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Wow, how time flies! It’s been just over a year since we shared a behind-the-scenes look at Buffer’s social media strategy and stats. The feedback from the community on that post was amazing, and we learned so much from the comments, many of which ended up shaping future Buffer articles like “How to Create a Social Media Report and Explain It to Your Boss or Client” and “What $5 Per Day Will Buy You on Facebook Ads.” Since then, we’ve tried our best to learn about what’s working well for us on social media and what’s not. Some of these discoveries led us to change directions on particular social platforms, drop others entirely, and experiment with new ideas and strategies along the way. Now that we’re nearing the end of Q1 of 2016, we thought it would be a great time to share our latest social media stats, what we’ve learned, and what our strategies look like for the future....
Marketing has shifted. It’s shifted from talking at people, or focusing on transactions, to engaging with people – building meaningful, life-long, and personalized relationships.
The seven principles of engagement marketingThe term engagement is a popular one today. It’s used in a lot of different contexts — in marketing, support, customer success, gamification, and others. To define engagement in a marketing context, we’ve talked to hundreds of marketers, including our own prospects, customers, and experts in our industry. The result? Seven key principles that define engagement marketing....
In thinking about social media marketing, you have to remove your corporate cap and instead think like a fun party guest, focusing on how you can develop relevant, interesting, enjoyable, and ultimately share-worthy content. From there, a following and uptick in sales are only natural.
What do great party guests have? First of all, they look sharp and presentable. That’s where a good social media page design comes in handy. You don’t want your looks to deter potential fans. Secondly, they are polite and warm. You want your social media messages to have a positive, engaging tone. Thirdly, they illuminate a room with sparkling conversation. They bring a dish to pass or a gift for the host. You can achieve these objectives by crafting thoughtful blog content to share and offering special deals for your social media audience....
Like millions of other people today, I spend a lot of my time learning, shopping and interacting online.
Visiting and using Google, Twitter, Facebook and other online apps and platforms throughout my day. Most of the time it's done on my mobile phone and it's all customized to me and my needs.
The mass marketing strategies that worked for my parents generation have turned our world into a noisy one where we're bombarded by somewhere between 5000 and 10,000 messages per day trying to sell us something. The result is that we're so sick and tired of it that we’ve simply evolved to tune it out....
.So what does this mean for the 90-9-1 rule? Is the 1 percent still a realistic number and target for marketers?
With the estimated 6.7 million people posting to blogs and 12 million people blogging on social networks – not to mention the even greater number that comment and share this content – the 1 percent category certainly doesn’t seem a big enough container for active users. Paul Schneider presented an alternative representation of this rule based on his research of online communities; he suggests that it’s more 70-20-10.
Assuming that the entire target audience is online, more people are becoming “active” or “somewhat active” because those that were not comfortable creating content are comfortable commenting on other people’s content or sharing that content. Those who did not see themselves as thought leaders are becoming thought leaders – or at least influencers in some form – by virtue of the content they share or comment on....
Overwhelmed with the myriad of social media activities such as Facebook insights to interpret and topics to Tweet? Then it’s high time to take advantage of ways to simplify with some popular management tools.
Social media management tools can help us get (and stay) in control of our marketing efforts. Here’s a list of the Top 10 (in no particular order) and an explanation of each to show what they do and which ones may be a good fit....
Want to know where social marketers are focusing in 2014?Looking for the latest social media trends to inform your marketing?
Based on new research, here are five areas you should start paying attention to right away.
Note: This article is based on Exact Target’s 2014 State of Marketing Report, which shows top marketing objectives, priorities and concerns for 2014.
Excellent case study on how a Napa Valley winery hit on a winning social media formula that pays dividends in both increased sales and brand loyalty.How can wineries use social media to increase sales when the law prohibits them from giving away product samples?Whitehall Lane, a 20-year-old Napa Valley winery run by the Leonardini family, has hit on a winning social media formula that pays dividends in both increased sales and brand loyalty....
