WHY FACEBOOK BUSINESS MANAGER DOESN’T SUCK

I’m likely going to take a lot of heat for this article, but as an advertiser I really love Facebook Business Manager. This is an especially polarizing conversation given the issues over the past few days with Facebook pushing out beta features that would require page managers to use Facebook Business Manager.

Now, don’t get me wrong I do recognize Business Manager’s shortcomings when it comes to the community management side of things. There is also a learning curve that can be steep if you have to dive into it on your own. But my point of view stems from the advertisers perspective. So bear with me here…

If you are an advertiser on Facebook, Business Manager doesn’t suck – and here’s why.

Managing Multiple Ad Accounts With Facebook Business Manager
It is a best practice, that if you manage multiple clients or multiple brands, each brand should have their own advertising account. Before Business Manager, managing and switching through multiple accounts was clunky and difficult.

The ability to manage all of your advertising accounts in one place is invaluable and can save plenty of time. Creating, accessing, and sharing Facebook ad accounts has become a breeze.

Also, when you advertise for multiple businesses or if you have your current business segmented into multiple accounts, it’s very helpful to get an overview of all of your advertising accounts at one glance in the dashboard. One of your accounts’ performance drop dramatically yesterday? The Dashboard will show you.

Multiple Facebook Pixels
Ever since Facebook changed from the old pixels to the Facebook Pixel, some advertisers have struggled to make the transition. Cleaning up your old pixels can be a daunting task, but with Business Manager you get a clear overview of which accounts your pixels are tied to, and you can quickly disable them across multiple accounts – if you find this to be the case.

Because it is now easier to build a new ad account and get it up and running, this also means it is easier for you to create multiple Facebook pixels specifically allocated to your advertising account.

Product Catalogs & Dynamic Product Ads
If you’re an online retailer, dynamic product ads offer you a ridiculous amount of value and ease of setup for retargeting visitors to specific product pages. This feature is only available with Business Manager via the product catalog setup.

Import your existing product catalog into Business Manager, assign it to an ad account and a page, and you’ll be off and running to a retargeter’s dream.

Team Administration
For the one man (or woman) show, account administration is not necessarily a concern, but if you manage a team administering your account through Business Manager, it is far easier than the traditional method.

If you have a new employee who needs to be added across multiple pages and accounts you can do so very quickly by adding them to any relevant accounts they may be working on. Have you acquired a new client or created a new page and don’t want to have to go through the admin settings of each? Use the People and Assets tab in Business Manager to add them to only the assets they will be collaborating on and none of the rest.

Projects allow you to bundle pages, ad accounts, product catalogs and other Business Manager assets into one folder and then share them all – in one click – with an individual. This can be a huge time saver.

Areas of Improvement
From the advertisers perspective, there are a handful of things I would like to see Business Manager be able to do:
Customizable reporting on the Business Manager dashboard: It would be great to be able to adjust the default reporting on the dashboard to be unique to each ad account.
Easier access to other great tools within Facebook: I’ve touched on otherFree Facebook Resources and tools that Facebook offers, like the Facebook Grid Tool. It would be nice if those tools were easier to access through the Business Manager menu.
Notifications integrated into personal accounts: Often times I spend my days in Business Manager without ever touching my personal Facebook account. But, for the times when I am not logged into Business Manager, it would be nice to get my Business Manager notifications on my personal account.
As I said before, I know there are plenty of headaches that come on the community management side of the coin, but from an advertiser’s perspective Facebook Business Manager has made my life a lot easier and I’ve become more efficient.

Have you had a similar experience? What features would you like to see added to Business Manager to make your life easier?

WHY YOU SHOULD TWEET 20+ TIMES PER DAY – CASE STUDY


Those of you who follow me on Twitter or who read my blog posts have heard of me talking about the importance of tweeting often. I feel that consistency is one of the biggest keys to social media success. Part of being consistent involves consistently publishing content and on no other network is there a bigger need to frequently post content than on Twitter.

