It’s day two of my vacation in Australia & so far I’ve been having a great time. I’ve been doing a healthy mix of resting and exploring Queensland. Yesterday I visited a small town on the hills called Toowomba. It’s a quiet & beautiful town with a lot of history. The people here are very friendly and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing some more. I’m currently staying at my boyfriends sister’s place. She is a talented artist from Brisbane. Her name is Maryanne Oliver. Check out the video below where I give you a tour of the art she has hung around her house.
My insectophobia is at an all time high here but I’m working hard to get over it. Trust me it has not been easy. I feel like something is going to come out of the shadows and eat me!
Creating a central point or primary hub for you online company or service is essential. You want to have a main destination where you can keep a consistent presence for your brand or service. Usually this is done on a website or blog. Now I know a lot of people are saying “who goes to websites anymore? Most people spend the majority of their time on social networking sites”. While this is true, A LOT of people still seek out information using search engines like Google Search or Bing.com.
Creating an online hub
Also, finding specific information on Facebook or Twitter can be challenging once the latest updates have been pushed down the feed. My point is try to create a place where people can find all the important things about you or your service. Make sure the SEO on that destination is up to par. That way when people search for you they will get exactly what you want them to see.
Don’t hesitate to use that main hub to promote your social networks. A website is the IDEAL place to promote your companies Twitter & Facebook account. Once they stumble upon your website they might want to keep in touch. Giving consumers the choice to follow on FB or Twitter does just that.
If you have a Facebook page and insist on having that as the hub, then work on creating a landing page. This is a mini site within your Facebook fan page where you can brand it however you like.
Here are some resources to guide you on creating a landing page:
It’s video blog #2! I originally recorded a video on my mac book but because of technical difficulties had to scrap it and used my iPhone again. I’m working on making the quality of
A look into my inner nerd soul
the videos better.
Today was all about getting some work done before my trip on Monday, cleaning the apartment, doing laundry & of course packing. Australia, I can feel the hot sun on my skin.
Stay tuned because I’ll be posting daily updates from down under. I’ll be staying in Brisbane, Australia. It’s sort of like the Seattle or San Francisco of the island except the weather is AWESOME!
Upcoming blogs:
Creating a conversation Calendar
Tracking your social media progress
Crafting your messages for each social media channel
YouTube is probably the most popular and familiar video hosting site on the web. It’s no wonder that so many companies and consumers are hosting their videos on the site. YouTube has done a fantastic job of making video hosting easy & accessible. But with the millions upon millions of videos on YouTube, how can you make your video stand out? First off it’s important to have a clear direction on what type of content you are planning on uploading to your channel. This will help you focus on a category such as “Entertainment”, “Education”, How To &, Style” etc.
Broadcast Your Content on YouTube
Overall your video content needs to grab the audiences attention in the first 4 seconds or you will lose them. Start off fun and get to the point. Give them a reason to stick around for the rest. Also you don’t need high production. Just good sounds and good audio.
Be strategic about the title of your video. You want people to click on your video if they happen to see it show up while searching for a specific topic or viewing an other related video. For one of our latest episodes of Just Dance TVwe went with a title that focused on the core content of the video. We also knew it was something that would catch people’s attention, “Ryan Higa, Dominic Sandoval & Victor King DANCE OFF | Just Dance TV EP. 4″.
BEWARE. Make sure your title reflects the content in the video. People HATE being tricked on YouTube & they won’t hesitate to “dislike” your content.
Give your video a good description. Give them a taste of what they will see in the video. It’s also useful to add in links to your other online channels (FB, Twitter, website).
Adding tags to your video is also very important. This will help your video show up when people search specific keywords on YouTube. Use the most relevant terms to your video. The more the better.
Lastly use annotation in you video & ask views to engage. If you want them to “Like” or comment, then ask. For example, if your video is covering a review of Assassins Creed, then try using an annotation asking viewers to “Like this video if you are a fan of Assassins Creed” or “Comment below on which Assassins Creed game is your favorite” etc.
