Top 10 Powerful Moments That Shaped Social Media History Over the Last 20 Years

Do you remember your first social media profile? Or, how about your first social media post?

My first profile was on Myspace, my first friend was “Tom from Myspace,” and my first post was something like, “Myspace is awesome!”

The rest is history.

Social media has changed and evolved so much since the early days, it’s almost hard to believe how far we’ve come. How people use social media has changed as well. Gen Zs (now beginning to enter the workforce) only know a world with social media, compared to their counterparts – Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers – who can still fondly remember back to the days of snail mail and dial-up modems!

In light of #SMDay (6/30/2017), we’re teaming up with Bitly to share stories and celebrate the positive impact that social media has had on individuals, businesses, and the globe over the last 20 glorious years – all using the hashtag #impactofsocial. Check out the details at the bottom of this post about how you can join in on the fun!

Here’s a look at 10 powerful moments that shaped the social media history.

Let’s dive in!

Top 10 powerful moments that shaped social media history

There have been so many wonderful moments over the last 20 years on social media that it was quite a challenge to boil them down to just 10! But since we’re celebrating the positive impact of social media on people’s lives and on the world for this campaign, these are all particularly meaningful and important moments in the social media history.

Feel free to jump to a certain moment(s) in the social media history!

• The Birth of Facebook
• Miracle on the Hudson
• Going “Viral”
• Ellen’s Selfie (and the Nuggets guy)
• NASA’s #YearInSpace
• ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
• #BlackLivesMatter
• Arab Spring
• Community Support during World Tragedies
• Natural Disaster Relief

Let’s count down to the top moment in the social media history!

10. The Birth of Facebook

Facebook, the social media network that has an incredible two billion monthly active users (nearly a third of the earth’s population), is the only network that I’ll mention in this post for moments-sake. Given its sheer size, the impact it has made on families, friends, businesses, and world events, I felt as though I might be remiss without a mention of Facebook somewhere!

It’s amazing to imagine what the world might be like if Facebook had never captured the hearts and minds of so many people the way it did. One of my favorite Facebook moments, in particular, is during an early 2004 interview on CNBC with Mark Zuckerberg:

The anchor asks: “Now there’s a new form of cyber matching making, college networking websites. Is this perhaps the next big thing? The Facebook. Mark, if someone was to put the question to you about the magnitude of what you’ve launched; how big do you think your product or service is?”

We all know the rest!

A short six years after this interview (2010), Zuckerberg would go on to become Time’s Person of the Year along with many other accolades along the way. Facebook has changed the way we interact and communicate on all levels and only time will tell if another network will come along and take its place in social media history.

9. Miracle on the Hudson

It was January 15, 2009 when U.S. Airways Flight 1549 took off from LaGuardia Airport in New York and struck a flock of birds on the way up. Moments later, both engines were lost and Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, along with his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, were asked to pull off the miraculous landing.

When the plane finally landed safely in the frigid Hudson River waters, all 155 passengers on board were safe. The “Miracle on the Hudson” has been called the most successful ditching in aviation history.

But something else happened that day… Jeff Krums tweeted:

http://twitpic.com/135xa – There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.

— Janis Krums (@jkrums) January 15, 2009

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey told CNBC in 2013 how that changed Twitter and the way people get news.

It changed everything. Suddenly the world turned its attention because we were the source of news—and it wasn’t us, it was this person in the boat using the service, which is even more amazing.

One small tweet began the Twitter revolution. Hundreds of millions of people now turn to Twitter as a source of news, a place to build a following, a place to share your stories and connect with others.

Twitter is also the platform that our co-founder, Joel Gascoigne, successfully built Buffer on back in 2010! This powerful moment in social media history has a special place in our hearts.

8. Going “Viral”

How many of you have sat around with friends or family and binge-watched several classic YouTube videos in a row? I know I have!

What is now one of the largest social media networks on the planet (more than 1.5 billion people log in every month), started with a few viral hits and began a trend that today we might call, “going viral.” This launched YouTube into a massive entertainment hub – complete with TV streaming, movies, music videos, tutorials, celebrities, vloggers, and of course, viral videos.

Let’s take a look at three early videos that helped to shape the viral side of social media history:

Charlie Bit My Finger (Published: 5/22/2007 – 851,140,074 views)

“Chocolate Rain” (Published: 4/22/2007 – 113,787,749 views)

Numa Numa (Published: 12/11/2006 – 26,800,130 views)

Honorable Mention: “Lazy Sunday” 

In December of 2005, the first “viral video” appeared online under the name “Lazy Sunday.” It was the second-ever SNL Digital Short aired and featured cast members, Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg. Following its appearance on SNL, the video appeared on YouTube and was viewed more than five million times until February 2006 when NBC Universal asked the site to remove it.

