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Stop Making These Newbie Social Media Mistakes

14 Mar

Social media skills aren’t natural ones that we are born with. They are something that we need to develop over time and eventually hone so that we become well versed with the best usage methods of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Taking the time to polish these skills can really be a huge benefit to your business. Even if you don’t use your social profiles for professional reasons, it’s still a good idea to work on your social skills to grow your following. Eventually, you might be able to make an additional income as a social media influencer. Once you are an influencer, you’ll find that brands want to send you free clothes, beauty treatments, and they might even send you on holiday!

 

However, you won’t be able to make it big in the world of social media if you keep on making the same mistakes over and over again. Here’s how to stop making some very common newbie mistakes.

 

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Not Being Consistent With Posts

 

When it comes to posting on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, you need to make sure that you are being consistent. For instance, don’t spam your followers with too many updates one day as this could cause them to unfollow you. Similarly, if you go through a long period of not posting anything, your followers might unfollow because they think your account is now inactive. Ideally, you need to update Twitter at least twice a day. Instagram and Facebook should be limited to one update a day. But remember to always post every day!

 

Using Stock Photography

 

Any social media marketing manager worth his or her salt will tell you that you should not use a lot of stock photography. That’s because it can sometimes look unnatural. Plus, your followers will want to see you and pictures from your own life. So, it’s a really good idea to invest in a good-quality camera so that you can take a lot of naturally styled photos. You will find that these are a lot more likely to go viral compared to ones you find on stock websites.

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Your Content Is Irrelevant

 

Hopefully, you are only posting content that is completely relevant to your social media audience. For instance, if you run a beauty product company, then your posts should only be about beauty and your products. Any updates that are off-topic could confuse your audience, and they could end up following other influencers who post things that are a lot more on-brand.

 

You’re Not Interacting With Followers

 

It’s called social media, so try and be as social as possible! Your followers will really appreciate any interaction with you, even if it is just you liking one of their comments they leave on an Instagram picture. You will find that being very interactive can quickly give your follower numbers a bit of a boost.

 

There are many mistakes you could make on social media, but these are the ones that will make you look like a complete newbie – so don’t make them!

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How Are Hotels Cashing In On Today’s Social Media Frenzy?

14 Nov

social-media-marketing-for-hotels

Second, hotels are a mixed bag. It is difficult for hotels to get the message out about what makes them unique because there is so much variety. Therefore, hotel digital marketing is about communicating what makes their hotel unique. What interesting experiences can be had at their establishment? Here we’re going to look at how hoteliers can cash in on today’s social media marketing frenzy. Let’s take a look.
Hire A Young, Social Media-Savvy Person To Your Team

Next time you’re doing a hiring round, don’t just look for somebody who is honest and will show up on time. Find someone who knows a thing or two about social media. You could hire somebody for a dual role; one to wait tables and, two, to do the hotel’s social media. People with experience of social media know how to use the different platforms to their advantage. They also have a sixth sense about which marketing efforts will work and which won’t.

 

Link To Local Attractions

Using social media to link to attractions in the vicinity of your hotel is a great way to sell rooms. You can advertise the location of attractions near to you on social media using the “@” symbol. Guests are more likely to want to visit your hotel if they can see that it’s just a couple of blocks away from their favorite restaurant.

 

Encourage People To Ask Question

Because people don’t know much about your hotel before they arrive, they’ll want to ask questions. Most hotel managers don’t bother answering questions on Facebook because they don’t see social media as a forum. Instead, they use social media as a vehicle to push out their content to improve their search rankings. Responding to questions online, however, is vital. Visitors are desperate to ask questions before they commit to spending money. They don’t want to wind up getting something that they don’t want. Always respond to questions and build a resource that future customers can then use.

 

Manage Your Online Reputation Through Review Sites

Review sites are an important online mechanism to make sure that businesses remain honest. Companies can’t rely on anonymity online to protect them against their own poor service. They have to deliver, or customers will complain.
In the hotel industry, customers write reviews on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor. If you get a negative review, make sure that you respond and offer reconciliation. Apologize if necessary. Make it clear to anybody reading the review that you still care deeply about customer experience.

 

Restaurant Owners: Are You Getting Social Media Right?

7 Nov

Social media is pretty much the perfect marketing tool for restaurants. After all, one of the key aspects of selling great food is to build a community of regular customers. All social media channels can just be an extension of that. It’s a visual experience, too – how many of your friends do you see posting pictures of incredible meals on their Facebook? Or Instagram? The trouble is, not every restaurateur gets it right. And in today’s guide, I’m going to explain some of the ways of ensuring your social media accounts are working for your business, not against it.

social-media-for-restaurants

Consistency in tone of voice
All restaurants like to create a certain sense of atmosphere for their customers. It’s important that this tone continues when you are posting on social media, to make your client’s experience more rounded. For example, if you are an upmarket restaurant, you shouldn’t be posting pics of cute cats. Similarly, if you are a relaxed restaurant, focus on extending that atmosphere onto your social media channels.
Encourage your customers to follow you on social media
The biggest benefit of social media is that your followers do a lot of the hard work for you. But, of course, unless they follow your channels, they won’t be able to help. Tempt them to give your page a like on Facebook or follow you on Twitter with special deals. It might be 10 percent off, or a free glass of wine with their dinner – whatever you think is appropriate. As hospitality marketer Scodeggio Samuele states, it can have a dramatic impact. It’s a form of social recommendation – word of mouth, of you like. If the friends of your followers like what they see, there is more chance they will give you a try themselves.

 

Don’t be afraid of criticism
Many restaurateurs are a little scared of social media – and with good reason. We all know of a restaurant taking a hammering on Facebook or Twitter after poor customer service or a disastrous meal. But instead of being scared, why not see the opportunity it gives instead? If a client wants to complain in public, other people will be looking to see how you respond. If you just ignore the complaint, that won’t go well for you. If however, you appear reasonable, polite, and offer apologies, people will notice in a positive way. Everyone makes mistakes – and everyone knows it. It’s how you respond that can make the difference.
Use geo targeting
Facebook ads are kind of cool – if you get them right. There are a lot of tools at your disposal that can help you laser-focus your special offers to the right people at the right time. And, of course, in the right area. It gives you the chance to provide very specifically, niche targeting that can only be seen by people in your immediate vicinity.

