6 Ways to Create Viral Marketing Success with Pinterest

You can create viral marketing success with Pinterest by following these six easy steps:

1. Create boards around your keywords
2. Search for or create group boards around your keywords
3. Use viraltag.com to schedule your posts
4. Put a Pinterest button your blog or website to make it easier for you and your fans to share your posts.
5. Create original, user-friendly content to share through Pinterest
6. Consider converting your Pinterest account to a business account so you can read the analytics

Pinterest has 100 million active users, 85 percent of whom are female.

One way to explain Pinterest’s popularity among women is that it’s like a giant digital scrapbook that’s constantly evolving and becoming more and more important for those of us working to promote our businesses through social media..

According to Wikipedia, before 2013, Pinterest only accounted for about 2 percent of global social-mediated sales, however it has recently substantially increased to about 23 percent. Sales inspired by Pinterest average about $80 – higher than any other site, including Amazon, Google and Facebook. 

Convinced you need to win the Game of Pinterest?

Now let’s go in depth and understand how:

Create boards around your keywords. By now, if you have been following our social media strategy here at www.whatissocialmediatoday.com, you know that you must start by figuring out the keywords for your business. Once you are clear on what those keywords are, create Pinterest boards for your top 10 keywords. Maybe you can think of even more boards to create based on the words and phrases that people who need your products, business and services are looking for. Once you have created your 10 boards based on your keywords, constantly be on the lookout for content that explains your keywords. This could be content you yourself create or Pins from other Pinterest users. Remember, you don’t have to create all the content yourself – you can share the ideas of like-minded people.

Search for or create group boards around your keywords. Once you have created your own boards around your keywords, search for group boards from other people who are collecting content around the same subject. If you can’t quite find what you are looking for, create your own group boards by inviting other Pinterest users to become members of a group board you create. This is a great way to get your content quickly in front of potentially thousands of people. For example, I’m a member of this Pinterest board about Fitness that has 9.8 thousand members. If I post to this board, my content automatically gets shared with 9.8 thousand members.

Use viraltag.com to schedule your posts. Viraltag.com is a dashboard you can use to share visual content throughout the social media. It’s especially helpful for Pinterest and Instagram, but you can also share to Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Twitter. One of the great features about this particular dashboard is that once you upload your images, you can clone them. In this manner, you can send out multiple images through your social media channels over time. This would be especially helpful, for example, during a book launch or other product kickoff when you want to let your fans and followers to take action.

Put a Pinterest Pin It button your blog or website to make it easier for you and your fans to share your posts. You want to make it as easy as possible for your fans and followers to share your content through their social media channels. One of the great ways to do this is to ask your website developer to add a Pin It button to your website. You can also download a Pin It button to your web browser by following the instructions at this link. In that way, whenever you run across content throughout the internet that’s relevant to your keywords all you have to do is Pin It to one of your Pinterest boards.

Create original, user-friendly content to share through Pinterest. One of the unique features of Pinterest compared to other social media sites with their quick timelines is that once you create content and pin it to your boards, it will be around forever. Create great content and all of a sudden you have a viral marketing phenomenon on your hands! Here’s a great example of how I did this. Back on Jan. 28, 2016, I published a blog entitled “The Easiest Way to Stretch Tight Hamstrings.” The blog included a very clear photograph demonstrating how to do what I was talking about. I then pinned the photo with a link to my website on multiple Pinterest boards. You can see the Pin at this link. As of Oct. 28, it has now been pinned on a total of 970 different boards throughout Pinterest, making it evergreen content that sends new readers to my website on literally a daily basis according to my Google analytics reports. Best times to post on Pinterest are between 8 and 11 p.m. and 2 to 4 p.m. 

Consider converting your Pinterest account to a business account so you can read the analytics. When I started www.healingjewelrystore.com, I knew I wanted to include a Pinterest account as part of my social media strategy. I set up the Pinterest account for my online jewelry store as a business account at this link so that over time I will be able to read the analytics reports to see what customers are responding to, when and for how long. Just as you can read the analytics report on your business Facebook page and Twitter account, you can get similar analytics when you set up a Pinterest business account.

Want to learn more about how to win the Game of Social Media?

Join our program today by calling Catherine Carrigan at 678-612-8816 or email catherine@catherinecarrigan.com or calling Ramajon Cogan at (928) 821-4553 or email wheresramajon@gmail.com.

The post 6 Ways to Create Viral Marketing Success with Pinterest appeared first on What is Social Media Today.

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source https://whatissocialmediatoday.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/6-ways-to-create-viral-marketing-success-with-pinterest/

Introducing Instagram Reposting by Buffer: Never Run Out of Amazing Content

One of the best aspects of social media is being able to share something with your followers.

On Twitter, you can retweet. On Facebook, there’s the option to share a post. And on Instagram, you can repost, which is essentially a way to share a picture from another Instagram user with your followers.

Though reposting isn’t an official feature of Instagram’s apps or website, it’s something that many brands and users have been doing for a while now. And it’s a tactic that has delivered great success, too. Here at Buffer, reposting was a key factor in our growing our Instagram audience by over 60 percent.

Today, we’re excited to announce a new way to make Instagram reposting easy for you, with Buffer!

