Being Your Brand

Best Times to Post on Social Media [Infographic]

Brianna Smith — Fri, 10 May 2013 03:54:58 +0000

Social media is 24/7. Someone is always tweeting, posting on Facebook, or uploading a new picture to instagram. However, for social media managers and businesses alike, this can be quite of a challenge. We obviously can’t be online all day, even for those of us who are social media managers or strategist. But how do you know when to best reach your audience? There are a couple different ways to determine when your audience is online:

Good Ol’Trial and Error

By tweeting or posting using a link shortener, such as ow.ly or bit.ly, enables you to track how many times someone clicks on a link you shared. You would also want to keep records of when you shared a message and on what network to determine how many interactions each message received. This will allow you to determine not only the best times to post but also where your most engaged audience is located. While this is a straight forward method, there has to be an easier way, right?

Social Media Tools

There are many great social media monitoring and reporting tools out there, but one of my favorite is SocialBro. SocialBro is one of my favorite tools because it provides daily reports on the best time to tweet. These reports show the days and times when the greatest percentage of our twitter community is online (not just your followers). Another tool you can use is Hootsuite‘s AutoScheduling functionality which schedules your messages at the best times to reach your audience.

For posting on Google+, Timing+ is a very valuable tool. Timing + analyzes your historical post data to determine what time of day has the most potential for your posts to have the greatest impact. There are so many great tools out there it would be hard to name them all. If you have a favorite tool please leave a comment below, I would love to hear about it!

Learning from the Research of Others

The best times to post on social media is definitely a hot topic and has resulted in a lot of fantastic research. Luckily, the infographic below examines some of that research and breaks down the best and worst times to post on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest. To maximize your reach, it recommends that you focuse on posting during the following times:

Facebook – between 10 am and 4pm Monday thru Thursday.
Twitter – between 1pm and 3pm Monday thru Thursday.
LinkedIn – focus on posting before and after business hours, 7 am to 9 am and 5pm to 6pm Tuesday thru Thursday.
Google+ – 9am to 11am on workdays.
Pinterest - This is the one social network you should focus on posting during weekday evenings and on the weekends. specifically 2pm to 4pm and 8pm to 1am on weekdays. The best time to pin items on Pinterest is on Saturday morning.

While this infographic will give you a great base to build from, it is definitely not the answer for every business. When determining when to post on social media make sure to consider your customers, your product or service, and the types of messages you are posting. For example, the ideal time for a local bakery to post on Facebook is most likely very different than that of a national brand. In addition, if the majority of your customers live on the east coast and your company is based on west coast, you will want to post on LinkedIn before and after their workday, not yours.

Social Media Workflow [Infographic]

Brianna Smith — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 20:52:02 +0000

Ever wonder how much time you should devote to social media each week? While there is no set formula, this infographic breaks down the components of maintaining and measuring a social media strategy (based on a 40 hour work week). Maintaining a social media strategy is not only about scheduling tweets and replying to mentions. Rather, social media marketing is a living process in which each component is connected to the others. From content creation, to post scheduling, to campaign development, to analytics reporting, social media is an ongoing process.

The social media work flow infographic below assigns time benchmarks for eleven components of a strong social media strategy:

Updating social networks – 4 hours
Planning, writing, and publishing blog posts – 7.5 hours
Research and planning internal and external content to share – 4 hours
Curate and share content – 2.5 hours
Engaging with your community – 4 hours
Monitoring brand mentions online – 2.5 hours
Developing campaigns, such as promotions and contests – 2.5 hours
Community growth – 2.5 hours
Strategy management and adjustments – 2.5 hours
Analytics Reporting – 2.5 hours
Contingency time for damage control or unexpected problems – 4 hours

Do you allocate your time in a similar manner? Do you think that one component should have a larger focus during the week? Leave a comment below with your thoughts!

Social Media Analytics and ROI tracking

Brianna Smith — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 18:01:35 +0000

This week I was honored to present at the Social Media Club of St. Charles April event, where I spoke about social media analytics and ROI tracking.

