What Are The Best Days And Times To Send Marketing Emails?

You’ve come to this blog looking for a straight answer. And yes, wouldn’t it be awesome if I could tell you that by sending your email at noon on Wednesdays your email campaigns will have stellar performance? Unfortunately, the optimal day and time to send marketing emails is as mythical as Big Foot. Sure, you can examine a number of factors that contribute to the best timing, but there isn’t a magic formula for the best day and time. Truth be told, you’ll ultimately have to figure out what is best for your marketing emails through testing, but you can start off on the right foot by knowing some industry trends and considerations.

First, Think About Spam

Before you can think about the best time and day to send marketing emails, you need to ensure that your email content is worthy of surpassing spam filters. Today’s spam filters and even features like Gmail’s Promo tab, are becoming smarter and smarter at detecting irrelevant, marketing email, which means you have to up your game to get past them. Here are some of the most important considerations:

CAN-SPAM Act

You likely know this, but this law requires you to always include a working unsubscribe link and a physical address, as well as avoid deceptive headlines in email. Failing to do so isn’t just debilitating your reach to a subscriber’s inbox, it’s actually illegal.

Quality Lists

You’ve heard it time and time again – use a quality list when sending email marketing campaigns. Unfortunately, there are still executives and marketers out there who still insist on blasting their message to as many as possible. Likely, they do this because they do not truly understand how spam filters work, but if they knew, they’d be less likely to push the “blast to everyone from the past” email sending method. Let’s look at this closer…

When a sender sends an email to a recipient, some spam filters look at the domain of the sender. If that sender has shown to make multiple attempts to bounced emails or if that sender’s email domain doesn’t match the server the email is being sent from, a spam filter will detect this, and the sender’s overall quality score decreases. Thus, future campaigns from that sender are routed to junk or won’t even be delivered. To keep a quality email list, ensure the following:

• Don’t purchase lists
• Don’t email recipients who you haven’t emailed in a while
• Stop sending to unengaged subscribers
• Ensure you ask recipients to opt-in

The Subject Line And Message

Spam detecting that uses content filtering to identify the quality of a message and sender dives deep into the content by looking at some of the commonalities of spammy content. Some of them, which you should avoid, include:

• Links or domains in the email that are blacklisted
• Missing a plain text version of an HTML email
• Spammy words including “FREE,” “Business Offer,” “Save up to,” and “Click.” Get a full list here from HubSpot of spammy words to avoid.
• High ratio of images compared to text
• Using all caps or excessive exclamation points

Keeping all of this in mind, the bottom line to avoiding spam filters is to create content that doesn’t appear spammy to filters but also content that isn’t spammy to the reader. Your message should contain information that the reader finds valuable so that they continue to open your emails. When they open your emails because the content is valuable, you won’t need to be concerned about spam filters.

The Ideal Day & Time – Does It Exist?

Now, onto what you came for. As I mentioned, there are a number of variables that determine what the best day and time to send an email is for your company. One example of this comes from data derived by Pebble Design on the hotel and tourism industry. For the corporate or B2B audience, Thursday between 11 am and 2 pm was best; however, those traveling for leisure tend to open and click most between 2 pm and 5 pm.

The point being driven with this example is that there isn’t an ideal, one size fits all time and day for sending email campaigns. What really matters is taking a close look at your industry, audience and buyer behavior to know what is best.

Industry & Demographic Trends

So, if the industry and audience matter, what are some the trends related to each industry and audience? Let’s look at some insights from MailChimp to find out.

Weekend Email

While the weekend is typically a bad time to send email for corporate industries, it is optimal for various leisure type industries. Below is a graph of industries who should be sending on weekends.

10 A.M. Local Time

If you market at a national or international level, you have email recipients in multiple time zones. Considering this and data from across industries, MailChimp found that 10 am local time or shortly after was best for performance of emails that are non-leisure related. When sending campaigns, break up send times by time zones to ensure your email campaign performs well in every region.

Age Differences

In the MailChimp Insights, they also examined the differences between various age groups for peak open and click-through rates. Due to the sleep patterns and different lifestyle of college age recipients, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that optimal times for this audience is actually around 1 pm.

Campaign Differences

The goals of the email campaign and the type of campaign at hand may also determine the best time and day to send an email. For example, GetResponse found that open and click-through rates were highest not by day or a particular time in the day but by the time of the year, which was Q4 for consumer marketers. They point to the fact that most retail shopping is done in November and December.

