social media

July 1,2016ByDAVID VEGA

Sharing is Caring: Facebook’s News Feed Algorithm Update

Brands . social media

In a post to the Facebook blog on Wednesday, June 29, 2106, Facebook announced yet another update to their ever-changing News Feed algorithm. As much as Facebook has grown in the past years it has struggled to find a comfortable balance between its business/advertising sector and users. We’ve reported on the changes Facebook made to the organic reach of business pages in the past. This time around, Facebook is making the organic reach of business page’s even more dependant on the amount of shares it receives. Lars Backstrom, Facebook’s Engineering Director, had this to say: “We’ve heard from our community that people are still worried about missing important updates from the friends they care about. For people with many connections this is particularly important, as there are a lot of stories for them to see each day. So we are updating News Feed over the coming weeks so that the things posted by the friends you care about are higher up in your News Feed.” Facebook has always stated that its goal is to help people keep in touch with their family and friends. Their priority has always been to keep you connected to the people, places, and things you want to be connected to. Still, people are worried about missing important updates from the friends they care about says Facebook. If you weren’t aware before, the Facebook News Feed has two overarching goals: 1) To inform. People expect to see updates that are relevant to them whether it be about friends or family, or current events. This of course varies from person to person, but the News Feed is constantly trying to figure out what news is relevant to you. 2) To entertain. Facebook tries to sprinkle in updates that are entertaining to you. For some of your friends that might be news about a celebrity or a brand, or an exciting live video. But entertainment will always be behind updates from your personal network. How will this affect your Facebook business page? Over the coming weeks Facebook anticipates that this update may cause the reach and referral traffic for business pages to decline (once again). But this depends on your page’s audience composition. For example, if a lot of your referral traffic to your website comes from your audience sharing your content and their friends liking/commenting on it then you shouldn’t see much of a decline. In other words, Facebook encourages Pages to post things that their audience are likely to share with their friends. What is Facebook’s reasoning behind this change? If people aren’t able to rely on Facebook to keep them updated with friends and family then they might switch to a platform that will. Snapchat is certainly biting at their heels. How can I prepare my Facebook Page for this change? First I’ll say that if you’ve successfully adapted to Facebook’s algorithm changes thus far you don’t have too much to worry about. If you’re seeing a decent amount of engagement — sharing being the most important — then you shouldn’t see much of a change. Take the time to audit your Facebook Page’s past posts to see what kind of content has received the most engagement. Note the type of content, format, visuals, length, time of day, etc — and build on top of those successes. If your posts haven’t been seeing much engagement lately definitely don’t expect to see any improvement going forward with this new update. There must be an even greater focus on driving traffic back to your own website and building your email list. There must be an even greater focus on growing your own assets, like an email list. A few ways this can be accomplished is: Social contests. Fun and engaging, social contests like, vote contests, photo contests, Instagram hashtag contests and others are a great way to collect leads through social media. Social promotions are still one of the most effective way of capitalizing on a large social media audience. Lead generation. Employ tools like popups or landing pages on your website to capture visitor information through the use of lead magnets. Traffic that moves from your Facebook page to your website can be captured and added to profit-generating email lists. Going forward, Facebook’s relationship with businesses is looking a little cloudy in my opinion. The social media giant is still trying to figure out how to keep their users connected while balancing it with advertising. We’ve all been witness to the evolving and pivoting nature of social media and it’s an important reminder that relying on third party platforms can be risky. The way these platforms deal with businesses and advertising can change in an instant and leave you with a 3% organic reach. Written By : Jordan Lore...

November 27,2015ByDAVID VEGA

Why Instagram’s latest update is important to you!

Brands . social media

Instagram released an update today that changes the experience for creators and users....