During the presentation I covered three areas of social media measurements:

Social Media Metrics
Social Media Measurement Tools
Measuring the ROI of Your Social Media Efforts

The full presentation can be found below!

Social Media Metrics

Social media metrics fall within four different categories:

Increase in community membership
Content mobility and engagement
Market perception
Social conversions

Increase in Community Membership

Your social media community membership is measured by the number of followers, likes, and subscribers that have connected with your brand on social media networks. This measurement is important because it shows your brand’s increasing reach and brand awareness. However, this is not the only metric that should be measured. To determine if you are reaching the correct audience and connecting with them you will need to measure content mobility and engagement, and above all social conversions.

Content Mobility and Engagement

The mobility of your content and the engagement of your online community is measured by how many times and how often your content is shared. There are several metrics that you can track to determine if your audience is engaging in what you share, including:

Facebook post likes and shares
Tweets directly from content
Retweets
YouTube video likes, shares, and embeds
Pinterest repins
LinkedIn post likes and shares

Market Perception

Market perception is measured by the sentiment of brand mentions on social media. You will want to track mentions either month-by-month and/or over a given period of time to determine if there is an increase in positive mentions and a decrease in negative mentions. Other metrics that can help you to measure brand sentiment is number of people who hid Facebook post or mentioned a post in a negative way. These metrics can be found in Facebook Page Insights.

Social Conversions

The goal of all social media efforts is to drive traffic back to your website (your home base), to convert visitors into leads, and then into customers. It is important to measure the total number of click-throughs to website from each social media source to determine where your most engaged and profitable audience is located.

Social Media Measurement Tools

There are a vast amount of tools available to help you measure your social media efforts. But, in the presentation I discuss 8 of my favorite tools:

Hootsuite
SocialBro
SproutSocial
Google Analytics
ShareThis Plugin
SimplyMeasured
SocialMention
Gremlin

Check out the full presentation below for the benefits of each tool.

Measuring ROI of Social Media Efforts

Measuring the ROI of social media has become on of the biggest challenges for businesses and agencies alike. The presentation explains how both e-commerce and non e-commerce websites can measure social media return on investment.

Social Media ROI for E-commerce Sites

E-commerce sites can track social media sales and visitors by adding the Google Analytics e-commerce tracking code to their site.  By setting up goals and using the conversion reports feature in Google Analytics, you can determine when a visitor has converted into a customer or lead, as well as the number transactions completed by social media visitors from a specific network. (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.)

Savings: Social Media vs. Paid Media

Are your social efforts generating more results than what you would see with paid media? 

This can be answered by calculating how much it would cost to buy the same number of social impressions and actions with paid media as you do organically. To determine actual savings, use the Facebook ads, Twitter promoted tweets, YouTube promoted videos, and Google AdWords PPC advertising prices in your calculations.

Revenue from Social Media

Another way that non-e-commerce sites can determine social media ROI is by analyzing how views of goal pages, social media visits to goal pages, and the average sale price are connected. The formula to calculate the estimated revenue from social media can be found in the presentation below.

50 Mobile Marketing Facts That Will Blow You Away

Brianna Smith — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:00:31 +0000

Do you have a mobile website or app?
Not sure if you should invest in developing a mobile site or app?
Don’t think you need a mobile marketing strategy?

MOBILE! It is what everyone is talking about, and for a good reason. Smartphones and tablets have changed the way that business can, and should be, connecting with consumers.

Check out these 50 facts on mobile marketing in the presentation below by HubSpot , and see if you still think you have time to wait to develop your mobile marketing strategy. Here are the 10 facts I found most surprising:

9 out of 10 mobile searches lead to an action, and over 50% lead to a purchase
70% of mobile online searches lead to an action within an hour, while 70% of desktop online searches lead to an action within a month
Mobile ads perform 4 to 5 times better than traditional online ads
40% of tablet owners said they have looked up information on a show on their tablet while they were watching that same show
74% of smartphones users use their phones for shopping, and of that 79% make a purchase as a result of using their phones
Mobile coupons have a redemption rate 10 times higher than that of print coupons
50% of smartphones users have bought a product on their phone
73% of smartphones users reported having used the mobile web to shop, instead of an app
60% of web users say they expect a mobile site to load on their phone in 3 seconds or less
95% smartphone users looked up local information, of that 61% called and 59% visited the business

Tick, tick, tick…..don’t waste anymore time putting off your mobile marketing strategy!

