Wednesday Words: TL;DR

While today's term isn't often seen on social media, it sometimes is. TL;DR is short hand for Too long; didn't read. It's often used to offer a summary of a much longer post that they realize most people won't read or just to offer a summary for those who didn't read it so they can get a gist of it.

TL;DR is often seen on forum posts either before the post begins or at the very end for someone who scrolled past the block of text to find the summary so they could respond to the post.

I've seen TL;DR on Facebook and Tumblr posts. TL;DR doesn't really apply to Twitter because it's impossible to get too long on Twitter. You might see the phrase occasionally on Blog posts when people want to offer a summary.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Tuesday Tips: Don't Make These #Hashtag Mistakes

Are you making these common mistakes in your Tweets?  Check this list out and try to eliminate some of these common mistakes from your Tweeting habits:

• Using too many hashtags.  There should be 1-3 hashtags per tweet. Tweets with one or two hashtags have been seen to receive 20% higher engagement, according to Passion Digital.
• Using inappropriate hashtags. This can kill your target audience if you aren't targeting with the right tweets. Be sure to check out posts similar to the hashtag you are using to be sure what you're posting is relevant and similar.
• Using a Trending Hashtag when your post has nothing to do with that trending hashtag. It might be very tempting to do this, but if your post has nothing to do with a trending hashtag, just don't use it. Pro Tip: Don't try to create a post about every trending hashtag either just to get noticed. It's poor marketing and Twitter etiquette.
• Use appropriate hashtags with your pictures! Some people, myself included, often forget to hashtag their photos when they share them.
• Don't hashtag every word in a tweet. Refer to the first point in this post - that would be using too many hashtags and is a sign of a novice user. Pick important, relevant terms and hashtag them.
• Check what other posts are listed with your hashtag(s). It's often good to see what other tweets and conversations are being had with similar hashtags. You might even learn a thing or two.
• Do not hashtag more than two or three words combined. More than that becomes obnoxious and annoying. In that same line of thought, hashtagging all capitalized words is also obnoxious.

Hope these tips help!

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your social media presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.

Wednesday Words: Audience selector

Today's word isn't strictly to do with Facebook Pages or Social Media Marketing, but it does have to do with social media and I think it would be a useful word to talk about and that's Audience Selector.

On your personal profile on Facebook (and Google +) you can choose who you want to share your posts with. You can set a default status for this under security and privacy options, but you also have the options to do this on each individual post.  With Facebook, for example, everyone has the same standard three options of Public, Friends Only, Only Me, but then individuals can create groups or lists that they can selectively share things to.

Keep in mind, selectively sharing things doesn't mean that stuff you want to keep private will be kept private. People can be jerks and have a tendency to share what they aren't supposed to share - so if you don't want other people to see it, the best bet is to still not post it on social media.

For many people, it's a good idea to default to Friends only. I use the Public option myself because of the various sites I post for and interactions with others. Just remember there are benefits and disadvantages to using Public option.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Tuesday Tips: The 80/20 Twitter Philosophy

Social Media Marketing is all about finding the right mix of engagement with that particular social media platform. Looking at Twitter, a study has shown that people marketing on Twitter should be marketing 20% of the time and engaging in conversations the remaining 80% of the time.

Engaging in conversations can be anything ranging from replying to tweets, retweeting tweets, thanking followers, or commenting on posts of people/brands you follow. Most importantly, Twitter is about interacting with other users on Twitter. Take advantage of those conversations and engage more than you would on Facebook or elsewhere.

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your social media presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.

An Unintended Break

Between the extended holiday and thinking I had an extra week of posts already planned for the second week of September (and ended up only have one post already scheduled), there was an unintentional lapse in posts last week and for that I do apologize.

I try to write a month's worth of posts, or more, at the beginning of each month, the only exception to this being the weekly job listings and the occasional extra shares that appear during the week outside of Fridays or Saturdays.

That being said, if you are looking to pad your resume a bit and would like to help post a second post a few days a week, please contact me. I am looking for an additional poster. It is an unpaid position - just like mine is - but I'll promote your posts as well as mine.