October 15,2015ByDAVID VEGA

Picture This: Marketers See The Value Of Visual Media

Brands . social media

The art of storytelling is changing in the digital age. The growing use of photos, videos, animations, and infographics has altered the way consumers act—and, as a result, the methods that marketers use to create and maintain customer engagement are undergoing a transformation. ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS: Millennials “want a real and compelling story that avoid marketing jargon and clichés.” Only about one-quarter of respondents had a process to aggregate, organize, and manage visual assets used across teams, according to the CMO Council. The challenge for marketers is to produce content that works across multiple channels and different devices. “We’re in an interesting period in terms of visual assets. The definition of what is visual and what is required to connect to consumers is undergoing a transformation,” said Liz Miller, senior vice president of marketing for the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council. To be sure, getting a message across to potential customers is increasingly challenging. Not only is it necessary to develop marketing materials that communicate a concept through pictures and words, it is important to deliver it in the right way for a particular channel and device. “Whereas in the past visuals were more the icing on the cake, they are now the cake,” Miller told CMO.com. “A creative team must focus on capturing a person’s attention and leading them through the process in a way that seems natural and intuitive.” Added Michael Boland, chief analyst and vice president of content at marketing consulting firm BIA/Kelsey: “Rich media is critical to marketing success.” However, the path to progress can prove bumpy. A CMO Council survey in partnership with Libris, “From Content to Creativity: The Role of Visual Media in Impactful Brand Storytelling,” found that while 65% of senior marketing executives said they believe visual assets are core to how their brand story is communicated, only 27% have the ability to aggregate, organize, and manage these assets across marketing and nonmarketing teams—including those outside of the organization. Meanwhile, the use of visual assets is continuing to rise. The study found that senior marketing executives expect the use of video to spike by 79%, infographics by 50%, and illustrations by 41% in the near future. Image Is Everything Although images have always played an important role in marketing and advertising—magazine ads, billboards, television commercials, and other media have served as a mainstay for decades—the nature of imagery is changing due to a number of factors, industry observers said. “High-quality optics and cameras on smartphones have changed the way people think about imagery,” Boland told CMO.com. At the same time, social media has exploded, and the way consumers create, exchange and view photos, video, and other imagery on small screens or second screens has changed considerably. “People are increasingly conditioned to use fewer words and more imagery,” he added. Overlaying all of this are Millennials with a strong distaste for messages and images that look artificial, Boland said. Because they are fluent in using image-based technologies they are more adept at recognizing poorly constructed and more contrived images and messages. “They want a real and compelling story that avoid marketing jargon and clichés,” he noted. Steve Gustavson, group creative director at Adobe (CMO.com’s parent company), agreed. “In order to break through the marketing logjam and capture people’s attention, it’s critical to produce high-quality imagery that is emotionally impactful but have it interplay effectively with copy,” he told CMO.com. “The marriage of these two things is critical.” What makes the task incredibly difficult is the fact that Millennials—as well as Gen X and, to a lesser extent, Boomers—have increasingly short attention spans and frequently think in 140 characters or less. “There is an ongoing trend that extends back to USA Today and the MTV generation. There is a need to get to the point faster and in a more entertaining way than in the past,” Boland pointed out. Lead a person down a meandering path or to a dead end, and you have lost them, he added. U.K.-based digital agency Zabisco found that 40% of the consumer market responds better to visual information than plain text. As a result, marketers have shifted content production to include vast quantities of graphics, videos, photography, and illustrations. Infographic production, according to Zabisco, increases by 1% every day. At the same time, consumers are rapidly shifting to viewing content on mobile devices. For example, mobile traffic to YouTube rose from about 6% in 2012 to about 40% in 2014, according to BI Intelligence. Unfortunately, many marketing executives are lagging behind. Marketers are often remiss in approaching the “visual asset dialogue as part of the strategic consumer experience and engagement dialogue,” said Miller, who believes part of the problem lies in the fact that visual assets have historically resided within the domain of creative or agency resources that fall outside an organization. Consequently, the value proposition has fallen off the priority list for CMOs. In addition, many materials and content created within an organization lands in silos. “There is no unified approach or messaging,” she said. “As a result, content and materials often come across as disjointed and confusing.” CMOs and other marketing executives increasingly recognize the challenges. In a March 2015 survey conducted by Ascend2, 46% of marketing professionals worldwide indicated that videos represented the most effective content, yet 59% said it was the most difficult media to create. Similarly, 43% said infographics were effective, but 34% said they were difficult to produce. In contrast, 24% indicated that photos and illustrations are most effective, and only 8% reported they posed challenges. The CMO Council found that, ultimately, the lack of a cogent strategy is common. Only about one-quarter of survey respondents said they had a process in place to aggregate, organize, and manage visual assets used across teams, while about four in 10 said there was no conversation about centralizing these issues due to competing priorities. The Big Picture Transforming the challenge into an opportunity is critical. A starting point, Miller said, is to understand the journey—or, in...

