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DEVELOP SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN CONTENT

What is the most challenging part of the social media marketing process?

Well, probably the effort needed to create social media content itself, and ensuring that whatever you have written, photographed, or designed will “go viral”.

Yes, at this stage, you would have already done your company social media audit, customer and competitor analyses and research. You would have understood and defined the goals, objectives and KPIs which you wish to accomplish with social media marketing, and how these can be tracked with analytics.

Perhaps you’ve even invested in that state-of-the-art marketing automation and social media monitoring system.

Now that you’ve got all the “Science” part of social media marketing figured out, you need to weave in the “Art”.

This entails developing creative and intriguing content, learning what some of the best practices in creating social media content for different channels are, and managing your online communities so that they could help you get the word out there.

In this chapter, you will learn to do the following:

• Practice developing contagious content for blogs, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and an infographic

• Effective principles to recruit, engage, sustain and develop advocates in an online community.

Ready to rock? Let’s get cracking!

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THE STORYBRAND PLOT STRUCTURE

An essential part of the brand storytelling process, the plot of a story helps to bring greater coherence to your content. A good plot leads your audiences along a certain path, makes them feel like they are a part of your brand story, and convinces them of the benefits which you can bring. The beauty of storytelling is that you can do so authentically without nagging or bragging.

Donald Miller’s StoryBrand1 plot structure can be a useful guide for us. It basically goes like this:

A character has a problem, then meets a guide who gives them a plan and calls them to action. That action either results in a comedy or tragedy.

Courtesy of Storybrand

Case Study 1: Laundry and Dry Cleaning Services

Let us apply the StoryBrand framework to some real life examples. For the first, let us imagine that you own a company providing laundry and dry cleaning services. Instead of just telling people how cheap or fast your services are, consider developing the following story plot:

• Character or Hero: A young working mother • Facing a Problem: Need to balance multiple chores at home? Lack time or energy? Feeling

frustrated? • Meets a Guide: ABC laundry and dry cleaning services is here to help! • Who gives a Plan: Create time for yourself! Let us take away your laundry and ironing chores. • And calls the hero to Action: Bring your laundry to the nearest outlet. We'll give you a map and

even a bag to bring your laundry in. • That action results in Happy Ending: You can enjoy more time with your loved ones, and energy

to do what you love! • Inaction would result in Tragedy: Don't continue being frustrated with piled up laundry!

Here are two examples of laundry service providers which have used some elements of the story plot example.

1 Source: http://storybrand.com/

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Source of image2

Courtesy of http://tigerlaundry.blogspot.sg/

Case Study 2: IT Solution Provider for Small Businesses

Let us look at a second B2B example involving an Information Technology (IT) solutions provider.

In this case, your hero would be a company. Or more specifically, a manager or executive in the company.

2 Source: http://bangalore.locanto.in/ID_607200671/Fabriklub-Professional-Online-Laundry-and-Dry-Cleaning-Service.html

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Using the StoryBrand plot structure, we could develop a story line as follows:

• Character or Hero: An owner or manager of a small business. • Facing a Problem: Spends a lot of time keeping records manually. Loses track of his financial

accounts. Feels stressed. • Meets a Guide: Smart Wizard software is here to save your day! • Who gives a Plan: Let us help you manage your admin, accounts and HR records. We will even

provide free training. • And calls the hero to Action: Give us a call for a FREE consultation. Our consultants will provide

you with a hassle-free migration plan. • That action results in Happy Ending: You can spend more time growing your business. And

saving time and money in managing your office admin! • Inaction could result in Tragedy: Sure you want to continue wasting time and money on sorting

out your records?

Source of image

Injecting Stories into Your Product or Idea

• What is your Trojan Horse?

• Is the story not only viral but also valuable?

• Could you use the StoryBrand plot structure to tell your story?

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HOW TO BLOG LIKE AN INFLUENCER

Potential Blog Topics

Here are 17 topics that you can consider in writing a blog article, taken from Paul Gillin’s “Create

Stuff They’ve Just Gotta Read: How to Write for #SocialNetworks” presentation at MarketingProfs

Digital Marketing World, December 13, 2013. You may find the topics useful even as you begin your

blogging journey.

Topic

Example

Quiz

Test Your Online Writing IQ

Sceptic You Don’t Control the Impact of Your Online Words Anymore

Explainer The Online Writing Debate in Plain English

Case Study How Mary Lim managed to become a money spinning copywriter in three months

Contrarian Why Online Writing Skills Are Over Hyped

How-to 21 Ways to Become an Online Writing Superstar

How NOT to The Greatest Mistakes Made by Copywriters in Singapore

First Person What I Did to Overcome My Fear of Social Media

Comparison

Social Media Marketing vs Search Engine Optimisation: Which Is Better?

