Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Likes and Repins?

November 19, 2012 By Joe Soto Leave a Comment

It’s become a photo-driven social media world. With the onslaught of photo sharing sites such as Pinterest and Instagram in 2012, it’s not a surprise that photos are what people choose to share the most of and engage the most with.

If you are spending your time strategizing how to get your community to engage more and share their stories, you must find creative visual content they want to spend their attention on. And because you can now reach your prospects and customers in their pockets, it’s become even more difficult to grab their attention as they are thumb scrolling down their streams on their smartphones.

Rather than just posting quotes and funny photos (which are all getting a little old and annoying), start thinking creatively about how to get your community more involved. This Infographic by BzzAgent shows you the way:

Facebook Engagement by Post Type

This past summer Track Social took a look at how different Facebook posts impact engagement. It’s become evident that if you want more likes, comments, shares and repins, then you may want to start being creative with your visual content.

200+ Photo Apps and Counting

There are currently well over 200 iPhone photography apps available in iTunes all giving you more choices for creative photo effects to helping you more easily share your images across the social platforms. Do we really need this many? Do you have a favorite you’d like to share?

Joe Soto

Joe Soto is the CEO of One Social Media. A leading expert in social media marketing, Joe has over 16 years of experience in all aspects of sales, marketing, online lead generation, and Internet marketing.

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Filed Under: Infographics, Social Media, Social Media Infographic Tagged With: how to share photos in social media, joe soto, One social media, photo sharing best practices, social media infographic, social media tips

People Don’t Care About Your LinkedIn Profile

October 23, 2012 By Joe Soto 2 Comments

It’s true. People don’t care about your LinkedIn profile. You are fooling yourself if you think people care one bit about where you worked 12 years ago or what you think your “skills” and “abilities” are. Despite what you may think, your LinkedIn profile isn’t all about you. Stop with the “LinkedIn” resume already. It doesn’t serve you.

They care about what you might be able to do for them, to help them get to the next level in their career or business. People need and want the connections you have, to expand their network of connections.

They care about the value you bring. What can you do for them? Who do you know that you might be able to connect them to, who will help them in their business?

“When your name is clicked on, show a reason why someone would want to link to you.” – Jeffrey Gitomer

What advice can you offer on your profile that genuinely can add value to someone’s business? Ask people how you can help them. Find out what their business goals are and how you might know someone who can help them or advise them. Then make the introductions through LinkedIn.

Here’s my 90 second video rant on this subject:

Use LinkedIn for what it is, a powerful connection tool where you have the opportunity to serve other people.

I would enjoy hearing your thoughts in the comments below!

Let’s connect on LinkedIn here.

Joe Soto

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Filed Under: LinkedIn, LinkedIn Tips Tagged With: how to use linkedin, how to use linkedin for marketing, joe soto, linkedin marketing, linkedin tips, One social media, social media tips

The Most Famous Celebrity and Big Brand Social Media Blunders

October 8, 2012 By Joe Soto Leave a Comment

We can learn a lot from how celebrities and big brands use social media. We can also learn what “not-to-do” from them as well.

Well known celebrities, athletes, and brands are now using social media more and more to connect with and interact online with their followers. However, that doesn’t mean they are always using it well. What may seem like a casual tweet or conversation online could strike a chord in a fan or two…or a few thousand.

What’s great about this social media Infographic from creative agency MDG Advertising, is it takes a look at some of the most notable social media blunders of the past few years and what the results were.

Joe Soto

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Filed Under: Social Media, Social Media Infographic Tagged With: joe soto, One social media, social media, social media blog, social media infographic, social media mistakes, social media tips

5 Quick Tips for Creating Fresh Visual Content

September 7, 2012 By Joe Soto 3 Comments

The pressure is on for marketers to come up with fresh content, consistently each week. It’s particularly challenging for business start-ups who want a fast start social media presence on Twitter, Facebook and their Blog.

