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Can Facebook come up with one original idea! OMG, like seriously!

Facebook has always wanted to edge in on Twitter’s Interest Graph.

The idea is, it’s a boon for ad dollars, as Twitter’s real-time stream taps into the immediate sentiment of the crowd. Facebook’s Friend Graph, while powerful, isn’t designed for immediacy.

At least, not yet. As was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal, and as I’ve verified through sources of my own, Facebook plans to launch its own Linkify’d version of the hashtag, allowing users to connect common themes and trending topics around the social network by adding the simple hashtag symbol to a status update. Clicking through sends a reader down a rabbit hole of information, all connected to the hashtag being followed.

“We don’t comment on rumors and speculation,” Facebook told AllThingsD.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Facebook already hinted at something like this at its News Feed redesign event last week. Breaking up the entire feed into separate verticals — like photos, music, and the entiresharing stream instead of only some shares — was the most Twitter-y thing Facebook has done yet. I’m surprised they didn’t introduce the linked hashtags throughout the service at the News Feed event.

But drilling down on the hashtag specifically is a direct affront to Twitter, potentially dipping into Twitter’s valuable ad dollar territory.

Look at it this way: Imagine the power, Twitter would say, of an advertiser sticking an ad in a user’s face at the exact time they want to see it. If a user follows a hashtag about, say, #desserts, a company like Hostess could sell ads against anyone who searches that hashtag, sticking a promoted tweet for their delightful pink Sno-Balls in front of everyone following the hashtag. It’s a practice that’s slowly catching on for the advertisers who can understand it (but not every brand is totally up to speed on how to best advertise on Twitter).

Facebook, on the other hand, can’t tap into that trending sentiment quite as effectively. While the company does attempt to place relevant ads in the News Feed and lower-right-rail to reach its users, it would do better to let people dig deeper into trends across categories. So blatantly ripping off Twitter makes some sense here.

And Facebook has hinted that this could be a reality for the site. In January, the company debuted Graph Search, the nascent way of digging deep into Facebook by making connections through the Friend Graph. Also, Instagram has used hashtags for some time, though that seems to have grown out of the language of Twitter.

Essentially, edging in on Twitter’s advertising territory by offering a better way to connect ads to users could spell trouble for Twitter.

But there’s a glass-half-full way of looking at this.

One of Twitter’s largest issues has been its difficulty translating just how normal people are supposed to use the hashtag in the first place. When on-boarding new users, they’re faced with a litany of “at symbols” and hashtags, a language of Twitter’s own that isn’t immediately clear. Not to mention the difficulty of letting users know how to use hashtags effectively in search and discovery; right now, Twitter’s search and discovery tab has improved, but it has long been terrible.

So Facebook’s widespread adoption of this language could actually bring the lexicon to the masses, essentially introducing a billion newbies to a gnarly language — one which Twitter is still trying to figure out how to introduce to users.

Remember, Twitter: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Just hope that this rip-off is to your advantage.

Source:allthingsd.com


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Factory

This is part 1 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

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It isn’t what you’re saying on social media that has the biggest effect on your business. It’s what others are saying about you that makes the true impact.

I’ve used those words in various forms since 2008. It’s become a cliche in my own mind because I have to say it so often; many businesses we talk to haven’t gained that understanding by the time we have our consultation even today in 2013. It’s not their fault. The social media marketing industry is challenged with laziness in many ways. Building brand ambassadors is hard work so many “gurus” prefer to stick with what they can do easily, namely posting random things and pushing for likes, retweets, +1s, repins, and other components of social media promotions that are useful but that aren’t as important as they lead their clients to believe.

There are three truths that need to be understood about social media marketing:

  • It’s a communication tool more than it’s a broadcasting tool.
  • Getting others to talk about your business in a positive manner is the most powerful thing that can happen to influence your business through social media.
  • It isn’t as hard as most think but it takes more effort than most are willing to allocate.

The easy road is to post interesting or entertaining images, text, video, or links. The more fulfilling road is to play outside of your own profiles, to make your social profiles a conduit rather than a hub, and to do the things that encourage the customers or clients who love your products, services, or ways of doing business to advocate for you online.

It’s about building ambassadors, and as inhumane as this may sound, you should be building a brand ambassador factory. Sounds creepy. Almost makes it seem like an allusion to Soylent Green. Thankfully, we don’t have to turn our customers into feed in order to make this work. We simply have to make them happy and give them the opportunities and prompting to tell the world that they love you.

The processes to do this differ from business to business. There are too many moving parts from one industry to another and from one store to another within the same industry to be able to post a roadmap or guide that would do justice to the topic, but over the next week I will be posting articles that give some general concepts to help you develop your own plan. The best way to stay on top of this (there will be much more written on this specific topic) and other social media marketing concepts is to subscribe to Soshable by Email.

More to come on this important topic very soon…

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The Importance of Brand Ambassadors

Loving Her Car

This is part 2 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

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We’ve all heard the cliches.

  • “Build raving fans!”
  • “Word of mouth is the best form of advertising!”
  • “Delight your customers!”

These sayings would start to get really annoying if they weren’t 100% correct.

As I said in part 1 of this series, it isn’t what you’re saying about your brand on social media as much as it’s about what other people say. Unfortunately, many people only talk about a brand if they have something bad to say. To counter this from both a reputation perspective as well as an exposure perspective, brand ambassadors are the most important people in your public relations world as it pertains to social media.

Everyone already knows that you love your brand, that you believe in your product, and that you have the best of everything to offer your customers in your opinion. If you didn’t believe that, you wouldn’t be in business, so most claims by a company are not believed. Not every brand can be the best, but every brand claims to be the best. As a result, people go to two forms of outside sources to confirm or deny claims. They go to experts in many opinions – Roger Ebert has made and broken many movies with his words over the decades. The other place they go thanks to the power of social media and review sites is to their peers. What are other people who have already tried your brand, product, or services saying about you?

The presence of brand ambassadors is not just a matter of encouraging happy customers to write reviews. Reviews are great and extremely important, but there’s no real “skin in the game” when they post to these sites. They’re one within a group. If a company has 100 Google Local reviews, what’s one more added to the mix, at least from a customer’s perspective. It’s not a personal thing when someone posts to review sites.

Social media, on the other hand, is a personal thing. Those who take their social media seriously are much less likely to say something good about a brand. When they do, it actually means something. Their friends and family who already have an opinion about the person will take their recommendations on social media more seriously. This isn’t even taking into account Facebook Graph Search which has the potential to amplify this even more (we’ll see). This is simply looking at the state of social media today. If someone’s willing to say that they love your brand, product, or service on social media in general and Facebook in particular, it’s the most powerful review anyone can give you.

It’s the “skin in the game” that isn’t present on review sites.

