KFC launched a successful mobile advertising campaign using augmented reality. When users held their phones over KFC packaging, it would overlay animations and additional information about products. Augmented reality allowed KFC to interact with customers in an innovative new way that took advantage of mobile capabilities. The presentation also discussed trends in mobile advertising, with banner ads declining in effectiveness and opportunities growing for ads integrated into mobile apps, games, and social media newsfeeds tailored to each user. Overall, mobile offers huge potential for targeted advertising but also challenges to engage users on a small screen.

1. 1

2. Introduction
Social media’s importance means that it’s now an integral part of any social media
strategy. Due to its cheapness, immediacy and allowing brands to develop a
relationship with their consumers, doing social media well can certainly help you out in
the long run. It’s no longer enough to say that you have a Twitter or LinkedIn account,
you must be able to back it up with consistency and customer service.
But while we’re all savvy enough to know what Facebook and Twitter are, the finer
points like customer service on Twitter, video editing and marketing on YouTube,
company pages on LinkedIn, using Foursquare as a marketing tool and the rise of
Pinterest may elude you. With so many platforms out there and compelling reasons
to use them, it can be difficult to know which ones to choose and in one or two cases,
which ones to drop.
Chances are you already two or three different platforms to focus your efforts on
(unless you’re a larger company and have the luxury of a community manager)
and that’s a good thing. Taking on too many platforms will only result in a diluted
experience that won’t help your company or brand in the long-term.
While Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are the obvious choices, it may be worth looking
into other depending on your industry. An app like Instagram can help show off your
wares or communicate far more than a simple status update, Foursquare can be useful
if you’re looking to drum up extra business by offering deals and offers and YouTube
can offer a unique way of engaging with your audience.
The amount of time you can dedicate to it and the type of marketing you want to
engage in will determine which tools you will use to promote your business so consider
your options first before you decide to embrace a new platform on top of your existing
ones.
2

3. Essential Social Stats & Facts That Brand
Marketers Should Consider
I
f there’s one thing that marketers are constantly craving for, it’s new stats
and facts to sink their teeth into. Knowledge is indeed power and with new
developments, research and products happening regularly it can be difficult
to keep up with them. One good place to keep up with this is at the major
conferences and events held around the world, where agencies, brands and companies
will always provide stats and figures. The Dublin Web Summit last week was no
exception so here are the major points to take away from the digital marketing stage,
with key facts presented as images.
Mark Dewings – Brand Communications At Soundcloud
Talking about the importance of sound and how its under-utilised as a medium,
Dewings mentioned that there is a discrepancy between how we consume and create
mediums. While creating images was popular thanks to the popularity of Instagram
and Camera+, others like sound and video recording was much lower, sharing similar
levels of creation and consumption
His main reasons for embracing sound were that it’s everywhere, it’s inherently practical
as it requires less digital memory, it’s less intrusive in comparison to other mediums as
it requires less effort to process as video requires more than one sense.
3

4. Alan Coleman – Founder & CEO of Wolfgang Digital
On a talk about at the three most important innovations for marketing – retargeting
(promoting what the user already likes), analytics (finding out how many times people
visit your site before a sale is made) and interest (developing interest in consumers
through advanced ad targeting) – Coleman spoke about the wealth of options that
brands have to help amplify their marketing efforts.
One of which looking at the process between first visiting a site and purchasing a good
or product. Using some of the status gathered from Wolfgang Digital’s work, Coleman
showed how you could get specific details to help your retargeting campaign such as
average site visits per purchase and the number of different sites visited per purchase.
4