What should you or your company be blogging about? What will be informative, interesting, educational or entertaining enough to attract them? What content will your community actually enjoy seeing posted and engage in? Perhaps you should just ask them.

To give you a head start, here are some quick tips for creating fresh visual content.

1. The Expert Interview. Record an interview with an expert in your field and post it to your blog. You can do this via telephone conference or via video conference using Skype. Recommended resources: For phone interviews try FreeConferenceCalling.com, for Skype: try Ecamm.com (mac) and Camersoft.com (windows).

2. Create a step-by-step guide on how to do something in a screencast, how-to video tutorial, or show the steps in a series of photos. Resources: Camtasia, Screenflow, Screencast, Jing, Prezi, Snap Guide (mobile).

3. Do a simple case study about one company, or offer a few visual examples of how other companies do something successfully. In a recent blog post, I visually showcased brands using social media well and how some were using it poorly to talk with their customers.

4. Poll your community on Twitter with Twtpoll or on Facebook with a Facebook Question and post the results on your blog.

5. Give your community visual choices. Here are two examples of this:

Example 1: One of our clients asked their community which of the author’s books is their favorite. It quickly became the most popular post for that Facebook page since it started with over 200 Likes and over 200 comments.

Example 2: We asked our community to choose which one character Mike most resembled that day.

Visual content is the hottest trend, and it’s not going away. The popularity of Instagram alone should be waking people up to this. And video content will rule in 2013 and beyond.

When thinking through your social media content strategy, think about what content will add value and/or attract prospects to your blog or social media sites. Attracting them is only the first step, but it’s perhaps the most important as you refine how to convert and then analyze the results to see which of these ideas works best for your brand and audience.

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Joe Soto

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Filed Under: blogging, Branding, social media marketing, Social Media Tips Tagged With: how to engage your audience, One social media, social media blog, social media engagement, social media marketing, social media strategy ideas, social media tips

Igniting and Infecting Your Following…In A Good Way

July 13, 2012 By Mike Bal Leave a Comment

It may sound alarming but just stick with me for a minute. Social media has not just given us the ability to spread content to the masses instantly, it’s set an expectation that it will be done. We don’t consider anything “viral” until we’ve seen it with our own eyes. Everything from clever memes to funny videos and profound thoughts can reach millions or billions of people around the world with the push of a button.

Now we spend countless amounts of our resources trying to master and understand what it takes to make something go viral. The truth is that no one really understands what makes something viral worthy. Quite often it’s a combination of a clever idea, strong execution and well planned distribution. If you don’t get all three of those right you tend to end up with something not much more than mediocre. Even when you do have all three of those elements perfectly in place there’s nothing to guarantee the success of the project.

The biggest variable here is human nature. You can understand it to a point, but there are so many external factors playing a role in every individual’s decision making process that your chances of making an accurate prediction aren’t much better than playing roulette. After watching and studying a variety of content distributed to an even bigger variety of people I have found one thing to be true…

People identify, relate and react to passion.

No matter what business you’re in or content you’re distributing you will have greater success if you present it with passion. When you look at the brands who have really succeeded in spreading content “virally” you’ll see that they are all passionate about what they do and what they say. These brands don’t rely on one piece of content to carry all of their campaigns or to build the following for all of their channels. They create, share and distribute “viral” content to their following every day.

To make it simple would you rather be the Eifel 65 of your industry or The Beatles? A one-hit-wonder with a short lifespan or a legend?

Passion is infectious. It’s something that everyone actually wants to spread and it’s what focuses people’s effort and energy. If you can ignite passion in your following than you’ll be “viral” by any standard. Your reach will grow and spread like the plague, but a good plague. Here’s what you can do to spread your own infection around social media.

Step One – Choose Your Passions – You can’t (shouldn’t) be passionate about everything so choose your battles. If you are using social media to connect with your customers then you should start by identifying some of their interests.

