What’s interesting is that the News Feed will become much more driven by photos and images then it did in the past. With Facebook promising a “…visual, rich and engaging” experience, we can’t help but wonder what impact this might have on social media marketers?

With social media platforms in a constant state of evolution, social marketers have to create new marketing strategies and best practices in order to keep up with the times. Annoying as it may be to re-educate yourself each time changes like these are made, it’s fun to accept the challenge and create new strategies to keep you ahead of the pack.

In anticipation of the new News Feed, we wanted to share some tips on harnessing it for maximum marketing potential. Here are 5 elements you can incorporate into your Facebook marketing strategy.

 1. Produce More Visual Content 

If you’re only posting text to Facebook, you’re in trouble. The new design puts a massive focus on visual content. This is the number one aspect of your News Feed that is going to change the way you post content and how it’s being shared. Photos and video will reign supreme.

Photos are going to become bigger and take up more real estate on the Facebook News Feed- so get that SLR out and take some beautiful photos!

We suggest two methods that could help you take advantage of this change

A. Become a Typography Artist

Have text or message that you want to share? Why not choose a beautiful typography and a pretty background and share it as a picture instead. Images like this are often shared more often, and catch someone’s eye.

Take a look at this example from Town Shoes.

B. Post Photos Instead of Links 

Found a great article or want to link to your blog? Instead of embedding the link, to which Facebook automatically picks up thumbnail, we’d suggest pulling a photo directly from the post or article and then inputting the link.

2. Fan Page Likes

In the past when you gain a new Facebook fan, it would show up to their friends as text only. Facebook has completely changed how the “liking” notification looks to a person’s newsfeed. Now, when someone new likes your Facebook Fan Page, it displays your brand’s profile picture and cover photo as well as your brand’s “About” section entered in your settings.

When people like your Facebook page, it’ll look similar to this. 

This makes strategies that aim to increase ‘like’ counts even more important. As a brand or social marketer, you need to pay more attention to the images you use on your Fan Page, since it will be shared more often if you’re working on gaining ‘likes’.  We’d suggest changing these images often to help promote different campaigns or initiatives. Be warned though, there are rules about what you can put in your cover photo!

3. Keep It Short

With visual items like video and photos taking the lead, you need to do more showing and less telling.  Facebook has changed the way your copy will be displayed on a photo post. Now it will be overlaid at the top of the picture, so keep it short and catchy to avoid distracting from the image you’re posting.

 4. Engage Your Fans & Influencers

With the addition of streams, users are going to be able to have access to content that is only posted by their friends, omitting any items being shared by brands. Having people that are brand evangelists or are considered influencers share your content, means it will have more potential to be seen on Facebook.

The only way to increase this is to make sure you’re creating compelling content. What’s compelling? Find out what makes your community tick by looking at Facebook’s analytics find out which posts get the most attention and are shared the most. Our advice is to keep doing what works. Create incentives and reward your most engaged fans through contests or reaching out to them in social media.

On the other end, users are going to be able to have a stream strictly for brands and publishers- so they are your new competition. It’s going to up the ante to create unique and powerful content amongst brands.

 5. Check-Ins are MORE important

Were you ignoring Facebook check-ins? They weren’t really that important since they would just pop up as text- we actually found them kind of annoying. The new News Feed will include a map of where a user checks-in as well as a brief description of where they are. This means more than ever, people are going to notice if people are checking into your business.

While using Facebook check-ins as a driver for promotions isn’t a brand new strategy, with the new design it might make it more effective to generate engagement.

1. Respect Your Reader

There’s nothing worse than alienating your followers because your newsletters are filled with content that isn’t relative to your brand. Take a minute to define your audience by gathering demographics and deciding which topics will be of interest to them. If you’re an ice cream retailer, send out a newsletter about ice cream or material that has to do with ice cream. Don’t start talking about the different kinds of pasta you experienced on your latest trip to Italy. Do you catch our flow? Respect your reader and they’ll trust that your monthly newsletter will contain valuable information that will be beneficial to them. Fail to do so and you’re bound to have a significant portion of your users unsubscribe.

2. Mix It Up

Nobody wants to read a long, unstimulating newsletter containing article after article of content. Try to mix up your newsletter’s layout with photos, quotes, short blurbs, resource links and testimonials as much as possible. It’ll set your content apart from everybody else’s, especially if you’ve got a great handle on HTML and use eye-catching visuals to get people’s attention.

Like a good martini, a newsletter should be well-mixed. 

3. Make Your Call To Action Crystal Clear

Often, newsletters are sent out by marketers with the specific goal of having readers make an action after reading them. Be clear on what you’d like your followers to do once they’ve finished going through your content. Would you like them to sign up for something, submit feedback, click on a specific link, give you their e-mail addresses or download a giveaway? Spell out which move you’d like your readers to make. If they enjoy and appreciate the newsletter you’ve sent out based on the two steps above, chances are they’ll respond to your call to action.