October 10,2015ByDAVID VEGA

Why Every Physician’s Practice Needs a Social Media Policy!

Brands . social media

Social media has changed the way the world communicates. In the medical community, social media adoption has come with inevitable data breaches and ethical issues— many of which could have been avoided. In one recent case, a nurse at New York Presbyterian Hospital was fired from her job after she posted a photo to Instagram of the aftermath of an empty trauma room following the treatment of a man hit by a subway train. She was fired for insensitivity. If employees were better educated about the potential HIPAA and ethical pitfalls, they could avoid violations. That’s why it’s critical that physicians protect their practice by creating a strong social media policy. 4 Tips for Creating a Strong Social Media Policy How can physicians navigate through these potential legal minefields? The best way to avoid liability is to have a clear, widely distributed social media policy that specifically addresses the use of social media sites both on and off the job. Here are four tips for disseminating your practice’s policies on social media: Extend existing privacy policies to explicitly include the use of social media sites and other Internet activities such as blogging, and clearly state that company policies apply to both on- and off-duty use of social networking sites. Include specific examples of the kinds of statements on social media sites that could run afoul of HIPAA, and emphasize how even small, seemingly innocuous disclosures can constitute HIPAA privacy rule violations. Distribute social media policies, both as a part of employment manuals and separately as stand-alone policies. Consider doing this on your practice’s internal computer network systems as well. Require employees to acknowledge receiving and reading these policies, and periodically remind them — for example, through workplace postings and email notices — of the risks involved with using social media sites, as well as their personal responsibilities to abide by the letter and spirit of the policies. Review these policies annually and with each new employee. A clear, well-defined, and widely disseminated social networking policy that emphasizes compliance responsibilities during both work and non-work hours, and covers both office and personal computer systems, phones, and any other devices with access to the Internet, is your most effective weapon against liability for employee misuse of social networking sites. Author: SFMS...

November 8,2012ByDAVID VEGA

“Content” is still King..

Brands . social media

“Content Is King For Every Business”. For better or for worse, Content in the Data World; is still King. Creating content isn’t just about finding stuff to fill up your blogs, newsletters, website or populate your Social Media Page’s. It’s about “Relevant and Engaging” content to fuel your marketing efforts, and in return let you generate the type of Business Results (ROI) you’re looking for when using all Social Media Platforms. The Purpose of Content is providing something of “real value” to YOUR “customers”, and building the type of relationships that will actually work for your unique business. Keep in mind: Whether it’s a newsletter article, a blog post, or just a photo or video you share in your Social Media’s pages – creating “Unique, Relevant and Engaging” content gives you the chance to offer something more than just a sales or product pitch. It will help you make a “Real Connection” with your target audience and keep your business on the fore-front, including future relationships and creating “Brand Loyalty”. ~ David Vega, Tridence...

