A 3-Step Beginner's Guide to Social-Media Marketing

Social media has become as much a daily part of our personal lives as it has our business lives. What once was cutting edge just a few short years ago is now just the norm. So how do you know which aspect of social-media marketing you need to have and which aspects are simply passing fads?

For entrepreneurs who are just starting their businesses, wrapping your arms around your social-media marketing plan can feel like a stretch. Do you need to be on all outlets? Which are best? How will you manage all those conversations? There’s a lot to think about when you’re getting started and some important questions you need to ask yourself.

Related: 17 Quick Wins to Boost Your Social-Media Marketing Right Away

Before you get your business up and running, here is your three-step definitive guide to social-media marketing.

1. Determine your MVPs.

When you first begin to formulate your social-media plan, you may be thinking about what outlets to get started on. However, sometimes a more important conversation to have when you’re starting out is which outlets to avoid.

There can be a general feeling that you should get your business on any and every outlet available to you. However, that can be a mistake. Not all outlets are relevant for every business and trying to force your business onto a platform that isn’t right can feel awkward and inauthentic.

Start with your social-media marketing MVP plan. The MVPs of social-media marketing means two things: your most valuable platforms and your minimum viable platforms. When it comes to social media, less can be a lot more. Why?

You are going to need to be active across every platform you're on for the duration of your business. This means not just great conversations but valuable content and hawkeyed monitoring. Would you rather have sparse contact with tons of people across lots of platforms, or would you rather have valuable, intensely personal and relevant conversations with the right handful of people? Which do you think has the most value to your business in the long run?

Related: 13 Value-Packed Marketing Podcasts for Entrepreneurs

2. Consistency isn’t key, it’s critical.

Once you determine your MVPs you need to come up with a reliable posting schedule that can’t be broken. If you aren’t going to be able or willing to post on a specific social-media outlet religiously, you shouldn’t be playing on that platform at all. It’s that important.

Who are you going to assign the challenging and time-consuming task of vigilantly attending to your social-media outlets? Get clear about who will take ownership of this space and come up with a plan for how and what will be said to stay consistent not just with posting but with your brand voice.

Understanding this step can put into perspective the importance once again of your MVP outlets because if you can’t post to an outlet, you shouldn’t be on it.

3. Take risks.

The risks you take will be commensurate with the type of industry your startup is in -- but don’t be afraid to mix up the conversation and start taking risks in your social-media postings. These can be anything as simple as showing some of the behind-the-scenes aspects of your day-to-day business or sharing your personal struggles as an entrepreneur.

Make sure it’s honest and relevant, but sometimes taking risk and exposing more of yourself and your business can really help with making a splash. People like authenticity and transparency so let your audiences see what’s behind the curtain.

Related: 4 Free Must-Use Analytics Tools for Social-Media Marketers

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Jump on Board Now! Snapchat’s Influence Growing in Marketing

If you thought that Snapchat was just for teenagers, think again. This social media site is rapidly gaining influence in the marketing sphere. Brands that are not already including Snapchat in their marketing campaigns could be missing out on significant opportunities.

Many marketers have remained somewhat confounded by Snapchat and how to deploy it for marketing purposes. Snapchat certainly does not function like other social media sites. Users are able to take pictures and videos and then send them to their friends using Snapchat. Where the app takes a distinctive divergence from other sites is that once the video or image has been opened and viewed, the message is then deleted—forever. Users are able to establish a specific timeframe for each video or image that is sent, thus providing the recipient with a limited amount of time for viewing the message before it disappears. While most other social media networks offer lasting messages and impressions, Snapchat does not. This may make things a bit more complicated in terms of marketing, but it would be a mistake to completely ignore Snapchat.

According to MarketingProfs, 50 percent of adult smartphone owners between the ages of 18 and 24 in the U.S. have installed the app. Furthermore, that represents a significant jump in year-over-year usage, when only 30 percent of the same demographic used Snapchat. Older Millennials, between the ages of 25 and 34 are also using the mobile messaging app, with 20 percent using Snapchat, an 8 percent increase from last year.