Q&A Seven Most Common Questions on Online Writing with Walter Lim

Data Digital Content is Taking the World by Storm says Study

Man on the Street Three Digital Marketing Experts Offer Tips on Viral Content

Outrageous Why Failing to Write Well Can Make You Lose Money

BuzzFeed Style Outrageous Read How This Woman Transformed Her Writing From Ugly to Beautiful in Just Three Weeks OR You Won’t Believe What This Man Did To Become The “Shakespeare” of Social Media

Insider Secrets The One Thing You Need To Know About Writing Like a Champion (Never Before Revealed)

Literary Treatment The Online Writing Haiku, epic narrative poem, comic book for online writing, or anything else you can imagine.

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Useful Tools – Ubersuggest and Keyword.io

If you are really stuck for content topics for your blog, consider using three tools to get the right

combination of keywords – LSIGraph.com, Ubersuggest.io and Keyword.io

Here’s how the first one, LSIGraph.com, looks like.

Now if you key a combination of keywords, you’ll end up getting a whole list of possible “long-tail

keyword” phrases as follows:

LSI Keywords are essentially keywords related to the keyword that you search for on search engines

such as Google. In a nutshell, they are keywords that are semantically linked to your main keyword.

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In practical terms, Google has confirmed that by using more LSI keywords, your page will typically

rank better. Examples include the suggestions that you get when you type your keywords into your

search engine.

Alternatively, you can also find them at the end of the first page of a search engine.

Next, we have ubersuggest (via https://ubersuggest.io):

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You can see that there are about 105 keywords that were located revolving around the term “Social

Media Marketing Tips”. From these keywords, have a glance at possible matches that could be topics

for your blog post.

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These topics would show you the ones that people are more actively searching for on Google.

Keyword.io (http://www.keyword.io/) works in pretty much the same way. Have a look at what

some of the keywords recommended are when I type in “Flowers for Mother’s Day” and limited the

search to “Singapore”.

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How To Write Powerful Headlines3

By now, you ought to know that the headline is the most important piece of writing in a blog. Earlier,

we have seen some examples of headlines and blog topics that you can focus on.

Marketing Profs writer extraordinaire Ann Handley advises us to “spend as much time on the

headline as you do on the writing itself”. You should respect the headline as it’s a key element of

your post, article, or other piece of content, which tells your audience what you are going to deliver,

how you are going to deliver it, and why they should keep reading.

• Create a curiosity gap, but with moderation

Done right, the curiosity-gap approach can inspire and inform and help readers by making it

clear what the piece is about. Buzzfeed and Upworthy are masters of this, although they may be

a little overbearing at times.

• Promise what you are going to deliver

Your headline should promise the reader what you are going to deliver as specifically as possible.

3 Source: “Everybody Writes” by Ann Handley

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• Place your reader directly into the headline

“15 Ways to Write a Headline” is a boring title because it is not specific enough.

But “7 Ways to Write Headlines that Doctors Would Respond To” will be spot on if you are in the

business of marketing to healthcare practitioners.

• Use numbers

Ever wonder why list articles work? It is the numbers that grab people’s attention.

PS – using oddball numbers (23 or 19, or 7.5) works better.

• Use lively words

Like all other forms of writing, use adjectives that paint a picture in the minds of your readers.

Include adjectives (where relevant) such as ultimate, brilliant, awesome, intense, hilarious,

smart, critical, surprising. Once again, don’t get too carried away.

• Don’t Ignore Your Lead In In almost all social media channels – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube – your lead-in can make-or-break how successful you are in generating interest. Use it to tease your readers, viewers or listeners, like this example from Digital Marketer below:

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NEW – BUZZSUMO’S ANALYSIS OF TOP PERFORMING HEADLINES4

Most Engaging Headline Phrases: The Data

In our survey of 100m headlines published between 1st March 2017 and 10th May 2017, the three word phrases or trigrams that gained the most Facebook engagements (likes, shares, comments) were as follows.

4 Source: http://buzzsumo.com/blog/most-shared-headlines-study/

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Why The Data Will Make You Think Again About Headlines

In our sample the most powerful three word phrase used in a headline (by some margin) was:

“Will make you … “

This phrase “will make you” gained more than twice the number of Facebook engagements as the second most popular headline trigram. This was a surprise. When we started out looking for top trigrams, this one wasn’t even on our list.

So why does this particular trigram or three word phrase work so well? One of the interesting things is that it is a linking phrase. It doesn’t start or end a headline, rather it makes explicit the linkage between the content and the potential impact on the reader.

This headline format sets out why the reader should care about the content. It also promises that the content will have a direct impact on the reader, often an emotional reaction. The headline is clear and to the point which makes it elegant and effective.

Typical headlines include:

• 24 Pictures That Will Make You Feel Better About The World

• What This Airline Did for Its Passengers Will Make You Tear Up – So Heartwarming

• 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person

• “Who Wore It Better?” Pics That Will Make You Laugh Out Loud

• 13 Travel Tips That Will Make You Feel Smart

Emotional Headlines Drive Facebook Interactions

In our analysis we found that emotional phrases were consistently effective on Facebook as measured by the number of interactions. For example:

• Tears of joy

• Make you cry

• Give you goosebumps

• Is too cute

• Shocked to see

• Melt your heart

• Can’t stop laughing

Many of the top performing posts with emotional headlines had image or video content although there were also story posts. Below is an example video post.

