David Cameron Opens Sina Weibo Account to Repair China's 'Hurt Feelings'

LILY KUO for Quartz Dec 02, 2013

 

United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron and a retinue of more than 100 business representatives — the largest-ever British trade delegation to go to China — descended on Beijing Monday. Cameron met with Chinese premier Li Keqiang, discussing a multibillion-dollar free trade deal between China and the EU, as well as a separate one with just the UK that the British government says could generate up to £1.8 billion ($3 billion) per year for the economy.

Cameron is also in China to do some damage control. Relations between the two countries have been cool since Cameron met the Dalai Lama last May, prompting the Chinese foreign ministry to claim that he had “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.” It didn’t hurt UK-China trade — British exports to China were 20% higher in the first three quarters of 2013 than in 2010 as a whole — but British officials think it could be boosted even more.

Thus, to assuage the hurt feelings of the Chinese, Cameron became one of the first leaders toopen an account on Chinese social media site Sina Weibo, joining Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Cameron also penned an editorial in a Chinese financial-news publication, Caixin, that called for ”a partnership of growth and reform that would help the achievement of the Chinese dream as well as long-term prosperity for Britain.”

David Cameron’s Sina Weibo page. He has 158,172 followers. Sina Weibo

Cameron’s Weibo account already has more than 150,000 followers and thousands of comments on the six messages he’s so far posted — not bad for four days. But not all of the comments welcome his charm offensive. Responding to Cameron’s latest post on a ceremony for a £4.5 billion deal for British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover to provide 100,000 cars to China’s National Sales Company, one Weibo user said, “Now you’ve got the money. Go back and don’t see the Dalai Lama again.” Another blogger said, “If the 19th century belonged to the British empire and the 20th century was the US’s empire, than the 21st century must be the century of the Chinese empire!”

Cameron and his delegation have two more days to win over the Chinese public. In that time, analysts expect a deal announcing Chinese investment in British infrastructure projects. After meeting with Cameron, Li said China is interested in cooperating with the UK on its controversial high-speed rail project and more nuclear power. China Nuclear Corp, as part of a consortium led by Électricité de France, is building two nuclear reactors in the UK. Another Chinese firm is building a second financial district on the outskirts of London.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

10 Perfectly Crafted Facebook Status Updates for the Holiday Season

In the midst of last year’s holiday shopping madness, IBM’s Jay Henderson wrote a super detailed post on his company’s Smarter Planet blog about how social media affects holiday shopping. He concluded that social media isn’t just “another channel to have a personalized dialog with a consumer.”

The key to using social media for holiday marketing, he wrote, is motivating consumers to share their purchases, their experiences and their likes with their friends. And yet, as any business owner knows, it can be challenging to get news about your deal, your special event or your new product heard above all the rest of the online noise, especially during the holidays.

In that spirit, here are some ideas for well-crafted Facebook posts that your fans and followers will Like and want to share with their friends this season. 

1. A Post that Publicizes Your Sale & Reward Fans First

According to Forbes, 79 percent of consumers Like a brand on Facebook exclusively for offers, discounts and incentives, making Facebook one of the best places to advertise sales. A simple status update that highlights a sale can reach a large number of your business’s existing fans.

When crafting sale-related posts, think about why people have become fans of your business.For early access to sales? For access to monthly giveaways? Whatever the reason, use status updates to deliver offers that are special to your fans only. Kate Spade often offers Facebook fans early access to online sales.  The example below is seasonal -- from Halloween -- but you could easily do the same thing for any upcoming holiday.

2. A Post that Promotes Your Seasonal Products

The clothing brand J. Crew recently made headlines for posting its entire fall collection on its Pinterest Page, giving Pinterest users a first look at the brand’s new clothes and the opportunity place pre-orders.  They then used a Facebook status update to share their “November Style Guide” with their fans. This was a well-executed idea for how businesses can use social media to focus attention on new and/or soon-to-be-released products during the holidays.

In their post, J. Crew did two things right:

1. They created a feeling of exclusivity. Using the phrases “Get a first glance”  and “Before anyone else” made J.Crew’s fans feel like they were discovering something about the brand before anyone else. The takeaway here: Use your post to make fans feel like you’re letting them in on something special. Try this sort of update during the holidays to get more engagement on your updates.

2. They cross-promoted another important platform: Pinterest. When you use your most popular social channel (for J.Crew, it’s Facebook, where they have one million fans) to promote one of your other social channels, you often see a boost in followers on your lesser popular platform. The reason? Your fans are now aware that your brand is active on another platform! When fans see that your brand is posting unique, quality content on your other social accounts, they’ll want keep up with your brand on those platforms, too.