5. Jan Rezab – Founder Of SocialBakers
Considering that stats are SocialBaker’s bread and butter, Jan Rezab based his talk
on understanding fans and the importance of engagement and consumer feedback.
Elaborating on Socialbakers’ ‘Socially Devoted’ concept that it introduced at Le
Web London, Rezab showed that while more brands were beginning to respond to
consumer queries, they were still a long way from achieving satisfactory levels (less
than 50% of questions on social media were responded to). However, in comparison to
2011 where only 5% of questions were answered, it’s has improved immensely
Hubert Grealish – Global Head of Brand Communications At Diageo
Talking about how the relationship between brands and customers has reversed,
Grealish talked about how consumers want a greater input into how brands work and
the power of getting them involved. Mentioning that 2/3 of people are influenced by
personal recommendations, he revealed that in a recent survey, 55% wanted to have
ongoing conversations with brands and 89% would feel more loyal if they were invited
to take part in a group.
What was particularly interesting was that out of the 89%, 41% wanted companies to
seek feedback from them and 37% said that they would like newer ways to interact
with brands via social media.
5

6. Dharmesh Shah – Co-founder and CTO of HubSpot
Concentrating on how Google’s search engine works, Dharmesh Shah talked about
how PPC ads aren’t as good an investment as you think saying “you’re not buying
attention, you’re renting it.” Instead, what you should focus on is creating useful
content, clean design and fast websites as that’s what Google is actually looking for.
What you want to focus on is results and not rankings, as measuring how many leads
you get for your site is more important. He also stressed the importance of Google+,
saying that the important part is the part before the ‘+’ and how it’s playing a major
part for writers and journalists, highlighting their Google+ profile, the number of circles
they’re in and allowing you to see articles they’ve written.
6

7. Omid Ashtari – Director Of Business Development At Foursquare
Although the major status Ashtari provided aren’t anything new, they’re still
significant enough to be repeated again. With over 25 million users globally and one
million businesses registered, the service has registered over 2.5 billion check-ins at
40 million venues.
However, Ashtari’s talk focused on case studies where Foursquare was used in an
innovative manner such as the London 2012 olympics where Foursquare became an
unofficial events guide, showing visitors where to visit, where all the events were being
held and ran badge competitions to encourage checkins. Another example was the
weather channel where your first check-in of the day triggered a weather report filled
with images and global news.
Mobile – It’s 1999 All Over Again
Our very own Niall Harbison decided to speak about mobile for his presentation. He
showed how the transition from desktop and personal computers to mobile devices
is having an effect on the biggest companies like Google and Facebook as well as
hurting traditional media companies.
7

8. It is no longer good enough just to have a mobile version of your website and big
companies like Nokia and Blackberry have been caught out and will probably die
because of the emergence of iOS and Android. The companies and brands who are
going to win big are those who bet big on mobile and who start embracing while
others are still asleep.
8

9. Mobile Advertising – How The Big Social Networks
Are Adapting
M
obile advertising is experiencing an odd growth rate at the moment.
While smartphone penetration continues to rise worldwide, and even
across lower-spending markets, the rate at which companies are picking
up on this isn’t quite matching. Looking at recent figures, consumer
interest in mobile is far outweighing the spend made by brands in advertising:
So why the disparity? First, it is still an incredibly new medium. We don’t quite yet
know how consumers will react to advertising via mobile, or how much time we can
reasonably expect them to spend with an ad. Secondly, it is a much less open market
than say, social media advertising, where many sites now have open ad platforms
allowing brands to set up and manage their own campaigns.
9

10. While Facebook is making some movement in this, for example by allowing brands to
target ads to mobile users, this is currently only available within Power Editor, which
is not something immediately open for all advertisers, but rather conserved for those
with larger budgets.
And just as we saw with social network marketing or advertising, mobile is currently at
the stage where it is still very much an afterthought. A case of ticking the box to allow
your ads to show on mobile, without really thinking about what type of ad will work,
which format it should be in, and what the overall strategy for a mobile ad campaign
should be. This is understandable, given how new the concept is.
Image via The Alantic
However, some brands are making real inroads with smart mobile ad campaigns
that are sympathetic of the medium they’re operating in. We’ve shared some of the
best ones below, along with some compelling stats to show why mobile advertising
deserves its place on your marketing campaign.
Types of Mobile Advertising
Banner Ads
The most common example of mobile advertising out there, if you’re a smartphone
user, the chances that you have already seen this type of ad is quite high, While
they served a purpose on desktop, banner ads are starting to fall out of favour with
10

