The Unofficial Rulebook of Social Media

Y2K came and left in more or less a drunken murmur. Sixteen years and multiple “end of the world” warnings later, we have found ourselves in the middle of the Social Media Age.

If you’re reading this at all, you probably clicked on it through a link on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Crazily enough, those are the EXACT platforms that I’m going to cover today! What are the chances?

To begin, yes, you probably know plenty about each platform to make it through your day-to-day life happy and carefree. BUT what if you want to promote an event, a show, a business, or a random cat video? Knowing how, when, and where to share content like this is necessary in order to have a successful presence online.  

Think of it this way, your social media presence is an online portfolio (at this point, the word “online” is redundant) for your friends, family, and potential employers to view who you are, what you stand for, and what poorly landed jokes you think are actually funny. If anything, they know more about you due to this online presence than they know about you in real life, unless you’re constantly physically seeing all 1,038 friends you have on Facebook.

So without further ado, let’s look at each platform in more detail.

Facebook

Ahhh, the epitome and crux of the ever-changing digital media age. Oftentimes ahead of the game, Facebook evolves faster than the consumer wishes, changing preferences and layout seemingly on a whim without care for the angry user.  

Facebook is the foundation for everything else that occurs, linking the other channels together in one cohesive place.  Taking advantage of this opportunity is paramount to its usage and effectiveness, but understanding how to utilize it appropriately is way more difficult.

Many could argue that there is no right or wrong way to use Facebook, but those people are the same people that think the tomato is a fruit.

Facebook is the modern day scrapbook. For those who don’t know what a scrapbook is, it’s what couples in the ’90s sometimes made each other in a relationship to remember all the memories they had with each other breaking up, leaving a book of broken memories gathering dust in a rarely opened cabinet.  

As a scrapbook, it is a place for pictures, text, news, and trends to work together in a synthesized way. So don’t post just text. Don’t post just pictures. In fact, Facebook is much smarter than your scrapbook. It knows the difference between each of these posts and will give some more power than others (yes, not all posts are created equal). Videos have the most pull, as they keep users on the app longer than pictures and words do. Pictures have less of a say while simple text posts have the least power.

“So do I always just post videos on Facebook?” Absolutely not, self-rhetorical question. A variety of posts and interactions allow for a more synergized experience for yourself and your friends as they navigate the never-ending newsfeed and sneakily creep on your personal timeline.

As for businesses or those intrigued by selling their personal artwork on Facebook, think of it in the same way! As a community scrapbook, readers do not want to be seeing those ugly looking hot dog ads that cover half of your favorite magazine up. Annoying ads like that don’t belong in scrapbooks, even of the digital variety. Yes, ads are ever-important in building brands and selling services, but avoid clickbait in these scenarios that involve “Buy now, Click now!” promises. Those promises make people sad and we do not want to make people sad.

What this all means:

  1. Steer away from “Buy now, Click now!” posts.
  2. Use pictures and video as much as you can while keeping simple text posts to a minimum.
  3. Vary the types of posts and interactions.

Twitter

Say something meaningful in 140 characters or less…AND GO. Just the previous sentence was 60 of your maximum 140 characters! So how do you create the perfect tweet that will reach the far ends of the site through constant retweets and the freshly termed “likes”?

Be honest. Honesty is key. Your followers are followers because they already know you to some degree. At the same time, DON’T tell them when you’re making lunch or taking a walk. Instead…

Be funny. Take those monotonous moments and make them silly or add something you thought about that experience. It goes right along with honesty. The simple moments in life are often the funniest.

Be real. This goes right along with the first two, but must be reiterated more directly. Twitter’s voice is rawer than Facebook’s. Take advantage of that openness and interact with people who matter to you. And every once in awhile, take part in a “Twitter-rant”, which allows you to blow past the “140 character rule” and instead, post a string of related tweets about a single subject that holds mighty importance to you. #Realness

And finally…

Be trendy. Hashtags and trends are way more effective here than on Facebook as it currently stands. Follow the current trends and make a statement. You have a voice that can reach farther than it could just 15 years ago so do something about it. Let people know what you think.

What this all means:

  1. Use hashtags.
  2. Speak succinctly and with your own voice.
  3. Be trendy

Twitter


Instagram

Aww, it’s Facebook’s baby brother! Although the photo editing and posting application has been around for quite awhile now, it recently has been placed under the Facebook brand, thus leading to changes to the medium like the classic algorithm that shows the user what the site believes would rather see over pictures most recently posted.

While Twitter and Facebook are made for multiple posts a day, Instagram must be checked to one, MAYBE two, posts a day. Albums are for Facebook and memes are for Twitter. Keep pictures engaging, interesting, and most importantly, YOU, with a relatable or catchy caption that could only be found in the country’s best magazines.

