Category Social Media

Have a business without having social media? Wow, that’s outdated. Social media is now a powerful weapon for companies to increase awareness and seek the masses.

No doubt, the presence of social media is significant to support business success. However, owning social media for business, you can’t just post an image or video. Social media for business has rules.

There are strategies you need to do so that your social media is not just an obligatory account. More than that, social media is a business investment.

The important thing that you need to build when you want to have social media is to prepare your team. A compact, up to date, broad-minded, and meticulous social media team in analyzing data can make your business famous and growing.

Alright, you better consider the following steps to build a social media team.

1. Get To Know Your Business Situation

Before you start recruiting social media teams, you must be smart to review your business situation. Three things you should pay attention to are the budget, human resources, and equipment needed by the social media team.

In the case of budget, you have to determine how much money you want to spend to invest in social media—paying social media teams, increasing team skills, advertising costs, and video marketing tools to optimize social media.

Then in terms of HR, is there a team that you previously didn’t hold social media can be trusted to manage it? If there is, you don’t need to recruit more people. Maybe you need one social media manager if you’re running a small business.

You also need to equip the social media team with several seminars, workshops, or online courses. This activity is useful for improving your team’s skills.

No less necessary, the equipment needed is also something you should consider so that social media and your team can run optimally. Equipment needed, such as cameras, laptops, Adobe Photoshop, Instagram analytic tools, Follow liker, and others.

2. Write Down What The Purpose Of Creating A Social Media Account For The Business

As you design the business as a whole, you also have to determine the purpose of using social media for your business. Is it just a portfolio, customer care services, branding, or indeed the focus of sales on social media.

Also, point out what social media is right for your business, whether it is Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, or others. Every channel has a different character. Not all social media is suitable for every industry or business.

This goal setting is essential to determine what kind of team you want later. What skills should your social media team have to master? As well as useful for determining the achievement target (KPI) each month.

3. Determine How Many People Will Manage

Regarding the points in number 1, your budget and HR also determine how many people you need to manage your business social media. Determine the size of the team following the purpose of making social media.

Usually, a social media team consists of at least three people, here are some positions needed for a complete social media team:

A. Social Media Admin

B. Social Media Strategist

C. Social Media Manager

D. Social Media Analyst

E. Photographer & Videographer

F. Video Editor

G. Graphic Designer

4. Determine The Role Of Each Member In The Social Media Team

Based on point number 3, you have to determine the role of each team member by looking at the experts in what section. To determine this role, you can see the character and can provide tests on social media management.

The following are roles based on the position on social media:

A. Social Media Admin: post, answer comments, interact with customers

B. Social Media Strategist: create content, arrange schedules, create new ideas such as competitions, gimmicks, and others

C. Social Media Manager: supervises and mediates all team members, conducts competitor research, determines social media themes, and manages all team members’ needs related to the social media division

D. Social Media Analyst: conduct social media analysis, investigations, monthly reports, determine what targets must be achieved

E. Photographer & Videographer: document product photos and videos, company profiles and customer testimonial coverage

F. Video editor: do video editing

G. Graphic designer: editing images and photos

5. Form The Work Culture And Team Workflow

For some people, this point might seem trivial. Well, it is an important thing you have to remember. A work culture and team workflow are needed for successful social media optimization for business. Each team member must prioritize work according to the job description.

Make sure the process of cultivating social media runs according to the workflow. You can specify in advance or give directions to the social media manager. Usually, workflows can change according to the comfort of the team.

Now, do you have an ideal social media team for your business? If so, you’re ready to start social media optimization. Good luck!

Author

Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award winning explainer video company. He helps business increase conversion rates, close more sales and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order). 

Twitter: @breadnbeyond
Email: andre@breadnbeyond.com
LinkedIn: Andre Oentoro

These days’ consumers are consistently interacting on social media. Some people also blame the screens as being addicted to it. Due to the immense popularity of social media platforms, which include Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat, these days, most of the companies are taking benefit from these social platforms. This has resulted in incorporating artificial intelligence in social media to easily connect with potential customers.

In a single click, it has a huge impact on the type of notifications that will show on the social media accounts comprising advertisements, posts, friend suggestions and much more because of the presence of the AI products. Apart from the chatbots and recommendation engines, AI technologies also offer natural language processing, and facial recognition can aid in improving the customer service along with marketing the products in an effective manner.

This growing technology offers a huge number of tools to target the right type of audience on social media. So, let us know how Artificial Intelligence is transforming the Social media.