Here's looking forward to regular posts this month and next. Thanks to all my readers and hope everyone has a great week.

Tuesday Tips: Optimize for Mobile

While Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. are all styled and optimized for mobile, is the website your posts are directing them to optimized for mobile? If the answer is "I don't know" or "I'm not sure" then chances are the ultimate answer is no and you may not be seeing conversions and traffic because of this.

If you were waiting for mobile to arrive before tweaking your site, you've waited too long. Mobile is here to stay with smart phones, tablets, netbooks, laptops and more. Studies have shown that mobile engagement is often higher from mobile devices than traditional desktops and laptops - something to think about.

If your website isn't optimized for mobile - now's the time to fix that. If you can't fix the entire site, perhaps design a mobile friendly site that you can direct your Facebook page to or a landing page that will detect if they are using mobile then send them to the mobile site.

Keeping your site mobile friendly will help you gain and retain users.

With every step you take – think about mobile.

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your Facebook presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.

Tuesday Tips: Talk With People

This advice is probably one I have a hard time with especially on brands that I help out with on Social Media because I do tend to do more talking to people than with them.

However, the advice below is pretty good advice:

“Don’t talk to people, talk with them.”
Catherine Russell, content writer
*Posted on Constant Contact Google+ Page

This goes back to advice given a few weeks ago about being authentic. Talking with people rather than to them makes you more authentic and gives your brand a voice. Remember that talking with people will also increase their engagement rates, so not only does it make the brand look good and get seen more, it creates and impact on the fanbase as well.

So do your best to talk with people. I know it's something I'm going to work on to do better.

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your Facebook presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.

Tuesday Tips: Don't Overthink It, Just Do It

Most of the time, our biggest fears is failure. We make excuses as to why we don't want to jump off the cliff that is social media and often times the biggest thing I hear from people who want to delve into social media but haven't yet is that either they "don't know what I'm doing" or "I am going to break something.

My answer to those folks is a quote from a Social Media Professional:

“You’re not gonna break stuff, just get started!”
Joey C, Creator, GoodMorningGloucester.com
@Joey_C

It sounds simple because it is simple. The first thing you can do is just get started and learn as you go. Most social media managers learned from the bottom and jumping in feet first. There was no school or degree for social media. There were no classes to teach you what to do and let's be honest, social media changes so often and so fast that sometimes those classes are out of date.

So don't be scared. Just get started.

Then check this blog out for tips, hints and questions.  As always, if you have questions, I'd love to answer them. Feel free to leave them in the comments for any blog and I will either answer there or answer as a separate blog post.

Enjoy!

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your Facebook presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.

Wednesday Words: Tumblr

Today's word is Tumblr, which we've mentioned before when we talked about microblogging and microblogging platforms. Tumblr is a combination of a social media networking platofrm and a microblogging platform owned by Yahoo! Inc.

Tumblr allows users to post and reblog multimedia and other contents to a short-form blog. Users can easily follow other users' blogs or make blogs private.

As of March 1, 2015 Tumblr hosts more than 225.1 million blogs.

Tumblr is definitely an option for people looking to expand their social media reach, especially if they are doing short form blogging or sharing images as those are things both common to Tumblr.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media. These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media. You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Tuesday Tips: Remember to Like Your Own Page's Posts

Whether you are the only person posting to your Facebook brand page or if you have other people posting to it, there's an important thing you and the other posters should be doing:  Like your page's posts as your page and as yourself.

Rick's Daily Tips has an awesome article on why you need to be doing this.  If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe him.

His article, found here, explains why this works and why it's important.  Basically, friends can see things you like if they have their friend news feed ticker turned on and may be interested in something you like and click on it to read more about it.   If you're wanting your friends to see and interact with your business - especially if it's a local business - then this is the way to do it.

Remember: Like your brand's post as yourself.  Be sure to change to posting as yourself before you click like.

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your Facebook presence better. You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.

Wednesday Words: Slide Share

A few months back you may have seen a slide show on Social Media I linked to via SlideShare - which is today's word.