Try to look a little happier than President Obama while doing it. 

4. Research & Proofread

Spelling mistakes, grammar errors, inaccurate or factually incorrect information can severely harm your brand’s credibility and image. If you’re going to be writing subjectively in your newsletter, make sure you’ve got all of your facts straight and your words spelled properly. Consider providing information such as statistics, expert opinions and quotes to prove that you’ve done your homework. If you’re sourcing images or quotes, make sure to give credit where it’s due.

5. Use Metrics

The great part about e-mail newsletters versus printed ones is that there are services available to track their metrics. You have no way of knowing if a printed newsletter went straight into somebody’s recycling bin or if they loved it so much that they cut out one of its articles and pasted it onto their walls. With newsletter metrics, you can find out how many people have received your email, who’s email addresses bounced, how many people opened your newsletter, how many people forwarded it, who unsubscribed and more. Talk about invaluable information. We love using Mail Chimp, Constant Contact or iContact for our newsletter metrics.

6. Make Unsubscribing Easy

Ok, we know, the last thing you want is for people to be able to easily unsubscribe from your newsletters. You have to give them an opt-out option though. If somebody doesn’t want to get your content via e-mail, chances are they’re REALLY going to spread their annoyed feelings about you once they realize that it’s nearly impossible to unsubscribe from your newsletters. Avoid needless bad press by making it easy for recipients to unsubscribe from your newsletter if they aren’t interested in reading it.

7. Test Your Newsletter Before Sending It Out, Because You Can’t Take It Back

With all of the sexy HTML graphics you’re going to be using, you’d better be safe than sorry and test out your well thought-out newsletter before sending it to all of your readers. With testing, you can catch any mistakes you’ve made and make sure that your newsletter is looking as beautiful as possible before presenting it to an audience. This step is where you should be double-checking for any spelling mistakes, grammatical errors or factual discrepancies. Campaign Monitor and Mail Chimp offer excellent e-mail testing services. After uploading and importing your HTML content, they allow you to test your template in about 20 different mail clients to make absolutely sure that everything works. The set of tests costs about $5.00, so have all of your tweaking finished by the time you hit send.

Budweiser’s Red Light Campaign

Launched on Superbowl Sunday at the beginning of February, Budweiser Light’s Red Light campaign was initially launched as a sixty-second television commercial but quickly moved onto social media and Youtube. In the commercial, a spokesman named Ron Kovacs introduces the audience to Budweiser’s Red Light – a new $150 product by the brand that looks just like the red light that lights up and sounds victoriously every time a goal is scored in a hockey game. The only difference with Bud Light’s product is that you can customize the goal light to go off every time your favorite hockey team scores – right in your own home. Available for installation by Ron Kovacs himself in Toronto and on sale in the rest of Canada, the Red Light quickly gained popularity and sold out.

Budweiser’s Red Light Super Bowl XLVII “Talk  To Me” ad, which gave way to the brand’s subsequent e-commerce campaign. 

To market the initial launch of the product (only available online) and its subsequent restocking, Bud Light launched an e-commerce campaign. The brand’s Facebook page is filled with photos of the Bud Light in various locations – do you want yours on your top shelf, in your bathroom or in the kitchen next to you as you cook? Budweiser also launched a Twitter page for the product at @BudRedLights where they engage with fans using the #budredlight hashtag and follow the same idea as their Facebook page by posting photos of the Red Light in various scenarios. It’s a simple idea, but paired with a unique product it’s seen resounding success. The first batch of Budlight Red Lights sold out online within 45 seconds and more lights are now available on the brand’s website. Thanks to their e-commerce marketing efforts, Budweiser is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Your Red Light belongs on the top shelf. Facebook photo from Budweiser’s Red Light e-commerce campaign. 

Your Red Light also belongs in the kitchen. Taken from the @BudRedLights Twitter page. 

So, why do we love Bud Light’s Red Light as an e-commerce campaign? In short, the beer industry hasn’t been revolutionized by e-commerce yet and Budweiser is the first of its brands to start getting its toes wet. Genius. They targeted one of their consumer’s main interests, hockey, and developed a campaign that would convince most of them that they had to own their own version of a goal light through the implementation of a fictional spokesman, fantastic commercials and a Facebook and Twitter campaign. Well done, Budweiser.