7. Ellen’s Selfie (and #NuggsForCarter)

Ellen DeGeneres’ selfie that took the social media world by storm is the epitome of everything that is awesome about social media.

If only Bradley’s arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014

First, it is the fact that this photo is in “selfie” form which has come to be a staple of how photos are taken and shared across social media platforms. Two, it shows just how light-hearted, yet powerful social media can be. A smiling group of beloved actors, actresses, and performers has the ability to touch the lives of the more than 3,400,000 people who retweeted it and the millions more that saw it. For more than three years, Ellen’s selfie held the title of the most retweeted tweet of all time.

That was until Nevada teenager Carter Wilkerson’s plea for free chicken nuggets from Wendy’s went viral.

HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS pic.twitter.com/4SrfHmEMo3

— Carter Wilkerson (@carterjwm) April 6, 2017

The world watched as #NuggsForCarter swept Twitter like wildfire – eventually passing Ellen’s selfie as the most retweeted tweet of all time. And although the #NuggsForCarter tweet never quite reached 18 million, Wendy’s still awarded Carter free nuggets for a year anyways. A win-win!

In my experience, we as social media managers tend to take social media very seriously. But if we can learn anything from Ellen’s selfie and #NuggsForCarter, it’s that social media is meant to be a fun and sprightly place for people to share stories, connect, and be themselves.

If you’d like to hear more about the “Nuggs Guy” and how entrepreneurs and small businesses use social media, check out episode #47 of The Science of Social Media where we chat with Paul Jarvis. 

6. NASA’s #YearInSpace

Named one of the most influential social media campaigns of 2016 (and maybe of all time), NASA’s #AYearInSpace demonstrates the wildly powerful ability of social media to document the human condition.

Day 179. The #Nile at night is a beautiful sight for these sore eyes. Good night from @space_station! #YearInSpace pic.twitter.com/eAMBZ9p428

— Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) September 22, 2015

What made the mission so unique is that NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly has an identical twin brother he was to be compared with (physically) upon his return in hopes to uncover what happens to the human body after long exposures in space.

Astronaut Kelly tweeted continuously using the hashtag #YearInSpace, which was followed closely by millions of intrigued spectators. While tumbling around in zero gravity aboard the ISS, he even hosted an AMA session on Reddit!

This was a powerful moment in the social media history because we were able to experience space first-hand from the comfort of our own homes. People from all over the world chimed in using #YearInSpace to express their support, marvel in the wonder of the cosmos, and share an interconnectedness of human activity.

5. ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a wonderful testament to the power of social media to make a charitable impact on an important cause. Since 2014, largely due to social media, the ALS Association has raised more than $115 million for research towards Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

It drew the attention of hundreds of thousands of people, including celebrities like President Obama, LeBron James, Lady Gaga, Sergey Brin, Sheryl Sandberg, and Bill Gates. Within the first 15 days of the campaign taking off, the ALS Association had received $15 million in donations from 307,600 new, first-time donors.

What followed was an interesting study into viral content and how organizations might be able to repeat this virality in the future. And while no definite conclusion was made from Facebook’s study and visualization, many attribute the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge success to former Boston College baseball player, Pete Frates, who was diagnosed with ALS in 2012 (helping to explain the concentration).

The Ice Bucket Challenge can help to act as a guide or blueprint for achieving viral success via social media. As TechCrunch author, Sarah Perez writes, “Simply ask the selfie generation to once again turn their cameras on themselves, but infuse that act with a higher purpose” and you have a recipe for success.

4. #BlackLivesMatter

Over the past several years, social media has become an important communication tool for political groups and social movements to organize and take action. One of those social movements, #BlackLivesMatter, has become one of the largest in the social media history. Used more than 12 million times, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter is the third most-used Twitter hashtag around a social cause.

#BlackLivesMatter is an incredibly powerful example of how a social media hashtag can ignite action in the real world and be tied directly to a major movement. The implications for something like this are huge considering that we are all only becoming more digitally connected by the day.

A quote from Bijan Stephen in WIRED helps to sum it up perfectly:

“In the 1960s, if you were a civil rights worker and you needed to get some urgent news out to the rest of the world, you would likely head straight for a telephone. If you’re a civil rights activist in 2015 and you need to get some news out, your first move is to choose a social media platform.”