SlideShare is a social network for sharing presentations and documents publicly or privately online.  These presentations can be favorited or even embedded in websites.  They can also be shared on other social networks.

SlideShare is great because anyone can view the slides (if their browser and software is up to date) and there is no need to have a program like PowerPoint to view them.

If you want to learn more about SlideShare and how to use it, click here.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media.  These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media.   You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Tuesday Tips: Managing Followers Should be a Daily Routine

One of the best pieces of advice I have seen regarding managing followers and social media is to not only encourage your friends, family and clients to like your page and follow you on other forms of social media, but you should also spend some time each day liking and following social media accounts with similar interests to what your business is posting about.

Managing your followers and who you follow should be a daily routine.  If you have a number of folks follow you on Twitter, check them out, see if their interests are similar to yours and if they are, return the favor and follow them.  Same is true on Google+.  You can add people to your page's circle, just like they can add your page to their circles.

You can also like other businesses as your Facebook page.  This is an important way to get your name out there.

Finally, you can also follow folks on Pinterest and Instagram.

Yes, it takes a little bit of time, but if you spend 10-15 minutes each day keeping up with it, it will help out a lot.

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your Facebook presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.

Tuesday Tips: Page, Not Profile

Today's tip is something I've mentioned repeatedly, but this time I'm going to source an expert in social media management on it.

“If you’re using Facebook, make sure you've got a Facebook PAGE and not a profile!” -- Kim Walker, Leader of Social Media Management, 5 Stones Media, LLC @5stonesmedia

Too often I see people creating and using (for years) facebook profiles for their business.  A couple of my local shops are the most guilty of this and have yet to realize that when Facebook goes through it's cleansing and sees it, they may lose their profile and their followers (or really friends in this case) and have to start all over from scratch.

To put it simply.  A Facebook profile is about you as a person and your connections to your friends, co-workers, family and acquaintances.  A Facebook page is for fans of a book/author/brand, or for a brand to market and sell things, for a business or restaurant.  Profiles should NEVER be used for these things as it muddies the water and makes things confusing.

For those new to social media who may have friends they follow that are using profiles for their business, this is an important lesson for them.  They may think that since this company is doing it, they can do it too.  Do not be lulled by that idea.  Do it right.

Facebook pages offer more insight into what people want, what they engage with and like better than a profile will ever give you.  Let's be honest, profiles don't offer any stats or insight as to who likes what and when and what generates engagement - these are all things you need to know when you're managing social media.

So today's advice is this: Even if it sounds like a good idea or you've seen other people doing it, don't create a profile for your brand or business.  Take the time to do it right and create a page.

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your Facebook presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.

Off to E3 - Posts Are Scheduled

By the time this posts posts (and likely by the time I get to link to it on social media), I'll be out in sunny Los Angeles, attending press conferences and attending E3 for the week.

Even though most of what I'll be doing there won't be related to this social media blog, I will try to share some pictures here and on Facebook with my readers - as well as on the sites I write for, Video Game Scoreboard and Obsolete Gamer.

I already have posts scheduled for most of the days I'm gone for my normal posting schedule and I will promote them as I have time (and wifi) from E3 to Facebook and Twitter.

If you aren't following me yet on Twitter or Instagram, find me as @kayhynn on both of those.  I can also be found on YouTube there, but I doubt I'll have a good enough connection to upload videos, but we'll see.

If you are a gamer that follows me on social media tips and hints blog, feel free to leave a comment here on something you want to see from E3, and I'll see what I can do.

Have a great week!

Tuesday Tips: June is National Safety Month - Plan Accordingly

As part of Tuesday Tips, I will provide an occasional guide on relevant things you can potentially post about during the week.  As May comes to an end, looking at June provides us with a bunch of things to potentially post about.

If you own a business where working safely is important, there are a lot of safety tips that can be shared from the National Safety Council.  All you have to do is sign up to receive a weekly email that provides tips and hints that you can post.

Some things may be good reminders for non-industry environments as well - it all depends on who your audience is.

Check them out and see what they have to offer when you're planning out posts you can schedule ahead of time for June.  Never know what might be of use.