Learning how to repost on Instagram is the key to taking your marketing strategy on the photo-sharing platform to the next level. We’d love to help get you started! Keep reading for advice and tips on the best ways to add reposting to your social strategy and the ideal workflows for doing it quickly and efficiently.

How to Repost on Instagram, using Buffer

To repost on Instagram, find the picture you’d like to repost within the Instagram app, then tap on the three dots ‘…’ icon next to the image and then tap ‘Copy Share URL’. Now, open up Buffer for Android or iOS on your phone and tap the ‘Tap here to repost your image from Instagram’ notification.

Here’s that process broken out into 4 quick steps:

1. Find the photo you’d like to repost

The first step is to open up Instagram and find the photo you’d like to repost. Once you’ve located the photo, on iOS tap on the ‘…’ icon and tap the ‘Share’ option and then tap ‘Copy Link’:

On Android, tap ‘Copy Share URL’:

2. Open Buffer’s iOS or Android app

Next, you’ll need to open up Buffer for iOS or Android on your phone. Once the app is open, it’ll recognize the Instagram link saved to your clipboard and ask if you’d like to repost that content to your own Instagram account:

3. Edit the caption and schedule a reminder

Once you’ve tapped on the option to repost the Instagram post, Buffer will automatically pre-fill the caption field based on the caption from the original post and give credit to the image creator by adding their @username (you can add in your own comment just like with any other post.) Now, select which profiles you want it to go to and schedule your reminder.

4. Post the photo

When it’s time to post your image to Instagram, Buffer will send you a handy reminder and help you get the post published.

(Since Instagram’s API doesn’t yet allow full scheduling and auto-posting, Buffer for Instagram works using reminders and notifications on your phone. Set your desired time, and the Buffer app will send you a notification when it’s time to post.)

How to Repost on Instagram (manually)

Reposting has been around as a strategy on Instagram for quite some time, long before tools like Buffer for Instagram came around. Certain third-party apps allowed for particular repost functions, often including watermarks or @-mention credits on the reposted photo. The absolute simplest way, though, was with a screengrab — a process that can still be replicated today.

Here’s how to manually repost photos in 4 easy steps:

1. Screenshot a photo

Find the photo you’d like to repost with your audience and take a screenshot of it.

2. Select the camera button on Instagram and upload your screenshot

Once you have your image saved to your camera roll, tap on the camera icon within Instagram and select your screenshot as you would any other image you wanted to share on Instagram.

3. Resize the image

Next, you’ll want to resize your post so that only the image remains. You can do this using the resize functionality within Instagram, or if you’d like to crop before you upload the photo, this can also be done using your phone’s camera roll editing functionality.

4. Add a caption

Be sure to credit the original sharer of the image within your caption and tag their account using their Instagram handle (@buffer, for example).

Why reposting can be important for brands

Instagram is used by nearly half of all brands and generates engagement rates that are 10 times higher than Facebook. 

Instagram has become an incredibly important network for brands. In fact, 48.8% of brands are on Instagram. And by 2017, this figure is predicted to rise to 70.7%.

What’s more, those brands already using Instagram are seeing great engagement. A recent Forrester study showed that engagement with brands on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times higher than Pinterest, and 84 times higher than Twitter.

But how does reposting come into play here?

According to research from marketing startup Crowdtap and the global research company Ipsos, millennials and other generations trust UGC 50% more than other types of media. Furthermore, 84% of millennials report that user-generated content on company websites has at least some influence on what they buy and where.

How we use reposting at Buffer
Here at Buffer, we’ve also made reposting a key part of our Instagram strategy and this tactic has helped us to significantly grow our account. In under 3 months after implementing a user generated content campaign on Instagram, our account grew by 60%  – 5,850 to 9,400 followers and counting.

How reposting can fit into your Instagram strategy

Here are 4 ways to make reposting a part of your strategy.

1. Share user generated content from events

Live events, meetups and talks are great times to create and curate content. If you’re running your own event, or maybe a member of your team is giving a talk at an event, this is a golden opportunity to repost some content on Instagram.

Eventbrite use a branded hashtag, #EBevents, to share and follow content from events that use Eventbrite to sell tickets and they also repost content from some Instagram users who attened Eventbrite events.

2. Monitor brand mentions, tags, and hashtags

Your Instagram notifications can also be a great source of user generated content. Keep an eye out for any new mentions and tags as these can be great sources of content for your own Instagram feed.

At Buffer, we also use a few branded hashtags on Instagram. One of the hashtags we use is #bufferlove and we frequently reach out to others who use the hashtag and repost their content with our own feed.

3. Acknowledge and share content from community members

People enjoy being acknowledged for their content and efforts on social media. And sometimes, reaching out and asking about sharing some of their content on your brand’s profile can be a great way to acknowledge their work and also discover new brand ambasasdors.

Destination British Columbia is the Official tourism organization for British Columbia, Canada, and they often feature guest Instagrammers within their feed.

4. Celebrate milestones and events to inspire user generated content

Addressing big milestones or celebrating key events and moments, can be a great strategy to inspire your followers to share some user generated content.

