Tag Archive for: Twitter

I often talk about the importance of Multichannel Marketing to audience communication. Email Marketing. Facebook. Direct mail. Instagram. Skype. Always more ways to connect with your audience.

I’m a big believer in this, because over time most media channels lose their effectiveness.

For example, there was a time when getting peoples fax numbers was all the rage among direct response marketers. You could send prospects a fax right into their home kind of like direct printed mail.

Everyone knows what hashtags are in 2018.

However, not everyone knows how to use hashtags well. When used properly, hashtags make it easier for users to find related content. It’s amazing that these # signs help categorize social media content.

They can help increase the visibility of your messages and boost your social shares. When used inappropriately, however, they can negatively impact your credibility on social media. This can have the inverse effect of decreasing your social activity.

The issue is more complicated when we look at hashtag used beyond Twitter, where they’re most popular.

Let’s take a moment to clear up some confusion.

Avoid These Common Hashtag Mistakes

1. Don’t Use Spaces Or Special PunctuationHashtags and Punctuation

Use #SuperBowl, not #super bowl. Your social networks will only recognize the first word. Don’t use punctuation marks, but you can use numbers as long as you compliment them with a bit of text.

2. Don’t Use The @ Symbol In Hashtags

Your hashtags aren’t designed to tag your network’s users. So combining both a hashtag and an “at” symbol will only tag the person/user, and you won’t send a hashtag at all.

3. Don’t Go Overboard With Too Many Hashtags

#How #Annoying #Would #It #Be #To #Have #To #Go #Through #And #Read #Twenty #Hashtags #And #Try #To #Find #Out #What #It #Says.

4. Don’t Spam

Dirty Words

There are websites, brands, and individuals that use popular hashtags and just throw them in their social messages with no context. All for the sole purpose of helping other accounts to find them.

This plan may seem to work in the short term. However, just when Instagram did a complete clean out of any account that seemed to be linked with spam, these individuals lose hundreds of thousands of followers at once.

That means their hashtag plan completely backfired on them.

5. Make Sure Hashtags Mean What You Think They Do

Hashtags are often related to current events and cultural trends. If you’re unsure what a hashtag might be referring to, take a few minutes to do some research.Research Niche

6. Make Sure Your Hashtags Work

If there is a symbol or punctuation in or after the hashtag, you will break the hashtag. Grammar police beware. If you want to post #I’mABeliever, your hashtag will break after the I. You can tell where your hashtag broke when the blue line turns into black text.

If there are letters or numbers before the hashtag, it will break it before it even starts. So if your hashtag is 123#abc, abc won’t link to a hashtag.

If the hashtag is made up entirely of numbers, the hashtag will not hyperlink. But if you include letters with your numbers, the hashtag will work correctly. So #12345 won’t work. but #abc123 will.

Hashtag Shapes in Clouds

Some of these tips are basic. Some you may never have heard of. But one thing is clear: If you make these mistakes, you’ll miss out on the engagement you were hoping to get from your social messages.

Not everyone knows how to use hashtags well. In my last article, we discussed the Hashtag Dos.
If you missed it, read it here.

Looking for more Easy Online Social Media Marketing Training for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and with coaching?

These G500 online training courses are for people that are beginners or intermediate Social Media Marketers. These courses could also be a great offer for your customers if it suits your businesses adjectives.
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FUse Your Smartphone to Make Money Onlineor a LIMITED Time…. We are offering FREE one on one coaching with your choice of Social Media training module from G500 Training…
You can get 100% of your outlay for ALL the training courses
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Talk Soon,
Nicky

Everyone knows what hashtags are in 2018.

Twitter first introduced hashtags to the social media world in 2007. They’ve been confusing marketers and media professionals ever since.

In practice, hashtags are used to categorize social media content into easily navigable lists. By including the #[INSERT KEYWORD] in a tweet/ post, it then becomes visible inline with other posts using that same hashtag.

However, not everyone knows how to use hashtags well.

Let’s take a moment to clear up some confusion.

In this post, we will tell you how to find and select appropriate hashtags and how to best use of hashtags on most social media platforms.

First things first…

Research Hashtags For Your Social Media Messages

Sometimes, the best way to use hashtags is to find ones that already exist.

Before you can get started, though, you need to actually find those hashtags. Fortunately, there are a number of websites out there to help with this process.

Let’s take a look at a handful of useful options:

Research Hashtags to Use on Twitter

What's Trending on TwitterFollow @WhatsTrending on Twitter. It’s a tool that can help you find the top hashtags. You can get new viewers by finding creative hashtags that fit your content and are recently trending.