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Despite the strong performance of emotional posts, content writers increasingly have to be careful in using emotional and sensational language. In May 2017 Facebook announced it will demote “headlines that exaggerate the details of a story with sensational language” and which aim “to make the story seem like a bigger deal than it really is.”

Curiosity and Voyeurism Also Gain Facebook Engagement

Headline phrases that provoke curiosity and a sense of voyeurism also gained a high level of engagement on Facebook. For example:

• What happened next

• Talking about it

• Twitter reacts to

• Are freaking out

• Top x songs

Readers are often curious about what is being talked about by people, what the top items are in a league table, or what is being said by people on Twitter about a topic or event. This type of content appeals to a reader’s sense of curiosity and voyeurism. If you are curious, here are the most shared posts in the last year that have “are freaking out” in the headline.

We would caution writers to avoid ‘what happened next’ style headlines. While they have previously performed well, Facebook now categorises headlines that withhold information as clickbait and demotes them. In my personal view this is a good thing and I hope we will see an end to such clickbait headlines.

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Other Engaging Headline Phrases

Explanations

• This is why

• The reason is

These phrases are also linked strongly to curiosity. For example:

• And this is why women live longer than men…

• This is why you should be sleeping on your left side

We all want to feel that bit smarter after reading a piece of content. Explainer articles promise you an extra nugget of insight. In some ways they are similar to the “will make you” phrase headline as they make a promise about what you’ll gain as a result of reading the article.

Here are the most shared ‘this is why’ headlines of the last year.

Quizzes

• Can we guess

• Only x in

These phrases are used in popular quiz headlines, for example:

• Can We Guess Your Real Age?

• Only 1 In 50 People Can Identify These 16 Grammar Mistakes. Can You?

Quizzes remain an engaging format on Facebook. The first of these headline types is a quiz variation, it challenges you to answer to questions and to see if the quiz can then predict your age, level of education, job etc., based on your answers. These quizzes appeal to our desire to know more about ourselves and to prove we’re smart, we did grow up in the 80s, we are living in the right city, or whatever it might be. These quizzes are like mirrors, it’s hard to walk past with out looking at yourself. They are hard to ignore.

Tribal headlines

• X things only

These popular headlines appeal to a sense of tribal belonging for example:

• 25 Things Only Teachers Will Understand

• 17 Things Only Moms of Twins Understand

• 9 Things Only Girls Who Grew Up With Older Brothers Will Understand

• 10 Things Only Night Shift Nurses Understand

We have seen a significant growth in tribal headlines, particularly politically partisan headlines. It is almost as if there is a duty on the tribe to share posts that support their viewpoints. We saw this in the US elections and we have seen something similar in the recent UK elections. These tribal headlines tend to gain a lot of engagement and shares, which might be encouraging sites to use polemical headlines more frequently.

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Anatomy of a Perfect Blog Post5

Headlines, Feature Image and Social Sharing Buttons

Craft a powerful headline, include the date of your post, embed social sharing buttons, and always

include a feature image. Studies have shown that posts that include images produce 650 per cent

higher engagement than text-only posts6.

Text Details, Hooks, and Facts

As we go into the text of the blog article itself, do note that readability of your blog post is important

especially since many of your readers will peruse it using their mobiles. Ensure that your first few

sentences are interesting as a lead in to convince people to keep reading.

Do take a stand in your blog post so that people will know where you stand – even if you are wrong.

Strengthen your arguments by citing real facts, data, and examples. This gives your credibility a

boost.

5 Source of infographic: http://blog.ispionage.com/anatomy-of-a-perfect-blog-post.html 6 Source: Inc Magazine http://www.inc.com/larry-kim/visual-content-marketing-16-eye-popping-statistics-you-need-to-know.html

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Format with Sub headers, Bullet Points et al

Remember what we learned about skimming and scanning behaviours? Use sub headers to break up

your text, and see if you can weave some SEO magic into them. ☺

Use bullet points and numbered lists to break up long chunks of text and paragraphs. Write in a

conversational manner, like talking to a friend.

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More Images and Sub Headers to Break It Up

Yes, we are quite adamant about breaking up those big chunks of text. If you are writing a long blog

post (1,000 words and above), remember to include more images or videos to break up your text.

Adding additional sub headers also help.

Conclusion and Comments

Make sure that your blog posts have sufficient details for your readers to act on it. Finally, remember

to end your blog post on a high. This will be a good way to wrap up, with a strong call to action.

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MASTERING FACEBOOK

Used by over 1.55 billion users around the world, Facebook is the most popular social networking site on the planet. Almost everybody is on Facebook – teens, youths, adults, and seniors. Facebook is the largest photo sharing website on the Internet, and is fast catching up with YouTube in terms of videos viewed.

In Singapore, Facebook is the top social media network with 3.8 million registered users.

You can create a Facebook profile, a Facebook page for your business, and even a Facebook group for like-minded people to communicate in smaller niches. Of all the Social Networks, Facebook is by far the most effective in referring traffic to websites as seen below:

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Best Practices in Facebook Content Creation

Ideal Length

The ideal length for Facebook post is between 100 and 140 characters – or about the same length as a tweet. However, length isn’t the only factor, or even the most important factor here.

