be the same.

• Technology allows consumers to mute or skip TV commercials – and
  they do.
• Newspaper and all print circulation is dying. Ads do not get our attention.
• One-way “push” messaging is now viewed as offensive and hype-ish.
  Bad for the brand.
• Consumers are overwhelmingly ‘over-messaged’. We are all OVERLOADED.
• Consumers do not trust traditional marketers anymore.

Consumers Demand More Attention

Online, consumers have a voice. If a company’s product or service doesn’t
match their marketing claims, WATCH OUT! Disgruntled and disenchanted consumers
now have the power to publish all of their harsh and unedited opinions –
anytime they want to! Once published online, those messages are likely permanent,
and business has no control over the backlash.

Consumers want and demand that:

• Their voice be heard and ACKNOWLEDGED.
• Companies be accountable for mismatched promises and actions.
• Their peers be involved in the most powerful ‘word-of-mouth’
  ever.

Business Can Take Action and Benefit Enormously

Think of it like this: social networks are actually a democratic form of business!
Customers vote with their opinions. Business has a gigantic opportunity to directly
impact their customers online, engage them, and develop a real relationship
of TRUST that will be stronger and longer-lived.

Businesses of all sizes MUST adopt and USE a social networking and social media
marketing strategies NOW – or risk being left in the dust.

Back to Basics: Social Media for Marketing
– Part 2 of 2

© Copyright Lisa
Chapman

Integrate Social Media Marketing – Brand Advocates

When companies engage their audience and develop online relationships with
real authenticity and trust, they have an exciting opportunity to make those
individuals volunteer advocates of their brand!

Business has never had a bigger vehicle for positive word-of-mouth advertising.
Fun campaigns can go ‘viral’ and trigger momentum like never before.
This takes some strategic planning by management, and some genuine understanding
of social networks. It’s a new culture that MUST be embraced by the entire
organization, from the top down.

7 Steps to Start Strategizing – Target and Engage Your Online Audience

1. Gather together a company team to strategize social media marketing. Include
   a cross-section of top management, sales, marketing, customer service, and
   a knowledgeable social media marketing individual (bring in a consultant if
   you don’t have this expertise on staff.)
2. Convene this group for a minimum of four hours. Bring the current marketing
   plan. Ask everyone, “Does our (product or service) delivery match our
   marketing message?” If not, STOP. You must solve these problems before
   you can mount a successful social media marketing strategy/plan/campaign.
3. Discuss and decide on your marketing and advertising goals. Do your current
   marketing and advertising efforts achieve them? If so, challenge the team
   to set higher goals, and brainstorm ways that social media marketing can be
   implemented.
4. Identify online communities where your ideal customer congregates or searches.
   For example, if you are a local business, Google: “(your city) directories”
   to find local directories in which you should be listed.
5. Make sure that you have searched and settled on specific keywords and keyword
   phrases that you use consistently in all of your online content.
6. Establish 2-6 online “properties” (all optimized for your keywords)
   such as; at least one website, blog, social network site, and directory. The
   more places you exist online, the greater your chances of being found!
7. Brainstorm online campaigns that help you achieve your goals. Remember,
   social media is effective ONLY if you have an end in mind. Otherwise, it’s
   fun, but can be a waste of time and precious resources.

Hundreds of creative possibilities exist, depending on your time, budget and
goals. Have fun with this!

Also see
Building
Your Brand with Social Media
The Social Graph
Small Business Social Media Marketing – 3 Success Stories
10
Laws of Social Media Marketing
Use
Social Media to Increase Sales
Plan
and Build Your Social Media Presence
How
To Make A Social Media Campaign Go Viral
Social
Media, Hot Marketing and Nobody is Listening
Is
Marketing on ALL Social Media Sites Necessary?

Social Media Tools

Categories of Social Media Tools

Before selecting which tools to use, it helps to get some perspective by considering
the different overall types (or categories) of social media tools and what each
is used for.
Seven
Key Categories of Social Media Marketing Tools
Clearing
Clouds of Confusion – the 5 Categories of Social Media Software
Different
Categories of Social Media Tools

Major Social Media Tools

Although there has been a recent explosion of new tools, the following tools
are some of the more popular for you consider.

