11 Ways to Increase Engagement on Your New Facebook Page

Communication has never been a one-way street, but past marketing methods have not been conducive to back and forth discussions. Social media marketing, on the other hand, thrives on interaction and engagement between a company and its customers.

The appropriate interaction makes people feel valued. It means their needs and desires have been acknowledged and that the company is actively working to fulfill them. Getting the conversational ball rolling, however, can be a challenge.

How can a business get fans and visitors to engage with a social media marketing effort? Start with these first 11 tips for increasing engagement on a new Facebook page:

1. Welcome visitors.
2. Ask a question about products or services.
3. Ask fans about their business.
4. Ask for help or crowd-source new product ideas.
5. Ask an easy non-product related question.
6. Answer a question from a customer.
7. Respond quickly to comments from visitors and fans.
8. Create a connection from Facebook to the outside world.
9. Say “Thank You” publicly to active fans.
10. Join Facebook groups/networks.
11. “Like” other businesses on Facebook.

Fans return to where they feel welcome and where they are rewarded for being there. Engagement is increased by making it easy to engage in return. While there are people who feel comfortable writing a long response or carrying on a discussion, most prefer to keep things simple. So the business should as well. To see how well the social media marketing effort is working, determining the ratio of visitors that clicked “Like” or “Recommend” out of total visitors shows how effective the Facebook page has been.

Ease and convenience rule modern life, especially in social media marketing. To get answers, questions should be easy to respond to. If all it takes is a word or two, most people will take the time to participate. Rather than make the questions all about the product, though, the best social media marketing response will come from questions about a fan’s own business, about industry practices, and about improving a product or service to better fit a fan’s needs.

For all social media marketing, when a fan or visitor asks a question, the response should be as quick as possible, most effectively the same day. Using the email notification feature can ensure this. This means businesses will need staff dedicated to social media marketing efforts. Publicly telling fans “Thank you” means just as much as a quick answer. Showing appreciation goes a long way to cementing a relationship.

A spirit of generosity is also a very attractive part of social media marketing. When a business can
“like” another business, not only does that increase awareness of that other business, but reciprocity levels the same advantage back. This type of mutual admiration society also shows that the company is confident and comfortable with sharing attention.

As engagement grows, advocates will be found for the company through social media marketing as well as increased engagement between fans, helping to grow awareness across their networks. Joining networks and groups is another way of doing this. Plus, this level of engagement yields a trove of information about fans and visitors that can be mined to determine prominent industries using a particular product or service, what features are popular and which could be jettisoned, where improvements can be made and what new product or service could be successfully offered. This is one of the biggest strengths of social media marketing!

Keep Your Lead Generation Campaigns Alive During The Holidays

Somehow, another year is quickly drawing to a close. Many businesses are working hard to end the year on a sound note, while keeping their staff motivated and productive during the holidays. When you’re the business owner, though, your focus rarely wavers from keeping your sales pipeline full, no matter the date on the calendar. Not only can you continue your lead generation efforts during the holidays – you should.

End the year strong and start the new year with a bang. The following are suggestions for staying the course during the holidays and all the way through the end of the year.

Embolden lead generation campaigns with some festive fun

The holiday season creates perfect opportunities for marketers who don’t mind mixing a little fun with their work. Mandy Edwards of ME Marketing Services offers the following holiday marketing advice for social media marketing:

‘Get festive! You want your business/brand to be relevant, so that means “decorating” your social media accounts! Change out your Facebook cover photo to something Christmasy (if you celebrate that) or have your Twitter background be a field covered with snow. Show the world that you are ready for the holidays.’

Another fun holiday marketing suggestion is accomplished in an “old-fashioned” way. In his article for Autodesk, Ken Micallef shares several great tips for lead generation during the holidays, including snail-mailing holiday cards, gifts or gift cards to your current clients. This often makes a good impression and keeps your name on their minds for referrals and future business.

Heat up lead generation campaigns by firing up your sales team

Sales people who are worth their salt appreciate incentives. A fun contest or two around the holidays should help motivate and energize your sales team while fostering teamwork. For example, award the person who makes the most phone calls, the one who generates the most leads and/or the one with the best attitude. Of course, the rewards of lead generation benefit the entire team.

Invigorate lead generation campaigns by making connections

Many parties and other similar social affairs take place this time of year. Take time to network with your friends, colleagues, family, clients, and so on. Being social this time of year, whether online or off, increases your exposure – and your opportunities for lead generation.

What are your best suggestions for avoiding the holiday slump for your lead generation campaigns? I would love to hear what works for you!

4 Social Analytics Tips to Improve Your Social Media Marketing

Would you like to find out when your social media followers are most active?

Do you want to know which social network drives the most leads to your website?

There are many social media statistics you can track, but it’s important to track the data specific to your business’s use of social media.

Track the right metrics for your community and you’ll better understand how and when to share information, as well as what type of content drives the most traffic to your website.

In this article, you’ll learn how to track and measure four important social media metrics to help you improve your social media marketing.

#1: Determine the Best Times to Post Updates on Twitter and Facebook

Twitter

Because Twitter moves at such a rapid pace, tweets get buried quickly. Knowing when your followers are online plays a crucial part in your tweet’s visibility and success.

Luckily there are some great tools to analyze the activity of your followers.

Tweriod looks at the recent tweets of your followers and provides you with analytics and data that show when your followers are the most active.

Once you connect your Twitter account to Tweriod, it runs an analysis and summarizes the best hours of each day for you to reach your followers with your tweets. The report is delivered to you by email or a DM when the results are ready.

Tweriod results show the optimal times for you to tweet.

Besides recommending the best hours of each day to tweet, Tweriod also gives you an overall analysis you can review to get a sense of your community’s most active days.

Tweriod analytics show your followers' daily activity.

Tweriod also gives you the ability to synchronize this data with your Buffer account to automatically update your auto-scheduling hours.

Tweriod is free for accounts with up to 1000 followers and offers a monthly subscription if you have more followers or are interested in premium features.

Use the data from Tweriod to adjust the days and times you post on Twitter.

Facebook

With Story Bump, EdgeRank and the sheer volume of posts that roll through the general news feed, it’s getting difficult to make sure your fans see your page posts. Tomaximize the lifespan of your posts, you need to know when your fans are most likely to see them.

Facebook Insights offers a simple way to find out when your fans are most likely to be active on Facebook.

To find the best hours to share updates on your Facebook page, pull up the Insights dashboard, click on the Posts tab, and choose “When Your Fans Are Online.”

The Posts tab in Insights shows when your fans are most often online.

Here, Facebook shows you easy-to-read graphs of your fans’ diversity, including the average number of fans who saw your post in any given hour.

Insights has easily readable graphs.

That’s it. Now, you just have to post during your strong hours and highlight your most important posts during your peak exposure times.

#2: Find the Magic Number of Facebook Posts per Day

Many studies show the average brand should post about 1-2 times a day on Facebook. You need to know if that’s true for your page.

Find the magic number of posts to share on your page, and you’ll dramatically affect your engagement and community growth.

Facebook’s new Insights dashboard gives you information about your recent posts and the frequency of engagement. To view the information, click on “See All” from your page to reveal the Overview tab.

Access your Insights dashboard.

Now, export the Overview data into a spreadsheet file directly from the dashboard by selecting “Data Type: Post-Level Data.”

A view of the Facebook Insights dashboard Overview tab.

In the spreadsheet, group the posts by day and compare the average Lifetime Post Total Impressions and Lifetime Engaged Users columns.

For each day, look for the lower engagement numbers to discover which post count is decreasing the average metrics you measure.

That is your magic number of posts to share each day.

#3: Measure the Click-through Rate

If you’re active on social media, you’re likely to share a lot of content from your blog, website, YouTube channel or other media platforms.

When you share a link to your various platforms, your goal is to have people click on your link. The click-through rate (CTR) your links receive is most likely your primary metric for measuring success.

To measure your CTR, you need a URL shortener to track clicks.

Bitly is a free URL shortener with a set of tools to create shortened links, share your links and measure the CTR on your links.

You can shorten links from within the Bitly dashboard or use an extension for Firefox or Chrome to automatically shorten and share links straight from your browser.

After you’ve shortened a link with Bitly, click on it from the library at any time to get detailed information on its CTR, click sources, geographic distribution of clicks and more.

This Bitly dashboard shows a CTR of 44 and other data on platforms and demographics.

This map shows where the clicks on a Bitly link originate.

On the Bitly stats dashboard, you get both aggregated and individual statistics about the links you share from Bitly. Aggregated stats show complete global activity on a link and individual stats show activity specific to your shares of the link.

There are other tools to measure your CTR, but Bitly’s analytics give you more detail than most, for free.

Bitly shows you click-through rates on every link you shorten.

Spend some time analyzing the data behind your Bitly links to find trends in CTRs and shares that will help you deliver content suited to the needs and interests of your community.

#4: Compare Lead Sources and Conversion Rates

Most brands’ social media strategies use more than one social media platform to drive traffic to their websites and generate new leads.

Although each platform has its place in your strategy, you won’t receive an equal ROIfrom each one. You’ll want to find out which platform generates the best ROI so you can put more effort into your marketing on that platform.

UTM Link Building and Google Analytics can help you track the leads and conversions from each social network. UTMs are tags you add to a URL that make it easy to track and monitor in Google Analytics.

Use the Google URL builder to create a measurable URL that Google Analytics can segregate into campaigns.

Google's URL Builder.

Google’s URL Builder page has some helpful hints on how to use each of the UTM parameters:

• Campaign Source. This helps Google Analytics identify the source of your traffic as a search engine, newsletter or other referrer.
• Campaign Medium. This specifies whether the link is used in an email, a CPC ad or another method of sharing.
• Campaign Name. This associates your URL with a specific product promotion or strategic campaign such as a spring sale or other promotion.

Build unique URLs for any landing page on each of the social networks used in your strategy. You’ll be able to differentiate among leads that come from your Twitter bio, your tweets or Facebook.

If this seems too complicated, you’ll want to get the help of someone with the appropriate technical skills.

To see which social network provides the most leads or conversions for a specific campaign, go to your Google Analytics dashboard and check out your campaigns.

Google Analytics Campaigns overview.

Set up your goals, then look under Traffic Sources > Campaigns to see which source and medium drives more leads to your various landing pages and the conversion rate from each of them. Eventually, you’ll see which source (social network) brings you more leads or more signups or sales (conversions).

Anytime you share an inbound link on social media, measure it with custom UTM parameters to get full ROI information on leads and conversions.

Summary

You can track many metrics on social media, but the metrics you choose to measure should reflect your business goals.

I recommend tracking these social media metrics because they give you the information you need to better market your business and products.

What do you think? What metrics do you track to measure the success of your social media efforts? Are there tools you have found to be helpful? Join the conversation below and let me hear your thoughts!

10 Things Your Business Could Be Doing Wrong On Social Media

Here are ten ways to get social media wrong:

1) Lack of Strategy

A recent report conducted on a diverse mix of British businesses revealed that over two thirds implement social media into their organisations, but alarmingly one third still don’t have a plan in place. Social media will not be automatically integrated with your company’s overall marketing campaign. To avoid wasting valuable time and energy you need to set your objectives, know your target audience and how to reach them, as well as how to measure the success of a social media campaign.

2) Great expectations

 

Do not expect immediate results and a flood of cash just because you ‘do social media’. This process requires consistency and hard work. Even better stop treating social media as a process but rather start seeing it as an organism. If you set realistic goals which are aligned to your business strategy you can keep it alive and see it growing.

3) This is not our priority

 

This is usually a mix of ignorance and arrogance. It is surprising how many business owners misinterpret social media as distractions, silly networks and apps that only teenagers use. It is all just a passing fad right? This was the main argument presented by business owners at the dawn of the World Wide Web as well.

4) Anyone can do it

 

You wouldn’t hand the keys of your car to someone not ready to drive. Then why hand the keys of your company’s marketing success to someone who doesn’t know what to do with them? There are thousands of cases of companies’ posts and tweets gone wrong, all courtesy of staff members who simply didn't know what they were doing. Always ensure that your authorized social media users are properly trained. Perhaps it is safer to start from the “alphabet” of social media as well; Hashtags, @ replies, tagging etc. are not necessarily easy or intuitive.

5) Social media is our broadcasting tool

 

Yes it is. But it is also a conversation starter. Every social network has an element of feedback and dialogue built into it; this why it is called social at the first place. Do not tire your audience by constantly beaming out messages, instead, focus on interaction.

6) I will post something in a couple of weeks

 

Companies often get all amped up about their shiny new Facebook page, but then a couple of weeks later have already forgotten to update it. If you don’t want your social media pages to turn into Post Ghostdowns better come up with a content strategy.  Embrace social media as part of your business and set aside 10-20 minutes every day to work on it. It is a worth-while investment and the only way to create the desired engagement.

7) I will get back to you. One day.

The purpose of social media is to communicate in real time. However, on a report conducted by the Social media marketing and measurement firm Socialbakers, it was found that brands are ignoring 70% of fan comments. When they do respond it typically takes them a full 24 hours on average… Not ideal.

8) Oops I said it again

 

“It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute” Will Rogers would say.  Or just an embarrassing tweet, we would add. There is a vast range of examples here but some are more memorable than others. For instance, Gap seemed to encourage those impacted by the Hurricane Sandy last year to do some online shopping. It was not the brightest idea nevertheless the company took down the tweet and offered a semi-apology.

9) Sorry for being boring

 

Corporations who have no voice, do their best to be politically correct and don’t have a story to say areboring. Don’t be afraid to have some fun and put behind the wheel employees with strong people skills.

10) This is professional. Strictly professional.

 

Somehow when corporations enter the digital space, forget that behind every little avatar is a real person who deserves to be acknowledged. We’ve created this digital divide and fail to connect in a meaningful way. Treat people the way you would treat them in real life. Be human. Make friends. But remember; everything you say, no matter how casually you say it, becomes part of your image and your brand.

3 Mobile Tools to Improve Your Social Media Marketing

Have you figured out how to engage on-the-go prospects and customers?

Is more of your audience interacting with your business from their mobile phones?

If you want to enhance your mobile marketing, then keep reading.

I’ll show you three awesome tools that make mobile marketing easier.
Why Mobile?

Mobile is no longer something you can afford to ignore.

As customers’ adoption of mobile grows, you need to find ways to leverage mobile marketing tools to optimize their experience, no matter what device they’re on.

Whether you’ve already been experimenting with mobile marketing or are just getting started, the right tools help increase leads, engagement and sales.

In this article, I highlight three tools that offer easy ways to mobilize your social media marketing strategy.
#1: Send SMS (Text) and Video Messaging With Mogreet Express

One of the most powerful mobile marketing channels available today is SMS or short message service, which is also known as text message marketing.

SMS is a permission-based messaging tool that lets customers receive messages from you after they text a keyword or sign up using a web form.

SMS may not sound sexy, but it’s highly effective. Studies have indicated that 97% of mobile subscribers read an SMS (text) message within 15 minutes of receiving it. 84% respond within 1 hour.

Many top retailers actively use SMS to send out sales or product updates, special coupons or other important announcements. Coca-Cola focuses 70% of their mobile marketing budget on SMS/Text messaging.


Coca-Cola embraces the power of SMS to reach consumers.

So what does this have to do with social media?

Conversations with your customers shouldn’t end on Facebook, Twitter or any other social platform you currently use.

Mogreet Express lets you quickly create SMS (text) or video messaging campaigns to incorporate into social media and build a database of customers who want to receive your information and offers.

First, you create a keyword to title your campaign, and then Mogreet Express pairs your keyword with a shared short code. Make your keyword short and easy to remember.

After you’ve decided on a keyword, you’re guided through the process to set up the response customers receive when they opt in.


Mogreet Express lets you set up keywords in your dashboard to promote campaigns to your audience.

Now you’re ready to promote your campaign on Facebook and Twitter. The easiest way to do this is by using language such as:

“Become a Mobile VIP. Just text YOURKEYWORDHERE to 12345″ (this would be the short code that Mogreet Express provides to you).

Lane Bryant incorporates their call to action on a Facebook tab to connect with them. Their keyword is LBGB and their short code is 23705.


Lane Bryant added their SMS call to action to a graphic.

Once you’ve promoted your new SMS (text) campaign and customers begin to opt in,message them with valuable offers. This helps you stay top of mind, drive increased traffic (both physical and web) and create a new way to drive sales.

Set up a message to send to your customers in four steps:
Pick a send date and time. Use a marketing calendar and in just minutes, you can schedule messages for the next few months .
Choose your message type. MMS (video or picture) or SMS (just text). Adding short videos to your messages makes your communications personal and engaging.
Identify yourself in the message. Use your name, your business name or your brand, but clearly show who is sending the message.
Create your message copy. If you choose SMS, you only have 160 characters.




Mogreet's dashboard makes setting up campaigns easy.

You should include opt-out language in every message and Mogreet does this for you so you comply with the best practices of the Mobile Marketing Association. The opt-out looks something like this:


No more than X msgs/mo. Reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel. Msg&DataRatesMayApply.

Overall, Mogreet Express is a very easy-to-use SMS/MMS marketing tool for any small business owner. Incorporate your mobile call to action throughout your social media and you extend conversations with your customers beyond Facebook or Twitter. It’s a great place to start when adding mobile marketing to your social media strategy.
#2: Run Mobile-Friendly Facebook Contents With Heyo

Heyo makes it easy to build a contest on mobile that integrates seamlessly with Facebook. Not to mention it looks beautiful with the easy-to-use tools Heyo provides.

Nathan Latka, founder of Heyo, shared that Lilly Pulitzer worked with Heyo to mobilize their “Want It To Win It” tab right on Facebook because they didn’t want to miss out on all the traffic received from mobile Facebook users.


Don't miss out on all the mobile traffic to your contest pages.

To make sure mobile users receive the best user experience, Heyo’s smart URL automatically reroutes mobile users to the right location. If users are on a desktop, they’re sent to the native Facebook tab. If they’re on a mobile device, they receive the mobile contest application.


Lilly Pulitzer contest page from mobile.


Heyo's easy-to-use dashboard lets you create beautiful pages in minutes.

Heyo is the easiest way to create engaging campaigns that are social and mobile. Check out this tool if you want to drive traffic, leads and sales with a Facebook contest.
#3: Measure the ROI of Mobile Marketing With LogMyCalls

Did you know that people who search the Internet for food using their phone or tablet have nearly a 90% conversation rate? Or that 64% of searchers with smartphones convert within one hour of their mobile search activity?

One of the top converting metrics is a phone call. With such high odds of a mobile searcher clicking to call your business, tracking and measuring calls are vital.

LogMyCalls gives you a full suite of tracking features to track every call generated by your mobile advertising and measure the return on your investment.

Here’s how you get set up and start measuring which campaigns are performing the best in 4 steps.

Step 1: Select your numbers. Use your current phone number and convert it into a tracked number or choose new numbers and have calls to those phone numbers routed to your business or call center.


Select a local or toll-free number for your tracking.

Step 2: Name your route. This is where you associate the number with a specific marketing tactic. In this case, Facebook PPC.


Connect your numbers to your marketing campaigns.

Step 3: Set up your DNI. When someone clicks through from a Facebook PPC ad, a unique phone number is dynamically generated on your landing page. This allows LogMyCalls to track which online marketing efforts produced the phone call. This is done via a provided snippet of JavaScript.

Step 4: Track mobile calls generated from Facebook ads. This is your first and most basic report indicating call volume, date, time, etc.


Measure your call results with easy-to-read reports.

That’s it. When your customer is mobile and calls your tracking number from a Facebook ad, a billboard or any other mobile advertising unit, you easily identify which media outlets perform best and which convert leads to sales.

LogMyCalls makes it easy for you to understand how many leads and sales are generated from people who call via a mobile phone.

Your Turn

These tools help you reach your mobile customers no matter what device they’re on. There are more tools out there and as you use them, you need to make sure your website is mobile-friendly as these tactics ultimately drive people there.

What do you think? Have you tried any of these tools before? What other tools have you used? I would love to hear your thoughts about what works and what doesn’t. Please share your favorites in the comments box below.