Post When Your Audience is Online Determine the time when your audience is most active, so that there is a highly likelihood of them seeing and engaging with your post. You can get this from Facebook Insights. (image from Buffer App7)

Post with Images Generally, Facebook posts with graphics and images get four times as much response as posts without.8

7 Source: https://blog.bufferapp.com/facebook-reach-strategies 8 Reference: https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/blog-image-best-practices/

http://tracksocial.com/blog/2012/06/optimizing-facebook-engagement-part-3-the-effect-of-post-length/

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Be Natural and Authentic Keep your posts natural sounding and human. This should be aligned to your brand style and tone. Oh, and humour works well here too!

Be Topical, Timely and Relevant

Adopt the principle of newsjacking, and create content that are hot topics yet relevant

to your target audiences.

Ask Questions These are always popular and come in many different flavours:

• Fill in the _________ (blanks)

• Survey (eg “How do you feel about our new logo?”)

• Educational/Factual (eg “Did you know that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family?”)

• Seek opinions (eg “What do you guys think of this new outfit?”)

• Either/ Or (eg “Would you rather have a million dollars now or two million in 5 years?”)

• Ask for advice (eg “What do you do to improve Facebook engagement?”)

• Make your posts timely (eg “What is the best way to beat the slowing economy?”)

• Ask for help (eg “Which animal would work better as our mascot?”)

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Post Quotes

Everybody loves an inspirational quote, especially if it is relevant to your brand or

business.

Post Native Videos and Animated GIFs

Facebook is now the number one website for viral videos, leapfrogging over YouTube. In fact, studies have shown that the social

sharing rate of videos on Facebook far exceed all other media formats.

Have a look at the infographic on the right, which shows that Facebook native videos

have a much higher organic and engagement rate than even YouTube or

Instagram.

Source: http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/locowise-facebook-native-videos-youtube-instagram/624105

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Anatomy of Good Facebook Posts

Let us look at some positive examples of Facebook posts and study them individually.

Source of image: http://www.tavanoteam.com/digital-marketing/back-to-school-facebook-campaign/

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Source: https://blog.bufferapp.com/anatomy-of-a-perfect-facebook-post

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Canva: A Great Tool for Visual Social Media Content

To master the social media content creation game, it would be useful to use online tools like Canva (www.canva.com) or Piktochart (www.piktochart.com) to create your image-centric content.

Both tools are mostly free, and offer you ready-to-ship templates for social media content of different shapes and sizes.

Here is a simple video guide to Canva: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqYti78riU8

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How to Set Up a Facebook Page for Business9

1) Log into Facebook

If you do not have a personal profile set up on Facebook, do that first at www.facebook.com. Even if

you don’t want a personal profile, we highly recommend that you create one rather than creating a

“business-only” Facebook Page because of the.

Once you have logged into your personal account, we are going to create your Business Page.

Your Business Page will be “tied” to your personal profile, but they are completely separate.

2) Create a New Business Page

Go to www.facebook.com/pages/create.php. Select one of the boxes which fits your business and

browse the menus to see which one fits best.

9 Information from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-set-up-a-facebook-page-for-business/

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Do not select Local Business or Place unless you have a physical storefront that your customers

come to, because Facebook will automatically turn your Page into a Place as well. You don’t want

people coming to “check in” to your home office.

3) Choose Your Category from the Drop-down Menu

Choose the category which best fits your business.

4) Name Your Page

This will be whatever you put into the box under the Category menu. Note that your Page name is

very important and you need to choose carefully. The name is limited to 70 characters, and should

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ideally be linked to your brand name. Note that you can change your Page name up until the point

when you have 200 fans.

5) Select box “I agree to Facebook Pages Terms”

Select the box next to “I agree to Facebook Pages Terms” and click Get Started.

6) Include a Profile Picture

The profile picture is the image that appears next to every post that goes into the news feed from your

Page. The ideal size for a profile photo is 180 pixels by 180 pixels, but it can be larger with different

dimensions. You can adjust the viewable portion of the profile picture by mousing over the photo

and clicking Edit Profile Picture and then Edit Thumbnail.

Once you have your profile photo added, click Next and you are taken to a place to add your About

information.

7) Add About Information

There are several sections in the Facebook “About” Page which you should fill up. Note that this is

indexed and searchable, thus you want to make sure that you describe it well and include the right

keywords.

Here are some of the information to be included:

• Basic info: Address, Phone Number, Website Address (URL), Business Hours

• Impressum: Statement of ownership

• Menu (if you selected Local Businesses and Restaurant/Café)

• Services (if you selected Professional Services as your page category)

Do link to your website is in this field, so people can easily find your website since this field is so

prominent. You want to add your website address into the website field as shown in the image. You

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can also add other websites that you want to direct people to such as Twitter or other social sites by

clicking on the Add Another Site link.

8) Like Your Own Page

Facebook prompts you to like your own Page, which is a good idea but it isn’t required.

Like your own Page.