Twitonomy-Twitter Hashtag SearchTwitonomy can help you find personalized hashtags that revolve around the content you post on your Twitter accounts. It can also show you the most powerful influencers using a given hashtag, as well as who’s engaging the most.

You’ll need a premium to unlock this tool’s most useful functions – it’s reasonably priced.

Discover Hashtags For Twitter And Facebook

RiteTag is a hashtag power tool for discovering hashtags.

It also offers up-to-date usage data to show you how hashtags are performing in the real world. While the premium plans offer more functionality, the basic free plan still offers plenty of utility.

In short, RiteTag is like a Swiss Army knife of deep hashtag research and tracking.

Discover Hashtags for Use on Instagram

Hashtags For Likes LogoHashTagsForLikes – Instagram allows a maximum of 30 tags per photo use this tool. This free tool is great!

Can’t find a good hashtag for your content?
Create your own hashtag!

There are times when you might want to create your own hashtag. You might want one to complement an event so attendees can track social posts.

Or, you might have a unique marketing campaign that needs its own hashtag (rather than jumping on one that already exists).

In these cases, follow this advice:

3 Elements of the Perfect Hashtag A good hashtag is:

  • Memorable.
  • Unique.
  • Relevant to the content you’re sharing.

Strike a balance:

  • Make it unique but simple to remember.
  • Don’t make your hashtag so broad that it’s hard to track.

Now you know where to get hashtags…

Follow These Hashtag Best Practices

The Practices Guide to Hashtags

Learn How To Use Hashtags on Social Media Platforms

Hashtags On Facebook

A better question might be, “Should I use hashtags on Facebook at all?”

Facebook LogoData shows hashtags on Facebook do not help boost engagement. That means you might be better served by leaving hashtags off entirely. In one study, posts with hashtags received only .80% viral reach, while posts without hashtags had 1.30% viral reach.

Plus, Facebook doesn’t recognize hashtags in the search bar. The only way to find hashtags is to directly click on the hashtag in a post.

If you do use hashtags in your Facebook posts, the bare minimum is the way to go. We’ve found that posts with just one or two hashtags got the most engagement.Twitter logo

Hashtags On Twitter

Stick to two hashtags per post since that tends to grow engagement on your content by 21%.

When you start using 3 or more hashtags per message, you lower engagement by almost 17%.

Instagram LogoHashtags On Instagram

Photos with 11+ hashtags seem to get the most interactions.

However, they can also look like spam when they’re overdone. Insure that you keep them relevant.

Hashtags On Linkedin

Linkedin-logo


There are no limits to the number of hashtags you can use in a post on LinkedIn. That said, we recommend that you limit each LinkedIn post to a maximum of 5 hashtags.

Using too many hashtags on LinkedIn could also result in the LinkedIn Algorithm marking your post as spam.

Youtube

Hashtags On YouTube

Hashtags on YouTube are most widely used in the comment section.

You can use hashtags to categorize your content to be found by topic, using your keywords as the foundation for your hashtags.

How To Use Hashtags On Pinterest

Pinterest hashtags lead to search results for the keyword in your hashtags. That means if you have a hashtag in your Pin description, your Pinners can click through to find similar content for those keywords, not necessarily only for that hashtag.

There’s also no guarantee Pinterest will index the hashtags you choose to use.

Pinterest_IconIf you do decide to use hashtags on Pinterest, then less is more. There is evidence that Pinterest will even demote the value of your Pins that have too many hashtags.

Furthermore, some say the best way to use hashtags on Pinterest is to use your own customized hashtags that people click to see your own related Pins instead of directing traffic to see a broader category around a topic.

Now, you know how To Use Hashtags To Increase Your Brand Awareness

Hashtags can make or break your social media messages and engagement.

It’s super important that you understand where, when, and how to use them. Now you have a bunch of tips to get you started in the right direction!

Not everyone knows how to use hashtags well.
In my next article you will find out the 6 Common Mistakes of Using Hashtags.

Looking for more Easy Online Social Media Marketing Training for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and with coaching?

These G500 online training courses are for people that are beginners or intermediate Social Media Marketers. These courses could also be a great offer for your customers if it suits your businesses adjectives.
Become an Affiliate Today!
FUse Your Smartphone to Make Money Onlineor a LIMITED Time…. We are offering FREE one on one coaching with your choice of Social Media training module from G500 Training…
You can get 100% of your outlay for ALL the training courses
back with ONE referral….

Plus see how to make $1,000 within hours with a simple Get the Paid First Affiliate Program Here!

If you want or need any help connect with us on one of our social media platforms or on our contact us form!

Talk Soon,
Nicky

Just a few years ago, you could get away with building a social media marketing strategy on the fly. As long as you were present, you were doing more than your competitors–right?