Twitter is not like Facebook or Instagram. While Twitter has now implemented its version of an algorithm, it is very different from that of the Facebook algorithm. The fact remains that after ten minutes of publishing your tweet, few people will ever see the tweet. Therefore, you need to consistently tweet throughout the day. I suggest 15+ times per day, including retweets and replies. Most of my clients tweet 30+ times per day. Does that seem like too much? I assure you that it is not. If you don’t tweet 15+ times per day, you’ll limit your engagement, reach, follower growth and other measurable goals such as website and link clicks.

To put this to the test, I experimented with my own twitter account, @KP_Kelly. Last year I averaged 41.2 tweets per day. I averaged 3,400 new followers per month; 1,650 Retweets and 2,600 Mentions per month.

The Experiment:
Month 1: 10 or fewer Tweets per day.

Month 2: 20+ Tweets per day.

I tweeted the same content each month. Here were the results:

Month 1:
247 Tweets (8.2 Tweets per day)

1,002 New Followers

604 Retweets

888 Mentions

Month 2:
791 Tweets (26.3 Tweets per day)

4,127 New Followers

1,833 Retweets

2,208 Mentions

I maintained the same strategy in both months, with the exception of changing the frequency of my tweets. The frequency change alone from month one to month two more than tripled all of my measurable engagement numbers.

Each Twitter account is different. Every brand has its own goals, target audience and strategy. However, whatever your brand and goals are, if you consistently tweet (quality content) 20 plus times per day, it is highly likely you’ll experience better success. Consistently tweet quality content.

HOW TO USE TWITTER TO CHECK OUT YOUR COMPETITION


Guest blog by Jennifer Everett

Twitter is one of the most popular social networks for business – it gives you advantages that aren’t available on other platforms. Since so much Twitter data is open to the public, your brand can easily use this data to learn about your competitor’s followers and strategies. Most people will use the tactic of following everyone that follows their competition. You will get roughly 30% of those users following you back. However, this will become ineffective over time.

Here are 7 effective strategies that will continue to work for checking out your competition:

  1. Create a Private List
    Select “New List” on your homepage sidebar and make sure that it is only visible to you! Add all of your competitor’s to that list, even if they aren’t direct competitors. Include all of their employees that are on Twitter as well so you have a constant stream of information telling you how they handle their Twitter strategy.
  2. Monitor Replies
    Remember that you are only seeing one side of the conversation. Set up a search for your competitor’s username so you can see what people are saying to your competitors. What are their likes, dislikes, what questions do they have? Maybe you will see that they aren’t answering their customers’ questions (but your brand can), or they are complaining about something that your brand offers better. This will help with your brand awareness and will generate more customers for you.

Tip: You can “Save this Search” on Twitter

  1. Analyze Their Followers
    Applications like Tweepi and Twitonomy let you bring up your competitor’s follower list and sort it by the number of updates their followers have, their following count and much more information. Essentially, you can discover who their most active and influential fans are. Caution: do not spam them, work to build a genuine relationship and you will win them over in no time! Check out what kind of data these applications can give you below.

How to Use Twitter To Check out Your Competition

  1. Inspect Their Toolkit
    On your competitor’s Twitter profile, you can see the timestamp for each of their updates. When you click on this, you can see which applications or services they use to update their account. If you are already monitoring their replies, then you can even see which updates by your competitors get the most response and then follow the update to that tool so that you can try it out for yourself!
  2. Create Another List
    Within your new list, follow the most active users that your competitor is engaging with (you can get this from an application like Twitonomy). Monitor what those people are tweeting and provide a helping hand by answering their questions. Then, look at all the lists that follow your competitor and engage with the users who created those lists. Typically, you’ll see hundreds of lists, so you should first engage with the users who have the biggest lists. By having your Twitter profile also being part of that list, you’ll instantly gain followers from your competition.
  3. Keep Up With Their Articles
    Blogging and other content marketing tactics are great for generating traffic and building relationships. If you see that your competitor is getting a lot of attention based on their blog posts and articles, then this is a strategy that you will want to start utilizing as well. Even if they aren’t publishing anything, it may be a way that you can gain an advantage over them.
  4. Get their Twitter Score
    Twitter Grader allows you to enter the username of anyone on Twitter and get a rating on their presence. You can even see a list of the top most mentioned keywords in the user’s tweets. Compare your score to theirs and see suggestions in the report for what you could be doing better.