Make connections
Finally, don’t use Facebook or Twitter as a simple promotional tool. People don’t want to see advertisement after advertisement – you need to be more appealing. Offer them more value by posting interesting blog posts. Share – or curate – from other websites and Facebook pages, too. Aim to use a third of your posts for promoting your business at most – the rest should be a lot more interesting.
Hope these tips have helped – let me know how you are using social media!

How To BID Facebook ADs

6 May Facebook Bidding

Everyone is challenged with the amount of options when optimizing Facebook campaigns.

Facebook AD Bidding

How many ad sets should be used? How many ads should be created? Which audiences should be targeted? Which objective should be used? How high should the budget be? What placement? Which bidding method and what should be the manual bid?

This article will help you decided which bidding method should be used and when. Of course, success can be found in many different ways so this is merely a guide. This blog post will help you get started on the right path for Facebook AD success.

Following are the main bidding options:

  • Optimized for Actions
  • Optimized for Daily Unique Reach
  • Optimized for Clicks (CPC)
  • Optimized for Impressions (CPM)

Bidding Options By Objective

Your bidding options will depend upon the objective you choose. For example, here are the “Optimize For” options within the ad set in Power Editor when the Clicks to Website objective is selected…

Facebook Clicks to Website Bidding

“Optimize For” bidding options by objective (* marks default)…

Clicks to Website:

  • Clicks to Website *
  • Daily Unique Reach
  • Clicks (CPC)
  • Impressions (CPM)

Website Conversions:

  • Website Conversions *
  • Daily Unique Reach
  • Clicks (CPC)
  • Impressions (CPM)

Page Post Engagement:

  • Post Engagement *
  • Daily Unique Reach
  • Clicks (CPC)
  • Impressions (CPM)

Page Likes:

  • Page Likes *
  • Clicks (CPC)

Mobile App Installs:

  • Clicks (CPC) *

Mobile App Engagement:

  • Clicks (CPC) *
    • Daily Unique Reach

    Desktop App Installs:

    • Desktop App Installs *
    • Desktop App Installs – Pay Per Install
    • Clicks (CPC)

    Desktop App Engagement:

    • Desktop App Engagement *
    • Clicks (CPC)

    Offer Claims:

    • Offer Claims *
    • Clicks (CPC)

    Event Responses:

    • Event Responses *
    • Daily Unique Reach
    • Clicks (CPC)
    • Impressions (CPM)

    Video Views:

    • Video Views *
    • Daily Unique Reach

    Optimize for a Specific Action

    The default and recommended bidding option for all but the mobile app

    objectives is to optimize for a specific action — in each case, optimizing for the objective.

    When this option is selected, Facebook will show your ad to people who are most likely to perform that action. Following are the actions you can optimize for:

    • Clicks to Website
    • Website Conversions
    • Post Engagement
    • Page Likes
    • Desktop App Installs
    • Desktop App Engagement
    • Offer Claims
    • Event Responses
    • Video Views

    Let’s say, for example, that you have created a campaign with a Clicks to Website objective because your primary goal is to drive traffic to a blog post. You then create an audience consisting of fans, website visitors, lookalikes or interests.

    If you have Facebook optimize for Clicks to Website, your ads will be shown to people within your targeted audience most likely to click the link in your ad. Facebook knows this based on user activity and their history of clicking links.

    According to what YEAH! Local reports, the same is true for all other optimized actions. No matter how much you spend, Facebook won’t show your ad to everyone within your target audience. They are going to focus only on those most likely to perform your desired action.

    This is often an area of confusion for advertisers. They have a potential audience of 100,000, and they don’t understand why the ad is only shown to 10,000 people.

    The reason for this is that you shouldn’t want Facebook to show your ad to all 100,000 people. By optimizing for an action, Facebook is limiting your waste, showing it only to those most likely to act.

    When optimizing for actions, by default you also won’t set a bid. Facebook will bid whatever is necessary to reach the audience most likely to act.

    As a result, CPM (Cost Per 1,000 Impressions) tends to be higher when this option is chosen. Some advertisers see this as a reason not to bid this way, but neglecting it due to high CPM would be a mistake.

    By optimizing for a specific action, you are wasting fewer impressions on those who are unlikely to act the way you desire. As a result, there is a benefit to paying more to reach those most likely to act. Your cost per desired action, in most cases, will be lower as a result.

    By default, you won’t need to set a bid. Facebook will get the most actions at the best price, whatever that is. But you will have the option of manually setting what that action is worth to you.

  • Facebook Clicks to Website Bidding ManualNote that this isn’t a true “bid.” Facebook will attempt to keep costs per action below that threshold, so that acts as a guide for how Facebook will bid.
  • Regardless of whether you allow Facebook to bid automatically or you set an action value, you will be paying for impressions and not actions. So it doesn’t matter whether you get 10 or 10,000 actions, you will be paying based on impressions.Personally, I’d always start with having Facebook automatically bid for you. Once you know what you’re doing and have the budget to experiment, feel free to split test with the manual option to see what works best for you.

  • Optimize for Daily Unique Reach

    When this option is selected, Facebook will show your ad to as many people within your target audience as possible, but no more than once per day.

    Facebook Daily Unique Reach

    In this case, Facebook is not optimizing to show your ad to people most likely to perform a desired action. If you want Facebook to reach 100,000 people, Facebook will try to show your ad to as many of those 100,000 people as they can, regardless of the likelihood of those users performing your desired action.

    Once again, you will be paying for the impressions, not the actions. So it doesn’t matter how many actions you get, your cost will depend upon your bid and the number of times your ad was shown.

    You will need to set a maximum bid to tell Facebook what reaching 1,000 of these people is worth to you. This cost will be lower than what you pay when optimizing for actions, but expect it to be higher than when using regular CPM.

    Optimize for Clicks

    This bidding option is likely the most misunderstood.