3. Arab Spring

I’ll never forget the digital marketing course I took in college that examined social media’s impact on the Arab Spring. It was then, back in 2011 as a student, that I realized the true power and potential implications of social media. Up until that point, I thought social media was only for sharing pictures with friends and family!

There has since been a strong debate over the role and influence that social media played in the Arab Spring. Researchers at the University of Washington examined more than three million tweets, gigabytes of YouTube content, and thousands of blog posts and found that social media played a central role in shaping political debates in the Arab Spring.

“Our evidence suggests that social media carried a cascade of messages about freedom and democracy across North Africa and the Middle East, and helped raise expectations for the success of political uprising,” said Philip Howard, project lead and professor at the University of Washington. “People who shared interest in democracy built extensive social networks and organized political action. Social media became a critical part of the toolkit for greater freedom.”

2. Community Support during World Tragedies

Social media can mean the difference between a few minutes or even a few seconds, and in unforeseen often-desperate situations, a few seconds can mean the world.

Moments after the tragic events in Brussels, friends and family members turned to Facebook and Twitter for information regarding anyone they might have known to be involved.

Following the Boston Marathon bombings, one-quarter of Americans looked to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites for information, according to The Pew Research Center. Boston community members offered complete strangers a warm bed, food, and a shower when roads and hotels were closed (via a simple Google Doc).

Social media also provides essential communication channels after these tragic events. Thinking back to Paris in 2015, social media helped to give many people a feeling of comfort, of solidarity, and of solace knowing that they would not have to face this alone. It acted as a support system even though we were all thousands of miles apart.

1. Natural Disaster Relief

One of the biggest strengths of social media is the speed at which it can disseminate important information to a large number of people in a very short amount of time. For example, after a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, non-profits and relief groups used social media to mobilize rescue efforts and support the community in various ways.

According to a CNN report, social media – Twitter specifically – became a pivotal tool in the fundraising efforts that raised millions of dollars in aid for the country. By the end of the week, the use of social media helped to raise more than $8 million in relief.

Photo: Yale Economic Review

Haiti is just one of many cases where social media played an integral role in disaster relief. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan (2011), Hurricane Irene (2011), Superstorm Sandy (2012), and the earthquake in Nepal (2015) are examples of the power of instant communication. During Sandy, 10,000 Instagram photos (#sandy) were uploaded per second, many complete with geo-tagged locations!

Social media provides real-time, first-person information so that people and organizations can make informed decisions about where to focus their efforts. A critical piece in ensuring that relief is provided where and when it is needed most.

Over to you

It’s quite hard to fathom that social media is only 20 years young and that the majority of growth and innovation has happened over the last few years. It’s even harder to believe that we’ve likely only just begun! As the world population continues to increase, communities become more connected, and the internet becomes available for more and more cities around the world, we will undoubtedly witness a deeper integration of social media into our everyday lives.

This list doesn’t even begin to cover the hundreds of amazing moments throughout social media history. And so it’s up to all of us to celebrate its positive impact on our lives whenever we can. Let’s encourage each other to not take this incredible tool for granted!

Here’s to 20 more years of powerful, wonderful, and world-changing social media history (and beyond!)

Feeling inspired? We’d love for you to share your story!

How has social media positively impacted you? On June 30th (#SMDay) and throughout the weekend,  share your social media story with us using the hashtag #impactofsocial! We’ll be retweeting some of our favorites and picking a few winners to receive some special Buffer swag. We’re also hosting five exclusive Facebook Live chats throughout the day, check out the awesome schedule we have planned below!

Facebook Live #impactofsocial schedule (Tune in Here!)

• Tom Redman (Product Manager at Buffer) – 7:00am PT, 10:00am ET
• Arielle Tannenbaum & Hailley Griffis (Community & PR at Buffer) – 8:30am PT, 11:30am ET
• Mark Josephson (CEO at Bitly) – 10:00am PT, 1:00pm ET
• Brian Fanzo (iSocialFanz) – 12:00pm PT, 3:00pm ET
• Courtney Seiter (Director of People at Buffer) – 1:30pm PT, 4:30pm ET

source https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-history

The Complete Guide to Using Stock Photos in Your Marketing

How to Get Your First 1,000 Followers on Every Major Social Network

This post was originally published in 2016 and has been updated with the latest tips and tricks to grow your following on every social media network. It also includes the latest podcast episode from The Science of Social Media! 

You’re taking the dive into a new social network, or you’re itching to grow your existing profile. You’ve got a social media strategy in place and a plan in mind. You’re raring to go.