Stay tuned for my next blog on interpreting YouTube insights. How you can analyze your results to make better content.
Got any questions, comments or blog suggestions? Comment on this post with your thoughts.
Staying connected with your favorite brands is super easy because everywhere you go, they go. Most companies reach their consumers on all the major social networking sites. The question is, where do you follow brands for updates and news?
I’m really curious to see where people are most influenced. On my side, I usually “Like” & “Follow” my favorite brands on Facebook and Twitter.
Twitter is a great place to communicate a simple message to fans. That’s what makes it so wonderful, the simplicity of it. This can sometimes be a blessing & a curse. But before we get into the nitty gritty let’s talk about creating your voice on Twitter. There are a two main ways that companies are positioning their twitter accounts to communicate their messages.
Tweeting For Your Product on Twitter
The Product Twitter account – This approach/ Twitter positioning is more corporate & representative of the company as a whole. This is a good strategy if you are planning on creating a strong presence for your brand.
The Personal Twitter account who represents a company – This positioning is a more human or friendly approach to tweeting for a company. Just remember to make your company a primary focus.
Be sure to include a bio, url, avatar, & twitter background to match the positioning. This will make it very clear to people what the accounts “voice” is.
Take the time to fine tune and craft your tweets by keeping track of their performance. You have 140 characters to tell people about your product or service. Be strategic about it & ask yourself “what is the message I’d like people to take away from my tweet?”. It’s also super helpful & recommended to take time each week to document how many replies, retweets, & followers you get per post & per day. If you are not tracking then you won’t be able to properly measure your success.
Don’t be afraid to search for conversations and engage with people based on their interests. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. Let’s say I’m a musician & I’m looking to get the word out on a new song. I decide to search Twitter for people who mention “love songs”. When relevant, I reply to individuals to engage with them and send them a link to my “love song”. This is a good strategy but you have to make sure to sound genuine. Don’t try this by copy and pasting the same message over and over to people. They will see right through you. This does take up a lot of time but can really pay off in the end.
There’s nothing wrong with following people in order to gain followers. Most people on Twitter respond to the psychology of “normative reciprocity” meaning you follow me, I’ll follow you in return. Twitter is all about responding to each other and exchanging benefit for benefit.
The most important thing is to participate & contribute. Offer people a reason to follow you.
So you’ve got a product or service that you want to promote & are looking to expand online. You then decide to create a Facebook page. How do you get fans & how do you get people to help spread your news and product information?
Growing your Facebook Fan page
This is a question that a lot of companies face when they begin making their way online. It’s important to figure out what your content is and how to spread it.
Acquiring fans can be done in a lot of ways. Promoting your FB page on the official product site, including it in a newsletter or if you’re just starting out, encourage online friends to join. Another recommended practice is partnering up with other FB pages to promote each other (cross promotion). “Liking” a facebook page is a “lower barrier to entry” then signing up for a newsletter or website. This means people will more likely “Like” a fan page rather than sign up for a site, it’s just easier. It also helps to give people an incentive, a reason to join the page. Securing exclusive content (you will only see this on Facebook page) or giveaways works great.
Beware: If you plan on doing sweepstakes on Facebook make sure you are running them on a separate tab hosted by a third party app and not the wall. if Facebook catches you running a contest on the wall you could lose your page because it goes against their policy.
Now on to engagement. Let’s say you have a video featuring your super awesome high tech product. In order to get fans to spread that content, you going to need to make the video engaging (I know it might sound a bit obvious but hear me out). Give consumers a reason to engage with the video by asking them to comment or like. People want to give their opinions about things. Let them do so. It’s best to incorporate the engagement/call to action within the video. It’s also important to not overload people with too many call to actions. Keep it simple and switch it up. See what works best.
Engaging Your Facebook Audience
Here are some other general tips for posting on your Facebook page:
Conversational posts often do well. Engage your community by asking them questions. Try to keep it related to your product or service.