9) Do Not Invite Your Email Contacts Yet

Facebook then takes you to the place where you can invite your email contacts. Do not do this until

your Page is updated a bit more. And I personally don’t like using Facebook’s feature to accomplish

this. Create your own email message instead and send it directly from whatever email service you

use.

10) Share Something

Facebook prompts you to share your first status update. Again, you can decide to do this now or skip

it. It is a good idea to have many status updates on your timeline before you start inviting people to

like your Page so they can see the types of things you are going to be sharing.

11) Add a Cover Photo

No page is complete without a good cover photo. Your cover photo has to be a minimum of 399 pixels

wide (most standard photos are fine) and works best if it is sized to 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels

high. Note that Facebook’s Cover Photo terms state that it cannot include more than 20% of text. You

can use tools like Social Contests to check your image (http://www.social-contests.com/check-image).

12) Add to Your About Page

Even though you added the small blurb about your company, you also should include more on your

About Page, since it is a chance for you to talk about what your company can do for others. Click the

Edit Page and Update info menu selections from your admin panel at the top of your Page.

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You have a lot of potential real estate on your About Page and it’s a good idea to highlight all of the

good things about your company and list the websites where people can find you.

The About Page varies depending on what category you chose and you can switch categories from

this area as well (select a different category from the drop-down menu at the top). If you categorized

yourself as a local business, you will have a map on your About Page with the address of your

business.

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13) Review Your Permissions

Go into Edit Page, then Manage Permissions from the admin panel and review how your permissions

are set up. The message button is on by default, which means that people can send your Page

messages. If you are overwhelmed by the thought of another inbox, ensure you are making it easy for

people to contact you in a different way.

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MASTERING LINKEDIN (COMPANY PERSPECTIVE)

With more than 420 million users around the world, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional

social network. LinkedIn is also the social network preferred by CEOs, and is widely touted to be the

preferred “hunting ground” for B2B businesses looking for talents, clients, and partners.

Contrary to popular belief, LinkedIn isn’t just a glorified digital rolodex. In fact, content pages receive

seven times as many views as job activities. Users of LinkedIn actively seek information that are

valuable, helpful and inspiring.

Like any social media platform, LinkedIn works better when you minimise the hard-sell. Try not to

talk too much about your company or brand, but focus on your readers and sharing content that

meets their need. At the same time, tie it back some way to what you product or service does.

Change your mind-set from “always be closing” to “always be helping” – Jason Miller, Senior Director

of Content Marketing in LinkedIn (as quoted on “Everybody Writes” by Ann Handley)

Company Pages on LinkedIn

Company pages on LinkedIn help to bring life to a brand. They are often the first place a member

lands to see a company’s status updates, latest blog posts written by thought leaders within the

business (whether on LinkedIn Pulse or the company’s own blog/website), as well as other updates.

Businesses can manage and measure all facets of their company brand on LinkedIn, including their

product brands and employment brands.

Overview Tab

This is akin to the “Home Page” of your website, and serves an important goal in providing a positive

first impression to a newcomer to your business. It should include a high-level overview of the

company, along with a well-chosen cover image that represents the company and brand.

Do be mindful of how the company description is written, and ensure that it includes the right

keywords that potential business partners or employees are searching for.

Any written copy and photographs should be consistent with the company’s brand position across

multiple channels. The company’s feed on LinkedIn is a company’s way of communicating important

messages to its audience. Some businesses are naturally better than others in doing so.

Here are some positive examples:

• Walt Disney (http://lnkd.in/WaltDisney )

• IT Media Group (http:///lnkd.in/ITMediaGroup )

• Zappos (see below):

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Cover Image

To stand out from the numerous company pages on LinkedIn, it would be good if you can create a

stunning corporate image with a photograph that tells a story. Coca-Cola has done that extremely

well, from the image you see here:

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Careers Tab

A paid subscription service, premium career pages allows businesses to promote specific jobs as well

as general job opportunities. This can be done via an automated job matching system.

Companies can also highlight their awards, showcase their best employees, and even determine

various career paths available within the firm. This helps them to convey their corporate story by

allowing them to share their mission, vision and goals.

Products Tab

The company products tab helps the company to showcase its best products and services to a

targeted audience. It also allows the company to create a place to feature product

recommendations and facilitate conversations with both customers and prospects.

Currently LinkedIn offers up to 30 specific audience segments, including segmentation by industry,

geography, company size, and more. Beyond that, companies can capitalise on the fact that

recommendations from family, friends and peers are greatly influential in our decision-making

process. Here is an example from MailChimp, a provider of email marketing, marketing automation

and analytics software:

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Insights Tab

Like Facebook pages, LinkedIn also includes analytics as part of the package. Visible only to

administrators, it includes information such as the following:

• Number of visits to company pages

• Demographics of followers

• Number of new followers

• Areas which have the highest views

• Overall page growth

With these analytics, LinkedIn administrators can populate graphs showing insights regarding traffic,

user-pattern page clicks, likes, comments, shares, and percentages related to a number of valuable

metrics.