    Optimize for Clicks is another way for saying that you are using the Cost Per Click (CPC) bidding method. In this case, you will be paying for the clicks made to your ad.

    Understand that a “click” is not necessarily a link click. This includes any click on your ad, which could be a photo click, comment, like or any other random click.

    As a result, advertisers often misunderstand these stats. They see a high number of clicks and a low CPC and assume success. But that number of

    clicks is bloated with many clicks that don’t mean anything, devaluing the CPC.

    If your goal is engagement, however, this is a good option. In that case, Facebook will show your ad to people most likely to click anywhere on your ad.

    You will have options of allowing Facebook to automatically set the bid (get the most clicks at the best price) or set the maximum you’d be willing to pay per click.

  • Facebook Cost Per ClickAgain, if you don’t know what you’re doing just roll with Facebook’s default here. Once you get more comfortable and have the budget to split test, feel free to experiment with your own maximums.

    Facebook does provide a recommended range for entering a maximum that would be required to reach your selected audience. Note that this is a maximum, so Facebook will bid no more than that amount to serve your ad.

    Optimize for Impressions

    If you optimize for impressions, Facebook will show your ad to as many people within your target audience as many times as possible. This is similar to Daily Unique Reach optimization, but without the single daily impression limitation.

    As is the case with Daily Unique Reach, when this option is selected Facebook will not optimize for a desired action. You will pay for impressions, and the cost to reach people should be low given that Facebook won’t need to be picky about whom to serve your ad to.

    You will be required to set a bid, indicating the most you’re willing to pay for 1,000 impressions.

  • Facebook Cost Per 1,000 ImpressionsAs is the case with CPC, this is the maximum — Facebook will bid up to that amount to show your ad.While bidding CPC or CPM, you should make sure you bid high enough. Bidding too low is a primary reason for not getting your ad shown.

    What Should You Use and When?

  • First, understand that personal preferences come into play here. I’m not going to say that one method always works better than another. But I do believe that we overcomplicate this, and beginner to intermediate advertisers should bid almost primarily for optimized actions.Here’s a quick guide for when to use each method…

    Optimized for Actions: I’d recommend using this in most cases. It works best when targeting large audiences (so that Facebook can pick out the top percentage most likely to act), but that doesn’t mean that this method can’t work for small audiences, too.

    But if you are going to target a small audience with this method, just make sure that your budget is low as well. I consider $5 as an average CPM. So if I’m targeting 10,000 people, I’d expect Facebook to optimize and show it to about 1,000 of those users. In that case, a daily budget of $5 would be sufficient.

  • Optimized for Daily Unique Reach: I would only use this approach when targeting an extremely relevant audience. In other words, it doesn’t matter which person within your target audience is served your ad, all are equally likely to perform your desired action.This is rare, but an example of when you’d want to use this is when targeting a very small audience — like an email list, for example. This method would be chosen over CPM to avoid the high frequency that can happen when bidding too high for a small audience.

    By using Daily Unique Reach, you can max out your bid and reach as many people within your target audience as possible, but you won’t waste any of your budget on high frequency impressions on the same user.

    Optimized for Clicks: If all you want is engagement and not a specific action, you should optimize for clicks. A prime example of when this makes

    sense is when promoting a photo or some other post that doesn’t include a link.

    That doesn’t mean that you won’t find success optimizing for clicks when your objective is driving website traffic or conversions. However, I’ve found it much less effective overall than optimizing for your desired action.

    Optimized for Impressions: You just want to show your ad to as many people as possible as many times as possible. As is the case with Daily Unique Reach, your target audience should be as relevant as possible.

    Be careful about your budget, however, particularly if you show the ad in the sidebar (where frequency is not capped). Frequency can get out of control in a hurry, which means you’ll begin wasting money on extra impressions to the same person.

    Reaching the same person more than once in a day isn’t necessarily bad, but there is a point where it will become wasteful.

    Your Turn

    What bidding methods do you use and when?

    Let Me Know In The Comments Below!

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10 Steps To Optimize Facebook Ads

16 Oct Facebook Bidding

1. Choose to set a daily budget or a lifetime budget for a campaign.

2. Submit bids on your ads. Submit high and low bids for your ads, higher bids result in higher CTRs.

3. Target your audiences by: interests, gender, age, location, education and other variables that describe your ideal prospects/customers, use graph search to help you indicate these interests of your target market, below are examples of who your ad can target:

  • Fans of what type of business pages?
  • Your Email List Subscribers
  • Non-Fans Based on Interests
  • Non-Fans Based on Lookalike Audiences
  • Past Visitors to Your Website (Retargeting)

4. Create ‘Saved Target Groups’ using the Facebook Power Editor and market to them consistently. Power Editor is a great free plugin on Chrome that allows you to manage your Facebook advertising more efficiently.

5. Play around with narrowing down your audience. While a large audience means equally large budgets, any audience that is too small will not give you the results you want. Keep the audience numbers in at least a few thousands to get measurable results.

6. Track conversion of your Facebook ads using Offsite Tracking Pixels. These are also called conversion pixels and tell you exactly how many fans went from your Facebook ads to your website and eventually made a purchase. Reconfirm this number using Google Analytics.

7. Optimize and recalibrate your Facebook ads regularly. There is a chance that with the changing audiences that Facebook attracts every day, your older campaigns maybe languishing in their performance. Any campaign that shows CTRs under 0.035 needs to be re-calibrated ASAP.

8. Create Facebook Ad Reports for your different campaigns that will show spends, likes, cost per like etc…

9. Reach out to subscribers of your email newsletters via Facebook Ads. You can do this by creating a custom list that can be uploaded into Facebook via a simple CSV file or through your email service provider and that does not include your current Facebook fans.

10. Rotate the creative for your Facebook ads on a regular basis. You can upload up to 6 images per ad to keep them fresh and interesting to your readers.

Taking your Facebook presence from a handful of disengaged fans to a flourishing community that contributes directly to your bottom-line is not rocket science. All it takes is a pinch of dedication, a dash of hard work and a big helping of creativity.

