Social Media Marketing Archives - Page 33 of 41

July 12, 2016
Social Media Marketing

#SocialProof – How to Build Social Proof

We’ve talked about #SocialProof before. It’s the “psychological preference for doing what other people are doing, because if other people are doing it, it proves that it must be worthwhile”. It’s what gives power to celebrity brand endorsements and phrases like “Limited Edition”.

So how do you build an influence wave of social proof?

First of all, you need to understand that it is far easier to jump from 20,000 YouTube subscribers, Facebook Likes, etc. to 50,000 than it is to go from 0 to 1,500. This is called a growth curve. You will need to grind to build your social proof from scratch.

Secondly, you must leverage the numbers that provide the most impact. If a brand new food blogger has 18k Pinterest followers on their niche boards, there must be something going on that they need to analyze and figure out how to capitalize on.

Here are thirteen types of social proof and tips on how to get started:

1. Raw Quantity: The number of people engaging or interacting with you. Gather these numbers immediately. For physical/digital products, how many sales have you made? Blog or podcast: how many countries do people listen or read from? Social media presence: number of followers and number of posts fall into this category.

2. Celebrity and Expert Endorsements: This could take up a post all its own. When you’re first building your social proof, the likelihood of a celebrity endorsement is slim. Experts in your field, however, are much easier to approach. These are called influencers and influencer marketing is its own niche.

3. Testimonials and Quotes: Authors use other author or industry professional’s quotes on their covers. Testimonials are a fantastic way to build social proof.

4. Featured locations: Did you show up on a podcast? Have you been featured in a popular or industry standard publication? If not, why not contact larger publications for guest posting? They are often starved for online content, so take the time to target your niche.

5. Certifications: completely self-explanatory. If you have any that can be used as social proof, display them proudly.

6. Referrals: the #1 trusted source of advertising as proven by numerous case studies. Start by creating a referral program where a referring customer receives a discount for their loyalty.

7. Gazing: Use photos and images to draw the reader’s eye to your call to action.

8. Ratings and Reviews: One of the most important parts of your Online Reputation and also the fastest growing part of social proof in our mobile market. Encourage your customers to leave reviews, but be careful if you offer perks. This can seem scammy and have the opposite effect you’d intended.

9. Case Studies and Proof of Concept: Lead by example in using yourself as a case study or use other people’s transformation studies as proof.

10. Limited Time Offer or The Fear of Missing Out: Give a deadline, and stick to it. Create exclusivity. Both of these combine to make a very strong case for social proof.

11. Social (Media) Proof: This is really difficult from the beginning. You can start by creating a hashtag that represents you and your business. Use it and encourage your clients and customers to use it as well.

12. Rankings: New product launch? Use a product launch site. Food blogger? Try to get on Food Gawker. Almost every industry has submission sites that can get your brand noticed and give you the ranking you need to jump to the top.

13. Integration and Platforms: If your product or service is used or integrated with others, show it.

14. SEO: The higher your rank on Google, the more automatic credibility you give your brand and your business.

How are your doing with your social proof? Any questions? Tell us in comments and we’ll tackle them in a future post.

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 her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

July 5, 2016
Social Media Marketing

#SocialProof – What is Social Proof?

Social Proof. It’s a term that’s thrown around quite often in marketing and social media management, but what is it?

Social Proof, also known as informational social influence, is where people assume the actions of others to affect their choices. It’s a type of conformity that relies on the reviews and influences of “credible” sources to make decisions.

Basically: the customer wants proof that they’re not wasting their time on your product or service and they use social influence to determine your worth.

According to venture capitalist and blogger Aileen Lee, there are five types of social proof:

Expert social proof – A credible expert or “voice of authority” in an industry is very influential. This is one of the reasons you see/hear “doctor recommended” in advertisements. It’s why Food Network became so influential on the food industry from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s.
Celebrity social proof – Celebrity endorsements are an advertising staple. According to an article by Lee, an endorsement by Jessica Simpson and aesthetician Nerida Joy helped Beautymint attract 500,000 visitors on day one of its launch.
User social proof – This involves user success stories, traditional case studies, and also encourages users to create videos using the product, service, or app. Jazza from Draw With Jazza, one of the most influential rising star YouTubers on teaching people how to draw both traditionally and digitally, launched an Arty Games app in June of this year. Within twenty-four hours of its launch on all platforms, there were over 10k images, videos, and reviews posted on social media. The more people used it, the more people bought the product. People began using the Arty Games Challenges on their live twitch feeds, and sharing their success and failures in their drawings.
Wisdom of the crowd – Wisdom of the crowd is basically the popularity of a product. This is where you see terms like: “Most popular post” in a blog, “Most popular video”, “X million copies sold” about a book or song, etc. Likes, shares, and followers fall into this category as well.
Wisdom of friends – How many times have you watched a show, read a book, or went to a place based on a friend’s recommendation? It’s “the killer app of social proof in terms of 1:1 impact,” writes Lee, and there’s a good reason why. It is the heart of social proof. There is no more intimate social circle than that of your personal friends. If they don’t like something, it’s hard to deny their influence on your choices.

