April | 2011 | Warren Knight Blog

BlogPosts from April, 2011

Harnessing the power of Social Media: Keeping your fans hooked

As every successful blogger knows, you need a Facebook fan page: one that encourages fan engagement – whether through posts, likes or recommends. But a really successful fan page needs the dedicated attention that a lone blogger can’t always provide – until now.

Scheduling automated updates and posts might seem fraught with potential disaster, but it shouldn’t. Today’s tools make it a breeze, and combined with a few invaluable tips (which, naturally, we’ll tell you) you’ll literally be able to do it in your sleep.

First of all – use Hootsuite to schedule your updates. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is not just to maintain your Facebook page, but other social media sites like Twitter, and keep your audience engaged.

Hootsuite will also get rid of those pesky problems with appearance – if you’ve ever woken up to find your carefully constructed post has been mangled by RSS Graffiti or Social RSS, then it’s time to switch.

Next, consider carefully the best time to post. You might have fans across the globe, but if you’re only posting at one time, half of them will be tucked up in bed. So think about your target audience and make sure they are prioritised.

Effectively segmenting your audience will also help – for example, if you have a fan base in the UK and the US, a message tailored to the US audience for when the UK are offline, and vice versa, will keep you on the ball. But don’t update several times in a row – you’ll just encourage ‘like’ fatigue in your fans.

And finally, because fan page are about encouraging two-way conversation, make sure your posts are conducive to this! Ask questions, make a witty comment or quote – you are looking for active responders, rather than just passive listeners.

Harnessing the power of Social Media: Tweet your way to Traffic

A social media phenomenon, Twitter has become the way to communicate your messages to your audience quickly, cheaply and effectively – whether you’re promoting your brand, or commenting on the latest debate. As a way to generate traffic, its potential is immense – but only if you’re using that potential to the full.

Chances are, you’re not. So we’re on hand to help with some handy tips and techniques.

Same, same but different. Don’t just retweet – rephrase, reword, rethink. Tailor them to specific audiences, even if each different tweet lands on the same page. Perhaps you’ve written an article on PCs vs Macs. Want to lure in your PC advocates? Focus on the PC aspect of your article: ‘Why PCs are better than Macs – hear the evidence’. Want to appeal to Mac affiliates? The other way round works fine. Or pick out things from your words that will appeal to niche groups. Do you talk about memory banks and back-up systems in the article? Construct a tweet that appeals to them.

Tweet time. Is there an ‘ideal’ time to tweet? Naturally you might assume that it’s the time when Twitter is at its top flow, rather than when it’s ebbing. You’d be right – but also wrong. There are benefits to tweeting at the low points – your tweet stays on the timeline for much longer. Use tools to help you schedule your Twitter activity – you want to be reliable and consistent.

Build your network. @ mentions and messaging can help you benefit from wide-reaching twitter networks and influencers, promoting your links with the added advantage of word of mouth support.

Give something back. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking all your tweets have to sell or push yourself, your product or service – be a good social community member. A bit of advice, a humorous comment, that make people interested in and enjoy your Twtter chat will also make them more receptive to your promotional tweets.

Go ahead – try them out! Happy tweeting, for happy traffic!

Harnessing the power of Social Media: what is your social capital?

Ever seen a friend ‘check in’ to Pizza Express on Facebook and through – I could do with an Il Padrino with extra anchovies right about now?

One consequence of social media is the increase in social influence. Every Tweet or Facebook post consciously or unconsciously has an impact on those around us, whether in thought, behaviour or actions. The more weight, or influence, you carry in this arena, the more you have what is now termed as ‘social capital’. And to add to the pressure – we’re now scored on it.

Eminent Harvard political scientist Robert D Putnam believes social capital can be measured by ‘trust and reciprocity’ between peers and within communities, but as abstract, subjective concepts it’s hard to see what that looks like – especially digitally. But it can be done – and online companies are springing up to help people do it.

Klout, for example, measures influencers on topics across the social web – from Barack Obama to Korea, photography to Libya – and gives them a Klout score from 1-100. This is based on factors like the size and combined influence of your engaged audience and the actions your activity generates (such as tweets, likes and comments). So, essentially, they know what they’re talking about, what everyone else is talking about, and whether they’re talking about you.