Clearly, Snapchat is growing in terms of market penetration, but you may still be asking yourself how your brand can tap into that influence, given the limited time constraints of this app. Several brands have found unique approaches that are working with Snapchat. MobileMarketer reports that Marriott and Macy’s are two leading brands that have integrated Snapchat into their marketing strategies. For instance, Macy’s provided customers with a glimpse of their “Black Friday” specials using Snapchat. This is actually a brilliant marketing strategy because it is built on the foundation of what sets Snapchat apart from other social media sites-limited time messages. Macy’s campaign was able to tap into the ability to give customers an insider’s glimpse while whetting their appetite for more. The message did not need to live on for any longer than it took the customer to view it. MobileMarketer points out that the fast window of time in which the customer was able to view the image may have actually assisting in driving impulse purchases during what is the busiest shopping season of the year.

Marriott took a slightly different approach by releasing an interactive series on Snapchat. The hotel chain opted to utilize the social media platform as a storytelling tool in the hopes of creating an emotional connection with consumers. The series was designed to support Marriott’s “Travel Brilliantly” campaign.

Not sure how to implement Snapchat in your own marketing campaigns? Consider the following strategies:

• Take advantage of the “stories” feature on Snapchat for sending a video or image-based story to customers, similar to the way that Marriott launched their interactive series. This can be a great way to give your customers a behind the scenes glimpse into your upcoming products. Be sure to create multiple stories that will span the course of several days to make the most impact. At the end of the series, direct your Snapchat followers to other social media channels, or a specific landing page to keep them engaged.

• Contests are another great way to drive interest using Snapchat. This is a method that has proven to be particularly well suited for all marketing platforms, and it is ideal for use with Snapchat. Remember to create a sense of urgency that plays into the limited window of time on Snapchat.

Due to the limited availability of videos on Snapchat, it is also perfect for sending promotional videos. Keep in mind that your videos should both be tightly focused and entertaining. Provide insider’s tips. Show customers how to obtain a special offer, or preview an upcoming product.

As Snapchat continues to make inroads with consumers of almost all age groups, the time is now to ensure your brand is in the lead.

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New Facebook Publishing Tools Gives Brands More Control

On December 10^th, Facebook quietly announced new publishing tools aimed at better supporting the needs of media companies and content publishers.

1. Interest Targeting lets brands segment their organic content to only those fans that might care about the topic.
2. Post End Dates give brands the power to pull organically published content from the Newsfeed once it’s no longer relevant.
3. Smart Publishing offers media companies a way to share their most popular content without ever logging in again.

These Facebook publishing tools are designed to give online news outlets and publishers more insights and control over how their content is distributed across Facebook by both themselves and 3rd parties. However, these tools could also have similar benefits for large brands who choose to utilize them, at least until Facebook organic reach for brands is reduced to zero. (While they continue to make changes and announcements that suggest this is inevitable, please note they have not yet confirmed this will actually happen.)

Interest Targeting on Organic Facebook Posts

Once only available via paid targeting, brand pages can now target content that they publish organically to a subset of fans based on interests.

• This could be a good way to ensure you’re getting the most out of the little organic reach Facebook is giving brands and could result in higher engagement rates.
• This feature could also ensure that content designed around a Passion Point of a single audience does not alienate other groups on your page.
• However, it’s possible that choosing to target your post could result in less reach than non-targeted posts and potentially lower total engagements.
• Interest targeting is also limited to the profile information your fans have given Facebook on their personal profiles, many of whom probably haven’t updated their interests since Facebook’s last big prompt to do so when Profile Timelines launched in 2011.
• Interest targeting is not coming soon to a Social Media Management System (SMMS) near you. Right now, it’s limited to publishing on Facebook via desktop only.

Setting Post End Dates on Facebook

With this new feature, brands can put a time limit on how long content is served in the Newsfeed, putting an end to one of the worst side-effects of Story Bumping – confused fans seeing irrelevant, time-limited brand content.

• This feature is certainly a benefit to brands who share time-limited offers or want to engage in certain real-time conversations on Facebook.  (How many Black Friday deals were you still seeing in your Feed Saturday morning?)
• Could this be another step in Facebook’s plan to pull real-time marketing away from Twitter?  Maybe, but they have a long way to go before user behavior makes that shift with them.

How Brands Can('t) Use Smart Publishing (Sorry!)

This neat new feature is only available to select media partners at this time (like The New York Times).  Through Facebook’s Publisher Tools (also only available to select Publishers at this time), brands could eventually connect their websites to Facebook and then Facebook will automatically publish, from the brand’s page, their most shared pieces of content (based on what Facebook users are sharing organically from their personal profiles).