WATCH MY FREE WEBINAR ON HOW TO GET MORE CUSTOMERS WITH FACEBOOK ADS BELOW:

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Free Facebook Marketing Training Course To Monetize and Grow Your Business

27 Aug

I have worked to put together this Free Facebook Training video, packed with tons of value and advanced strategies to grow your business page and business on Facebook! Woot! Woot!  Virtual HIGH FIVE!! 🙂  I love serving, each and every one of you.  I really want you to implement and execute each strategy I discuss in this video training session below. 

Take out your pen and paper, and start taking notes now!! Go, Go Go!!! You will love the insight and strategies you can take action on right now. I discuss content marketing strategies, ways to make money on Facebook even if you don’t have your own business, and free ways to grow your Facebook Page without having to buy Facebook ADS. 

You will love the strategies and its all free for you.  Please let me know, what insights you have found useful and helpful, and what you would like to learn more about in the comments below, or comment below in the video or tweet me at www.twitter.com/socialmediawithrita  or if you prefer Facebook at www.facebook.com/socialmediawithrita   Click Play To Reap Your Business Success on Facebook now 🙂 Enjoy! 

Successful Social Media Campaigns

28 Jul

Stop being boring and copying everyone else on Social Media, if you want to be ignored then your wish is granted if you lack creativity. You need to stand out in social media. Posting quotes or articles from other blogs is not enough to increase brand awareness. Read below for examples of successful social media campaigns.

Campaigns that react to the needs of online followers and/or customers usually results in massive brand awareness. All are examples of social media campaigns that infuse creativity to shift people into action. Motivating people to action is one goal of using social media for your brand.

Maes Beer

best social media marketing examples

Maes Beer was motivated to increase their market share that lead them to think of a creative social media strategy.  They wanted to incorporate two powerful forces into their strategy – family and social media.

They offered a free barrel of their beer to everyone with the last name ‘Maes’ on one condition…they had to share with 20 of their closest friends.

Naturally this took off like…well, like free beer often does.

The result?

More than 7,000 people changed their last names to Maes on Facebook.  Maes Beer received over 75,000 Facebook likes in a single day…and 500,000 visits to their Facebook page in six weeks.

Sevenly

best social media marketing examples

Sevenly uses social influence to raise awareness for charities and nonprofits while also raising awareness for the Sevenly brand.

People naturally want to help when it’s for a good cause, but not everyone can donate money.

Sevenly understands this, so instead, they ask people to donate to the cause by sharing via social media.

The brand also has another way of leveraging its community for support. Every week Sevenly teams up with a new charity for 7 days.  They create a brand new design promoting the charity, slap it on a T-shirt and then sell it from the website.

For every shirt they sell, Sevenly gives $7 to the charity.

Ushuaia

best social media marketing examples

The Ushuaia Tower is setting the standard for technology in the hotel industry.

During the summer of 2013, the Ushuaia Hotel merged technology and social media to allow guests to have a one of a kind experience that they could share with friends and loved ones. Guests receive a free RFID wristband upon entrance to the hotel.

They use this bracelet by swiping it at a number of designated areas throughout the property called ‘FaceBook Pillars.’  Once logged in, guests can like an event, take a photo or check in.

From their rooms, guests can also use the bracelet  to play games, chat, create personal play lists and enter the hotel’s DJ contest.

Uniqlo

best social media marketing examples

Uniqlo wanted to raise awareness for their new ‘Dry mesh T-shirts’ they had to do something totally different to overcome the noise of online fashion in social media.

Pinterest was the obvious platform of choice. However, pinners seem to scroll aimlessly through boards until something grabs their attention.

Well, Uniqlo came up with an idea to do just that.

With about 100 users simultaneously pinning, Uniqlo essentially hijacked the streams of every pinner that was logged on at the time. Users that were scrolling aimlessly got an awakening experience by seeing Uniqlo’s T-shirts turning, flipping and changing colors as they scrolled.

Hijacking Pinterest gained them about 55 million impressions, used no paid media and generated more than 6,000 mentions on Twitter.

Plated

best social media marketing examples

Plated gives its customers chef quality recipes and delivers the ingredients that make them.  Plated uses its YouTube channel to show customers and other viewers how to make mouth watering recipes that inspire them to have Plated deliver the ingredients.

Follow their Twitter account and you’ll learn about everything from creating a five star meal, to how to photograph the meals from different angles.

Plated aspires to be utilitarian – and that almost always gets attention from social media.

Tippex

best social media marketing examples

With a clever use of annotations, Tippex created a 30 second YouTube video entitled “Hunter shoots a bear” in which viewers can choose the ending. (Don’t worry, no bears were harmed during the making of this video.)

Instead, the hunter reaches out of the frame to grab a tippex and whites out the word ‘shoot’ – leaving the field blank for viewers to decide what happens next by typing in whatever they want.

It’s kind of  addicting which is probably why the clip has received more than 21 million views.

Folly Theater

best social media marketing examples

Wanting to reach a younger audience, the Folly Theater in Kansas City Missouri decided to do something most theaters would never even consider.  They began allowing audience members to keep phones on during the show. In fact, they encouraged it.

Using an app, the audience members are encouraged to help direct the show.  The audience can vote on everything that happens during the show basically creating their own interactive experience.

Theater goers vote on everything from which props and costumes the cast uses to which songs they should sing. Audience members even vote on how much clothing the burlesque dancers should wear.

Everything during the show is shareable which creates an immediate buzz for the theater.

Burger Revolution

best social media marketing examples

There’s a revolution going on in Ontario…a Burger Revolution.  Burger Revolution have created quite the local uprising with their presence on social media.

Burger revolution’s tactics are simple but effective.  They keep fans informed on the number of remaining burgers for the day.  This highlights specific burgers and creates a sense of urgency.

They also like to post a “comment of the day” which is simply a picture they took of a user’s comment.  This has become a tradition the fans love.

The burger joint’s FaceBook page now has more than 2,000 likes.

Airbnb

best social media marketing examples

Since its inception, ‘Vine’ has received lots of attention from not only marketers but from millennials too.  Creative six second videos are becoming more and more popular.