Source of image: https://www.portent.com/blog/social-media/optimize-new-linkedin-company-page.htm

Best Practices in LinkedIn Posts

Generally speaking, much of what you’ve learned for Blogs and Facebook applies to LinkedIn too.

LinkedIn’s Pulse allows you to create your own blog post on LinkedIn’s profile, and is an effective

way to establish thought leadership on LinkedIn for B2B businesses.

The key thing to note here is that LinkedIn is a B2B and Professional Network. Thus, it is important

to weave whatever emotional triggers you may have for your content to a professional context.

Curate Articles by Thought Leaders

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LinkedIn is partial towards thought leaders and influencers in the business spaces. Thus, you will

regularly see the content of head honchos like Bill Gates, Sir Richard Branson, and Arianna

Huffington being shared around. This would be a good practice for you to build your corporate

LinkedIn profile.

Trending News Articles and Newsjacking

Like Facebook, Twitter and other social channels, LinkedIn is partial towards trending news.

However, the focus here is on professional and B2B areas. Here is an example of an article I wrote

about how mid-career professionals could keep themselves employable despite the current

economic slowdown in Singapore10.

10 Source of article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-ways-mid-career-professionals-can-stay-afloat-walter-lim

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Provide Valuable Professional/Business Advice

LinkedIn is partial towards content that help users to solve professional challenges, especially those

related to HR, leadership, personal development, career development, and personal branding.

These could be in the form of the following:

• Blog articles

• Infographics

• Slideshare slides

• Instructional training videos

• Motivational quotes and inspiring content

Ask yourself the following question:

• Does my content educate my readers and provide refreshing new insights?

• Does it address a common industry problem, challenge or issue?

• Does it provide a unique perspective or solution that is not easily found elsewhere?

• Am I perceived to be a credible person to share my thoughts on this issue?

• Will the piece be good enough to be shareable?

Avoid Discounts and Promotions

One of the most important things to note on LinkedIn is that you should never push products or

services with discounts or offers. LinkedIn is primarily a professional network, and doing so just

doesn’t work very well. Here’s an example of an ad I saw recently which I felt couldn’t work well on

LinkedIn.

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MASTERING TWITTER

Microblogging hit the social web scene in 2007 when Twitter debuted, but it didn’t get the attention until Twitter became the centre of attention at the annual South by South-west conference (SXSW).

With a total of 310 million active users worldwide, Twitter has grown to become the most popular microblogging application.

Once you create a Twitter profile for your business, you can publish updates wherever you want and about any topic that you want. As a business user, however, you should only create content that accurately reflects your brand image while injecting your personality.

Through Twitter, you can share links to interesting Web pages in your updates, reply to other Twitter users publicly or privately, and retweet interesting updates published by other Twitter users.

An important feature in Twitter is its ability to connect with other users through the follow feature. When you follow a person on Twitter, his or her tweets appear in your stream of updates on your Twitter home page. Similarly, when people follow you, your updates will appear in their Twitter streams.

Anatomy of Twitter

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Twitter Tips for Businesses

To get started on Twitter for your business, you can follow these simple steps:

1) Create Your Twitter Account

Visit http://twitter.com and select the “Sign Up Now” link to create your account. Provide the information requested, and be sure to take some time to pick the best Twitter user name (aka your nick) because you can’t change it later. Consider using your business name, blog or website domain name where available, or other brand identity that represents your business online over the long-term.

Your Twitter ID will be known as @username where username will be replaced with the user name you selected when you create your account.

2) Customise Your Twitter profile

Once your account is created, you need to take some time to edit your account settings. There are several steps here:

• Upload a profile image that identifies your business (called your avatar)

• Upload a bigger background image that helps to brand your business further

• Add a profile description that describes your business, as well as a link to your website or blog where you want people to find out more information about your business.

• Take some time to customise your Twitter profile design by modifying the colours to match your brand.

3) Set up Alerts

Use a tool like Twilert (https://www.twilert.com/) to set up keyword alerts so that you will receive an email when Twitter users tweet those keywords. Generally speaking, these should include your business name, brand names, competitor’s names, major clients, or other keywords that are of interest to your business.

4) Tweet with Images and Videos

Start experimenting with some tweets. Remember that image and video tweets are more highly viewed and shared than non-image tweets.

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5) Keep Tweets between 70 to 100 Characters

When you tweet, do remember to also keep the length of your tweets to between 70 to 100 characters. This has been shown to be more effective in generating engagement amongst followers as shown by Track Social below:

Source: http://tracksocial.com/blog/2012/10/optimizing-twitter-engagement-part-3-tweet-length/

6) Find Influencers to Follow

Use the Find People feature on Twitter to locate the right Twitter followers you know and follow them. There are some best practices that you can consider here:

• Follow industry experts and thought leaders in your field

• See who the people you know follow and see if they are worth following

• Use Twitter advanced-search function to find people who are already tweeting about topics that include keywords relevant to your business and follow them

• Follow interesting Twitter accounts

7) Participate in Conversations

Check out some of the most popular Twitter streams and start retweeting and sending @replies. Over time, these Twitter influencers may notice you and reciprocate the favour by following you back or retweeting your tweets!