A great example of this is the National Park Service, who recently celebrated their 100th birthday using the hashtag #nps100. On Instagram alone, this hashtag has been used in over 175,000 posts, giving theNational Park Service an amazing choice of beautiful, engaging photos to repost.

Discover more about how we use reposting and UGC as part of our Instagram strategy here at Buffer: How We Grew Our Instagram Followers by 60% with User Generated Content

How to decide what you should repost on Instagram

Cool, so you’re ready to repost some content on Instagram, but which photos should you share?

It’s important to ensure you have a strategy in place when it comes to reposting and also an idea on how the content you repost fits into your wider Instagram strategy. A few factors it’s important to think about include:

Composition

Composition refers to the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art, as distinct from the subject of a work.

When it comes to sharing images from other Instagram accounts, think about your brand’s style of composition and whether each image fits in here. For example, if all of your images feature a solid background, it might not fit in with your visual style to repost an image with a textured background.

Color pallete 

Many brands use a set color pallette on Instagram and moving away from your brand style may make your reposted content feel a little out of place. For example, Everlane tends to use soft palette and grey/black/white colors:

If Everlane were to repost an image with a bright, vibrant color scheme it wouldn’t feel aligned with Everlane’s brand.

Content

This is probably the most important factor of any reposting strategy. Before sharing a photo, think about whether the content is aligned with your brand. For example, at Buffer our Instagram content focuses on three main themes:

1. User generated content
2. Digital nomad lifestyle
3. Productivity and motivation

Before reposting anything, we’ll ensure that the photo aligns with one of these three themes and helps us to execute on our strategy.

3 reposting best practices

1. Ask for permission

Once you’ve discovered a photo you’d like to share, it’s a best practice to ask the original creator before you go ahead and publish. Usually, the easiest way to do this is through using Instagram’s messaging feature and sending the creator a DM. If this approach doesn’t work, some Instagram accounts will include an email address in their bio, too.

We’ve also found that it’s best to include a thoughtful message in your outreach about why you’d like to share the photo.

2. Avoid edits

If you’ve picked out a photo you love to repost, it’s best practice to share it untouched and unedited. 99% of the time you’ll be able to go ahead and publish without any changes, but for those rare occasions where a slight edit may be needed, be sure to reach out original creator and ask before publishing an edited image.

3. Credit your source

This one is super important. If you choose to repost someone’s photo, ensure you give credit in your post. The best way to credit someone is to include their username within your caption.

Instagram captions become truncated with an ellipsis after three lines of text they, where possible try to include the credit within those first three lines so it’s visible.

Here are a few ways you can give credit within your photo caption:

• Credit: @username
• Photo credit: @username
• Moment captured by @username
• by @username
• Thanks to @username for sharing this image with us

7 Inspiring examples of reposting done right

Which brands are utilizing user generated content?

1. GoPro

GoPro is a brand built on user generated content. Their Instagram feed regularly features content from members of their community and showcases the amazing images you can capture using a GoPro camera.

2. Momondo

Travel search site, Momondo, use their bio to encourage users to tag them in photos and use hashtag  #staycurious for the chance to have your content featured on their profile:

The brand regularly features vibrant, colorful images that share the adventure of travel. Here’s an example of a photo they reposted:

3. Belkin

Belkin use reposting to showcase examples of their products out in the wild. For example, here’s a photo of their Clip-Fit band originally shared by one of their customers:

4. Poler Outdoor Stuff

Poler Outdoor Stuff produce outdoor adventure and camping accessories and clothing. On Instagram, they use user generated content to showcase their products being used by customers.

5. The Design Tip

The Design Tip is a must-follow account for anyone in the design space or anyone with a desire to learn a little about design. Every day the account features work submitted by its community of followers, such as this piece by Manuel Bortoletti:

6. Mailchimp

Mailchimp’s brand is incredibly fun and their brand personality carries over into the content they repost on Instagram. The email company has produced a number of cute accessories for office pets and repost photos of the accessories in action:

Side note: for more Mailchimp-inspired cuteness, check out #meowchimp on Instagram.

7. WeWork

WeWork use Instagram to showcase their co-working spaces and the amazing people and companies who are part of their community. WeWork often shares photos of their spaces that are shared by community members. For example, this post was originally shared by one of their members from a WeWork spot in Los Angles:

Over to You

Is reposting a part of your Instagram strategy?

Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear whether you’ve had any success with reposting and user generated content on Instagram. If so, I’d love to learn from you!

What do you look for in a photo to repost? How do you reach out to the creator of the photo? What’s your engagement been like for repost? Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.

We recently launched Buffer for Instagram, to help you repost, plan, track and amplify your Instagram marketing. Get started now for free!

source http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bufferapp/~3/JxGqedUF8tY/how-to-repost-on-instagram

Instagram vs. Snapchat, Facebook Notes, Buffer Hacks & Personal Emojis – Bonus Episode [002]

We are super excited to share our second, very special bonus podcast episode with you!

Our bonus episodes offer a fun change of pace from our traditional “interview-style” episodes on The Science of Social Media. Get to know the hosts Hailley, Kevan, & Brian a bit better as they share some of the things they’re working on this week in social media – complete with actionable takeaways and useful insights.

