The rumor mill: Are hashtags coming to Facebook?
Rumor has it that facebook will be implementing hashtags soon! Currently they are not confirming or denying this but I definitely think it would be a plus. Hashtag vetertan Twitter has seen much success from this functionality which is also used on Instagram, Tumblr, and Pinterest.
Here’s another blog topic that I’ve gotten a request to write about. Currently there are several social media sites that are available online for people to take advantage of and understanding how to use each of them in the right way can be challenging. Here’s a look at it from my experience as a Digital Marketer.
Before you think about signing up for every single social network ask yourself these few questions:
- Where is my target audience primarily spending time on the internet?
- How is my target audience using social media?
- How much time, money, and resources can I commit to social media?
- What are my short term and long term goals for social media?
Working out the answers to those questions will help you narrow down what you’ll need to focus on how much time you can spend growing your social media presence etc. I personally don’t think you need to be on every single social media channel unless you’re a massive company with a lot of resources. There’s nothing worse than seeing a page that has not been updated in weeks or even months.
Now, on to the top social media sites. Let’s briefly talk a bit about them and how they are beneficial for your business or service.
The good: Facebook is an obvious choice in creating a community for your business. By the end of 2012, Facebook will reach over 1 billion users worldwide. This provides companies with a platform to cast a wide net for recruiting fans. Facebook also features helpful insights such as demographic breakdown of your existing fans, weekly interactions, and fan growth. Facebook insights also give you information on how engaging the content on your Facebook page is. This is essentials for building a better line of communication with your audience to convert them into brand advocates.
Another added bonus is that Facebook gives you the tools to help grow your audience by targeting consumers by age, sex, marital status, education, and most importantly interests. This can be done with Facebook advertising tool.
Facebook also allows companies to build sites within Facebook pages to run promotions, competitions, and much more!
The bad: The downside of Facebook is their mobile app. Most consumer use Facebook via their mobile devices. Facebook page apps are not mobile friendly meaning if you have a mobile device and you want to participate in a promotion or competition featuring in a page app you won’t be able to access the page.
The good: Twitter is fantastic for communicating short sharp messages to your followers in 140 characters. The audience here wants you to get right to the point of what you are trying to say. It’s also great for encouraging your audience to help amplify a message by retweeting. Twitter also allows you to follow like minded organizations, consumers, or companies to share information.
Twitter is also constantly evolving by making tweet more interactive featuring videos and images.
The bad: You only have 140 characters. Sometimes it can be challenging getting your message across with this limitation. Also Twitter does not have built insights to give you feedback on which tweet are more effective than others. If you really want to get information on how your tweets are doing you’ll need to use a 3rd party website or service like Klout, or Sysomos.
Part two of my blog will cover YouTube, Instragram, and Pinterest.
Hope this is helpful!
Got any questions or blog requests? Send them on through!
With so many different social media sites on the net, it’s become challenging for community managers and social media strategists to keep up. How do we maintain a company’s presence across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google +, and now Pinterest? I believe it can be done with a strategy, preparation, and using the right tools available to you. 
Having a solid strategy means figuring out what role each of the social network sites you manage for a company will play. Figure out how to communicate your message on each site to ensure that it’s well delivered and genuine.
Also starting with a primary social media site early on is a good way to begin. For instance while at Ubisoft we began the social media marketing plan for Just Dance by focusing mainly on Facebook. We knew our target audience was there and we wanted to build the community there first while of course keeping a presence on Twitter and YouTube. We hosted most of our video content on YouTube and used Twitter as a secondary channel to engage with fans. Once we felt that we had a strong community on Facebook, we then focused on Twitter by running campaigns and eventually moved to YouTube.
Planning ahead weekly is another great way to properly manager your social media sites. When you have a better idea of what is going up and when, it will make things much more manageable. I recommend creating a weekly calendar of what you’re going to post on your social media accounts (even having an idea of what will be posted works). Using excel is ideal for this type of approach. It will save you a lot of time to be prepared.
Leveraging third party management tools is a great way to have your Facebook and Twitter accounts under one roof. Several large companies use paid services (such as Involver and North Social) which allows them to import their Facebook and Twitter accounts, track them with detailed analytics, schedule posts, and reply to consumers for better customer service.
For those who’d prefer a free service Hootsuite is the way to go. Hootsuite allows you to:
There are more best practices but this gives you a great start. All of the above methods can help you organize your social media management to focus on other things such as content creation, building campaigns and reporting.
Got any specific questions on social media management or got tips of your own? Post them in the comments. I’d love to hear them. 
Renelly Morel aka Nelly Morel
I felt the need to write a blog about the number 1 rule of online marketing (in my opinion) after seeing a few of my friends break it. That rule is keep it simple. When you are anxious to promote a campaign or a piece of content you want as many people as possible to Like it, Comment it, Tweet it, Share it, Post it, etc. You want it all & you ask for it all. This can cause confusion and can decrease the amount of interactions on your social media channel. The reason it’s actually hurting you is because you are asking your audience to do too many things at once. This creates what we online marketers like to call a “high barrier of entry”. The more you ask people to do at once online, the less likely that they will do it. 
Think about the average person that surfs the web. Their attention span is pretty short and they will only take the time to go through several hoops if they are passionate about something or if they are going to get a reward after the fact. The less call to actions or requests you have, the better. The lower the barrier to entry, the more likely it is that they will interact with your content or campaigns.
The moral of this story is, when you are putting something out there just ask your audience to do one thing. “Comment below to give us your opinion” OR “Reply to this tweet telling us why you love social media” etc. This applies to all the social media channels out there. Twitter, Facebook, Google +, and more.
One simple call to action. That’s all.
Got any questions or comments? Let me know! I’d love to hear from you.
Renelly Morel aka Nelly
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.
How about you?
Renelly AKA Nelly
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.
Got any questions or comment? Let me know!
Renelly AKA Nelly
how to start your social media plan
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:
