Tuesday Tips: Post Pictures on Twitter

For those relatively new to Twitter and Social Media, this might be a surprise. For everyone else who has been around the block a time or two already know this - but you can post more than just words to Twitter, you can post photos and videos as well.

Today's tip: Post pictures to Twitter!

Now, after saying this, there are a few things to remember. You will lose a number of characters when you add an image to Twitter, so keep that in mind when preparing a post to go along with your photo.  Keep the tweet and associated hastags short and sweet.  Make sure the pictures are engaging - since Twitter now shows previews of images in timelines, it is important to make images engaging.

Most importantly - have fun with 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 social media presence better.  You can find all the Tuesday Tips by clicking on the Tuesday Tips 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.

Tuesday Tips: Linking in Tweets

Have you ever wondered where to put your links in your tweets?  I know I have and I have experimented with several different ways, but it seems like passion digital has done some research on the topic and they concluded the following:

Get your links in early. Put your key message before your link. Any after thoughts, opinions or additional commentary should go after the link. Intersparce your hastags as well both before and at the end of your tweet, just remember not to use too many hashtags.

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.

Saturday Sharing: 10 Tips for Twitter Marketing

With more than 271 million users creating more than 500 million tweets a day, if you aren’t using Twitter to promote your brand, your book or your blog, the only question I have is why? Because of it’s size and the mass amount of content, using Twitter can be challenging to anyone new to Twitter, especially with being confined to 140 characters.

CIO Whitepapers offers an ebook titled “10 Things Marketers Should be Doing on Twitter” which promises to teach you what you should be doing to get more retweets, followers and business prospects as well as best business practices for Twitter.

You can acquire the 13 page ebook/whitepaper here: http://research.ciowhitepapers.com/?option=com_categoryreport&task=viewabstract&pathway=no&title=50414&frmurl=http%3a%2f%2fforms.madisonlogic.com%2fForm.aspx%3fpub%3d162%26pgr%3d977%26frm%3d1676%26autodn%3d1%26src%3d10873%26ctg%3d2%26ast%3d50414%26crv%3d0%26cmp%3d16778%26yld%3d0%26clk%3d6160158076151597188%26embed%3d1

Wednesday Words: Extended circles

Early last year one of the words we defined as part of the Social Media Marketing Wednesday Words was Circles.  Circles is how you arrange your connections within Google +.  You can group your connections into circles with which you then select the names of the circles you want to share your posts with.

But there's also extended circles on Google+.  Extended circles includes not only the people in your circles but the people who are in your circles' circle (aka a friend of a friend can see your post).

With Google+ you can chose for your post to only be shared with your circle or if you want people in the extended circles to be able to see your post.  When you chose to let extended circles see your post, your post could appear on their news feed instead of in just your friend's news feed.

Something to keep in mind when sharing with circles and extended circles on Google+.

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.

Friday Facts: Tailoring Your Posts for Different Social Media Networks

The Constant Contact blog recently posted an interesting article covering the topic of how to tailor your posts for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  The article discusses the importance of each outlet's audience and what they're looking for content wise.  It also explains what type of content each network is looking for and does best with as well as reminding folks to respond to their followers.

This is a very informative piece and I recommend anyone, new or expert, participating in social media to check it out.  For more information: http://blogs.constantcontact.com/product-blogs/social-media-marketing/content-social-media/

If you have anything you would like us to share on Fridays or Mondays, please don't hesitate to contact me via Google+ or Facebook!

Wednesday Words: Circles

Todays's Wednesday Word is a word that, thus far, is only associated with Google+ (G+): Circles.

Circles is how you arrange your connections within Google +.  You can group your connections into circles with which you then select the names of the circles you want to share your posts with.

You can also put people into multiple circles.  I have circles for VIPs, close friends, family, acquaintance and industry contacts.
The interesting thing to note though is while Circles can affect your personal profile on Google +, it can also affect your business page there as well.  People can add your page to circles (which allows them to see some of what you publish), but for them to see more, you have to add them to your page's circles.

And, just like Facebook, this isn't an automatic step.  You have to do this yourself.

Keep in mind, if you want certain articles you post to your page to target certain members of your audience and not others, be sure to put them into specific circles, then select that circle for the item to be posted to.

In the coming weeks, we'll be touching on Google + and how to use it as Social Media along with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

As always, I welcome questions on any of the social media platforms and look forward to answering questions of my readers.

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.

Wednesday Words: Avatar

Avatar, not to be confused with the movie with blue aliens, is an image used to represent yourself on a forum, Twitter, Facebook, etc.  It can be a picture of yourself, a logo you like or any number of things that represents something about you.

People new to social media are sometimes confused by the term avatar.  For Twitter and Facebook, the avatar should be your company logo - that way the Facebook/Twitter post is easily recognizable while enforcing and enhancing branding of the name and logo.

The Avatar is what people will see and associate with you when scanning through their social media - so you want it to be identifiable and recognizable.

If you are unsure what you should do for your page's Avatar or your Twitter Feed Avatar, I highly suggest looking at other, similar Twitter Feed and Facebook pages, then go from there.  If you still aren't sure, consult with others.  You'd be surprised what people will suggest that just might work.

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.

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!