power of social media marketing

Scheduling Status Updates for Facebook Business Pages in the Future

June 13 in Blog by marketing morgan | No Comments

Facebook’s newest feature is the ability to schedule status updates for the future without using a third party app. While it’s quite simple, the key is to avoid spelling and grammar mistakes because there is not an edit feature once you have clicked “Schedule”. Let’s take a look at how to schedule a Facebook post for tomorrow.

First, type in your status update or upload your photo/video like you normally would. Do NOT click “Post,” as this will automatically publish your update. Instead, click the little clock in the left hand corner.

Once you click the clock you will be prompted to enter the year, month, date and hour/minute that you would like your Facebook update to publish on. Now click “Schedule.”

You are done! To check your updates go to the top of your admin panel, click “edit page,” and scroll down to “User Activity.”

Here you can view your posts that you have scheduled out for the future. Remember, while you cannot edit the content of the post, you can edit the time you have scheduled it for!

Tagged 2011 social media statistics, digital marketing, Facebook, Facebook for business, grow your business online, marketing, power of social media marketing, social media, social media campaign, social media websites, social media-sharing

Five critical mistakes businesses make with social media

May 10 in Blog by leading lady | No Comments

When training many small to medium-sized businesses to effectively use social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, there are five critical mistakes that I come across consistently. There is no concrete answer on how to be successful in social media due because every business offers different products and services to different target audiences. However, there are best practices that companies should be aware of and work diligently to implement. Here are the top five mistakes that businesses make when leveraging social media.

1) There’s no plan or strategy. I have seen many businesses set up Facebook and Twitter accounts, and then let them sit dormant. A stale account will do nothing to help grow your business. In fact, it can harm your business. My suggestion is to create at least a six-month social media plan, and stick to it. Strategize with a local consultant, mentor or friend who specializes in social media, and remember to have fun with it. Social media is a way to show off your company and build lasting relationships with your customers.

2) Content is not prioritized. A business should always try to stick to the 80/20 rule. This rule states that content and messaging should be 80 percent informational and 20 percent promotional. Social media is a pull system, so stop pushing. Your customers do not want you to hound them every day to come into your store or buy your products. They want you to bring valuable information to them and prove you are a resource to them and a thought leader in your industry. You want to feed your fans and followers great content and create conversation on platforms that are relevant to your marketing plan. For example, do not set up an account on Pinterest just because everyone else is doing it. If the platform does not fit your model, excel in the platforms that do. Thanks to the Internet, there is a lot of great content at your disposal. Engagement is everything.

3) Automated posting by linking social media accounts. Linking Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts is a huge social media no-no. While it sounds contradictory because many social sites encourage it, you do not want to push the same message out across all sites simultaneously. Twitter enforces a message length requirement and encourages multiple tweets a day due to sheer volume of tweets. However, Facebook encourages a more in-depth message for less frequent posting. Each platform hosts a different audience in a different atmosphere. Speak with them appropriately.

Read the Full Article in the Jacksonville Business Journal

Tagged 2011 social media statistics, business journal, business workshop, digital marketing, Facebook, Facebook for business, Florida, grow your business online, instagram, Jacksonville, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Platform, linkedin strategies, modern marketing, pinterest, power of social media marketing, professional social media, social madness, social media, social media marketing, social media-sharing, traditional media, Twitter

Why Does My Company Need Social Media Marketing?

August 4 in Blog by leading lady | 1 Comment

If you’re still asking this question, allow me to catch you up to speed: social media is here to stay.

I promise.

Your company needs social media marketing to compete in today’s marketplace. Have you noticed the Facebook and Twitter icons on most companies’ homepages? Have you heard the “Like us on Facebook” and “Follow us on Twitter” plugs at the end of radio and TV commercials? Of course you have; that’s because most companies already understand the power of social media marketing.

Your company can use social media sites to gain valuable insight on customer opinions of your products and services. The ability to interact with your audience has never been easier. Social media marketing helps to improve your company’s overall customer service experience by establishing trust and building meaningful relationships online. This level of engagement helps to keep existing customers and attract new ones.

Another reason to use social media marketing is to grow your online presence. Maintaining accounts on various social media sites helps to drive traffic to your company website, which, in turn, generates leads and boosts your reputation (if you have an informative, user-friendly website.)

I’ll leave you with some 2011 social media statistics to give you perspective on the power of social media marketing:

Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the United States, according to Socialnomics.com.
80% of companies use social media for recruitment, 95% of which use LinkedIn, according to Socialnomics.com.
Over 67% of users are following their favorite brands on Twitter, according to BlackBoxSocialMedia.com.

As research shows, social media sites aren’t new anymore. They are already integrated into many companies’ marketing campaigns. The longer you resist using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites as effective marketing tools, the further you’ll fall behind competitors who are already dominating in these arenas. Don’t get left behind!

Do you have an example of how social media marketing has helped your company?

Tagged 2011 social media statistics, Facebook, power of social media, power of social media marketing, social media, social media marketing, social media sites, social media statistics, Twitter