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your Facebook presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.

Wednesday Words: Social Media Optimization (SMO)

We've talked about sharability, interaction and engagement in the past Wednesday Words.  They, ultimately, lead to today's word, which is Social Media Optimization.  This can be defined, in laymans terms, as Search Engine Optimization for Social Media channels.

As mentioned with sharability, interaction and engagement, the key to getting people to interact - whether it's sharing, liking, retweeting, favoring, etc. - is to create online content that is likely to be shared through social networks.  It varies according to each brand and their audience, but it is an important thing to keep in mind.

If you are looking to find out what things appeal to those in your audience, check out similar pages and twitter feeds and see what gets the most interaction, then imitate it.  Don't use exactly what they use, but use something pertinent and similar and go from there.

Best of luck!

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media.  These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media.   You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Tuesday Tips: Gain More Followers

Today's tips cover ways to help you gain more followers on Twitter.  The majority of the options are free and are common sense - but I will say there is a paid option some people may not consider viable, but can be.

1.  Follow others.
Unless you're a famous personality or have connections to people with a lot of followers who recommend their followers follow you, the best way to start out is to follow other people.  Follow people/brands you have interest in or are similar to.  Follow people who are your friends or who you know visit your business or use your services.  Follow people who's posts you think are interesting.  And, follow people who your friends recommend or if you like the ones Twitter recommend, add them.

Also, if you're just starting out and someone you don't know follows you, follow them back.  Eventually your follower to following ratio will even out and if you're a brand, eventually it will exceed your following numbers.

But you have to start somewhere and that somewhere involves doing some legwork and following others first.

2.  Engage in conversation.
Don't hesitate to reply to tweets publicly.  It allows people to see you and if they like what you're posting in reply, they may follow you.  Or they may see what your other tweets are like, then follow you.  The more you get your Twitter handle out there, the better.

3.  Promote your Twitter handle everywhere.
Put it on your business cards, on your door for your business, on your promotional material and especially on your website.  Add it to your signature for email (if it is appropriate to do so).  As mentioned above, the more you get your Twitter handle out there, the better.

4.  Add the follow button to your blog/website/where you can.
This is fairly easy to do.  If you use Wordpress for your website, there are a number of different plugins that you can use to add the Follow Me button to your site.  There is also code you can manually enter, depending on what your using to create your website.

Even though it doesn't add to your followers, it is a good idea to also add Tweet links for your site, that way people can easily share content from your website - kinda like there's the sharing options below this post, including the T for Twitter.

5.  Tweet and Retweet quality, shareable content.
If someone you follow posts a Tweet that would be good to be Retweeted to your followers, retweet it.  Some ideas for retweets are:

• Someone compliments/praises your brand in an @message to you.  Retweet that message and say thanks.
• Someone #FF you.  Retweet it, then be sure to reply to them and say thanks.
• Someone posts something that is relevant to what you, or your brand, is about, retweet it.

All of these are ways not only to get new followers, but to engage and encourage others to retweet you, getting your name out there.

I can't even begin to mention the number of people I have followed simply because they've retweeted my messages.

6.  Use appropriate #hashtags.
Hashtags are a great way to get new people to see your posts, which in turn gives them a chance to retweet and/or follow you.

Use appropriate hashtags about things related to you, or your brand, or what you're posting about in order to generate accurate ledes and a userbase of followers.  

But do use common sense and don't use too many hashtags.  Just because you can use more than one doesn't necessarily mean you should.

7.  Use the promoted accounts option.
This is the paid option mentioned above and while I've hesitated using it, I'm starting to consider it more.  Twitter is, like Facebook, a free service.  But if you are using it to market your company, your restaurant or yourself, then you should invest money into it as part of your marketing budget and strategy.

Promoted accounts have posts seen by people who are not followers and give them an opportunity to be able to follow you - something they may not have seen or done if you hadn't spent money to be a promoted handle.

With those things in mind, if you're looking to get more followers, try some of these tips and see if they help.

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your Facebook presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.

