Tag: Content Management

Top 3 Reasons You Should Create Your Own Branded Images for Social Media

Top 3 Reasons You Should Create Your Own Branded Images for Social Media

We are constantly seeing brands get in trouble for using images that they have curated from various places on the Internet. It’s shocking how many small business owners don’t understand copyright law or the trouble they could get into by saving something from Google or another social media channel and then sharing it on their own social media.

The biggest trouble comes when you use an image you didn’t create and attach your brand colors and logos to it and brand it as yours. You have now violated trademark and copyright laws. 

Most of the time, it’s innocent. Businesses aren’t experienced enough in this area to understand that what they are doing is wrong. Seeing other business owners do the same thing is just reinforcing dangerous behavior.

Here’s what you should do instead:

Create Original Images

The best way to avoid this problem is to create your own images to share on social media. If you don’t currently have photos of you or your biz that work, there are plenty of stock photography websites you can use to download images that are legal and appropriate. A few of these websites are free to users. The better images will involve some sort of investment. 

Here are some websites to explore for creating your own images:

Canva.com

Pixabay

Unsplash

iStockPhoto

Dreamstime

Shutterstock

Brand Photography

If you are struggling to find stock images that resonate with the brand messaging you are trying to create, it may be time to invest in making your own. Brand photography utilizes the services of a professional photographer, skilled in the process of capturing your company’s personality and values on film. Not only will this keep you from getting in trouble with the copyright police, your audience will respond so much more to photos of you than random images of anything else. Just be sure that your agreement with the photographer allows you to share the images digitally. Not all photographers allow for that so you’ll want to look for a brand photographer that specializes in images for social media marketing and pay close attention to your agreement with them.

Connect with your Audience

If you spend your time sharing other people’s content, you are not inspiring them to work with you. This type of content does not relate to your brand, your story, your messaging, or your company culture. It’s easy to confuse those mindlessly scrolling their social media feeds and they won’t connect your post with your work. When you are creating your own branded images for social media you are using your photos, your fonts, and your brand colors. This is the ideal situation for online branding and marketing for any business. These types of posts are instantly recognizable to people who know you and are 1,000 times more interesting to people who don’t.

Are you struggling with not knowing how to use social media for your business?  Not sure when to post, how to post, or what #Hashtags even are? Over three months, we will develop a roadmap of exactly how to use social media for your business in our Quarterly Roadmap Sessions.  Branded images and content are just one of the things we’ll work on together. We will also work on ads, reporting, creating posts for higher engagement, and break through the fears and frustrations small businesses experience with social media marketing. Let’s chat.


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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

#FreshContent – Monthly Themes for Your Content

A key challenge for social media managers is keeping the creative juices flowing. Even the most imaginative content developer can get caught in a rut from time to time. Fortunately, there are ways to avoid finding yourself stuck. One great technique is to set a monthly theme for your content.

The beauty of themes is that they provide you with a framework for your content and can help you narrow your focus. Even if even if you have no shortage of ideas, themes can help you stay on track so that you post consistently.

So now that you are sold on using themes, how do you get started? No surprises here, you create a plan! Of course, that’s easier said than done. No need to worry though. Here are seven steps you can follow to build a successful strategy for incorporating monthly themes for your social media content.

  • Assess what currently works – Take a look at which platforms work best for you now and the type of content that is getting the most traction. Remember that your objective is to get people engaged. You want to do more of what is working best.
  • Restate your social media goals – It is always helpful to remind yourself of your goals. If your primary objective for social media is to strengthen your relationships with your clients, then a customer appreciate theme is appropriate.
  • Think about your customers – What type of content will interest and help your customers? Do they need information on your products? If so, a monthly “how-to” theme will work well. Could they benefit from getting to know your company better? Try a monthly “getting to know us” theme.
  • Brainstorm – Spend some time documenting a variety of possible themes. Get your entire team involved. Each one will bring a different perspective to the task.
  • Prioritize – Once you have a good list, prioritize the topics according to your goals and what is likely to be most successful in engaging your customers.
  • Decide how you will measure success – Set some targets so that you’ll know whether or not your theme campaigns are working. Useful metrics can include shares, likes, follows, conversions or whatever works with the goals you have set.
  • Rinse and repeat – Evaluate your campaigns periodically to see what is working. Revise your plan to strengthen the themes that aren’t quite hitting the mark.

Working with themes won’t just help you keep writing, it will help your customers know what to expect. They’ll appreciate your consistency and come to depend on you for insight, inspiration, or a smile. Themes also give you the chance to incorporate content that is unexpected. One month you may focus on a technical topic, the next you might express gratitude or profile a customer or employee. The point is, you can take advantage of themes to keep your content fresh, engaging, and fun. So get started with themes now!

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.

Learn how to be a Social Media Manager in #BeAwesome In Social Media Workshop

http://www.thesocialmediaadvisor.com/social-media-training.html
Do you want to learn how to be an effective Social Media Manager?
Do you have an Admin on your team that needs to get up to speed on social media strategy for 2017?
Curious on the best strategies for running successful Facebook Ads?
This is the workshop you should attend.
Can you answer yes to any of the following questions?