What would be one of the most encouraging signs when you’re first starting off? We’d imagine it’d be gaining followers!

So how do new social media accounts do it? How do you gain your first 1,000 followers on social media?

Follower count is one of those metrics that has tons of meaning – both for the confidence of the social media manager and for the distribution of the content you share. If you want to grow your followers, there are tons of useful tips to try. Here are some key learnings we’ve drummed up about how to get that first initial batch of followers on some of the major social media networks (specifically Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest and LinkedIn)

[Interested in listening to this post in podcast format? We invite you to check out Buffer’s very own podcast – The Science of Social Media!] 

How to listen: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS

Quick tips: The best general strategies for growing your audience

Regardless of the social network you choose, there seem to be some similar, high-level strategies that apply to getting new followers on every network—Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

If you’re looking to build your profile and add new followers, here are some of the standard best practices. Lots more detail on each of these below.

• Fill out your profile completely
• Share a link to your profile via your other networks and via email
• Place follow links and widgets on your blog or website
• Add your new social profile to your email signature

How to get your first 1,000 followers on Twitter

Step one: Fill out your profile completely

This includes:

Writing an awesome bio with one or two select keywords or hashtags

Adding your URL and location – URL is great for adding context, location is great for getting found via search and geographic tools

Uploading a profile picture and cover photo. Check out the image below for what it looks like when someone clicks your username from Twitter’s desktop site.

Seeding your Twitter account with 5 to 10 original Tweets

Experimenting with adding emoji to your name

If you want to get your profile even more optimized, you can use the Pinned Tweet feature to pin a tweet to the top of your profile page. Choose a tweet that embodies what your Twitter profile is all about or shows a lot of social proof, i.e. one with a lot of favorites and retweets.

Step two: Share a link to your profile via other networks and via email

Share with your Facebook friends that you’ve started a Twitter account. Add an announcement to your next company newsletter or in an email to friends.

Step three: Include a Follow button on your website or blog

Twitter offers four types of buttons that you can use to help visitors connect with you on Twitter.

1. Share a link
2. Follow
3. Hashtag
4. Mention

The Follow button is the most direct means of gaining more followers. You can place it in a popular place on your website or blog. For instance, we’ve added the follow button to the author profiles on the Buffer blog.

Step four: Find relevant accounts to follow

Many users on Twitter will follow back those who follow them. This is a popular strategy for those just starting out on Twitter to help connect with others, and thanks to Twitter lists, users can customize the information they see on Twitter, which makes following tons of people all the easier to manage.

1. Sign up for a free tool like Tweepi or Followerwonk so you can see a list of followers for other users in your niche.
2. Optimize this list of followers by sorting it by recent activity.
3. Follow up to 100 of these new folks per, whoever seems relevant and interesting to you (any more than 100 per day and you risk a Twitter ban).
4. Every so often, to balance out your follower/following ratio, you can check into a tool like JustUnfollow to unfollow any accounts that haven’t followed you back. JustUnfollow has a whitelist option, too, so you can skip over the accounts you wish to keep following no matter what.

Step five: Use relevant hashtags

When you use a hashtag, people outside of those you follow will be exposed to your tweet. To find the best hashtags to use, there’s a great app called Focalmark that allows you to generate relevant hashtags based on the topic or theme you’re looking for.

Step six: Join a Twitter chat and contribute value

If you’re in the digital marketing space, we’d love to have you join a #BufferChat, which takes place every Wednesday at noon ET/9:00 a.m. PT and 4:00pm AEST/8:00am CEST. Other great resources for finding a relevant Twitter chat include:

• Chat Salad is a great place to find chats that are currently happening or taking place in the near future.
• Tweet Reports also has a great listing of Twitter chats.
• Twubs, a website where you can register a hashtag, has an easy-to-read and thorough listing of chats.
• This huge Google doc spreadsheet includes hundreds of Twitter chats.

Summary

• Fill out your profile completely
• Share a link to your profile
• Place Twitter follow buttons on your site
• Find relevant accounts to follow
• Use relevant hashtags
• Join a Twitter chat

How to get your first 1,000 fans on Facebook

Step one: Fill out your page completely

Facebook pages offer an incredible level of detail and information. Many businesses even use them as their main website. To maximize your chances of gaining as many fans as possible, you’ll want to fill out your profile as thoroughly as possible.