This week we’re chatting all about Snapchat vs. Instagram Stories and how brands and people are using the platforms in very unique ways. We also discuss our Facebook Notes experiment, if it’s possible to brand your own emoji, and how to build your own content hub within Buffer!

A huge thank you to all of you for joining us every week for brand new episodes of The Science of Social Media. We appreciate you taking the time to listen and for your amazing support over the last few weeks. We’d love to hear from you on iTunes or using the hashtag #bufferpodcast on Twitter.

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

This episode is available on:

• iTunes
• Google Play
• Stitcher
• Sound Cloud

Here’s what we chat about in this episode:

• Snapchat vs. Instagram Stories and how brands and individuals are using the platform in very different ways
• Our recent experiment with Facebook Notes and how they performed in comparison to normal links
• If it’s possible to brand your own emoji and what effect that may have on your social media
• We play a fun game called “Top 10” – We’d love for you to tune in to play along with us!

4 Key Takeaways from the Show from Hailley, Brian, and Kevan

Quotes pulled from the show!

1. Facebook Notes experiment & learnings

Within the Facebook composer there’s a great feature called Facebook Notes which essentially looks like a Medium post directly within Facebook. There’s a cover photo, you can format the post, and it posts natively within Facebook. The hypothesis going in was that Facebook would reward a native blog post with more reach and engagement. To our surprise, it did not perform as well as we thought it would.

Although the post didn’t work, it sparked people’s curiosity. I’d highly recommend that you all give Facebook Notes a try and see how it works for you. I would love to hear how it goes in the comments below!

2. How brands and people are using Snapchat vs. Instagram Stories

“The biggest thing for me, and I’ve been experimenting with this a lot, is testing and learning about Snapchat Stories vs. Instagram Stories. I’m coming at this from a personal user perspective and what I’ve been doing is using Snapchat as a 1-to-1 communication tool. Then I take the content that I used to put on Snapchat and post that to Instagram Stories because I have a much bigger audience there. Instagram is more of that one-to-many strategy. But for many marketers and brands it is quite the opposite. It’s interesting to see how it is playing out in the social media world.”

3. Creating a hub of great content in Buffer and “can I brand an emoji?”

“I love to have some go-to Tweets and go-to Facebook posts when I’m out of content. So I’ve built myself a content repository within Buffer. What I’ve done is created a fake Twitter account for myself and connected it to Buffer. Every so often I will run through the Tweets from my main Twitter account, find the ones that are best performing, and then drag them over into the fake account. I also have a IFTTT recipe that connects my favorite Pocket reads into my fake Twitter account. From there, I can drag them from the fake account into my real account whenever I’m dry on content.”

4. Branding your own emoji

“I would like to brand my own emoji – the French Fry emoji . My plan to do this is three-fold. First, I’ve added it to my Twitter bio. So I tell people who I am… french fry emoji. Then the second way is that I will add it, when in doubt, to most replies on Twitter. And the third was is that I’m using it as a star rating system for a piece of content that I’ve read and like a lot. Five fries out of five!”

Show Notes and Other Memorable Moments

Thanks a million for checking out this episode! Below are the websites and other tidbits that were mentioned in today’s podcast about personal branding on social media. If you have any questions for us, feel free to drop us a line in the comments and we’ll respond right away!

Awesome Mentions in the Show

• Facebook Notes and how to use them
• Facebook Instant Articles and how they work
• Buffer on Instagram – We’d love to connect!
• Top Apps in the iTunes Store
• Product Hunt – All Time Leaderboard
• Top Social Media Blogs – The 2016 Winner

Great Quotes

• “There is nothing more interesting than taking the public transportation system and watching people use social media in the wild. It’s a great learning experience.”
• “The reason that Facebook Notes is an interesting feature and why we tried it is because it’s a hidden feature. But most of all, Mark Zuckerberg still uses this feature to this day to write posts. I think secretly they want it to do well.”
• “There is still this pressure on Instagram of having the ‘perfect’ Instagram photo and the perfect Instagram grid. And that pressure has seeped into Instagram Stories. A lot of brands and celebrities’ Instagram Stories are very well put together.”
• “Adding emojis to your profile name is now possible within Twitter. This is a feature that was just released from them.”

How to Say Hello to Us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

• Hailley on Twitter
• Kevan on Twitter
• Brian on Twitter

Thanks for listening! We’d love to connect with you at @buffer on Twitter or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

—

About the Show

The Science of Social Media is a podcast for marketers and social media managers looking for inspiration, ideas, and results for their social media strategies. Each week, we interview one of the very best in social media marketing from brands in every industry. You will learn the latest tactics on social media, the best tools to use, the smartest workflows, and the best goal-setting advice. It is our hope that each episode you’ll find one or two gems to use with your social media marketing!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

source http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bufferapp/~3/ZnISxA-BDa4/bonus-episode-two-show-notes

I Left Google to Build Tech Ladies: How Social Media Made It Possible – Allison Esposito [SSM012]

It’s not everyday that you hear of someone leaving the tech giant Google to pursue their own fast-growing business.