If your company is actively building brand ambassadors, you’re  already seeing the amazing results. You’re hearing from your customers either through social media itself (“You were right, Bob. ABC Motors took great care of me, too!) or at the store itself. If you aren’t hearing about people coming to your store because they heard about your from a friend, you’re not building brand ambassadors. I’m not trying to use circular reasoning here. Just stating a fact. If you build brand ambassadors regularly on social media, you will hear about it at the store. It’s that simple.

In the next story, we will go into detail about how to identify potential brand ambassadors. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to Soshable by Email to get the full scoop on how to make the most out of your social media marketing efforts.

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How to Identify Potential Brand Ambassadors

Brand Ambassador

This is part 3 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

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Let’s assume, for a moment, that you have step one on the path to building your Brand Ambassador Factory covered. For those who don’t know, step one would be to make sure that your business is operating in a way that creates extremely happy customers and clients. There’s nothing I can say on this social media blog to help you there – run a good business and make people more than satisfied with the results you deliver. If you aren’t doing that, social media can’t fix it.

With the assumption that you’re running a good business out of the way, let’s move on to step two. You have to identify potential brand ambassadors. The initial requirement is easy – they have to like you. Unfortunately, it goes much deeper than that. Liking your business isn’t enough to make a brand ambassador. You have to look for other qualities to go along with it.

This is where stereotypes have to be thrown out. A hip 20-something isn’t necessarily addicted to their smartphone and Facebook. A 65-year-old grandmother isn’t necessarily still handwriting postcards to her grandchildren. You can’t identify a potential social media user without asking them. Once you start asking, you’re going to be surprised at the results.

Before you ask, you’ll want to make sure that your employees are prepared for the initiative. It is an initiative. To downplay it as something that you’re “playing with” or to isolate social media activity to a single person is a mistake. It takes every customer-facing employee at a company to really get the most benefit out of this. Have a meeting and even have everyone read this blog post first. It’s important that they get it before trying to sell them on the concept.

Here are some characteristics you’ll want to look for when determining whether or not to approach someone about being a brand ambassador for your business:

 

Social Media Brand Ambassadors are Social

This isn’t as much of a no-brainer as one might think. There are tons of shy people on social media. In fact, social media offers a venue for shy people to interact with their world from a safe distance which is part of its popularity. These shy people aren’t going to be brand ambassadors.

You want that person who can’t stop socializing. They are often talkative in person, sharing information without being asked. They will likely check their smartphone throughout a long transaction. If they grab it and take a peek every time it pings them with a new text message or Facebook update, they’re connected in all the right ways.

 

Social Media Brand Ambassadors are Friendly

We’ve all known that ever-connected person who is a total snob. Their profile is probably loaded with cynical comments, which are only slightly less cynical than what they say about people in real life.

Friendly people are much more likely to be brand ambassadors. They are the ones who carry an extra smile with them in case yours runs out of juice. They like you the moment they meet you and many people like them as a result.

This is an extremely important trait of a brand ambassador because these are the type of people who are willing to help you out when you ask. At the end of the day, very few people become a brand ambassador without prompting, which means that you want to identify those people who are willing to put their name behind a good experience they’ve had with a company. Remember, brand ambassadors are giving personal endorsements. It’s not like asking someone to post a positive review on Yelp. Getting them to post on their social media is a true endorsement. Since it’s a reflection of themselves that reaches their friends and family, it actually means something. It’s “skin in the game” which is why it’s so much more powerful than a simple positive review.

 

Social Media Brand Ambassadors are Extremely Satisfied

This is the moment of truth. Are they happy, and I mean really happy with your product or service? If they meet the first couple of criteria and they express extreme satisfaction with their transaction, you’ve found an ideal candidate to approach about being a brand ambassador.

You’ve done right by them and you could really use them to do right by you on social media. This is it. You’re about to get a real endorsement from a real person who is likely trusted by their friends and family.

* * *

In the next part of this series, we’ll discuss the ways to approach a potential brand ambassador and put them to work for you.

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Approaching a Customer

This is part 4 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

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You’ve made a customer extremely happy with their purchase and exceeded their expectations. They’re smiling, shaking your hand, and thankful that you earned their business. They show all of the signs of being a potential brand ambassador. Now, how do you actually convert them from happy customer to brand ambassador?

We’ve already established that it’s important. Now go for the post. Your goal is to turn this happy customer into someone willing to advocate for you online. It’s not about getting a review. Those are easy. Reputation management on review sites is an important activity, but save those conversations for those who aren’t going to post about your on their social profiles. Getting an endorsement on Facebook is much more useful than getting a review on Yelp (unless your Yelp score is poor, in which case you probably want to get that bumped up first).

To get someone to post about you on social media, there are two effective methods to try.

 

Give Them an Incentive

This is the easiest way. It’s also slightly less fruitful because they must divulge in their post that they received compensation. That’s okay. If done right, even divulging the “payment” can be turned into a positive thing.

First and foremost, don’t go straight for the close. Just like with any sales process, you have to sell them on the idea. This requires a little setup first. Try to catch them when they’re really happy. After they’ve just given your store a compliment is ideal. Then, ask them about their social media presence.

Here’s an example of a conversation:

  • Customer - “This has been the easiest car-buying experience I’ve ever had.”
  • Salesperson – “Thank you for saying so. We do business differently here because we want our customers to come back to us and recommend us to all their friends and family.”
  • Customer – “Yep, I’d definitely recommend you to my friends.”
  • Salesperson – “Are you on Facebook?”
  • Customer – “Of course.”
  • Salesperson – “Because we value our customers’ recommendations, we give them their first oil change for free when they post about their experience on Facebook.”
  • Customer – “That sounds good. I’ll post when I get home.”
  • Salesperson – “If you want to do it from your phone right now I can walk you through it. To give you the oil change, it has to be worded a certain way.”
  • Customer - “Okay. Let’s do it.”

The wording should be something like this: “I just had a great experience buying my new car at ABC Motors. They even gave me my first oil change for free just for posting this.”

That’s it. Of course, it’s not always that smooth of a conversation, but remember that even a handful of people per month can make an impact on future sales.

 

Give Them a Valid Reason

Similar to the incentive, the valid reason approach can be almost as effective. Done well, it can be even more effective because you’re asking for real endorsement without anything attached.

Use the talk track above but replace the oil change dialogue with something like this:

  • Salesperson – “One of the ways I’m judged on whether I’m delivering a great customer experience is by getting mention on Facebook. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate if you’d write something about us on Facebook through your smartphone while we wait for your car to get cleaned up.”

From there, it doesn’t matter how they post it. They aren’t required to divulge anything and we’ve seen that when customers are given complete freedom to advocate for you how they want, they’ll do a better job at it.