• On face value, this seems like a big brand benefit – streamlining the content production and publishing process; however, it does not go without risk as brands would be turning over control of their Newsfeed content to the algorithm that powers Smart Publishing.
• In all likelihood, it will be months (if ever) before brands get access to Smart Publishing. If that ever happens, brands will have to produce enough quality web content on a regular basis for it to have any impact and hope that Facebook hasn't dialed back organic reach completely by then.

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'Simplifying The Way We Work' is Great, But What About The Customer?

I caught a small article flashing across my news feeds, “Coca-Cola Disconnects Voicemail At Headquarters.”  I’m not a big fan of voicemail, those I receive are translated into texts and sent to my mobile and email.  So this post is not about voicemail.

The thing that struck me in the article the reasoning behind this.  The article cited an internal memo from the CIO, the change was not done for cost savings, but rather “’to simplify the way we work and increase productivity.’  Callers, upon not reaching the person they are trying to reach are told to try later or find an alternative method.”

So all this leaves me wondering, “What about the customer?”

Coca-Cola employees probably already know and are trained in the alternative methods of reaching each other, perhaps with email, or the many  types of internal messaging systems, so they have no problems, but what about customers?

How is a customer to figure it out?  How do they get to the person they want?  What does it do to their own work flow and productivity?

Coca-Cola is not alone in the way they design their workflow and processes.  In fact they are probably smack in the middle of the way most companies design them—to optimize their own work flow and productivity.  So organizations focus on how to make it easier and more efficient for them.

But what about the customer?

Well it actually becomes pretty easy for the customer as well.  The more organizations focus on their own internal efficiency, forgetting about the customer, making it more difficult for them to reach the people they want, the easier it makes it for the customer, as well.

See the customer when faced with obstacles will simply go some place else.

Customers will shift their spending to organizations that focus on the customer experiences they want and expect.

All organizations constantly face the need to simplify their processes, workflow and costs.  But in doing so, they can’t focus solely on their own internal operations.  They have to think about the impact on their customers, suppliers, and those outside the company who need to be engaged.  No organization, no part of an organization exists in isolation.  There are people who serve the organization (e.g. suppliers) and people who the organization serves (e.g. customers–and everyone has customers).

Changes to our processes without considering the impact on these communities, ultimately hurt the organization itself.  If customers can’t conveniently reach people in the organization, they will vote with their wallets, going some place that focuses on customer experience.  Even suppliers and other external people need to be considered, if they can’t get through, where does the organization get critical information to improve its ability to achieve its goals.

As a final side note to this article, it’s disappointing the article was about “voicemail,” when it should have really been an examination of customer experience.

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Dark Social Media: What it is and Why Marketers Should Care

The term “dark social” was first created by Alexis C. Madrigal in a 2012 article written for The Atlantic. Which in digital life means 14 years ago and therefore ahead of his time.  His instincts were that, to a large extent, we share links with each other using IM, email, and forums and that when this happens and the link is clicked, it’s invisible to most analytics programs and ends up falling into the “direct” or “typed/bookmarked” traffic.

Image Credit: The American Genius - AGBeat.com

This traffic, the “dark traffic”, is essentially misdiagnosed and the analyst misses a big piece of truly what happens during a user’s journey to their digital frontier.

Fast forward to 2014.  Again, the digital landscape has changed and three important trends are worth noting to provide more context.

1. Mobile usage and app usage have increased significantly.
2. Homepage traffic in most cases is on the decline as that volume shifts to users coming in the side door.
3. There are so many more ways to be social including new applications and new social networks.

All adding complexity to the dark social conundrum.  To what extent?

According to Chartbeat, dark social accounts for about one-third of external traffic to sites (these are sites across their network).  They broke the data down further and the number increased when looking at mobile-only traffic, where 50% of traffic lacked a referrer.  In a report by radiumone on the subject, they revealed that dark social accounts for more than 69% of all online social sharing.  In addition, a large portion of those who share, about one-third, only share using dark social.

If the sheer mystery of it all doesn’t make you care, then what should make you care are the letters R, O, and I.  Because essentially, the contribution of social activity in a digital environment that is leading to discovery, exploration, and purchase of products and services isn’t captured correctly and therefore not getting its rightful credit with respect to ROI.

What to do About Dark Social Referrals - How to get credit where credit is due

1. Be cognizant that this exists and that standard tracking alone isn’t likely to provide a complete picture without addressing dark social
2. Web patterns including social, apps, mobile are going to change again so do your research and invest in tools that do a better-than-average job tracking your efforts and measure results
3. Write your congressperson.  Okay, no don’t do that!  But do be the voice that advocates for uncovering dark social sources, it will be important to address and implement accordingly.