And among them is Airbnb’s short film “Hollywood and Vines.”

Airbnb reached out on Twitter for six days by tweeting a ‘shot list’ and asking users to shoot one of the shots in the list.  Users would follow the director’s instructions for a given shot and then share it.

For shots that were chosen, Airbnb offered $100.  There were more than 750 submissions of which, about 100 were used in the short film.

It was the first short film directed via Twitter.  It got wide exposure – even gaining the attention (and more importantly the retweets) of actors like Adam Goldberg and Ashton Kutcher.

Tweet-a-Beer

best social media marketing examples

In 2012, Waggener Edstrom wanted to hit SXSW with something new. Instead of using typical marketing tactics and broadcasting how great they are, Waggener Edstrom, decided to just be useful.

And when you’re at SXSW there’s nothing more useful than a frosty brew.  So they teamed up with ‘chirpify’ to develop an app that would allow you to buy your buds’ a beer via Twitter.

The tweet-a-Beer app connected your Twitter account to your Paypal and allowed you to send $5 to any twitter handle you chose.  Since beer is the social lubricant, the app resulted in countless face to face meet-ups that might’ve otherwise never happened.

The app instantly gained massive national attention and was covered by numerous mainstream media outlets.

Baublebar

best social media marketing examples

Online Jewelry store BaubleBar has recently opened two locations in New York City where they’ve combined real world shopping with all the qualities of the Web.

Shoppers can interact with any piece of jewelry they choose from BaubleBar’s unique display cases.  When a customer chooses a piece of jewelry, the display case offers information from the website, such as, how to wear the jewelry and more.

But they’ve also integrated social media.

In addition to the information from BaubleBar.com, customers can see pictures of other women wearing the jewlery. Most images are pulled from Instagram using special hashtags so the images are from other customers, not models.

JustBought.it

best social media marketing examples

Looking to take social recommendations to the next level, JustBought.it uses Twitter to show purchase activity.

Justbought.it encourages its users to tweet every time they make a purchase so that other users will see the purchase and can then ask and receive general information about the product. Tweets include a picture of the purchased item and a location. The information is then served up to users and sorted by category, location and date.

JustBought.it is currently integrated with Shopify, Microsoft.net, Magento and more.

The Quechua Experiment

best social media marketing examples

Wanting to raise awareness for their outdoor hiking gear, Quechua took to their FaceBook timeline to create a memorable experience for fans.

Quechua posted more than 300 sequential images of a man hiking up a hillside to a special FaceBook page.

Fans could scroll through the timeline to experience the man getting prepared for his hike by sleeping, tying his boots and then hiking the hill. The timeline essentially works as a stop motion commercial.

Sidecar

best social media marketing examples

With ride sharing apps becoming more and more popular, Sidecar started looking for a way to stand out.  They teamed up with popular bloggers, designers and fashionistas to have them take over and decorate three sidecars.

Commuters who are lucky enough to end up in one of the three cars will be greeted with drinks, plush pillows, and signs that say things like, “Hey good lookin’ need a ride?”

In addition to these fun signs, there are instructions for the rider which explain how to win sidecar’s contest called, “#TasteMakerTakeover.”

Riders must take a photo of themselves in the sidecar and share it to Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag #tastemakertakeover and they could win one month of free rides worth $1,000.

Burger Records

best social media marketing examples

An independent record label and self proclaimed fun loving Burger Records is inviting fans to throw shows all over the world. All you have to do is setup a show and Burger Records will promote it.

The only stipulation is…well there really isn’t any, except that it has to be fun and it has to involve music.

Fans without means to set up a show can instead throw a record listening party. In 2013, Burger records did 70+ shows.  This year they’re on schedule to do even more – from China to Denver. The shows have gained Burger some nice exposure with fans.

They currently have over 34,000 Facebook fans, more than 20,000 Twitter followers and almost 18,000 on Instagram.

Body Form

best social media marketing examples

You can plan.  You can strategize.  But sometimes situations present themselves.  By rising to the occasion you can create a viral campaign without even trying.

Body Form received a comment on FaceBook from a disappointed follower, Richard Neil.  Neil explained that he was angry because Body Form had been lying to him for years about what he calls…

“that wonderful time of the month that the female gets to enjoy so many things like bike riding, rollercoasters, dancing, parachuting, blue water’ and wings.”

Of course Richard was joking (kinda), but the comment got lots of attention.  Body Form decided to rise to the occasion by releasing a video response to the comment.

The video has seen more than 5 million views.  Neil’s comment has more than 104,000 likes and almost 5,000 replies.

Sensu

best social media marketing examples

Small marketing and film agency Sensu was tasked with promoting recording artist Ben Howard’s next music video. But since Ben is no Bieber, Sensu had their work cut out for them.

Instead of using traditional marketing, Sensu created a FaceBook event page and told everyone there was going to be a free concert with free beer.  With a little help from the local media, they quickly drew a crowd of more than 500 people.

Sensu essentially created a flash mob.  Since the local media was already involved, the event was covered in newspapers, radio shows and blogs. The video has gotten more than 1 million views and almost 8,000 likes on YouTube.

Tweet Bra

best social media marketing examples

Wanting to raise awareness about breast cancer, Ogilvyone created the Tweet bra.  And it does exactly what it sounds like it does. The Tweet bra tweets every time its unclasped.

Tweets include various serious and funny reminders to women that they should get monthly breast exams.

PODZEMKA

best social media marketing examples

Marketing to younger audiences can be tricky, especially when you’re marketing a bar or pub.  Most people don’t trust standard advertising anymore and the younger generation is practically immune to it.

But PODZEMKA was determined to bring in younger customers with advertising that spoke to them.

Their answer was user generated content.  They set up a page on their website where customers could upload photos of themselves using templates and pre-written slogans. This allowed party goers to create their own unique ads to share with friends.

The ads were also automatically shared through social media and were quickly seen everywhere.  PODZEMKA noted a 50% increase in traffic to their website.

In total, there were 1,000 new advertisements created.

Razorfish

best social media marketing examples

Wanting to show off their creativity, digital agency RazorFish created the#UseMeLeaveMe campaign.  Bicycles, GPS, Twitter and a few free rides are about all there is to it.

