Friday Facts: Interesting Statistics

I really should thank +Donna Prior for posting this article on Facebook as it gave me fodder for another blog post.   And while I try not to direct people to other sites from my own, I sometimes see the necessity for it.  This is one of those cases.

Donna linked to the Social, Digital & Mobile Around the World (January 2014) on slideshare.net which provides 183 slides pertaining to internet access and social media  penetration of countries in the world today.

The numbers may actually surprise you - especially when you look at third world countries and countries struggling with civil unrest.  A surprising number of those countries have a high penetration of internet access and use of social media.

For example, did you know, these were the active user accounts for the following social media platforms world wide?

• 1,184 million users on Facebook
• 300 million users on Google+
• 259 million users on LinkedIn
• 232 million users on Twitter
• 230 million users on Tumbler

Admittedly, a large percentage of users are probably on each network as well.  I know I have an account on the first four platforms mentioned here - I haven't succumbed to Tumbler yet, but it's bound to happen.

When you look at those numbers, especially if you keep looking through the slides to break down the statistics by country, it becomes easier to understand why marketing via social media has become an important tool that is slowly becoming a part of every company and emerging artist's game plan.

I encourage you to check out the slideshare.net slides on this topic and learn a bit more about just how widespread social media really is.  Article can be found here: http://www.slideshare.net/wearesocialsg/social-digital-mobile-around-the-world-january-2014

Thursday Tutorials: Creating Your Page

The previous tutorials - prior to missing an article for last week - covered how to find the "Create a Page" buttons as well as how to chose the category your page falls into.  Today, using this blog as an example, I will walk through how to create a page for a website/brand/product.  The process is pretty much the same for the other categories - but if specific tutorials for each category are wanted, I will need to be able to create a page for a specific category.

That being said, we'll start with the very first step, finding and clicking on the click page button - as seen below.

Once you click that +Create a Page button, this page below will pop up where you can chose the category you want your page to be in.  If you are confused on this, please check the article found here for additional information as to what types of pages go where.

Since I'm creating a page for my blog (aka Website), I selected the Brand or Product category from above.  Then in the drop down menu for selections there, I chose Website, as seen below.

After that is selected, I typed in (what was then) the name of the blog (as seen below).

Once I hit the "Get Started" button, that's when I discovered I had to change the name of my page.  Long story short, there is some programing within page creation which will prevent you from creating pages with certain names.  Using the term "Facebook" in a page name is forbidden - which should have been an "oh duh" moment for me, but I hadn't really considered it before I started the blog.

If you hit the "Get Started" button and a red error message pops up similar to the one below, click on the "Learn More" to figure out what you might have done wrong, then change the name of your page - as I did.

Thankfully, Social Media Marketing: Tips and Hints was permissible and available, which is why the blog's address and name changed to that.  Finding the name was allowed, hitting "Get Started" Takes you to this next page.

This was my first draft of what I put in the description area.  You are limited to a certain number of characters, so be sure to be concise about what your page is for.  I redid this and ended up with a shorter blurb and a way to add in my blog address.  Note: If you put in a web address, it will automatically link in the page's description - a great way to hopefully get people to click to your site if they stumble across your page.

Now, I failed to get screenshots of the next two steps, but they are relatively easy to walk through.

Your profile picture, or avatar, is the image that will be seen in the feed of folks who liked you.  Facebook requires the size to be at least 180x180 in size, but you can use almost any size, just as long as it resizes right and looks good in the square.  Facebook has options for you to select what you want people to see if the image doesn't resize right.  If all else fails, I strongly encourage you to spend time on selecting your image and making sure it looks right.  

Most importantly, don't worry if it doesn't look right or you decide that's not the image you want to use.  You can always change it after the page is initially created.

Once you have the image uploaded and selected, you move on to the final phase, adding your new page to your Favorites section.  That will make your page show up as seen below.

Once that is done, you hit the final button and it will take you to a pretty sparse page, but it's been created and your name has been saved.

Our next article will continue in the same theme of this page, but with customizing your page that you just created.

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.

Wednesday Words: Algorithms and Social Media

Every so often when you come across articles explaining why your page posts only reach a certain percentage of users who like your page, the term algorithms pops up and are left relatively unexplained.  And if you are like me, you remember learning about algorithms in school (vaguely), but you haven't had to use them in the 10 years since college, so you forget what they're used for.  And you wonder why algorithms would be used in social media.

While algorithms is a math term, it is also used in programming and where social media is concerned, algorithms is a program used to determine who sees what percentage of  posts you post to your various social media outlets.

Each social media tool has different ways to calculate how your users will see what percentage of your posts.  This is called an algorithm.  Facebook changes the name of theirs, the most recent one being Edge Rank and it determines not only how much you see from pages you like, but how much you see from friends based on how much you - and others - interact with your friends.

Most of these algorithms are based on user/friend engagement.  If you see a page liking it's own post, or a friend liking their posts, it's likely not because they're being narcissistic, it's because they've read about how the algorithms work and if they want more of their friends or likes to see the post, they like it.

What's worse, is once you have the algorithms figured out for each form of social media, they often change.

TLDR version: Algorithms are formulas used by engines in social media to determine who sees what on their walls.

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: Engage Your Fans

On a Wednesday Words, we explained engagement from fans and how you as page admins must also be engaged with your users.

The best way to engage your users are to post things two to three times a week that encourages participation.  That can be a question for fans to answer, a video, pictures or, occasionally, a contest to get them to interact*.  

As always, respond to customer/fan questions and feedback that they post on your page.  If they take time to give you feedback, take time to acknowledge it.  

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.

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!