Prove that your brand is always on their game by using all of these free tools to be able to track your competition and gain a bigger audience.

5 WAYS TO BUILD AN ENGAGING COMMUNITY ON SNAPCHAT


Snapchat, Snapchat – current owner of my social media heart. I love Snapchat. It’s the social network I’ve been spending the most time on, and not just because it’s fun.

But because the community is second to none.

A recent study said that Snapchat users aren’t buying anything, but I disagree wholeheartedly.

Several of my #SnapchatFam followers became NutriBullet users after watching me churn mine after morning workouts, influencer personalities have become the go-to way to promote for brands, and well, there’s no shortage of these stories.

Why? Because people buy based on recommendations from friends and family they know and trust.

That’s difficult when you’re a business. You have a service or product to sell, but want it come off as authentic and trustworthy. And that’s why it’s so crucial to build a community.

Think about it.

If you go to a restaurant and have a spectacular experience, how many people do you tell? And who are your friends going to listen to – you or a review from a random source?

That’s why building communities online is so important on every social network you invest in, but especially on Snapchat.

I’ve been hanging out on Snapchat for over 3 years now – waiting and watching for the world to catch on, and the end of 2015 belonged to Snapchat. It grew from 2 million uploads per day in October to 2 BILLION by December.

Talk about an explosion!

What’s so different about Snapchat? It’s raw, real, and ultra personal. It allows any and every brand the opportunity to tell a backstory with minimal exertion, and without fancy equipment. And the millennials are ALL over it.

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So how do you build a community on such a cool platform? One snap at a time.

And if that seems overwhelming, simply follow my fives ways to build an engaging community on Snapchat. I won’t steer you wrong.

  1. Be yourself
    This might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s not. While there are many ways to hide yourself and/or your brand on other social networks, it’s going to be a tough sell on Snapchat.

Why? Because Snapchat isn’t the environment for portraying anything false. It’s authentic and raw, and will require those traits from you.

But (as with all things related to social and your business) this is an area where you’ll want to pay special attention to ensure the content you or someone on your team produces aligns with your brand.

Take the time to write out what you will and won’t do on Snapchat, the things you will and won’t share, and be concise. Being purposeful about how you share yourself or your brand is everything because it creates boundaries for the type of content that can be shared.

And believe me, that’s a blessing.

My Snapchat fam knows what I’m all about: encouragement, motivation, food, travel, social media, salsa dancing, yoga, healthy eating, #AhnaAsks, and LOTS of laughing. They know I let my dorky side out on Snapchat and even though it makes me feel vulnerable at times, it’s the realest I’ve ever been on social media. I share my work, talk about projects and clients, but that isn’t my main priority.

It’s about sharing myself, and it’s created an engaging and personal community.

  1. Post consistently
    Consistency is the #1 ingredient to social media success across the board, and Snapchat is no different.

Don’t think it’s okay to bounce in and out of this network if you want to build a solid following and community. But don’t let that overwhelm you because it’s a huge undertaking.

More so, don’t spend several days Snapping like a crazy person and then disappear for a few weeks only to return to sporadic snaps.

Why not? It looks bad for the credibility and reliability of your brand. Have you ever seen a Twitter handle tweet 20 times within an hour and then not again until a month later? What do you think when you see that? Whatever it is, it probably isn’t so great.

Snapchat is raw and real, so you’re allowed to let followers know you’ll be MIA for a few days or so busy that snapping isn’t possible, but do your best to maintain a consistent schedule.

My Snapchat fam knows that I’m on almost everyday, multiple times a day, unless I’m bogged down with work. But even then, I usually pop in to tell them how busy I am or at least share my yoga happenings for the day. It’s important to me to do my best to maintain consistency on SC because it’s only going to continue to blossom.

  1. Incorporate fun themes/activities
    If there’s anything my Snapchat fam can count on when they follow me, it’s FUN. I do my best to incorporate silliness, jokes, music, contests, and themes to keep them entertained. Mind you, these are things for THEM, not me.

