Social Media tip: How to Increase Blog Engagement With Google+

In today's social media world it doesn't matter, whether you’re the chief creative engineer of a Fortune 500 company blog or you run a personal blog that occupies all but a tiny isle within the massive ocean that is the blog-o-sphere, one thing is for certain: a blog is much better when it’s got an engaged group of passionate followers. You know, people who actually read and comment on all of that stuff you spend so much time producing. But while you probably know that tweeting and Facebooking links to your blogposts is crucial for achieving this goal, it’s important not to overlook Google+ as well. As one of the fastest growing social media sites, G+ has reach, not to mention a number of engagement tools that simply aren’t present on any other social media site.

 

However, these unique tools do make G+ somewhat of a different beast than its competitors. To really use G+ effectively to increase your traffic and social shares and benefit your SEO, it’s important to put some time into mastering the platform.

1. Make it Visual
Sure, Twitter has twitpic and we all post our fair share of photos to Facebook, but few social media sites are quite as visual as Google+. In fact, the only social site that’s remotely in G+’s visual league is Pinterest, which G+ designers seem to have drawn from anyway, given that each post looks very much akin to a pinned image. Generally, this is a good thing for user engagement, as users are much more likely to engage with images as opposed to dense blocks of written text. However, all of those visuals can work to your disadvantage if you post images that are too small or otherwise unprofessional looking. Here are a few ways to get it right.

Take good photos. I know, it sounds obvious, but it’s got to be said. Use a high resolution and edit out all of the distractions. Or, put up the cash for stock photos to keep things professional and interesting. Having high quality photos is always important, but never more so than in your profile’s cover photo, as it will blow up large when followers scroll to the top of your page and it needs to be extra compelling.

Use a full image. When you paste a link to be shared into your G+ status update, the site automatically generates a preview image. But that image will be small, and it can be easy for followers to overlook in their feeds. Click “x” on this option (I’m not just speaking metaphorically here, you really do want to click the “x” on the image) and instead upload your own screenshot of the post yourself using the photo button as pictured below. Doing so will greatly increase the chances your followers will click through to your blog.

 

Photos = content. Photos can be a way to mix things up within written posts on your blog. Or they can be the post itself. You might, for example, have a regular series on your G+ page where you show yourself producing the product you blog about, or you provide a glimpse into the office. This can exist as G+ content on its own to encourage more followers to engage with you there, or it can link back to longer posts on your blog. Either way, photos can make quick, easy and compelling content.

2. Become a Master of the Topic Sentence
I know, I know, you spent so much time writing your blogpost, it’d be so nice to simply copy and paste a link into your update and call it a day. But you’ll have far more people clicking on your links and a much easier time with the search engines if you put a little more energy into crafting a succinct yet relevant and compelling topic sentence to draw readers towards your blogpost.

And if you really want to get found, be sure to place asterisks around your keywords to bold them. Add in a few good hashtags as well so the search engines can better find you for relevant queries.

3. Use Circles Strategically

One of the best features on G+ is Circles, which allows you to easily categorize your followers so you can deliver them only the blogposts they’re most likely to read. You might, for example, have one circle devoted to people who love your blogged recipes and another devoted to those who are all about knitting. The more relevant the posts each member of these circles receive, the much more likely they are to actually click on the link provided and engage with your post. Even better, relevant posts make it much more likely for potential followers to become actual followers by adding you to their own circles, which means your posts are far more likely to come up high in relevant personalized searches on Google. Great stuff!

As you might have guessed, Circles is also a great way to network with your followers, as you can easily click on each circle and see what people within that category have been talking about lately. This makes it easier to jump into relevant conversations to offer your expertise, or even to find new topics to blog about as you spot what’s trending. (Pro Tip: The “What’s Hot” link on the G+ menu will also give you even wider insight into current hot topics).

There is, however, one caveat with Circles. Adding specific names to your post as pictured below will mean that person will get an email from you alerting them of that post.

That’s great when you’re 100% sure the post is relevant and that that particular follower wants to hear from you so consistently, but it also can be interpreted as, you know, spam. Save your direct mentions for only the most hyper-relevant stuff, or solely for when you want to draw a key influencer or expert in that topic area into a dynamic conversation.

4. Find Your Community
Of course, when you’re just starting out on the platform, it can be difficult to find any relevant followers to market to in the first place. Unless, of course, you make use of Google+ Communities. Something between a LinkedIn interest group and a trade show, Communities has a niche for just about everyone. With plenty of topics to engage in, it’s a great place to meet new potential followers and conduct real conversations. As long as you’ve got a compelling About page to go with your witty conversation, communities are a great way to drive people both into your G+ circles and to your site. It’s like in-person networking, with all the benefits of being online.

5. Jump into the Conversation
On a similar note, it’s important that, once you do start gaining followers on the platform, you stay as responsive as possible to comments both on your G+ posts and on your blog as well. People are much more likely to keep coming back if they feel like you respect what they’ve got to say and that you want to hear more. So, respond to all comments, even if it’s just to say, “Thank you!” You should also +1 comments you especially like, and mention commenters directly as you respond so they’re extra-motivated to reply again. (To do this, simply type +username). Tagging people is also a good idea when constructing your post, especially if you tag influencers from whom you’d like a comment.

Another great strategy is to converse through Hangouts. In part Google+’s answer to Skype, Hangouts is oh so much more than that, allowing you to video chat with anywhere from 10 to 15 followers at a time. Not only will this help you better connect with, understand and cater to your readers, but it’s also a form of video content that can later be archived onto YouTube and made forever searchable. You can keep these Hangouts to simple meet and greets, give participants a discussion theme that’s relevant to a recent post, or do a group activity, say, actually assembling that model airplane you blogged about last week. Why not? Hangouts have as much possibility as you can give it.

6. Claim Your Authorship
Quick questionnaire: When you’re searching for something on Google, are you more likely to click on the link to an anonymous article, or to one that features an author bio and profile photo? The answer, whether you know this consciously or not, is the latter. Author bios and photos just make the results seem more trustworthy, expert and reliable. But how to get your photo and bio up there?