Never post more than twice a day. You usually see people unsubscribe from your page if you post too much.
Keep your posts short. People go through their Facebook feeds quickly & won’t want to read a paragraph of text. Keep it high level & entertaining.
Respond to fan posts. Fans love hearing from you and are more likely to stick around if you engage back.
Most importantly study Facebook insights and see what insights come up. As I’ve said before it can be overwhelming so you will need to narrow down your “Key Performance Indicators”. These help you measure success.
In an effort to take advantage of my new found motivation to create content, I decided to make an quick introduction video on what I’m doing and what is coming down the pipeline. The video was filmed on my iPhone, sorry that it’s’ a bit shaky.
Let me know what you think. Shout out to the Frag Doll Cadettes for inspiring me to get this going.
I’ve noticed recently that a handful of my friends have began creating social networking channels to promote their very own products and custom services. They’re on the right track but might be going about it the wrong way. Using Facebook, Twitter, and other online social sites can really help boost your online awareness and help you aggregate a community around your service or product. At the same time, it can be pretty overwhelming. Think about it. Once you take the time to create a Facebook page, YouTube channel, or a Twitter account, what’s your strategy? Just giving people updates here and there isn’t going to cut it. For companies, a lot of thought goes into populating each of these channels & they are all not created equally.
Here are some things I’ve learned along the way that you might or might not know:
Before creating your social networking channel, take the time to ask yourself a few questions. This will ensure that you start off with a game plan.
Who am I trying to reach out to? Figuring out your target demographic can help you craft your audience message to make sure you’re speaking to them in on their terms. If you are planning on targeting males 18-24 you want to talk to them about what they’re interested in while keeping your product or service top of mind.
What are my overall objectives? Creating objectives will help you hyper focus on what you are trying to accomplish. Don’t make it too generic or else your find it hard to get it done. Try figuring out what your brand or service needs. (ex. “Create awareness around my product & encourage the spread of information”)
What are others who offer similar products and services doing? Don’t try reinventing the wheel. Take the time to see what others are doing online. See what works, what doesn’t work, etc. It will give you tons of great ideas for your own plan. This is a common practice so don’t be afraid to do your research.
What sets me aside from the competition? Figure out what makes you different and what your edge is. This will come in handy when you are working on setting yourself aside from the pack.
What are my goals? Have you seen Facebook insights ,YouTube insights, & Twitter analytics tools? There is so much information in their and it can be overwhelming! Take the time to figure out what you goals are & what is important to you. Getting thousands of fans & views is not realistic. Start small and work your way up but don’t setting for tiny goals. Remember engagement is also important. Don’t just focus on growth.
Once you have really taken the time to answer those questions you can begin to build you social media plan. *YAY*
Upcoming social media 101 blogs: Breaking down the social networking channels, Standard Social Media Tactics, How to communicate to your audience online?
Got any questions, comments or blog requests? Let me know! I’m all ears.
Nice to meet you. I’ve probably been planning on creating a blog for quite sometime. My biggest hurdle in doing so were two things that I’m sure a lot of people have dealt with.
1) Work – I’ve probably been spending more than 8 hours a day at work. Not to mention working on the weekend which I sometimes do. I generally don’t mind because I really enjoy my job. Working in online marketing for a video game company is pretty exciting & stressful at the same time. It’s very fast paced & fun.
2) Procrastination – I can’t tell you how many books I’ve intended to read that are currently collecting dust in my closet. I’m one of those people who starts off a project with great motivation then eventually forgets or gives up. It’s such a bad habit. I’m working to get better at this.
But here I am. Writing my first blog entry on my “lazy day”. I’ve literally started off my day by sleeping, sleeping some more, watching some shows on Hulu, eating & napping. I really love days like these especially coming out of a hard work week.
Anyway, this is where I begin. Planning on posting my projects, fun times, & traveling adventures. More to come.