3. A Post that Drives Engagement and Crowdsources for Valuable Information

Don’t underestimate the power of visuals. A good image can effectively share a message and get people to react quickly, allowing your business to gather insightful data from followers. Such is the case with Everpurse’s status update featured below.

Without even reading the copy of the post, fans know what they should do: select their favorite design. Fill-in-the-blank posts on Facebook are generally effective and this is a visual version of that idea. Everpurse received more than 68 comments on their status update -- those 68 comments will no doubt influence their upcoming production decisions.

You can use the same principles of Everpurse’s status update to create Facebook posts that help your business get fast feedback from your fans this holiday season. Then use the data you collect to decide which items you should spend more of your promotion dollars on.

4. A Post that Gets Real Leads

Besides the audience-appropriate question and the mouthwatering photo, the small downtown- Reno restaurant SoDo has done two other smart things with their Facebook status update: They have a crystal clear call to action and share a link to a webpage where people can make a reservation.

If you own a restaurant or other reservation-based business, like a salon, try a similar post. In the post, link to a reservations webpage or create a reservations Facebook app (like this one)  so that Facebook users can make reservations directly from your brand’s Timeline profile.

According to Nation’s Restaurant News, in 2012, 14 million consumers were expected to go out to eat on Thanksgiving day. If your business is open on a major holiday, use a Facebook update to spread the word and bring in new leads, i.e., reservations!

5. A Post that Drives Foot Traffic to Your Store

Good storytelling skills are essential for social media success. On Facebook, try using status updates to tell a story that will motivate people to visit your brick and mortar business.

Hub Coffee Roasters, a small coffee shop promoting their new riverside location, for instance, used a compelling photo to convey the feeling of the season. And their post copy makes you want a cup of coffee, pronto! Despite having a small Facebook following of 2,500 fans, they garnered 57 “likes” and eight comments on their non-sponsored post. That’s what I call awesome engagement!

6. A Post to Promote Your Holiday Event

The holiday season is also known as “event” season. For businesses, there are open houses, promotional events and, of course, sales. Use a Facebook status update to promote your business’s holiday events this year. And take notes from the Gap!

In their latest holiday-event post, the Gap used hashtags (helpful for event attendees to use later), a call to action (“RSVP & join us”) and a link to a Facebook event page so users could RSVP. But here’s the biggest reason their status update excelled: The post’s photo is like an invitation and provides all the details for the event. This sort of design helps cut down on user questions and motivates them to put the event into their calendars right away because they have all the information they need.

7.  A Post to Incentivize Newsletter Signups

Businesses that want to drive sales through email marketing efforts this holiday season can use incentivized Facebook status updates to encourage users to sign up for the company newsletter. The brand Incase, a company that sells covers for technology products, does this really well.

Every week Incase hosts a giveaway and promotes it on their Facebook Page with simple, low-fuss status updates. Their fans love it!

During the holiday months, use your brand’s Facebook Page to try out this posting concept. It will drive engagement on your posts and allow your company to gather valuable information about your fans.

8. A Limited-Time-Only Promotion that Encourages Sharing

To encourage lots of sharing on status updates, make your business's post announcements time sensitive.

The Grand Sierra Resort and Casino, for instance, recently used one of their Timeline posts to share a one-day-only deal with their fans. And their fans (and their fans’ friends) shared the post a lot. The deal provided lots of value and it was eye-catching -- notice the bold red text bars.

Test posting a limited-time-only promotion on your brand’s Timeline this holiday season. And be strategic with which day you decide to host the deal. If Tuesday is a slow day for your business, post the deal on that day to get an extra surge of attention and sales.  

9. A Timeline Promotion

In August, Facebook announced changes to their promotion guidelines. According to their update, promotions can now be hosted on a Page’s Timeline through a status update. There are many types of Timeline Promotions businesses can run: “Comment to win,” “Like to win,” “Comment and Like to win,” etc.

Social media marketing analyst Sierra Tierra recently hosted a “Comment to win” Timeline promotion. This kind of promotion is great way to get insight from your Facebook fans.

If your business wants to host a low-fuss Facebook promotion this holiday season, do a Timeline promotion, like Sierra’s. And for more Timeline promotion/contest ideas, click here to check out this awesome list of thirty ideas from Inside Facebook.

10. A Post to Promote Your Facebook App  

One of the best ways to promote your Facebook app is to use a status update. The company Fitbit, which produces health-tracking fitness bracelets, uses Timeline posts to encourage their fans to check out their “Refer a Friend” app.   

This holiday season, if you have an app on your Facebook page that hosts a special promo code or is being used as a way to boost Page Likes use a post to drive app visitors (you can even fan-gate an app to show specific content to fans only) .