Donna Karan’s Charity Bracelet Campaign

The designers at New York Fashion Week have increasingly been collaborating with social platforms to create elaborate e-commerce campaigns. Donna Karan, of infamous brand DKNY, is the latest designer to jump on the bandwagon. She partenered with Amex Sync to sell her Urban Zen bracelet directly on Twitter in February. The bracelet is inspired by the work of Haitian artisans and the proceeds from its $80 sale are donated to the poverty-stricken country.

Donna Karan Urban Zen Bracelet. 

One of the first products available using the revolutionary Amex Sync technology, the bracelet can be purchased by tweeting with the hashtag #BuyUrbanZenBracelet after hooking up your Twitter account with your credit card for Amex Sync. Once your account is set up and you’ve tweeted to buy, Amex Sync will mention your Twitter handle with a link to confirm your purchase. You will then have to tweet the confirmation hashtag within fifteen minutes of the Amex Sync reply to complete your purchase and have your Urban Zen bracelet shipped to your home. The campaign is a brilliant idea because it allows users to shop directly on Twitter without having to leave the site. Again, it’s simple and easy yet incredibly effective.

Amex Sync: A how-to video. 

While we really like the idea of using Amex Sync to purchase a product, we have a few bones to pick with the logistics behind it. First of all, tweeting to directly buy something would only be plausible with small, low-risk items such as Donna Karan’s Urban Zen bracelet or a book. We can’t imagine a world (yet) where people will start buying clothing, appliances, gadgets or cars directly off Twitter. Secondly, Amex Sync requires users to go through several long-winded steps before being able to sign up and ultimately buy via Twitter. Very few people are going to want to send out a tweet about a product, get redirected to a registration page, wait for a confirmation tweet from Amex Sync then tweet again about the confirmation. If you forget about the confirmation tweet, Amex Sync will tweet you every few minutes about it until your fifteen minute limit to post the tweet is up. Now that’s alot of tweets in a small time window.

Our best guess is that Amex Sync will have to tweak their Twitter process before they really take off on the platform. Until then, people will stick with tried and true websites that offer faster, easier online check out.

NARS’ Pinterest Campaign

One of our biggest pet peeves on Pinterest are the pins with blatant price tags stamped across them. On a social channel who’s main purpose is to spread creativity and inspiration, blatant attempts to sell product feel out of place. For that reason, we were initially skeptical when we first heard about cosmetic retailer NARS’ e-commerce Pinterest campaign for their Satin Lip Pencil Collection. However, we were pleasantly surprised by the campaign upon further investigating it. NARS had three East Coast design enthusiasts and popular Pinterest users Danaë Vokolos, Caitlin Cawley and Bekka Palmer create boards that complimented the new lip pencils’ three color categories: red, pink and nude.

The red satin lip pencil Pinterest board by Danaë Vokolos.

The pink satin lip pencil board by Bekka Palmer. 

What’s interesting is that the brand didn’t pick three of the most popular users on the site – they picked the ones that had been proven to drive traffic to the NARS site via Pinfluencer, a Pinterest analytics tool. The brand cleverly had the three pinners pin from their own accounts, as those accounts had greater chances of creating more sales on the NARS’ site versus NARS’ own Pinterest account. For a week leading up to the launch of the Satin Lip Pencil Collection, pinners could purchase the new products by clicking on the images pinned to Vokolos, Cawley and Palmer’s boards.

We love NARS’ e-commerce campaign because it used Pinterest the right way – to spread inspiration and creativity without being obnoxious about pushing sales. It also put analytics first and used the tool to determine which bloggers would provide the most reach to the brand instead of relying on NARS’ own reach to drive e-commerce. Very well done.

P.S. – As of this week, Pinterest has launched analytics! 

Social Media and E-Commerce

Right off the bat, it’s important to know that social media and e-commerce are a fusion. Ideally, brands need to engage with their social communities in order to increase their total number of e-commerce sales. If consumers feel like they have the power to drive brand decisions, they’re more likely to spend money. Unlike the real world where consumers and brands’ marketing departments have very little interaction, social media opens up the communication line between a business and its consumer base. As a result, selling through social is akin to being a fly on the wall in your consumer’s world. With a few quick clicks, you can measure their opinions, wants and needs – changing the way you sell and subsequently, the way that they buy.

Cosmetic retailer giant Sephora is a fantastic example of a brand that’s managed to fuse social media and e-commerce together. While it has an active presence on Facebook and Twitter, the brand launched its own online social community, Beauty Talk, after realizing that its consumers wanted a forum within which they could discuss cosmetic products and beauty advice. The average Beauty Talk community user spends two and a half times more than most Sephora customers online, with the most active users spending up to ten times more. By creating a social space for its consumers, Sephora made them feel connected to the brand and inadvertently increased its e-commerce traffic.