• About section
• URL
• Profile picture & cover photo/video
• Profile theme or template (new feature from Facebook!)
• Call-to-action button
• Address (for brick-and-mortar businesses)
• Long description and mission
• Phone number and/or email address
• Create several updates so there is content on the page

One helpful tip for getting Facebook fans that we shared in our Facebook Page starter guide is to make a great first impression by maximizing the eye-catching ability of your Facebook Cover Photo. We’ve included a video on the Buffer Page which now has more than 2,700 views!

Step two: Invite your friends to the page

From your Facebook page, you can select the option to Invite Your Friends and then browse through your friend list to send an invite. It might be best to select a handful of friends you think would be most interested rather than blasting the invitation to all.

If possible, it’d be great to get to 25 fans via this method. Once you hit the 25-fan threshold, you can then claim a vanity URL for your page (e.g., facebook.com/yourbrandname), which will look more appealing when you share the URL in later steps.

Step three: Share a link to your profile via other networks and via email

Tweet your Facebook page URL to your followers, or share your Facebook page

Step four: Add Facebook buttons to your website

Facebook offers a huge helping of buttons and widgets that you can add to your site. Here’s the complete list of their social plugins:

• Save Button
• Like, Share, Send, & Quote
• Embedded Posts & Video Player
• Page Plugin
• Comments
• Follow Button

If you’re looking to get more fans on your Facebook page, the Like button and Share button are two of your best bets. (The “Follow” button, while it sounds enticing, is more for individuals with profiles who want to offer people the chance to follow rather than friend.)

If you’d prefer the Like or Like Box button, you can set your Facebook page URL and edit options for showing a feed of your posts, the height and width of the box, and a handful of other options. The box will take up a bit more space on your site, but you get the added value of your Facebook profile picture appearing the box, too.

Step five: Spend a little on Facebook advertising

Facebook lacks many of the organic options of getting your name out there. With a news feed algorithm and the sheer mass of users, paying a bit for extended reach and boost can help.

A couple of tips:

• Advertise to those interested in your niche. When in doubt, go more targeted. Fewer than 100,000 people is generally best.
• Retarget the ads to people who have visited your website or blog.

Step six: Try a Facebook call-to-action on your blog. 

We have a handful of calls-to-action on our blog, including our HelloBar at the top of the page and a slideup box that appears as you scroll. Either of these could be repurposed for Facebook calls-to-action as well (or any other social network, for that matter).

Summary

• Fill out your profile completely
• Invite your friends
• Share a link to your profile
• Add Facebook buttons
• Spend a little on Facebook ads
• Calls-to-action on the blog

How to get your first 1,000 followers on Pinterest

Step one: Fill out your profile completely

Pinterest creates a distinction between individual users and business users. You can switch your individual account to a business account at any time and then enjoy features like rich pins, customized Pin It buttons and widgets, and more.

To fully complete the information on your profile, when viewing your profile click the gear icon and then “Account Settings.” Clicking the “Edit Profile” button lets you edit only the basic information and nothing deeper.

In Account Settings, you can fill out the following:

• Email
• Business type
• Contact name
• Business name
• Profile picture
• Custom username and vanity URL
• About section
• Location
• Website
• Connected social networks
• For the website, Pinterest can step you through verification options that will help with their Rich Pins services as well as add a verified icon to the website on your profile, which may give potential followers more confidence in following you.

Step two: Share a link to your profile via other networks and via email

Publish an update on Twitter or Facebook with a link to your Pinterest page. Share your new page with your email list. Pinterest makes it super easy to do so. Here’s a quick peek at what it looks like from Buffer’s Pinterest Profile:

Step three: Include a Pinterest button on your website or blog

Pinterest offers five different styles of buttons and widgets that you can place on your website.

• Pin It button
• Follow button
• Pin widget
• Profile widget
• Board widget

The Pin It button is helpful for getting the content on your website more traction on Pinterest. There are also some helpful WordPress plugins that can help add Pinterest functionality.

If you’re interested in boosting your followers, something more akin to the Follow button or the Profile and Board widgets might come in handy.

The Follow button is super simple. Enter your Pinterest URL and your full name, and build the button. You get an HTML code to place wherever you’d like the button to appear.

The Profile and Board widgets let you display an interactive preview of all your pins or just the pins from a particular board. You can choose the layout size—square, sidebar, header, or custom.

Buffer Social Blog Pinterest Board

Buffer Pinterest Profile

Step four: Follow the boards of your competitors’ followers

Matthew Barby has a number of neat strategies for getting more initial followers on various social networks. Here’s a strategy that he tested with great success for Pinterest:

1. Find a selection of your competitors’ Pinterest pages and click on their followers.
2. Go through and follow around 50-100 of their followers’ boards each day (do this for around 2 weeks). You can also search for users based on hashtags relevant to your niche.
3. Now create between 5 and 10 boards of your own that span across a range of different topics. Each week, you should aim to create another 3-4 boards.
4. Pin as much content from your website as possible into a selection of your different boards. Add long descriptions to each pin with 2-4 hashtags. Try to space this out – don’t pin too many things at one time or you’ll flood everyone’s feeds. Try to stick to no more than 10-15 pins in an hour.
5. Now, on a daily basis, go through your feed and repin around 10 pins onto your different boards – do this twice a day.

Summary

• Fill out your profile completely
• Share a link to your profile
• Include a Pinterest button on your site
• Include Pinterest Board and Profile widgets on your site
• Follow the boards of your competitors’ followers

How to get your first 1,000 followers on LinkedIn

There are a couple unique ways to look at the climb to 1,000 followers on LinkedIn. Are you seeking followers for your personal profile or for your company page? The advice below touches on each.

Step one: Fill out your profile completely

LinkedIn places great value in its users filling out their profiles completely. Your profile likely has a Profile Strength icon that shows you how thoroughly you’ve filled in your information.

The more information you add, the more likely it is that someone may find you. Fill out as much as you’re comfortable with, and be sure to take advantage of LinkedIn’s new cover photos and rich media options for your profile. For instance, you could add a relevant industry image as your cover photo and place portfolio images and links into your profile. Here’s what Brian’s profile looks like to the public:

This same concept goes for businesses. The profile options are a bit more limited, but you can still add cover photo and profile picture, URL, about information, and the specialties with which you’re involved.

Step two: Post frequently to increase awareness. 

LinkedIn offers a few different options for individuals to post great content to LinkedIn to increase awareness and page growth.

One of my favorite publishing avenues is via LinkedIn Pulse. Similar to Medium and Facebook Notes, the content appears native within the news feed. And in addition, each time you post to Pulse, the article appears at the top of your profile – showcasing your work in a beautiful way.

Step three: Create a business Showcase Page

LinkedIn now offers a new option for businesses to create a Showcase Page and extend their reach:

Step four: Invite your coworkers to join LinkedIn and fill out their profile

This tip comes in handy for company pages on LinkedIn. When employees add you as their current employer on LinkedIn, your logo appears on their profile and it links directly to your LinkedIn company page.

Step five: Send an original connection request, and accept requests from everyone

Chris Lee shared an interesting strategy about how he handles the giving and receiving of LinkedIn requests.

Be indiscriminate about accepting connection requests. I accept all requests – they could potentially endorse you for multiple skills, share your profile to their network, and expand your reach. You should aim to have 500+ connections on your profile.

When sending out connection requests, try to modify the default message to something more personalized to increase the chances of your request being accepted. You can include your LinkedIn profile URL in your signature, “Connect with me.”

Here’s an example of a request he might send.

Summary

• Fill out your profile completely
• Share a link to your profile
• Create a Business Showcase Page
• Get your coworkers involved
• Accept all requests, and customize the requests you send

How to get your first 1,000 followers on Instagram

Update: You might enjoy our an advanced guide for getting even more followers on Instagram!

Step one: Fill out your Instagram profile completely

What might Instagram users consider when they decide whether to follow you? Chances are good that they’ll check out your profile first.

To that end, if you want to get followers on Instagram, be sure you have completed your profile with a profile picture, a description, and a link to your website.

What’s more is that you want the photos themselves to look complete and professional. Instagram’s header section is composed of seven of your most popular images. Be sure that you’ve taken at least seven images before you begin promoting your profile. Lifestyle and personal images tend to do best.

Step two: Connect your Instagram and Facebook account

Doing so will help your Facebook friends find you and follow you on Instagram and allow you to advertise on Instagram through the Facebook Ads Manager.

Step three: Come up with a commenting strategy

Any given second on Instagram, there are 575 likes on a picture compares to 81 comments. A comment figures to get noticed (and appreciated) much more than a like.

1. Comment from a computer, using a tool like Iconosquare. This way you can leave comments quicker and easier than typing out on a mobile device.
2. Search for a relevant hashtag.
3. Comment on photos posted within the last day or two.
4. Comment on photos with fewer than five other comments (to make sure your comment is seen and appreciated).

Step four: Like a lot of posts

Neil Patel tried out several Instagram strategies to gain more followers, and his number one takeaway was this:

If you want to grow your account by a few hundred followers a day, the best way to accomplish it is to randomly like thousands of images a day.