 

But that’s not all…

Getting a Facebook post is amazing. Unlike review sites, it exposes your brand and the experience you deliver to people through a trusted peer. It’s human nature to trust the advice of people we know more than strangers on review sites. These types of public endorsements show “skin in the game” as we’ve mentioned in previous articles. Review sites are made fine, but they aren’t broadcasting the message to the right people the way a Facebook endorsement works.

This is all great, but a true ambassador won’t stop there. This is where we get into the real ways that happy customers become the brand ambassadors that we need. We’ll discuss all of that in the next post in this series.

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Our Custom Video Player playing a video in facebook  complete with a visit us button.
Try it your self click play below.

Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. 
Sources For ROI with Social Media:
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"Social media participation is not something to be ignored or taken lightly. Aside from some of the older and more understood tactics and strategies affecting your SEO, great social media activity absolutely begets great SEO. This infographic simply explains several ways that social media has a direct impact on how fast and how effectively your social media activity improves your website’s SEO. Enjoy!"

Infographic source: Being Your Brand

Related :'Is anyone clicking on your tweets? 3 tips to make sure they do."

"If You Don’t Think Social Signals are Important for SEO, You Don’t Know Google Very Well"

Why Attend the Internet Sales 20 Group?

 

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Happy Customer

This is part 5 in a series about building brand ambassadors at the dealership. I'll be adding more parts later, but here is the series so far:

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You've gone through all the steps. You knew that we were going to be talking about brand ambassadors. You learned why they're important. We showed you how to identify them, then we discussed how to approach them. Now, it's time to wrap it up with the hardest part of them all. We're going to talk about how to sustain them as true brand ambassadors.

There's a difference between a person who leaves a nice comment on Facebook and someone who actually tells people they know about you. It's important to get that person to tell about their experience at your store on Facebook. It's amazing to make sure that that person is proactive in the future. If they were happy buying a car at your dealership today, we want them mentioning you when they see their friend three months from now saying on Facebook that they need a new car. That's the type of brand ambassadors that we want talking about us on social media.

It isn't easy. It requires a subtle approach, a light touch, but a persistent one. Here are three things you can do to take that happy customer who posted about you on Facebook to the next level.

 

Show Your Appreciation


No, I don't mean going on their Facebook post about you and saying "thanks!" You have to show true appreciation for their effort. You have to stand out above and beyond anything any other company has ever done for them.

There's a fine line between being appreciative and being an annoying stalker. This is why it's important to interact with a purpose. It should never be random. Show your appreciation at times when they least expect it, when you're not at the top of their mind, and in ways that require real effort and/or money.

One way to show appreciation is with a quick gift card sent on a handwritten envelope with a handwritten note inside.

"Hi Bob. I just wanted to check in on you to make sure you're enjoying your car and that you're still getting compliments from your friends. We appreciate that you posted on Facebook last month when you purchased it and we wanted to send you this $10 Starbucks gift card as a small token of our appreciation."

This can get them to post again about the gesture, but more importantly it reminds them of the over-the-top experience they received at the store. When their friends and family are looking, you want them to mention your store by name.

 

Let Them Know it Worked


Here's the thing, and it's arguably the hardest truth to convince businesses of until they see it for themselves. If an average Facebook user promotes your product, their message was seen and heeded by their friends and family. There is a good chance every single time you're mentioned on Facebook as giving someone an exceptional experience that someone amongst their friends and family will see this and act upon it.

When someone comes in and say, "I heard my cousin Bob that you guys took great care of him," you have to let Bob know. If you have a referral program, this is a no-brainer. If you don't have a referral program, refer back up to showing appreciation and reword the note that you send with the gift card.

Don't forget, it's not just about your business. People like helping their friends and family. Bob didn't just help you to make another sale. He helped his cousin Sally have the same great experience he had. Sally may or may not let him know, but either way you definitely want to let him know. Validate that he's an influencer and that he's important to his friends, family, and your business.

 

Highlight Them


This is optional and requires some work, but it's very useful when done right. On your website or through social media, take your brand ambassadors who have posted about you on Facebook and highlight their posts. This is best done in a group setting - individual highlights can be a bit creepy.

At whatever frequency is appropriate, post screenshots of all of your positive mentions. Make certain that there is text with the person's name if their name and posts are public on Facebook. If they aren't public, you don't want to mention their name.

Again, this is optional. In a way, it's a bit risky, but it's also a way to let people know on your website and Facebook page that you have a strong commitment to customer service.

* * *

It's not what you say about yourself on social media that matters. It's what others are saying about you. This is where the value is. This is how to move the needle.

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'Do you know the average click-thru rate for the tweets your brand sends? If not, you can easily find out here. According to the research, the average rate is a little more than 6 percent. While this may seem low, it's still higher than the industry average click-thru rate for banner ads, which is between 1 percent and 2 percent."

However, there are three steps you can take to help improve the click-thru rate of your brand's tweets, which will ultimately drive more traffic to your website:

1. Use your headline to pique interest and prove the value of your article.

One of the best pieces of advice I received when it comes to using Twitter is, "Don't tweet boring stuff." While this may seem obvious, many brands aren't sharing content in a way that piques the interest of their audience. The best way to connect with your audience with social media is to share content that will add value and enrich their lives. By enticing your followers with a line helps them believe that by clicking on the link, they will learn something valuable, you'll make sure that the tweets you're posting are interesting, engaging and "click worthy."

2. Find the right time to tweet.

Once you've identified the kind of content that resonates with your audience, the second step is to find when they will be most likely to see the tweet. By identifying the optimum time to send your tweet, you can ensure that you're sharing your content during the highest traffic time for your audience. There are some great apps that can help you identify the peak time for your specific brand, one being Buffer. Along the same lines, don't assume that just because you shared a link once, your entire audience saw it. If you want to drive traffic to a particular blog post, share the link multiple times throughout the day, intermingling it with your other content.

3. Optimize by measuring.

The only way to learn is to experiment. Maybe there'll be a certain time which people are really receptive. Maybe there's a certain topic that isn't resonating with your audience. As with any marketing tactic, you can't improve what you don't measure. Almost every social media tool offers some sort of analytics for its users. By measuring, you'll learn and optimize. And you'll make your tweets and content more engaging.

What tools are you using to improve the click-thru rate of your tweets? How have you seen it improve your overall traffic and sales?

Source: Guest Blogger-Nashville Business Journal

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Facebook Orphan

The image above shows the last four Facebook activities by a major car dealership in a metro area. Over three months ago, they abandoned their page. This could easily be a very long post where I go into details about how this is wrong on so many levels, but I'll keep it short because if you're reading this, chances are very strong that you're a savvy dealership that would never let this happen.