Making use of virtual assistants and chatbots

There are several ways the chatbots have sponsors on social websites. It has made the entire procedure much effective, which has reduced the assumptions. This has become helpful for the marketers as it aids in the thorough analysis along with more customer engagement based on interests. Not all the organizations realized the competency of the chatbots.

These are great and offer power to the entire marketing strategy. Besides, the bots present have the ability to compare posts present on the social media platforms along with aid marketers choose the proper practices to attract the right customers.

Content optimization on social sites

When it comes to improving the brand are and increases the sales rate, which can also be created by the use of chatbots or virtual assistants. This comprises of content like the webinars, interviews, headlines and much more. The AI-based system becomes much help for the marketers as it aids in optimizing the contents.

This again means that you require comprehending the strength, weaknesses, and interests of your audience. AI can be a real help in such a scenario.

Outgrowth prediction

The range of queries associated with the brands can easily be managed with the use of machine learning algorithms. This is a great integration because as soon as any user gives their opinion in the form of email or comment, the AI automatically gives the reply regarding the concern.

Besides, there are different algorithms being developed that can sort many suggestions and requests. The AI systems can categorize the requests and then evaluate them as a complaint, suggestion or queries. By making use of automated techniques, marketers can easily handle the scenarios that come in a very stable manner. AI is such a great innovation to the world and every day we use AI, whether it is in social media or our smartphones. Marketers making use of AI in social media can enjoy the many advantages. Therefore, AI in social media offers a safer environment along with increases revenue.

Getting the blue tick next to your name on Instagram is the dream of many. Unfortunately, the process can be confusing for many. However, do not worry anymore. This guide will help you apply for the Instagram verification process. You will also get some tips so that you can qualify and be successful.

What is Instagram Verification?

According to Instagram, verifying your account will confirm that the account is the original and real presence of the person or business that the account represents. Typically, the person is a high-profile public figure or a celebrity. In cases of business, it is usually a global or a well-known brand. Once the account is verified by Instagram, it is given a verified badge. This badge appears as a blue seal with a checkmark and it is displayed next to the username.

Both personal and business accounts are eligible for the verified badge. The verified badge shows that the account is authentic and really belongs to the person or business it represents. As a result, people are able to avoid fake and imposter accounts and follow the right one. As the verified badge appears with the user name everywhere on Instagram, people will always know that they are interacting with the real person or brand.

The main marketing benefit of Instagram verification is that it helps your fans, followers, and customers avoid fake profiles. After all, there are copycats everywhere. Apart from that, it has also become a status symbol. After all, Instagram only gives them to ‘notable’ people or businesses, as per their own guidelines.

Who Can Get Instagram Verification?

The fact is that people would not want the blue check if you could get it easily. Instagram generally verifies accounts that it feels contributes to the public interest. Instagram has outlined a few requirements that your account must have before you can apply for verification.

Authentic: This goes without saying. Your account must be of a real person or brand.

Unique: Only a single account of a person or a business can get a verified badge. If you have multiple personal or business accounts, only one can get verified. The only exception is for language-specific accounts. Meme, general interest or fan accounts do not qualify.

Complete: The account must have a complete bio along with a profile photo. It should have a minimum of one post.

Notable: Instagram tends to verify accounts that represent people and brands that are well-known and have a lot of searches.

Public: Generally, accounts viewable to everyone are verified by Instagram. As such, set your profile to the public instead of private.

How to Apply for Instagram Verification

To get the blue badge on Instagram, you must fill up an application for verification. However, simply because you applied does not mean your account will be verified. Instagram will review the account and decide if you get the badge. After applying, Instagram will notify you if it was approved or denied in a few days.

The step by step process of application is given below.

• Open your Instagram profile and click on the menu button at the top right corner
• Click on the Settings option
• Click on the Account option
• At the bottom of the page, click on the request verification option
• You will be asked to enter details such as full name, professional name as well as the category
• Next, you will have to upload photos of your identification and other documents
• Once complete, click send

This completes the application process. Now, you can just sit back and wait for Instagram to reply. It will usually take a few days for Instagram to reply. If you are unsuccessful, work on improving your Instagram account. You can apply once more after 30 days.

The best way to get the verified badge on Instagram is by working with a professional social media management company. They will help you manage all of your social networks and even your social presence. They will not only leverage Instagram but also other platforms like Facebook and Twitter to help your business succeed.

With flourishing social networking sites in the modern days, it has almost become inevitable to be a part of the bandwagon. It is in vogue to be connected to the web through one of these many social networking sites. But, the one site that easily takes the gold is Facebook. Ever since its inception in 2007, it has made keeping in touch an easy deal by providing continuous updates from all across the globe. And if popularity is anything to go by, Facebook is here to stay. Maybe, forever. Over one million people using Facebook day in and day out, it is but natural that it catches on the trend of advertising and marketing in its sphere.