When identifying the best day and time to send your email campaign, look at the campaign itself. Does it correlate with seasonal purchasing? Is it event related? Look at the factors in the campaign that may reveal when the best day and time to send the email are.

Mobile Changes Email Metrics

The rise of mobile has shifted email campaign performance much like it has the rest of marketing. Research from Campaign Monitor that analyzed over 6 million email campaigns found that 41 percent of emails are opened on mobile, while only 28 percent are opened on desktop. In addition, they also found that 25 percent of those who open an email on mobile will open that email again. Of those who open the email and do not click, 67 percent will click-through when opening the email a second time.

For marketers, this means that focusing too much on open rate, especially for mobile, isn’t the best indication of good performance because email recipients are likely to flag that email and come back later for more information.

Test, Test, & Test

As you’ve surely noticed, the theme throughout this post is that optimal send day and times vary. Because of this, you’ll need to test, test and test again to continue to refine your email marketing campaigns. Taking into account variables such as the industry, audience and even the device used by your audience will help you to gauge the optimal day and time for your company to send email. A/B testing is one way to help test emails without having to look at multiple campaigns and eliminate the possibility of other variables. Learn more about A/B testing in this blog.

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5 Awesome Design Hacks to Create Highly Shareable Social Media Graphics

Have you noticed how visual social media is these days? It’s not just about text updates.

Everything has an image, graphic, or video. But there’s a reason why. Visuals grab us like nothing else. In fact, our brains process visuals about 60,000 times faster than text. It turns out that an image is worth more than a thousand words.

But what do you do if you’re not an artist? A lot of us find design time­ consuming, or just plain hard to do.

Well then, do you hire an artist? But what if your budget isn’t big enough to justify that added expense?

Take a deep breath. You’re about to enter an alternate universe where design comes easy to you, it’s free (or painlessly affordable), and it’s repeatable. Ready to jump in? Let’s take a look at five design hacks that will make your social media content engaging and sharable.

1. Stop using so much text

Hey, I love text. I’m using it now. But the thing about text is that it can get really overwhelming really quickly. The point of using visuals is to let colors, shapes, and textures do the heavy lifting.

Whether you’re making a visual post for Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest, don’t allow the words to crowd out the image.

For graphics that support your blogpost, I’m a big fan of using the text to reiterate title of your blogpost. Then, pin that graphic to the top of your blogpost. This will give your readers a hint that they can share your visuals on their social media platforms. Plus, since you have the title on the graphic, it’s even more enticing. Here’s a couple of examples:

Images via Christian PF, Holly Meyer Design, and Ann Marie Loves

As seen in these examples, when designing with images always place your text within empty copy space. This will make your type easily readable, easily digestible, and ultimately more sharable.

Don’t be afraid to add social share hovers on your images, either. A subtle way to do so is with WordPress Image Hover Lite.

2. Use high quality stock photography

Remember – the quality of graphics you promote on social media are are a reflection of your brand itself.

So, what pay off does a high­ quality stock image serve? Well, human beings tend to have an attractiveness bias – we notice, like, and will click on things that look nice, and what’s nicer than a beautifully shot stock photograph to complement your content?

A good stock image not only grabs you consumers’ attention, but it can also boost your brand’s credibility and professionalism. Not that many people are going to trust a brand that uses grainy, awkward and cheesy images, especially not when competitor brands use stunningly cheese-free stock images.

But don’t be put off of the idea of stock images by telling yourself they’re too expensive, because the day of overpriced (and badly shot) images is gone. Now, there’s plenty of high quality, beautiful photos in every category imaginable. And they cost anywhere from $1 to free.

Sites like Pexels, Unsplash, Life of Pix, and SplitShire are really changing the free stock photo game.

And these images are not low resolution either. In fact, most are huge, ready for commercial use (always check first, though), and most importantly for smaller budgets like mine: free!

Now, there’s really no excuse to settle for crappy images that don’t represent your brand in the way that you love.

3. Use a range of visual content

There’s no doubt that visual content is the most powerful way to engage fans on social media. But they don’t want to see the same thing over and over again. How to solve this problem? Create a variety. Here’s four types of strategy:

Quote graphics

Quote graphics help your fans connect with the meaning and message of your brand – not just your product.

Another reason people love to share quote graphics is that if they can relate to them, they’ll be motivated to share the thoughts and inspiration with their friends. Experiment with bold and strong vs light and minimalistic to create a series of quote graphics your fans won’t be able to resist.

Infographics.