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Using Your Facebook Page Cover Photo to Get Noticed

Social media is here to stay and if you don’t do everything possible (and then some), you will not get noticed by other people online. If you are not noticed, other people will not interact with you and you won’t have the opportunity to interact with them. No interaction equals no eventual selling. It is that simple! If you have effective Facebook Page Cover photos, you can get a great deal of mileage out of it.

The importance of your interactions with your online connections

In this day and age of social media and technology, it is critical that you understand the importance of the relationships that you share with people online. The reality is that when people interact with you, your opinion will be very important to them and their opinions will be very important to you. You will look to each other for recommendations of all kinds. This is all part of building a relationship together. Part of the foundation of your relationships is the presence of our social media profiles, which include your biography and your photo. Because of the fact that many people are visual, your photos will will have a very positive effect on those people if you choose a really appropriate Facebook cover photos. The difficult thing is creating Facebook page cover photos that really entices your online connections. What you are after is getting those people to “Like” your page. That will not happen without some degree of effort on your part. The question is, how do you get other people to “Like” your page?

• Become well acquainted with the Facebook guidelines (again): Before you do anything else, it is very important for you to understand what Facebook expects of you. Of course, it goes without saying that you need to pay close attention to the rules. Breaking Facebook’s rules is not an option. If you do that, you will run a big risk of being banned by Facebook.  When it comes to your Facebook cover photos, the guidelines will provide the exact specifications as well as giving you good ideas about actually setting up your Facebook cover page.
• Bridge your Facebook cover to your website: It is important for you to understand clearly that your Facebook cover is an important part of your brand and of your web presence. With that being said, that means that your “look” needs to be solidified in the minds of your online connections and when they see your Facebook cover, they will immediately associate it with your products and/or services. This concept is becoming more and more common and an increasing number of business owners are starting to recognize the importance of marrying your Facebook cover page and your website under your branding umbrella.
• The look and feel of your Facebook cover page: The look and feel of your Facebook cover should have a unique look and feel and it is uniquely yours. Along with that, the selection that you make of your photos must be the best that it can be. When it comes to the visual appeal of your Facebook cover page, you should be as creative as you like. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you should knock your online connections over the head with your look and feel. You will definitely know what works for you. You definitely will not want to deviate too much from your branding colors. After all, those have already been established and people are used to seeing them. Your photos should be a reflection of how wonderful your products are.
• Connect your Facebook cover photos with your profile photo: You should not think (in any way) that it is inappropriate for you to do this. You have the tools in front of you. You should definitely take advantage of the opportunity. The way in which your profile picture connects with your Facebook cover page photos is very important. It will establish a human/emotional connection with the other people.
• Make sure to include a call-to-action on your Facebook cover page:  In the past, you would not have been allowed to include a call-to-action but now, it is different. It is perfectly acceptable. It is the only way that your online connections will be able to start interacting with you. That is how you will start to build a relationship with the other person.

Conclusion

One of your objectives is to get people to “Like” your Facebook cover page. The next logical step will then be to get people to want to interact with you. Your Facebook cover page consists of a lot of different elements that work together to touch your online connections emotionally. If you succeed at that, you will be on your way to building long-lasting, meaningful relationships. In addition to your written content, there is no doubt that your photo images will get noticed in a big way. Your photos will make a lasting impression and you will see that the reaction of the other people will be very positive.

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SocialMedia vs. Email Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]

There's a heated debate inside marketing circles right now about whether email marketing or social media is better. While there are many valid and profitable reasons for adding social media marketing (SMM) to your toolbox, the current research shows that it would be a costly mistakes to toss email marketing out just yet.

Take a look at this infographic, created by Emaildelivered, and find out which marketing channels is more effective - social media or email marketing?

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U.S. police struggle to uncover threats on social media

 

SAN FRANCISCO/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. law enforcement agencies are a long way from being able to effectively track threats of the kind a gunman posted on Instagram before his execution-style murder of two New York City policemen last weekend.

Police need more data analytics and mining software to monitor social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter , as well as trained personnel to make sense of what could be a deluge of data, say law enforcement officials and security experts.