November 6,2012ByDAVID VEGA

6 Tips for Planning and Promoting a Successful Event on Facebook

Brands . social media

Creating Successful Event on Facebook With the release of Timeline earlier this year, Facebook has made lots of adjustments, both big and small, to its user experience. From cover photos to adopting a new storytelling approach, most of the new features have all been discussed thoroughly in the tech scene. However, there is one element of Facebook that has seen extensive alterations, and can be a huge asset for businesses, that hasn’t gotten as much attention. That’s the suite of features known as Facebook Events. Facebook has changed how members view their invites with the addition of a calendar view. The nuts and bolts of creating and promoting an event has changed as a result. Here are a few suggestions, along with some tips and tricks, that can help make your event on Facebook more successful. 1. Be Short and Sweet Event On Facebook One of the big changes to how events appear on Facebook is that members can now see their invites in calendar format. That means only three or four words of the name will show up on your Events page. If you’ve created an event with a long title that doesn’t easily convey what will be happening, your followers may simply gloss over it. Use a name that’s simple and direct. Likewise, the description of your event should be concise. The text box for a description is only a few lines long before Facebook cuts it off, so you want as many of the essential details to appear immediately for your guests. If your description is longer than the visible space, your guests can click through to read the entire text, but you can’t guarantee that everyone will do so. If important details are buried at the end of your description, some people may not see them. 2. Pick an Evocative Photo Facebook is a network that revolves around images. An event is just one more way to solidify your company’s visual signature. You can upload a photo up to 4MB, so you have some flexibility to create an image that’s large enough to include some detail. If you have a poster or promotional flier for the happening, that’s a great choice for your event photo. If you don’t have extensive resources in graphic design, then just stick with an image that prominently features your company’s logo. 3. Make Separate Event on Facebook for a Series Some businesses may have an ongoing series of events, such as a concert tour with many stops. In this situation, it will be easier for you and your guests to create separate events for each occasion. Especially in cases where your event might move to different venues, or even different cities, breaking out your events means you may be able to target the fans who would likely attend. Otherwise, telling a San Francisco resident about something happening in New York may just look like a useless invite to your Californian customer. One exception might be when all of your events take place in the same location. If you are hosting a series of weekly classes or a contest with several rounds, it may be easiest to keep information consolidated so that guests may drop in and out of the dialog. You’ll have to make a judgement call about which approach makes the most sense for your brand and your event. 4. Advertise Wisely Getting the word out about your event is key to building some buzz among your fan base. However, a constant barrage of posts asking people to attend can come across as desperate or annoying. Plan a general schedule for the time between the event’s creation and its actual date to make your announcements. Maintain a regular rate of posts tagging the event, then increase the frequency in the final days. You’ll rarely need to post about an event more than once a day. Another important point is that event hosts can no longer send out messages to all of their guests. This used to be a major component of keeping people informed of updates or last-minute details. Instead, hosts must now rely on Wall posts for sharing that information. It does give your guests a centralized place to find out about goings on, but it also means that your official announcements can be pushed down by other posts. Just as you should be regular but reasonable with tagging the event, take the same approach to posting directly on the Wall. 5. Consider Facebook’s Promotion Feature Just as brands have the option to promote a specific status, you can get into the nitty gritty of Facebook advertising to promote your events. This isn’t going to be the best fit for every business because it comes with some cost. For brands with a small or mid-sized audience to reach, the paid posts are probably not a good use of your resources. But for a large public event, this is an option to consider. 6. Devote Enough Resources to the Event You know not to let a customer support inquiry go unanswered on your brand’s Page. The same holds true for any other Page related to your company, including an event. Make sure that your social media team keeps tabs on any notifications about the event. That means you’ll be able to answer questions, clarify details, and Like when people RSVP in a timely fashion. And since the Wall is so important now as a source of updates, you’ll want to be extra vigilant about moderating it. If you receive spam posts, you can hide or delete them. The best approach for promoting event on facebook is to treat them as another place to demonstrate your commitment to your fans and your prowess in engaging your community base. The feature should just become a natural extension of your strategy on the network. Author: Anna Washenko...