How Social Media Affects Consumers’ Brand Opinions

As part of a study conducted among 2,000 shoppers by Y&R, one in three shoppers said that social media has introduced them to a brand or helped to change their already existing opinion of a brand. The study also showed that consumers are aware of their constant interaction with brands through digital and social media and how those interactions influence their purchasing decisions. As a result, they always make e-commerce decisions consciously. Another joint study by market research firms Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies found that 60% of Facebook fans and 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend brands since becoming their fan or follower – proving that brands’ interactions with their social community can have a great impact on the community’s purchasing pattern. Most impressively, the study found that 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy from the brands that they follow or a fan of. The lesson to take away in all of this is that people aren’t necessarily buying from you if they’re liking or retweeting you, but the chances that they eventually will become greatly increased when they do. Provided, of course, that you’re doing a good job at interacting with them.

How Social Media Has Changed Consumers’ E-Commerce Buying Patterns

So does a brand’s interaction with its social communities lead directly to greater e-commerce sales? Possibly, but not necessarily. The Gap and JC Penny are two retailers who have active Facebook communities and each tried to open an F-commerce (Facebook commerce) store before shutting them down shortly thereafter due to low sales volume. They both blamed a lack of trust that the consumer felt in purchasing via Facebook, but both cases could have just been classic examples of the fact that having an active social community does not necessarily mean you can sell directly within that network. Think of social media’s impact on e-commerce as online dating, figuratively. Online dating websites, like social networks, introduce you to an array of romantic prospects (brands) and gradually let you build a relationship with them. Ultimately, the end goal is a date (purchase) but the prospects have to engage and interact with you until your relationship gets to that point. The more prospects/brands that you engage with via dating websites/social media networks, the greater the chances are that you’ll sooner find one that you’d like to go out on a date with/buy from. Very few people want to be asked out on a date until they decide they’re ready, which might explain why The Gap and JC Penny’s creation of a store directly on their Facebook page failed. It was too much of an in-your-face move. Ultimately, social media are channels for brands to establish trust and a relationship with their fans or followers in hopes that those individuals will then think of them when they set out to make a purchase.

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All in all, a brand’s chances of selling become greatly increased – not solidified – if their consumer follows them on social media. Social networks are a place to nurture your followers’ and fans’ opinions of you, not to do business with them directly. If we’re looking at the numbers, that nurturing can pay off greatly in the long run with 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers being more likely to buy from the brands that they follow or are a fan of. If you’re looking to take your efforts a step up past traditional networks, take a cue from Sephora’s Beauty Talk community and the resounding positive impact its had on the company.

As soon as people have passed on their information, you’ve entered into a marketing relationship with them. Think of e-mail marketing as, for a lack of a better metaphor, a slow saline drip into people’s brains. By periodically sending them newsletters, promotional content or just general information via e-mail, you’re constantly reminding them of your presence and giving them that slight push towards purchasing your product or service. The main secret to successful e-mail marketing is sending out content that’s valuable to your audience. If you send out dozens of e-mails a week that contain little to no useful information, you’ll be put on everyone’s spam list and your e-mail marketing efforts will be ignored. Common belief is that everyone hates e-mail, which has only become the stereotype due to the endless quantities of poor e-mail marketing out there. Stick to one or two e-mails per week that are chockfull of valuable information, and your customers will look forward to hearing from you.

So, How Do You Get Those E-mail Addresses?

There are several ways for marketers to round up those coveted e-mail addresses and start sending out valuable content. Here are five of the most optimal choices:

1. POS (Point of Sale)

Whether you’re selling product online or offline, there’s no better opportunity to nab an e-mail address than when you’re interacting directly with a consumer at the point of sale. Ask them upfront for their e-mail address and explain that you’ll be sending out relevant, valuable content (newsletters, promotions, sales) if you’re dealing with them offline, or provide a quick form for them to fill out if you’re selling online.

2. Landing page

A landing page is where traffic is sent from a social media campaign or online advertisement with the specific goal of prompting a certain action or result – in your case, the collection of e-mails. The creation of a well-designed, concise landing page that explains what your website or application is all about will have people wanting to know more, leading them to provide their e-mail address in the appropriate form you’ve provided.

3. Newsletter

Set up your website with a link or a form that allows visitors to provide their e-mail address to register for a newsletter if you have one. People love promotions, deals and information about new products, so give them the convenience of receiving all that by simply checking their inbox.

4. Subscription Services

Subscription service websites such as Birchbox, the Beachmint group, Manpacks and Foodzy are the ideal collectors of e-mail addresses as the business model requires a form of contact with the consumer beyond just a phone number and address. If you work for a subscription service, you’re pretty much golden and don’t have to worry about finding other means of gathering your audience’s e-mail addresses – just make sure you ask permission to send them e-mails when you have them sign up to join the website.