"You can buy all the technology you want, but if you want to figure out clever stuff, you better have smart people able to use it," said Christopher Ahlberg, co-founder of Recorded Future Inc, which helps clients analyze social media feeds. The company is partly backed by In-Q-Tel, a venture capital firm that serves U.S. intelligence agencies.

According to the New York Police Department, Ismaaiyl Brinsley posted anti-cop slurs on the Instagram photo-sharing site hours before walking up to two officers in a parked squad car in Brooklyn and shooting them dead on Saturday.

Baltimore police said they discovered the Instagram posts after Brinsley shot and wounded his girlfriend earlier that day. But the NYPD did not learn of the posts - which included a photograph of a silver handgun and the message "I'm Putting Wings On Pigs Today. They Take 1 Of Ours...Let's Take 2 of Theirs" - until it was too late.

Monitoring social media for out-of-the-blue threats may be beyond the capabilities of most police forces including even the New York Police Department, which has a relatively extensive and aggressive intelligence operation, experts say.

Analysts at the New York and Los Angeles police departments routinely crawl through social media to keep tabs on individuals on their radar, such as gang members, or to prepare for high-profile events. But in an era of shrinking or stagnant budgets, buying high-end software and hiring trained data analysts can be costly.

Many police departments utilize fairly rudimentary tools. The NYPD uses common search engines, experts say. It is possible to program an algorithm to pick up threatening messages, but the sheer volume of data and the potential number of "false positives" would impede its effectiveness.

"It is like trying to take a sip from a fire hydrant," the non-profit Police Executive Research Forum said in a 2013 report.

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

In monitoring social media, most local police forces lag U.S. intelligence agencies, which despite their vast surveillance networks still struggle to prevent attacks such as the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

The National Security Agency had raw intercepts pointing to a person matching the 2009 "underwear bomber's" description, but failed to stop him from boarding a plane.

The Department of Homeland Security monitors about 100 social media sites, but there are restrictions that keep their agents from sharing all the information that they collect directly with local law enforcement.

Social media monitoring by police tends to be reactive: analysts hit the Internet when someone phones in a tip. Investigators use social networking sites to identify victims, look for witnesses and perpetrators, generate leads or search for evidence in the aftermath of a crime.

"Most of the stuff, honestly, we get is when people send it to us," said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman, Commander Andrew Smith.

That's not to say there have not been some successes. The LAPD, which employs around 40 people to monitor social media manually, uses software from a startup called PredPol Inc, which stands for predictive policing. The software analyzes LAPD and other internal police databases to identify crime-ridden areas and determine the best times to patrol.

PredPol marketing manager Benjamin Hoehn said crime dropped around 20 percent within 10 months of deploying the system in Modesto, California, in January.

The LAPD is also exploring the use of Geofeedia Inc, which incorporates user-location data as it crawls through sites from Twitter and Facebook to Google Inc's YouTube and Yahoo Inc's Flickr.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

Sophisticated services provided by the likes of Palantir Technologies Inc, which aids intelligence agencies in counter-terrorism, can track a person's movements, identify anonymous messages from writing patterns, or establish an individual's daily routines based on social media activity, experts said.

Ahlberg said Recorded Future can predict areas where social unrest will erupt with a high degree of accuracy, based on online commentary and other data, offering a glimpse of what may be possible.

Rights organizations have criticized the increasing use of social media crawling by law enforcement as a potential violation of privacy. Others argue anything posted on social media is fair game.

"You can call it infringing on their Frist Amendment rights but these are the 21st century tools available," said ex-FBI agent Kenneth Springer, who runs investigations outfit Corporate Solutions Inc.

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Timing Vital to Leverage Social Media Marketing: Study

The secret to how certain products create a ripple in social media while others fail despite working hard is hidden in a proper timing strategy of promotion, says a research.

People in social networks are often influenced by each 
other's decisions, resulting in a run of behaviours in which 
their choices become highly correlated, thus causing a 
cascade of decisions.

"Our work began from the realisation that an organisation trying to guide the success of a 
cascade sometimes has an interesting source of leverage under its control - the timing by 
which it introduces the cascade to different parts of the network," said study co-author
Jon Kleinberg from Cornell University.

"Consider, for example, how a company can choose to roll out a product at different times in
 different geographic areas or to different markets," Kleinberg added.

"To our surprise, the success of the cascade can sometimes be greatly affected by this choice 
of timing," the researcher said.

"With the right timing strategy, the cascade can have a good likelihood of spreading very widely,
 while with the wrong strategy, it can have very little chance of going far," Kleinberg said.