Blogging

A blog is an online journal of information about a certain topic. The blogger,
or owner of the blog, writes or publishes regular “posts,” or articles,
about the topic. Posts vary in size from 100 words to 1,000 depending on the
nature of the topic. The posts might be published once a month or even once
a day, depending on the blogger’s time and energy for the blog.

A blog is a powerful means for the blogger to establish relationships with
stakeholders by sharing his/her opinions and expertise on a regular basis. Stakeholders
could include, e.g., customers, investors, employees, community leaders, collaborators
and suppliers. The stakeholders read the blog posts to learn more about the
topic and even more about the blogger.

Business Blog FAQ
Advice for New Bloggers
7
Blogging Mistakes That Small Businesses Make
Blogging
for Your Online Business
Blogging:
The Spiders Say It’s Time You Got Started
Use Email Marketing to Grow Your Blog
5 Tips on Business Blogging With Minimal Resources
The Short Post Vs. The Long Post. Who Will Be Victor?
Blog Posting Frequency Overview
Backup
Your Blog
Your
Blog
How
to Find Endless Topics for Blog Posts

Here’s a link to a list of directories, each of which lists many blogs about
various topic.

Directories
of Blogs About Management Topics

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is sometimes described as a “social networking service for adults”.
It’s a very useful tool for quickly informing people about your professional
experiences, skills and interests. You also can use LinkedIn to conveniently
network with others who have similar backgrounds and interests. Compare LinkedIn
to Facebook, below, which tends to be about more informal topics, such as personal
background, interests, family, hobbies, friends, etc.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn (Wikipedia)
LinkedIn
– Social Networking for Professionals
The
Missing Link (myspace for adults)
LinkedIn
Criticism
How to Grow Your LinkedIn Network
5
Tips for Individuals to Help Companies Get More Out of LinkedIn
LinkedIn
Company Pages
Leveraging Social Networking Sites to Generate Business

Facebook

People can join Facebook to share information about themselves or their organization.
Information about themselves tends to be rather informal — more so than LinkedIn.
Organizations increasingly use Facebook as a public relations tool, to inform
the public about the organization.
Facebook
Facebook (Wikipedia)
Criticism
of Facebook
Using
Facebook to Capture Customers
How to Use Facebook to Drive Higher Sales
How
to Create an Effective Company Facebook Page
Facebook
Marketing Q & A – The Essentials for Small Business Social Media Marketing
Facebook:
Convert Personal to Business
What
is a Facebook “Like” Worth? Part 1 of 2
What
is a Facebook “Like” Worth? Part 2 of 2

Instagram

Instagram is a free tool for sharing videos and photographs. Research shows
that a large percentage of people prefer to communicate visually rather than
by reading. Instagram is very useful for people who prefer visual communications,
especially via their smartphones. Research also shows that people are immediately
more affected by images than by words.
Instagram
Why
is Instagram so Popular?
9
Reasons Instagram Will Overtake Facebook
What
is Instagram and Why Is It So Popular?

Twitter

Twitter is a social networking site that allows the author to quickly share
messages, or tweets, of up to 140 characters and with huge numbers of people.
While 140 characters might seem quite limiting, an increasing number of people
and organizations use Twitter to share opinions and even to advertise products
and services. Some news organizations use Twitter to quickly broadcast up-to-the-minute
news items.
Twitter
Twitter (Wikipedia)
Five Ways Twitter Can Help You Conquer Distraction
Five Things Wrong With Twitter When It Comes to Marketing
How to Twitter and Get More Followers
Why Should I Be on Twitter and What Should I Do First?
Twitter
Mistakes to Avoid
Twitter
No-No’s
Emergency
Twitter Tips
Twitter
Wit: Is It Time for Subtle?
Nine
Specific Ways to use Twitter for your Business

YouTube

YouTube provides a forum in which people can show videos about a broad range
of subjects, including about themselves and their organizations. The videos
usually include audio/sound, so YouTube is a very quick, convenient, low-cost
way to broadcast information about yourself and your organization. It’s viewed
by millions of people.
YouTube (Wikipedia)
Mashable (about social networking
tools)
How
to Use YouTube for Marketing Your Business

Other Popular Tools

When determining the most popular tools, it is important to know what type
of tool that you are looking for. For example, in 2019, Facebook has the largest
number of users, followed by YouTube, WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat and Instagram.