Step Two – Find and Create Your Content – Don’t just regurgitate what other content curators and publications are sharing. Study and understand the news and put the effort into adding your own thoughts and creating your own content.

Step Three – Share With Passion – Even when you’re limited by 140 characters people should be able to tell that you really care about what you’re sharing. Describe how you’re feeling and make your opinions clear. Don’t just make a plain statement about what you’re sharing.

Step Four – Engage - A lot of brands are guilty of stopping at step three. You need to go one step further and seek out other people who share your brand’s passions. You also need to take the time to start and maintain conversations with them and any other followers you have. It’s okay to be a thought leader and to provide ideas and content to spark a conversation but it’s great to be involved in those conversations. This step is what will really ignite your following and spread your content.

Step Five – Don’t Stop – Many ad campaigns have a lifespan. THIS IS NOT AN AD CAMPAIGN. You are developing relationships with people and more specifically customers. You can’t decide to just stop doing it without suffering some serious repercussions. People will take it personally and it will affect your brand and your bottom line.

If you’re looking for more ways to improve your social efforts check out our FREE resources page. It’s loaded with ebooks and articles that will help you succeed online. Click on the image below to go there now.

Mike Bal

Hi, I studied advertising, I have a passion for creativity and I love working in social media. I try to write about the combination of traditional marketing, branding, and advertising strategies that can apply and work affectively with social media. I also enjoy music, batman and life.

Diversify Your Social Media Portfolio

May 9, 2012 By Tom Hummer Leave a Comment

In high-school speech class, we’re taught that speeches typically have at least one of three purposes: to entertain, to inform, or to persuade. Whether it’s Dane Cook doing stand-up comedy, a campaigning politician at a rally, or a professor giving a geology lecture, if somebody’s talking, it fits into one of these categories.

But this isn’t limited to spoken word– the same can be said for almost anything written, including social media. Try going to your Twitter feed, reading through the top ten tweets, and figuring out which category each tweet belongs in. See what I mean?

Unfortunately, hot-shot orators have an edge that common Twitter users don’t: people’s time and attention. This gives them the opportunity to combine the three kinds of speeches with ease. If a speaker gets on a stage for even half an hour, for example, they have more than enough time to inform their audience, persuade them, and do it in an entertaining way. How is anyone supposed to accomplish that in a Facebook post, let alone the 140-character confines of Twitter?

You can’t.

But here’s something you can do: mix it up.

Instead of trying to persuade people to buy your product all the time, teach them something that might add value to their lives. Instead of writing sarcastic or witty commentary about everything, post something genuinely deep and thoughtful. Throw your friends and followers a curve ball, and they’ll realize that there might just be a side of you they never knew about. Being multi-dimensional like this is a great way to attract a wider audience while keeping your current audience more interested.

Don’t get me wrong– consistency can also be important. If you’ve got a particular image or reputation to uphold, you don’t want to do a complete turnaround. Still, I’m willing to bet that you’ve got more wiggle room than you want to admit.

Here are a few examples of people diversifying their social media portfolio:

1. The Australian Census

In July 2011, a Twitter user sent a goofy question to the Australian Census’ Twitter account. What he probably didn’t expect was for the organization to play along:

Why it works: The general public wants to see that the government is made up of real people. We all like it when the folks in charge are a bit less stuffy than usual, and this is one heck of a start.

2. The White House Rick-Rolling Someone via Twitter

After someone had complained about a boring correspondence briefing on Twitter, The White House’s Twitter responded to them with a link that sent them to the infamous video of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”:

Why it works: Mostly for the same reasons as The Australian Census example, but The White House gets extra points for being trendy and including a popular American prank.

3. Cake

If you’re not familiar with them, Cake is a California-based alternative-rock band, known for their absurd lyrics, great trumpet parts, and a fun, funky sound. Based on their music alone, the last thing you’d expect is for them to get all dark and serious on their Facebook.

But that’s exactly what they do:

Of course, there’s still the occasional music video, recording footage, or tour update, but this kind of content is also sprinkled throughout their timeline.