Well it’s now 2018 and not much of the same logic applies today! With 30% of millennials saying they engage with a brand on social at least once a month, your strategy can’t be only about existence.

We want to provide you and your marketing team with the right steps to take toward a successful social strategy so your brand isn’t left in the dust.

7 Steps in Creating a Winning Social Media Marketing Strategy

1. Create Social Media Marketing Goals That Solve Your Biggest Challenges

The first step to any strategy is to understand what you want out of your efforts. Social media marketing isn’t about flipping a switch and calling it a day. Instead, social media planning should be looked at like cooking.

cooking by the recipe - Social Media Marketing Plan

Once you have your ingredients, you follow a recipe and presto! But that’s not always the case.

That’s why creating goals is so critical to the first part of your social media strategy. At the same time, it’s best to set goals that you know are attainable. Asking for 1 million new Instagram followers in 2018 is unrealistic. With achievable goals, you’re more likely to stick to the original plan and continue to take on new hurdles as you complete old ones.

Social Media Goals to Consider…

Goal setting is a staple of all marketing and business strategies. Social media is no exception.

Of course, with a range of social capabilities, it can be difficult to determine exactly what your objectives should be. For guidance, here are some common social media goals to consider:

  • Increase brand awareness: To create authentic and lasting brand awareness, avoid a slew of promotional messages. Instead, focus on meaningful content and a strong brand personality through your social channels.
  • Higher quality of sales: Digging through your social channels is nearly impossible without monitoring or listening to specific keywords, phrases or hashtags. Through more efficient social media targeting, you reach your core audience much faster.
  • Drive in-person sales: Some retailers rely on social media marketing efforts to drive in-store sales. Is your brand promoting enough on social to reward those who come to you? What about alerting customers to what’s going on in your stores?
  • Improve ROI: There’s not a brand on social media that doesn’t want to increase its return on investment.
  • Create a loyal fanbase: Does your brand promote user-generated content? Do your followers react positively without any initiation? Getting to this point takes time and effort with creating a positive brand persona on social.
  • Better pulse on the industry: What are your competitors doing that seems to be working? What strategies are they using to drive engagement or sales? Having a pulse on the industry could simply help you improve your efforts and take some tips from those doing well.

Don’t forget to document your social media goals. Not only is it important to help you benchmark where you are, but it also improves your chances of achieving them. According to some statistics, people who write their goals down are 30 times more successful.

success-when-goals-are-written-out

2. Research Your Social Media Audience

Approximately 79% of adults use Facebook–but are your customers actively engaging with your brand there? Understanding your audience is necessary to learn things like who buys your products, what age group is the toughest to sell and what income level makes up the most of your returning customers? As for social media, it’s just as critical to know your audience.

First, your brand should look into the demographics of your most valuable social channels. Like we mentioned before, you should have a goal in mind for your social media marketing strategy. This is why you need to research the channels that correlate the most with your goals.

To help you find the Social Media Channels to focus on: take a quick look at the essential demographics data for each major network – check out this guide!

Identifying Customer Demographics

While the demographics data above gives you insight into each channel, what about your own customers? Further analysis has to be completed before you can truly know your customer demographics on social media.

That’s why many brands use a social media dashboard that can provide an overview of who’s following you and how they interact with you on each channel. Most brands today are using at least some sort of dashboard. However, does your dashboard address your specific goals?

Whether you’re an agency providing insights for your clients or an company discovering your own demographics, an all-in-one dashboard solution is critical.

Sprout Social Dashboard analytics-report-twitter-listeningSSprout Social Logoprout Social prides itself on the in-depth and essential demographics data for your social networks to help you identify your customers.

Learn more with a free 30-day trial to uncover crucial data with Sprout!

3. Establish Your Most Important Metrics

While your targeted social media metrics might be the most important step of a strategy, it’s often the spot most veer off the path. Vanity metrics like follower count and likes are always good to measure, but does it tell you the whole story of your brand on social media?

We often get wrapped up in viewing followers and likes as the truth to a campaign, but it’s smart to take a step back and evaluate the social metrics associated with your overall goals.

Engagement metrics sometimes paint a better picture, because as we’ve mentioned many times here, building lasting relationships works on social.