As is evident from the type of site, this is a very good (and possibly the best) ‘networking’ site. And any marketing strategy planned here on Facebook could reach the trending millions of netizens across the globe. Every single person seems to have “mutual friends'” with everyone, be it real or virtual.

With such popularity, it is only justified that marketing strategies are being channeled here. But, just putting up an advertisement or creating a page isn’t sufficient to attract users. It needs a little planning and bingo! You are right at it. So, how to go about doing it? Here are a few tips.

Making The Right Facebook Page

Your clientele or audiences may view Facebook as a customer service vehicle. To attract these people, you should have a clear marketing goal(s) and likewise develop a corresponding strategy for better results and the maximization of returns. Your fans may just want an interactive session here and feel a part of your deal. Device your plans accordingly.

Create Custom Tab

Every page on Facebook has at least two tabs for the users. One is for the general information, and another is for private in-boxing. While the general tab gives you information about the page and its uses or course of work, the other provides for a direct inquiry of your page, which the administrator needs to reply to. In order to churn out more out of your viewers, you could possibly add a few more customized tabs that link to your webpage. This helps in keeping the ad-traffic less by taking your viewers to your own page, outside off Facebook.

Keep The Page Active

What happens to most such pages here on Facebook is that they lay dormant, oftener than not. In order to keep the number of viewers up and rising, you need to post here on a regular basis. This gives your viewers the assurance that they all are valuable to you. If the page lies inactive for a moment, all the publicity you garner can trickle out of it. Schedule and prepare your posts on a regular basis.

Usage of Facebook Ads

Facebook helps you target your audience in many ways when you are paying Facebook for the ads you post. This becomes a great opportunity to your marketing strategy in that you get to specify broadly or narrowly about your product and can withdraw at any point if and when you see returns not favouring your fortune. That saves you a lot of money. Get your audiences to sign up.

Getting your audiences to sign up is a sure-shot yet subtle way of cementing their presence on your page and your page on their minds. Holding competitions are a good way to keep their eyes glued onto you. Getting them to sign up also provides for the contact that gets established with you and your clientele.

Send An Update

You as an administrator of your page can send in messages to the people who “like” your page on Facebook. This gives you an edge, which bring you able to contact and notify your audience about any updates or up-coming events. The trick is to be wise with the frequency of messages. To many update messages could again bother your clients. Go beyond your page.

With Facebook’s feature of navigating through it “as a page”, you can have access to different pages of the same kind or otherwise. It is advisable to post in such pages, as it gives a scope of expanding your audience. But all this should be done with due respect to the administrator of the page you are posting. Spamming is a sure-fire to get your business down the drain. Avoid.

Using Facebook as a Content Platform

It is always advisable to link your other web pages to your Facebook page. That way, all your activities come under the span of one umbrella here in Facebook.

For example, if you have a blog that gets updated regularly, you can post the link on your Facebook page. That again gives more scope of it being spotted. Not everybody will be looking for your blogs daily. This gives a platform to all the contents you have on the web and is immensely helpful for both the parties.

Make The Stuffs “Shareable”

Facebook provides for another tab option, the “Share button” with the means of which, one can share their activities on their own or others’ walls.

This gives a better scope of catching the attention of the public eyes and reaching out to a larger number of Facebook users. That being said, it is only a prerogative to keep your page and the contents in it shareable. While one shares something, the whole of their friend list can see that. Think of it as a pattern- someone sharing, the mutual of whom shares further and so on. Therefore, in order to have a greater number of audiences, keep the share button alive and running.

These are some of the essential pillars in Facebook marketing. In the end, it is upon you how you make your Facebook page look like, so that you manage to attract a lot more eyeballs on your page. Generating curiosity could help, of course, and that comes from decent planning of your page. The better you are at that, the better compliments you get from your customers or prospective customers.

All the very best!

The world has changed a lot after the advent of  various social networking websites such as Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, YouTube, Google plus, Instagram, Pinterest. Our lives have changed a lot after these came in. There was a revolution in our society after these social networking websites came in.

Pinterest is a visual based social network website which was launched in the year 2009 much after Facebook and Twitter. The website came with a vision to change our lives further. It allowed users to pin in their photos, snaps in a very  organized manner. The interest for Pinterest among users grew very rapidly. It was the first of the kind where the website was exclusively designed to  allow the users to share their snaps and also visualize a lot of photos  in a very disciplined fashion.  Today it is the third highest accessed social network site after Facebook and twitter.