Finding new and different ways to market yourself can be difficult. Fortunately, one effective way is through social media. Read on to learn of how to leverage the power of social media to your advantage. Whether you have a traditional or online business, these tips should help you get started....
Ever heard the saying "Failing to plan is planning to fail?" That old but wise adage often rings true when it comes to social-media marketing. Creating a detailed, goal-oriented social-media strategy is just as important as having a rock solid business plan.
"If your social-media plan is to just wing it, your fans and potential customers are going to know," says Amy Porterfield, social media strategist and co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies (Wiley, 2013).
Worse, it could turn them off of your brand and on to your competitors.To attract and engage social-media fans and followers -- and ideally convert them into customers -- you'll need to carefully map out a clear, effective social-media strategy. Here are some questions you should ask when building your company's social-marketing plan....
Charlene and I recently published a report that documented the 6 Stages of Social Business Transformation. In the process, we discovered the most common mistakes and successes businesses experienced along their journey. What was most surprising however, not really, was the cavernous disconnect between social media strategy and overall business objectives. - Only 34% of businesses feel that their social strategy is connected to business outcomes. - Just 28% of companies we studied feel that they have a holistic approach to social media, where lines of business and business functions work together under a common vision. - Only half said that top executives were “informed, engaged and aligned with their companies’ social strategy.”
The report was written to help strategists bridge the gap by understanding where they are, where they want to be, and how to get there efficiently. Charlene and I also noticed that the most elite companies among those we studied shared seven success factors in their social business strategy. Rather than publish a follow up report, we experimented with an ebook format. The result is a 100 page resource guide that will help you expedite and enhance your path to transformation....
It seems B2B marketers are starting to warm up to the idea that a handful of deals sourced by social can make the time and effort involved in pulling social media into the mix well worth the effort....
B2B marketing on social media is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. You are looking for that golden conversation that turns into a real opportunity in the pipeline. But for B2B marketers, the typical deal size makes a single-source opportunity extremely compelling. With many social media sites to cover, your time is best spent targeting the sites with the largest community of users and using keywords and highly relevant messaging to get in front of these individuals.
Let’s face it, capturing mindshare on social media is a bit like drinking from a fire hose. But some social sites will allow you to target users more effectively than others. When it comes to Top Performers, B2B marketers ranked the top four most effective social media sites as LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and SlideShare....
Stars like Kim Kardashian are still routinely paid five figures for a single tweet promoting a product, but how else can they carve out a profit from millions of social-media followers?
Luigi Picarazzi is president of Digital Media Management, a 25-person shop in Los Angeles that's dedicated to helping stars answer that question. The company focuses on securing deals with brands to do content integrations on celebrity websites, deals such as Mattel getting a writeup in Felicity Huffman's WhatTheFlicka.com; Vidal Sassoon represented in a Vanessa Hudgens Tumblr post with a #selfie photo of her curls; and Kate Walsh giving tips on running a small business in a post sponsored by financial planning service Learnvest .)
The company also works with an ad-tech vendor called Bre.ad that can show a full-page ad to users upon entering or exiting a site, or from links posted to social-media accounts. (Bre.ad shares ad revenue with its celebrity and publisher clients; its CEO Alan Chan says that some clients are making as much as $20,000 a month.)...
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Do you want to improve your social media marketing? Are you curious about what works for large companies? The best way to add techniques to your repertoire is to look at what brands with high levels of engagement are doing.
In this article I’ll share 26 tips, an A-Z guide, from brands doing an excellent job of social media marketing and getting results to match.
One in five consumers say reflecting their identity—who they are—is the most important reason they share content online, according to a recent report from Fractl.Overall, identity ranked as the third-most important reason for sharing content, after wanting to entertain (44% of respondents) and wanting to educate (25%)....
Do you want to get more business through social media?
Are you looking for new ways to generate leads?
As marketers and business owners, you’re constantly looking for potential customers.
In this article you’ll find 16 resources to help you generate leads with social media ...