For Allison Esposito, that’s exactly what she did. What first started as a fun side-project and a way to get to know other women in tech, Tech Ladies now connects more than 5,000 women around the world to a network of jobs and opportunities.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Allison about her incredible journey from Google to full-time entrepreneur. Allison shares the story of how a combination of her personal network and social media allowed her to build Tech Ladies full-time.

A huge thank you to Allison for packing this episode with great insights and actionable takeaways for social media managers and marketers looking to discover the power of personal networks on social media and how you can leverage them to start a side-project of your own.

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

This episode is available on:

• iTunes
• Google Play
• Stitcher
• Sound Cloud

In this episode, here’s what you’ll learn:

Allison Esposito shares why building a personal network on social media over the years has allowed her to take her side-project (side-hustle) and turn it into a full-time business. Some other great things you’ll learn as well:

• How personal connections on Twitter led to the start of Tech Ladies
• Why Allison’s personal network allowed her to quickly connect with influential people
• Channels that are driving growth for Tech Ladies on a large scale
• Why Facebook Groups are such a successful and vibrant channel for Tech Ladies
• Where Tech Ladies plans to take social media in the future

3 Tips for Leveraging Social Media to Grow Your Side Project or Business

In Allison’s Words…

1. Choose your platforms carefully

Use platforms that are uniquely suited to what your company or brand or community does and needs. So for example, it’s just as important what Tech Ladies doesn’t have as what we do. We don’t have an Instagram right now. We don’t have a Twitter. To start from scratch and get to the point where it would be useful and worth our time it would take years. Given our resources, you have to ask: what platforms can we be on and do really well?

2. Really be there

Whatever platform you choose to be on, actually be there. Be active, be helpful, respond to people. One thing that I think is totally underrates is that it doesn’t cost you anything to “Heart” something on Twitter or “Like” something on Facebook. It costs you absolutely nothing to do that. Give those out like candy and be extremely generous with them. Often people will pay that back to you.

3. Be positive on social media

This can be really hard sometimes. Most of the time, if you have something to promote, studies show that being positive and upbeat will always outperform a negative or downtrodden Tweet or Facebook message. As long as you’re not being overly cheese or fake, I think people really do respond to positivity on social media.

Mentionable Quotes and Shareable Snippets

In Allison’s Words…

“To me the whole point of networking or building a network is so that you can meet with all different kinds of people. If you’re just inviting your friends you’re only ever going to invite their friends. At some point it began growing way beyond friends of friends of friends. It happened immediately, but on a large scale it took a long time.”

Show Notes and Other Memorable Moments

Thanks a million for checking out this episode! Below are the websites and other tidbits that were mentioned in today’s podcast about personal branding on social media. If you have any questions for us, feel free to drop us a line in the comments and we’ll respond right away!

Awesome Stuff Mentioned by Allison

• Tech Ladies Website
• Tech Ladies Facebook Group
• Allison on Medium
• Tech Ladies on Medium
• “I Left My Job at Google to Build Tech Ladies Full-Time”

I was worried I’d be lonely working as a team of one, but I have THIS crew behind me. #TechLadies <3 pic.twitter.com/ewR8DZgvtJ

— Allison Esposito (@allisonveronica) October 12, 2016

Great Quotes

• “When you don’t have too many people you follow on Twitter, you can actually follow what they’re doing with their lives and learn from them. And so I just started scheduling coffee meetings with interesting people on Twitter. That was really the beginning of what is now Tech Ladies.”
• “I would reach out one by one to people on Twitter to keep in touch and then I made an Excel spreadsheet with contact information. From there I would send out emails which eventually became our newsletter. Really simple stuff.”
• In making a big decision and how you know it’s time is when things are growing faster than you can keep up with. I was working on Tech Ladies from 6 p.m. to midnight five days a week and then usually on Saturdays and Sundays. I was also saying no to great opportunities coming through… I realized that if I couldn’t handle it part-time anymore than it was maybe time to go full-time. The demand was there.”
• “Having a personal network is so important in feeling like there’s hundreds of people who support you and giving you a digital high-five when you go to pursue your own side-project. Those are also the people that are going to support you along the way.”
• “Every growth strategy along the way was ‘let’s put it out on social and let’s put it out in the community and feel it out.’ Then only build what’s needed and what’s wanted from there.”
• “To me the whole point of networking and building a network is so that you can meet all different types of people. If you’re just inviting your friends it won’t grow.”

How to Say Hello to Allison (and us)

Allison Esposito has a great Twitter account at @allisonveronica and you can read more about Allison on the Tech Ladies About Page.

Thanks for listening! We’d love to connect with you at @buffer on Twitter or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

—

About the Show

The Science of Social Media is a podcast for marketers and social media managers looking for inspiration, ideas, and results for their social media strategies. Each week, we interview one of the very best in social media marketing from brands in every industry. You will learn the latest tactics on social media, the best tools to use, the smartest workflows, and the best goal-setting advice. It is our hope that each episode you’ll find one or two gems to use with your social media marketing!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

source http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bufferapp/~3/xZv7ne29_mU/show-notes-allison-esposito

How To Knock It Out of the Park With Youtube

If you plan on winning the Game of Social Media, you want to be sure to include Youtube as part of your strategy.

Why is it so important for you to include Youtube as part of your social media strategy?