These are just a few examples of ways that brands can use Facebook updates to promote seasonal or holiday products and events. How do you tailor your status updates to reflect the season? What have you found to be the most effective?

The 25 most popular destinations for Facebook check-ins in 2013

Facebook says travel continues to be the second most updated life event after relationship updates.


Theme parks, sports stadiums, and city squares are among the most popular destinations that people checked into on Facebook in 2013.

As part of its annual review, Facebook has listed the 25 places that users most frequently check into around the world. The list includes the top checked in places, excluding transportation hubs, in 25 of the countries with the most active Facebook users in 2013.

A Facebook blog post says it looked at which places generated the most check-ins in 2013 and used the data to create global and country-level rankings.

Read: The world's best city is ...

Travel is big business for the global social network, which confirmed that travel continues to be the second most talked-about life event on Facebook after relationship updates.

Facebook released a similar list last year on the top 10 checked into place by country.

The 2013 list includes four Disney theme parks in California, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Paris; three sports arenas in Vancouver, Sweden and Melbourne and a steakhouse in Buenos Aires.

The full list of the 25 most-checked into destinations is below, followed by Facebook’s Year in Review video:
Argentina: Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires
Australia: Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), East Melbourne, Victoria
Brazil: Parque Ibirapuera, São Paulo
Canada: Rogers Arena, Vancouver, British Columbia
Egypt: Sharm el-Sheikh, South Sinai Governorate, Egypt
France: Disneyland Paris, Marne La Vallée
Germany: Reeperbahn, Hamburg
Hong Kong: Hong Kong Disneyland
Iceland: Blue Lagoon, Reykjavík, Iceland
India: Harmandir Sahib (The Golden Temple)
Italy: Piazza San Marco, Venice
Japan: Disneyland, Tokyo
Mexico: Auditorio Nacional, Mexico City
Nigeria: Ikeja City Mall, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria
Poland: Temat Rzeka, Warsaw
Russia: Gorky Park of Culture and Leisure
Singapore: Marina Bay Sands
South Africa: Victoria & Alfred Waterfront
South Korea: Myungdong Street, Seoul
Spain: Las Ramblas, Barcelona, Catalonia
Sweden: Friends Arena, Solna
Taiwan: Tainan Flower Night Market, Tainan City
Turkey: Taksim Square, Istanbul
United Kingdom: The 02, London
United States: Disneyland, Anaheim, California

5 SEO Trends To Prepare For In 2014

As the year comes to a close, it is a great time to stop and reflect on what has happened during the past year. From an SEO perspective, 2013 will definitely be remembered as a year of significant changes with all the Google updates. We have seen the major Hummingbird algorithm update and more Penguin and Panda updates that have changed the search engine results landscape.

SEO Trends – Looking forward

What will work in search engine optimization going forward into 2014? Although it is difficult to accurately predict what will actually work with absolute certainty, it is safe to assume that the current 2013 trends will continue to work and will be amplified in 2014. Let’s review 5 important SEO factors that should continue to be significant influences.

1. Content Marketing
   In 2013, many companies that embraced content marketing as a comprehensive search engine optimization strategy saw the results of their labor. Google appeared to be rewarding those companies providing fresh, unique and valuable content with specific audience targets. In 2014, Google will likely continue rewarding those websites that are growing, thriving and providing helpful information while following Google’s rules of the game.
2. Social Media
   Over the last few years, we have seen the increasing influence of social media marketing. From Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter to the more visual Pinterest and Instagram, social media has become an important player. As companies fine tune their social media marketing efforts to target their specific audience, expect social media to continue to be a considerable factor in 2014.
3. Google Plus
   Although Google Plus falls under the social media umbrella, it has earned the distinct honor of being highlighted for its impact in 2013 with Google Authorship and Google Publisher. There has been a great deal of debate whether or not Google Authorship is influencing search engine ranking positions, but those companies that are utilizing the golden Google Authorship / Publisher strategy will be putting themselves in the position of strengthening their social media marketing efforts. If you haven’t set up Google Authorship yet, you will want to do this now.
4. Mobile
   Mobile SEO has emerged as a significant factor in 2013 and should increase in 2014 as more and more people use their mobile devices to search the Internet. The way your website displays on a mobile device is going to impact your overall SEO initiative. Google’s recommendations are for websites to be responsive to the specific viewing device. If you have been putting off a responsive website redesign, now is the time to take it off the back burner.
5. Minimum Desirable Word Length
   Many people have had a goal of writing articles of at least 300 words in the past. In 2013, we have seen the emergence in the value of longer articles as Google continues its quest to provide valuable, unique and fresh content for its users.
   In the article for Search Engine Watch, Jason DeMers cites a year-old study that showed that “the top 10 results for a specific keyword search tended to be more than 2,000 words in length.” Although he does disclose that the validity of that study is being debated, there is a growing trend for longer – but valuable articles. He explains that, “As a result, we’ve seen a trend where the “minimum desirable length” for text-based content has shifted from something in the range of 550 words to articles in the range of 1000-plus words.”
   With Google’s continued goal to provide value, plan to have a goal of a minimum desirable word length for your articles to help with your SEO strategy.