Step five: Discover the best hashtags

Find out what the influencers in your industry are tagging. For a more scientific view, check into the Webstagram Top 100 to see the overall trends and top picks for hashtags on Instagram. (You can gain more Instagram followers by using the hashtags people are looking for!)

Step six: Place a hashtagged feed of Instagram posts on your website or blog

This way, visitors to your site can notice your Instagram account and send you follows. There are some helpful sites—Webstagram and Instansive, for instance—that assist with getting the feed on your site. WordPress users have a lot of plugin options as well.

In addition, Instagram also offers five different types/sizes of badges that you can place on your website.

Step seven: Tag people

Tag and mention the accounts that are relevant to you. This could lead to the accounts themselves following you back or with these users paying the love forward by mentioning you on one of their photos.

Step eight: Share a link to your profile on other social channels and email

You can pick up more followers by sharing a link to your profile with the people who are already following you on other social networks.

Step nine: Use geo-tagging for your pictures and your store

Instagram revealed a photo maps feature which lets users see the pictures that were taken from a certain location. If you enable geo-tagging on your pictures, you can be part of this map. Same goes for a brick-and-mortar store you own. Connect your Instagram via Foursquare to turn on this feature.

Summary

• Fill out your Instagram profile completely, and make sure that you have at least seven high-quality images on your account
• Connect your Instagram account to your Facebook account
• Comment on as many images as you can
• Like as many images as you can
• Share your profile across channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and email
• Use geo-tagging in your picture to increase awareness

[Interested in listening to this post in podcast format? We invite you to check out Buffer’s very own podcast – The Science of Social Media!] 

How to listen: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS

Over to you!

Which tips might you try to get more followers on these social channels?

What have you found that has worked well for you in the past?

We’re curious to try some of these tips out on our Buffer social media profiles! Many of these we’ve tried-and-tested; others are new. It’d be great to test them all out and report back with what works. And we’d also love to hear your feedback on this episode from The Science of Social Media. Thanks for listening!

source https://blog.bufferapp.com/first-1000-followers-twitter-facebook-social-media

The Mobile Marketing Studio: 26 Apps to Help You Create Epic Social Media Content on Your Smartphone

25 Days, 25 Expert Social Media Growth Strategies [New Email Course for Marketers]

What’s working for you social media these days?

One of our goals at Buffer is to always be iterating and experimenting with what we do on social media and in marketing. Whether it’s cutting our posting frequency, curating content, or creating square videos, we’re always up for trying new strategies! Lots of times these experiments fail (and we learn valuable lessons) and other times they end up revealing great opportunities to grow.

So what are you experimenting with on social media this week? This month? This year?

We’d love to help with some ideas!

We’ve collected our 25 most effective social media growth strategies that have helped us move the needle over the past year. These tips and strategies are straight from our Buffer playbook and have helped people (including us) find great success on social media! We’re excited to deliver these strategies to you in a free daily email.

Join us for 25 days of social media growth strategies!

We’d count it an amazing privilege to share with you these strategies over the next several days. You can join for free by visiting the landing page below.

Join this course — 25 unique, social media growth strategies, delivered a day-at-a-time, for free!

We’ll send you one email per day, Monday through Friday, for the next 25 days.

All of the lessons contain detailed knowledge-packed information on how you can get started with that specific strategy immediately. These are real strategies, resources, and tips that we’re currently using here Buffer or that we have used in the recent past.

A huge shoutout to the amazing folks who are blazing trails on social media marketing and inspired many of the strategies that you will read about in this email course. Lots of them have been guests on the Buffer Podcast – The Science of Social Media!

Bonus: Many of the social media growth strategies include a short video tutorial!

Course preview

Here’s a quick look at what’s in store for our social media growth strategies course in the first 15 lessons:

1. The “Why” and the “How” behind social media marketing
2. The web’s top (free) social media content curation tool
3. Tools for creating videos on a budget
4. 5 hidden Instagram marketing features
5. Must-have image creation tools for savvy marketers
6. The power of resharing content on Facebook
7. 10 incredible stock photo websites to bookmark
8. Building your brand through content curation
9. Sell your product through educational screen recordings
10. Less is more with Facebook posting (preview below)
11. Understanding social media algorithms
12. 6 time-saving social media tools
13. Social media analytics and benchmarking
14. 5 secrets of successful video marketing
15. Strategies for sharing content across social media

Join our 25-day social media growth strategies course to see these lessons in detail and receive the remaining 10 lessons! 