But that’s how I do social. By focusing on creating content for my audience instead of using a channel to broadcast my own supposed wisdom, quality folks come my way naturally.

I held a very successful AMA that resulted in over 47 minutes of content (and serious brain fuzz), and I made sure to answer EVERY question that came in. Another time, I asked folks to share their favorite song with me, and used those to make a public playlist for everyone to enjoy. And more than anything, my #AhnaAsks questions are a major hit. I ask a simple question and reply to every answer. Followers love them because they have a dedicated reason to interact, and it helps me to get to know them in a digestible way.

The bottom line, your Snapchat fam isn’t there just to absorb everything you put out, they want to be engaged and involved. So how are you going to make that happen?

Come up with your own games, activities, and make sure to tie it all in with your brand. I typically ask questions covered in the topics outlined in #1 above or those relating to a topic I’m discussing that day. For instance, when I was headed out on a work trip, I asked folks where they would travel if they could go anywhere.

Think about how you can add value to your audience by engaging them and not just preaching at them. I’m seeing a lot of folks become blasting speakers for their own agendas on Snapchat, and it’s sad because I used to enjoy watching their snaps. But I don’t watch anymore.

The audience wants in, wants to interact and be a part of the conversation. So get creative and figure out ways to do that.

  1. Give shoutouts and promote others
    I’m a big fan of the “all boats rise” philosophy because it relates to ALL aspects of life, even Snapchat.

When we take the time to show love to others we admire or see doing awesome things, that love always circles back. And the cool thing is, even if you aren’t genuine about doing it at first or have to remind yourself – once you start, you’ll be so overjoyed by the appreciation of others that you’ll start doing it organically.

Share your favorite follows on Friday or throughout the week, call out someone who’s really doing a great job of interacting with you, tell your followers about an awesome story someone you follow posted for the day or simply thank your followers on a consistent basis for sharing their time with your goofy self.

Gratitude never loses, especially not in Snapchat-landia!

  1. Ask for feedback
    The best way to grow to get creative is always to ask. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. And if you’re wondering why no one interacts with you, grab a few of your closest followers and ask for feedback.

But don’t do it if you aren’t prepared to hear something you may not like.

There are people I don’t follow because they simply preach on their snaps, others I don’t follow because it’s quite obvious they’re only out to get a large number of followers, and even more because they are simply rude.

How we present ourselves online is VERY important and shouldn’t be taken lightly. But we are all guilty of forgetting that sometimes and going off on a rant, sharing negative info or stepping outside the lines of simply politeness.

Post. With. Purpose. It’s one of my biggest social media mottos, and it’s something I live by.

The flip-side of that is getting feedback is a great tool for learning what your audience wants, so you can create content they will be interested to watch. That doesn’t mean you do whatever they want, it simply means that maybe they want more variety or more of you.

Either way, you don’t know until you ask.

I hope this has helped you learn more about how to grow a quality community on Snapchat. It has been such a joy watching this network explode over the past year and being partial to the communities flourishing everyday. Real people congregate on Snapchat, and I dig that.

Did I miss anything? Post your recommendations below!!

ARE CAROUSEL ADS REALLY BETTER FOR ADVERTISING PRODUCTS?


Carousel ads were released almost two years ago… for those of you advertising regularly, that might make you feel old in Facebook Advertising years — it seems like just yesterday. Since then, a lot has been said about the power of carousel ads.

The reason these ad types are so attractive to brands who advertise products is because this format gives you the opportunity to showcase multiple products at one time – essentially creating a shopping atmosphere right inside your newsfeed.

Another beauty of carousel ads is that Facebook will automatically optimize the ad based on which image is producing more results. If one product in your ad is creating more clicks and conversions, Facebook will begin serving that image first in the carousel.

Facebook toted impressive results, quoting that carousel ads produce “20-30% lower cost-per click” upon their release to mobile.

Always the skeptics, we wanted to be sure of the commonly accepted truth that carousel ads are better for products.

As we commonly suggest, A/B testing all your Facebook ads is the best way to find what works best for your audience on Facebook.

Here’s what we set out to test:
The Test:
Run Carousel ads and Single Image ads to the same audience with the same budget and test which perform better across both desktop and mobile platforms.