For the sake of education, I'll at least put a partial list together in case you're not absolutely sure why you shouldn't do this:

  • This page appears in the searches for the dealership by name on Google.
  • This is the page presented to people when they search on Facebook, Bing, and other search engines as well.
  • Abandoned pages can be easily spammed. If a spammer were to find this page, they could start posting links to their teeth whitening or adult-content gateway websites and have it appear at the top of the dealers' activity public activity feed. This is becoming a more common technique by spammers because they know that the business is not paying attention so the chances of them being reported to Facebook are slim.
  • A feed could be setup if absolutely necessary (I'll cover this more below).
  • Customers are posting on the page. Huge opportunities are being missed.

Let's cover the bottom two in a little more detail.

 

Last Resort: Feeds

If your dealership has no bandwidth to cover your social media and no budget to hire an automotive social media service, the absolute worst case scenario is to set up a feed to the page. This is something that I don't recommend to anyone who wants to be successful, but it's still better than abandonment.

You can use RSS Graffiti, Hootsuite, or any number of other services to pull in a feed and post on a regular basis to Facebook. This is a very poor strategy, but it's better than nothing.

 

Customers Can Post

This is the most disheartening part about the page above. Happy customers are talking. I've recently written five blog posts about the importance of developing brand ambassadors. This dealership has ambassadors waiting to be contacted. It's such a waste.

Here are those posts:

Happy customers that take the time to promote your dealership through their own Facebook profile should not be ignored. There's no excuse for this.

 

Don't Delete Them

There's a good chance that you'll have a Facebook presence whether you want to or not. Just because you delete your page doesn't mean that someone else can't toss one up for you. "Fan pages" are very common and if you don't have a page of your own that is outranking the fan pages, you risk letting others control what people see when they check you out on Facebook. Bad move.

Social media is about communication, so the ideas of using RSS feeds is not a good option. Every dealership needs to be watching, even if it's in the form of having the Internet Manager, GM, or owner receive an email when someone posts on the page. For most, this isn't a problem. The industry is realizing the importance of social. If you're not one of those, at least do the bare minimum to not completely fail. It takes no time. To turn your presence into an orphan is a big mistake.

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Social Ecosystem

There are still many in the search engine optimization industry that are fighting the concept that Google (and Bing) is taking social signals into account at a high level when determining search rankings.

These people fall into three categories:

  1. Those who haven’t had the ability or desire to test it. If you test it thoroughly, it becomes extremely clear that it’s real.
  2. Those who do not have the ability to generate and promote high quality, shareable content as part of their SEO strategy. If you can’t do it, you might as well pretend like it doesn’t exist.
  3. Those who have read the blog posts of either of the previous two and took the opinions as truth.

The reality is that, based upon extensive testing that we’ve been running (not to mention some of the things that Google has said over the last couple of years), social signals have a significant impact on the overall SEO of websites.

There’s another thing to consider, though, as pointed out by Search Engine Watch last month. Google is paying attention to social signals through Google Analytics. Some might say that it’s a natural addition to the service since people consider social media to be an important part of their overall marketing, but that’s simply not how Google works. If they add something to Analytics, it’s because they consider it to be important. There’s no need for them to track it if they aren’t considering it in some algorithm, and the most likely algorithm that social signals could effect is their search ranking algorithm.

When Google says something with their actions, it behooves those in SEO to listen. Are you listening?

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Never Waste a Facebook Post. Ever.

Waste

I’ve started hearing the second worst advice coming from social media “experts” that I’ve ever heard. It’s just a notch above “buy thousands of fans and followers” on the social media advice scale.

If someone tells you to “be sure to post something X-times a day on social media even if you have to throw something up.”

I know it’s bad advice. I used to give it. Thankfully, I learned my lesson before spreading the advice too far. It blows my mind that it’s still being given to unsuspecting clients today, though, because it has become pretty well-known that on many social media sites, Facebook in particular, a poor and wasteful post can actually do more harm than if you skip a post or two.

Quality is everything. EdgeRank (we’ll use the term for lack of a better word even though Facebook says it’s not reflective of the current algorithm yet they don’t give us a name for the new one – /rant) is extremely fickle, particularly for pages. You get limited opportunities to impress your fans and friends of fans. Any time you blow one of those opportunities through a wasted post, you’re actually harming the chance of future posts to perform.

In other words, every single thing that you post on Facebook should serve a very distinct purpose. Every single thing you post on Facebook should be of the highest possible quality. Every single thing that you post to Facebook must be something that does one of three things:

  • It conveys a relevant message that is well crafted, important enough to post to Facebook, and positioned in a way in which fans will not block you or report your post as spam.
  • It is entertaining, educational, or acts as a resource. It brings true value to the table for your fans, whether that value is life-saving information or just a quick, hearty chuckle.
  • It is a business-imperative message or link such as an event, a special (and I mean a true special such as the yearly Toyotathon, not a discount on your services that goes out every couple of weeks), or new product offering such as the opening of a body shop or the first 2014 Corvettes rolling off the truck.

There should be no filler posts. There should be no RSS feeds. There should be no integration of Tweets that land on your Facebook page (or visa versa). The difference between a page that carefully selects and crafts every single post versus one that tries most of the time but gets lazy sometimes is like night and day. Every single wasted post hurts the exposure of future posts. Conversely, every single outstanding post helps future posts see more daylight.

Our strategy is pretty simple in concept though a little complex in how it is applied. Here is a quick breakdown of each of the three types:

 

Relevant Message Posts

Relevant Message

There’s a mentality that goes into relevant message posts. It doesn’t have to be relevant to you. It definitely has to be relevant to your fans. In the example above, the message was extremely relevant for this Dallas car dealer. It was a couple of days before the make or break game for the Dallas Cowboys. One simple image faded in the background. One simple message. It was a message that was important to the fans, the vast majority of whom resided in the Dallas area.

Unfortunately for the fans of both the team and the dealership, the Cowboys lost, but it was still great of the company to show their support for the local team. Relevance is about your fans, your customers. It’s easiest to find relevant things to post about by staying in the local area or state. These messages should never be generic. They cannot be something that everyone else is posting. Put the effort in. In this case, the effort wasn’t a lot – find an image (make sure to credit the original source!) and put the relevant message on top of it. Simple, but effective.

 

Value Posts

Value Message

In the instance above, there are two things at play. The image is of a hot rod smoking the tires, but the message is talking about tire maintenance. There’s an opportunity to get two different kinds of likes as a result because it combines a great image with a useful message. The tip itself isn’t extraordinary, but it’s enough to get it a handful of likes even prior to promoting it on Facebook.

Entertain, educate, or both. That’s the mentality with these types of posts, and for many pages the strategy will dictate that these will be the most prevalent. Stick to your expertise and/or industry with these posts. There is a distinct temptation and even a common practice by many to try to revert to whatever is potentially popular. They’ll post funny images of cats. Avoid this practice. As hard as we may try to blend our pages into the whole Facebook mix by posting content that can be shared, when you go off topic you create a potential of missing the expectations of your fans. They may even feel a bit betrayed; if they’re going to follow a car dealer’s Facebook page, they expect to see cars. There are plenty of cats on Facebook already. No need to contribute unless you’re a veterinarian.