Sharing a Klout Blog Post: New Research: Topics That Get A Reaction

While I try to reserve posts that take you to other sites to be posted on Fridays and Saturdays, this article was just too good to wait till next Friday to post.

In the recent blog post made on Klout, they disclose statistics as to what topics get the most, and least, interaction via Facebook and Twitter.

The article contains several useful infographics as well as analytics and explanations as to some surprising outcomes from the research as well.

Depending on your brand/direction, this may or may not help you incorporate topics that generate interaction with your followers - but it's definitely something to consider.

Check out the blog here: http://blog.klout.com/2014/05/topics-that-get-a-reaction/

Thursday Tutorials: Adding Managers to Google+ Pages

This is the first Tutorial in a month or so - sorry about that!  And I realize while writing this that I haven't done a post on how to Create a Google+ page.  I suppose that will be added to my list of things to write.  So I suppose this is a little backward.  But if you already have a Google+ page but don't know how to add managers, this article is for you!

As mentioned this past Tuesday, it is a good idea for you to add staff to your social media so they can assist you.  This is just a tutorial guiding you on how to add staff to your Google+ Page(s).

Keep in mind, these tutorials are written for the new to social media sites and are written with that in mind.  If you already know how to do some of this, skip the first few steps and just read what you need to know.

So, first, you need to access your page.  To find this, click on the circle icon with your profile picture on it and scroll down - I don't show mine for the simple fact I'm a manager of several pages and don't feel everyone needs to know which ones I work with.  Click on the page you want to add a manager to.  This will pull up your page.

Scroll down your page.  You should see, on the right column, a "View Dashboard section.  It looks like this:

Click on that.  It will take you to your dashboard where you can see notifications, stats and other items.  Scroll down.  In the middle you should see the Add Managers to your page area in the middle, as seen below.  

Scroll a little further down and there's an "Add Manager" button.  Click on that.  That will take you to this next page - which is honestly kinda silly since you have to click "Add Manager" again to actually add anyone.

Click on Add Manager to generate this following screen:

Type in the name or email address of the person you want to add as a manager.  They will receive an invite and have to accept being a manager before they become a manager.  The drop down menu, as seen, offers two choices for manager selection.  Just a Manager or Communications Manager.  Each position has different abilities, as seen in the chart below.

Note:  There is no need to worry about making someone an admin and them having power over the page and able to remove you.  You, the page creator, are in charge and can add/remove staff as needed or delete the page account.

See?  Really simple!  Now, go add some staff to your pages!

Thursday Tutorials are a series of tutorials designed to help people who may not be as Facebook savvy as other people.  Some tutorials will be targeted towards newbies to the social media world, others will include tutorials for more advanced users.  Thursday Tutorials are written for the layman and are designed with everyone in mind.  You can find all the Thursday Tutorials by clicking on the Thursday Tutorials tag below.

Tuesday Tips: Add Adminstrators/Managers to Your Fan Pages

At the beginning of March we provided a tutorial on how to add staff to Facebook fan pages.  Later this week, we'll add a tutorial for adding administrators to Google+ Pages and then to LinkedIn as well.  Today's tip, however, pertains to the previous and upcoming tutorials.

Add other administrators/managers/staff to your page(s).  This will allow them to post, respond and advertise for your page.

This is important for a small business, community or fanpage.  Often you and your staff are busy with other projects (I know I am) and having multiple people having access can allow them to take some of the load off your shoulders when it comes to maintaining a social media presence and engaging your fans.

And now, you don't have to worry about knowing who posted what - at least on Facebook.  Facebook now shows admins who of the admins/managers posted what to the page and who responded to who on the page - which can help deter negative engagement from staff too.  Remember, you want to try to stay as positive as possible with your fans on Facebook - even if they piss you off.

Facebook has several roles for page staff to assume, not just admin, so be sure to consider that when you add staff to a page.

As always, remember that admin's have a lot of power - be sure those you make admin are those you can trust.

Tuesday Tips are a series of tips released on Tuesday each week regarding a hint or tip to help you manage and market your Facebook presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips tag below.