Why it works: Honestly, I can’t really say whether it does or doesn’t. Cake have actually alienated some fans by straying too far away from the music. This is a very extreme example, and while I don’t recommend it to everyone, I also can’t help but respect Cake for having the guts to stand up for what they believe in.

Whether you’re representing yourself or a business, take a look at your Tweets and Facebook posts and ask yourself this question: do I need to diversify my social media portfolio?

Tom Hummer

Tom’s two biggest passions in life are writing and music. In his free time, Tom reads, writes, and works on musical projects.

Filed Under: Better Tweeting, Social Media, Social Media Strategies, Social Media Tips Tagged With: social media agency, social media blog, social media for business, social media marketing, social media marketing blog, social media marketing strategy, social media tips

Ready or Not, Facebook Timeline for Pages is Coming Next Week

March 20, 2012 By Taylor Hinkle 1 Comment

Facebook is notorious for making updates that send the vast majority of its users into a panic. It’s not that they are bad updates, it just seems that most people hate change and will fight it for as long as they can. That’s why Facebook often puts a date on when the updates will be made for you, whether you like it or not.

The date for Facebook Timeline for pages is March 30, 2012.

That means if you procrastinate and don’t get your page ready, it might look a little something like this when you stroll into the office on Monday morning:

Before you start trying to get your page converted, here’s what you need to know and understand about Timeline for pages:

1. Cover images are replacing landing pages – This is a huge change. This means that businesses can no longer set their pages up to have non-fans land on a custom landing page that tells them why they should “like” the page (also known as “fan-gating”). No biggie, you can just put that type of info right on the cover image… right? Wrong (see #2). The nice thing about the new cover images is that it gives a lot more space to get creative (815 x 315 px). Here’s an example of what the new cover images look like:

2. Cover images have strict guidelines – Facebook has made it pretty obvious that they don’t want businesses blatantly promoting anymore on their site (they want them to pay for advertising instead). In my opinion this is a good thing and will help weed-out some of the spammy business pages. Here’s a snapshot of some of the restrictions:
3. Your applications will still exist, you just have to prioritize them – You are allowed to have up to 12 custom applications, four of which will show up as featured applications just below your cover image. We came across this company that has a good way of making their applications stand out with the new layout:

4. Take advantage of the new “Milestones” feature - This gives you the ability to go back and showcase different milestones of achievements your business has had (first hire, first dollar of profit, various levels of growth, etc.).

5. Personal profiles can now message business pages – With the new messaging feature, profiles can now private message a Facebook page. A page cannot initiate a conversation or message with someone, they can only respond to messages initiated by a profile.

Our suggestion would be to get started on optimizing your new page ASAP. Facebook gives you the opportunity to preview your page prior to publishing. This allows you to customize it and get it ready prior to taking it live. Take advantage of that opportunity.

Good luck!

*Click here for the latest revision of Facebook’s terms for Pages.

Taylor Hinkle

An award-winning photographer and web media specialist, Taylor has lead multiple social media campaigns for some of One Social Media’s most notable clients.

Filed Under: facebook, Facebook Timeline Tagged With: facebook for pages, facebook for timeline help, facebook timeline, facebook timeline help, facebook tips, facebook tips for business pages, facebook tips for pages, how to prepare for facebook timeline, how to set up facebook for timeline, new facebook timeline, social media tips

5 Simple Ways to Optimize Your YouTube Channel

February 27, 2012 By Taylor Hinkle Leave a Comment

Being a Social Media Project Manager can be downright stressful! Let’s be honest, there’s A LOT to try to stay on top of, both for our clients and for our own company. It seems like there is a new social media platform, a new analytical tool, a new social media something popping up every week. As if that isn’t enough to try to keep on top of, it seems like the existing platforms are updating their own user interface just as often.

Although this can be stressful, it’s also the thing that draws us to this profession. No two work days are ever the same. We are constantly learning, relearning, studying, and evolving with the social media world.