Trunk Club is a subscription service for men. 

5. Result Of A Certain Action

Another ingenious way to collect e-mail addresses is by requiring that a consumer provides their e-mail address prior to either voting in a contest, receiving a coupon or filling out a survey about your brand. Filling out an e-mail address will act as a stepping stone to what the customer wants vs. as the end result. If people really want to participate in a contest or get a free coupon, you can be sure that they’ll be doling out their contact information.

The beginning. #loop vine.co/v/b1maztKQguh

— jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) January 31, 2013

Vine – The Next Great Social Media Marketing Platform?

Ok, so six seconds isn’t very much time. But think of reguar commercials: even the fifteen second ones most of us have to sit through while watching television are starting to feel like an eternity. Six seconds is just enough time to get a clear, concise point across to viewers. If you’re creative, Vine’s time limit won’t restrict you – just like it didn’t restrict Twitter users from crafting tweets within a 140 character constraint. If anything, it’ll force you to come up with something crafty that’ll engage an audience instead of losing its attention. The possibilities are endless – marketers can use Vine to create ads, run campaigns, promote contests and more.

Tap the screen and tell us your favorite blueprint from National Inventors’ Day! #loop #magic #IWantToInvent vine.co/v/bvPAd0dd1W3 — General Electric (@generalelectric) February 12, 2013

How It Works

Instagram gave brands invaluable power in 2012 by allowing them to give their consumers a behind-the-scenes look into their company culture. People feed off visual stimulation. By following in Instagram’s successful footsteps, Vine doesn’t have to face the initial getting started battle that it’s photo-based predecessor did. If users want to see your brand’s behind-the-scenes photo content, chances are they’ll want to see it in video format. Like Instagram photos, your six-second Vine videos can act as ads. If you’ve just put out a new product, you can easily upload a cleverly edited six-second video about it. Let’s say you had just created the Magic Bullet. You could shoot a video using Vine’s pause/resume feature and show how to make a smoothie from scratch using the product. Instead of having to pay for valuable ad or commercial space, you’ve now created six free seconds of video content for all of your Vine, Facebook and Twitter followers to see. Vine is linked to the two social media giants, so with a click of a button you can share your videos on each platform. In no time at all, your Vine video can be seen by hundreds of thousands (or millions) of followers without ever cutting into your marketing budget.

From the past to present, the labels tell the story of our 1969 jeans.#denimevolved vine.co/v/bvP0zgpe9Oa — Gap Canada Official® (@GapCA) February 12, 2013

What About Analytics?

Vine doesn’t offer any analytics yet. The thing is, the videos play over and over again until you pause them, so would a video views analytics feature even be of any use? Considering Vine is only three weeks old, we’re hoping that they’ll offer analytics as they grow. It would be great for marketers to have a way to see who’s viewing their videos, how often they’re being watched and what their most and least popular content has been. For now, the video recording tool is as basic as they come. You can pause and resume video filming, but there’s no way to edit the video or its sound. In other words, you have to be seriously creative marketer if you want to engage your audience.

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We love the endless potential that Vine offers to social media marketers, but we think it would have significantly more value if it provided analytics. You’ll never know how much reach your carefully planned out six second videos will have until then. In the meantime, we’ll be working on mastering our filming skills.

Much like Alicia Silverstone and Stacey Dash, I was clueless. 

To spread the SEO knowledge and love, I wanted to write a how-to post to teach you, my fellow social media marketing bloggers (and bloggers in general!), the basics. What use is it to publish incredible content if it’s not going to be seen by anyone? In case you’re in the dark as to what SEO is, it stands for search engine optimization – the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in search engine results. SEO considers how search engines work, what people look for and which keywords help your content get found. While a 200 page book could easily be written on the subject, I’ve narrowed the information influx down to a few key points that’ll get you acquainted with the basics.

 1. Write Relevant Content

The first step in optimizing your search engine results is to write high-quality content that will engage your audience. It’s hard to fool Google, Bing or other search engine giants. Quality trumps quantity. If you’re thinking of posting a new image to your blog every day with a quick caption typed underneath it, think again. Google looks for substantial sources of information, not short sentences. You’ll get nailed if your writing is riddled with mistakes, so keep your spelling, structure and grammar in check. Avoid bullet points and excessive use of symbols.

It’s true. 

When linking to other content (including your own posts), make sure to title your link accordingly instead of writing “click here”. If you’re trying to fool search engines, realize that you’ll lose rank or be banned if they catch on – which they inevitably will. Writing a blog post that has nothing to do with your post title, keywords and metadata is a golden ticket to being search engine blacklisted. Above all, don’t get caught up in publishing content that revolves purely around keywords. You’re writing for a human audience, not a machine. It’s better to put out an interesting post that focuses on three or four keywords, with reasonable competition, than a dry post centered on twelve.

