Virtual Options: Social Media for Business

Excerpted from article by Heidi Cohen published on Social Media Examiner:
"Here are seven steps for crafting calls to action to get your social community to do what you’d like them to and transform your social media marketing to get the results you want.

#1: Determine What You Want Prospects to Do:
Your call to action should encourage readers to engage with you further.
Make readers an offer they want. You can consider offering white paper downloads, ebooks, ongoing emails, discount coupons and/or free consultations.

#2: Create a Great Hook:
You’ll need to answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” This is what your prospects want to know.
And your request must make sense to them. This means not asking prospects to purchase if they’re still in an information-gathering mode.

#3: Motivate Prospects to Act:
Remember, you want to give your readers a reason to act.
Provide sense of urgency. Make people an offer they can’t refuse. Give them a one-time offer to encourage a response. Realize, however, they may only buy when you provide coupons going forward.

#4: Optimize Your Call to Action:
Like other aspects of your content, formatting matters! Here are some points to consider.
- Use a contextually relevant presentation;
- Make your call to action stand out visually;
- Qualify your offer;
- Limit selection choices;
- Place calls to action in multiple locations on your pages;
- Keep calls to action above the fold;
- Put call-to-action options in order of importance;
- Include social sharing.

#5: Maintain a Consistent Presentation on Landing Pages:
This is one of the biggest reasons calls to action don’t work. Send prospects to the appropriate step in the purchase process.
Make sure you use the same wording and graphics. The goal is to show continuity. Don’t let the reader think that you’ve sent them to the wrong place or they’ll leave.

#6: Test to Maximize Results:
Every element of your call to action can be tested. When testing, only modify one factor at a time or you won’t know what caused the change.

#7: Measure Results:
How can you measure your results? You want to track the impact of your social media calls to action back to your original objectives. Here are some metrics to track:
- Impressions;
- Click-throughs;
- Click-through rate;
- Completions;
- Completion rate..."

Each step is analyzed with detailed information. Read full article here:
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-improve-your-social-media-calls-to-action/

Via Giuseppe Mauriello

Clickberry provides users with a number of interesting video editing options such as overlaying hyperlinks, tagging friends or linking to any online video

Via FPPT

"Google Alerts have become a critical part of my business from brand monitoring to topic monitoring, but it may be going away."

Via Robin Good

All of my PowerPoint templates are completely free - no strings attached. Please use them however you wish, though I kindly ask that you do not redistribute

Via Baiba Svenca

Looking for an easy and inexpensive way to add high quality graphics to your blog posts? You can do it in 10 steps with PowerPoint!

Via Baiba Svenca

The Psychology of Social Media: Finding Balance in an Evolving Digital World
Huffington Post
Just this month, a faculty member with expertise in social media was called upon by the news media to comment on a story about Instagram Beauty Contests.

Google Glass – How it works – #infographic How does it work, Google’s new Glass?

Via WordPress SEO & Social Media

YouTube and Google+ Business Page Integration is now here, complete with multi-admin user capabilities so that you can have multiple users uploading and managing videos on your channel.

Via Resonance, ABroaderView

Social Influencers: Digital Marketing's Most Overlooked and Misused Resource Business 2 Community It is hard to believe that in a digital world where people are so connected, it still seems to be completely difficult for businesses to use that to...

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Facebook Replies, Threaded Comments Introduced
Huffington Post
The way it works currently is "the most active and engaging conversations" bubble up to the top, Facebook's Vadim Lavrusik explained in a blog post.

Presentation by Lisa Rhodes of Verne Global, and Pawan Deshpande, CEO of Curata. Published on SlideShare in April 2013.

 

"There's a good reason why content curation is such a hot topic these days: It works! Explore real-world examples of how leading B2B marketers identify, find, organize and share relevant content with their core markets via content curation, and learn why curation delivers strong ROI for today's marketing organizations."

 

Original Presentation on SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/G3Com/the-role-of-curation-in-content-marketing

 

Via Giuseppe Mauriello

Excerpted from article by Pawan Deshpande, CEO at Curata:
"By definition, content curation is the act of continually identifying, organizing, and sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific topic or issue online.  When evaluating which content curation tool to use, there are three primary areas of consideration:

1.The Inputs – Where does the content curation tool get information from? What type of content will this allow me to curate?  Will it help identify and recommend relevant content?