If you’re a business, show behind the scenes moments here. Pretty those pictures up with filters and additions, but at the same time, don’t oversaturate it. Not only does that specifically deal with the “Saturate” feature on the app, but it deals with all aspects of the pictures. Setting “Shadows” to 0%, “Warmth” to 100%, and “Sharpen” to 100% on a Lo-Fi filter does not automatically make your picture better, but surprisingly gives your face a creepy “Donald Trump Orange” vibe to it (sending color idea for  “Donald Trump Orange” to Crayola currently — patent pending).  

Connect your photos to Facebook sometimes! Your friends on Facebook will learn you have an Instagram and you will suddenly gain followers!

Use hashtags and your location! There’s a nifty little button on your personal page that shows where you have been and how many photos you have posted from each location. It is the best.

What this all means:

  1. Show some behind-the-scenes moments for your followers.
  2. Use hashtags.
  3. Use filters carefully and sparingly.

Instagram


Snapchat

This is going to be big! I mean, it’s already beginning to take over the social media landscape in an aggressive way, but here’s a way to truly tell a story in the most literal sense.

In the same way that Instagram can give you the behind-the-scenes glance, so can Snapchat. With followers on this live video and picture application, you can make something so simple, fun and engaging. And now with geofilters taking over more and more, you can show off an event or a location or a business that you’re currently at! Snapchat is constantly involving from its humble and risque beginnings into a beautiful app of location sharing and puppy filters.

What this all means:

  1. Post interesting content with a variety of video and photos.
  2. Take advantage of filters and especially geofilters.
  3. Jump on this bandwagon NOW! It is only growing in its prominence so learn how to utilize it today.

Conclusion

Social media now, for better or for worse, defines us. You cannot escape it if you try. By ignoring social media’s presence in our lives, you’re ignoring a gigantic portion of what makes us human and how we communicate and interact with others.

No matter which medium you prefer, remember these simple tips and most importantly, don’t add your boss on snapchat. Don’t. Please, for the love of God, do not do it.

The closest thing we’ll get to a Dislike Button

This morning Facebook rolled out “Reactions” to all users worldwide on desktop and mobile. Beginning last October, Facebook was testing hundreds of different extensions of the like button, and then they settled on the six reactions you see today. After many focus groups, and months of testing Mark Zuckerburg seems to be pleased with the results. “Love is the most popular reaction so far, which feels about right to me!”(Mark Zuckerburg).  Think of these as the like button, but with more context. Now user’s can give a more detailed reaction to any post and not worry about “liking” a post about your friend getting a bad score on a test, or being worried that simply liking that status that your roommate got engaged wasn’t enough.

To use the feature on desktop, hover over the “like” button on any post. When hovering, six emoji will pop up and be animated. Available emoji are Like, Love, Haha, Sad, Angry, and Wow. On mobile, long press the like button and the same options will hover and animate themselves.

It will be very interesting to see how these can be used in a business sense. Now, rather than looking at raw engagement numbers, we can see sentiment towards each post. (Not yet really, but I can only imaging they will report these numbers soon to pages.) Suddenly it will be much more evident seeing if your following isn’t liking your direction of post. We for sure will love experimenting with this new feature as it matures, and we hope to see you too!

Facebook HATES it when you do this…

If you found this post on our Facebook page, consider yourself part of a lucky few! Facebook in the last week have been showing less link posts in feeds and pushing more people to video… Let me explain.

When you post to your business page on Facebook there are a few different types of posts, and believe it or not, Facebook also prefers certain types of posts over others.

Facebook Post Types

  • Text Post – Text posts are pretty self explanatory. Whenever you simply type into the status box (or just enter plain text into the Power Editor because you are cool) with no links, pictures, or any other types of media, it is a text post. On pages these rank the lowest by far as they simply are not intriguing. Please post in a bit more effort than a text post!
  • Picture Post – These posts are identical to a text post, except you are embedding an image directly into the post. This is NOT a link to any other site or image host. You uploaded the photo directly to Facebook.
  • Video Post – Videos are KILLING it right now. Facebook has its sights set on YouTube and are pushing videos to your feed like crazy in effort to keep people on their site longer. Keep in mind that these posts are NOT links to a YouTube video, but uploading the video directly to Facebook. Definitely jump on this if you haven’t already!
  • Link Post – That leaves us with link posts. If you ever link out to a video, picture, gif, article, blog (like how this article was on Facebook), or anything else. It is categorized as a “link post”, but Facebook for some reason doesn’t like these anymore lately.

Facebook obviously wants to keep people on their website, and constantly monitor usage and other analytics to make educated decisions when moderating their user’s news feeds. They absolutely do not show every post your business page posts to all of your followers every time. (Please stop making discount and “BUY NOW!” posts…) They want the user to see just what they want, and reward brands that do so. This is why the more people engage with your posts, the more of your followers will see it.

Right now people are simply highly engaged with videos, and so now they are pushing content creators and brand pages to start posting more of them to help all users on the site longer. Now while a good portion of you reading this right now might be fuming and feeling like ?, if you think about it, this is a great thing for everyone. The more value people find on Facebook, and the more time they spend on it, the more opportunities you have to sell your brand.