The Modern Marketer: Infographic

Brianna Smith — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 03:03:43 +0000

Want to be a marketer? Well, make sure you know what it truly means. To become a successful marketer it is no longer about developing a catchy ad campaign that you will shout from the roof tops. marketing has evolved into a combination of artistry and science. The modern marketer must have a strategic and analytical mind dedicated to measurable metrics but that is always craving a creative outlet.

Take a look at what you need to be a successful modern marketer in the infographic below. A marketer must:

Be a creative writer
Have an eye for great visual content
Understand the power of social media for engaging with consumers
Live by the rules and best practices of email marketing
Be Dedicated to tracking and measuring all marketing efforts
Enjoy using analytics tools to understand data and visualize trends
Be a budgeting maven
Never stop looking for new tools and resources to understand consumers

But, even though being a modern marketer means not thinking like the advertising minds of the Mad Men characters, it does not mean you can’t dress like them!

Infographic by Matt Wesson, is a Marketing Content Specialist at Pardot.

How to Rock Social Media in 30 Minutes a Day Infographic

Brianna Smith — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 21:42:31 +0000

With a defined social media strategy in place, marketers can rock social media in 30 minutes a day.

Sound too good to be true? It is actually possible if your daily use of social media is built upon a well-developed social media strategy. But, a strong social media strategy does not mean that your brand has to be on every single social media channel out there. Instead, focus on the social media channels that the majority of your customers frequent.

The infographic below explains how having an over-arching social media strategy in place can save you time and make you a more effective social media strategist. This great infographic was developed by the talented Matt Wesson, a Marketing Content Specialist at the marketing automation company Pardot. It focuses on a six channel social media strategy, and how you can build engaged communities around your brand in as little as 30 minutes a day.

So how should you allocate your time on each channel? Well the infographic breaks the recommended 30 minutes down as follows:

Twitter – Allocate approximately 10 minutes a day to Twitter for responding to any brand mentions and retweets, scheduling new messages, and share content of industry influencers.
Facebook - Allot approximately 6 minutes a day to respond to comments, like content from clients and/or industry leaders, and share highly visual content (videos and pictures) because they have the highest engagement rate.
LinkedIn - Designate 6 minutes a day to share content or news on your company profile, share new content and join discussions in relevant industry groups, and ask questions on your company profile and in groups.
Pinterest - Assign approximately 4 minutes a day to pinning any new and relevant company content, repin relevant pins from industry influencers and respond to comments on your pins.
Google+ - Allocate as little as 2 minutes a day to posting new content on your Google+ company page and asking your followers questions.
Instagram - Set aside around 2 minutes a day to share behind the scene photos of your company, new visual content you have created, and inspiring quotes.

And in 30 minutes a day you have managed a 6 channel social media strategy!

As with most things, the more you do something the more efficient you become at it. While it can hard to imagine only allocating 30 minutes a day to social media, over time you will become more efficient at finding and posting interesting content and need less time to share content and respond to brand mentions.

Embedded from the Pardot Blog

Using Social Media as a Customer Service Tool: Infographic

Brianna Smith — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 17:43:24 +0000

Social media is not just an excellent tool to grow your brand identity and connect with customers, it is also one of the best tools for customer service. Followers of brands on social media expect a two-way and more from companies than ever before. Followers are not only looking for the newest coupon or information on the “Spring Line”, they want to be heard! When they are upset and shout it out to the social media world, they are also putting their relationship with the company on the line…”respond and respond well, or we are never ever getting back together.”