Why, by claiming authorship, of course. Doing so is simple: Just go to the authorship page, add your Gmail address, verify your enrollment and you’re pretty much good to go. Make sure to fill out your G+ profile completely so Google has something to pull from for the bio. Doing this will make your posts much more clickable, and it’s great for SEO, too.

The Takeaway
Sure, Google+ is an increasingly popular platform (yes, despite negative hype stating otherwise), but where it really excels is in terms of user engagement tools. Master those tools, and you just might have yourself a much more engaged blog readership.

Social Media Can Do Your Work

When used correctly, social media can be an amazing tool for all types of businesses; but still, there are those ‘old-fashioned’ entrepreneurs out there who can’t trust Facebook, Twitter and the likes to grow their existing customer base.

 

According to the Pew Internet Study, the number of Facebook users in the US over 65 has reached 35% while in 2013, 43% of Americans of 65 years or older were using at least one social networking site like Istagram, Pinterest, Twitter or Tumblr, compared to 26% in 2010 or a mere 1% in 2008.

On Twitter, the 55-64 year age bracket has grown by 79% since year-end 2012, being its fastest growing demographic, while the corresponding numbers for Facebook and Google+ for the 45-54 year age group have leaped over 46 and 56%, respectively.

So why are there still businesses that insist to ignore those fast growing demographics? And why do they fail to target them when they know that these are actually the ones that have money to spend on their products?

Social media is not that complicated!

Here are a few more reasons which might convince you that using social media for business might actually not be such a bad idea:

Brand and Positioning
Strong online presence can only make your product stronger! By knowing your customer base, you’ll definitely be able to build a loyal following base on social media networks. And by doing this, you can only grow bigger and bigger day by day, strengthening your online and offline market presence.

Brand and WOM
Use word of mouth to pave your way into the digital world. When you know your product, you also know your marketing; and when you do your marketing right, people will be happy to talk about it on social media. Getting and monitoring feedback is key; it can actually help you improve your product and the way you do business.

Be Brave, Communicate!
Open communication on social media can be an invaluable business tool, if used correctly! Just think of the amount of information exchanged publicly between you and your current or potential customers! If your communication is genuine, you should only expect the same from your audience.

Dummy Run
You don’t have to be an expert to check upon your metrics or website analytics; don’t be afraid to start using Facebook Insights, which can help you measure your Facebook marketing and engagement efforts, or Google Analytics, which can give you significant information on your site traffic and where that comes from. See for yourself what is driving your ‘Likes’, check which status updates worked and which didn’t, and how your followers responded to that important update!

Bespoke Content
When you own a small local business, or your product ‘works only’ on a specific area, wouldn’t you prefer to be able to offer your services only to those that might actually be interested in or be able to use them? Twitter and Facebook provide the option to localise content and geotarget your posts – why offering an active ‘walk-in’ promotion to your followers outside your area? Just keep it local and relevant, and it will work!

Managing social media for your business definitely requires an integrated approach, and calls for a significant amount of time and effort in building brand awareness through pins and boards, posts, groups, podcasts, tweets and so on. Success of your social media strategy is solely based on your unique presence and your charming and engaging manner.

What do you think? Are you willing to give social media another chance?

Social Media tip: Six Features on Google+ for Promoting Your Business

With so many social media networks now available, you need more than one good reason to get started on yet another site. Google+ is one of the most important sites nowadays, and not just because it receives more than 100 million visits per month. It's also valuable for who you'll find on the site. Google+ is highly populated and visited by people who describe themselves as "decision makers." That includes people in IT, self-employed folks, and yes, even company owners and managers.

Like any site though, you'll need to work to get the attention of this audience, since their feed — just like Facebook and Twitter — is constantly being updated. Follow these six advantageous practices for businesses on Google+ and you'll be on the right track!

Set up Authorship
This is particularly important if your company website runs a blog. By setting up Google+ authorship and linking your page to your company email address, Google will not only personalise your followers' Google search results, but they'll start seeing you as an authority. That means your company page will fare better in the search rankings.

Use Hashtags Every Time
While Google+ is already set up to pull out what it deems the most important word from your post and automatically hashtag it, you can take this a step further. Every time you update your page, add hashtags, or keywords that someone may use to search for your company, at the end of your post. Not only can people find you through that hashtag while they're on Google+, these hashtags are also listed in Google searches.

Manage the Page as Your Business, Not as Yourself
When you set-up your company page, you often first set up your own personal Google+ page that's linked to a Gmail account. Once your personal page is set up, create a company page that's separate from your personal one. This way you can keep your personal and professional pages separate. You can also view your stats for your company page on your dashboard. Just make sure you're on the correct page when you log in!

Participate in Your Community
A wonderful feature of Google+ is the way you can interact with other people who share your interests, or work in the industry that you do. For example, if you're a travel agency, you can join a community like "travel around the world," share photos of places you send your clients, and ask questions of the community, like what kind of tours they like to do while overseas.

In addition to participating on community pages, start a hangout. Think of it as an online party with you as host. You can use this time to answer questions about your company and your offerings, or simply to teach people about your industry.

Get Reviewed
Similar to other review sites, like Yelp, Google+ gives users the ability to review a company, both with stars as well as a space to describe their experience with you. While this functionality can be turned off, it's not recommended for businesses. That's because, like so many features on Google+, the reviews can be seen in Google results. It also lends some credibility to your company. But how do you go about getting reviews? Start including a link to your "about" page — where reviews are housed on Google+ — in any email blasts that you send out to your clients.

Use Various Mediums
Like any social media site, diversifying what you post, and when you post, makes a difference. People don't want to see text update after text update. Rather, stick with updates that make your page more personal, entertaining and informative. GIFs and photos work wonderfully on Google+, as do infographics.

Some Google+ pages, such as this one about water heaters Camillus, NY, even utilise cartoons. Even more importantly, their cartoon of Santa attempting to fix the sink and then calling a plumber was both timely and relevant to their brand. Stick with those two keys — timeliness and brand relevance — and you'll be golden.

Google+ offers an amazing array of functionality for users, both businesses and individuals alike. By starting with the functionality above, you'll be able to create a niche for yourself while also helping your company in the search rankings, just what any good social media should do.

Yahoo Buys Rockmelt, Tumblr

Yahoo Inc. has acquired Rockmelt and Tumblr. RockMelt is a new web browser that takes an appealing approach to web browsing.This happened in the same week as Facebook acquired Branch Media. It was developed by Tim Howes and Eric Vishria and was founded on the Google Chromium project, integrating social media features such as Facebook chat, Twitter notifications and widgetised areas for other content providers. Yahoo! obtained it on August 2, 2013. Tumblr, which has center of operations at 35 East 21st Street in the Flatiron District in New York City's Silicon Alley, was founded by David Karp. On May 20, 2013, it was declared that Yahoo! and Tumblr had agreed for Yahoo! to own Tumblr for $1.1 billion.

 

Yahoo's outbreak of mobile-focused technology acquirements illustrates no signs of ever going back. It disbursed a massive $60m-$70m for Rockmelt. Terms of the deal were not unveiled, but the 4-year-old startup promptly pronounced that it will be closing down its present apps and website.

The founders of Rockmelt blogged that Yahoo! and Rockmelt partake a familiar objective: To aid people determine the finest content from around the Web. As a result, the union was definitely not going to result in a disappointment for Rockmelt users.

Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer has wanted to drastically vary the company's sober image. Her keynote speech in Las Vegas was simply the most recent on a journey that has concluded in Yahoo! catching the attention of more Internet users to its sites than competitors like Google. She has also supervised the acquisition of other companies, including Summly, Astrid and GoPollGo.

She revealed an innovative technology news site, led by previous New York Times journalist David Pogue, a website on food, and the News Digest app by Nick D'Aloisio.

In the short four and a half years that Rockmelt, the Rockmelt team said that it had discovered a lot about how people like to surf the web, discover content, and partake the great stuff they've found. They said that Rockmelt had taught them a ton. And their plan is to put everything they've discovered to labour at Yahoo!. A Yahoo! representative told Reuters that Rockmelt's technology will assist the company to "deliver content in new ways".

Rockmelt was under pressure to draw attention to its various apps in the months prior to the attainment, according from Mattermark. Web traffic appeared to be on the brink, with their site receiving around 650,000 visitors per month. iTunes weekly downloads were also down considerably.

A Yahoo! speaker informed CNET that thirty-two Rockmelt employees have already joined Yahoo’s media and mobile organization. They aren't going to talk about specifics, but they plan to incorporate the Rockmelt technology into their media platform in order to bring content in new and exciting ways.

As Ms Mayer said, it is increasingly becoming difficult to find the news you need or want. This difficulty has paved way to the excuse that everyone is now willing to give: ''too long; didn't read''.

Yahoo! ended up with a turnover close to $US570 million ($634 million) last year and that is still one of the world's principal news sources. Based on AllThingsD, in its report, they cited that Yahoo! CFO Ken Goldman said the company must be a centre of attention for more Internet users in their 20's. Goldman said that one of the main challenges they faced is that they have had a developing demographic.

Concerning Tumblr, Ms Mayer said that Yahoo can only do a purchase of this size and scale if they find an outstanding company. Clearly, going by Yahoo's standards, Tumblr is one such company.

Ms Mayer and the Yahoo! Board, which voted on the acquirement over the weekend, are hopeful that Tumblr is one of the answers to making the company a real tech player once more. Mayer stated that the companies as one will be in a position to form a very huge media network.

Ms Mayer said that part of their approach here is to let Tumblr be Tumblr.

Yahoo's CEO reiterated in a company announcement that it will "not screw up". Its plan is to maintain Tumblr an autonomously operated business with David Karp, Tumblr's 26-year-old founder and CEO, enduring on. Tumblr permits users to produce their own blogs, follow other blogs on the network and like them or reblog posts.

Karp announced on Tumblr's official news page that they are not adopting the characteristic purple color that comes with most Yahoo products. He also said that they won’t be changing their headquarters, their roadmap, mission or team.

Tumblr was founded in February 2007. With 175 employees and more than 108 million blogs, it boasts of over 300 million monthly unique visitors and 120,000 signups every day. According to their statistics, 90 million posts are placed on the social media site every day. It came into view as a fashionable online hangout by offering a service that makes it easy to contribute to blog posts, photos, video and other content. The service states that it has combined more than 50 billion posts from 108 million blogs. More than half of Tumblr users depend on a dashboard to locate the types of blogs that they would like to follow and also have tools to pass on the posts that concern them.

Yahoo! CEO said in a declaration that on many stages, Tumblr and Yahoo! couldn't be more diverse, but, at the same time, they couldn't be more complementary. Yahoo is the Internet's original media network while Tumblr is the internet's emergent media frenzy.

Business Insider states that searching Tumblr using the keyword "Yahoo" brings a number of posts by users who are complaining about the purchase. In fact, one user has already initiated an online petition to stop the progress of the arrangement. The result? Only time will tell.

Despite the optimism shown by both companies, some financial analysts think Yahoo! paid too much for the company. An analyst with investment firm Morningstar, Rick Summer, said the "deal is probably overpriced" in his analyst note. While this may be a possibility, let's hope Yahoo! did their homework well in the negotiations and that they will be able to make something out of the agreement.

How social media can affect your credit rating

A preparation to analyse data mining of social-networking sites funded by Germany's major credit-reporting agency elicited fury after internal documents on the project were leaked to German media channels.

Spiegel Online stated that data collected from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Street View and a number of other social networks could be utilized for "identifying and assessing the projections and threats" as well as determining "the existing opinions of a person."

In recent years, on the other hand, the uses of social media have developed. It's not just a means of expressing yourself; staying connected with family and colleagues and marketing your small business any more. It has also become a tool for employers to check on your professional and personal credibility. To express yourself freely with strong opinions on political, economic and social issues as well as posting pictures of your weekend out with friends could end up being used by your prospective employer to determine whether you will be chosen for the job you applied for or not.

As silly as it sounds — employers visiting prospective employees' Facebook accounts — there are far more insane disadvantages that come with using social media sites. Top in the list of these disadvantages is identity theft, followed by credit card scams, fraud, and other types of scams which usually happen to people who are unlucky enough to find themselves on the wrong side of online data violations and hacking.

Long-established credit score models look at usual signs of creditworthiness that include length of employment, past payment history and the salary. Now, a new credit scoring method is stepping ahead of the status quo and looking into an applicant’s social media account. Did you forgetfully or out of ignorance decide not to use capital letters for some proper nouns? If so, you drop a few points. Are you an all-caps sort of guy? That's another few points out.

Sounds frightening? Both politicians and common Germans thought so too, and there was a civic outcry. German credit agency Schufa insists that the project was done within the range of German privacy laws, yet the backlash incited the university it authorized to conduct the study to yield out of what was supposedly a three-year project, and the credit agency announced that it wouldn't follow the initiative.

Privacy experts declare this is a shot across the bow. Paul Stephens, executive of policy and advocacy at the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse said that social-media data represents a potential trouble in lots of situations.

Although I recognize that Lenddo and the other companies cited in the CNNMoney.com article are supplying credit to individuals and smaller businesses that can't reach funds through traditional resources, ransacking over a social media profile to conclude creditworthiness is a bit disturbing.

Even though the German venture was stopped shortly after its start, a mixture of factors makes it improbable that this swift retreat will stop the broader privacy war over the said issue. For one thing, there's just too much cash to be made: credit collections and reporting is a $20 billion business. The American privacy laws are in addition much more lenient when compared to those of European nations. Most imperative, the data is there for the claiming: Americans are disturbingly offhand about what they post online and how much data they expose to the general public.

One such company is financing company Kabbage, which gets information from companies' online payment accounts including PayPal and eBay accounts to know credit worthiness, and also transfer loan money in seconds, according to FBN.

It's also significant to specify that according to Randy Padawer, vice president of credit repair services at LexingtonLaw.com, these companies are supposedly looking at customers overseas in the Philippines, Mexico and Colombia, rather than in the US. In this case, those who have recognized credit histories won't be considered for this kind of monitoring.

He said that a well-established payment account is the best predictor of potential payment history. Despite the fact that Lenndo has detached a statistical correlation between who an individual's friends are, and their credit histories, that will never be as a strong predictor.

Padawer also said that definite subprime lenders who now have great difficulty now predicting who will be in a position to pay back any money lent to them prior to lending from a group that is under depository may find it helpful to have any metric that can assist predict credibility. However, if you have a normal credit score — it won't be an issue who your Facebook friends are.

Even as it may be against the law to utilize this information to ruthlessly settle on lending guidelines, Detweiler says it doesn't mean to say that it isn't going to happen. Consumers should be careful with what they post online, as private data can effortlessly become public knowledge on social media.

She said that as consumers, you have to be very vigilant because if someone is not legitimately using that data, it doesn't imply that they aren't illegally using it. Your local bank, your debt collector or your landlord could notice what you are posting on Facebook, and they may choose to use that information against you. They may not have the grounds to use it legally, but there will definitely be many ways that they can use this information.

How much of a danger are you in if you go about venting about a speeding ticket or liking/following every bar in your town? To figure this out is an attention-grabbing academic riddle. It is also the Holy Grail for some digital-marketing companies, credit agencies and other platforms that gather and organise consumer information — and it could harm consumers.

As recommended by the CEO of a payment processing service namely WePay, checking and examining social data might be more cost-effective and more precise in determining one's individual history or in determining whether a specific business is lawful or not (mostly because of Twitter's and Facebook's time lines). What would possible employers, banks, lenders, and credit card companies be looking after? The videos and photos you post, together with your general behaviour to a particular bank, Credit Company or utility company could all be probable factors in assessing your social media reputation.

Twitter experiments with new auto account

Twitter has quite a number of experiments within their social network. Most of these experiments involve something like 'internal applications' that permit different functions within the network. An illustration of these experiments is, Event Parrot, which notifies users about the most recent happening in the world through direct message or Magc Res, which is an engine that suggests followers relying on the user's contact list for propose minded people.

Twitter has initiated a new experiment, similar to the preceding experiment namely Internal Achievement Bird. This new experiment intends to send Twitter users a DM each day with statistics for each user account, i.e. any retweets, direct messages, report any mentions and other account activities.

Achievement Bird is developed and maintained by Google. It basically gives users notifications of any achievements that surround any of their content. This account seeks to replace the many external applications that supposedly achieve the same purpose. Potentially, this account is more useful for the users because unlike the external applications, it doesn't collect any data other than what it ought to.

At present, it is indefinite whether the Achievement Bird will turn out to be available to all users on Twitter as an alternative to external applications. Presently it is only accessible to confirmed businesses accounts. The other Twitter users will have to wait and see if the social network will decide to make the Achievement Bird available to everyone.

This account will send users e-mail messages when a user makes an "achievement" on a tweet. This means that the Twitter account will send email messages about how any certain tweet has been received by the other Twitter users. Despite the fact that the @AchievementBird account is confined, it has started getting a number of followers in the past few days.

Twitter's @AchievementBird is the newest in a string of experimentations in the form of an authentic Twitter account. Other experiments consist of @MagicRecs, which sends users recommendations of people they may be interested in following and tweets to examine. Another one is the @eventparrot, which sends out email messages about tweets on the latest news. Twitter begins these innovative features to a partial percentage of users as a test before they are released to the entire Twitter population. The social networking site has been trying out a number of experimental features on its website to encourage users and, in due course, bring in more funds. Twitter is sprawling behind Facebook with more than 231.7 million average monthly users and $168.6 million in income in the third quarter of 2013.

 

Twitter already suggests these same statistics by means of its ads.twitter.com platform, and also other services offer basic stats on tweets and account performance. It may be gambling that direct messages are the most suitable way to get this data to attracted users and recompense their daily undertakings.

Another experiment that the social network had tried includes the modification of the 'block' feature that allows individuals to cut all communication from specific troublesome users. The network decided that this alteration to its block feature was not in the finest interest of the users, repealing the new element just a day after it was launched.

The social media giant had brought in a revision to the block feature that allowed users to delete comments made by 'blocked' users on their Twitter timeline, but the blocked user would still be capable of following them and replying to their messages. According to the US Today, this fundamentally changed the status of the blocked user from 'blocked' to 'muted'.

This change was straight away met with fury (as well as a trending hash tag #restoretheblock), as users protested that the modification would allow the blocked users to cause trouble and bother to others on the site. This reaction is one of the reasons why Twitter decided to return the block feature to the social networking site.

In a blog post, Michael Sippey, the social networking giant's Vice President of products said that they have come to a decision to revert the alteration after receiving criticism from many users. They never want to set up features at the cost of Twitter users feeling less safe.

Sippey included that the social networking site will "explore features" to stop abuse on the site. Twitter also restructured its app for iOS and Android, presenting an easier messaging feature that now permits users to send photos.

The Twitter modification for iOS and Android furthermore gives its users the ability to move around to diverse timelines with an easy swipe, meaning Discover, Home and Activity can all currently be retrieve in one move.

The messaging feature was also adjusted for accessibility. It is now showed notably in the navigation bar at the base of the screen, instead of in the "Me" part.

Twitter's DM tool now lets users to view and send photos. Users can also observe these photos on twitter.com. The update to direct messages is the first noteworthy change to the feature since it was first revealed seven years ago. It was announced in October 2013 that any person following a user could send the followed user a direct message, but it reversed course abruptly after launching the DM change. Despite the fact that Direct Messages are still confined to a 140-character limit (same applies for tweets), it still comes out as an authentic messaging service. At around the time when the change to messaging was being done, there is still the rigid, well-established opposition within the social media society. Instagram on the other hand is also supposedly considering incorporating a private messaging feature.

Amidst current reports that Facebook will buy Bangalore-based Little Eye Labs, Twitter also seems to be prepared to make a splash in India, according to Tech Crunch. Facebook's competitor is "eyeing" Bangalore-based Frrole that sorts throughout the half a billion tweets a month to present insight about its users, with Tech Crunch's resources asserting that the companies are bargaining a way to make the purchase work.

Another experimental account of Twitter, called @magicheadlines, is expectedly associated to this effort, as it asserts to allow the user see where tweets are set in around the web.

Facebook Acquires Branch Media Team

Facebook has purchased another start-up namely Branch and Potluck. Branch is the startup behind Potluck, which is a link sharing service and the conversation service dubbed Branch. Josh Miller, who is Branch Media Team's co-founder, is the one who broke the news about the purchase it on Facebook. Financial details of the transaction were not unveiled, but The Verge attached the value at "around $15 million". The 10-person group won't have to change place as it will be creating a fresh conversations team in charge of creating Branch "at Facebook scale".

Branch is a smart and dynamic startup that has created a number of fun and functional internet products. Branch also initiated Potluck, which presents a great interface for talking about Web findings with colleagues. In recent times, the company made public via social media news sources a digital chatting service for the present workforce, Chitchat, as well as the 'Phone Tag' app that aims at making it effortless to connect with hard-to-reach buddies and family in a special way.

Branch Media puts forward two services: Branch, a policy for hosting and distributing invite-only conversations, and Potluck, a Web and mobile app that is intended to provide a platform for friends to talk about any interesting stuff they find online. Both are anticipated to continue working outside of Facebook.

Branch permits users have invite-only discussions around social content. Potluck promotes conversation by allowing users to partake links with pals and even strangers.

 

When co-founder Josh Miller announced it on Facebook, he said his team will be creating an innovative Conversations group, whose base will be in New York City. He said that the goal of this group would be to help people interact with others around their concerns. He also added that even if the products they form will be suggestive of Branch and Potluck, those services will remain to live outside Facebook.

His post is insufficient on details (he said he's presently on vacation and just posted because he was told that "the account was going to be disclosed"), but The Verge reports that the cost was $15 million.

Branch Media's shareholders consist of Obvious Corp, Lerer Ventures, SV Angel, Betaworks, and others. The startup reportedly was able to come up with an initial funding of $2 million.

What Branch is working on is still a complex problem regardless of the countless conversational platforms individuals have all around. The main problem particularly lies in finding how to include an intelligent conversation in a place that materializes to increasingly more value, speed, brevity and 'viral' content.

It's also right, however, that the company has struggled to build up an audience. It began as an invitation-only area that attempted to produce a space for bright conversation among well-informed sources about significant or appealing topics — so a conversation that started on Twitter, for instance, could shift to a Branch and increase further. But the platform has limited its prospective reach.

Mr Miller thought the idea of Branch was to reorganize online conversations given that they're usually flooded by many users in his 2012 Betabeat profile.

He incorporated a big 'thank you' to his shareholders. This included Twitter, which was founded by Biz Stone and also Evan Williams.

There are two distinctive things about this purchase:

Branch raised a sum of $2 million from some prestigious investors and one of them was obviously The Obvious Corporation which was formed by Twitter creators Biz Stone and Evan Williams.
Jelly, a just in progress on Q&A app by Twitter creator Biz Stone was the earliest to proclaim this news. A user asked this inquiry - "What took place [to] Branch? The company has been silence. Are they concentrating on the Potluck app now?".

It is sensible that Facebook would desire to obtain a startup much as Branch Media. It has made especially clear its purposes of developing into the pioneer in social conversations. Facebook announced last month that the company would prioritise concrete news above memes in the feed to create more real-time conversation.

The administrators of the company, and this group, will be a component of Facebook, but go on to toil in New York. The mission group of Branch Media Team is going to contribute to amending the selections users get. Miller and his group will be beginning with the group's conversations on Facebook, and will concentrate on developing products related to what had been shaped in Branch Media. The point of these is to assist users of the site to take part in a variety of discussions based on their personal concerns.

The reason why Facebook has bought the company is unknown for sure. The amount is also not known. While the company over the last two years has concentrated on generating products the current consumer will discover useful and insightful, Facebook has directed most of its attention on inventing products that monetise its uses. Who knows? With these two trends in mind, this could be the start of products that every user will be happy to pay for thanks to their usefulness.

 

Miller went on to include that: "Even though the products we construct will be suggestive of Branch and Potluck, those services will exist on remote of Facebook. A more considerate note and particulars to come soon yet I am writing this randomly from a mountain in Japan."

The attainment of Branch could mean that Facebook wants to improve on the methods that are used by its users to make discussions, and the social network will require a lot of assistance to make that happen. This is the initial step and we're fascinated in considering what happens next.

Nobody knows how much of the original Branch or Potluck will be seen in the outcome of the working together of these two companies. However, one thing is certain; if this is carried out successfully, the result will be a better user experience for Facebook users and massive exposure for products from Branch Media Team.

Why CMO's Need to Join the Social Media Conversation

Social advertising spending will reach $11 billion a year by 2017, up from $4.7 billion in 2012, according to a BIA/Kelsey report released last year. This explosive growth will be driven by increased spending on advertising formats native to social media, such as video and mobile marketing, which will reshape traditional display ads into forms suited for socially-engaged audiences. For chief marketing officers and PR professionals, this trend will require breaking away from the one-way communication paradigm associated with traditional TV advertising and news, and embracing a new approach to broadcasting where audiences are active participants in the conversation.

Social TV Advertising

Last year, Nielsen began including TV-related Twitter conversations in its traditional ratings system, with the results revealing how dramatically social media has expanded television advertising's potential outreach. Twitter conversation about live TV grew 24 percent year-over-year between the second quarters of 2012 and 2013, expanding to 19 million unique people and 263 million tweets. Results showed that for every person tweeting about a live show, fifty more were following the Twitter conversation. This multiplier effect vastly extends the outreach of TV ads beyond their initial audience to viewers' social networks, making it imperative to factor the potential for follow-up sharing into ad concepts.

Television's social turn reflects how stationary TV screens are becoming increasingly integrated with their mobile counterparts on multiple fronts. In a broadband age, consumers who used to receive television, computer, and phone services as separate items can now compare TV and internet providers who offer bundled packages delivered over the same wireless network. Digital media players such as Apple TV, Roku, Google Chromecast, and the forthcoming Amazon Firetube enable broadcasts to be shared between devices, according to The Verge. Ad producers are exploiting this merger of media by designing formats such as Vine videos that can play on both traditional and mobile screens, inviting home audiences to share conversations with remote friends, as Adweeek reveals.

Viral Promotional Content

The rise of Vine videos illustrates how social conversations about multimedia content are driving viral campaigns. Mashable explains how the Harlem Shake fad, one of the top YouTube phenomena of 2013, showed how encouraging audiences to get into the video production act could push content distribution to viral proportions. Mobile users were also eager to share photos and graphics with their friends, propelling Instagram to expand its audience by 66 percent in 2013 and come within a percentage point of Twitter's market share, according to Pew research. Conversation-generating content is proving a winning formula for maximizing audience outreach.



Discussion-driven Search Engine Rankings

Social conversations are also weighing into search engine marketing. An annual Moz study found a strong correlation between Google +1 button endorsements and search engine rankings. Analysis indicated that +1 endorsements have a ripple effect, resulting in content sharing that creates organic backlinks. Experiments by media companies such as the Los Angeles Times and Huffington Post have found that embedded Facebook comments can give content a comparable boost. For PR professionals, generating social discussion is becoming increasingly vital for staying relevant to the marketing conversation.

8 Ways to Keep Your Social Media Updates Fresh

Small business owners managing their own social media often ask the same question: "How can I keep my updates fresh and engaging?"

It's no easy task. If one were to poll marketers and business owners alike, he or she would find that creativity and the challenge of keeping updates from becoming stale is a top concern in social media. Luckily, at Omnicore Agency, our team of social media experts never run out of good ideas.

 

Taking a page from their book – and asking their recommendations – we've compiled a list for you to use the next time you get stuck on what to write, or for those moments when you need your content to pop, or those instances where you want to take what you've been doing to the next level. No matter what your social media challenge, these tips for keeping your social media updates fresh are sure to make managing your social channels a whole lot easier -and more successful!

• Don't Always Talk About Yourself: This is the key to success in social media. Don't just share links to your site or overly promotional posts. Be human, be conversational, and talk about the good words of others, including sharing their content, their links, or their creations (with credit, of course)!
• Check the Date: No idea what to post? Check the calendar! Each month - or even each day or week, for that matter – plays host to a variety of holidays, awareness weeks, and events. Find the ones that tie in to your business and find a way to connect with your audience over those occasions. Not only is it timely, but it's also unique. Try implementing date or time-specific promotions through social media that relate to the occasion, host chats or streams using hashtags relating to that event to raise awareness and generate conversation, or create graphics associated with that specific event and share them throughout your social channels.
• Crowdsource: Your social networks are a goldmine of opportunity for content, so source from them on occasion when you need a break. Ask for photo submissions for a contest, or retweet their answers to a poll, prompt, or question. It gets the conversation going and has the potential to grow your audience at the same time. Bottom line: ask for their input!
• Quotations and Questions: Questions and quotations are always good for sharability and engagement.

Quotations are good for more inspirational or lighter topics – for an added bonus, turn that quote into a graphics that's pinable and sharable for maximum impact. When choosing quotes, go for something fitting for that day, a particular topic, or just your industry in general. If you can, find a way to connect it back to your own business by sharing that quote and then linking to a content piece you've created that uses that quote or connects back to it in some way. Alternately, post a quote and then ask a question relating to its contents to try to ignite some feedback.

Questions alone, on the other hand, are good for getting valuable feedback and sparking conversation. Just make sure the questions aren't too complicated or too controversial. Think of questions you might ask in a focus group or customer survey, or go for the conversational/laid-back sort of questions one might find in small talk – you may be surprised on who you connect with! Speaking of questions, also use your social channels to answer them. If you have FAQs, do a Q&A post series and then make that content perform double duty by turning those Q&A updates into a blog post or other content piece. Answer questions builds credibility and connects with the customer.

• Add Visuals: Adding videos, photos, or graphics instantly makes your status update more attractive, plus, it boosts your potential to have it shared across multiple channels (research shows it!) . Take the time to enrich a post with a photo or a video you've created – you'll be surprised at the increased levels of engagement you'll see as a result.
• Make the Next Step: Post a teaser of something and then link to the content or landing page where they can get more info or explore something more indepth. Think calls to action when you make your updates!
• Search for Sources: Stuck on where to find the topic of your next tweet or status update? Check these standby sources for new information and inspiration:

• Today's Headlines: current events are always a great way to generate conversation. Just approach with caution and make sure you're choosing topics that are relevant and reflective of your brand in a positive way.
  Industry blogs or websites: see what the buzz is in your industry and share it with your audiences!
  Your competitor's websites and media channels: if your competitors are writing, tweeting, or blogging about it, it's valuable – look at what they're doing and see how you can do it better.
  YouTube: videos are great ways to look at a topic from a visual angle. Look for industry relevant videos and see how they might be shared or turned into a status update.
• Flickr: like YouTube, Flickr can also be a great way to get inspiration for a status update, simply by looking at a topic from a more visual angle.
• Pinterest: do a search or two for phrases relevant to your industry and see what content is out there – can you create something similar or better to share?
• Slideshare.net: look for slideshows for snippets of information that are ultra-sharable through social media and may inspire presentations of your own.
• Your swipe file: if you don't have one, you need one! Here's how to make one.
• 
  
• Your latest newsletter: look through your latest email marketing blasts – is there something there that could be shared through social media too?
•  Your blog: check your blog for recent posts and see if you can condense down your post takeaways into tweetable, shareable, or Facebookable snippets.
• Short and Sweet: Research shows that on Facebook, shorter posts tend to perform better in terms of engagement and views, so keep that in mind when making an update. Don't be afraid to make a short exclamation and let it roll from there.

These are just a handful of tips (there are countless more and we'd love to hear some of yours in the comments!) for keeping social media updates fresh. The key thing is to not do the same thing over and over again. You know this as a common sense takeaway, but it can be tempting to do so. Remember that Mark Twain quote about insanity – it's when you do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. Don't do only the same things!

Article Source: http://socialmediatoday.com/salman-aslam/2059286/8-ways-keep-your-social-media-updates-fresh

Best Ways to Promote a Sale on Social Media

Today, most marketers recognize the value of social media in promoting their products. Whether you design websites or own a cupcake shop, social media allows you to connect with millions of potential customers. Many businesses find that even a little work on a few sites can yield a high return on investment.

However, you may not be clear on how to best use social media to procure sales. There is often a fine line between not offering enough promotions and posting so often that it annoys your followers. While you do want to be noticed, you don’t want followers to unsubscribe from your page. Here are some tips for how to best use social media to procure sales.

Hold a Contest

Who doesn't love the opportunity to win free stuff? Contests are great ways to both attract new followers and engage your existing customers. Holding a contest may not boost your sales immediately, but it will help you in the long run. Whether you hold a one-time contest for playground equipment or give away small items each week, people love the idea of receiving something for free. Waiting for the results of a contest can be fun and exciting, and it's for that reason that people often share contests with their own friends and followers.

If you do hold a contest on social media, just make sure you aren't violating any of the platform’s rules. For example, on Facebook you can’t require users to like your page before they enter the contest. As long as you stay ethical, though, a contest is a fun way to boost your following.

Offer Special Sales or Promotions

Offering discount codes or similar promotions via social media is great incentive for users to follow you on the sites. People of all ages and demographics love sales. There's just something exhilarating about receiving a great product for a fraction of the original price. In fact, many users follow a brand on social media in the hopes that they'll receive a discount.

Interact with Users

Social media is primarily a communications tool. That’s why you need to make sure you're engaging with customers in addition to offering discounts and promotions. If customers are having a discussion, jump in, especially if it doesn't directly involve the promotion of your products. Personal interaction shows customers you care and are willing to listen.

Also, be sure to post high-quality, engaging content in addition to sales and discount codes. Posting a link to an interesting blog or news article will often pique a customer's interest. Sharing an article may not immediately lead to a sale, but it will build your relationship with your customers.

Time Your Posts

Timing is everything in the world of social media. If you post too infrequently, you won't be at the forefront of your customers' minds. On the flip side, you could annoy your followers if you post too much. How frequently you post content depends to a large extent on the type of platform you're using. On Twitter, it's fine to tweet a few times a day, but on Facebook a few times a week may be more than enough. With any site, be sure you're alternating promotional posts with those aimed at engaging your customers.

Keep these tips in mind as you continue to tweak your social-media campaign. As long as you’re patient, engage your customers and try to have fun while doing it, you’ll be successful at driving sales through social media.

3 Ways to Become a More Visual Social Butterfly

More and more, it seems like people don’t use the internet to read. They use the internet to see. Whether they’re clicking through photos on their friend’s Facebook wall, pinning recipes they want to try, or watching cats do hilarious things on YouTube, users want visuals. And not just any visuals, they’re drawn to images that pop, images that make an emotional impact, images that are useful. It explains the popularity of sites like Pinterest and Instagram and apps like SnapChat. People just love sharing images.

But how do brands fit into this? According to Digital Insights, who compiled an impressive number of social media statistics for the year 2013, surprisingly well. According to a survey, 46% of web users turn to social media before making a purchase. While they’re on those networks, it is the visual information that stands out. Socially Sorted, who published an infographic on the subject of the increasingly visual social landscape, explains that users are more likely to engage with brands who post pictures more than any other type of media. In addition, photos on Facebook get 53% more likes than any other kind of content.

Okay, you’re convinced. Now how can your business become more visual? Keep reading for some great advice!

Less Words, More Images

Next time you’re about to post to your social media account, stop and think for a moment. Would this post be better-expressed or more successful with a beautiful image alongside it? The answer will be yes 99% of the time. Show, don’t tell.

But how do you come up with these images? If you don’t have a professional photographer or designer on board, try purchasing stock photos or using Creative Commons images. If those won’t do and you’re not a great photographer, slap a filter or some words over it and no one will be any the wiser!

Be the Source of Creative New Content

Did you know that 80% of all pins on Pinterest are re-pins? That means that 80% of the images on Pinterest are just re-shared images that somebody else pinned to the site originally! And although Facebook’s image sharing works in a different way, the number of content creators is still relatively small compared to the number of content sharers.

Take advantage of this by being the source of interesting content that people want to share. Quotes, memes, and videos share well on Facebook, and quotes, infographics, and tutorial-style images do well on Pinterest. Depending on where you want to grow your audience, keep in mind what does best on each platform. A highly-detailed image explaining pricing for web design might be extremely successful on Pinterest, where long and tall images have the advantage, but cropped and squeezed onto a Facebook feed it won’t do as well.

Crowdsource Visual Content

Some of the most successful social contests involve user-submitted images. In this type of contest, your fans and followers create an original image according to your guidelines and submit it to you. At the same time they share it with their own friends and followers. Their followers see it and may choose to participate as well, expanding the reach of your contest. Even after the contest is over and the prize has been awarded, you have a unique gallery of creative images that followers might enjoy.

To see an example of this, look no further than Colonel Meow’s “Cat Fro” photo album. Since he is one of the most widely-followed cats on Facebook, fans seeking their moment of fame were quick to stick their cat on top of their head, snap a photo, and start submitting images. Even though the collection is no longer being added to, the album is still full of cat afro photos to see and share.

Hopefully these three tips will help you become more visual on social media. Just remember, don’t tell when you can show, create instead of curating at least some of the time, and take advantage of crowdsourcing when possible.

The best social media platform for brands in 2013

A recent study reviewed different brands on social media that had more than 25 fans, abd it looked at the 4 most popular platforms; Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Instagram. The study, carried out by SumAll, revealed that Instagram came out on top, for being the best platform for brands.

SumAll is an analytics tool which analyses over a 100,000 businesses on social networks, checking over 290 billion actions a year. “With increases in fan/follower engagement nearly three times that of other networks studied, Instagram is the clear winner for 2013”, SumAll CEO, Dan Atkinson, said. From here, it sounds as if you have a physical and visual product, you should be on Instagram. Otherwise, you'd be missing out on important brand awareness and revenue.

From the study, you can see that Instagram created more new followers in 2013. Brands which were on Instagram have seen on average a growth of 7% on engagement and new followers. U.S brands on Instagram have also said the platform had created an extra 5% in revenue as well. But this wasn't only isolated to the US brands in the UK have found that Instagram has caused nearly a 4% rise in revenue.

However, Instagram isn't the only platform that is solely with the likes of Tumblr and Pinterest being very popular, with Pinterest being the fastest growing network in 2013 and also being the best network at driving traffic to your desired destination. So next year we could be left with a different leader. It justs shows the popularity of theses picture platforms and how well they are doing.

Many critics will then look to Twitter to see that certain brands have millions of followers and post near enough every hour of the day with a mixture of different content from headlines to photo's. This is where it could be the downfall of Twitter, as many users see their favourite celeb promoting a specific product. From here they will now know that this celebrity is endorsing this product and sending the same message out to a huge amount of followers, however, 9 times out 10 these celebs have been paid to promote that product. Which is something everyone will know.

Platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest have created organic engagement which everyone can see it's not fake, which again makes brands even more popular as they are perceived as being well liked by the public.

So, whatever happens in 2014, in 2013 we have learnt that visual stimulation is a great way to create awareness for your brand. However, you may have different preferred platform for your business. The best way to get results is to experiment until you find out what works best for your brand. This could be posting a different range of content, or something specific. Using several platforms or just using a few. The only way to find out what works best is by trying everything.

InstaChat - Instagram launches Instagram Direct

Instagram announced on its blog yesterday that it was joining the direct message party, allowing users to send messages as well as pictures and videos in private to 15 of their followers. They have jumped on the bandwagon to try and complete with similar platforms such as Snapchat and Whatsapp. But the history of social media suggests it won't be easy at all for Instagram to attract users away from platforms that have had this function.

Facebook revealed the new features on Thursday, showing off the new private messaging features, and 'the extent of its Snapchat envy', as Scott Marlin and USA Today put it. Instagram direct is widely thought to be a reply to the rise of Snapchat. For those that don't know, Snapchat allows friends to send pictures and videos which deletes themselves after a few seconds, similar to the messages Tom Cruise receives in Mission Impossible! But it also begs the question; did Facebook implement this feature as their offer to purchase Snapchat was turned down?

Instagram doesn't directly rip off the Snapchat features, as these pictures that are sent privately won't delete themselves. You can only send the direct message to 15 people as well and they must follow you. Still though it still feels like a response to Snapchat's ever growing popularity and as history suggests it's going to be hard for Instagram to take a chunk out of Snapchats following.

Social media history has proven that once something has been successful, the competitors that try to copy and recreate it, just don't have the same success. For example, look at Google+; this has been Google's most successful attempt at competing with Facebook and, although the amount of users is growing, its still not in the same league. There is a long list of competitors that tried copying what others are doing and that have just failed; the likes of Google Buzz, Yahoo Buzz and Apples Ping have all failed however Ping is being incorporated using Facebook and Twitter.

So the question needing to be asked is why have some of the largest tech companies failed at creating a social network. One suggestion is that online networks grow like offline networks. So just copying what your competitors means you won't get the same audience, nor create the same culture successful networks have been able to create.

But, obviously, we don't know if Instagram Direct will fail; it could be a huge success. What has happened in the past suggests that just copying similar features won't be enough to attract an audience. So this could cause Facebook to go back and try to purchase Snapchat again in 2014; however, it seems Google will be looking into this as well after reportedly having a 4 billion dollar off rejected as well.