How to Better Prepare Your Social Media for 2016

Can you believe it? There are only three and a half more weeks in 2015. The year was a busy one, jam-packed with wall-to-wall Tweeting and posting, a couple of new networks to figure out (How do I Snapchat?) and countless questions about the future of social media for business. Thankfully, the year is now coming to an end. You can just phone in these last few weeks and deal with January once it gets here, right?

You know I’m going to say ‘wrong.’

These last three weeks of the year might not be your most active, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be productive. Instead of killing time until your holiday arrives, there are a few simple ways you can help your business on social media before you forget about work for a while.

We’ve gathered three different ways that you can use social media to end 2015 on a high note. Check them out:

Close those support tickets

Social media has become a customer service channel for all businesses—whether they’ve acknowledged it or not. Thankfully, most brands have come to acknowledge that fact, and have taken steps to ensure they’re finding and responding to any customer problems or comments on Facebook, Twitter and beyond.

Unfortunately, there’s a but.

Despite their best efforts, many businesses are slow to close out their customer support issues on social media. This is the result of many factors, including:

• Higher volume on social media as a result of ease of use for customers
• Sporadic interaction from the second party on social networks
• Disorganized systems for dealing with social media customer service tickets

While the reasons may be understandable from a business perspective, that won’t go very far to alleviating customers. Lithium Technologies found in a study that over 50 percent of customers who ask a brand a question on Twitter expect a response within 1 hour. The number is even higher (72 percent) if it’s a complaint.

Is your business meeting those deadlines? If not, you’re not alone. Brandwatch found that only 11.2 percent of retail brands respond to questions within an hour. Now is the time to change that. It’s the end of the year, so you’re probably not starting any new campaigns or working head down on sales plans or events (unless you’re in retail, then you probably are). With the extra “dead time” many people have right before the holidays, you should be making a concerted effort to close out any and all outstanding support tickets.

Work with your team to divvy up the existing social media inquiries and respond as best you can. Then, work to address any new tickets in a timely manner as they arrive. The extra effort will allow you to start fresh in the new year, while helping your customers out during the stressful period before the holidays. Your efforts are sure to earn you some goodwill to close out 2015 on a high note.

Weed out unused profiles

Image by John Liu via flickr

Around the holidays you tend to get a whole bunch of new stuff. A lot of it is great—thoughtful gifts you’ll use and cherish. But a lot of it, sorry to say, is often pointless. It’s knick knacks and stocking stuffers that you throw into a drawer to collect dust. One way to avoid this waste is to simply acknowledge what you’re not going to use, and get rid of it. This same logic applies to your social media accounts.

For several years businesses would create accounts on every social network and service because they felt like they had to. Over time, most people tended to hone in on the one or two networks that they liked best, or that were most effective with their audience. As a result, the other accounts, the unwanted ones, were left alone, with sporadic updates, little to no engagement, and providing very little value to the business.

Now is the time to trim the fat. Perform a quick audit of your social media profiles and identify the ones you are not maintaining or that aren’t performing up to snuff. Then, cut them loose. We understand that it’s hard to let accounts go after you’ve built an audience on them, no matter how small. But if you’re not updating these profiles regularly, you’re actually hurting your business. People who follow those accounts expecting engagement won’t get any, and will be left with a bad taste in their mouths. They’ll feel neglected by your brand, which is probably worse than simply not being on the network at all.

Take the leap and get rid of your ignored profiles. Then you can start the new year with a renewed focus on your most successful channels.

Actually plan your 2016 social media strategy

With the holidays approaching and the prospect of time off, vacation, presents and parties, it can be really hard to try and focus on January (or February… or March). Like, really, seriously challenging. But you need to bite the bullet and start planning your 2016 social media strategy now.

Why?

First of all, many people close out the year by doing retrospectives. They look back on their efforts, identify what worked and what didn’t, close out their quarterly and yearly goals, and generally immerse themselves in the year that was. All of that information should absolutely guide your entire 2016 strategy.

You should continue doing whatever was working well—and allocate budget accordingly—possibly expanding on it or ramping it up in the new year. You should identify the weaknesses in your existing strategy and plot out ways to plug those holes starting in the first quarter.

You can also break down what topics that you covered in great detail and establish those that deserve more attention in 2016. Finally, look at what people are already predicting as social trends for the new year (social video anyone?), and ensure you’re prepared for swings in that direction. In summary, the final few weeks of the year should provide you with the insights and data that will make your next year more productive.

Another reason to start planning your 2016 social media strategy right now is the simple fact that the first few weeks of January are probably going to be very unproductive. We all have this idea in our heads that we’ll come back from the holidays refreshed and raring to go. The truth is, most of us sit back down at the desk that first week of January with a big frown on our faces. Another holiday has come and gone and, let’s face it, we’re not all that excited to be back at work. People tend to take time getting back into the swing of things, and it’s very unlikely that you’ll be able to hammer out your next strategy during this crucial period.

Instead, build your strategy now, so that when you get back to work you already have a plan laid out. It takes far less concerted effort to follow the plan than it does to create the plan in the first place.