October 31,2012ByDAVID VEGA

Wednesday Gory Tip on Halloween – Social Media

Brands . social media

Wednesday Gory Tip on Halloween: The Truth is – whatever ‘tool’ you use to communicate with your audience – it’s the way in which you ‘use it’ that matters most. Don’t ponder each day that you need to be using every tool or network available ~ You don’t. Focus on the tools that allow you to best engage current customers, connect with new ones, and build the type of relationships that can help grow your business or organization. Tridence Social Media...

August 23,2012ByDAVID VEGA

Is Email Better than Social Media?

Brands . social media

Email vs. Social Media A new report from Monetate, an e-commerce software firm, has found that email marketing is still driving more overall sales than social media efforts. Some of the key findings: • 2.49% of visitors from search engines buy something • 4.25% of visitors from email buy something • 0.59% percent of visitors from social media sites buy something That’s a big difference, but there’s no need to start grappling your forehead and deleting Facebook Pages left and right. It’s important to keep in mind that all of these channels work together, not against each other. Social media sites, in general, are a far more casual environment that can help build brand awareness, provide bite-size bits of industry information, and create communities among your customers. That said, email has the advantage of directly reaching a single person. Not only that, you can use analytics to see what that person clicks and opens, which are statistics you can use to segment your list and direct different customers to personalized destinations. Author: Blaise Lucey...

August 17,2012ByDAVID VEGA

Pinterest Gets Mobile, Yelp Gets Social, Instagram Gets Even Cooler … And Other Hot Topics

Brands . social media

Don’t you love it when companies listen to the requests of their customers? I do! And that’s exactly what happened this week with three social companies. Pinterest users wanted a better mobile experience: they got it. Yelp users wanted a better way to connect with friends: they got it. Instagram users wanted to better tell the story behind their photos: they got it. Plus, a boat load of people are searching on Google … and there’s a good chance they’re doing it on a smartphone. Read about these stories and more in this week’s news roundup. 1. Pinterest releases new iPad, iPhone, and Android Apps Pinterest users, it’s time to step away from your desk and begin to start exploring the world… and pinning at the same time. With a brand new app for Android, and a redesigned app for the iPad and iPhone, more and more Pinners will now be able to discover, save, and organize the their boards that interest them, on-the-go. Bottom Line: Pinterest said it best, in a blog post announcing the apps on Tuesday: “It may sound funny, but our goal has never been to keep you online. Instead, we want to inspire you to go offline and do things that you love. Today, we’re making it easier to take your inspirations with you…” Want to start sharing your own inspiration on Pinterest? Here are 10 things you’ll need to do to get started. 2. Yelp gets social A new redesign from Yelp is putting a greater emphasis on you and your friends. Announced on their blog on Tuesday, the changes will put more of a focus on promoting the social aspect of the popular review site – letting users see photos and tips left by their friends on Yelp, events they are going to, and places they’ve checked-in. Bottom Line: With 78 million unique visitors in the second quarter of 2012 and over 30 million local reviews since the site was first launched, there is plenty of potential for Yelp to become a much more social network. Yelp’s success has always been tied to the fact that it provides users with access to real reviews from real people. With a more social approach, the company’s future could be tied to connecting people with reviews from the people they trust most: their friends. 3. Instagram adds geo-based browsing with Photo Map Instagram introduced a feature this week that will let users browse photos based on location. The new geo-based photo browser displays a map to show the location of photos when they are tagged by you or your friends. To access the new feature, users will have to update their Instagram app and then click the new “Photo Map” button under their profile. Users will also see a new option to “Add to your Photo Map” when sharing photos on Instagram. Bottom Line: Photo Map is all about giving users the opportunity to better tell the stories behind the photos they share on Instagram. But Photo Map also presents a unique opportunity for small businesses, as they, too, can be part of that story. If you’re using Instagram to take photos for your business, make sure to put them on your Photo Map by adding your business name and tagging your location. 4. 95 percent of consumers use Google search, YouTube to find content online In what should come as a surprise to no one, a report from AYTM Market Research found this week that 95 percent of consumers rely on Google when searching for content online. What may come as a surprise, however, is that of those people who rely on Google to access information every day (40 percent), 46.8 percent access YouTube for information just as frequently. Bottom Line: It’s never been more important to have a strategy for getting the content you share online noticed by potential clients or customers. A key to that strategy, at least when it comes to getting discovered on Google, is creating content with a focus on SEO. If you’re looking to develop a strategy for getting discovered on YouTube, there are plenty of ways you can make online videos without spending a dime. 5. Half of all Americans now have smartphones A new report this week found that for the first time ever, more Americans own more smartphones than home phones or feature phones (regular mobile phones). According to the report, 50 percent of all Americans now own smartphones – a number that is expected to continue to rise, as smartphone sales made up 70% of all US phone sales in the second quarter of 2012. Bottom Line: Smartphones are changing the way consumers engage with your content and therefore, must change the way you deliver it. Your website, emails, social media updates, videos, and blog posts aren’t only being seen on home or office computers, they’re being seen by customers who are on-the-go. If you haven’t taken some time to reevaluate the ways you deliver content to your customers, now is a good time to think about how mobile marketing can help your business. Author: Ryan Pinkham...