8) Feed Your Blog Into Your Twitter Stream

Manually share your blog URL in your Twitter stream, or use a tool like Hootsuite to automate the process.

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9) Add follow badges and Twitter widgets to Your Blog

Visit http://twiter.com/goodies to get tools to promote your Twitter stream on your blog, website or social media profiles. You can also find widgets and tools from TwitterCounter (http://twittercounter.com)

10) Tweet frequently and regularly

Unlike other social channels, Twitter is like a never ceasing and un-ending information superhighway. In order to get your tweets noticed, you need to tweet frequently – as much as 6 to 8 times a day!

11) Monitor Right Hashtags

Research on the right hashtags to be used for your industry, and consider which topics are actively searched. Hashtags help your tweet to be more visible. There are lots of free hashtag tracking tools like hashtag.org and more which you can use11.

11) Use Tools to Improve Efficiency

Sign up for tools like Hoot Suite (www.hootsuite.com) to help manage your tweets all under one roof.

11 Source: http://blog.talkwalker.com/en/6-free-hashtag-tracking-tools/

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MASTERING INSTAGRAM

Instagram is the probably fastest growing social network on planet Earth right now.

With more and more teens, youths and young adults flocking to Instagram, it is time for your business to secure a foothold in Instagram marketing. This is especially significant if your brands are in the hypercompetitive consumer businesses like fashion, beauty, food, hospitality, sports and fitness, or specialty retail.

Most Engaging Platform for Brands

Comparatively speaking, Instagram is the most engaging social platform relative to Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest or Twitter. In fact, the difference can be quite significant as shown by the chart below from Forrester Research:

#1 Create a branded Instagram account

First and foremost, you need to create a branded Instagram profile. Fortunately, this can be quickly and easily done.

To start an Instagram account, you need the following:

• A nice profile photo, perhaps a logo of your company or equivalent photo which conveys your brand personality.

• A short description for your bio which does not exceed 150 characters. Consider using emoticons if they are appropriate.

• A link to your website. This should be updated regularly depending on what you are promoting.

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#2 Produce fresh yet on-brand content

Now that you are “legit” on Instagram, you need to start producing visual content. You may want to establish a consistent branded look and feel for your content, rather than whatever catches your fancy.

Some of the points to consider in creating “branded content” are as follows:

• Consistent use of colours, patterns and designs

• Adopt a certain “signature” style in angles, lighting, and composition

• Mix and match between photos, videos, and infographics. See which content format yields better outcomes.

• Be mindful of what you write. While Instagram is a visual marketing platform, people do read your copy. Ensure whatever is written is in sync with what was posted and make it useful too.

• Provide value to your followers: useful tips and ideas, education, or just pure visual refreshment.

See how Whole Foods (B2C) and Adobe (B2B) do it below:

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Source: https://www.instagram.com/wholefoods/

Source: https://www.instagram.com/adobe/

#3 Publish regularly – daily if possible – and avoid bunching posts

Like any other content marketing efforts, Instagram requires you to be fairly regular and consistent in churning out visual content and publishing it.

Establish a calendar of posts, and try to keep to a routine. This can be daily, once every two days, or even weekly. Start off more strongly with regular daily posts before tapering off to once every two or three days.

Avoid bunching up your posts. I know that it is tempting to snap and share 5 to 10 posts in succession when you are at a great party, or having a grand dinner. Save those posts for a later time so that you do not spam your followers.

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#4 Engage to grow your influence

To grow in both reach and engagement (ie Likes and Comments) on Instagram, you need to participate in the wider Instagram community. There are two things you need to do here:

Reach out to like-minded Instagram influencers

Using the right search terms or hashtags on Instagram, locate other folks passionate in what you can offer. Engage with them by liking their posts and commenting on them. The general rule is to give one comment for every five posts liked.

Engage with your followers

Do not neglect your followers. Reach out to them by responding to their comments to show that you are listening to what they have to say. It is especially critical for you to close the loop when those comments are issues related to customer service.

Beyond responding to them on Instagram, make it a point to visit the posts of your most devoted fans and reciprocate by liking and commenting on their posts.

https://www.instagram.com/potbellysandwichshop/

#5 Use hashtags to heighten your influence

Hashtags are all the rage in Instagram. While you can technically include up to 30 different hashtags in your comments section, the general rule is that you should try to keep them to 10 to 12 max. Here are some other points to take note of:

• Choose a mixture of popular and long-tail hashtags. An example of a popular hashtag would be #singapore or #foodporn. A long-tail hashtag would be #chocolate or #singaporedesserts.

• Try to be consistent in the hashtags which you choose.

• Check out what content is being posted using the same hashtags. This would give you a clue to what the Instagram community prefers.

• Engage with others who post using the same hashtags. Often these are folks with similar interests to yours.

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#6 Show love to your community

Everybody loves to receive gifts, and the same applies to social media platforms like Instagram. What are the “gifts” that you can provide to your followers and fans?

• Showcase your most ardent fans and give them a shoutout on your Instagram posts.

• Repost interesting content from followers and other Instagram accounts. Tag those accounts in your post.