As 2013 comes to an end, looking back to the SEO factors that have made a critical impact will help us with our marketing strategies as we enter 2014.

Your Turn: Were there any significant SEO factors on this list that surprised you? Going forward, will you be changing your SEO strategy to maximize those trends in 2014?

Content Marketing Minds: Empowering the Ultimate Content Creation Team

Fellow content creators, let’s swallow a big honking reality pill together. The things customers say about our brand runs circles around the prose we produce.

According to Nielson research, 77% of consumers are more likely to buy a product when they hear about it from friends and family.

Got advocates?

Maybe you call them ambassadors, fans, or evangelists.  Call them what you will, but understand when people support your brand it means money. More advocates, more sales. And nothing scales quite like word of mouth. Even if you get just a small percentage to plug your products, the ripple effect can be immeasurable. 

When you win over customers and help them share your brand’s story: 

• Your programs get amplified.
• Advocates create content for you—for free.
• Anticipation for new products increases.
• Positive conversations spread across online media.
• Web traffic increases.
• You win new customers.

Where do you start?

Tap into those apt to become advocates.

The first phase of a brand advocacy program calls for finding your current friends—those who buy your products or tune into your communications. You want to identify the socially active set, especially those that express themselves passionately.

Launch your advocacy program to your fans first. Roll out a red carpet of sorts with special incentives to join the party. Engage your advocates via the medium where you found them. 

#CMMinds
Let's hash this stuff out together. Use #CMMinds anytime to make comments or counterpoints, add your ideas and ask questions. I'm listening. 

Promote the program.

Put the word out about your program.

• Use all of your owned channels that are appropriate: the company blog, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
• Email news about the program with links to more information.
• Feature it prominently on your website.
• Promote it in-store (if you can).
• Fold it into traditional media (direct mail, business cards, brochures).
• Spread the news via partners with a vested interest.

Tips for fueling the fire. 

Fifty years ago, Ernest Dichter, an Austrian-American psychologist and marketing expert known as the "father of motivational research" suggested customers share for four reasons: 

1. They love the brand.
2. It makes them look good/smart.
3. They want to help others.
4. They simply like the content.

Keep these tips top of mind to motivate potential advocates to share your brand story:

Make it easy—Increase the likelihood of earning word of mouth (or word of mouse) by making it ultra-simple. With your online efforts, ensure it takes just one click.

Provide a starting point—Give potential advocates a starting point such as a topic or theme. You might simply ask a question or make a suggestion such as “share a photo of your family using our product.”

Set them free—Encourage sharing and conversation, but avoid dictating the message. Advocates will be more willing to engage and more credible when you allow them to express themselves freely and in their own voice. 

Fun it—Your ambassadors will flock to the fun stuff, so engage them with images, video, and stories that are playful, lighthearted and whimsical.

Stay fresh—Keep creating new things. Try different ideas and let your customers know about them.

Offer variety—Different customers will consume and share different media, so don’t be a one-trick pony with your media tactics. Cover the gamut with images, video, offers, games, etc.

Recognize the players. 

Even though advocacy may come naturally, you’ll enjoy a longer and more fruitful relationship with your volunteer sales force when you recognize them.

A simple thank you tweet or Facebook update could be the right gesture to spread the love. However, you might take the idea further with special recognition programs on your website and in various media. 

Consider offering your active advocates exclusive access to content. You might invite them to participate in special programs. View new campaigns first. Cast votes. Enjoy savings.

Be creative with your recognition programs and the recognition itself is likely to foster word of mouth. Think about the rare instances where a company thanked you for your business in a special way. Chances are it became a story you share with friends.

A big bonus for small budgets. 

Content creators constantly cite a lack of time and money for creating quality content. Empower your customers to do it for you—and presto—the problem subsides. And, of course, your brand gets far more than more content; it gets more credible content.

Advocate content receives 10x more engagement than branded paid content.* 

…and… 

It receives 7x more engagement than content posted to brand owned channels.*

(*Source: Social Chorus eBook: Advocates as Content Creators)

When your brand advocates create and share content you’ll want to extend its reach by repurposing it across multiple channels, including: social media, your website, advertising, sponsored posts, and print.

Happy customers + talking customers = new customers.