August 13,2012ByDAVID VEGA

Photographs: Social Media’s Hot Content Marketing Asset

Brands . social media

Photographs are social media’s hot content marketing format. Easy to take with any smartphone and/or other mobile device, photographs are fueling social media platform growth. Instagram, which recently passed the 80 million user mark, and to a lesser extent Pinterest, which has just under 20 million users, exemplify this trend. Even more important, consumers prefer photographs to engage with brands, according to research by Performics and ROI Research. 7 Tactics to Make Your Photographs Rock as Social Media Content Marketing Get your photographic content marketing on track to drive social media interaction with these seven actionable marketing tactics. Roll out the red carpet for your products. Use hero shots of your products to make their strengths shine. Let them strut their stuff so prospects and customers can see your offering in action, rather than in a solo display shot. Actionable marketing tip: Show what’s special about your products and your firm. Set your firm apart from your competitors who may have the same supplier images. Tell your business’ story. Think organization, product, founders, or other story options. Make your firm and products memorable because people don’t remember facts without context. Have a beginning, middle, and end. Actionable marketing tip: Collect stories from across your organization. Ask your employees for their images and stories related to your business. Teach customers to use your products. Use photographs to show prospects and customers step by step how to use your products with photos. Actionable marketing tip: Interpret and educate broadly to show customers how to effectively use your products both before and after the sale. Combine words and photographs so that readers understand what to do. Put a face on your business. People relate to other people. Use photographs to give your business a more personal feel. Actionable marketing tip: Consider giving a broader perspective by showing different employees at work. Make it more natural by gathering input from each person. This creates additional content and gives prospects more insight into your firm. Report the news. Don’t limit yourself to the news about your products. Be creative in your approach.Actionable marketing tip: Choose a unique perspective that’s in line with your brand. Remember, photographs show a 360-degree version of your brand. Take a tour of your business. Show prospects and customers the behind-the-scenes of your business. Actionable marketing tip: Use this opportunity to let employees show off their expertise and what they like about working for you. Let customers and fans strut their stuff. Give your customers their 15 seconds of fame. You can let them be in the spotlight with your product. Actionable marketing tip: Go one step further and invite guest curators. Target does a great job of this on its Tumblr. 3 Tips to Ensure Your Photographs Are on Track To maximize the impact of your social media photographs, here are three easy-to-follow tips. Know your customers’ social media persona. Understand which social media venues they frequent and how to incorporate photographs into your interactions on these platforms. Include social sharing. Encourage social sharing by making your images shareable. Incorporate a call-to-action. Where appropriate, use a contextually relevant call-to-action to encourage prospects to take the next step in your process. Author: Heidi Cohen...