So how can you improve your social capital? Two top tips are:

Look at your strategy. Or if you don’t have one, devise one. All content – every tweet, post, comment, recommend or like – should be part of your bigger picture. How does it shape the social persona you want to portray? Is that hasty tweet going to support all your hard work – or undermine it? Think about where you want to be in the world of social media and the strategy you need to get there.

Taking it to the next level. Not happy with the rung you’re sitting on, on the ladder of social influence? You can only get higher with a helping hand from those around you. The key to social interactions is engagement, increasing not only your social value, but that of the people and communities you engage with. See your activity in terms of investing in the value of the areas you operate in, rather than in terms of boosting your own standing, and you’ll reap the rewards.

Social capital in the only currency that counts in the social media world. Invest wisely.

35 Creative Facebook Fan Page Photo Strips

I loved this article so much by Jason Keath, found of Social Fresh I decided to share it with you.

If Facebook were still in college, it would be that friend that could never settle on a major. Switching every semester. Facebook is consistently changing things up on us marketers, for better or worse.

I hesitate to say this, but it looks like Facebook may have finally found a major it could stick to. Last month Facebook pages went through big changes. Many of which were long requested from businesses and well received – definitely a change for the dominant social network.

One change that caught many by surprise and has made a big visual impact on Facebook pages was the new photo strip.

The current photo strip for the Social Fresh Facebook page looks like this:

Not too many businesses are actively using the photo strip in any way. The default view are your most recent 5 photos. But there is an opportunity to do much more with a little creativity and work.

We wanted to highlight some of the companies that are already taking advantage of this feature and let you in on the technical details for creating a branded photo strip on your own Facebook Page.

How To Create A Branded Facebook Page Photo Strip

These are some simple steps and rules to follow to create your own simply branded photo strip:

1. Image Choice: Decide on 5 images that work in random order. The key difference between personal profile photo strips and the ones on your Facebook page is you cannot change the order.

2. Image Size: These images are horizontal and scaled to 97 X 68 pixels. So either create them at that size or make sure they scale and crop well at that size.

3. Create Photo Album: Create an image album specifically for your photo strip to keep them separate from other content.

4. Upload Images: Add your 5 images here, upload them, and they will automatically load into your photo strip as the most recent uploads. Decide whether you want to publish the images or not for fans to comment on the update.

5. Upkeep Images: Keep it clean. When you add other images to the wall or other photo albums, you will need to X out those images to bring all 5 photo strip images back into view.

35 Creative Facebook Page Photo Strips

And now for a few great examples.

1. Pringles

Pringles is first for a reason. This is probably one of the best photo strip executions I have seen. The product is there. The branding is consistent. And

2. Oreo

3. Toys-r-us

Playful, fun and full of sunshine.

4. The Daily Show

It’s a real news show, with attitude, and jokes.

5. How I Met Your Mother

Lot’s of TV shows, especially cartoons, are using the photo strip to display characters, but not many have framed them as well as How I Met Your Mother.

6. Abercrombie & Fitch

Abercrombie sells clothes. I swear.

7. Calvin Klein

Half naked photos of young models in black and white. Not even sure the ck logo was needed, but the branding definitely is there.

8. Gap

Fall… in… to… the… Gap’s neutral colored clothing.

9. Target

Why not get some branding AND some useful hypnotizing done all at once?

10. GMC

This page just spills Big Manly Truck all over your browser.

11. Victoria’s Secret

Sexy? Yes. Of course, it is a lingerie brand. But the images they use also echos a little fun and attitude, even more so with the “Hi Georgeous!” text.

12. Microsoft Office

While the “customer” featured in the profile photo looks bored out of her mind, the photo strip features the Office product brands clearly and reminds you what Office can do.

13. Redbox

Big geek points for featuring Tron, but, in general, featuring current products labeled as “new releases” works well.

14. Buick

Some really nice living photos here. They are just great creative images that have life in them.

15. Tide

All branding, all Tide.

16. Lexus

This page whispers style, class, and a quietly powerful vehicle.

17. Verizon

Simple photos of products and features.

18. Chevrolet

Some of the best product shots I have seen in the photo strip were the Chevrolet examples below. Consistent, well framed, and clear labels of their current product line.

19. AT&T

Simple white background product shots that also echo the AT&T branding.

20. Kohl’s

Lots of lifestyle love here, strong brand commercial images that fit well in the photo strip.