According to Social Chorus, 90% of social media engagement is driven by 3% of your audience. Your challenge is to engage and inspire the passionate minority. Make them happy. Give them reasons to “talk” and the result will be new customers.

Mark Collier, social media strategist and author of “Think Like a Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies that Turn Customers into Fans,” offers 10 tips for creating your ambassador program:

1. Spread the word internally and externally.
2. Do research to discover your brand advocates.
3. Start small and allow for organic growth of the program.
4. Offer exclusive memberships.
5. Connect with advocates and create ways for them to connect.
6. Reward them.
7. Give them direct access to your brand and people.
8. Create a feedback loop for them.
9. Give them tools to create amazing content.
10. Release control to the ambassadors.

In the informative infographic below, BzzAgent cites research from the University of Rhode Island and highlights the fact that brand advocates are prolific content creators. They write and share more than 2x as many online communications about brands. They’re 3x more likely to blog and are usually seen as a solid source of information by the people they communicate with.

In other words, brand advocates are the most powerful members of your content marketing dream team. 

[NOTE: CONTENT MARKETING CONTEST! Do you love Social Media Today? Do you read my posts regularly? Please help vote for "Content Marketing Isn't for Everybody"... as the top content marketing post of 2013 on @ShareBlochttp://www.sharebloc.com/posted_links/content_marketing_isnt_for_everybody ]

Content Marketing Minds is a weekly Social Media Today column written by Barry Feldman about content marketing at its best and its worst. Look for the future installments on Thursdays.

A Simple Take on Social Media Influence

There’s a fine line between actually influencing people and having the right type of social media presence that makes it look like you’re influencing people. Unfortunately, there are too many services and techniques used today that allow people to inflate the perception of their influence, often in an attempt to appear more influential than they really are in order to get work, particularly in social media itself.

Sometimes, people just like feeling important.

In the infographic below, MGL Media examines the very basic concepts of social media influence. Honestly, there’s nothing new here for anyone who already has a basic understanding, but if you don’t know anything about social media influence, here’s a good place to start.

How Effective Is Your Blog?

1.  First of all, compare the natural growth of visits to your blog overall with regard to a similar period the previous year, and then the average visits for each post. Compare also the bounce rate, sources of traffic, social conversion, individual visitors, pages visited and average stay on your site and in each post.

2. Measure the number of people who unsubscribed to your newsletter, email or RSS subscriptions in the last month / quarter / semester / year. This way, you’ll understand whether your content is the right content for your community, if you have an interesting community and whether there is a connection with your readers. According to the measurements I carry out of my blogs and others I’m in contact with, the average rate is usually 2-3% per month at most.

3. Furthermore, check how many subscribers are RSS subscribers and how many are via email. If you have a newsletter subscription, how many subscribers do you have? Calculate this weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.

3. Volume of comments in each post. The more comments you get, the more popular your blog is; the more popular it is, the more it’s read; the more read it is, the more it’s visited; the more visited it is, the more conversions you should be getting.

4. The number of “leads” you get every week / month. By “leads” I mean business opportunities. These will be different for every person depending on the type of blog you’re writing, the field and industry you’re in and the objective you seek. This could be a request for a quote regarding the interior decorating of a house in a home renovation blog; or, a question regarding the clothes you described in your fashion blog; it can also be a company contacting you for a PR activity through your advertising blog; or the proposal from an agency who wants to hire you as a speaker at a gastronomy fair through your food blog.

5. What is the reach of your posts without the use of social tools (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Menéame, etc.)? This will help you measure your blog’s true influence, how influential it is on its own.

6. Of the visits you receive for each post, how many actually carry out the action you’re looking for. That is, how many visitors click on the “call to action” that will take them to your online store, to purchase the theme you’re recommending, to make the donation for the NGO you collaborate with, etc. Sometimes, this “call to action” may simply be for them to answer in the comments section the question you set in your post, or signing up to an event, webinar or conference.

7. Analyse the number of links on other blogs, posts or sites that each of your posts gets. This isn’t only positive at SEO level, but if you get many links, then you know your post is valuable and others are using it as a resource.

8. Recommendations that your blog receives between users in the social web: Twitter, Facebook, Google + or LinkedIn. Count also the number of times that your blog (or each post) is bookmarked in a social bookmarking site such as Del.ici.ous or Diigo.

What other ways to measure your blog’s effectiveness and efficiency can you think of?

Facebook CFO David Ebersman Cashes in $43 Million in Shares

Facebook chief financial officer David Ebersman cashed in more than 900,000 shares of Facebook stock Wednesday, a transaction that netted the exec nearly $43 million, according todocuments filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The sale was pre-arranged as part of Ebersman's automatic trading plan, which means it does not necessarily reflect on the current status of Facebook, according to a company spokesperson. The 900,000-plus shares equated to roughly 8.5% of the CFO's total equity in the company.