In total, 20 bikes were available to ride for free at the annual SXSW festival in Austin.  Each bike had its own personality and it’s own Twitter account.  The bikes shared location information while riders made their way around the event creating considerable buzz in the process.

Thinkable Digital

best social media marketing examples

Social media contests are a great way to increase engagement quickly.  One contest created by marketing agency Thinkable Digital was somewhat unique.

The “Guess the Campaign” contest ran on Thinkable Digital’s FaceBook page and required fans to identify the brands behind various popular social media campaigns.

The winner of the contest was to receive a full social media evaluation.  Runner up would get a Twitter evaluation from the company, and third place would be featured on the Thinkable Digital FaceBook page.

Threshers

best social media marketing examples

Sometimes considerable social buzz can be created by a simple mistake. After sending a sales voucher for 40% off to its customers, Threshers started to notice a loss.

The company then came out publicly to say that it was sent out “accidentally” and that the sales voucher was for suppliers use only. Naturally, this made the frenzy bigger and created quite the local buzz for Threshers.

Blendtec

best social media marketing examples

Will it blend?  That’s how Blendtec’s CEO Tom Dickson started every video in this highly successful campaign. Everything from hockey pucks to rake handles were shoved into a blender and pureed.

For obvious reasons, the the “Will it blend” campaign gained millions of views on YouTube and quickly became one of the most memorable viral campaigns in social media. It spawned countless immitators too like “Will it drift” and “Will it burn.”

Recruit Military

best social media marketing examples

Recruit Military works with veterans from all branches when making the transition back into civilian life. The company’s FaceBook page is the hub of all their social media activity.

They create FaceBook events that function as job fairs and are used to find work for military veterans.  Every week they run the oh so clever ‘Find a job Friday.’

Each Friday, they ask fans to post the type of job they want and Recruit Military replies with thousands of matches from their job board.

The engagement they get on the FaceBook page is admirable with each post getting an average of 10 or more comments.  Recruit Military currently has more than 68,000 likes.

Canadian Tire

best social media marketing examples

Wanting to stay relevant, Canadian Tire set out to create something new.  They put together “The Canadian Way,” a digital catalog which highlights their products with user generated content.

By reaching out to Canadians and asking for their stories, Canadian Tire received overwhelming response.  They got countless stories from Facebook and other popular social media platforms. What they ended up with was something containing all the ingredients of the  most successful social media campaigns.

The company’s catalog is interactive and uses engagement with ‘everyday people’ who use the company’s products.

As of now, The Canadian Way has received more than 3 million page views with 15 pages viewed (on average) by each visitor.

Tourism Australia

best social media marketing examples

While promoting Australia as a holiday destination, Tourism Australia created the famous “Best Job in the World” campaign. Over the course of the campaign, the company offered dream jobs — a 6 month salary worth $100,000 each — to six lucky people.

Dream jobs included such titles as chief funster and lifestyle photographer.

To enter, applicants were asked to make a short video explaining why they were the best choice for the job. The contest quickly went viral and received more than 330,000 entries from 196 countries.

Tourism Australia’s FaceBook page grew from 400,000 to its current status of 5.5 million in the process.

SmartBear

best social media marketing examples

Wanting to show the people behind their testing and development tools, SmartBear decided to get a little playful. They created a game called “Where’s Dain” which is the developer’s equivalent of ‘Where’s Waldo.’

Visitors were asked to find and click on Dain (a SmartBear developer) who was hidden in various spots throughout SmartBear.com.

Once they found him, a Twitter box appeared asking users to enter to win a T-shirt by tweeting the message which included @SmartBear and a special hashtag.

The campaign is said to have doubled the @SmartBear mentions and increased traffic by more than 120%.

Optimal Run

best social media marketing examples

Great running shoes aren’t cheap, so buying a nice pair online is sometimes scary.  The team over at Optimal Run understands this and they’ve gone the extra mile to make buyers feel more comfortable about their purchases.

Using their YouTube Channel , Optimal Run creates a personalized video for each shoe.  They answer common questions that come from their Facebook page and website. The videos also offer an overview of the shoe, best usage and other information visitors want to know. You can get one of the best running shoes at ShoeFinale .

This is a great example of using social media for customer service.  The videos have increased traffic to Optimal Run’s website by more than 150%.

Cloak

best social media marketing examples

Cloak is a location-based app for the iPhone operating system.  It’s a clever use of social media for the socially awkward.

Cloak allows you to see if any of your friends are nearby by using the information from your social networks.  The idea is to avoid those accidental run-ins with the people you like a little less than the others.

Currently, Cloak only works with friends you’ve connected with on Instagram and foursquare. (Cloak is one of many apps we’re seeing with the recent rise in anti-social networking apps.)

Morton’s Steakhouse

Morton’s steakhouse has a long history of great customer service.  But, just a few years ago they exceeded that reputation when they responded to a tweet from entrepreneur Peter Shankman:

After a long day of traveling, Shankman jokingly tweeted that he’d like Morton’s to bring him a porterhouse steak once he landed in Newark. Because Morton’s monitors their twitter account closely, they saw Shankman’s tweet and decided to make his wish come true.

They sent someone to the Newark airport which was 24 miles away with a 24 ounce porterhouse steak, colossal shrimp and a side of potatoes. This, of course, involved more than simply making a meal and delivering it.

They also had to..

  • Find the correct plane.
  • Cook the meal.
  • Get permission from the higher-ups.
  • Wait at the Newark airport.

It was a simple use of twitter but it gained Morton’s steakhouse tons of exposure and even more trust. Shankman immediately shared the story on his blog which has since gotten more than 6,700 tweets and 10,000 shares on Facebook.

social media case studiesCONCLUSION

Creativity is gold, videos are effective in social media marketing, and listening to your online followers is essential in developing your social media strategy.

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Secrets To Making Your Facebook Post Go Viral

18 Feb

You see posts getting hundreds of likes and comments in your Facebook newsfeed. You think, how the heck are these posts going viral?

Want to know the secrets for making your own Facebook posts go viral?