The researchers set out to characterise the kinds of timing strategies that are most effective,
 and how these strategies depend on the structure of the network in which they are operating.

They developed an algorithm for this timing or scheduling problem in cascades, adapted from
 a widely used framework in economic theory.

"Our work has identified these timing effects as an important potential strategy for 
catalysing a cascade. But our analyses work with a relatively streamlined model of individual
 decision-making," Alessandro Panconesi from Sapienza University of Rome, said.

The study was published in the SIAM Journal on Computing.

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Bill Clinton needs some social media help. So we asked an expert.

Bill Clinton. (AFP PHOTO / Frederic J. BROWNFREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)

About a month ago, I thought to myself, Hmm, Bill Clinton on the campaign trail in an era of omnipresent cameras and social media seems risky. Honestly. I did.

You probably don't believe me because, sure enough, Clinton got caught seemingly checking out a woman last month as she was taking a selfie. Then, earlier this week, a photo of Clinton with the daughter of a prominent New York Republican got a lot of traffic -- particularly once the girl's mother was cropped out.

Apparently Bill Clinton hung out with @JCats2013 (and family!) the other night. pic.twitter.com/Kbf5aRUm1k
— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) December 16, 2014

These are very different cases that reinforce a common theme: Hillary Clinton might be a mile ahead of the competition, but reminding people of some of the more adult goings-on last time the Clintons lived in the White House isn't going to do her much good. Should Clinton not pose near décolletage? Should he not attend events where cameras are allowed?

To help develop some guidelines, we spoke with social media consultantJulie DeNeen by phone. DeNeen has been consulting on social media for about two years -- not super long if you're a consultant on, say, geology, but comprising a decent chunk of the existence of tools like Instagram and Snapchat.

Tip 1: You can't undo it.

"I think the thing that is most important to remember is that once it's there, it's there forever," DeNeen said of posts to social media. "Even if it's deleted, it's there forever."

This sounds counter-intuitive, but, especially for someone like Bill Clinton, it's true. Clinton has 2.69 million followers on Twitter. If everyone looks at his tweets for one second a day, that still means that 30,000 people are watching every second. Anthony Weiner only had 60,000 followers and when he accidentally posted a Risqué Image, it was spotted and saved before he could take it down. There is a 0 percent chance Clinton could post something somewhere and not have it been seen.

"I think the media in general likes to jump on these issues," DeNeen said.

Which is true! But so do all of the people in the United States who would rather not see another President Clinton. And that's a lot more people.

Tip 2: Use your family as a moral compass, but use common sense.

Here's DeNeen's advice in general. "Don't put anything on the Internet that you don't want your kids to see," she said. Don't have kids? "Don't put anything on the Internet that you wouldn't want your boss or your parents to see."

Clinton probably doesn't care if Chelsea sees the picture of himself with Andrea Catsimatidis, the woman in the second photo. He poses for these pictures thousands of times a year. And what's he going to do, say no?

Still: "That probably wasn't a smart move on his part," DeNeen said.

Clinton has ... a reputation. And with scrutiny and judgment being reintroduced by his wife's inevitable campaign, it probably makes sense for him to be more selective in his posing partners.

Tip 3: But, be authentic.

"The culture values authenticity, so in some ways it can help celebrities when they don't always pose in perfectly manicured photos of themselves," DeNeen said.

Sure enough, Clinton earned online praise for dipping his head into someone's photograph of a mopey child. Hillary Clinton, of course,stumbled into meme celebrity last year when a candid shot of her on a plane caught on. Just the Clintons being the Clintons, and people loved it.

Tip 4: But not, like, too authentic.

"He likes women! We all know this. It's a well-known fact," DeNeen said, moderating her enthusiasm about Clinton being himself. "If you want to change that image, you have to actually change your behavior -- not just on social media."

Which brings us to our final point, circling back to that tricky first photo of Clinton caught in the woman's selfie.

Tip 5: You can't control what other people post.

"When you're Bill Clinton, you can control your own accounts," DeNeen said, "but everyone has a cell phone."

You can't ban photos everywhere -- although Hillary Clinton has barred photos at events in the past. People don't always realize how a photo is going to look until it's published, as was probably the case in the Catsimatidis example. The problem is that, for Clinton, he should always expect to be about to be in a photograph. "With cameras everywhere, somebody is going to catch him doing something less than perfect," DeNeen said.