So what does this mean? It means that social proof is necessary to your success in a business. Likes, followers, reviews, reactions, endorsements, and more all make up the heart of your social influence. So how do you determine your #SocialProof? We’ll cover that soon. For now, start with the basics. Go to your social media channels and write down your likes, followers, etc. for each of your influence circles. Keep track of your reviews, and be ready to take the next step in building a strong foundation to launch your brand into social media success.

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 her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

June 21, 2016
Content Marketing

#TimeManagement – Scheduling Your Content

Social media is an important part of your business, but it’s not the only part of your business. Yet some days it feels like we fall down the rabbit hole of social media information, losing hours of productivity without gaining ground on getting the word out to our customers.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

One of the most effective #TimeManagement tools for social media involves scheduling your content. By having your posts and articles ready to go, ahead of time, you’re less likely to dive into real-time social media and get lost.

Using tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to manage your updates makes it even easier. Instead of logging into several different platforms, you can use a tool to update each branch of your social media outreach on one easy-to-use screen.

Create an editorial calendar. You schedule meetings, lunch breaks, and more, so give social media the time it deserves. Planning ahead means you can focus on a solid plan that can be measured and adjusted as needed. It’s an excellent time-saving strategy. The cost of time up front is more than made up within the first month of scheduled posting. It also helps with decision-making.

Several studies have concluded that the human mind can only make so many decisions in one day before impulse control goes out the window. Seeing that you’ll be writing about “x” today takes away the extra focus you would otherwise need and allows you to divert that attention to something else that may need it more.

We hope these #TimeManagement tips help keep you and your social media campaigns on track. Do you have a plan in place? If so, let us know in comments!

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 her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

June 7, 2016
Social Media Strategy

#TimeManagement – Planning for Social Media by Developing an Editorial Calendar

It’s 5 p.m. after a long work day and you sit in front of your computer or mobile device primed and ready to write a promotional post for your company, product, service, etc. for your favorite social media platform. And yet you stare, unable to come up with content. Or worse yet, you can’t remember if there was a meme, challenge, hashtag, or event you were supposed to mention or use today. Does this seem familiar?

How about this? As you’re going through your social media accounts you realize you haven’t posted on your blog or Instagram in days or even weeks. Now you know, based on several studies, that you should have at least two blog posts a week and consistent posts on Instagram to keep people engaged. Worse yet, when you go to your Facebook page, you realize you posted four or five of the same kind of content or pitch in a row.

Wait, there’s more. What if your twitter account is lively, but there are messages you haven’t responded to just sitting there?!?

While social media can be fun, it can also be mentally draining. You’ve made decisions all day long, sometimes into the weekend, and there are thousands more coming. Trying to keep track of it all may seem like an impossible dream.

It’s not.

You, my friend, need an editorial calendar.

What is an editorial calendar and how is this different from a regular calendar? I’m so glad you asked. An editorial calendar is a visual layout of your future social media posts. It gives you a single snapshot of upcoming content, tracks your previous posts, and best of all, becomes an anchor in the sea of social media analytics. Did you have a theme that did particularly well? How about a heartfelt post that drove interaction up? What triggered your sudden spike in Facebook likes?

As it is typical for your team to have access to the editorial calendar, you’ll want it keep it social media focused. Does your blog count as social media? Some say yes, others say no. If you end up sharing it or pressing it to social media upon publishing the post, then I say it definitely counts and should be included.

So how do you set up a social media calendar?

Whether you hand write it on a paper calendar, planner, use Google calendar, Evernote, a word processing document, or spreadsheet, there are many ways to get your calendar started.

First, you want to set up a regular posting schedule. It can be as intense or laid back as you like. Some prefer to set up daily posts and others prefer to make a list at the beginning of the week or month. It makes no difference how you set it up. Try a few things out and see what works best for you. Pay attention to your peak times – those times of day where followers or viewers tend to visit your pages the most. That’s when you are going to want to schedule your posts.

Second, make sure your schedule is doable and not full of wishes. Time is money. You’ve heard that phrase. How long does it take you to write a blog post? Hunt down quotes? Build images for your twitter feed? Keep a mental picture of the time involved in your mind as this may be a talking point later on if you discover your time is worth more elsewhere and want to bring in help.

Third, schedule your content. Prescheduling is your friend in this case. Facebook and most blogging platforms allow it, but others, like Twitter and Instagram, require a third party software for scheduling. If you’d rather post daily, set up your posts ahead of time either in a document or excel sheet. Prep your hashtags ahead of time and make sure your links are properly shortened for twitter. That way, on the day of your post, you can copy and paste it straight to your preferred platform. It cuts down on decision fatigue and keeps you focused on what really matters: providing the best experience for your potential clients, customers, and associates.

And before we forget, here’s the fourth: keep track of how you do and be willing to adjust what isn’t working. Each of the social platforms has their own analyticstools. Schedule half an hour once a month to look into what is or isn’t working with your social media so that you can adapt, edit and get better traction.

Want some extra insight into building your calendar? Here are some links that might help:

A Content Marketer’s Checklist: Editorial Calendar Essentials

Improve Content Strategy with an Editorial Calendar

10 Reasons Your Editorial Calendar Needs Work

Know you need a great editorial calendar but simply don’t have time to sit down and plot out the strategy on your own? Contact the Social Media Advisor for an audit of your current social platforms and help developing your own content calendar. We love helping businesses #BeAwesome with your presence online!

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Click here for her Social Media Workshops, Classes and Seminars

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