 

Business Message

Business Post

While it doesn’t always have to be a link, most business-imperative messages should either lead people to a destination or convey a message about the business that can be of interest. These are the posts that carry the most risk as people normally do not want to see marketing messages in their streams. It’s not uncommon for businesses to completely avoid these types of messages. That strategy can be valid, but with a little effort you can avoid the spam reports and unlikes by making sure the message is worthwhile to your fans.

In the case above that we just posted, we combine four different components (a lot in such a small post, I know, but that’s why it’s called “effort”). The car, of course, is stunning. It’s an actual dealership inventory piece rather than a generic image like the ones above. It carries a message or relevance as it was posted early Saturday morning right before most of the local fans wake up. The wording of the text portion of the post doesn’t say a ton but it does contain a link without being considered a link post by Facebook. You can accomplish this by adding the image first, then adding the link within the body of the text. The click-thru rates are always going to be low, but the message is pointed enough so that those who do click the link are there for a clear reason.

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Put in the effort. You don’t want to let your Facebook page go stagnant for more than a day or two (unless you’re using an extremely specialized and advanced strategy that I don’t have time to go into here), but you definitely don’t want to put content into your fans’ feeds that is sub-par. Make every post great. Don’t waste them. Playing the Facebook game is definitely not hard, but it does require a willingness to work within the algorithm and understand the expectations of your fans. Don’t just meet those expectations. Exceed them.

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There was a promise silently made by social media a few years back. It was so prevalent at the 2009 round of conferences from NADA to Digital Dealer that many might have thought that social media would eventually encompass the entire internet marketing required by a dealership to be successful. The promise was this: “Everyone’s going to be on social media in the next couple of years and you’ll be able to reach them.”

The first part of the promise came true, perhaps even more so than most had anticipated. Everyone is on social media in one way or another. Even if they are not active, from a car buying perspective, it can be assumed that members of any family out there trying to buy a car today are touched in some way by social media. It could be as distant as some of the friends of the buyer or it could be as close as the spouse and children, but everyone in America is affected by social media whether they know it or not.

The second part of the promise hasn’t quite panned out for many. There are certainly many dealers who “get it” and are able to drive traffic, generate leads, and make sales as a direct result of their social media actions. Unfortunately, these cases are few and far between. In fact, I was recently approached by “gurus” to help them find examples of dealers who were showing these sorts of successes. Even they weren’t aware of many examples of the mythical “Facebook Sale”.

They exist. We’ve seen them. They’re not quite as few and far between as Bigfoot sightings, but they aren’t easy to find.

That’s not the point.

While many will talk about the “intrinsic value” of social media, one does not have to be a Bigfoot hunter to find tangible value. It lies in understanding the effects and realizing that just as television advertising is effective without being easy to track directly, so too does social media make it challenging to find the value. The key is to look at the results as a whole by doing two things: find the numbers that can be tied in by absence and to put real indicators into place to measure the ROI properly. I refuse to try to convince dealers that there’s a value without being able to demonstrate it and dealers should refuse to accept that there is a value without proof. Here’s how…

 

Tie in Numbers through Absence

A dealer once told me that the only way he was able to track the effectiveness of his television advertising was to turn them off. When sales dropped, he knew that the TV ads had been working. When he turned them back on, sales went back up again.

The same premise can be applied to social media, particularly if you’re investing enough time and/or money. The sad truth that few gurus will tell you about social media is that there’s a secret plateau. They won’t tell you this because they either don’t know about it or they know that it’s not beneficial to them. The plateau is the place between getting started with social media and hitting the tipping point. Unlike other forms of marketing, social media has a tendency to remain flat up until the point that you really start to hit it hard. The difference in results between a mediocre presence and a pretty good presence is almost unnoticeable. Those who have a pretty good presence aren’t seeing much more in the way of results than those who have one that’s a notch above poor. This is the plateau.

That’s the bad news, particularly since the vast majority of dealerships today fall in between being a notch above poor and pretty good. It’s also the good news. Those dealers who break through the realm of “pretty good” can see a sharp improvement very quickly once they get to good, great, fantastic, outstanding, and beyond. I’m using these esoteric terms because it would take multiple blog posts to try to define the difference between pretty good and outstanding. It’s not about numbers. It’s not even about engagement. It’s about results.

This is where the absence comes into play. If you have a doubt about the effectiveness of your social media, turn it off for a month. Tell your vendor to stop posting and promoting. Tell your internet manager to put up a status update on the various social media sites that you’re “taking a break from social media for the month as we work on putting together something great for all of our fans”. Then, do it. Get off of social media. Don’t post. Don’t reply. You’ll still want to monitor just in case, of course. If your social media is tied into a reputation management service, don’t stop that aspect.

Everything else, shut it down for a month. Look at the numbers. Do you see a dip in traffic, leads, and sales? Make sure to take other factors into account such as fluctuations in search marketing spend, offline advertising, etc. Take those into account and check your results. If your numbers move noticeably, you’re probably getting more benefit out of social than you knew about, so you’ll want to turn it back on. If you don’t see much of a difference, it may be time to explore other options.

 

Put Real Indicators Into Place

For fixed ops, this is easy. All you have to do is run events on Facebook while posting “social media only” specials simultaneously on the other social networks. If you create an event on Facebook for “$14.99 Social Media Oil Change Special” and then post it on your other networks, you’ll be able to see whether you’re reaching people with the message or not. You can create a coupon on your website that is not in navigation if you want, or simply tell them to mention that they liked your store on Facebook when they’re getting their oil changed. Make sure the service department is extremely well-aware that this test is important. You don’t want them telling their “buddy” customers about it while they’re at the store.

With sales, it’s a little harder but there’s a key performance indicator that can help you make a determination about the success of your social media effort. If you go strong on social media, advertising on Facebook and doing all of the things that we ask dealers to do, you will see one number rise on your analytics – searches for your dealership by name. Getting people to click off of Facebook to go check out your inventory is ineffective. Getting the branding out there, being at the top of mind, and making sure that when people in your area are in the market to buy a car that they’re checking you out on search and on your website – that’s a true test of your social media effectiveness. Not surprisingly, the same can be done for television and radio advertising as well.

Of course, there are more tangible ways to detect it, namely traffic to the dealership itself. This is an area that I can’t talk about quite yet because we’re still testing, but the results so far have been nothing short of fabulous.

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Social media doesn’t have to be a mystery. It either works at your dealership right now or it doesn’t. It’s important to do the things necessary to check the effectiveness an understand whether or not you’re truly reaching your audience. Otherwise, you’ll never know if you can dramatically improve it by making the right changes.