Storytelling is one of the most compelling ways to engage your audience with your brand, and infographics allow you to do this in a visually captivating way.

Why World Vision Pinterest Board

Consider how charity World Vision do this on Pinterest. By creating a visual narrative that reflect their brand mission, their fans have an incentive to share the graphics when supporting various causes. This is a great example of how large chunks of data can be used in a compelling way.

When designing your own infographic, always make it easy to scan with facts and figures organized in a logical way. And use colors to communicate directives like, “hey, this is important” and use plenty of icons to tell your visual story.

Screenshots.

If a customer has a question about doing something, why not take a screenshot to answer a FAQ on your social media page? Or use screenshots to give a sneak peek on something you’re working on. It makes the fan/ follower feel like they are getting exclusive information.

Also, chances are if you use a screenshot wisely to help explain, exemplify or demonstrate something, people are going to hit that share button. Visual guides can make life so much easier and quicker to understand, so if you give consumers that “Aha!” moment, they’re going to want to share that with others.

Photography.

Show off your photography skills. Whether you’re on Instagram or Twitter, a great way to bring people into your world is through your own photos that you snap. With all of the great apps available through smartphones, you’re able to take photos on the fly and share them with your audience just as easily.

Photos are also, of course, super shareable, have a look at any social media page, people share millions of photos each and every day. So, if you take the time to create some stunning, insightful or interesting snapshots, they’re going to make the rounds.

Don’t have the exact photo you need? Check out this article for 74 free stock photo sites for stunning images like this one from Unsplash.

If you’re creating a large amount of visuals for social media, set up templates to make the process as quick and easy as possible. The more painless it is for you to create the graphics, the more you’ll have for your fans to share.

Use templates to maximise your workflow

4. Tap into visual trends

Are you afraid that your visual content won’t look hip enough? Here’s my secret: Pinterest research. Pinterest is my favorite place to search for visual trends because it’s a visual medium. It has everything from quote cards to infographics. You can also use Pinterest to discover what graphics are resonating with the audience by its number of re­pins.

Of course, you should never copy the visual content exactly. Instead, think of what exactly appeals to you about the image and what common elements all of the most pinned items have.

Take a look at this example I pulled from Pinterest:

Which quote are you drawn to? What stands out the most? Is it the font, the background image? Do you like the colors?

Notice how the middle pin has almost 18,000 repins. It’s simple black and white, with no background image, and it works because of the message is about not sugar coating. Also take note that “but never” is visually emphasized.

Remember graphics don’t need to be complicated to be impactful. In fact, the simpler the better. The current trend is to strip away any elements that compete with your message.

So, if you keep your finger on the pulse of visual trends by using networks like Pinterest to deconstruct these trends, you’ll be creating trendy, attention­ grabbing and super shareable content in no time at all.

5. Brand your graphics

The point of creating highly shareable social media graphics is to drive people back to your site. Unfortunately, I come across untraceable graphics all the time. There’s nothing worse than finding an informative graphic, and wanting to get more information from the publisher, but not knowing where it came from.

Don’t let this happen to you.

Make sure that you always, without a doubt, add a watermark to your graphics. And no, it doesn’t have to be an obnoxious, full color logo sticker. A simple link to your website towards the bottom of your graphic will answer the need for branding.

Also, don’t forget about templates. No matter if you’re using quotes, infographics, photographs, or other elements, be sure to create a template for the sake of consistency. When you follow a graphic template, your followers will instantly know it’s you without having to see your name (but you should still add your name anyway).

Consider using the same font type and size, the same emotional message (happiness, silliness, charity), and similar filters for all of your visual content. With a template, you won’t forget what font you used, and you’ll have a stronger visual impression with your audience.

Here’s a few examples to consider when developing your visual branding template:

Color Palettes: What is your brand about? Is it young and friendly? Consider vibrant colors like orange or yellow. Is it about trust and dependability? Make blue your stand out color.

Define and use these colors in your fonts and your image borders. Here’s a few color palettes to inspire you:

Font Combinations: Take two or three fonts and mix them up for visual interest. There’s no right or wrong font combination, unless you use Comic Sans (which is always wrong), but try to go with a combination of Serif and Sans Serif fonts. Here’s what I’m talking about:

Filters: If your color is wonky or you just want to add a romantic flair to your photos, filters can enhance and elevate. Adding some carefully selected filters can highlight and add a nice touch to your original images, making them twice as appealing and shareable. Take a look at what we’re able to do with one photo using four filters:

Filters are also a great way to create consistency with your branding. Creating and applying your own filters to all of your graphics gives you more control over the images for a more defined brand personality.