The infographic below explains how using social media for customer service can differentiate a “great” company from a “good” company on social media. In addition, the infographic explains how social media has changed how companies measure the success of their social media strategy. For example, customer service is no longer measured on the number of first-time resolutions and average handle time, instead successful customer service is based on up-sell/cross-sell rates and conversation volume metrics. By 2020, it is predicted that 90% enterprise level companies will be using social media for customer inquiries.

A surprising fact that may help you jump on the social media customer service train, is that e-service support requests (web, chat, social) from customers is expected to grow 53% in the next year! Customer service is no longer about responding to complaints that you receive, it is about actively listening, monitoring, and engaged with brand mentions online.

How to Use YouTube Annotations

Brianna Smith — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 01:47:50 +0000

In my first YouTube optimization article, 5 Steps for Optimizing YouTube Videos, I focused on:

File name of your YouTube videos
Search engine friendly video titles
Keyword optimization and link building opportunities of video descriptions
Best practices for adding tags and categories to videos
Categorizing videos into playlists

As promised, I want to discuss other ways to optimize your videos for greater viewer engagement. In this article I will focus specifically on annotations, interactive elements that can be added to your video after it is uploaded. At this time, there are six types of annotations that you can add to your videos.

Types of YouTube Annotations

Speech Bubble

The Speech bubble annotation is an on-screen overly that appears on your video at a designated time, and remains on the video for set time. You can control the size and text in the speech bubble, as well as choose from a set of colors to make it stand out. You can use a speech bubble to call out information or link to another video, playlist, or channel.

Note

Notes are similar to speech bubbles, you can control the size, color, location, and duration of appearance on the video. When adding a note, make sure that the text is legible against the video colors. Notes are good for linking to similar videos, a playlist, or your channel. Notes can also be used as a “Subscribe to My Channel” call-to-action button.

Title

The title annotation can be used if you were not able to add an opening frame with the title to the video before uploading. Unlike speech bubbles and notes, title annotations are not linkable.

Spotlight

Spotlights are interactive transparent boxes with a frame that appear over an area of the video that you want to call out. When the viewer hovers over a spotlight annotation with their mouse, related custom text appears outside of the frame. Spotlights are linkable to other videos, playlists, or channels.

Label

The label annotation is similar to the spotlight annotation. The difference between the two is that when a viewer hovers over a label annotation the text appears within the frame, instead of outside the frame. Just like spotlight annotations, label annotations are linkable to other videos, playlists, or channels.

Pause

This annotation allows you to pause your video for a chosen duration of time. Pauses are useful when added in conjunction with another annotation, such as a note annotation. It allows you to pause the video while the viewer reads the custom text in the note. When adding a pause annotation to your video, make sure that you do not set the time duration for too long. Viewers are fickle and are only a click away from choosing a different video!

Below is a great step-by-step tutorial on how to add annotations to your YouTube videos

Benefits of Adding Annotations to Your Videos

Annotations can serve many purposes and offer several benefits to your videos, including:

Annotations can turn a video into an interactive experience for the viewer.
By adding linkable annotations to your videos, you can drive traffic between videos on your channel. For example, if you had a weekly series you could use an annotation to link back to the previous week’s episode.
For long videos, annotations can help break up the content and allows users to skip to the section that interests them the most.
Annotations can be used to increase channel subscriptions.
By including annotations that have a call-to-action asking viewers to follow your channel or like and comment on your video, you can increase the overall engagement of your video. Videos with a higher levels of engagement often appear higher and more frequently in YouTube search results.

There is no one way to incorporate annotations into your videos. The best way is to test out different annotations, and adjust them as you see necessary. Also, do not add an annotation to a video and forget about it. Rather, make sure that annotations are always relevant and update them as you add new content!

How Social Media Impacts SEO: Infographic

Brianna Smith — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 03:05:46 +0000

Search engine optimization has not been dependent on a minimal number of factors for a long time now, such as number of times a keyword appeared on a page, and it continues to become a more complex web of on and off-page factors every month. One of the more recent factors that has had an impact on search ranking is social media.