Ebersman, who joined Facebook in 2009 after spending years as an exec at biotech giant Genentech, helped lead Facebook through its 2012 IPO. Investors took some time warming up to the social network, but seem to have changed their tune recently. Shares of Facebook ($FB) have more than doubled in the last year, closing Wednesday at $48.71.

The CFO has been cashing in small chunks of his ownership nearly every month alongside other Facebook execs, such as chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg. In early August, Sandberg sold more than 2.3 million shares worth $91 million.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

26 Tips to Create Social Media Magic for Your Business

26 tips to create social media magic for your business

Have you found your brand’s social media is hitting a wall? Social media marketing takes time, talent, and a lot of creative brain power and it’s possible to get burned out. I’m going to share some easy, actionable items that you can do to put the social media magic back into your brand.

My colleague Rebekah Radice and I teamed up on this together to create a total of 52 tips and here is part one from her blog: How to Create Social Media Magic. Add in my 26 here and voila! You’re in business, baby!

I’m going to break down the tips by social media platform but many tips will work on any platform. Each platform has its own nuances for posting but many of the “common sense” guidelines for social media apply everywhere.


Google+

1. Create a weekly Google+ Hangout series to highlight your brand’s services, talk about industry updates, or to connect with customers. These will live on YouTube and be sharable on your blog and throughout all your social media platforms.

2. Use your super size cover photo to make an impact. At 2120 x 1192, you have no excuse for lacking visual impact. If you are design challenged, hire someone to create something memorable for you.

3. Use Friends + Meto connect your Google+ to other social channels. Use this for thoughtful sharing from Google+ to other social platforms.

4. Highlight your business’s accomplishments on your About page. There’s a lot of rich territory on Google+ so utilize it to boost your social SMO throughout the web.

5. Get your Google+ authorship set up. As Mark Traphagen says, “Google wants to pump you up in search.” Connect your Google+ account and receive a boost in Google search.
Pinterest

6. Tell your brand story with Pinterest boards.

7. Use secret boards to work with a team and build marketing campaigns.

8. Add a board with links to your other social networks and blog so people can find you everywhere.

9. Brand your images for Pinterest with your company watermark.

10. Use the #PinofTheDay hashtag to connect your content with other pinners and work across social media platforms.

More tips on my All Things Pinterest Board
Facebook Page

11. Host a Facebook Q & A on your Facebook page.

12. Make sure your Facebook page is attractive and optimized. You should change your cover photo occasionally for the seasons or for different marketing campaigns to keep your page fresh.

13. Customize your Facebook tabs.

14. Use square images for regular posts with a 1:1 ratio aspect or size them at 500 x 500 pixels. This is easy to do in PicMonkey or Photoshop.

15. Analyze your Facebook page on LikeAlyzer and keep making tweaks in your content to improve your page.

More resources on my Facebook Tips and Tricks board
Twitter

16. Set your profile up properly using all your visual assets and adding industry keywords with a link to your website.

Twitter Size Cheat Sheet

17. Participant or host Twitter chats to meet people in your industry or potential clients.

18. Use Social Bro or another third-party app to help grow your Twitter follow base the right way.

7 ways your business can gain more followers

19. Twitter is about interesting conversations. Make sure you say hello and talk with people. No broadcasting allowed.

20. Etiquette counts on Twitter. Tweet others the way that you want to be tweeted.

More resources on my Social Media Savoir Faire board
LinkedIn

21. Connect with influencers through the LinkedIn Influencer program. They are creating original content on LinkedIn and this is a rich resource of relevant LinkedIn content share for your updates.

22. Need to scope out the competition? Go stealth by becoming anonymous to do your research, then switch back to public for networking.

23. Customize the links to your websites for a more professional look.

24. Create great updates for more engagement. Link dropping isn’t effective.

25. Make sure that you add a custom message to each invitation to connect on LinkedIn. Remember that you can’t do this from the apps.

More resources on my A Little Love for LinkedIn board.
Biggest tip for last!

26. Be consistent in all your social media efforts. Pick one platform and learn to use it well before branching out to other platforms. Being really great on one platform is preferable to sucking on many platforms. Make sure that you are having fun and enjoying the social interaction. There is a trend in hiring agencies to handle social media for brands but I urge you to have people who are connected with your brand doing your social media. Farmed out social media can end up looking like farmed out social media. Bleck. If you feel like you don’t have time or the skills, please do hire someone to help you with your social media but make sure they know what they are doing and have active, solid social media platforms of their own. If they don’t have an active and vibrant social media platform themselves, how will they create one for you?