• Youtube is the second largest search engine in the world after Google.
• There are 3 billion searches a month through Youtube, which means when people are looking for information about the products or services you sell in your business, more than likely one of the places they are likely to look is Youtube
• Youtube gets more searches every month than Bing, Yahoo, ASK and AOL combined
• 1.3 billion people use Youtube
• If Youtube were a country it would be the largest in the world after China and India
• Almost one-third of people on the internet use Youtube
• Youtube reaches more 18 to 49 years olds than any cable network
• 80 percent of Youtube’s viewers are from outside the US, which means that if you upload a video to Youtube you are likely to reach a worldwide audience

Convinced?

Now let’s talk about how to knock it out of the park with Youtube.

Step 1. Start with a keyword. By now, if you’ve been working with us here at www.whatissocialmediatoday.com, you know that if you don’t work with a keyword, you simply won’t get found. Pick one keyword.

Step 2. Create a two to three minute video elaborating on this keyword. Here at www.whatissocialmediatoday.com, we film videos using the video conferencing service Zoom.us. You can pay to join this service if you like, but Zoom also allows you FREE access for meetings up to 40 minutes with up to 50 participants. Zoom.us is great if you want to record yourself explaining your product or service, but you may also want to use your smart phone to record live action videos. For example, I have created multiple videos of exercises, pranayama breath work and even a book trailer using my iPhone 6S. Use your creativity. What do your fans and followers want to know about? Just keep your videos short and to the point.

Step 3. Edit the file properties. Just as you would tag all your photographs before uploading them to social media, edit the video file and include your keyword in the file before you upload it to Youtube.

Step 4. Write a 500-word description of your video using your keyword in the first paragraph. Be sure that this is 100 percent original content. To see a good example of this, visit this link on the Youtube channel for my business www.healingjewelrystore.com. The reason you want to make sure that your 500-word description is original content is so that the search engines will identify it as original information.

Step 5. Once you have published your video to Youtube, be sure to embed it on your website. You have just gone through the hard work of creating great social media marketing material, so you will want to save it so your fans and followers can watch it. You may even want to write a second 500-word article – this one also completely original and not repeating the 500-word description you wrote to go with your Youtube video – to post on your website to go with the video. You could think of this almost like an oreo cookie – 500 word description for your video, the video itself and another 500-word blog article for your website.

Step 6. Once you have created your video, share it all through your social network. Just as you include buttons for all your social media sites on the front page of your website, be sure to put a Youtube button on your website to encourage your fans and followers to subscribe.

Hard work? Yes.

Incredibly effective? Absolutely.

 

The post How To Knock It Out of the Park With Youtube appeared first on What is Social Media Today.

Source: http://whatissocialmediatoday.com/knock-park-youtube/

source https://whatissocialmediatoday.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/how-to-knock-it-out-of-the-park-with-youtube/

What 1.5M Pins Taught Us About Pinterest Marketing: Common Words, Popular Times, Plus 4 Experiments to Try

How active is your brand on Pinterest?

With 150 million monthly active users spending an average of 98 minutes per month using the platform, Pinterest can be an underused network for some, while a primary source of website traffic for others.

Earlier in 2016, we did a study on brand marketing (studying over 16 million social media posts from 100,000 brands) and learned that Pinterest, in particular, holds a lot of potential for brands. This inspired us to dive even deeper into what’s happening on Pinterest.

We looked at over 1.5 million pins, all sent in 2016, to see what patterns we could find: when pins were sent, when people were pinning, and what words they were using.

I’m excited to share these findings with you and hope they can help you start, or enhance, an amazing Pinterest marketing strategy.

Let’s jump right in!

The top 4 Pinterest insights we discovered: When pins are posted, common words, and best times for engagement

About the data

Before we jump into our findings, I’d love to share some details about the data we used for this study:

• We analyzed 1,577,234 pins sent from 20,319 Pinterest profiles
• 99% of the pins we studied contained an image, 0,3% a video and around 10% included links
• The data was taken from January 1st, 2016 until August 23rd, 2016

When are pins being posted?

Personally, I had estimated that people might be pinning the most on weekends, but I was completely off on this one!

We looked at patterns for days of the week that pins were being posted. The most pins are posted on Mondays and Tuesdays.

In fact, pins are twice as likely to be posted on a Monday or Tuesday than on a Saturday or Sunday.

According to our data, 32% of pins get posted on Monday or Tuesday (~ 16% each day). The least popular days for pinning are Saturday and Sunday where around 7% of pins are posted respectively.

When are people engaging on Pinterest?

Alongside the most popular days to share content, it also felt important that we take a look at when people are engaging with content on Pinterest. Here’s what we found…

Turns out, the most popular days that people are liking and repinning on Pinterest are very similar to the days when pins are being posted. For engagement, Monday and Saturday are the most popular with Monday taking a slight lead.

Here’s the breakdown, by day, of average likes per pin on Pinterest:

And here’s the daily breakdown for average repins per pin, where Monday and Saturday are both in the lead:

What words are people using most on Pinterest?

We were super curious about the words that people are using on Pinterest as it speaks to both the images they are sharing and what they think about them.