The
7 Biggest Social Media Sites in 2019
Top
15 Most Popular Social Networking Sites and Apps [2019]
21 Top Social Media
Sites to Consider for Your Brand
65+ Social Networking
Sites You Need to Know About

Social Media Management Tools

There are so many tools that there now are social media management tools for
managing the many tools that you might use.

The
7 Best Free Social Media Management Tools in 2019
The 9
Best Social Media Management Apps in 2019
13 of
the Best Social Media Management Tools
The 25
Top Social Media Management Tools for Businesses of All Sizes

Online Reputation Management

Social media permits you to expose your values, opinions and activities to
a much wider audience than ever before. While that comes with many benefits,
it also comes with a price. You have to be more diligent than ever before in
monitoring how others are perceiving you and what they are saying about you.

How to Monitor Your Reputation

In effect, your online activities create a reputation about you as much as,
or more, than your in-person activities. That has spawned a new field of practitioners
who help you manage your online reputation.
What
is Online Reputation Management?
Free
Social Media Monitoring
Why
is Social Media Listening Important?

Reputation
Management (vast resources)

How to Fight Back When Needed

When something negative is said about you, it can seem impossible to “un-ring
that bell” because that information can spread like a wild fire. However,
as more people have suffered from negative publicity, more tools and methods
have sprung up to deal with these situations.
Protecting
and Repairing Your Online Reputation
Fight
Back with Social Media

Reputation
Management (vast resources)

Get Help from an Expert in Social Media?

You might consider getting the advice of an expert in social media. If you
have followed the guidelines in this overall topic, then you can already provide
a great deal of very useful information to the expert, which will likely decrease
the amount of time needed from that person, as well as decreasing the fees that
you would pay.

How
to Hire The Perfect Person To Run Your Social Media
Read
This Before You Hire A Social Media Expert
5
Musts Before Hiring a Social Media Specialist

Also see
How
to Successfully Hire and Work With an Excellent Consultant

For the Category of Social Networking:

To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may
want to review some related topics, available from the link below.
Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.

Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been
selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.

Related Library Topics

Recommended Books

U.S. Intellectual Property Law (Copyright, Trademarks and
Patents)

(Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, etc.)

Assembled by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD

The following, miscellaneous information which may be helpful
as an overview of various aspects of business law in the United
States of America. Businesses requiring legal advice should contact
an attorney.

Very simply put, copyrights are to protect ownership (authorship)
of written words, eg, in books, pamphlets, etc. Patents are to
protect ownership of processes or technologies. Trademarks are
to protect ownership of names, titles, slogans, images, etc.

Sections of This Topic Include

Basics
Miscellaneous Topics
General Resources

Also consider
Related Library Topics

Learn More in the Library’s Blog Related to This Topic

In addition to the articles on this current page, see the following
blog which has posts related to this topic. Scan down the blog’s
page to see various posts. Also see the section “Recent Blog
Posts” in the sidebar of the blog or click on “next”
near the bottom of a post in the blog.

Library’s
Human Resources Blog

Basics

Copyright
Basics
Basic
Patent Information
Basic
Facts About Trademarks
How to Trademark a Brand Name
How to Protect Your Trademark From Infringement

Miscellaneous Topics

Intellectual Property — Wikipedia topic
What is Intellectual Property?
Intellectual Property Law Primer for Multimedia and Web Developers
Copyright Compliance
Free Public Domain Images

General Resources

Patent and Trademark
Office Home Page
Lists of Links to Intellectual Property Law Sites

For the Category of Legal:

To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.

Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.

Related Library Topics

Recommended Books

Creating Mobile-First Content to Boost Your Rankings

Guest Author: Disha Dinesh

SEO is simple. You remove roadblocks and get people to where they belong. Sounds easy enough, and it would be if it weren’t for the fact that SEO is always changing. That’s because search engines are forever being updated and refined.

The latest massive shift was Google’s mobile-first index in November 2016. They introduced it to serve better results to their mobile users, who are growing in number. As part of the announcement it was revealed that eventually, the algorithms will majorly use a website’s mobile version to index and rank its pages.

This means that if you have a website that is mobile optimized, you’ll likely rank well on both mobile and desktops.

Today’s search scenario

60% of all searches happen on mobile devices (Source: eConsultancy)

Over 3/4ths of all searches happen at work or home (Source: DigitalStats)

So if you assumed that mobile focused marketing was only to reach people on the go, that isn’t the case anymore.

