Social Media for Business Use – 5 Top Tips

Social media has created a communication revolution and it’s not going away. This has an obvious impact on business and many business are still trying to get to grips with it all, so here are my 5 Top Tips on social media for business use.

1. Get a plan – All too often organisations set up social media accounts because they think they should, but then their posts are just a bit random. In everything we do in business the most successful people have a strategy. That applies to social media too.

2. Research – Organisations have a tendency to use social media like traditional media – for announcing. But it provides us with a set of great tools to do so much more, like research, listening for feedback, competitor analysis and customer care.

3. Be in the room – Many organisations have got into the bad habit of thinking if they schedule posts they have ‘done‘ social media. That is a big mistake. Social media is about being social and building relationships with the right people. It’s when we build those relationships that the magic happens.

4. Add value. When I ask people why they have posted the things that they have, they often don’t really know. When we have a strategy we understand what it is that our customers want to see and read – and we share that.

5. Ensure your team understand the Do’s and Don’ts – If you employ people, get a simple social media policy in place, but more importantly train your team, paid staff and volunteers so that they fully understand the implications of what they are sharing and the consequences of bringing your organisation into disrepute . Bringing the whole team on board will also bring you many benefits.

Over to you – What would you add to those Top Tips?

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Are Hashtags Overrated And Overused? The Surprising Effect Of Social Media #’s

Some people use way too many hashtags in their social media posts. Some brands use none at all. Many businesses are not sure how hashtags can help. Can hashtags help at all?

For this study we wanted to look at how many brands use hashtags in their posts, how many hashtags they use per post and what the engagement rate is depending on number of hashtags used.

All this in order to help you figure out what the best way to go is for your own brand.

We looked at both Instagram and Twitter. We looked at three months of data from August 1st to October 31st 2015. The engagement rate shows the number of people who either click on like or comment (or retweet on Twitter) on the individual post as the percentage of the total followers.

The results surprised us. Let’s take a look.

Instagram

We looked at more than 1,500 active Instagram accounts that posted 135,000+ posts in the 3-month period and had 300+ million followers combined.

What did we find out? 13.8% of all posts didn’t include any hashtags. The engagement rate is highest (3.03%) in posts that use three hashtags. Second best and only slightly lower engagement rate, 3.02%, is on posts with no hashtags at all.

Many brands overuse hashtags on Instagram. 49% of all posts include four or more hashtags even though the engagement rate declines after hashtag number three.

Here’s the full data:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11-15 16-20 21+ % 13.8 17.2 10.7 9.3 7.3 5.8 5.1 3.6 3 2.2 1.7 6.6 4.6 9.1 ER 3.02 2.9 2.93 3.03 2.72 2.6 2.4 2.13 1.83 1.7 1.6 2.3 1.6 1.8

Twitter

On Twitter we looked at more than 1,300 accounts that have 60+ million followers combined and that posted almost 600,000 tweets in the 3-month period.

Twitter may have made hashtags mainstream but 55.8% of all tweets didn’t include hashtags at all. Twitter differs from Instagram by having the 140-character limit, which contributes to only 4.75% of all tweets having three or more hashtags.

Surprisingly, adding a hashtag doesn’t result in any boost to the engagement rate. Tweets without hashtags outperform tweets with hashtags.

Here’s the full data:

0 1 2 3 4 % 55.8 24.45 15 3.13 1.62 ER 1.9 1.84 1.2 0.4 0.19

How many hashtags should I include in my post?

As you can see in these numbers hashtags may not necessarily be the answer to getting more reach and engagement.

Why is this?

● Discovery on both Twitter and Instagram may be broken first of all.
● Too much content being posted at any time might be one other reasons.
● Too much spam and irrelevant content being tagged might be another reason.

● People not using either of the platforms to venture outside of their own feeds could be the cause too.
● Brands using irrelevant hashtags in their posts is a possibility too.

But what should a brand do? Following are our recommendations.

So what’s the recommendation for Instagram?

Be comfortable to go without hashtags when there’s nothing relevant and fitting. You will not lose out on extra engagement.

Focus on the quality of content itself. Your content needs to be interesting. It needs to be remarkable. It needs to be funny. Entertaining. Inspirational. Motivational. Informational. Even educational.

Find ideas that work. Take a look at your past performance to see what type of imagery and videos worked best. Analyse your competitors through a tool such as Locowise in order to figure out what performs for them and get inspiration from their work.

If you do find a relevant hashtag or two, feel free to include them. But don’t go over three hashtags per post. Any benefit of using hashtags decline after three hashtags.

Hashtag recommendations for Twitter?

Twitter may be famous for hashtags but they do not seem to contribute much to your engagement. Do not spend too much time thinking about the perfect hashtag to use in your tweet. Recommendation to focus on the quality of content counts for Twitter too.