Realizing this fact made me think:

“No wonder companies are having such a hard time keeping up.”

A handful of updates to platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn go unnoticed by the general public, and major updates are typically slowly rolled out over the span of months to ease users into the changes.

With that being said, I have noticed a large number of YouTube channels that have been upgraded to the new channel layout (nicknamed Cosmic Panda) that look just plain awful. I’m not sure if people/companies upgraded to the new layout and then never got around to optimizing it or whether they just got confused and blacked out while in the process.

Either way, it inspired us to create this quick guide for how to optimize your new YouTube channel and get you back up to speed:

Taylor Hinkle

An award-winning photographer and web media specialist, Taylor has lead multiple social media campaigns for some of One Social Media’s most notable clients.

Filed Under: YouTube Tagged With: how to optimize a youtube channel, how to optimize my youtube channel, new youtube layout, social media tips, ways to optimize a youtube channel, ways to optimize my youtube channel, youtube tips

It’s Time To Socialize Your Brand

February 15, 2012 By Mike Bal Leave a Comment

There’s not a business out there that can afford to wait any longer. Your customers are using social media and so are other influencers in your industry.

If your competitors aren’t on social media yet, they soon will be.

Your brand is what your customer expects at any touch point they have with your business. Your customer service reps, your product, the package it comes in, the ads you run, and even the executives who run your company, all represent your brand. Those expectations have already started to be developed by the decisions you’ve made so far, but now your customer doesn’t just want to hear about you, they want to talk to you.

Social media has given your customers a chance to get to know you and they can’t wait! Leading brands like Skittles and Sharpie have developed unique personalities on social media to help enhance the relationships they have with their customers and the rest of the business world isn’t far behind. So, you know you need to be talking to your customers through social media but you have no idea what to say and, even worse, no idea how to say it. Fear not!

We have a few social media branding tips to help.

1. Define Your Brand’s Personality – Once you have a clear definition of who your brand is, you will have a better understanding of what it would say. Would it make jokes? Does it love kittens?

2. Discover Your Brand’s Interests – Let’s make it easy. You want your brand to be your customer’s most trusted confidant, so you should have similar interests to your customer’s to help strengthen the relationship. Talk about topics that are relevant and interesting to your customers and talk about them like they’re relevant and interesting to you.

3. Develop Your Brand’s Voice – The more sharing or “talking” you do, the more you will see patterns in your word choice, your phrasing, and even your punctuation appear. Your fans and customers will get used to these patterns as well so make sure you stick to them.

Once you get through these basic steps it will become second nature to communicate on behalf of your brand. It may seem like you have a second personality hiding inside of your head, it’s not insanity, it’s smart branding. There have never been more or better opportunities for you to connect with your customers on such a personal level. Your connection leads to a relationship and with that comes loyalty which is one of the most valuable assets your company can have, but the hardest to gain.

Click Here to get The Essential Step-By-Step Guide To Internet Marketing E-book and learn more strategies to help your brand succeed online.

Mike Bal

The 5 Biggest Social Media Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

February 14, 2012 By Joe Soto Leave a Comment

If you feel you might be making mistakes in social media, you aren’t alone. I talk to business owners, CEO’s, and marketing directors from all around the world and they all share the same frustration and concern with me; that they may be wasting their time in their social media efforts.

The five biggest social media mistakes I’ve uncovered are:

#1 Not having a social media plan.

People plan more for their weekend vacations than they do for their social media strategy. What are your objectives? What do you want to accomplish? Who are you trying to reach? Which social media platforms are your potential customers spending time on? How can you add value? Stop wasting your time in social media and plan.

#2 Overpromoting.

Social media is more about sparking conversations, connecting with others and developing relationships than it is advertising or promotion. Businesses abuse the social media tools available to them thinking they are to be used to shout their message over and over. Add value first. People will find you if you are adding value and helping to solve a problem.