Interestingly, research has also found that 55% actions triggered by mobile searches like purchases, store visits or phone calls happen within an hour (Source: DigitalStats) which is significantly higher when compared to desktops.

What you should focus on

For your website to be mobile-friendly, it has to have –

• A responsive design (that fits the device screen perfectly, without making content obscure or hidden)
• Quick loading (your web pages and all the content on them should load quickly)
• Easy scrolling and navigation (your scrollbar and buttons should be easy to use on a mobile device)
• Increased readability
• Easily dismissed pop-ups that don’t block content (they won’t behave the same way they do on desktops)

1. Responsive design

Google requires you to have a responsive website design. Anything that looks clean, is easy to view on a mobile device, and resizes to fit its screen should work well for you.

Shutterfly is a good example for responsive design.

Most WordPress themes are mobile friendly. If you have bought/rented a template from a standard website design service like SquareSpace, it will probably be responsive. If you have good developers, they are very likely well-versed in responsive design. If you have designed your website by yourself, you can take Google’s free course on responsive design to help update your website.

2. Quick loading

According to the Aberdeen Group, a 1 second page delay can cost you –

• An 11% drop in pageviews
• A 16% decrease in customer satisfaction
• A 7% loss of conversions

Page speed is an important mobile ranking factor. You can test your page speed and get insights on how to improve it on Google’s Page Speed Insights.

On a general note, you should optimize images to fit your page. For instance, if your page is 600px wide, you should ideally resize all your images to that size before you use them. If you upload a 1500px image and change the parameter to 600px, the page will take time to load.

JPEGs word best. PNGs work second best.

It is also useful to reduce redirects and the number of plugins installed on your website.

3. Easy scrolling and navigation

When you use large pop-ups and inconvenient scrolling mechanisms on your website, your users are likely to experience difficulty in navigating your site on a mobile device.

Neil Patel advises that you forgo interstitial pop-ups on your website. They are basically the ads placed within a body of text that mobile users might accidentally click on without meaning to.

You should also ensure that your website scrolls easily, and that your buttons (social media share and comment buttons) are sized correctly.

It is best to have few and essential tabs on the home page to ensure that it doesn’t become too cluttered and showcases what is most important.

4. Mobile optimized content

Naturally, your content also needs to be made mobile-friendly. Mobile-first content experts recommend using the F-shaped pattern to assess your content.

People view content on their mobile devices using the same pattern. Their gaze moves from the top-right of the screen to the left, bottom-right to left, scrolls down and ends. A useful fact to bear in mind when creating your content.

Updating Tips

According to a Briggsby study, most users focus on the top 66% of the screen. It is a good idea to place your call-to copy and interactive buttons (like your social sharing buttons), within that space.

1. Restructure your blog posts

While long-form content was the bomb for desktop SEO, it may appear overwhelming to mobile readers. They’re not likely to scroll through 3000 word-long pieces on narrow screens.

You should mix in shorter pieces to focus on your mobile audience. Another workaround is using shorter paras and sentences to convey information. You can also use bullets, lists and images.

2. Use infographics and graphs

Infographics remain one of the most shared pieces of content. By using them and graphs, you can convey more using less space.

They can also help make your content more engaging when compared to lines of text on a small screen.

3. Focus on using different types of content

People are already accustomed to listening to content on their mobile devices, which is one of the reasons why podcasts have taken off as a means for brands to communicate with their audience.

In 2016, Edison Research found that 4.5 million people listened to podcasts and that the number was growing.

Videos are also great for mobile devices. According to a study, 36% users watch long videos on them.

4. Strengthen your social signals

Social signals also have a bearing on search rankings, but differently than most of us originally thought. SEO and marketing expert Larry Kim conducted an experiment to see how social signals related to search rankings.

He found that the following and authority of the page may not matter as much as the engagement on its posts. To improve your overall engagement, you could use a content curation app like Nuzzel and DrumUp to source relevant content to share with your following on a regular basis.

Wrap

Mobile-first indexing will become the primary method for indexing in the future. If your website is optimized for mobile, it is more likely to rank well. The tactics shared on this post are a good place to start.

Author bio:

Disha Dinesh is a Content Writer at Godot Media, a leading content agency. Her interests include social media and content marketing. When she’s not writing, she’s on the hunt for social media trends and inspiration.