2.The Organization  – What does this tool offer in terms of organizing content once it has been identified?  What type of data models does this represent content as? In a simple chronological list, or an inter-linked structure? Does it let me annotate and editorialize the curated content?

3.The Venue – How and where can I share the content once I have decided to curate it?

In this blog post, I am primarily going to focus on the decided on a content curation tool based on the venue – the channels to which your content is curated.

- Embedded Widget.
What is it? Embedded widgets allow you to display curated content in a small pane on your existing web properties.
Pro’s: Relatively easy to implement with Javascript code or create an iframe.
Con’s: Content in widgets is almost never indexed by search engines because they are rendered in Javascript which search engines do not consider.
Who should use it? Organizations that are looking primarily to touch up their website with some fresh content may want to use a widget.

- Microsite.
What is it? A dedicated microsite or section of a website populated primarily with curated content.
Pro’s: Microsites really create a full-fledged experience with curated content as the center piece and can easily because the hub for a specific topic or issue.
Con’s: Because the curated content is not tucked away in a widget and is instead front and center, you will need to pay a lot more attention to what you curate.
Who should use it? Organizations that are looking to become an authoritative destination for a topic or issue to position themselves as a key resource or thought leader, or to drive traffic and visibility.

- Personalized Page.
What is it? A personalized page is a lightweight, single page microsite filled with curated content.
Pro’s: Easy to get up and running and are indexed by search engines. Usually free.
Con’s: Only one page is indexed by search engines.
Who should use it? Individuals or cost conscious non-profits who want to create an information resource.

- Email Newsletters.
What is it? An email newsletter or digest containing the latest curated content that is sent out on a regular interval.
Pro’s: Email newsletters are a great way to continually educate an audience on a regular basis without fail.
Con’s: Email newsletters have two drawbacks: 1. They are not indexed by search engines. 2. They are not real time.
Who should use it? Email newsletters are a great medium for curated content for curators with an existing captive audience.

- Twitter & Social Media Channels.
What is it? Posting curated content on Twitter and other social media channels such as Facebook and LinkedIn through status updates. The curated content could be links to blog articles or other web content, or curated tweets.
Pro’s: Posting curated content is different from other mediums, because it’s a very time sensitive medium.
Con’s: The drawback of sharing curated content on social media is that if you don’t have a lot of curated content on your topic, then it’s hard to get noticed. Because social media is content is so fleeting, if you are not constantly and consistently posting your curated content, then your impact will be minimal.
Who should use it? Curators who have topics with a sufficient throughput of content.  Curators with an existing or potential audience on social media channels. Curators with content that has a likelihood of being shared virally.

- Feeds.
What is it? Content that’s shared through RSS feeds or other data feeds.
Pro’s: People with RSS readers can subscribe to them – who are usually visitors who return regularly. In addition, some search engines crawl RSS feeds.
Con’s: Social media these days has in many ways taken the place of RSS feeds and provide more room for annotation. Unlike social media, it’s also difficult to annotate your content as a curator and add your own context.
Who should use it? Curators with an audience that prefers this medium.

 

So what’s the right answer? Which venue should you choose as you evaluate content curation tools?
A sound content curation strategy utilizes all of the venues and channels, but drives all visitors back to a single microsite. If you’re using a robust content curation platform then you should be able to easily syndicate your content to all channels with ease..."

Read full original article here:
http://www.curata.com/blog/content-curation-guidelines-where-to-share/

 

Via Giuseppe Mauriello

Infographics are interesting–a mash of (hopefully) easily-consumed visuals (so, symbols, shapes, and images) and added relevant character-based data (so, numbers, words, and brief sentences).

The learning application for them is clear, with many academic standards–including the Common Core standards–requiring teachers to use a variety of media forms, charts, and other data for both information reading as well as general fluency...

Via Baiba Svenca

A Facebook Fan Is Worth $174, Researcher Says - Mashable
Mashable
A Facebook fan is worth $174 to a brand, up 28% since 2010, according to Syncapse, a social media marketing firm.

Need a guide to help you make your Facebook marketing efforts awesome in 2013? Start with the Ultimate Facebook Marketer's Checklist.

Via Ryan Hanley

Social media measurement: learn about five platforms to help you measure your social media efforts.