Large audiences and likable content is absolutely great, but here are some other metrics you might want to pursue:
  • Reach: Post reach is the number of unique users who saw your post. How far is your content spreading across social? Is it actually reaching user’s feeds?
  • Clicks: This is the amount of clicks on your content, company name or logo. Link clicks are critical toward understanding how users move through your marketing funnel. Tracking clicks per campaign is essential to understand what drives curiosity or encourages people to buy.
  • Engagement: The total number of social interactions divided by number of impressions. For engagement, it’s about seeing who interacted and if it was a good ratio out of your total reach. This sheds light on how well your audience perceives you and their willingness to interact.
  • Hashtag performance: What were your most used hashtags on your own side? Which hashtags were most associated with your brand? Or what hashtags created the most engagement?
  • Sentiment: This is the measurement of how users reacted to your content, brand or hashtag. Did customers find your recent campaign offensive? What type of sentiment are people associating with your campaign hashtag? It’s always better to dig deeper and find what people are saying.
  • Organic and paid likes: More than just standard Likes, these likes are defined from paid or organic content. For channels like Facebook, organic engagement is much harder to gain traction, which is why many brands turn to Facebook Ads. However, earning organic likes on Instagram isn’t quite as difficult.

4. Research Your Social Competitive Landscape

Before you start creating content, it’s really smart to investigate your competitors.

We’ll always believe you shouldn’t steal your competitors ideas, but instead learn and grow from their success and failures. So how do you find that information?

The first step is to find out who’s your competition in the first place. The simplest way to find competitors is through a simple Google search.

You can exclude the major retailer, Amazon. Search for those who show up who are in your specific industry. Next you want to see who is active on social.

After gathering a handful of industry competitors, it’s smart to use a social media competitive analysis tool like Sprout Social to track Facebook and Instagram content.

Then you will see post break downs of text, images and video to see what your competitors are doing to drive the most engagement. Once you dig through the competitive analysis, you’ll have a better idea of what your potential customers want.

5. Build & Curate Engaging Social Media Content

Did someone say content?
It’s no lie–social media content is extremely important to your marketing strategy.

Related Articles:
The Five Major Psychological Reasons Why People Share Content
Writing Web Content That Makes People Read, Not Skim It

However, it’s best to follow the previous steps before planning out content.

Facebook LIVE EngagementWe recommend creating content that fits to your brand’s identity. It’s necessary to find the perfect balance between target content and being overly promotional as well.

Remember that video is vital to your social media marketing strategy. As approximately 90% of online shoppers believe product videos help them make a purchasing decision.

Ensure you have a consistent schedule of excellent content to publish that doesn’t get stale.

6. Engage With Your Audience & Don’t Ignore

Social media channels are built as networks. This means their main purpose is to be a space to converse, discuss topics and share content. Your brand can’t forget these core elements of “networking” and it takes effort to ensure conversations or engagement opportunities aren’t left unattended.

Through social media, you gain respect as a brand by just being present and talking to your audience. That’s why social customer care is so important to brands wanting to increase audience awareness. It’s all about engagement.

people-connectedWith all the updated algorithms, organic content has a tough time reaching the majority of your audience. The last thing you want to do is ignore those who engage and lose out on sending more down your marketing funnel.

7. Track Your Efforts & Always Improve

So, how well did you do on your social media marketing strategy? Without continuously analyzing your efforts, you’ll never know how one campaign did over another. Having a bird’s-eye-view of your social media activity helps put things into perspective.

If you work at building lasting relationships, there’s a lot less room for failure with your social media marketing strategy.

Sprout Social LogoUse a Tool to Track Success

Sprout Social prides itself on the in-depth and essential demographics data for your social networks to help you track your success. Learn more with a free 30-day trial to uncover crucial data with Sprout!

Looking for more Easy Online Social Media Marketing Training for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and with coaching?

These G500 online training courses are for people that are beginners or intermediate Social Media Marketers. These courses could also be a great offer for your customers if it suits your businesses adjectives.
Become an Affiliate Today!
FUse Your Smartphone to Make Money Onlineor a LIMITED Time…. We are offering FREE one on one coaching with your choice of Social Media training module from G500 Training…
You can get 100% of your outlay for ALL the training courses
back with ONE referral….

Plus see how to make $1,000 within hours with a simple Get the Paid First Affiliate Program Here!

If you want or need any help connect with us on one of our social media platforms or on our contact us form!

Talk Soon,

Nicky and Dave

 

Social Media Marketing is the process of creating content that you have tailored to the context of each individual social media platform in order to drive user engagement and sharing. Social media marketing includes activities that drives audience engagement.

Facebook is one of the easiest social media sites to get started on and lets you reach the widest possible audience by attracting vast numbers of Facebook “Friends.”

You probably already have a personal Facebook page, but you will want to start a separate one for your business. This is going to be your business’ Facebook Fan Page.

Whenever anybody on Facebook “Likes” your business’ fan page, they automatically become your Friend. Then, whenever you post a status update on your Fan Page, it will be distributed to all of your Fans/Friends.

Collect “Likes” Read more