It’s your turn.

Which one of these design hacks will you try in your social media campaign? Come on, it’s so easy, you’ve got to try at least one. Let us know in the comments below.

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How to Incorporate Video Into Your Social Media Marketing Campaign [Infographic]

Did you know that, an estimated 74 percent of all internet traffic in 2017 will be video? And that viewers retain 95 percent of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10 percent when reading it in a text article.

What if I told you videos are shared 1200 percent more times than links and text combined. And that websites with videos have up to 800 percent more conversion than the same website without a video.

It's no secret that video content is on the rise, and to stand out you need to do something that very few others are doing.

This infographic (featured below) from Salesforce, illustrates important marketing tips that you need to know to integrate video into your social media strategy.

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5 Ways to Standout on Social Media with a Bootstrap Budget

Social media is crowded.

Most of us make an assumption that this makes it much harder to standout, or that to standout you have to spend thousands of dollars.

Our natural tendency is to pay for attention, because that is how we are programmed to think thanks to traditional advertising.

For a minute, let’s imagine that the more noise there is on social media, the EASIER it is to standout – and the cheaper it can be to do so.

That’s crazy right?

Well maybe not.

The more noise there is, the more mediocrity we accept as being normal. If we set ourselves higher standards than everyone else, there is an opportunity to cut through the clutter.

This simple mindset shift, sprinkled with a little creativity and some elbow grease, can help you earn trust and awareness on social media that everyone else only dreams of. And it’s all free.

Lets look at 5 ways you can standout on social media that won’t break your budget.

1. Do the unexpected

Be bold!

Brands who claim authority as the top social content producers often earn that title by taking risks that simultaneously resonate with their core values.

For instance, take Taco Bell’s social media blackout campaign. This campaign came unannounced and shocked fans when all social channels went dark alongside the launch of its new mobile app. This not only created a buzz for the brand, but also resulted in 75 percent of stores seeing mobile payments in the first 24 hours alone.

The takeaway is that doing the unexpected can help bring excitement to your brand that will increase exposure, get users talking, and create real ROI. Take the time to weigh the risk vs. reward of a situation and develop a deep understanding of audience behavior so you can surprise fans with confidence and strategic direction.

Image Source: Ad Week

2. Make it fun & human

The best brands standout on social media by building strong connections with their fans through human qualities and relatable messaging.

In today’s social age, there has been a shift in how companies connect with their fans. No longer is it just about strong calls to action, clear benefits, and quality service; instead, consumers now look for deeper connections and content that offers value through entertainment and education.

To be competitive your brand must focus on developing a personality that reflects its core values and delivers content in a relatable and engaging voice.

The key is to make social fun – for you and for your audience.

Here is an example of a back and forth on Twitter between Kit Kat and Oreo.

Oreo’s response…

3. Let customers define your brand

Another way to standout on social media is to let your customers define your brand for you.

• Identify why customers use your brand today and analyze similar brands in your industry.
• Ask your fans to share stories about your products or service to get a real-world understanding of your value.
• Leverage user-generated content to build strong connections and develop brand advocacy.
• Encourage customers to share their ideas, and don’t be afraid to be direct when asking about their expectations.

Communication is key for developing an engaging brand that is built for your audience, by your audience.

Warby Parker embrace this concept below.

Image source: Postano

4. Leverage all content mediums

Content is more than just written articles and blog posts – it is an all-encompassing mix of website copy, blogs, white papers, webinars, pictures, infographics, videos, advertisements, and almost any material you create for audience engagement.

To be seen as brand to watch, and standout on social media, you must make the most of a variety of content mediums that generate high engagement across different channels. Test your delivery, calls to action, and value proposition across different content mediums and channels to identify trends in engagement. Leverage the data you collect to shape your content strategy and bring character to your social presence.

5. Create a seamless experience

Bring social elements to all of your digital content through your website, blog, and sales.

By keeping your social presence top of mind you can keep your audience more engaged. Do this by embedding social elements into your content, including social links on your site, and encouraging fans to engage on different mediums.

Each social space should maintain a unique personality but continue a consistent theme and brand message that elevates your overall user experience.

Conclusion

The social landscape is filled with competitors of all shapes and sizes looking for a piece of the action.

To earn your position as a brand that demands authority and generates quality engagement, align your voice and core values to resonate with what drew your customers to you in the first place.

Create an experience for your customers, not just more noise for the already crowded social channels.

This mindset and a little creativity will help you standout on social media.

Guest author: Chris Moreno is the Director of Social Media at Zog Media.

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HOW TO DETERMINE GOALS FOR YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CAMPAIGN

Do you suffer from pie in the sky delusions when it comes to setting goals for your social media marketing campaigns? Or perhaps, you have the opposite problem experiencing difficulty in setting any goals at all. Whether you are dreaming of having one million followers or fans, or you are experiencing trouble in articulating your goals, the importance of having a strategy in place for setting social media marketing campaign goals cannot be denied. With a solid strategy in place, you will be able to establish realistic goals, determine how you are going to reach those goals, and be able to measure when those goals have been attained.

SPECIFICITY LEADS TO SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS

Begin by setting specific goals. Far too often, many brands make the mistake of being too generic when establishing social media marketing goals. Do not set a goal of simply wanting to grow your fan or follower base. If that were the goal, you could reasonably say that you have met your goal after adding just one fan or follower. The more specific you can be about your goals, the easier it will be to recognize what needs to be accomplished. Along with being specific, it is also important that you are clear about what you wish to accomplish. There should be no room for ambiguity in your goals. If you do not set clear, specific goals, it will be impossible to effectively measure your activities, nor will you be able to understand what actually denotes success.

CAN YOU ACTUALLY REACH THAT GOAL?

Along with understanding what you must accomplish, you also need to have a system in place for measuring your progress and understanding when you have achieved that goal.

Consider whether the goal you have set is actually attainable or realistic. While it might sound great to have a million fans or followers, is that realistic? Setting unrealistic goals will only cause you to be set up for failure and disappointment. Establish goals that you can realistically meet. For instance, set a goal for growing your fan or follower base by 20 percent.

HOLD YOURSELF ACCOUNTABLE WITH TIMELINES

Finally, make sure you provide yourself with a deadline for meeting your goals. Using the example above, while it would be great to grow your fan or follower base by 20 percent, if you leave that goal open ended, your growth could easily become stunted. Establish a deadline to hold yourself accountable for meeting your goals, such as growing your fan or follower base by 20 percent in six months.

When establishing goals for your social media marketing campaigns, keep in mind that the goals you set can vary based on your company's mission. Additionally, your goals will likely change as your brand's influence and recognition grows.

CATEGORIZING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING GOALS

In developing goals for your brand, you might find it helpful to break those goals down into categories. CMS Wirerecommends breaking social media marketing goals into four categories:

• Audience-building goals
• Activity-based goals
• ROI goals
• Engagement goals

Note that the social media marketing goals you establish will also likely vary based on the specific channel you opt to use. Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest are all quite different. In setting goals for Twitter, you might focus on such areas as increasing engagement rate, tweet frequency, retweets, follower growth, etc. Facebook goals, by comparison, could be quite different, and might look more like this: to increase engagement, reach, or page likes. Since brands do not have profiles on Pinterest, as they do on Facebook or Twitter, your goals on this social media marketing channel will naturally be much different. Even so, that does not mean that you should not set goals. A solid goal for channels such as Pinterest or Instagram might be to increase shares.

LEVERAGING PAST STATS

If you find that you are experiencing difficulties in determining which types of goals you should set, try pulling past stats or analytics so that you will know what you have accomplished previously. Breaking down these stats in terms of average monthly traffic and the percentage of traffic that came from various sources can provide ideas of where you can make improvements. Plus it gives you a good starting place for setting goals.

IT'S NOT ALL PASS/FAIL

Setting goals for social media marketing is not completely about whether you did or did not meet a goal. The main idea is to continue to improve. Too often, it is easy to feel as though you have failed if you did not meet specific goals. When that happens, you may feel discouraged. Rather than becoming caught up in the fact that you did not meet the goals you set, take some time to review and analyze what you did for future improvements. For instance, consider what you could have done differently, and what could potentially work better. Avoid the temptation to focus solely on what did not work. Look at strategies you implemented that worked well.

Remember that the only way to know what is going to work for your brand is to explore and try new things. This means testing, tracking your activities, and then making changes to your social media marketing activities so that you can make improvements moving forward.

Regardless of the number and the various types of goals that you set for your social media marketing strategy, the bottom line is the big picture. At the end of the day, remember that your social media marketing campaign is not just about attracting more followers or fans, or even increasing your number of shares or tweets. Instead, it's about creating conversations around your brand that will resonate with your target audience.