Because of this huge push for videos, link posts now suffer. They have been the most utilized post of any page, and this will be a hard pill to swallow, but it is time to think outside the box…

So what should I do?

Besides working on producing some video content, the easiest work around is to link to articles and other pages in the comments of the post. Try your best to use a video clip of some sort, or a picture in the main post, and then direct the viewer to look for the full link in the comments. This seems a little odd and messy, especially considering that highly commented threads now show posts based on “top comments” versus chronological order, but it is the best that we can recommend at the time of this post.

Don’t worry, we are monitoring this heavily and will let you all know how to best overcome this soon. If you have any creative ideas share them in the comments and let us know!

10 February Marketing Ideas

It’s the start of a new month and we’ve got some fresh marketing ideas for you to promote your business. There’s more to February than just hearts and candy! Here’s a list of 10 marketing and blog ideas for February.

 

1. Valentine’s Day Promotions

There are countless Valentine’s Day promotions that you can do this month:

  • Fitness centers: Host a special Valentine’s Day class for couples or a post-Valentine’s Day workout to burn off calories from candy and chocolate!
  • Massage Therapists and Spas: Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to run a special offer on massage services. Couples massages, a day at the spa, and a chocolate facial can all be used for Valentine’s Day promotions.
  • Restaurants: Valentine’s Day is on a Saturday this month and is the perfect time for a couples cooking class! Come up with a special menu of aphrodisiacs foods to ignite some romance in your budding chefs!
  • Flower shops: This is your time to shine! Think outside of the bouquet and offer customers something other than overpriced, out of season roses.
  • Gift and retail stores: Come up with a Valentine’s Day gift guide – it’s the perfect time to promote some new merchandise. Post gift guides on your blog or in an email blast to give customers ideas for what to buy their sweetheart.

2. Valentine’s Day Graphics

February 14 is Valentine’s Day – show your social media and email marketing some love with Valentine’s Day themed graphics. Hearts, candy, and love are good things to use to catch attention from customers! Use holiday graphics to spruce up your Facebook marketing and Twitter profiles but they’re even more useful when combined with Valentine’s Day promotions.

heartgraphic

Need some help with graphics? Contact us for help!

3. Heart Disease Awareness Month

It makes sense that the month of Valentine’s Day is also Heart Disease Awareness Month. If your business is focused on health and wellness, this is a great marketing opportunity for you. Fitness centers and gyms can partner with a local health center for heart disease awareness or screenings.

Host special classes focusing on cardiovascular activity or write informative blog posts about heart health and risk factors. Use this time to market your business by educating your customers to help them lead healthy lives. Any business can sponsor a Valentine’s Day race – there are usually fun runs or 5Ks going on around the holiday and sponsoring one will get your business name out in the community.

4. Black History Month

February is Black History Month and the perfect opportunity to highlight prominent leaders in your industry. Black lawyers, politicians, scientists, artists, educators, and athletes have shaped American society. Take some time to reflect on those who have shaped the your business industry.

5. Children’s Dental Health Month

Children’s Dental Health may sound like a boring topic but it can be a great month for marketing your small business. Dentists can certainly have a field day with this one, but other businesses can use this opportunity to teach parents and students about the importance of dental health. Daycares, fitness centers, and churches can host special classes with families about the importance of going to the dentist. Perhaps one of the parents is a dentist and would like to come to answer questions for kids.

This not only helps your business interact with the community, but it helps local dentists market themselves all while educating parents and children about dentistry. This is a word of mouth referral marketing technique that will give you something to smile about!

6. Ice Cream for Breakfast Day – February 7, 2016

In the middle of Children’s Dental Health Month is Ice Cream for Breakfast day! Everyone loves ice cream! Use this quirky holiday to market your business. Held on the first Saturday of February, this Ice Cream for Breakfast Day can be a fun marketing promotion for your bakery, ice cream shop, or restaurant! Although it is supposed to be on a Saturday, you can do this any day of the week. Invite customers to come in to eat ice cream for breakfast – it’s a fun way to interact with families and do something new to promote your business.

7. Grammy Awards – February 15, 2016

The 57th annual Grammy Awards will be held in February. This is a great opportunity for engaging with your customers on social media. You’ve seen the video of a police officer singing Taylor Swift – get your employees together for your favorite Grammy nominated song and share it on social media!

8. It’s a Leap Year! – February 29, 2016

Every four years is a leap year, and 2016 is one of those. February has an extra day in it, which makes it a great time to remind your followers to do something new and exciting since they have another day they didn’t plan on having…

9. President’s Day – February 15, 2016

President’s Day is famous for sales so use it to your advantage. Most schools are off for President’s Day which makes it a great day to hold a family friendly activity at your fitness center.

10. Mardi Gras – February 9, 2016

Mardi Gras marks the beginning of Lent but down in New Orleans it’s party time! Host a Fat Tuesday party or sale at your business. Get customers in on the fun by giving a discount to anyone who comes in wearing a mask or beads!

Do you have any other good marketing ideas for February? Share them in the comments below!