I hope that these tips will spark some new ideas and get your brain fired up for creating some social media magic of your own!

Disclosure: Social Bro provides me with a free pro version but I only use social media tools that I love and are helpful. It things don’t work, I don’t recommend them.

Photo credit: Big Stock Photos

The Beginner's Guide to TweetDeck

TweetDeck's development path might look more like a roller coaster than the typical incline, but it's for good reason. After Twitter bought the app in 2011, TweetDeck pulled support for various social networks — most recently Facebook — and dropped its mobile apps in order to focus on its core purpose in desktop form: Twitter.

Social media managers and casual tweeters alike can benefit from TweetDeck's organizational tools, such as customizable columns, multiple account toggling and scheduling. With a modern, clean design and automatically refreshing feeds, TweetDeck's utility comes in its simplicity and ease in setting up.


SEE ALSO: 6 Clever Tricks for Social Media Managers

Here's how to get started on TweetDeck. Soon your personal and professional Twitter troubles will be long gone.
Setting Up

Instead of connecting via Twitter.com, you'll need to download the app and create a separate TweetDeck account. You'll be able to connect Twitter accounts from there.

Then, decide if the Chrome web app or the Windows or Mac desktop apps suit your style.






Connect as many Twitter accounts as you'd like through Settings, located in the left sidebar. However, make sure you're aware of which account you set as your default to avoid accidentally brunch tweeting from your company's official account.

If you hate scrolling up your feed for the latest tweets, TweetDeck can do that for you. For an automatically updating feed, make sure to check the "Stream tweets in real time" setting under the General section.

Also in Settings, you can make TweetDeck even more easy on the eyes with appearance options: light and dark color schemes; larger or smaller font sizes; and wider or thinner columns.
Customizing Columns

TweetDeck's columns are key to getting what you want out of Twitter. Need to follow an event? There's a column for that. Use your DM inbox like a second iMessage account? There's a column for that.






Add separate feeds for your timeline, interactions, activity, scheduled tweets, messages, etc. through the "Add Column" button in the left sidebar. Once you've clicked on the type of column, select which account you'd like to see, and your column is ready.






Twitter is more than a timeline of users you follow. TweetDeck's columns make sense of Twitter's lists that have perplexed so many for so long. Out of sight, out of mind on Twitter.com, TweetDeck can pull lists you're on or subscribed to into their own columns, placed right next to your regular information feeds. Curate lists around your interests, office, events or things that generally get hidden on your main feed.


SEE ALSO: 3 Free Tools to Manage Who You Follow on Twitter



The arrow at the right of a column's header opens up column filtering options to maximize the quality of information. For example, narrowing a column or search (via the left sidebar) down to links and media-only tweets from verified users — parameters which may prove helpful during breaking news.



The search function also comes in handy during Twitter chats or other instances when you're closely following a hashtag, such as during conferences, TV shows and even weddings.

If you've tried any TweetDeck competitors, you will notice that TweetDeck is missing HootSuite'sstreams and tabs, which make it easy to separate multiple accounts. But with TweetDeck's easy and quick scrolling, switching between streams and creating columns make up for it.

Did you notice that the columns have tiny numbers in the top left of the header bar? Type those numbers to hop from column to column sans scrolling.





Tweeting and Scheduling

While column layout is important, there would be no point to an excellently curated layout if you couldn't jump in on the conversations you so cleanly organized.

TweetDeck's tweeting experience is as neatly and easily modified as its columns.



In the recently updated left sidebar, you can preview added images, get auto-fill suggestions for hashtags and handles, and automatically shorten links, no Bitly required.

Replying to tweets is simple, and will open up a box within the column you're in. If you'd like to reply to multiple users, even if they're not in the same conversation, click the reply arrow on the separate tweets and the handles will appear in the original compose field you have opened.



The scheduling field has a quick calendar view with timestamps, streamlining tweeting for the busy social media manager or normal user who wants to tweet jokes at more convenient times.


SEE ALSO: 9 TweetDeck Alternatives for Mobile

TweetDeck is a no-fuss web and desktop Twitter client, and it will make any tweeter's experience easier and more organized, for work and play.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Image: Mashable composite, Twitter

Facebook's top 10 hidden features

Even if you check Facebook daily, you may not have picked up on a few of the social network's less well-known features. Here are 10 of the best Facebook features you've been missing out on.

Facebook has a number of hidden features on its site Photo: AP

By Sophie Curtis

11:30AM GMT 30 Oct 2013

1. Create an interest list

Interest lists are an optional way to organise the content you are interested in on Facebook. You can create your own interest lists based on the things you care about, or follow other people's lists. For example, you could create a 'Top Indie Bands' list that features bands' Pages and public updates from band members.