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I've shared this story before but it's worth mentioned again. I was speaking to a client about their social media presence. Well, it was actually their lack of a social media presence. They didn't have a Facebook page, they didn't realize that they had a Twitter account that had been set to Tweet AutoBlog via RSS, and they through that Google+ was a premium service that Google was selling. Don't laugh. This was one of the darkest days of my marketing career.

 

When I asked why they didn't have a Facebook page at the very least, he said that "they don’t want people to have the ability to talk badly about them on Facebook." After some explaining about how Facebook and social media in general worked, I got down to what was the real root of the problem. He said that he totally understood that they could post on their own Facebook profile without his permission or even knowledge, but if he had a Facebook page and he posted there then he would have to respond.

Exactly. You have to respond. You want to respond. Every customer challenge is an opportunity to shine.

 

Control the Feedback


Disney. Apple. Amazon. Johnson & Johnson. These are brands that regularly topped the "most loved" companies lists. They do what they can to try to make everyone happy. Despite being at the top of the list, they have haters. Many haters. Thousands, perhaps millions of people have a negative opinion of these loved brands.

Let's look at it locally. There's a Peruvian restaurant close to the office that we go to whenever we want to have a casual lunch. The food is amazing - the Lomo Saltado is the best way to fill up on $10. I took a friend there who loved Peruvian food and he hated it. He even said so on Yelp (granted, the service was uncannily awful that day, but the food didn't impress him either). You simply can't appeal to everyone.

Those who are going to complain about your business will find a way to complain no matter how hard you try to avoid it. The reality in today's uber-connected world is that you can't avoid it and you shouldn't even try. In fact, you should embrace it by allowing as many venues such as Facebook to be the place where you want to hear their complaints.

When people post negative reviews to many of the review sites or tell the story of their experiences on their social media profiles, you often have no recourse. Many of the review sites allow you to reply and you definitely should, but it still goes onto a permanent record. The complaint is logged and you can't take it down. In cases like those, it's extremely important to reply whenever possible with empathy, professionalism, a sincere desire to improve through their feedback, and (whenever applicable) a willingness to make things right for them. It's a best practice to reply to every review, good or bad, but that's another blog post.

Now, imagine if you used your social media, Facebook in particular, as a venue through which people could voice their opinions about your business. Some would say that it would get more exposure that way, particularly if they have a lot of friends, but there's a couple of reasons you'd want it here rather than on review sites. First, you definitely can and should reply to those comments. Using Facebook as a two-way communication tool allows you to shine through the dark moments and highlight the brighter ones.

The second reason is control. When they post a complaint to your Facebook page, you have the ability to control this portion of the conversation. If your reply is thoughtful and satisfactory to the user, awesome! If it starts to turn into an argument or the user becomes offensive, you have the ability to hide it. I do not recommend hiding complaints as a general practice. Take what you can from the feedback and improve your business. Stand behind your product and company and accept criticism with the professionalism and a desire to improve as I mentioned above. Hiding posts is a last resort and should only be used when the complaint turns offensive.

Thankfully, this post does not apply to many. Over the last couple of years there has been a wonderful shift towards the desire to be more open to feedback. It's a necessity with today's quick and easy methods of communication that are available to consumers. If you're still missing the point and choose to do what the image for this blog post implies, I'm not sure what else to say that can help.

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Do you remember the person who consulted with you about social media and told you that brands are having tremendous success on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest? That's the type of person that you're reaching the most according to a report by NBCUniversal Integrated Media.

The report is designed to show how consumers who are part of GenX and GenY are digesting their influences. It took a split approach to the study which consisted of 2,500 people - 2,000 were average respondents age 18-49 and the other 500 were "digital trendsetters" in the same age group which represent 5% of the national population who are "first adopters" of technology and are highly active on social media.

Could it be that the real people you're actually reaching with social media are the same ones who are telling you that social media can reach people? It sounds like a double-talk question but it's important to understand based upon your business. If you're selling a trendy footwear product or pushing a music discover service, there's little doubt that the trendsetters are the ones you want to be able to hit. What if you're selling cookware? Is social media a valid venue?

The answer is yes and no. On one hand, you have 39% of regular people saying they interact with companies on social media while 67% of the trendsetters are engaging. This means that the people who live on social media are the ones that are accepting the messages being put out by brands and according to the study, that's only 5% of the population. On the other hand, 39% isn't a small amount. It's not ideal, but it seems to be growing.

On average, people are following 27 brands on social media. This might seem like a low number and a challenging group to try to get into if you're selling cookware, but considering that in 2011 the number was 9, we're heading in the right direction.

In the end, it really comes down to what your brand is doing and how successful you can be on social media. It's worth a valid attempt and a bit of effort to see if it's going to work for your brand, but I wouldn't be sinking big chunks of my marketing dollars into social media if my target customer is 55+. While the older generations are starting to get into social media and it's the fastest growing demographic, it's also the one that is least likely to be using social media for anything other than seeing pictures of little Timmy sliding into third base.

Here's a graphic from NBCUniversal that breaks down a good chunk of the findings.

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"Trendsetter" image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Why Reputation Management Matters: Your Legacy

“The opinions in this blog are mine alone and not the opinions of who I work for”

If that isn’t clear please click here.

Recently I spoke at an “event” in Portland, Oregon. The room was not at capacity, however those that attended were very engaged. One of my co-workers welcomed the small workshop attendees and dived into best practices for website optimization, SEO and SEM. His down to earth approach, humor and Subject Matter Expertise shone brightly that morning in the Washington room at The Red Lion. Using common sense approaches he brought what some would consider a very high level discussion to level that was easily digestible.


After lunch I took the stage. As there were a couple executives from my place of employment there I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. I said “amen” and dove into Reputation Management. There was great discussion from the crowd of best practices, things that worked and what to be careful not to do and who they would recommend their peers stay away from. I was then asked if I really thought if Reputation Management mattered at the end of the day. I took a different approach then I normally do this is what my response was…

One of the most influential speakers, authors and someone who changed my life, Gary Vaynerchuk has said legacy is more valuable than currency. Right now I don’t want you to think about money. Don’t think about selling a car, don’t think about servicing another truck. Think about your children and grandchildren. Think about what they will discover about you online. For the most part, what is put online will be there in some form forever. Think about what they will learn about who you were and the organization you worked for. Taking money out of the equation, what do you want your legacy to be?



I am happy to say this made some people in the room think about what their Reputation meant. What do you want to be known for?

Safe travels.


To see what makes a good review click here

To see the 2 most critical items in reputation management click here


Oh and pardon my errors…I stink at typing:)

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Fiat

There is plenty of vanilla out there. As someone who explores various social media campaigns, techniques, and strategies on a daily basis, it gets pretty boring seeing the same old things being spun in slightly different ways. When something truly fresh comes along, I normally applaud.