We tested these across two brands which target two different demographics to be sure this wasn’t age/gender specific.

We ran these ads for 10 days with the same budget across all ad sets.

The Control:
The Audiences:
Brand 1: Targeting Men 35+

Brand 2: Targeting Women 20-44

The ad sets were targeted at demographical targeting that matched the brand’s customer base.

The Creative:

The headlines, body text, and descriptions were all constant across all ads.

For the images we created carousel ads featuring 5 products.

We then created single image ads with each of the 5 products.

The Results:
Brand 1:
Single Mobile: $0.36 CPC 2.76% CTR

Carousel Mobile: $0.37 CPC 2.06% CTR

Single Desktop: $0.83 CPC 1.48% CTR

Carousel Desktop: $0.86 CPC 1.34% CTR

Brand 2:
Single Mobile: $0.47 CPC 0.85% CTR

Carousel Mobile: $0.57 CPC 0.97% CTR

Single Desktop: $1.34 CPC 0.69%

Carousel Desktop $1.95 CPC 0.31%

The Conclusion:
We learned the following from our test:

Across the board, Single Image Ads produces a lower CPC than Carousel Ads.
In almost all cases single image ads had a better CTR.
Single image ads produced more product sales by a 3 to 1 ratio.
Single image ads also produced 25% more comments and likes as additional engagement.
While it is imperative to test results for your own brand (every audience is different) for these specific cases, single image ads outperformed carousel ads in all of the metrics we were tracking. By running this test, we have been able to build ads that we know our target audience will react more positively to.

Have you done similar tests for you brand? What’s working best for you? We’d love to hear in the comments below.

5 INSTAGRAM HABITS TO AVOID


Guest blog by Jennifer Everett

Instagram is hands down the most visual platform for posting content. So when it comes to posting photography, you have to be a step ahead of the game at all costs, and making sure that your visuals are Oscar-worthy is a must. Unlike other platforms like Facebook and Twitter, where post copy is just as important (or sometimes even more important) as accompanying visuals, your Instagram pictures are literally worth a thousand words.

It’s important to note that there are several tactics that you take note of too when posting. However, mistakes happen and bad habits form. These things can make or break those awesome posts that you’ve taken the time to craft and could hurt your brand.

5 Instagram Habits to Avoid

  1. Not Using Enough Hashtags
    Hashtags are a pretty big deal in helping to get your photos the wonderful exposure that they need, therefore it’s important to make sure that your posts are accompanied with a good amount of hashtags.

Studies show that Instagram posts receive the highest amount of engagement when 11 or more hashtags are included. While we don’t recommend using all 30 of the apps allowed tags, we also don’t suggest skimping on them either. A solid number to use is around 10, and don’t just leave them hanging at the end of the copy! Sprinkle general tags inside the copy of your post and more unique, specific tags can be placed towards the end.

  1. Using Hashtags That Aren’t Relevant to Your Post
    “Our digital agency is good.” What word or phrase should you hashtag in that sentence? If you answered “good,” please take a minute and re-think your whole Instagram strategy! Hashtagging irrelevant or vague words will not help you promote engagement, and users will less likely be able to find your content in that sea of unoriginality. However, someone might be searching for the tag #DigitalAgency, which is why you should focus on hashtagging relevant phrases. Help yourself and save hashtags for words that will appear in relevant searches for your target audience.
  2. Too Much Stock Photography
    Catalogue shots just don’t look good. These pictures lead to a very impersonal experience where users don’t ever really get to see the real you. It also makes you look like you lack creativity, which, depending on your brand can be a death sentence. You don’t want your Instagram feed to look like you’re so boring that you can’t impress your followers on your own. Spice things up!
  3. Alienating Your Audience
    Of the 60 million plus Instagram users in 2015 alone, less than 12 million were above the age of 45. What does this mean? Try to keep it hip and cool! All jokes aside, maintaining a successful Instagram account means adhering to the interests of the younger demographic. This means staying up-to-date with all social news and staying trendy, without looking like you’re trying too hard to be relevant.
  4. Extra Long Captions
    Millennials want to absorb as much as they can as fast as possible. If they need to extend your caption to read the entirety, they won’t and your whole post will be ignored. Make sure to keep your captions short and sweet with attention grabbers in the beginning. Using all caps to announce a new CONTEST and then using your hashtags in a separate comment is a good way to go.