Image credit: Screenshot by Disha Dinesh [March, 2017]

How to Quickly Expand Your Target Social Media Audience

Author: Disha Dinesh

There are two distinctions your should worry about when trying to expand your audience on social media audience   – the difference between a content strategy and a content marketing strategy, and how your content competition differs from your business competition.

Let me clarify each of these before we proceed. A content strategy doesn’t account for marketing and distribution without which your content will remain undiscovered. Yes, that viral video didn’t set itself on fire, it was lit and fed until it caught on. Second, giants whom you may have blind-sighted as business competition remain your competitors in content. Why should readers pick your articles over theirs? Answer this question and have a content distribution strategy in place before you proceed with this list of tactics.

1. Enable social plug-ins on your emails, blog posts and newsletters

Ideally, all media you use as part of your marketing strategy should be interconnected to create a web of traffic.

Your website, blog posts, emails and newsletters should have social sharing/following plug-ins enabled. You and your employees should include social plug-ins in your email sign-offs. That way, every website visitor or person you come in contact with via email could potentially follow you on social.

Your blog is also a great source of traffic for your social media pages. Your blog visitors should be able to share the posts/quotes they like to their social pages. Automatically picked tweets are good, because they simply the sharing process further and encourage more of your visitors to share, giving you an increased visibility.

Tool to use

SumoMe has social media plug-ins with a counter for your blog. The counter reflects the success of a post and pushes more people to share. Most email clients offer hyper-linking to add social links to your emails and newsletters.

2. Identify your sneezers and engage them in a content dispelling program

That’s what Seth Godin calls them, your sneezers. People who have the power to infect your specific niche, can be called your sneezers. How do you get access to and influence over a large audience instantly? You can’t. Even with influencer marketing you have to get on your influencers’ radars and then work at building relationships with them.

One sure fire-way of attracting the attention of influencers is by creating and sharing content that they’re interested in and are likely to pick up. Sometimes, simply doing that is enough to earn a wider visibility. To streamline the process and initiate actual influencer marketing programs, a good tool can help.

Tool to use

FollowerWonk is a great tool that focuses on identifying influencers you could connect with on Twitter. It works based on keywords and your location helping you locate the right influencers for your brand.

3. Organize your employees into an influential advocate army

Employee advocacy is an alternative means of commanding social media influence. Employees are both the most credible sources on social media and the widest reaching channels (when put together). According to studies, employee advocacy can increase the reach of your content by as much as 561% and increase your engagement by about 7X.

With employees, you already have existing work relationships to begin with. Most of your employees will appreciate being a part of something more than simply their work. All that’s necessary to initiate an advocacy program is their support and a tool to organize the efforts. Make you content accessible to employees and enable them to help you distribute it on social media.

Tool to use

With DrumUp employee advocacy platform you can share content with your employees with ease, and they can share it without much effort to their social media accounts. The leaderboard on the platform helps with keeping employee advocates motivated. If you want to track the success of your employee advocacy program, you can do it with the platform’s analytics.

4. Invade new content territories by re-purposing old content

Expand the reach your content has by converting pre-existing content into new formats. Not only does this increase the visibility of your content by introducing it on new platforms, but also helps you reach people who don’t consume one format or the other.

Convert a blog post into a SlideShare, an infographic, a podcast or video. You simply need to section the write-up, state takeaways under each subhead and type them in/represent them on new formats. Videos aren’t hard to create when they’re a simple slide-show or words and images rendered with the most basic animation. Every image or infographic that you create could turn into a pin for Pinterest.

Tool to use

To create an infographic you could use Venngage which has drag and drop modules that are easy to use. Google Slides are a great choice for making slides for SlideShare and PowToon has pre-made templates to help you animate a simple video.

5. Leverage the right hashtags and @mentions to help your target audience discover you

On social media, there are certain words that can give you access to large audiences – like hashtags and @mentions. Hashtags are used to index conversations so they can be found easily. By using relevant hashtags on your tweets, you give information seekers an opportunity to stumble upon your content. Have you noticed how Twitter suggests hashtags and related hashtags when you type a query in its search bar?

More than often, Twitteratti use those suggestions to find their content. By adding hashtags to your tweets you increase your discoverability. Using hashtags and @mentions you can increase the reach of your content marketing efforts on social media.