To create your own interest list, go to https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/interests and click the 'Add Interests' button. The click 'Create List' and search for the people or Pages you want to add to your list, or use the categories on the left to browse. After you've selected the things you want to include, you can pick a name for your list and select a privacy setting. Choose 'Public' if you want others to be able to subscribe to the list you've created.

When you follow a list, you'll be able to see updates from that list by clicking the arrow at the top right of your homepage and then clicking on the list name. You'll see a feed of the posts and activity from the people and Pages on that list. You may also see highlights from this list in your main news feed.

2. View Friendship history

Look back at all the Facebook interactions you've had with a particular friend by going to their profile page, clicking in the arrow in the top right corner and selecting 'See Friendship' from the dropdown menu. If you’ve added a relationship to your timeline, you can go to https://www.facebook.com/us to see the friendship page for you and the person you’re in a relationship with.

You can also see a friendship page for two of your friends by going to a friendship page, clicking 'More' (under the cover photo) and typing in the names of two of your friends. 

3. Check your 'Other' messages

Just as Facebook highlights stories in your news feed that it thinks are of greater importance to you, it also sorts your messages. The main Messages folder contains messages from your friends and their friends. All other messages will go into an 'Other' folder where you can look at them separately.

This Other folder isn't visible until you view your main Messages folder, and Facebook doesn't send you a notification when a new message arrives in this folder. You might therefore have hundreds of unread messages that Facebook has filed in your Other inbox. 

4. View Photos the old way

If you don't like the way that photos appear in a pop-out black box when you click on them, you can simply revert to the preview Facebook photo display by pressing F5 on your keyboard. This allows you to flick through the photos in an album in classic view.

5. Prevent tagged posts from automatically displaying on your Timeline

Facebook gives you the option to manually approve or dismiss tags that people add to your posts. When you turn it on, anytime someone tags a photo or post you made, that tag won't appear until you approve it.

To turn on tag review, click on the arrow at the top right of any Facebook page and select 'Settings' In the left-hand column. Then click Timeline and Tagging and look for the setting 'Who can add things to my timeline?' and click 'Edit' next to the option 'Review posts friends tag you in before they appear on your timeline' to turn this on.

It should be noted that this only controls what's allowed on your timeline. Posts you're tagged in still appear in search, news feed and other places on Facebook 

6. Turn your profile upside down

When the Pirate English language option appeared on Facebook several years ago it attracted a fair bit of attention. It changes, for example, 'What's on your mind?' to 'What be troublin' ye?' and 'Share' to 'Divvy spoils t' all ye mateys'.

Now you can also choose 'Upside Down' as your version of English, which upends all your interface text. Just click on the arrow at the top right of any Facebook page and change 'language' to 'English (Upside Down)'.

7. Download your Facebook data

There is a feature in the General Account Settings that allows you to download information available to you in your account such as your timeline info, posts you have shared, messages, photos and more. Additionally, it includes information that is not available simply by logging into your account, like the ads you have clicked on, data like the IP addresses that are logged when you log into or out of Facebook, and more.

Click the arrow at the top right of any Facebook page and choose Settings. At the bottom of the General Account Settings in an option to "Download a copy of your Facebook data". Unfortunately, there is no way to individually select which data you would like to download when you download your Facebook info, so you will have to download your file in its entirety. 

8. Activity log

Your Facebook activity log is a list of your posts and activity, from today back to the very beginning. You’ll also see stories and photos you’ve been tagged in, as well as the connections you’ve made – like when you liked a Page or added someone as a friend. You can also use it to review and manage what you share on Facebook.

You can get to your activity log by clicking the arrow at the top right of any Facebook page and choosing Settings, followed by 'Privacy'. Next to 'Who can see my stuff?' click 'Use Activity Log'.

This can be used to quickly review your photos, and photos you're tagged in, that are shared with Public, and also review photos that you have hidden on your timeline. 

9. Send a private message from a traditional email account

Send a message to someone on Facebook from your traditional email account (Hotmail, Yahoo!, Gmail etc) using their @facebook.com email address. This is in the format username@facebook.com. The emails will be delivered to your Facebook Messages folder

When you send messages to external email addresses, your emails will be formatted to look like Facebook messages, including your name, your profile picture and your message. 

10. Turn off mobile push notifications

Sometimes getting endless notifications on your mobile phone about Facebook updates is just irritating. Push notifications can be turned on or off from your Facebook app or the settings on your smartphone.

From your Android, iPhone or iPad go to Privacy Settings > Notifications > Mobile Push and un-tick the things you don't want to get notifications about. It is not currently possible to adjust push notifications from mobile browsers or from feature phones. 

More information here...