Abide by these 5 rules on Instagram and you will see an increase in reach and engagement with users! Be mindful of what you like to see on your on Instagram and don’t do what you don’t like to see on your on feed.

STOP KILLING YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE ORGANIC REACH! 4 PRACTICES TO AVOID

You want to know what’s hard? Reaching people organically on a Facebook Page!

Facebook, in an attempt to steer pages towards utilizing paid “boosts” and advertisement options, has consistently lowered the organic reach of all posts on Facebook Pages. Facebook has created a pay-to-play environment. This pay-to-play environment places and even larger importance on creating quality content that will maximize organic reach. Though organic reach is down, you can still reach a portion of your audience without spending money if you don’t shoot yourself in the foot with bad content or counterproductive tactics.

***Note: These 4 tactics are practices that I have found, through managing 14 different pages and doing a lot of my own testing, that hurt your organic reach. There are ways you can use each of these tactics to your benefit, but overall, if you avoid these tactics you will experience a larger organic reach. Also note the date of this post and that this is relevant today but the Facebook Algorithm will change again and some of this advice may become out-dated.

Don’t shoot your organic reach in the foot by avoiding these 4 practices:
1.) Using Hashtags:
You may find articles that say that hashtags will help your Facebook Fan Page. That is not entirely untrue. There are certain circumstances, for some pages, where they can help. However, for most pages, using hashtags will drastically decrease your organic reach. Don’t use hashtags.

2.) Sharing Links to Third-Party Sites and Articles:
Links and articles SHOULD be part of your social media marketing strategy. This gives you the opportunity to provide value to your audience. However, posts with links with the auto-fill link content will have a lower organic reach. Share links, but keep it to less than 25% of your overall content.

*PRO TIP – Alternate how you share links. Let the link auto-fill 1/3 of the time. The rest of the time, attach a photo first, then add the link. This increases your organic reach because Facebook categorizes it as a photo and not a third-party link.

3.) Sharing Your Photos and Videos With Third-Party Links:
Facebook wants you to upload your photos and videos directly to Facebook. If you do so, they’ll give favor to those posts and your organic reach will be substantially higher than any of your other posts, especially with videos. If you share your video through YouTube or your photo through another site or application, Facebook will penalize the organic reach. I believe strongly that photos and videos should comprise over 50% of your Facebook content, but you have to upload them directly to Facebook.

*PRO TIP – Run an ad and boost for your videos. Even if your advertising budget is small, there are few if any other forms of advertising out there that you’ll get a better ROI from than you will on Facebook videos.

4.) Liking Your Post Immediately After Posting It, and Getting Friends To Like It:
This is a bit of a controversial one. Previously, there was some merit to liking your own pages post from your personal account and/or as the page. It would show in the news feed that you liked the post and, in theory, people would see that and click on the post. That is rarely the case now. In fact, liking your post immediately after posting it will almost always decrease the organic reach. Furthermore, Facebook is too smart now to try and trick. If you attempt to rig the reach of the post by having friends like the post or by using dummy accounts to like the post, it will backfire. Let organic be organic. The truth is, Facebook knows who will like your post better than you know who will like your post. If you try to game the system, you’ll end up having the algorithm work against you and Facebook will serve up the post into the feeds of people who have little to no interest, which kills the organic reach. Create a high quality post and then let Facebook do its thing. If you have the budget, boost the posts to targeted audiences.

I get it; Facebook can be frustrating. We miss the days where we did not have to spend a dime and the posts of our page were viewed by everyone who liked the page. Those days are gone and every social network, once they grow large enough, has to utilize some type of algorithm. Don’t fight it. Don’t complain about it. Learn to work within the algorithm. Avoid the tactics that will limit the organic reach of your posts and let your quality content and the Facebook algorithm work for you.

PROMOTING PINS ON PINTEREST

WHY YOU SHOULD BE PROMOTING PINS ON PINTEREST
When it comes to social media advertising, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram may be the first platforms to come to mind, but what about Pinterest? Pinterest may not be in the spotlight, but it needs to be on your radar. With over 100 million active daily users who spend twice the amountof money online as the average U.S. Internet user, Pinterest is perfect for advertising opportunities.

Here’s why you should be be promoting pins on pinterest…
Bookmarking vs. Networking
Although Pinterest is thought of as a social media site, it’s actually more of a bookmarking and curation site for people who are looking for items and ideas. Hence why ComScore says that Pinterest users purchase items found on Pinterest more twice as much as users of other social media sites. While users visit other sites for networking and to connect with friends and family, users visit Pinterest with the desire to actively search for products and services.

Organic Reach
Promoted pins on Pinterest appear in searches and on users’ feeds and look exactly like regular pins. Because they don’t stand out garishly as advertisements or sales pitches, the connection with users is more organic in nature. This doesn’t mean that you aren’t converting sales; Pinterest has the option of including a “Buy It” button into pins (making them ‘Buyable Pins’) so users can securely purchase your product or service through Pinterest.

If you’re looking for engagement and exposure for your brand, you can also integrate content from other sites into Pinterest by pinning blog posts, articles, links to your website, and more. Pinning your company’s blogs is a fantastic way to establish credibility for your brand and create value for potential customers on Pinterest.

You can also target your Promoted Pins toward certain demographics and users with specific interests so that you’re making the most of every advertising dollar you spend. Take time and be thoughtful with any user research that you already have and it will pay off!

Pay Per Click
On Pinterest you have two options, you can pay for each user that clicks through to your website, or pay for engagement in the form of repins, closeups, and clicks on your Promoted Pins. You don’t have to start with a huge budget. Just start small and through trial and error, see what works best for your business and if you’re getting the results you want. Only if you’re sure the platform will deliver results for you should you feel comfortable investing more of your ad budget.

It’s Not Just for Females
Yes, Pinterest has typically been dominated by women, so any products or services for women and families tend to do well on the site. However, don’t discount men all together. Male users are growing steadily on Pinterest and currently comprise over 33% of its users. That’s over 33 million men who are bookmarking and shopping, and haven’t yet been oversaturated by ads! It’s a great time to jump in and start promoting pins with male customers in mind.

If you haven’t yet explored Pinterest for advertising and marketing opportunities for your brand yet, there’s no time like the present! It can be a smart idea to jump on the bandwagon of a growing network rather than one that’s already oversaturated with ads.

TWITTER VIDEO

HOW TO USE TWITTER VIDEO FOR YOUR AUDIENCE
While your brand might be putting all of its money behind Facebook or spending all of its money optimizing its YouTube channel, Twitter is still alive and growing fast. With 1.3 billion registered users and 120 million of those visiting every month, Twitter can do a lot with a little. With whispers from the social-sphere that the platform is adding 10,000 characters, there are clearly opportunities here for brands and agencies to explore and get a piece of the pie.

The Rise of Video
One of these areas is through video, which has been slowly but surely adding an important interactive element to the tweet-based site. A recent study showed that 82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter, and 90% of those views are on mobile. With a mobile-first ideology sweeping the social industry, this is huge as Twitter users are almost twice as likely to upload a video online than the average Internet user in the United States. So how do you use this growing feature to its full potential?

How Do You Use It?
Well, you can upload these videos directly to the mobile app from your camera roll or record it through Twitter itself. Side note: Twitter videos must be 30-seconds or less. It might not seem like a lot of time, but it’s for the best. In today’s world, the rule is: the shorter the better. Instagram gives you 15-seconds to work with, Snapchat videos max out at 10-seconds and Vine is even less at just 6-seconds. When millennials are scrolling through their phones, they want something quick, simple and to the point, which is why 30-seconds is more than enough time to get your point across.

Depending on the user’s preferences, these videos might even auto-play, which will greatly help your brand’s video reach a wider audience. Look at the success Facebook has had with its native videos auto-playing, and realize that you can mirror that success on Twitter.