When I saw Fiat's attempt at being bold on YouTube, I had to watch it again. And again. Each subsequent viewing I went deeper into analyzing what they were trying accomplish with the clever rap. They wanted to go viral, that was certain, and it worked. They're approaching 3 million views. They also wanted to relate to a demographic, and they probably did to some extent by mentioning many of the trials that mothers face when they transition into motherhood.

The only thing I couldn't figure out was whether or not the risk was worth the reward. They didn't hold very many punches, mentioning controversial topics such as fake orgasms and itchy thongs, and the funny play on words talking about dogs and gardening equipment as "bitches and hoes" brought the full spoof factor into play right from the beginning, but can it really do anything other than garner a few laughs and knowing nods of agreement? The challenges faced by mothers were never shown to be addressed by the stylish Fiat 500 other than the fact that this particular mother liked to drive one.

The risk, of course, is that some people will be offended. It's as clean as a spoof like this can get but there will be those who get a negative vibe about the brand as a result. This is fine and any time you take a risk with social media you're going to make people upset but there needs to be a greater reward potential to counteract the negatives.

Unfortunately, the video does not do enough to get positive sentiment for the brand. Mothers may associate with the video, even feel the pain, so to speak, but the positioning of the brand within the lyrics and visuals is not enough to bring the association full circle.

When Toyota came out with their Swagger Wagon video nearly three years ago, they did much more to accomplish the same goals. They created a video through which parents could relate, but also centered it around the vehicle itself. It was effective on both ends - controversial and funny enough to be watched (over 11 million views) without running the risk of offending many people. The Sienna was front and center through most of the video and not just a subtle background statement for the sake of lifestyle association.

Even the name itself was much better. There are those today who likely still call their vehicle their "Swagger Wagon", whereas Fiat naming their video "The Motherhood" does little to keep the video or the branding going once it falls off of people's buzz radar.

Creating a viral video for the sake of going viral is no longer an effective technique. It helps somewhat with branding, but even in that regard Fiat is too subtle without being powerful about it. There's nothing wrong with subtle branding when done properly. Pantene had a viral video that didn't mention the brand or highlight its effects until the end of the 4-minute video. It was effective because the storytelling throughout was powerful and the final minute where the star's hair is highlighted ended at the peak of emotion when the brand is finally revealed.

Fiat was close to having a successful video. Had they worked in the brand into the song itself, toned down some of the potential negatives, and showed that the vehicle represented some level of freedom and expression that their target audience craved, the effects would have been much better.

Watch the videos and you be the judge. Did they work?

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Play Opposite of the Season for Social Media Gold

It’s currently the middle of winter and you know what that means. Time to go to the beach!

Okay, so that’s not a normal conclusion that one might come to in most places across the country. Even in sunny California, the beaches are pretty barren in the middle of winter. That’s all real word stuff. We’re talking about social media, a world of dreams and desires, wishes and aspirations. We may not be able to go to the beach right this very moment, but we can certainly wish we were there with a nice breeze coming off the water making it a comfortable 85 degrees in our swimsuits. That’s not reality today, but it’s definitely something that can work on social media.

For businesses, it’s often about standing out properly on social. Nobody likes the loud social media posting business, the one that posts crap all the time that has no substance, but they don’t mind the occasional creative post. Playing with seasons and circumstances (and more importantly, their opposites) is a way to get attention in a positive way.

A Nissan dealer who posts the image above could attach it to the caption, “It may be too cold to go to the beach right now, but when the time comes, we’ll be there to get you on the sand and under the sun.”

This would have a few different subtle but important effects. It’s appealing to many – there are those who are snowed in or stuck with the flu right now. A great looking truck with the ocean, sand, and sun can become a pleasant thought for those seeing it. It’s relevant – in most places right now, the weather is an issue. It’s downright freezing across the country. Lastly, the image is different but pertinent to a Nissan dealer – much better than trying to stand out by posting cat pictures.

Your messaging on social media can be timely without being bound by the constraints of the current time. Football season has ended for most teams across the country. If your local team is out of the playoffs, it’s not too early to start posting baseball pictures. For example, you could have a picture of your team’s star and a caption like this:

“It’s time to put football behind us for now and focus on winning the pennant. Chase Headley, show us the way!”

All of your competitors are likely posting things that everyone else is already posting on social media. There’s nothing wrong with doing the same, but mix it up from time to time by going “off season”, whether it’s about sports, the weather, or anything else that makes for an interesting topic in your area. Stand out. Be different. Be creative. Get noticed.

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Haters

There’s always a risk when it comes to aggressive advertising and marketing that many are unwilling to take. On television, radio, search, and display ads, there will be those who do not appreciate what you’re putting in front of them. On social, this is greatly amplified because people have the ability to respond.

It is nearly impossible to post effective content and make it visible to your target audience on Facebook without running into the occasional hater. In fact, if you’re not getting any negative comments at all, chances are either your message is not business-effective (are you promoting cat pictures?) or you aren’t reaching enough people. Even with fan-only, highly-targeted Facebook posts, there’s a chance that something someone finds on their Facebook wall will rub them the wrong way and make them leave you a negative comment.

There are a few unavoidable reasons for this:

  • People don’t understand how Facebook advertising works – Let’s say you’re targeting a specific city. You select “automotive” as an interest and you post automotive content. Suddenly, you get a comment that says something to the effect of “How did you weasel your way onto my news feed” or “why is this spam showing up – reported!” There are many users who, regardless of what you post, will not appreciate that you’re appearing ahead of pictures of little Timmy sliding into third base and will react negatively as a result.
  • Just because they liked your page doesn’t mean they like your content – People like pages for various reasons. Perhaps you ran a contest a few months ago. Maybe they clicked “like this page” on a post that one of their friends liked thinking that it was their content. There are many reasons that people might have liked your page in the past. If they haven’t seen you in their news feed before, they might react negatively having forgotten or never realizing that they liked your page in the past.
  • The feed and privacy controls on Facebook are still awful – Despite repeated attempts to make the waters less murky, Facebook has never really made it easy for people to control their news feeds. Most go with the default views and privacy settings which allow for targeted Facebook ads. By appearing in their feed, they think that you’ve done something to get there without realizing that they opted in by not opting out. The biggest lie told by every person on the internet happens when they accept the various terms of services that say, “I have read and agree to these terms of service.” Ya, sure.
  • Friend of fans – One of the easiest ways to expand reach on Facebook is to promote some posts with the “friends of fans” option on promoted stories. This gets more views, but it also exposes your content to people who do not want to see it. As a result, the hate comments are bound to come sometimes.