The following infographic breaks down ways that social media influences the visibility of your website in search results, including:

Social media can help search engines find and index your content faster
Likes, shares, retweets, etc. indicates to search engine that content is new and interesting, often leading to a temporary increase in rankings
Your content will increase in search results for people connected to you
Increases domain authority and the number of inbound links to your website

Interested in more on SEO, check out a these articles as well:

5 Steps for Optimizing YouTube Videos

The Impact of Content on SEO: Infographic

The 4 Factors of SEO

Social Media and SEO – An infographic by the team at WhiteFire, an SEO Company

By Brianna Smith

5 Steps for Optimizing YouTube Videos

Brianna Smith — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 21:10:35 +0000

Not sure if your business should have a YouTube channel? Did you know that YouTube is the 2nd most popular and used search engine, with more searches than both Bing and Yahoo?

So yes, your business should most definitely have well branded presence on YouTube. YouTube can be one of your most powerful tools for reaching and engaging with customers. To reach your customers, you not only have to create a YouTube channel and add videos, you need to make sure that your customers can find your videos and even drive them back to your website.

SEO for YouTube Videos – Get Found & Increase Views

As with most search engine optimization tactics that you use on your website to increase rankings, it is all about keywords. Optimizing YouTube videos is no different, you want to focus on incorporating (but not spamming) your keywords into the different components of YouTube videos. The main areas to incorporate your target keywords are:

1. Video File Name

Most video files default to a number or letter combination, such as vid123456.mov. For SEO purposes, it is important that the video file name be descriptive of what the video is about. For example, the video file for a Twitter training video may be intro-to-twitter-for-businesses.mov

2. Video Title

When determining the title for your YouTube video, focus on incorporating relevant keywords that correlate with the content in the video. In addition, always keep the title below 70 characters. If the title of the video is more than 70 characters long it will get cut off in search results. Always make sure your YouTube video titles are:

Under 70 characters
Descriptive
Incorporate target keywords

3. Video Description

The description for your video will appear in search results to entice users to view your video. Similar to meta descriptions on website pages, YouTube only shows a limited number of characters in search results. In YouTube search results, only the first 160 characters will appear with your video. Within the first 160 characters of the video description, focus on incorporating keywords while maintaining a natural voice and enticing users to choose your video to watch. Your full video descriptions can be longer, to provide more detail to viewers who select to watch the video, but don’t go overboard. Rather, try to keep the entire description below 300 characters. One of the most important components of a video description is the inclusion of a link back to your website. If possible, add a link to a page on your website with corresponding information, instead of the homepage.

4. Video Tags and Categories

Video categories and tags are a critical component for video optimization. By selecting the most appropriate tags and categories your video will show up along side other relevant content, and more likely to reach your target audience. You would not want your video on cooking tips to show up with videos about designing websites. That is like knowingly advertising to people you know are not your target audience.

Categories: When adding your video to YouTube, make to to select the most relevant category that your video can belong to.
Tags: Use the tag area to not only add your target keywords, but also to add the keywords that did not naturally fit into the video description. Try to add 5-7 relevant and quality tags to each video.

Note: make sure to not spam your tags with keywords that are not relevant to your video or dozens of different keywords. By doing that, your video will most likely be penalized by YouTube in search results or even removed from the site.

5. Playlist Optimization

Playlists help to organize your videos by topic. By grouping videos by topic, you will more easily drive traffic between videos, because videos grouped into a playlist often appear alongside each other when watched. When creating playlists, make sure to pay close attention to the playlist title because it is a highly weighted factor for search results. Playlist titles should be short, descriptive, and keyword focused. Don’t forget to write an engaging description of the playlist to entice searchers. Playlist descriptions are also a factor in search rankings, so it is important to try to naturally incorporating keywords not stuff or spam the descriptions.

Optimizing your YouTube videos is just the first step in building a successful YouTube community for your fans, customers, and potential customers. In upcoming blog posts, I will focus on the power of adding annotations to your videos, branding your YouTube page, and promoting your page.