Friday Facts: Instagram and Pinterest Marketing - A List Of Holiday Social Media To-Dos

The holidays are almost upon us - well, close enough as holiday season starts next week with Thanksgiving and runs through the next month with Christmas and New Year.  Holidays are often busy with vacations and extra work coming down the line when you're trying to make holiday sales as well as market your brand.  If you have branched your brand into Instagram and Pinterest, now is the time to take advantage of those platforms with the tips this infographic provides.

Today's post links to an infographic I found on Pinterest here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/381539399656082323/

The original article can be found on Digital Information World here: http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/11/leverage-pinterest-and-instagram-to-drive-traffic-and-revenue-this-holiday-infographic.html

A couple of their Pinterest tips:

• Share the joy. Add Pin It buttons to all on-site holiday creative. (Allrecipes drove a 900 percent lift in Pinterest clicks by adding the Pin It button to their site).
• Build a holiday board to highlight you ho-ho-hottest pins.

A couple of their Instagram tips: 

• Create and promote a holiday hashtag. All I want for Christmas is... UGC (user-generated content)? Ask fan to share selfies and tag your brand.
• Celebrate UGC in a holiday gallery on your website. Brands that have brought UGC on site are driving a 15-30 percent lift in click-throughs to shop.

They have 10 tips for each social media site. Read more: http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/11/leverage-pinterest-and-instagram-to-drive-traffic-and-revenue-this-holiday-infographic.html#ixzz3IdnzB9ly

Good luck marketing this holiday season.

Wednesday Words: Creative Commons

Finding images to use when creating graphics for social media can be challenging.  Copyright can often get in the way of a good idea - especially if you don't like being sued or getting take down notices when you've used an image someone else created or shot.

This is where creative commons can come into play and is very handy for anyone that needs to create graphics - not just for social media.  A non-profit organization, Creative Commons is dedicated to make it easier for people to share and build upon others' work while following copyright rules and regulations.

Creative Commons provides free licenses as well as other legal tools, to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants their work to carry.  This allows others to share, remix, potentially use commercially (based on the license) or any number of these things to be used together.

There are a few other sites similar to this, including http://www.sxc.hu which has both free images that have various licensing rights as well as paid use images.

If you are looking images to use, whether it be for inspirational quotes, top 10 lists, or whatever floats your boat, check out Creative Commons and SXC.  They may have what you need.  Or you can try to take your own pictures and go from there.

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: Brand Consistently Across Social Media

This is one of those tips that seem obvious, but many companies actually make this mistake.  Your brand is important.  You have a logo, you have a slogan.  Use it consistently.

Don't have a different logo you use for each form of social media. Don't have a different avatar or different background.  Do your best to keep everything as consistent as possible.  Is it boring?  Yes. But it also prevents something important from happening - brand confusion.

The following advice comes from Karen Leland of Sterling Marketing Group:

"Presenting one consistent brand in logo, look and message is critical. To do this, use only one or two photos for all your social-media sites. Customize your Twitter and Facebook backgrounds using elements from your website. Keep the keywords and core descriptions of who you are and what you do relatively the same across all sites. Oh and make sure all information is up to date and current."

Quote from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/227245?hootPostID=41ad7f211f636cbc41ff95993fb7948f#

So, if you have multiple logos, figure out which one is going to be the one you're going to stick with, and stick with it and create your social media profiles around that.

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.

Friday Facts: The Hard Truth About How The Facebook News Feed Works Now

Once again, another article I'm linking to offsite that provides a lot of information about changes Facebook made in December 2013. If you're like me, you noticed the number of people viewing your posts drastically dropped after December, no matter how big or small your Facebook Page was.

Few people understand how the new algorithms work, and this article doesn't totally explain them either - but it does provide proof that Facebook wants you to spend money to market your brand, large or small.

Just to quote a small section of the article:

• Facebook's guiding principle is that the News Feed should be full of stuff Facebook users want to see.
• Facebook has changed its mind about brands. It has decided that users do not really want to see a News Feed full of updates from brands – Tide, Dove, Pampers, Nyquil, etc. 

Not sure about anyone else, but if I like a page or are friends with someone I -WANT- to see what they're posting, not have Facebook decide what my feed should be full of or not full of.  And you may have also noticed that you see far less from friends who you know post regularly and your feed is now a few select people instead of everyone you know.

If you're interested in learning more, I strongly suggest you read more here: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-facebook-news-feed-works-2014-2#ixzz2tJKpHMGP

Important News: Name Change

Well this was an unexpected and sudden change when I finally got around to writing a tutorial on how to create a webpage fan page for Facebook.  Using this blog as my goal for the page, I started creating the Facebook page with the original name of the blog for the page's name: Facebook Marketing: Hints and Tips.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to see that Facebook wouldn't allow the use of their name to create pages.  Go figure.

Thus we have ended up with a similar name, which means an update of links and an update in name to "Social Media Marketing: Tips and Hints."  That also means I have a broader subject area to write about as well.

Images accompanying the titles of articles will help you determine whether the article is for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ or whatever else is out there.

As always, I welcome questions and hope to hear from you soon!

Types of Articles You Will Find Here

Facebook marketing can be confusing to those who have never worked with social media before or don't understand the terminology used by Facebook and by social media experts to talk about Facebook, marketing and how it all works.

This blog will contain a number of articles explaining not only terminology, but how to set up a branded page, regular tips and hints on how to engage users, things to do and things not to do, and how Facebook works in general from a marketing stand point.

Whether you are an experienced social media manager and marketing specialist or new to the world of Facebook marketing, this blog should provide you with a plethora of knowledge - in layman's terms - to help you out.

As always, if you have a question, and we haven't covered it yet, please feel free to leave it in the comments and it may be answered in a future article.