A sample lesson

We’re excited to make sure that you get all of the information and takeaways you want from these emails and so I’m happy to share here a sample of one of the lessons from the course. Here’s lesson #10 (in-full) – Less is more with Facebook posting: (View full email in browser)

Less is more with Facebook posting
In October of 2016 we dramatically changed our Facebook posting strategy.

A gradual, but noticeable shift in many social media algorithms and an influx of brand advertising on Facebook meant that it was important for us to either start experimenting or we’d continue to see a decline in organic reach and engagement.

We needed to make a change.

We cut our posting frequency by more than 50% on Facebook and began to truly focus on quality over quantity. What happened next, even the most optimistic social media manager couldn’t have expected:

Our Facebook reach and engagement began to increase even though we were posting less!

We’ve written a detailed breakdown on the impact this change has had on our Facebook results – But in the meantime, here’s a quick overview of our current Facebook strategy that we hope will help to spark some inspiration:

One or two posts per day maximum
The main reason why I believe we’re seeing such a dramatic increase in reach and engagement is that we’re only posting one or two pieces of content per day on Facebook.

This serves two valuable purposes:

1. It forces us to only share the best of the best content because we literally have limited space
2. It allows the Facebook algorithm to focus on delivering one piece of content (vs. multiple) to our audience

Curated content
Previously, we used to shy away from curated content because it didn’t directly affect the bottom-line: traffic, subscriptions, sales, etc.

However, sorting our Facebook posts by “Most Reach” shows exactly the impact it has had on our Page and growth: 7 of 11 of our most successful posts throughout the last 14 months are curated (not created by Buffer). These posts have combined to reach more than 750,000 people, averaging to about 107,000 people per post.

Curated content may not “directly” affect our bottom line, but it plays a significant role in reach, engagement (likes, comments, shares) and page growth.

Focusing on brand awareness and engagement
Focusing on brand awareness and engagement vs. driving traffic to our website has become a staple of our strategy as well.

We’ve witnessed a shift in many social media networks over the last year. It used to be that brands and businesses could post links to their blog posts and watch the traffic flow in. And while that’s still the case for many publishers, savvy marketers can benefit from thinking about their content strategy as a whole – focusing on both direct traffic as well as engagement.

Posting content that aims to drive engagement only helps to build an activate Facebook audience. Then, right when you need them most, you can deliver a piece of brand content that will help move the bottom line.

Boosted Posts
Last, but not least, I’d love to address how important Facebook boosted posts have been in increasing reach and engagement on our Page.

Currently, we spend roughly $40 per day boosting our best-performing content on Facebook.

Boosting posts takes content that’s already performing well and amplifies it on a huge scale. As that implies, the key is to focus on boosting great content, not necessarily posts that aren’t doing well and “forcing” them with advertising dollars.

You Can Do It
Head over to your Facebook Analytics and calculate your average post engagement for the previous 7 days (total number of engagements / total number of posts).

Then, cut the number of times you post over the next 7 days by 50% and really focus on only posting your best content. Once 7 days is up, calculate your average post engagement again.

Did your engagement rate and total engagements go up or down? We’d love to hear!

Thanks for joining us,
Brian & the Buffer Team

F.A.Q. – Frequently Asked Questions about this course

Does the course cost anything?

It’s 100% free!

We’re excited to give these strategies away in hopes that might be helpful for you and your social media marketing efforts.

Who is it for?

Everyone! It’s not tied to Buffer accounts at all, so both current Buffer users and yet-to-be Buffer users can join.

What happens at the end of the 25 days?

At the end of the 25-day course, we’d love to send you a congratulatory email (on a job well done!) plus details on where you can continue your education and connect with peers online. I’ll also be around to answer any follow-up questions you might have about the emails and subjects included in this course.

Will you be signing me up for other newsletters or lists, too?

Nope, we will not sign you up for other email lists without your express permission. Your email’s safe with us.

Help! I haven’t received my confirmation email yet!

If you can let us know the email you signed up with, I’d be happy to look you up in our system to see if all’s in working order. The first email should be headed your way shortly after signup, or first thing on Monday if you’ve signed up on the weekend. If you’re yet to see anything, I’d be very happy to investigate for you!

(Often times, some folks experience a bit more of a delay than others, depending on email service provider)

We’d love to invite you to join this course!

It would be awesome to have the opportunity to share these social media growth strategies and connect with you over the next 25 days.

If this course interests you at all, you can sign up directly online here!

We’re excited for the chance to share with you!

Feel free to leave any thoughts, questions, or comments here on the article, and I’ll hop right on them!

source https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-growth-strategies-email-course