People love shout-outs on social media and it often encourages them to share your content. Tag and @mention them to include them in your promotion process.

Tool to use

Even though Twitter suggests hashtags, it doesn’t tell you how popular each of those suggestions are. You could however access that information through a hashtag analysis tool like Hahstagify.me. Based on the popularity of the hashtags and the influencers who are using them (both provided by the tool), decide on which hashtags to add to your posts.

6. Co-create & partner with industry experts and similar businesses for content

Building a large and engaged following is an indefinite and effort intensive process. Instead of waiting until you achieve that status on social media, you can connect with everyone you need even before you develop that following. How? By co-creating content with industry experts and social media influencers.

All you need to run this tactic is a good topic to work with or a good set of questions that your niche’s experts are likely to be interested in discussing. While reaching out to the experts is a time consuming task, it is worth the investment. Not only do you gain valuable insights to share with your audience, but you also initiate relationships with experts in the process, and enlist their support and influence in promoting the content that you co-create. Co-creation with anyone who has value to offer is a great idea. Even if your content partners don’t have larger following than you do, you still earn new insights and the possibility to reach a part of the target audience that you may have not connected with yet. The only necessity for this tactic is the target – ensure that your co-creators also work with the same target audience.

Tool to use

A good social listening tool can help you identify people who are actively talking about topics that are of interest to your company. Brand24 lets you separate keyword search results by source – social media, blog posts, forums, news or even video. Using it makes it easier to find the right person for the content format you have in mind.

Image credit – Pixabay.com

Author Bio: Disha Dinesh is a social media and content marketing enthusiast who writes for Godot Media, a leading content creation firm.

WordPress Infographic

From creating your free blog to the development of your business/personal website, WordPress is the highly used open source CMS (Content Management System). It is considered the most popular CMS used over the globe. With a simple and easy to use dashboard, WordPress is often used by the newbie internet marketer to establish an online presence.

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

Generally, users get confused about WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Technically, WP.com is the free platform where you can create your own blog without spending a single penny. All you need is to register yourself on WP.com. You will be allowed to make your website without paying for the domain name as well as a hosting plan.

On the other hand, WP.org provides you the executable software that is required to upload your theme and develop your website according to your likings and demand. By using WP.org, you need to pay for your own domain name and web hosting plan.

WordPress Website Creation – A WordPress Hosting Guide

But, from novice to expert, you will require a beginner’s guide that will help you to start your own blog/website. The guide will be used to get an overview and steps you need to follow in order to develop your website.

So on demand; we are hereby presenting you the WordPress Hosting Guide. This graphical data will help you to learn how you can start your own website without coding knowledge.

Author Bio:

Maxwell Booth is a passionate blogger who loves to spread his knowledge with the global readers. Being an Internet freak, he always finds something interesting to write upon. Being a developer by profession, he currently holds the position of Technical Account Manager in Web Hosting Decisions.

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

Save time and improve your social media marketing productivity

Guest Author: Disha Dinesh

In 2015, the average US commuter spent 42 hours caught in traffic jams.

On any given day, how much time do you spend away from your computer screen?

What if you could complete a few tasks on your mobile phone while on the go?

For any social media manager, a few minutes of work while waiting at a restaurant or while stuck in traffic could mean time to schedule posts for a day, respond to queries or personally interact with followers on social media.

Fortunately, there are a host of apps that feature on-the-go functionality so you can save time and improve your social media marketing productivity.

1. Mention

Stellar brand reputation could mean the difference between remaining a small scale company and expanding to a large and well-known organization.

Maintaining a presence on social media isn’t easy because of its quick pace and unpredictability.

To ensure that your brand’s reputation remains untarnished, it is vital for you to monitor social media for conversations mentioning your brand.

Catching positive mentions is equally important. You could thank the person who mentioned you and share that comment for added credibility and trust on social media.

Mention has a mobile app (for android and iOS) that lets you set up notifications for keywords, one of which could be your brand name. Mention is also available as a desktop application.

2. DrumUp

As a brand it is crucial for you to provide your target audience with something that they can’t find elsewhere, or what is referred to as a ‘unique value proposition’ in business terms.

What is your unique value proposition on social media?

What content are you sharing with your audience that would make them want to follow you as opposed to other brands on social media?