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How social media can make your small business go gangbusters

Social media is constantly being touted for its brand-building power, and rightly so. But many small businesses fail to reap the expected benefits from their investments of time and money in social media, largely because they haven't fully grasped the unwritten rule of social media marketing: It's not which tools you use, it's how you use them that spells the difference between profitable performance and lackluster results.

Like professional marketers, successful small business owners target their social media activities for maximum impact. While their competitors are adrift in a sea of tweets and blog posts, savvy strategists focus and fine tune their social-media plays. Consider three social media campaigns that generated big results through careful targeting:

1. When Denver-based Sword & Plough launched its business to recycle military surplus material into tote bags and related products, it had a bold idea and grassroots support, including a $6,500 award from Harvard's Pitch for Change competition. The firm's start-up financing strategy focused on building its network of contacts via social media as the springboard for a Kickstarter campaign.
(More on the future of Main Street: The booming future of collaborative work environments)
After an intensive 12-month period of sharing its story via Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and media contacts, Sword & Plough launched a 30-day Kickstarter campaign. Within 24 hours, it had raised triple its goal of $20,000; within a month, it generated $312,161 in pledges from more than 1,500 backers. One of the keys to its success: targeted social-media outreach to build support before the Kickstarter launch. Today, Sword & Plough has recycled more than 35,000 pounds of military surplus material, employs a network of veterans through its U.S. manufacturing operations, and has sold more than 5,000 products. 
(More on the future of Main Street: The amazing promise of electronic payments)

2. Little Passports has built a $5 million+ business by providing products designed to create a global travel experience for kids. In order to expand and attract venture capital to push its growth to the next level, the San Francisco-based firm decided to focus its social media investment on Facebook. They started small and conducted extensive testing to fine tune the message and design concepts. Only when the message and packaging had been perfected did Little Passports launch a major Facebook ad campaign. In six months, its monthly revenues rose from $130,000 to $700,000 and the firm tripled its customer base. Its targeted Facebook campaign, coupled with its impressive customer expansion, helped lay the groundwork for a successful $2 million venture capital infusion.

3. Sharpie, a company well known in the business community for its pens and markers, wanted to tap an underdeveloped market for its products: teenagers. To engage this target audience, the firm ran a Twitter campaign focusing on self-expression through creativity targeted at users with interests in music and writing. The campaign increased Sharpie's follower base by 600 percent and loads of people began using the hashtag "#Sharpie," making a positive, brand-building association with the firm's products and creativity.
(More on the future of Main Street: How mom-and-pop businesses can thrive in the 21st century)
The impressive results generated by Sword & Plough, Little Passports, and Sharpie underscore the importance of narrowing your social media objectives and outreach. Be thoughtful about your approach, think it through, and test and refine before you dive in. Once you've done that, and as you continue to plan or fine tune your strategy, keep in mind the "Four T's" social-media targeting:

Target your tools: Most media experts agree that for both B2B and B2C firms, the three social media sources that generate the most business leads, positive brand exposure, and customer contact are LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. By focusing your activities on these three tools you can build a strong outreach foundation and master their usage: Tweets that include links and photos, for example, are 86 percent more likely to be retweeted. With a solid base, you can explore other outlets like YouTube, Tumblr, and Pinterest.

Target your time: Establish a regular schedule for posting new content to your social media accounts. Successful marketers leverage their time by setting aside two or three blocks of time daily and bundling their social media tasks. This minimizes the distracting, time-frittering aspects of social-media usage and ensures that product development and other high-priority tasks aren't short-circuited.

Target your timing: Studies show that posts are more likely to provide you with valuable exposure at specific times of the day: Just before and after the hour, and around lunch or dinner time, are prime posting slots. Most marketers also agree that Tuesdays and Thursdays are the days where your posts are most likely to receive attention, so high-impact messages should be delivered then.

Target your topics: With 750 million+ Twitter users and a billion Facebook users, finding a way to ensure that your tweets rise above all the cyberspace chatter isn't easy. When you post online, 85 percent of your content should focus on passing along valuable, fun, and timely content to your audience — and only 15 percent should directly focus on news about your business and its activities. A major exception: pop-up retailers and food businesses that depend on Twitter, Facebook, and other social-media tools to alert customers to their schedules. But otherwise, ask yourself before you post: Why would someone share this with their friends and family? And if you don't have a ready answer, think twice about posting it.

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