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Analysis Finds Content About Tech Trends Draws Attention to Ads About Anything

Technology has improved our lives in many ways, and we now rely on it for everything from work to entertainment, education and productivity. It’s no surprise, then, that technology is a very closely-followed industry, and advertisers have found many ways to capitalize on that society-wide interest.

But, what exactly can advertisers do to make the most of this hungry audience? Sure, they can advertise on a tech news site or with retailers like Best Buy. But, beyond the obvious techie crowd, there is a wealth of opportunities left uncovered.

Let’s take a closer look at what that means. Looking back at dozens of Fortune 500 companies' advertising campaigns last quarter, Taykey’sReal-Time Trend Report revealed that tech trends clearly dominated the most successful ads. When I say “trends,” I mean any topic that drives attention and engagement across any number of online sources. So the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, for instance, is a trend that may have emerged out of news articles announcing its release date, tweets from tech leaders and gadgeteers, blog comments on a review or replays on a promo video.

The trends about tech produced one out of five real-time advertising impressions last quarter, and drove outstanding engagement with ad content. In fact, ads placed around technology topics performed an average of 70 percent over industry benchmarks, with some ads performing up to 925 percent over.

Related: Marketers Should Consider These 5 Tech Trends in the Coming Year

What’s interesting about these trends is they have very broad-reaching impacts beyond the tech industry. For instance, ads about food and beverage goods, consumer products and retail items enjoyed the very same boosts in ad performance that tech gadgets did. People were more likely to click on a food and beverage ad when it was displayed near content about Oculus Rift or Apple Pay, over something about Lay’s new Wasabi Ginger flavor or David Guetta’s MUMMS champagne partnership. While it may seem counter-intuitive, technology brings eyeballs to even the most unrelated campaigns.

So, we know that jumping on technology topics yields the greatest value for an ad campaign. But, that’s still a vague starting point, with “technology” spanning anything and everything from mobile devices to gaming, to content streaming and social media. The natural next question is exactly which tech trends brands should target, which ones they should avoid.

Ironically, the least effective trends were those that many likely assumed would have had the greatest impact last quarter. For example, Apple’s iPhone 6 release was arguably the largest tech event of Q3, making it a desirable trend to target ads around. Yet, it performed only slightly above average. iPhone 6 trends performed only 13 percent better than aggregate Android phone trends, likely at a much higher per-click price point. Plus, specific brands like Nokia and HTC saw their trends performing two to three times better than Apple iPhone trends. Sure, you could argue that these brands were also active in the news during Q3, but they certainly didn’t spark as much discussion as the iPhone 6 did. 

Evidently, hype doesn’t necessarily mean advertising success.

On the flip side, pulling ahead of the pack and showing the greatest promise for success were personal devices, accounting for 30 percent of real-time engagements. Narrowing it down even further, wearables were the top-performing device category overall, more than 200 percent more effective than industry averages.

Related: As Wearables Get Hot, These 6 Industries Are Poised to Capitalize

No one could have guessed that wearables would give advertisers the biggest bang for their buck, but perhaps even more surprising was the number-one tech trend, which was also the top trend overall. No ads performed better than those that were placed alongside the launch of LG’s G Watch R, enjoying a whopping 925 percent increase in ad engagement. Go figure!

Clearly, the most impactful trends are not always obvious to advertisers. Plenty of other unpredictable stories topped the list for top trends in Q3: Apple’s reaction to the iCloud Breach, pre-orders of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and J.J. Abram's tweets about the Millennium Falcon for Star Wars Episode VII, to name a few. Like the tip of an iceberg, a lot of these stories probably went unnoticed to the average consumer, though underneath it all, lay massive potential.

There is a natural inclination to target ads around major, eyeball-grabbing happenings, especially those that can be planned for, like the Super Bowl or the Olympics. But, taking a presumptive approach to advertising often means missed opportunities. The top performing trends might not be what the marketing team expects, but the fact is that unpredictable micro-trends can, and often do, have a significantly greater impact. That means better media performance and better ROI on campaigns.

Ad inventory, campaign budgets, and demographic analysis are all crucial to any ad campaign, but without the ability to pinpoint direct routes to audience engagement, they can only get you so far. By following trends and conversations happening in real-time, advertisers can better navigate these unpredictable but extremely valuable routes to more direct audience engagement.

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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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6 Must-Have Tools to Boost Your Social-Media Productivity

Let’s face it. The daily demands of running a business and managing multiple social media accounts can eat up a big chunk of your time.

Nearly all marketers use social media in their marketing mix, which means more and more businesses are getting actively involved. Business is always affected by the consumer environment, and social media makes a great environment for leads and prospects.

As an entrepreneur, your goal is to find where these future customers hang out, and put your ideas in front of them. Since most of your customers like to use at least a few social platforms, this applies even if your target demographis is 55-64 year olds, which is the fastest growing age bracket on Twitter.

Thankfully, there are tools to help you boost your social media productivity and marketing:

1. Rignite

Rignite is a neat little tool that I recently discovered. It’s actually a full-blown social media dashboard that lets you control and monitor your social media activities all under one roof.