If you could source fresh, useful content in your niche each day and share it with your social media audience, you could earn their favor and loyalty.

DrumUp is a content curation app (mobile: android and iOS) that discovers fresh content that fits the theme that you have choose. You could also schedule the articles you want right from the app or store it in a library to recycle at a later time.

3. Over

Succeeding on social media requires some juggling of themes and content formats to hold your audience’s attention.

After all, it has been widely discussed how the current internet user’s attention span is lesser than that of a goldfish’s.

You could touch on different sup-topics in your niche and move between blogs, infographics and videos from time to time.

Over is a visual content editing app (mobile: android and iOS) that assists you in converting flat images into something interesting and intriguing that could speak to your target market.

The app lets you choose from a list of unique fonts (for custom text) and clip art that you could pass over an image to make it more engaging.

Additionally, the app has the whole set of editing options – cropping, fading, resizing, stretching and a lot more that you could experiment with.

4. Nuzzel

I attended a digital marketing conference conducted by a multinational IT services company last month.

They asked the people who read newspapers to raise their hands. Out of the 100 participants in the room, 3 people lifted their hands.

We were then asked where we read our news. While 40% of that remaining lot said news aggregators or apps, 60% said social media.

Do you use the news tab on Twitter?

Nuzzel was originally designed to deal with the issues of social media information overload.

Nuzzel (mobile: android and iOS) helps you discover the best of the news stories posted on social media by your friends without having too much at hand, or missing out on anything.

The app also lets you analyze stories shared by your connections so you can assess your audience.

5. Plume
   

If Twitter brings you a large number of referrals, and you spend a considerable amount of time on it, Plume could be an interesting app to use.

A Twitter client, it allows you to customize the way you view Twitter, and recently Facebook.

On the app, you could integrate your Twitter timeline to your home page and control several functions from there.

A lot of functions exist in widgets that you could experiment with and keep the ones you prefer on your home screen.

Additionally, Plume (mobile: android and iOS) allows Twitter Geo-tagging and replies with autocomplete for hash tags and Twitter handles that you might want to type.

If you want to focus on specific users, or turn some off for some interval in time, you could selectively mute those Twitter handles via Plume.

The live streaming is by far the best feature, especially if you participate in a lot of Twitter chats.

6. Facebook Pages Manager

If you’re a Facebook page manager (mobile: android and iOS), and a multiple one at that, this app if for you.

Managing multiple pages on Facebook itself is time consuming. If you work with an agency that manages multiple Facebook pages for clients, this app will make the activity easier.

The home screen itself lets you view all the pages you manage as a list and choose between them.

Along with the list, the home page also displays your page insights and page administrators so you can quickly assess how to delegate work and pick up the slack when your stats are low.

From the app you can comment, like and share content and view the number of views for each post, making it easy to monitor and plan while on the go.

7. Canva

Visuals are the best way to catch your social media audience’s attention. With every piece of text you publish, you should add a visual to let it escape from being a flat read.

A large group of people are visually inclined and prefer to view their content rather than read it.

In fact the human brain, communicates in a largely visual manner.

There is the fact that creating visuals isn’t easy, until you’ve tried Canva that is.

Canva (mobile: iOS) has a wide variety of templates you can choose from for every imaginable purpose.

Once you’ve picked a pre-designed template it is only a matter of experimenting with the drag-drop feature and putting together a simple but elegant looking graphics.

Amping-up your presence on social media is simply about maximizing your time, increasing your visual appeal and sourcing fresh and useful content regularly. Managing this well will leave you room to create the thought leadership pieces that you need in order to establish a name in the industry.

Author bio:

Disha Dinesh is a Content Writer at Godot Media, a leading content agency. Her interests include social media and content marketing. When she’s not writing, she’s on the hunt for social media trends and inspiration.

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

Guest Author: Disha Dinesh

Several factors play into creating successful content: a clearly defined outline, quality writing and value. But most importantly, you’ve to wait for content to make its impact on your marketing field. Content as a strategy isn’t short-term, it is means for you to construct a loyal following of potential leads over a period of time, we all know this. For maximum ROI on your content strategy it is logical to invest in writing a good amount of content with long term value for your subscribers.

Look at content like your marketing currency – a dollar today is worth more tomorrow. Money appreciates and ideally, so should the kind of content you write.