I will reveal strategies below to increase your chance of Facebook Post success! Now, that is awesomesauce! Say, YES to success. Means you gotta work with me here, you must read everything below then do your research, start getting your creative juices flowing!! Get in the creative flow- however you do that, whether it’s smacking a certain part of your body, chanting etc… I learn a new technique everyday, some are interesting to say the least lol My creative flow technique is simple, I read and think. Say, awesomesauce!

 

The Secret Strategies Revealed:

 

1.) Discuss current events

Show your excitement about a current event this covertly associates your brand with the event. For example, look at how many brands are discussing the Olympics in their content or even commercials.

 

2.) Relate To Your Audience- Use Your Marketing Psychic Ability! lol  You can read minds, what, you didn’t know?………..

You have seen posts on Facebook and thought, “How did they know I was experiencing that, thinking or feeling that!! The universe must have wanted me to see this message!” lol 😉  That’s is how you relate to your audience and that is how excellent marketing is done. BAM!

Combine humor with an idea or experience that people can relate to, that is the secret formula. BAM!

 

3.) Trigger Emotions

Associating your brand or product with a strong emotion such as love and you will see results. Use a photo, video or text; the goal is to get people FEEL.

 

4.) Get Them To Act

Ask questions or get people to do a action are both ways to get your fans to like or comment on your post.

People love to share something that triggered a emotion within them, whether it was inspiration or insight; they will most likely share it with their friends.

 

5.) Make Them Laugh

whether it be inside jokes in your industry or experiences that everyone has experienced and is too embarrassed to admit or discuss or encourage fans to submit funny photos. For example, a customer submitted a photo of their baby wrapped in a Subway sandwich wrapper. Subway shared it and look at the results.

subway

 

6.) Inspire Them, Motivate Them!!

Using a great quote can trigger strong emotions. An inspiring quote and image will motivate your audience,  increasing your chances of getting them to share with their friends.

 

7.) Give Away Great Prizes!

Keep in mind there are a lot of companies doing this now so your prize has to be unique and something that everyone wants and desires. This will increase your chances of it going viral!

For example, Skittles had a contest giving away a Skittle vending machine, and the contest post accumulated over 12K likes.

Have fun incorporating these strategies and share with us your experiences, insight or ideas!

 

Have you ever had a post go viral? What was it that made the post go viral? Share your viral post below so we can take a look! and it will drive more traffic to your page!! BAM! Say, “AWESOMESAUCE”!

 

If you are looking for a company to create your Facebook Marketing Strategies for you that comply with Facebook’s regulations, you are in safe hands when you call Social Dominance Media. (click on Social Dominance Media to be taken to our website)

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How To Build A Amazing Facebook Page

20 Jun

WHAAAAAAAT!! You have a Facebook business page with no strategy? No consistent engagement? But it has potential to be the next hot page. Sound like your business’s page? Like Us on Facebook-Facebook Page Marketing

Facebook has the largest user base of any social network, so if your business is not benefiting by having a solid Facebook presence, you are missing HUGE lead generation opportunities. What is stopping you???? I know, I know, you do not have the time to research, think about strategy, write a million posts to put into a calendar, find and create images, comment on your fans responses, learn how to become a graphic designer, learn how to create professional looking apps with exciting ways to create contests, offers, games etc…. So HIRE a professional. Yes, it’s really that simple. But Rita, who do I hire? A social media strategist that really knows and understands all the variables involved. Read their blog posts, does it sound like they know what they are talking about? Do they demonstrate their knowledge?

There are plenty of strategies to create your Facebook success. A number of ways to create Facebook content that captures your audience’s attention not your peers. Here are seven reasons your Facebook page may not be performing at optimal levels.

1) Not Using More Visuals.

Facebook’s new timeline, is designed to support big, bold visuals. According to a recent study by Fast Company, 44 percent of social media users are most likely to engage with companies that post visual content: graphics, photographs, videos, and infographics. If you’re not using visuals liberally, you’re ignoring your audience’s needs and inviting them to go elsewhere to find compelling visual content.

Go BIG. Go bold. Quote famous individuals. Share videos. Use your company colors, and play with font shapes and sizes to optimize for both desktop and mobile.

2) Not Using Your Facebook Space With Intelligence.

Facebook recently changed their policy to allow using calls-to-action on cover photos!!! Yay! (Here’s an explanation of the change.) The cover photo is front and center on your page, and it also shows up in the feed when someone “likes” your page, so you should absolutely be using relevant marketing graphics on your Cover Photo.

Customize your Facebook tabs to create graphically-appealing landing pages that boosts lead generation efforts. If you created an eBook or a guide, for example — and have created a cover image specifically to promote this content using words and colorful graphics. Your new content will get more eyeballs with a customized tab.

3) Not Combining Your Posts To Offers.

Oh, you are creating great content, but you’re not leveraging that content to drive users to a landing page or website, your efforts are wasted. So many opportunities on Facebook!! Love it!! 🙂 Rita smiles with Facebook Love 🙂

You can increase your customer affinity by gaining their trust with good content. The best way to do this is to use both organic and paid posts to direct your audience to customized landing pages within Facebook. (Facebook rewards your marketing efforts with better reach for your campaigns if you keep your landing pages within Facebook, instead of sending users to your website.) On landing pages, you can provide a timely, relevant webinar registration offer or an ebook in return for contact information, for example. By giving away content that users value, you get something even more valuable in return: recipient info that bolsters your marketing automation efforts.

4) Don’t Have An Editorial Calendar. (tisk, tisk)

Yes, it’s all about the CONTENT, CONTENT, and CONTENT! That is not going to change, just use it. You need a strategic plan that gets results. I LOVE my editorial calendar! Don’t judge, you will too, once you get your editorial calendar on! You will love it too. Cause it saves the stress of wondering and rushing to post something every day.

5) Not Paying To Upgrade Your Reach.