"When you have that level of power, you have to work that much harder to appear as if you're not lusting after young women," she added. "It may feel unfair, being held to a higher standard, but tough" .... and then she said another word that starts with an "s."

But I would rather not have my kids read it, so we'll just end here.

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The 8 worst social media blunders of 2014

When in doubt, don’t tweet it out.

That should’ve been the motto for these blundering brands and clueless tweeters. Luckily for us, it wasn’t.

In the interest of living and learning (and convincing ourselves that these massive slip-ups will never, ever happen to us), here are the biggest social media blunders of 2014.

1. #ImAMetsFanBecause

Photo: Twitter/@Met

In the spirit of good, old-fashioned user-generated content, the Mets invited their “fans” to tell them why they love the team — the same team that’s seen a years-long struggle. The resulting tweets were somber, heartbreaking, and downright hilarious.

[View the story “#ImAMetsFanBecause” on Storify]

They meant well. They really did.

2. A forbidden kiss

The Duggars love love. They love couples showing their love through public displays of affection. They love it so much, they invited other married couples to do just that on their official Facebook page.

Photo: Facebook/John Becker

But there was one tiny catch, as John Becker and his husband quickly learned. Apparently the Duggars left out “opposite sex” before the word “couples.” The famous family deleted Becker’s photo, along with similar photos from other same-sex duos.

You really ought to be more specific next time, Duggars.

3. NYPD

Photo: Twitter/@justinwedes

NYPD asks followers to tweet pictures of friendly cops… What could possibly go wrong?!

[View the story “#MyNYPD Twitter fail” on Storify]

Surprisingly, NYPD spokesman Stephen Davis was not discouraged in the least: “People are free to do what they want. But we are doing it to get our messages out to the communities . . . We will not be deterred from our social media objective.”

4. DiGiorno #WhyIStayed

The pizza company jumped on a hashtag about domestic violence — but clearly didn’t understand the context.

DiGiorno deleted the tweet within minutes, and issued an apology. “A million apologies. Did not read what the hashtag was about before posting.”

Here’s a hashtag they could have used: #WhenInDoubtLeaveItOut.

5. What power outage?

Photo: Fox

During a massive service outage in Boston, LA, Chicago, and Dallas, Charter Communications decided to ignore customers’ social-media pleas for help — and talk about the Simpsons instead.

MT @EW: Are you taking on FXX's #EverySimpsonsEver marathon? Here are some tips from #TheSimpsons' writers: http://t.co/5NUHZ8NP8t
— Charter (@CharterCom) August 23, 2014 

Customers swiftly responded, calling Charter out for their ironic tweet.

@CharterCom service out here in St. Louis. How about an update. #annoyed
— Jordan Mires (@31Mires) August 23, 2014

@CharterCom @EW No I'm not because you have a huge outage in St. Louis right now
— lazydorkk (@lazydorkk) August 23, 2014

@CharterCom No, because our pricy service is down.
— Nathan Stehle (@NathanStehle) August 23, 2014

@CharterCom @EW I would watch the marathon if my @chartercom wasn't down
— Vic (@NotoriousGomezz) August 23, 2014

Charter soon learned of the issue and spokeswoman Kim Haas acknowledged the problem.

6. Cheerios

Cheerios Super Bowl ad featured a 6-year-old girl and her interracial parents, and someone at MSNBC figured everyone but conservatives would enjoy it.

A tweet from the company’s account read, “Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awwww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family.”

MSNBC President Phil Griffin fired an employee and personally apologized following the “outrageous and unacceptable” tweet.

7. Delta giraffe gaffe

Delta Airlines only wanted to congratulate the U.S. on winning the World Cup game 2-1. So they sent a tweet showing the Statue of Liberty to represent the U.S., and used a giraffe to symbolize Ghana — but giraffes aren’t native to Ghana.

We're sorry for our choice of photo in our previous tweet. Best of luck to all teams.
— Delta (@Delta) June 17, 2014

8. Tweet #nomakeupselfie, adopt a polar bear

Photo: Instagram/Zumapress.com

The social media campaign “#nomakeupselfie” went viral last week, in an effort to raise awareness and money for breast cancer research

But thousands of people nearly adopted a polar bear instead.

In order to donate to Cancer Research UK, you had to text the word “BEAT” to a generic donations number, but instead, some charitable folks’ generous donations were auto-corrected to “BEARS,” resulting in them adopting a polar bear rather than donating to Cancer Research.

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