Are Social Media strategies part of your overall marketing plan? These recent facts show how many opportunities there are right now.
Just when you thought you couldn’t be blown away by another Social Media statistic, along come the latest facts that are even more incredible. Businesses who are relentless in building a following on social media are in fact creating their own publishing platforms, growing their marketing channels and content distribution networks. You’re building a digital asset that grows year over year.
Social Media is how we communicate now. As a marketer for your business (or for yourself as a sales professional), this list of 12 mind-bending Social Media facts (with strategies on how to leverage them) should help you find your way...
...If you are employed in social media marketing, it is time for a healthy dose of reality followed by some serious soul searching and career planning. Some of you are lucky enough to work in the rare companies that create advocates with great products, service and mission and thus are equipped to leverage social media for marketing gain; most work at companies that have inflated their opportunities in the medium and are floundering with their social media marketing and content strategies.
Here's the way a large number of social media professionals today go about justifying their programs, along with some recent data that may (and should) scare the hell out of you if you work in social media marketing...
There are enough restaurants in New York City for one person to eat out every night for 54 years and never visit the same place twice.
If WalMart employees were an army, it would have the second largest military in the world.
Do these facts help your of social media strategy? Most likely not. You probably now know not to anger WalMart employees, and just booked a flight to New York City....
Recently, Burger King Norway purged its Facebook fanbase. They reduced it from 38,000 fans to 8,000...on purpose. Their stated goal was to encourage fickle deal-hunters to exit their addressable fan base leaving those who really cared and preferred Burger King (over McDonalds).
For a quick service restaurant (QSR) or a fast moving consumer goods company (FMCG) this is a radical move. Brand loyalty isn’t what it used to be and many of us are happy enough to ask for Pepsi as Coke. Can a Burger King fan also be a McDonald’s fan? Chances are there is quite a bit of overlap. Still, the move to be more intentional about who is in your Facebook fanbase and your Twitter follower-base is right minded....
In this round up, we are presenting for you some useful cheatsheets and infographics for social media marketers especially. These infographics and cheatsheets will help you learn more about trends in social media and how you can give your brand an increased exposure and let your message spread all over the world. Enjoy...
Goals not tools! Do you have a social media strategy? Now, be honest. Is it a comprehensive social media strategy or just a bunch of tactics run by the seat of your pants?Angela Hausman shares how to build a strong and effective social media strategy for every organization
So you want to get good at social media?
You need to have a plan. A guidebook. A strategy.You need some rules.
And rule number one? That’s obey the rules. As for rules number two through eighty, check out this fantastic infographic courtesy of Jeremy Waite, head of social strategy at Adobe.
And remember: while you can’t get anything done in the world without rules, sometimes it’s just as important to know exactly when you need to break them.*...
Feeling miserable? A new study has linked "declines in subjective well-being" (aka happiness) to using the world's most popular social network.
According to researchers from the University of Michigan, a sample of 82 young Facebook users (average age: 20) reported feeling less happy after using Facebook. As study co-author Ethan Kross told ABC, there is "something unique about Facebook use that is making people feel worse."The root cause of our apparent Facebook displeasure is the idea that we're falling short of our "friends" online. But only online friends. When researchers measured people's happiness after face-to-face or phone interactions, there was no measured drop in happiness. In fact, just the opposite....
...We’ve all heard of them; the brands that have spotted a hashtag trending and, keen to cash in (quite literally!), have quickly thrown together a self-promotional tweet, attached said hashtag and excitedly pressed ‘tweet’ – only to find themselves in a bath-load of hot water. Or the brands that hurriedly created their own hashtag as part of their social strategy and failed to think twice before unleashing their creation to the social-stratosphere, only to be left red-faced and facing a very public social backlash.When hashtags go wrongHere are five of the best (or worst!) hashtag howlers we’ve come across at The Social Penguin...
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A look inside Buffer's social media stats, what they’ve learned from experimentation, and what their social media strategy looks like for the future.