 2. Keywords Are Your Best Friend

Keywords are inserted into content in order to get it found. When people use search engines to look for terms such as “social media marketing” or “social media ROI,” they’ll be shown results that reflect those keywords. The catch here is that you have to opt for keywords that have healthy search volume, reasonable competition and are relevant to your post or offering. How are you supposed to know which ones fit that criteria? Google has a keyword search tool that should become your best friend. If 100,000 people are looking for “Facebook company page” every month, chances are your post about it isn’t going to get found if you’ve used that term as one of your keywords. However, if you’ve selected “Source Metrics Facebook page” as a keyword, you could jump right up the search engine ranks due, in part, to a lower level of competition.

Keywords, like Winona Ryder’s friends in The Heathers, can make or break you.

Google’s tool also gives you variations on the keyword you’ve searched for in order to optimize results. If your keywords are indexed on too many pages in the search engine results, your content isn’t likely to come up anytime soon. The tool will give you all the information you need to figure out which ones will benefit you. Putting one or more of your keywords in the first paragraph of your text is a good idea for search engines to easily take notice of your precious webpages.

3. Avoid SEO Faux Pas

Classic black hat SEO moves like link exchange, link farming, buying likes, keyword stuffing and keywords hidden on the screen are huge faux pas. I won’t bother explaining them any further: don’t use them. No matter how enticing a slick trick to garner immediate likes and boost your search engine ranking short-term might sound, you’ll feel the consequences of your actions later on when Google bans you from its results altogether.

Don’t turn into an SEO criminal. 

When inserting images into your post, make sure to title them accordingly instead of leaving them in the “DSC1789.jpg” format you may have downloaded them in. If you were adding an image of a black poodle to your post, title it as “black-poodle” in the image title section within your blogging photo tool. That way, if Google users are hunting for black poodles in image search, they may inadvertently stumble upon your blog post. Not changing photo titles is a big faux pas, as you’re automatically blocking off another way to be found.

4. Categories And Tags

Categories are pre-designated areas for you to group your carefully written blog posts together in. If you’re going to be writing about food often, create a category for it. When people read your content and want to hunt for more of your recipes or weight loss tricks, they can click on the food category and have all of your past gastronomical writings at their disposal. When they want to switch it up and read about your gardening tips, they’ll click on that category.

Think of how art is organized into wings and collections within a museum. Categories are the wings of your blog, while tags are the collections. 

Tags work similarly to categories in that they can lead visitors to other content you’ve written. Instead of acting as an overall classifying tool for posts as categories do, tags reference certain subject topics within the post’s text. If you’re discussing chocolate cake for one paragraph of the post, you can use chocolate cake as a tag – which people can then click on and get linked to other cake concoctions you’ve blogged about in the past. Categories and tags are important for SEO purposes because they can build a focused page around a particular topic area. Each new post that you tag with a particular keyword will help to build up that tag’s page authority for the chosen keyword. If you write numerous high quality posts over time, your tag and category pages can start to rise in search engine rankings, bringing you valued web traffic.

You went through the trouble of baking a chocolate cake for your blog post, now go through the trouble of making sure that the post gets search engine optimized.

5. Pay Attention To Metadata

Metadata was probably the scariest element of SEO for me. My arts-trained brain immediately had an anxiety attack at the mention of meta and data within the same word. Little did I know how useful it would prove to be. Most CMS (content management systems) like WordPress and Drupal offer an SEO plug-in that’ll enable you to change the SEO title and description of your post. It’s a great feature, because your on-site title (which readers will see) can have some flexibility while your SEO title (hidden title primarily used for search engines) gets to the nitty-gritty of using valuable keywords to describe your post in 65 characters. In that same plug-in, you’ll type out the keywords found within your text. For the longest time, I had no idea how to differentiate between tags and keywords. To keep it simple, until you’re a true SEO pro, use the same keywords as the ones you’ve written out in the tags section.

I promise it’s not rocket science.

Your meta description, a.k.a Google snippet, should be a brief summary of what your text is about using a maximum of 145 characters. In short, metadata is what search engines scour first before looking at your actual post title and content. Your SEO title and description will give Google a clear indication of what your article is about in order for it to be ranked accordingly. You can try to tamper with your ranking by inserting keywords into your metadata without putting them into your actual text, but remember that you’ll get caught. Abide by the SEO rules and search engines will reward you with ranking results.

What Constitutes A Great Landing Page?