Here are the top nine words, ranked by volume:

Looking at the top nine words used most frequently in Pinterest captions, it’s neat to see the top three are Make, Design and Logo. This hints that the most engaging content might be rather creative and related to design (maybe even digital design with the word logo making an appearance).

After those three, the other top words are: new, love, get, one, free, day.

Make, the most pinned word we found in this study, appeared in 63,293 pins – that’s around 4% of the 1.5m pins we analyzed.

What are the most common words for the most popular pins?

After looking at the most common words in general on Pinterest, we wanted to tie these words into engagement, e.g. which words are being used in only the most popular pins.

The difference is interesting here. Make is still the lead, followed by One, Easy, Recipe, Free, Chicken, Paleo, Great and Love.

How to use this data: 4 Pinterest experiments you can try today

We’re grateful for the large amount of Pinterest marketing tips out there online. And I’d love to share with you four brand new experiments we came up with based on data from our study. You’re welcome to grab any of them if you’re keen to put this data to use (we’d love to hear how it goes for you, too).

1. Experiment with using fewer words

We found that the average character length for pins was 98 characters. With Pinterest being a visually driven platform, very few characters are shown when scrolling through the feed. In our experience, our pin captions are truncated around 50-60 characters, with the rest of the caption viewable once someone clicks or taps into a pin.

This gives us the sense that it’s incredibly important to choose those characters wisely.

In this example, Kylee only uses 4 words (18 characters).

Experiment to try: Using fewer words in pins and making them short, sweet, and catchy.

On Pinterest, your image is essentially the headline, and it’s most likely a user will stop scrolling when a visual catches their eye rather than the supporting text. What’s important, though, is that your text gives added context to your posts and helps to illustrate what the image is showing. I really love the example we shared above and its caption. In just four words — “Correct use of words” — Kylee manages to explain exactly what the image is telling us.

When it comes to writing your caption, think about what you need to say and try not to be too elaborate. Our hunch is that “simple = better” when it comes to copywriting on Pinterest.

2. Experiment with the days you post to Pinterest

Posting at the right time is a key part of any social media strategy, and it’s no different on Pinterest.

Our study found that most pins are sent on Mondays and Tuesdays and most engagement (likes and repins) comes on Mondays and Saturdays. There are a couple of ways you could look to interpret this data:

• You could look to post your pins on Mondays and Saturdays when you know engagement could potentially be higher.
• Or, you could look to post on days when fewer pins are shared in the hope there’s more chance to stand out. For example, [day] tend to see fewer pins shared than any other day.

There’s no hard and fast rule here and our best recommendation is to set up a few experiments and see what works best for your brand. Luckily, it’s super simple to get an experiment like this up and running…

How to experiment with your posting schedule 

It’s super easy to set up a schedule for your pins within Buffer and then track how they’re each doing using our Analytics tool.

From the Schedule tab within Buffer, you can toggle different days of the week on and off to experiment with posting on various days and you can also select various times on each day. Here’s a quick peek at how the scheduling tab looks; you can see we’re currently set up to share pins every day at 12:37 a.m. and 11:10 a.m.:

Once you’ve tried this for awhile and are ready to analyze and learn from your results, head on over to the Buffer Analytics tab and try sorting by “Most Popular” to see patterns as to which days of the week are getting the most traction.

Experiment to try: Change up your schedule and test various days to see which ones your audience is most active on and where you get the most engagement.

3. Try sharing creative Pins

Pinterest has become a go-to place for finding and sharing creative ideas. And our data appears to back this up.

Diving into the most used words on Pinterest, and especially the most used words on popular pins, words like make, one, easy, design, and new seem to suggest that creative content does well on Pinterest.

If you’re a regular Pinterest user, pins like the below example will probably look quite familiar:

A number of successful pins tend to show users how to create something step-by-step, and this could be no matter what your industry. This opens up some exciting content opportunities and ways for your brand to stand out. These types of pins are also good examples of how to drive traffic back to your website from Pinterest. In the above example, you can see the steps taken to create the table decoration.

These types of pins are also good showcases of how to drive traffic back to your website from Pinterest. In the above example, you can see the steps taken to create the table decoration, but by clicking on the post and visiting the accompanying Huffington Post article, you’ll get the full story and even more ideas for creative ways to make your dinner party memorable.

Experiment to try: Test out getting creative with pins, doing a how-to photo or using imagery that inspires creating and designing.

4. Offer a free resource to Pinterest followers

One word that appeared in both the most commonly used list of words and the words commonly found in the most popular pins is “free.” And who doesn’t love high-quality, free content?

Pinterest is a great place to share resources and guides with your followers, and if you’d like to get some more attention and drive some added engagement to your pins, letting Pinterest users know in the text (or even the pinned image) that the resources are free could be a great way to do so.

In this example, a free crochet pattern is being shared. It’s also a great example of using Pinterest to drive traffic back to your website where the content is hosted.

Experiment to try: Use Pinterest to give away content, resources, ideas, and anything else you can think of giving away, and ensure you let your followers know it’s free.

Over to you

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you found the study interesting and I’d love to hear how our findings feel to you…

• How do you use Pinterest?
• How many times do you post per week? And which days drive the most engagement?
• What type of content gets the most engagement for you on Pinterest?