• Organise occasional giveaways and contests to trigger excitement. Include some form of referral bonus which can be tracked by specific campaign hashtags (see examples below).

• Make full-use of your website address on the bio, and point them to click on it there during campaign periods.

#7 Use influencer analytics and metrics

As the saying goes, you cannot manage what you don’t measure. Likewise, it pays for you to look at your Instagram analytics to determine what works and what doesn’t.

There are four indicators that you should look at:

• Number of followers

• Number of comments/likes (also known as engagement)

• Most popular posts (by engagement)

• Average engagement per post

Beyond tracking these KPIs, you should also embrace the following practices:

• Track your number of fans and their growth rates on a weekly and monthly basis

• Gauge how well different types of visual posts do, be they photos, short videos (Instagram only allows 15 seconds or less), infographics, or posters

• Determine which days and timings work best in terms of engagement

• Assess how effective different combinations of hashtags are

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Screenshot from squarelovin.com

#8 Sign up for an automated platform

Last, but certainly not least, serious Instagram marketers make use of automated platforms to up their Instagram marketing game. There are several available in the market, but the two most popular ones which I use are:

1. Squarelovin (https://squarelovin.com): Squarelovin is an admirably in-depth tool for a free analytics platform. It displays metrics on recent posts and growth, a monthly analysis, and a history of your posts broken down into year, month, day, and hour. There are tabs that show engagement with your photos, both average and top posts, and an optimization tab that shows your best and worst times to post. You can also manage your Instagram account from within the platform, creating albums, and liking and commenting other posts.

2. Iconosquare (http://iconosquare.com): Previously known as Statigram, Iconosquare allows you to track and monitor your Instagram account along with several useful analytics such as your content distribution, density, use of hashtags, and engagement.

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HOW TO CREATE INFOGRAPHICS

Infographics are fast ruling the Internet. If done well, they can be extremely powerful marketing tools and help your brand to establish itself as a knowledgeable and inspired thought leader.

An infographic is what it sounds like – information graphically expressed through drawings, photos, images, maps, diagrams, charts and other visual elements. Often, these are held together by a consistent theme, and published as an image file.

The best place to find infographics is Pinterest. With its bias towards visual vertically oriented content, Pinterest has become the preferred social platform for infographics.

Considered as a form of visual storytelling, the best forms of infographics are informative, visually engaging, and often helpful for readers.

According to Joe Chernov of HubSpot, there are four main shapes of infographics which goes beyond the humble pie chart:

1. An illustration of the “state of” some business sector of function; 2. A checklist or resource; 3. A compare-and-contrast type of study; and 4. The evolution of a movement, demographic or industry.

Utility

The best infographics are entertaining, educational and useful. Before you create your infographic, ask yourself these questions:

• How will this help my audience?

• Will they find this applicable to their business?

• Will they be fascinated enough to spend a few minutes with it, and then share it around?

• Are there any “Aha!” factor that I have included in there?

• What will make people notice this infographic?

Data

Infographics must be based on fact, not merely opinion. Thus, you need to use credible data sources. While your ideas might emerge as part of that story, you need to ensure that the facts used come from a reputable source.

Story

The best infographics are anchored on storytelling. They may also have a hypothesis at their core.

Thus, it makes sense for you to write down your thesis statement for your infographic. Thereafter, outline the main data points which you want to use to support your thesis.

Oh yes, remember not to cram too much information into an infographic. Be merciless in slashing non-essential information.

Logical Sequence

When you lay out the narrative, keep an eye for the way the information is structured. This means organising your information in a way that flows logically, without any undue complexity.

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Create an outline that highlights your key ideas in a narrative form. Mapping is an important first step in creating an infographic, and helps you to tell a meaningful story beyond just a jumble of numbers and drawings.

Great Design

Naturally, awesome infographics are those which use design elements well. Colour, typography, illustrations, animation, video, charts , and text combine in a magical way to tell the story of data.

If you need some inspiration, you can always visit Pinterest.com and search infographics.

Quality Control

Like everything else that you do, it is important to check and double-check your figures, source lines, and text to ensure errors are nipped in the bud.

Due to the amount of effort needed to create an infographic, typos and factual errors often get left in the infographic.

Promotion

As in all things social, you do want your infographics to fly far and wide. The best infographics normally have a social share button embedded with them to allow easy sharing on Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

Call To Action

Finally, do remember to include a call to action in the infographic. This could be something simple like:

• Stay in touch at www.yourwebsite.com

• Sign up for future updates

• Get the full report here

Note that infographics are usually less suitable to be used for direct sales conversion (“Purchase your widget NOW”) As heavy content and thought leadership pieces, they function better as opt-in or branding pieces.

Infographic Tools

Piktochart

Piktochart offers a free DIY infographics tool with lots of fun, flexible templates. Check them out at www.piktochart.com

Visual.ly

This is a great showcase for data visualisation and a useful resource for those looking to create or share infographics. The Create part of the site offers a DIY tool (http://create.visual.ly).

Infogr.am

This allows users to create infographics easily and rather quickly. There are several predesigned templates that allows for various kinds of customisation (http://infogr.am).