Promote your own good content. Get your Facebook content noticed — use strategic, targeted Facebook ad techniques, such as Sponsored Stories, Like Sponsored Stories, and targeted newsfeed ads designed for both desktop and mobile devices. Want to take it a step further? Try using custom audience targeting by uploading your email database into Facebook’s Power Editor. Read my past post about it here–>https://socialmediawithrita.com/2013/04/12/facebook-advertising-for-the-pros-take-it-to-the-next-level-now/

6) Not Testing.

 

All marketing is about trial and error. Experiment with your ad tactics and content. Determine the types of content your target audience engages with, and then produce more of it.

You might be surprised at the success of non-traditional content experiments, so it’s always worth entertaining new ideas. Facebook is the perfect place to be in marketing.

7) Not having fun.

NO ONE wants to be pitched to right away or all the time, no different than being a telemarketer or knocking on someone’s door to interrupt their time- the thing no one cares about you or business until you give them a REASON to. You have to entertain them, tell them a story, give them something to share, and HELP them. Then, when they are looking for your business services, your company will likely be top of mind, because you’ve put in the work to give free value to their lives.

Do the actions, I described above, effectively, and your Facebook page will perform much better. Make your Facebook page a go-to hub for your customers, fans, and the general public to find your content.

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Facebook Advertising For The Pros, Take It To The Next Level Now

12 Apr

This is exciting for those who want to master Facebook ads. Facebook now has a Custom Audiences feature to use email addresses or phone numbers to match the target audience, instead of the traditional Facebook ad targeting features such as, demographics and interests.

Image

After using this email address or phone number filter, you can also use the other targeting options to TARGET your campaign to a segment of your email subscriber list—>such as, your customers in Toronto or your email subscribers between the ages of 33 and 47. To do this you should have a email list larger than 500 subscribers. For people who are just starting to grow their email list, I will discuss email list building strategies for newbies in a upcoming blog post! To ensure you do not miss out, enter your email address above to get notified on my upcoming social media education segments to ensure your success.

You can have as many custom audiences, you can upload multiple lists of emails and phone numbers if you have segmented email lists to reach different types/groups of customers/prospects.

You will use the emails that people used to sign up for your email newsletter, which may not be the same email address that people use to sign into Facebook. Or the people on your newsletter/email list may not use Facebook (there are very few that do not use Facebook, crazy, right? lol).

READY to start using NINJA technique, Here ARE the 5 things To Do:

1.) Install the Facebook Power Editor

The Power Editor is a tool you can use to upload a large number of ads to your Facebook ad campaigns. This is awesome for split testing your ads (LOVES IT!). I recommend to  write tons of ads to test in your campaigns to discover the best performing AD to run. This is what being a great online marketer is all about-> TESTING, TESTING 123. Say it with me-> “TESTING, TESTING 123.” Test the crap outta everything to get your secret sauce! WHOA! It’s one of the secrets to life after all 🙂

Install the Facebook Power Editor. The Facebook Power Editor is a Google Chrome plugin, you can only access the Power Editor when browsing with Google Chrome.

Using Google Chrome, Do This:

  1. Log into your Facebook personal profile.
  2. Click the wheel icon in the upper-right corner and select Manage Ads. You will see all of your Facebook ad campaigns.
  3. Click Power Editor on the left sidebar.
  4. You will see some information about the Power Editor and how you can install it.
  5. Click the Add button to add the Power Editor shown in the popup box.
  6. After installing it, you can click the, Power Editor button to open the Power Editor.
  7. Download your ad campaigns into the Power Editor by clicking the Download button. It references former campaigns.

NOW

2.) Download the Emails of Your EMAIL Newsletter Subscribers

Download the emails of your newsletter subscribers into a single column Excel spreadsheet or .CSV file. If you are using Aweber, Constant Contact, Mail Chimp or another email program, you can do this easily. You can create as many custom audiences as you want, if you have a segmented email list.

3.) Create Your Custom Audiences

Using the Facebook Power Editor upload your .CSV file. To get to the Custom Audience upload area, click on the Audiences label, then select Custom Audience from the Create Audience drop-down menu.

A popup box to agree to  the Terms and Conditions outlined are displayed. The terms require that you are using your own email subscriber list (or that you have all rights and permissions to use the data from the subscribers) and that the list consists only of people who have opted into your email list (and have not since opted out). Select the Agree button and another popup box will ask you to select your file to create your audience.

Select the file you created in Step 2 with your newsletter subscribers. In the Audience Name field, select a name that you know which subscribers are matched to this list.

4.) Analyze Your Custom Audiences and Create Facebook Ads

After you upload your first custom audience, the number of people who matched an email address on Facebook in your Power Editor will be displayed.

You can create ads directly in the Power Editor.

Uploading your email list as a custom audience will allow you to analyze your custom audience in the Facebook Advertising interface to better convert ads specific to this specific target group.

To return to the Facebook Advertising interface, go to your Facebook profile, select the wheel in the upper-right corner and select Create an Ad. Now select your Page or any website you may want to advertise. NOTE: Facebook prefers advertising your Facebook page rather than a website for obvious reasons to ensure people stay on Facebook.

The “Choose Your Audience” section, displayed is a check box under the Broad Categories, you can select your custom audience. Select that check box to do some analysis on your email list demographics.

5.) better understand Your List to get better ideas

Get discoveries about your list. If your list is small, targeting an ad to 85 people may not be an effective use of your Facebook marketing budget— it’s not expensive to give it a whirl to discover the results you get.

You can discover their interests and demographics listed on Facebook by playing around with the Facebook Ad settings.

Try different specific interests to find out what keywords captivate your audience to use those keywords in future ad campaigns.

Create an ad that targets a segment of your email list to use effective copy in the ad to entice to them.

Find out how many of your current email subscribers that have not liked your Facebook page to create an ad to get them to like your page. Understand now WHY I LOVE FACEBOOK ADS! Exciting stuff!

Feeling more Facebook Empowered?? You should be! Get typing, I want to hear keys hitting your keyboard now, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK! 🙂

Your goal in Marketing should always be getting into your customers/prospects head, this blog post gives you a technique to do that on Facebook. Exciting! I am excited for you! you should be smiling right now 🙂

Have you tried Facebook ADS? What results have you seen? Share your comments with us below.

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