With Rignite, you can monitor multiple social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram etc. You can chat and collaborate with your social media team inside Rignite, so it’s perfect for larger teams. But even if you have a small team, Rignite will pleasantly surprise you.

One cool feature is “Schedule Profile Groups” where you can schedule multiple social media posts for different platforms. Rignite Groups are a set of social profiles.

You can also connect your Rignite profile with Feedly to find interesting content, curate and post it.

The cherry on the top is Rignite’s Campaigns feature. Set up a New Campaign to schedule a series of posts, grow your email list, host contests for your fans, or promote a discount.

Campaigns run on auto-pilot once set. For example, you can create a series of posts to promote your content or a new blog post (super-helpful if you’re a blogger!) across multiple platforms on a chosen day and time.

With their campaign-level analysis, you can also know what’s working and what’s not.

To monitor certain keyword trends on social media, you can Add New Stream under Monitor tab from the left-hand menu. Below, I have added two new streams to my Rignite (Blogging and Digital Marketing) to monitor what’s happening in those areas on Twitter.

All in all, I think Rignite offers a ton of features to enhance your social media marketing experience.

Price: Free trial for 14 days. Paid plans start from $28/mo per user.

Related: 10 Questions to Ask When Measuring Your Social Media ROI

2. Topsy

It can be too hard to make sense of the billion tweets on Twitter. EnterTopsy, a free Twitter analytics tool to search, monitor and analyze tweets.

You can find tweets, links, photos, videos or shares by a person or on a specific topic. This is a wealth of data if you want to find out what’s trending and being shared. But most importantly, Topsy can also help you with your blogger outreach campaign.

Price: Free.

3. Mention

Mention is a real-time media monitoring app that lets you listen, react quickly, collaborate and analyze your online presence.

Mention is a great alternative to Google Alerts. According toWordStream, Google Alerts apparently works if the following conditions are met:

Google Alerts only sends you email if new articles, webpages or blog posts make it into the top ten Google News results, the top twenty Google Web Search results or top ten Google Blog Search results for your query. If the top results remain the same for a while, you won't receive email on your topic.

That means that with Google Alerts, you will not receive an alert for every mention out there. With Mention, things are brighter. The number of results are way more than that reported by Google Alerts. Mention also takes into account any social mentions you may have had.

You can monitor Facebook, Twitter, News, Blogs, Videos, Forums, Images and Web, but their best feature is reporting. If you’re a big brand or company this means gold for you. For example, let’s say you’ve recently launched a new product and you notice some cool new spikes in your report. You can now attribute where those spikes came from (the launch) and whether it worked well for you.

When receiving Mentions from Twitter, you can turn on a feature to track your Twitter name but exclude your own tweets from alerts. Pretty cool, right?

Price: Free 14-day trial. Basic plan free for one user, one alert and 250 mentions/mo. Paid plans available too.

4. Twtrland

Twtrland is a simple tool to discover new people on Twitter. Sign up via your Twitter account for free.

You’ll be taken to your dashboard that shows your activity, popularity, and communicative scores.You’ll also see your top content that did well on Twitter (based on all time or recent posts).

The Network tab shows a break down of your followers by celebrities, power users, casual and novices; location; age; skill and gender.

Price: Free 14-day trial. Paid plans start at $49/mo.

Related: 18 Effective Social-Media Tools That Will Save You Time

5. LikeAlyzer

There are many tools to analyze Twitter posts, but what about Facebook, the largest social media network on earth?

Enter LikeAlyzer, a tool to analyze and monitor your Facebook page. If you’re big on Facebook and use it to drive traffic to your website or blog, give this one a try.

You can analyze your competitor’s Facebook page and compare that to yours. LikeAlyzer assigns a unique score to pages. In the above example, PickYourGoals Facebook page has a “LikeRank” of 63 out of 100.

Here are the things LikeAlyzer reviews on your page:

1. Page Information: Checks whether you have filled your profile including any milestones.

2. Page Performance: Your overall performance, the number of likes you need to engage better, and whether you have a big enough audience to find success on Facebook.

3. Posts by Page: Talks about posts per day; timing; likes, comments and shares per post; length; curiosity etc.

4. Posts by Others: How you’re dealing with fan responses.

The report tells you how well you’re doing, and also suggests areas to focus on to make improvements. You can repeat the process for a competitor page and see if they have a higher score and how they are doing better than you. Pretty cool!

Price: Free.

6. Swayy

Swayy finds you the best content on the web so you can share it with your fans and followers on social media, thus saving you time on curation.

Add topics of your interest (niches), hit submit and sit back and relax to receive a daily dose of best content to share with your audience.

With a paid plan, you can add multiple dashboards inside Swayy (a community manager’s heaven!) if you manage more than on social accounts.

Once done, you’ll receive a daily email with the best content to go around in your chosen topics.

Swayy dashboard also shows how your shares are doing.

Price: Free for one dashboard. Paid plans start from $9/mo with two dashboards.

There you go – 6 tools that will boost your social media marketing and productivity, so you can relax and focus on other important activities in business.

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