If there’s a hashtag that is relevant and that stands out, do feel free to use it once in a while. Do not use more than one hashtag per post too frequently though as the engagement rate drops dramatically.

Just like on Instagram, always think about what hashtags fit your brand. You should not include any irrelevant hashtag into your posts. That is spammy behaviour that will be very negative to your brand and will result in a lower engagement.

Interesting in exploring hashtags a bit further?

You can also Locowise to explore different hashtags. Our Hashtag tool allows you to see how many people use a hashtag, the reach of a hashtag and the trending use of a hashtag over a period of time.

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10 Time-Saving Tools for Managing Your Social Media Following

Keeping up with emerging social media networks is challenging. It's easy to feel like you're spreading yourself thin.

That said, maintaining a healthy social media following on all of your networks is even morechallenging. You can't help but want more followers, but if you're going to extreme lengths just to build up that number with empty names and faces, it's not worth the time and resources.After all, effective engagement occurs with real, interested followers, not eggs and inactive accounts. 

If you want to streamline your following and uncover analytics that can be used to refine your strategy, you need the right set of tools. Ones that actually work.  

To help, I've collected 10 tools that can help you keep on top of your social media following. All the tools vary in price and network specificity, so you're sure to find something that meets your team's unique needs. 

10 Time-Saving Tools for Managing Your Social Media Following

1) Crowdfire 

Price: Free

Applicable network(s): Twitter & Instagram

Crowdfire started with a simple desire that many Twitter users had: an easier way to manage your followers.

Nobody likes when someone follows you, only to unfollow you later to improve their follower to following ratio, am I right? It starts to feel like a vanity game.

Luckily, Crowdfire has created a tool to help you identify relevant users to follow -- like ones in your industry, or people who are interested in competitors. In doing so, it's become much easier to build a more meaningful audience. Here's what else the tool can do:

• Find inactive users and unfollowers
• Find relevant users to follow using “Copy Followers” feature
• Keep track of how your social media updates influence your follower/unfollower stats
• Compare the performance of two accounts using the Comparison tool

2) Commun.it

Price: Starts at $9.99/month

Applicable network(s): Twitter

Commun.it's main premise is that not all Twitter followers are the same. It's worth it to find “high value” followers -- people who are more likely to connect with your brand. The tool allows users to quickly and easily filter through all of the noise on Twitter so they can prioritize the interactions that really matter. Here are a few of the tools most noteworthy features:

• Sorts tasks by priority
• Identifies “high value” followers
• Automates insights from analytics into campaigns

3) FollowerWonk 

Price: Free for personal use, $99/month for Pro

Applicable network(s): Twitter

There is often key information about people in their Twitter bios that can be used to learn more about them. These short introductions to a person’s Twitter feed aim to distill the purpose of their Twitter existence into 160 characters. Often times, these bios are even search engine optimized. FollowerWonk helps you take advantage of those optimized bios and find the people who want to be found. Here's what you can expect:

• Search bios to turn up relevant Twitter users
• Track and sort followers
• Compare individual followers
• Match activities to gains and losses

4) SimplyMeasured

Price: Starts at $500/month

Applicable network(s): All

This social analytics tool has been designed with brand marketers and social teams in mind ... and it shows. SimplyMeasured's platform helps give businesses of all sizes more advanced insights into their social media -- from the major networks like Facebook to smaller networks like Vine. These insights can then be used to build out successful programs and strategies that draw in the right audience. Here are a few of the tool's most valuable features:

• Audience analysis across all platforms
• Customer service metrics measurement on Twitter
• Social and website traffic measurement from Google
• Unlimited data storage at no additional charge
• Data accessibility via Excel
• Customizable report themes

5) Social Quant 

Price: $50/month for single user account

Applicable network(s): Twitter

Social Quant’s claim to fame is having one of the best auto-follow algorithms out there. While autofollowing without intent can dilute your audience and make them less invested in your brand, Social Quant's algorithm is designed to find only the best people out there to follow. Here's more on what the tool does:

• Identifies real and relevant people on Twitter to follow
• Automatically synthesizes data of your own followers to refine your audience
• Finds people who are most likely to be engaged with your content

6) Iconosquare 

Price: Starts at $4.90/month

Applicable network(s): Instagram

Considering Instagram has only recently begun to widely incorporate functions specifically to businesses, the landscape of third-party platforms around the photo sharing app is a bit sparse. That said, Inconosquare is one of the most robust of those available. 