The Right Content
One of the best things to upload as a video on Twitter is a current or topical event. 41% of Twitter users believe that Twitter is a great place to discover videos. For example, when a breaking news story hits or a new trending topic appears, Twitter is often where users will look first. Utilizing Twitter video allows you to tell a larger story, without being stuck in the platform’s character limit. Most people take to Twitter when something big happens, so be there first with a video to drive maximum engagement.

Two other areas that present opportunities are tutorials or educational videos. Look at Buzzfeed or NowThis, as these two media companies have gained huge followings by posting videos that explain or educate its audience on a topic in short, easy-to-consume videos. This is a great place for you to educate your own following on your product, services or a fun campaign that will be available soon!

Twitter video is clearly here to stay, even if its 140-character limit does not. Native video on Twitter drives 2.8x more retweets and 1.9x more favorites, so what are you waiting for?

Facebook organic reach

FACEBOOK PUTS THE SQUEEZE DOWN ON ORGANIC REACH ONCE AGAIN
As people and brands continue to flock to Facebook and flood it with content, Facebook has reached a problem they never imagined they would be in… there is too much information within the News Feed for any one person to consume.

In light of this, Facebook announced once again, they would be putting the squeeze down on business page’s organic reach.

Facebook reinforced its top priority is keeping users connected to the people they care about the most – their friends. They will continue to give higher preference to posts from friends – even more so than ever before.

What Does This Mean For My Page?
For a user this is great. You get to see more pictures of your cousin’s baby and more pictures of your neighbors dog.

For businesses, the outlook isn’t so pleasant. This new update means a few things:
Average post reach will decline: If you thought your organic reach was small before, just wait. While we don’t know exactly how far average organic reach will shrink, Facebook itself has given page owners the heads up that it will drop.

Referral traffic to your website will decline: If you count on posts from your Facebook page to drive new visitors to your website, expect your traffic to drop as fewer and fewer of your fans see your posts.

Facebook’s unique publishing tools will become less attractive: Facebook has courted publishers with tools like enhanced video features, Facebook Live, and Instant Articles. Yet, the irony of these tools that are unique to Facebook, is that they continue to reach less and less people with News Feed changes like this.

While there are no unilateral changes being applied to businesses, the specific impact on each business page will vary on the composition of your audience and the media you regularly share.

Pages whose reach comprises mostly of referrals from shares, and likes/comments on shares will not see much of a decline in their metrics.

Those who still cling to organic post reach, will be hit even further.

How Should I React?
There are a few proactive things pages can do to counteract the new Facebook News Feed algorithm changes:

Use Audience Insights to understand what content resonates the most with your audience: Shares are more powerful than ever before. Developing content that your audience will share is more important as referral traffic from shares becomes a driving force in reach. Use Facebook Audience Insights to learn more about what common interests your audience has and develop content specifically for those interests in relation to your page or brand.

Develop a boosting strategy for your posts: Always target your boosts. I repeat, always target your boosts. Never before has it been more appropriate to have a boosting strategy for your day to day posting. Investing a few dollars to increase the reach and engagement of your posts will go a long way if you are targeting your boosts to specific audiences. Combining this with the information you glean from Audience Insights and you can work wonders into not only developing content that performs better organically, but also makes the most of your boosting budget.

Ride organic success with paid reach: If a particular post performs well organically, chances are it will continue to be successful with a little paid reach. Some posts you might boost out of the gate, which is fine. But you may find some posts that were outside of your initial boosting plan have taken off organically. Continue their success with a lower dollar amount boost. But again, always target this.

Control your content and track your successes: If you’re boosting posts of your own content, which I would recommend, then be sure your content includes a strong CTA and that you are tracking conversions on your boosts. If your content is converting and you’re getting ROI out of your boosted posts, you can then justify additional boosts.

As with any Facebook announcement, it’s not all doom and gloom. On the positive side, there are a number of things you can do moving forward to help counteract the continued decline in your page reach.

As with anything in social media, you’ll need to do your research and make strategic decisions. Results will not come easy, but it is possible for you to continue to use social media to drive relationships – and bottom lines.

Are there tricks you’ve used to improve your reach in the past that you think might still work? We’d love to discuss them in the comments below.