Unlike other social networking sites, Pinterest  too having both platforms for personal and business use. The website has the capability to drive a lot of referral traffic which is a major interest for the marketers of the current world. In the lines to follow let us see how Pinterest can help us to boost our business.

The best way to start with   is by using graphical representation of the users such as graphics, charts, pie charts, histograms, tables. This kind of information graphic representation helps a lot of marketers to attract the user attention towards their respective product due to its simplicity.

The tag and pin in individual option in Pinterest can be the next way to get into the users mind. This not only helps to catch the user interest easily, but also helps in diverting the interest of the other uses following the one before.

The next best thing that the marketer can do to attract users is through videos. Pinterest allows to post videos. But it is always better to post the link of the video rather than uploading the entire video itself. This helps to create a lot of curiosity across minds and thus fetches more traffic than the normal uploading.

Through Repin option, Pinterest can help in to get in more visits to the respective account. When we Repin on others pinned in a snap, the respective user receives an alert in their respective emails. This may initiate the interest level of the respective individual   for the link.  Thus gives an opportunity to get the flow of the users in the respective account.

Accessing the Pinterest account on a frequent note can help to keep in touch with the users. Frequently updating the account can help in to get more traffic of users towards the respective account. Using the Smartphone app can help us to update the respective account on a frequent and faster pace than the notebook computer.

Engaging the users through various online events such as competitions, polling and contests on the respective company’s  product can help to build more awareness about the company’s brand  in the minds of the customers and that can help to drive in more users about the brand and that can help the company to reach to the target audience group in a desired manner.

As nowadays people are depending on the internet, the affection of the internet growing day by day. Whether it is a matter of Education, shopping and other things relating to our present life or it is about our professional life. We can see it intervenes everywhere. Social media have developed as intimate parts of our life. Without it the life of people is incomplete. Advanced devices like smart phones and tablets can be said that these are some of the strongest reasons behind it. If we take a look of growth of various social media platforms, we will find how promptly it is growing day by day. These following facts will definitely help us to see clearly faster growth of social media advertising in 2014 which are given in the below.

Consistent Popularity of different Social Media Platforms-

Since internet access has come into everybody’s pocket through Smartphones and portable devices like tablets that are capable for net surfing. The popularity of social media platforms has been growing rapidly besides there also some other reasons of popularity of social media platforms. Facebook, now, grabs a big portion of users and growing rapidly, Google plus is extending its circle stage by stage hurriedly and grabbing a big part of users, and the Twitter also is doing by a lot internet users. These are the parts of social media platforms which are holding a respected position on the internet. Even their value growing day by day .It is noticed that there are many other social networking sites which are also received recommended growth with less of time. LinkedIn is also such a platform which is working to make it more social and it also grows rapidly. Besides these well-known social media platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr is also some other notable social media platforms which are capturing users in their spell. YouTube is still one and only platform of online video with over 1 billion visitors per month.

Faster Growth of Advertisement and Marketing

Advertisement- Advertisement and Marketing are two important parts of any company or service to grow well; without these two tools, any company cannot dream to make good place in the marketing. Advertisement on the internet has grown very popular and effective trends and it has left behind all other advertising and marketing trends. Today all companies whether big or small and new or old are displayed on the internet in different forms. It is only because of the popularity of the internet that many people desire to purchase things online.  According to the latest Zenieth Optimedia Projection, Advertisement on the internet will be 21 per cent more so that it can grab 22.1 per cent of the total market by 2014. It clears the scene how fast it is growing. It also reveals that the percentage of online advertising is 25 per cent which is expected to be grown 30 per cent.

Marketing- Several ways of marketing exist and are used for the selling products and services but social medial marketing is different from other forms of marketing that is why this is growing rapidly. It will also be interesting to know that the annual growth rate of social media was 34 percent faster on comparing with any other form of online marketing according to the Forrester Research which also adds that the budget of social media marketing will reach $ 3.1 billion in 2014. It reveals that the future of the social media will grow brighter.

Advantage of Social Media Advertising- if we talk about the advantages of social media, we will find more, but one of the main advantages of social media advertising is that here users can be targeted with ads according to their interest through users’ demographic information.  This specialty of the social media separates it from other and produces results.

Social media deals with many different forms as internet forums, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures, rating, magazines, weblogs, microblogging, social networks, video, bookmarking and so on through websites like Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Bebo, Orkut and many more, and they grab a large portion of a population which is growing day by day so advertisement through this means reaches a large number of people fast.

As the number of social networking platforms is increasing it is hard to know exactly where to commit one’s time and resources. It is important to understand where to invest our time and resources in the near future.