21. Mitt Romney

The branding does not necessarily beg for any awards, but the reminders of Twitter, Youtube, and Mobile are unique. Plus a photo of Romney celebrating 800,000 fans.

22. M&M’s

Hello brand characters, so cute… cute enough to eat some might say.

23. BMW

Epic product images here. Buy a BMW and get your futuristic luxury machine.

24. Windows Phone

Simple Windows products, cool icons, show the full Windows ecosystem.

25. Apple App Store

Featuring popular products is a simple and great use of the photo strip.

26. Old Navy

Simple, fun images from Old Navy commercials.

27. Snickers

They are definitely going for “good enough to eat” here. Love the clear spotlight on their new product with plenty of tasty, branded images framed well for the photo strip.

28. Mike Huckabee

I can’t say the branding is much to look at, but the effort and message is there, along with a call to action.

29. Volkswagen

Beep beep. Classic and modern product photos of a classic brand.

30. Rosetta Stone

Simple international faces “speak” to the brand’s purpose well. Buy our product and know what the heck you are saying when you travel the world.

31. Hubspot

Not much branding effort here, but their consistently horizontal graphs show up well and represent the company and their wealth of data well.

32. Laughing Cow Cheese

Simple photos of recipes using their products. For people looking to eat healthier, this is exactly what they are after.

33. Footlocker

Shoes, shoes, shoes. The cool part is the profile photos and photo strip photos all change to feature current products in their stores.

34. Bob Marley

We’re Jammin’.

35. McDonald’s

McDonald’s decides to focus on the toppings for the burger instead of the burger itself.

Harnessing the power of Social Media: Tools for School

Struggling to understand the social media phenomenon, and how it relates to your B2B marketing? Sorry to break it to you, but 80% of your efforts can be alleviated by the services and tools available to you – if you know where to look. And if you don’t, don’t worry. We’ve trawled the net and found the top tools for you:

Salesforce for Twitter

Pull in and monitor Twitter feeds and accounts within the web-based CRM giant Salesforce.com. Follow up leads and generate cases based on a tweet in the CRM, and the fully integrated platform lets you monitor and evaluate them with your regular workflow.

Hootsuite

Manage multiple Twitter accounts, Facebook, LinkedIn and WordPress blogs, and set up multiple access for your people. Post messages across different social networks, track stats and receive alerts. Oh, and don’t pay anything – it’s free!

Co-Tweet

A CRM tool that offers the same benefits as Hootsuite, but specifically for Twitter. You can also keep an eye on trends and keywords to generate leads. Also free, unless you want the enterprise option used by the likes of Ford and Jetblue – a *cough* snip at $1500 per month.

SocialTALK

A definite must-have, use this tool to control your presence across various platforms. Scheduling posts, monitoring traffic, feedback and analysis and managing user access all become a breeze – particularly as everything is available on one user-friendly dashboard.

Radian6 (Now owned by Salesforce)

This genius little tool doesn’t wait for your customers to come to you – it trawls the social media world listening to online tweets, posts and blogs and tells you when someone is in need of your product or service. Integrate it with Salesforce.com for maximum lead generation.

Spredfast

Starting at $50 a month, Spredfast offers most of the services above but also throws in metric reporting and tracking so you can see what methods are working and which aren’t, and keep an eye on other industry or competitor sites.

Social Radar

It’s strengths lie in its social monitoring and analysis capability, and alerts you to conversation fluctuations, topics from key influencers and sentiment analysis. Pricey at $200 a month but if your reach in the social media world is extensive, it could be exactly what you need to stay on top.

TruPULSE

As well as tracking conversations, topics and keywords like Radian6, it also follows the tone and perceptions of a brand so you know how actual and potential customers are feeling about your product. It also has the great monitoring potential of Social Radar, flagging crisis and customer service issues so you can step in and save the day.

Viralheat

Another monitoring and analytics service that also includes viral video stats, it differentiates itself with the additional service by allowing you to target profiles by location, and by having its own API that means you can integrate it into other business solutions.

Sentiment metrics

This is where you can really dig deep! You might have 300 Twitter mentions, but what does that mean? By tracking the in-depth discussions on forums and blogs, you can get a clearer, detailed picture of your service or product and its impact on social media communities.

With so many tools available to you on today’s worldwideweb, which one is your favourite?

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