– I don’t know how to use social media to close business
– I don’t know how to build an editorial calendar
– I need to learn how to use social media effectively for my business
– I need to learn how to target new clients
– I want to learn how to create paid Ads and track results
– I struggle with what to say in social media to remain consistent
NOW is the time. You will walk away with tools, editorial calendars and specific processes to put in place TODAY so that you can stay in front of your ideal client online and attract a new audience.

Just as every established business needs to have a website, you also need to have an active presence in social media. Your clients and prospects are researching you to verify your business has social proof as a credible business. If you don’t have an active presence or systems in place to maintain conversations in social media, you are hurting your business. This workshop is your roadmap to get the right systems, tools and strategies in place to build a solid foundation for a successful social media experience with your audience. Launching these principles into your business will immediately improve your credibility with your customers by maintaining a long standing relationship with your clients so your competition isn’t claiming them from you.

We will provide Social Media strategies and processes for your business to establish social proof and build relationships and leads with your ideal clients through specific activity and proven methodologies.
Workshop Take-aways:
– Content is KING! Discussing and developing the proper ways to integrate the power of native video, branded images and keyword rich storytelling into your online brand that you can implement TODAY!

– How to Budget for Ads and Campaigns: What are your options? How does it work? We will show you how to manage and review statistics with strategy, reporting and targeting the right Audience

– What is the ROI of Social Media? ROI Defined, we will show you reporting options and how to track campaigns

– The foundation of your Editorial Calendar: We will show you how to build consistency, post during the best dates / times in each platform, and roadmap the means for you to develop social proof for your business
– The foundation of Paid ads and getting visibility with your ideal customer: We will show you how to build ads to target the right target client 

– Tools of the Trade: Top tools for creating and scheduling content, monitoring engagement, and processes to keep you on top of your marketing funnel that you can implement TODAY!
– Step by Step instruction on how to use the tools that top social media marketers are using: Tools are great but if you don’t know how to use them, you will be lost.  We will walk you through all of the steps for using these tools so you can start building your brand effectively in social media, just as the social media companies do. ***YOUR Laptop is required – Wifi Included
Seats fill quickly and we can only teach this workshop with a maximum of 15 attendees!
Ticket Link:
 
Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!
Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

#AwesomeContent – Why You Should Avoid Text Only Content

Listen up all you Facebook business page administrators! If you only post text updates, then you are doing more harm than good. After examining analytics, Facebook adjusted their algorithm based on which posts are more likely to get attention. What they found was that pages with only text updates get the least amount of reactions, comments and shares. Because of this, Facebook altered their algorithms in order to make status updates with more interesting content prevalent on your newsfeed. The votes are in and the jury has spoken. Facebook’s new algorithms work in favor of visual social media posts versus text only updates.
You should note that this applies mainly to business pages. If you are still seeing text heavy posts from “friends“, that is because the algorithm is giving you more of any individual that you tend to interact with a lot (regardless of the type of post). You’ll still be seeing your friends make wisecracks about politicians and their recent encounters with goofy people on the way to work. As for your business page, expect to see your text only updates go off the radar.
Does this seem unfair to you as a business owner trying to market yourself on Facebook? Well, think of it this way. Ask yourself what you see most on your newsfeed. Best bet is that it is a funny cat video or an eye-catching photograph paired with a news article. The same goes for business pages. As already discussed this month, the most shared posts are ones with videos and photos.
Looking for a way to get better returns on your social media posts? Start adding photos with the links you share in your posts. Research showed that these types of posts get more clicks, likes, comments and shares. Also, Facebook’s new algorithms can now separate out memes versus-high quality articles. If you are someone who loves beautiful pictures with inspiring quotes, don’t expect a lot of traffic coming to your page by posting those all the time. Everything in moderation. Get creative and share a variety of quality content to achieve the best results.
Facebook and Twitter have given us the gift of a short attention span. When you do add text to a post, keep it short. The posts that get the most traffic are 50 characters or less. People are more apt to click on posts that get to the point quick enough to catch their eye. Also, don’t be afraid to be bossy and include a call to action! Surveys have said that people are more likely to complete an action if given clear instructions on what to do. Ask your followers to like or comment on your posts. Research showed that posts, where viewers are asked to take a course of action, got 3 more likes, 3.3 more comments, and a whopping 7 times more shares. Another fun idea is to get followers to fill in the blank, answer questions, or participate in a poll or contest.
In the vast world of cyberspace, standing out in social media is a tough thing to do. Don’t give up on it just because Facebook makes it difficult. With billions of people using the site everyday, it’s impossible for the social giant to display every post. This is why the algorithms exist and why the best content is what gets seen. Along with following the rules stated above, make each post count. Do your research first so that you know what posts best target your audience. Perhaps that means sharing a video versus adding a photo. Ask yourself what fits your message then tailor your post to that. While the occasional text-only post isn’t going to hurt you, in order to #BeAwesome you need to add a link, image or video to ensure that more people get the benefit of seeing what you have to share! 


Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!
Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

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