Necessity is investing in Social Media

Investing time and resources into a social media strategy is becoming a kind of necessity in 2013. By 2014 it will become a kind of necessity to integrate the social media efforts with their content strategy and are observing the impacts of social media in terms of lead generation, referral traffic and revenue. With time more companies are hiring social media strategists or full time social media managers.

Google + Will Become a Major Factor

Among the social networking sites, though Facebook continues to be at the top yet Google+ will become a significant factor in 2014. In fact Google+ now has the second largest number of monthly users. Google+ is not another social network but it is a site that provides search engine optimization services, social signals and it’s also a more personalized search experience.

Networks catering to Images Will See Huge Success                                         

There will be a trend in 2013 as well as in 2014 to share images and videos rather than text-based content. Visual content will then become a critical piece of any solid content strategy and therefore image based social media sites will continue to grow.

Will Witness the Rise of Micro-Video

Micro video apps like Twitter, Vine and Instagrams video sharing feature will become popular in 2014 as more and more people will find interest in real time video sharing. With these video sharing apps users can share short videos from their smart phones.

Foursquare Will Decline Sharply

Foursquare will continue to struggle even in 2014 and it is just a matter of time before Foursquare folds and their users are absorbed into other networks like Facebook, Twitter, My space.

 

MySpace, Love it or Hate it, Will Grow

MySpace took several steps to increase their popularity. This social networking site offered iPhone app allowing users not only to network but also to receive private messages and listen to their own personalized radio station. By 2014 this social networking site will be as popular as Facebook and Twitter.

Linked In Will Become a Major Player for B2B Business Growth

Believe it or not LinkedIn is the best social networking site for professionals. LinkedIn has gained popularity with the launch of its programs. At present Linked In is not just a social networking site but also as the largest source of content creation for professionals. With time Linked In will become important for B2B marketers.

Final Thoughts

In future Facebook and Twitter have to compete with Google+ and other image and video based networks. All social media will endeavor to offer advertisers opportunities to better target their ads. In 2014 social media will gain significance as most business houses will commit time and resources to run their business using social media.

In the era of modern technology, marketing practices have shifted towards social media that ultimately help to skyrocket your profit margins. The social media marketing practices have not just been adopted by the established brands, but are also the growing approach of promotion by firms that are still laying their stones. Undoubtedly, it helps in gaining brand recognition, expanding customer base, and making profits, but if used non-judiciously, even a single mistake can form the basis of your company’s downfall. Social media marketing is a vital practice, therefore, one must ensure to put in their best efforts to create the page.

Some Important Measures

Your brand page on any social media site reflects your company, thus, whenever setting up the page, always make certain to avoid glitches. Following section gives an outline of a few steps that can assist in avoiding substandard social media marketing practices.

• Say No to Fake Content: the foremost thing when using a social media site such as Facebook, Google plus, Twitter etc., always put up things that are real and genuine. False or misleading matter can harm your company’s reputation in the market, eventually, narrowing your customer base. One should keep in mind that such forged subject matters attract great attention, even then the number your business page might have got.

• Reliable Sites: with the evolution of internet, a number of social media sites have developed. For this reason, it is crucial to sign in terms and conditions of only those sites, which are reliable. In case, you design a page on a less known or a replica of the original site, you may never be visible to the general public. To avoid such circumstances, always tie your brand name with recognized sites such as LinkedIn, Instagram etc.

• Appropriate Keywords: when developing the content for your brand, ensure to include user friendly content which is easily searchable. To be evident amongst your competitors, make use of keywords that a customer might look up on the internet when looking for an item to use, for example, your services or a product such as furniture. Hashtags, from Instagram, for instance are a credible feature that highlights your text well.

• Control Access: one can always hire a third party publisher to look into all the matters of the promotional sites. Doing this, gives authority to publish only checked and cross checked content on the page. Anyone posting or modifying the content will first have to get approval from the designated personnel to proceed further. Also one can reinforce security by adding passwords.

These simple steps act like proof readers to guarantee a page free from any substandard marketing practices plus delivering a sense of confidence to your valuable customers. Also, a firm must keep a continuous eye on the promotional page, to timely respond to its clients and also to check if anyone is trying to play with your webpage. To cut a long story short, clients keep on flooding in if the brand promises to maintain its standards and work for their betterment. The internet is a source of leak for both good and bad things. Make the best use of this feature of internet technology, to pull in more notes in addition to customers.

If promoted in the correct manner and substandard practices are avoided, social media marketing is defined, the most trustworthy way of getting followers beyond expectation.