The tool gives users the ability to track follower growth, the unfollow rate, and how many reciprocal followers they have. In addition, the tool also makes it easy for users to:

• Track hashtag performance
• Track what the best times to post are
• Set up a plugin for posting Instagrams to your FB page
• Set up a vanity URL for your Instagram content

 

7) Tweepi 

Price: $7.49/month

Applicable network(s): Twitter

Getting rid of the unfollowers is pretty easy for Twitter tools nowadays, as it’s a common tactic for refining your base. However, there are some accounts that are following back that you probably don’t want. Sure, they make the follower count look great, but if they’re an unengaged bunch, it’s an empty number and it’s not helping your ROI in the end.

Tweepi helps you identify dormant accounts and flush them out. And, if there’s someone who’s blatantly offensive in your audience and you want to get rid of them, you can with Tweepi by forcing them to unfollow you. Here's a simple rundown of some of the tools most noteworthy features:

• Flush out inactive accounts
• Get rid of undesirable followers
• Search for users using geolocation capabilities

8) Social Inbox

Price: Included in all of HubSpot's plans starting at $200/month

Applicable network(s): Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin & Google+

Social media brings a human element back to marketing. Each platform provides businesses with an opportunity to interact, build relationships, and learn from those they follow ... but it can get noisy. HubSpot's Social Inbox App gives users the tools they need to manage their day-to-day interactions and engagement in a way that makes sense. Here's a quick look at some of Social Inbox's capabilities:

• Get a quick hit list of new followers and content that's resonating
• Schedule and publish posts informed by clicks and interactions data to keep your following engaged
• Tie interactions back to contacts in your HubSpot database
• Create targeted streams for simplified social monitoring

9) ManageFlitter 

Price: Free, starts at $12/month for business accounts

Applicable network(s): Twitter

One of the biggest challenges of social media, and especially Twitter, is finding out when people are online and looking at your content. ManageFlitter has a built in tool to take the guesswork completely out of finding when your followers are online. Here's a look a few important tasks you can accomplish with the tool:

• Make smart lists of followers/followees
• Search Twitter bios
• Find out when your followers are online the most

10) Likeable Hub 

Price: Free, premium plans start at $19.99/month after free trial

Applicable network(s): Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn

Managing social media can be a grind, and it takes time. No matter what tricks you have, nothing beats good content. Likeable Hub is all about helping businesses provide great content, and promote it effectively.

With customizable, industry-specific content, it makes for your business to attract a qualified following -- one that sees the value in your messages. The content is particularly meaningful because it’s not auto-generated, but instead carefully curated by real people. Here's a closer look at what the tool really does:

• Builds audience with Turbopost™ post amplification
• Tracks different topics on Twitter to find out what your audience cares about
• Tracks page growth and engagement
• Provides a content library to discover content that works best in your industry

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5 Ways to Leverage Visuals that Rule the Facebook Newsfeed [Infographic]

Frustrated by your attempts to get your content seen on the Facebook Newsfeed?  

Not sure what actually works right now on Facebook?

In this post I share what is working NOW (backed by new data) in terms of links, images and video on Facebook.

And I share 5 Ways to leverage what’s actually working now… to rule the Facebook Newsfeed!   

If there is one constant you can rely on it’s that Facebook changes. So how can you keep up with what’s working right now?

That’s where the guys from quintly come in.  These guys know what works right now on Facebook – their company specialise in social media analytics.

So when I saw the current research from their team, I wanted to share it with you – the data collated when quintly analysed 100,000 Facebook profiles and more than 80 million posts between June 2014 to June 2015.

When you understand which post types are the most engaging – it helps us to share content more effectively…

Here are the key takeaways from their findings:

1. Links were the most frequently posted post-type, followed closely (super closely) by photos and images.
2. Links get less engagement than other types of posts like video and images.
3. Videos and image posts drive the highest engagement (with video the highest for engagement)
4. Photo post interactions are increasing.
5. Frequently of video posts is increasing dramatically, more than doubling since January.

Maybe these stats are not new to you, maybe they just clarify what you are already seeing, but the important thing is not the stats themselves, but what we DO with this information.

How can we leverage the power of engagement on Facebook?

The team at quintly suggest this:  In a nutshell it can be said that photos are getting increasingly important in social media marketing. As discussed on many blogs, the majority of people are visual learners, thus visuals are faster processed in the brain. With that in mind, businesses should choose pictures for their posts wisely, add a link to the image post and consider not posting links alone. 

Now you know I am a visual gal, so I asked the team at quintly if they would be interested in making an infographic to showcase their findings – and they did just that – including both their findings and some tips we added for leveraging the power of image and video to rule the Facebook Newsfeed.  Check it out below…

Oh and be sure to read on below the infographic for more great tips for creating and sharing images and video!  

So now you have the stats, here comes the challenge!