How to write content with long term value

Essentially, you have to aim at writing something that your audience will return for, it is as simple as that. You can begin by defining what that could be.

Pick a strong premise

What kind of content would be useful always? The way you answer this question will decide the outcome of your long term value content piece. Why should your audience view your content?

Neil Patel has 6 questions to answer this question.

“What topics are always relevant?

What goals are always in place?

What controversies never go away?

What problems always need to be solved?

What skills do people always need?

What qualities of the industry are always important?”

Base your blogs, videos, infographics on topics that fit any of these descriptions and you’re good to go. For instance, I wrote a blog on the 7 types social media content that drive most engagement. Although engagement is evolving on platforms (like the new reactions on Facebook), ways to drive that engagement will remain unchanged and social media managers will always want to read it.

Create a Comprehensive Piece

Given that your content will have to be extra-comprehensive, navigating through it without a roadmap will result in chaos. A detail oriented outline can make your writing process more organized, efficient and complete.

Start at the top

A great piece with a boring headline is a disaster, you’ll lose out on click-throughs if you don’t grab your audience’s attention while you can – with your header.

Your header should communicate 2 things – value and context.

I’ll reiterate this: Why should your audience read your post? Effectively answer that in your title, and directly address your audience in it – this is a great idea. For example: How to Capture Your High Value Target Audience – for Social Media Managers. People want to feel important, and like you have written or made something specifically for them.

Your headline should also sell your content.

Social media and marketing experts have always discussed the prominence of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – the base laws of human motivation – in using motivation to encourage a certain kind of behaviour. To understand how to write a headline that compels someone to click you could adapt the laws of this pyramid.

State your takeaways

I’ve found this more useful than focussing on subheads because it takes the process one further. Instead of formulating what you’ll put into your sub paragraphs, write down the central ideas

or takeaways of each paragraph. This can help you craft a more useful and effective piece. Ask yourself, would you want your readers to know?

Title: How to Capture Your High Value Target Audience – for Social Media Managers

How to find your high value target audience – 1

What are the best ways to engage with them – 3

How to bring them to your page – 2

How to convert them into leads – 5

Which tools or KPIs to use to monitor conversions – 6

How do you build good, long-term relationships with them – 4

You can do this quickly and as the ideas come, because you can always reorganize them to form an easy flow. Remember to direct each takeaway at insights that can prove viable over time, in keeping with your long term value theme.

Add substance to each takeaway

Do you remember your high school chemistry manuals? Colorimetry is a procedure to measure the concentration of substances based on light absorbed by them. This procedure was founded by discoveries that go back to the 1720s! A lot of scientific procedures remain firmly based in the fundamentals.

This is precisely what you want to create for your audience. Sound knowledge that focusses on logic and the science of marketing. Don’t hesitate to do extensive research and find your facts, figures and functions that can support your content. Write to guide your audience to understand fundamental concepts. The result is more permanent and they’ll return to your “marketing manuals” for help.

It is important to note that long term value is created by whole efforts. You’ll have to go deep into the subject. Your subheads should ideally have further divisions and so on to explain every last concept encompassed within the subject you choose to write about.

Title: How to Capture Your High Value Target Audience – for Social Media Managers

How to find your high value target audience – 1

1. Listening in on social

……Platform wise social listening

……Case study

2. Tools that help

……How to leverage each tool to identify important conversations

……Case study

3. Analyzing buzz

……Case study

Explaining each concept with examples and images – graphs, charts, or procedural images can further add value to your content.

Make necessary updates

For your content to have relevance always, you may have to make inclusions or edits as things progress with your industries. Neil Patel suggests 3 substantial (para edits/additions) edits every quarter and also points out that Google loves fresh content and favors it, if but marginally, in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

You could also add notes, or simply supplement your content with well curated content (content curation platforms like DrumUp help you find specific and relevant content). Add strategic links on your long term value content to these fresh pieces and you can instantly build reserves for your audience.

Finally, remember not to compromise on writing and content quality. Make it an enjoyable read. If your content is top-notch, google’s algorithms will place you well, if your content is a great read, your audience will place you as a permanent go-to. Both extremely valuable positions to hold.

Author Bio: Disha Dinesh is a social media and content marketing enthusiast who writes for Godot Media, a leading social media marketing firm.