• Every landing page should have a unique selling proposition describing exactly what you’re about in a quick, to the point sentence.
• Add photos of your service and demo videos to the mix and you’ll be sure to grab an audience’s attention.
• Instead of simply listing your product or service’s features, try writing about it in a way that will show people how they’ll stand to benefit from it.
• Forms are one of the most important elements of a landing page, as they capture leads. The more enticing the form, the more likely people are to click on it, pass along their information and sign up to find out more about what you have to offer.
• People need to believe that you’re a legitimate business if they’re going to buy your product or service. Using trust elements such as client testimonials and press appearance logos on your landing page immediately lends your company clout.
• Give people incentives for giving you their personal information. Use your form as a way to collect their contact details, yet reward them with a white paper or a free demo in return.

Landing Pages We Like

1. BarackObama.com

President Obama’s landing page’s simple and clear design got straight to the point and asked visitors whether or not they’d be voting Obama-Biden in the 2012 election (a unique selling proposition). By getting users to provide their e-mail address and zip code in the “Are You In?” form, marketers ingeniously managed to gain more intel on how many people were projected to be voting for the Democratic party and where they resided within the US. They also incorporated a video to really hammer their point home. A+.

2. Foodzy

While BarackObama.com and Foodzy may initially look similar, they have two different purposes. Foodzy cleverly inserts options to connect with the site on Facebook and Twitter (trust elements) to gain more followers before they go live. They also offer an option for visitors to request an invite (form), so that once they do launch they’ll have built a user base within the site. Their graphics are uncluttered and straight-forward: you immediately know the site revolves around food. A major flaw with many landing pages is that they’re not at all indicative of what the application is about – which is definitely not the case here.

3. Groupon

We love this landing page because it makes it almost impossible for visitors not to want to confirm their city and see the deals within it (reward for contact information exchange), which inevitably leads to a percentage of visitors signing up and joining Groupon. The photos and graphics are on point, with the e-mail form sitting on the right of the page for easy, clutter-free access.

4. ShipmentApp

ShipmentApp’s landing page breaks most of the usual rules with the exception of one – the presence of incredible graphics. We came across it while looking for examples for this post and had to include it based on its well-designed, vibrant image of passengers boarding a ship with a woman waving them inside. While most landing pages without a clear selling proposition would deter visitors, Shipment App’s makes you want to find out more. When only using fantastic imagery and a form are done right as seen here, sometimes the other criteria just don’t matter.

5. Shopify

Shopify’s landing page hits the nail on the head and follows every recommended step perfectly. Their page features a clear unique selling proposition, demo video, a form that offers visitors a 14-day free trial incentive, examples of established Shopify stores, a blog, pricing and resources. We love it!

1.  Think Visually

With the introduction of Facebook and Twitter cover photos in 2012, 2013 is a better time than any to ensure that your brand or business is making a visual impact. A strong, bold image makes an immediate impression on anyone visiting the page and can help your brand build upon its social identity. Are you a retail chain? Consider updating your cover photo with an image of your new collection on a seasonal basis. If platforms are giving your business an opportunity to customize its page, take advantage of it. Canadian fashion blog The Coveteur changes their cover photo daily!

A sample of one of the Coveteur’s ever-changing cover photos. 

2. Find Networks That Matter

Now that it’s 2013 and you’ve got a wide variety of social platform giants at your disposal, which ones do you choose to publish content onto? If you’re a social media analytics company like we are, you might not initially turn to Pinterest to carry out your marketing strategy. However, don’t be so quick to discount platforms without trying them out. Test each of them until you find one or more that stick. We’ve seen B2B companies take Pinterest by storm with a variety of interesting graphs, charts and images. Hotel chains’ photos of tantalizing locations around the globe are also likely to be pinned and repinned across the popular site.

The Four Seasons hotel chain has a Pinterest page that showcases their locations around the world, as well as other images that inspire them. 

While social media analytics and the hospitality industry are two seemingly opposite business entities, Pinterest works well for both of them in different ways. Finding the social networks that work best for you is key to optimizing the content you push out and making sure it gets seen. Vigilantly monitoring your restaurant chain’s Google+ account, for instance, might not pay off as much as giving away prizes to the Foursquare mayors of your business’ locations. But you won’t know if either works unless you try.

3. Push Out Video Content

2012 was the year of photo content. While Facebook still plays host to the largest photo collection in the world, its acquisition Instagram blew up in its own right this past year and grew to become the most popular picture application on mobile. If 2012 saw such a quick spike in photo content growth, chances are people are going to be looking for something equally as engaging in 2013 – and predictions across the social media world are gravitating towards video content. Behind-the-scenes photos from megabrands like Starbucks have seen great popularity on Instagram, so why not follow that lead and start generating brand-centered video content for when the trend inevitably kicks in this year? Film around your office, interview your employees or clients and give viewers a glimpse into the inner workings of your business. Just remember, nobody likes to look at an obvious ad placement or blatantly self-promotional material.