For many businesses short on time, resources and without a graphic design team, the challenge lies in how they can create more visual content – both images and video – that will catch the attention of their fans and encourage engagement.

And remember – Facebook is giving natively uploaded video a lot of organic reach in the newsfeed.

So, let’s jump in and look at 7 ways you can jump in and post more video and images – to take advantage of their engagement power on Facebook.

7 Ways to Leverage the Power of Videos and Images on the Facebook Newsfeed

#1  Repurpose your YouTube Videos

If you have shared a YouTube video to Facebook lately you’ll know that they don’t get given much airplay on the newsfeed anymore. In fact they barely get any organic reach at all.

Natively uploaded video on the other hand is the complete opposite. And if you consider the research quoted above, there’s never been a better time to leverage it.

So if you have a YouTube channel there’s no better way to tap into a huge content bank of video – consider taking your old YouTube video and uploading it to Facebook.

Tip: Break it down – Upload the whole video if it is relevant, but also consider breaking it down into short video pieces – remember that short video does very well on many social platforms.

#2  Share short videos straight to Facebook

Not confident with video? Never created any before? The good news is that creating video for Facebook can be as easy as using your iphone to capture some footage and uploading it directly.

And remember that fans are not on Facebook to buy your stuff – they are there to hang out with their family and friends and to be entertained.  They don’t want to see fancy polished product promotion videos – they want to see the human face behind your business.

Give them some tips, peel back the curtain, show what you are working on, where you work (take us on a virtual tour), or answer some “frequently asked questions” – there are so many ways that you can create some short video for your community.

Here are 5 tools you can use with your smart phone to create awesome videos– quickly and easily:

1. iMovie on your iPhone – if you’ve used iMovie on your desktop then try using the mobile app – it’s simple and easy to use for editing simple movies and has some cool effects.
2. Videohance – an awesome app for quick editing and adding amazing effects right on your phone!
3. Videolicious – got some video footage, images and music? This app knows how to combine them together to make them look great.
4. Legend App – short animated videos or animated text over video. You can join two videos together to make a longer one!
5. Snagit or Jing – is there something you can capture on screen? Use these simple screen capture tools to take a video and upload it to Facebook.

Yes you can add fancy intros and outros…Yes you can invest in production and “up your game” later… but if you are just starting out, these tools will help you to create video instantly.

Tip:  Leverage the strengths of your team – perhaps there is someone on your team that loves taking video with their iphone – ask them if they are interested in capturing some footage.

#3  Use Post Planner’s Viral Photo Tool

Just like this post is based around data, planning to share the right kind of images can be based around data too.

But how can you find out what types of images are working on the Facebook Newsfeed?

The answer lies in Post Planner’s Viral Photo Tool.  How does it work?  Put simply, this tool finds images that are already performing well on Facebook.

For example, on Post Planner I can save Facebook Pages that I want to follow in folders or categories.  I can then look up one of my favourite pages, Boom Social with Kim Garst, and I can quickly see which images have been liked and shared the most.   

With Post Planner’s viral tool I can see which of Kim Garst’s Images got shared the most.

I can use this as indication to share that same photo OR use it as inspiration to create more original content just like it and share it from my own page.

Either way, this tool gives you a lot of information to help you to leverage the power of images on the Facebook Newsfeed.

The bonus of using Post Planner, is that you can schedule and share those same images right from within the same tool!

#4  Batch Your Images

You wouldn’t bake a single cupcake would you?  You’d batch them right?  Then why post one image up here and one image there?instead, plan ahead to create a visual content strategy that works on Facebook.

Do a little research and see what types of images work on business pages you like in your industry.. as well as on your own business page.  It could be quotes, tips, how-to images, behind the scenes photos or jokes.

Then take those content ideas and create a series of images with that theme or under another over-arching theme or category (like Pinterest, or Fishing or whatever your page is about).

Then batch create your images in a series of 10 or 20. Two great tools for doing this are Canva or Relay.

#5  Get Consistent with sharing images

Once you have created your images, schedule them out using the Facebook Scheduling tool or a tool like Post Planner.  You will love the fact that this then “frees” you up to do what’s important – to engage with your fans when they engage with your content!

And don’t forget content curation – it’s just as important as creation. Facebook likes Facebook and sharing the images of others can be powerful too in terms of reach and shares.

Regardless of how you do it, be consistent.  The reality is that if you post consistent visual content – either your own or curated from others – then other pages will notice and will eventually start to share.

I have talked about the idea of a “Hit List” before – if you post great visual content – those other pages will add you to a hit list and start checking out your page regularly to share, or adding you to a list to share from.

Over to You

What can you do NOW in your business to start leveraging the power of images and video on the Facebook Feed. Which tip will you try?  

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