I’d love to hear what’s working for you and any thoughts you may have in the comments below. Excited to keep the conversation going.

source http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bufferapp/~3/uG6clbQm5N8/pinterest-marketing-study

Why This Successful Solopreneur Uses Facebook Groups to Grow His Business – Daniel DiPiazza [SSM011]

How many Facebook Groups have you joined that you don’t check regularly? If you’re like me, that number might be quite high!

Imagine my surprise when I joined the Rich20Something Facebook Group and was constantly excited to see all of the new, value-packed content being shared by both the founder, Daniel Di Piazza, and all of the other group members (now nearly 15,000.)

After years of following his work, I had the pleasure of chatting with Daniel about his best practices for building a truly engaging Facebook Group and community that stands out from the rest.

A huge thank you to Daniel for jam-packing this episode with actionable wisdom and takeaways for social media managers and marketers looking for new and exciting ways to think in terms of Facebook Group marketing.

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

This episode is available on:

• iTunes
• Google Play
• Stitcher
• Sound Cloud

In this episode, here’s what you’ll learn:

Daniel Di Piazza walks us through how he grew his Facebook Group, Rich20Something, to nearly 15,000 people and a place where there is constant conversation and ideas being shared. Daniel talks over his top tips and some tactics that can’t be scaled, but shouldn’t be overlooked. You’ll also learn great things like:

• What tactics Daniel suggests for kicking off a brand new Facebook Group
• How Daniel manages his own Facebook Group and content calendar
• What tools he suggests using within Facebook to make the Group even more powerful
• How video can have a major impact on Facebook Groups and engagement

3 Ways To Build A Strong Community in a Facebook Group from Daniel 

In Daniel’s words…

1. Roll Out the Red Carpet

If you’re looking for ways to create a really engaged community, roll out the red carpet for them. You can do things like personally welcome everyone to the group as they join. You can also do things like wish every single one of the group members a Happy Birthday when the notification comes up in your Facebook notifications.

2. Keep Consistency with Your Posts

You don’t need to have a set of content like “Monday Motivation” or “Tuesday this or that,” but you should be posting every single day. Especially in social media and on Facebook there’s so much content out there and the way the algorithm is set up you have to be putting out more stuff. Because the News Feed will eventually push that content down.

3. Appreciate Everyone You Have and Know it’s a Long Game

Appreciate everyone that you have and know that it’s a long game. And so just because they’re in your group now it doesn’t mean they have to buy now. It might be a period of months or years before they do and that’s OK because you’re building a relationship. And remember to be grateful that people are giving you their time because everyone is trying to get their attention.

 Mentionable Quotes and Shareable Snippets

“You need both. You need to have some quick growth hack strategies and you need to have a long game. But the long game is far more important and if you do it right you don’t need to have a lot of people to make a big impact. That’s what it going to carry you forward and keep you from being another flash in the pan.”

Show Notes and Other Memorable Moments

Thanks a million for checking out this episode! Below are the websites and other tidbits that were mentioned in today’s podcast about creating incredible Facebook communities using groups. If you have any questions for us, feel free to drop us a line in the comments and we’ll respond right away!

Awesome Companies, People and Tools Mentioned by Daniel

• Daniel’s interview with Leo Widrich, COO of Buffer
• Entrepreneur Lifestyle Group on Facebook
• The Momentum Group on Facebook

Great Quotes

• “Email is great, but we know that email is crowded – very crowded. And we also know that email causes anxiety to a certain extent… And with Facebook Pages they’ve made it pay to play. So I thought, ‘What’s the next best way?’ Facebook is already doing all of the work to make people coming back to their platform and so my little corner of the world might as well be there as well. I made a hard push to make the Facebook Group one of the first things that people saw when they interacted with me.”
• “I’m bringing back an old thing called Facebook Notes. Facebook Notes were really big in 2008-2009, but now no one uses them. But they continue to update this app within Facebook. It’s amazing! I know they’re going to be around for a while because Mark Zuckerberg uses them. Now that doesn’t guarantee it, but it’s a pretty good sign.”
• “When it comes to content that works on Facebook, I found that a couple of things work the best. One is emotional and personal posts do really well. When you’re real and honest with people. In terms of likes and shares, video is killing it right now. Especially Live video. They want users to do more of that and so you’re seeing more Live video pop up in your stream.”
• “I purposely create conversations all day on Facebook and I pretty much respond to everything. I do miss some for sure, but even if it’s something as small as an “awesome” or a ‘Like’ – That totally makes a huge difference.”

How to Say Hello to Daniel (and us)

Daniel is on Twitter and Instagram as @Rich20Something and you can read more about Daniel’s work on the Rich20Something website.

Thanks for listening! We’d love to connect with you at @buffer on Twitter or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

—

About the Show

The Science of Social Media is a podcast for marketers and social media managers looking for inspiration, ideas, and results for their social media strategies. Each week, we interview one of the very best in social media marketing from brands in every industry. You will learn the latest tactics on social media, the best tools to use, the smartest workflows, and the best goal-setting advice. It is our hope that each episode you’ll find one or two gems to use with your social media marketing!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

source http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bufferapp/~3/jSG5KtXw6ek/daniel-dipiazza-show-notes