Regardless of the reasoning for the hate, there are two options to address it. You can reply back to the hate comments in a professional manner. Don’t try to explain it to them – they often won’t buy it and trying to get people to understand the way that Facebook handles marketing is about as easy as getting them to understand the tax code without an accountant handy. The other option, useful only in the most extreme circumstances, is to delete the comments. They will still appear to the person who made the comment as well as their friends, but the majority of people will not see the comments. This is a last resort – transparency rules on social media – but if the comments get out of hand or offensive, there’s nothing wrong with getting rid of them for the bulk of your fans. Do not take it to the next level by blocking or reporting them. This can open up a can of worms.

There are those who argue that there should be nothing at all promotional on one’s Facebook page. It’s a valid strategy and one that can help to avoid any of the negatives that come with using Facebook to promote your business or products, but it’s often a slower path that requires more time and effort. Even then, there’s a good chance that you’ll still be met with some hate even if your content is absolutely awesome and universally relevant simply because many people don’t like seeing brands in their feed at all regardless of the content. Don’t fret either way. You can’t make everyone happy. You can, however, minimize the hate by posting valuable content and keeping quality at the top of your guiding principles.

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Hate” image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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6 Types of Content to Make Your Website POP

If there’s one word I hate using in marketing, it’s “engagement”. The term has been so overused and abused since the rise of social media that its meaning has become distorted. It’s defined in different ways and means different things to different people. Thankfully, the moves by search giants like Google and Bing as well as social giants like Facebook and Twitter have brought in at least a little uniformity to we should look for when trying to harness engagement.

First and foremost, websites today must be engaging. That’s not to say that they have to be interactive; heavy websites that make people jump through hoops to find what they want simply don’t work today and may have really never worked. Today, people want to go to websites and find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. To make today’s websites more engaging, one simply has to add content. I’m not talking about the SEO content that is too heavy on many websites or the “share this on Facewitter” buttons that are put on so many pages that nobody would every willingly share. I’m talking about unique content that is interesting, useful, entertaining, or all of the above.

For businesses, it’s often hard to find and produce content that people will find interesting, useful, or entertaining. It’s not that the content doesn’t exist on the internet today or in the minds of a marketing professional. It’s that they don’t always know what kind of content they can find and produce. Here are seven such types of content that can work for your business to make your websites more engaging. There are plenty of articles (some that I have written) that discuss the reasons that you would want your websites to be engaging from a search and social marketing perspective so I won’t go into those reasons here. If you need to be convinced that it will be helpful, start with those articles first, then come back and learn more.

 

The good ol' image gallery

If there’s one thing that internet is not short on, it’s images. If there’s one thing the real world isn’t short on, it’s cameras thanks to the rise of smartphones. Between the two, finding or taking images that pertain to your industry, your local area, or both is a piece of cake.

With Chevy’s recent release of the 2014 Corvette, the internet is loaded with plenty of pictures. A Chevy dealer could compile some of the best images and load them up on their site. Take note – any time you use an image from somewhere else, you should always link to the original source. Attribution is ever-important when posting content to your website. There will be those who still contact you even when you properly attribute and ask you to remove the images. If it’s taken by someone else, it is has a copyright. Always respect them. There are plenty of sources that love to get links to their content and are willing to let you share.

The written content on a post such as “10 Awesome Angles of the 2014 Chevy Corvette” doesn’t have to be huge. At the minimum, a paragraph or two of unique content at the top is fine. What’s better is a little description of each image below the content as well as the one or two paragraphs at the top.

 

YouTube video(s) and commentary

The last thing you want to do is post a video by itself on your website. This brings no value and the visitor might as well link to the video itself. What you definitely can do with videos is find one or more of them (again, they must pertain to your industry, your local area, or both) and post them with appropriate commentary. Let’s say you find a great video about the 2014 Corvette. You could write up a couple of paragraphs detailing what led up to this epic new design, show the video, then discuss how this Corvette is dramatically different from your perspective. Unique commentary is extremely important here. You do not want to be posting the words of others. This should be personal. Make sure that the visitors who find this video and commentary get value out of both aspects.

To really add value and make the page engaging, use more than one video. People can share a single video more easily from YouTube itself than from your website, but by making it multiple videos on the same topic, you’ve now compiled something that people will be more willing to share as a link on their own website or through social media.

 

Link lists

These are great, but be very careful with them. The ideas is that you’ll write a short article – one or two paragraphs – about a particular topic, then offer several links to other websites that are also talking about the subject. If you write up a piece about the Corvette, you could then link to reviews or commentaries from trusted sources such as Car and Driver or Motortrend. The title of these pages could be something such as “How the Internet Responded to the 2014 Corvette Launch”.

The part about being careful – make sure that the links open in a new tab or window. What you don’t want is content that drives people completely away from your site. Linking out is not a bad thing despite what many experts tell you, particularly when you’re working with engagement content. Remember, they aren’t there on that page to buy your products or services right this very moment. They likely landed on the page by clicking on a link in search or social and their interest is learning more about the new Vette. Your benefits (I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about it but I’ll just mention it briefly) are not in the visitors that come to the site but the benefit these pages give you through search and social to drive future traffic to more important pages on your website.

 

Infographics

The beauty of infographics is that they’re visual. As an internet society, we love to see things more than we love to read about them. Even if the graphics themselves are loaded with words and statistics, they are often done so in a visually stunning manner that is more worthy of being shared. Take a look at this infographic we created for Mashable. There’s tons of data, but it’s easier to share because of the graphic nature of the content.

Just like with a video, do not simply post an infographic and walk away. You should post at least a little commentary about the graphic itself, what it means to your, your industry, your customers, your local area, or all of the above.

 

Full articles

This scares many people. For the most part, businesses owners and the marketing people that work for them aren’t journalists by trade. Thankfully, what most business owners do have is an expertise in their industry. Even if you’re not a great writer, you can probably come up with information that can be interesting to the layman and have someone else put it into a proper article format.

With the rise of AuthorRank, this may prove to be the most important overall form of content that we put on our business websites.

You don’t have to post too often, but if you can’t stay at least a little consistent by posting 2 or 3 full articles a month, there’s really no need to post them at all. If time is too scarce, stick to the…

 

Response articles

It may be hard to come up with original content, but it’s never hard to express opinions. There was a long article yesterday about Les Mis on FoxNews. I really liked what it had to say, so I wrote a response article to it. This response took no time at all – less than 20 minutes – but got the point across in a way that the internet likes without having to do a ton of research other than reading the original article.

As an expert in your industry and/or local area, you’ll find that writing response articles is one of the easiest ways to get a good amount of unique content on your website without having to do a ton of research. In essence, the research is already done by the real journalist. All you have to do is offer your opinions about what they got right, what they got wrong, or expand on what their basic premise was. With practice, these get to the point that you’ll be able to easily post them at your convenience.

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Making websites pop on search and social isn’t as hard as most make it out to be. It starts with great content and continues into proper practices to make the search engines and social media sites love your stuff.

POP” image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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