 We’ve got a crush on Wistia, a video analytics company that consistently puts out incredible behind-the-scenes videos about themselves. 

4. Get On The Social Media Analytics Bandwagon

There’s no excuse to not be using analytics in 2013. If you’re being handed a tool to gather data from your various social media outlets in order to analyze customer sentiment and optimize your business, why wouldn’t you use it? Whether you want to increase revenue, measure customer engagement, reduce costs, get feedback or improve your brand’s image, social media analytics is the tool that can help you achieve your goals. As a social media marketer, it’s imperative that you start using analytics this year – if you haven’t already. While getting familiar with the tool and learning how to use it may seem daunting, your business will reap its benefits once you’ve got it down packed. Let the numbers guide you!

Think before you post. Using analytics will help you measure audience sentiment so you can put out content your followers will actually be interested in.

5. Get Organized And Get Interesting

Relying purely on Facebook posts and tweets to carry out your marketing strategy in 2013 is a big no-no. Look beyond the basics and get creative. While we understand that some of the new players like Google+ and Pinterest may still be daunting to turn to when running a campaign, you’re going to have to get original if you choose to stick with traditional platforms. Your first step is to get organized. Great ideas are built on a solid foundation. You’ll only be able to start measuring and thinking creatively once your building blocks like tracking and optimization have been put into place – which you can easily set up by using social media analytics, as mentioned in point number 4.

Cadbury’s giant Facebook “like” thumb, set up as part of their interactive social media campaign in 2012.

For some inspiration, take a cue from Cadbury – who decided to think outside of the box and put an interesting spin on getting its brand to reach one million Facebook fans in 2012. While the obvious goal was to increase the number of the brand’s followers on the most popular social platform in the world, the way in which they carried it through was interesting. Setting out to build a giant Facebook “like” thumb out of pieces of its chocolate bar Dairy Milk, Cadbury used teaser ads to build up to the event, then live streamed it from a studio decorated with user-generated content and photos. Once the stream was live, the brand’s marketing team responded in real time to visitor requests and comments. While Cadbury chose to use a traditional medium like Facebook to host its campaign as opposed to one of the newer options, it put an interesting spin on it and avoided boring its fans. As a result, more than 350,000 people were actively involved in the campaign and the brand gained 40,000 new Facebook fans. Use the social platforms at your disposal and get creative. You won’t get very far by writing the occasional tweet asking how your followers’ days are going.

In the beginning, it was enough to just be present on different social media channels. Today, big brands have invested large portions of their social media marketing budgets to support their platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and others. When an integrated campaign invests a portion of its budget toward social marketing, there needs to be a planning and measuring framework put in place.

A Social Listening Overview

Most recently, there’s been a focus on what most social media marketers call “listening.” Listening is the process of identifying and assessing what’s being said about a company, individual, product or brand online. Whether you’re searching for brand mentions or brand sentiment analysis, there are infinite things to be listening for. Listening is an important part of any marketer’s overall social media analytics strategy and can help improve campaigns as well as build customer relationships. One would think that listening would help drive actions of marketers, but that’s not always the case.

Listening is important, and most companies start by searching for brand mentions and collecting Facebook likes and Twitter followers. However, these same companies often don’t act on any of the information. This is only the first step of a social analytics strategy. Marketers need to go beyond passively collecting and monitoring data to making sense of all this information; leading them to become socially intelligent.

What Is Social Intelligence?

Zach Hofer-Shall of Forrester analysis technologies defines it as…

“The management and analysis of customer data from social sources, used to activate and recalibrate marketing or business programs”

Basically what it means is that by monitoring social media and collecting/analyzing the content found within it, you’ll gain insight to develop a strategy. By combining listening with marketing measurement, marketers are able to make future decisions on a campaign by campaign basis.

It’s not worth your time to dig through a spam-filled search result for your brand. Instead, you should be thinking about how you can translate this information to help you drive marketing decisions.

Your Social Intelligence Strategy

If you want to start working on your social intelligence strategy, there’s one thing that is of utmost importance: bringing all of your social marketing activities to one place. This includes listening, publishing, monitoring and analytics. You can’t tie any of your actions together if you’re using them independently. By bringing these important functions under one roof, social marketers are able to have a holistic view of their social media campaigns. You’re able to see what content is being shared the most, how many clicks its received and if it’s being mentioned anywhere on the Web. Most importantly, you’ll gain the ability to tie the information you cultivate to a specific campaign in order to analyze its results, then benchmark it against other competitors’ campaigns.

This is just the first step of getting set up for social intelligence dominance! If you’re looking for a step-by-step guide on getting started, check out our white paper on creating a social intelligence strategy.