11. advertisers as users begin to ignore them and marketers are looking at different ways
to engage users. While they mostly feature on free apps, most of these apps have a
paid version which gets rid of these ads. The cheap nature of banner ads means that
they won’t be disappearing any time soon, but as smartphone users start expecting
more, marketing strategies will have to change to reflect this.
Augmented Reality
Definitely the area that will see a lot of growth over the next few years, Augmented
Reality (AR) is where computer-generated graphics or animations are added on top of
a view of your real-world environment. The rise of companies such as Blippar is paving
the way for how AR is used to market
and promote brands and products.
While AR is the most expensive
advertising format here, the potential
and the opportunities provided
are massive. Its functions could
range from providing additional
information about goods or services,
or superimposing items in your home
to see how they would fit in. Its use
is growing and the fact that it has yet
to hit mainstream use means that its
going to become more popular as
usage grows.
Apps
Quickly becoming a very crowded market, apps have become the lifeblood of
smartphones with a platform’s success or failure depending upon it. It’s no longer
enough to just release an app and expect it to perform well, to get people to
download it, you need to produce something special.
Also, while people are spending more and more time on apps – sometimes more than
they would spend surfing the Web – the majority of this time is spent on gaming apps,
which would take up more time.
Currently, having an
app is the same thing
as having a Facebook
or Twitter page, so if
you decide to release
one, you need to
make sure the quality
is and have a decent
marketing campaign
behind it so that
people will download
it.
11

12. NFC
Near Field Communications (NFC) is another
emerging area in mobile marketing. The best way
to understand it is that it functions like a ‘mobile
wallet’ and a large number of smartphones come
with this technology pre-installed.
Its most popular use is paying for goods by
simply taking out your phone and tapping/
swiping it at the checkout, for contactless payment. Services like Google Wallet are
leading the charge with numerous other competitors releasing their own versions over
the coming months.
QR Codes
Although they’ve gotten a bad
rep as of late, quick response
(QR) codes are a great way of
providing content to smartphone
users in a direct manner. Basically,
QR codes work in the same way
as bar codes, except these can
be scanned on your smartphone
through a specialised app.
The QR code acts as a visual URL
which takes the use to a particular address when they scan it. While the majority tend
to direct people towards a webpage, those with a little more imagination would use it
to provide special offers or link to different videos which show off their new products.
Also, other apps like Kuapay generate QR codes which you use to pay for goods, so
there are other uses for it beyond linking to different URLs.
There is a large number of QR code generators out there, but remember that for most
generators, you’re not able to change the URL once you create one.
Tagging
Working on the same principal as QR
codes, tagging is slowly becoming
more popular with marketers as it
provides a more seamless process.
Instead of scanning a code or
typing in a URL, tagging apps like
Kooaba work by holding your
smartphone’s camera over an icon,
like in a newspaper or magazine, and
you’ll be automatically directed to
whatever content is linked.
12

13. Social Media & Mobile Advertising
The problem that all of the social networks face at the moment is that an increasing
amount of their users are using their services on mobile devices rather than on the
desktop where it is easier to show more ads. This is one of the main reasons why
Facebook’s share price has been struggling whereas Twitter, which is more of a mobile
play, seems to be having great early success with its mobile ads. Here are some of the
formats that are being used by the big guys.
Facebook
Facebook’s problem is complicated. Its mobile
sites and apps are starting to see huge amount
of usage, but they simply can’t serve as many
ads on small screens as they can on larger
devices. Last week’s overhaul of the Facebook
app does mean that more sponsored stories
are starting to appear in the newsfeed and the
design is done in such a way that you would
hardly know they are even ads.
There is also no doubt that Facebook’s
next revenue stream will involve pushing
app distribution through its new app store.
They are promoting it heavily through the
log in screen on the desktop and they
have 150 million people using it already.
If you think about it, people are most
likely to download apps when on their
phone so Facebook will no doubt be
offering developers and publishers a way
of securing downloads through ads in the
newsfeed.
Mobile app developers have the chance to
run their ads on prime real estate on devices
and given that six of the top ten apps in the
iOS app store use Facebook login, you can
see the huge potential here.
The beauty of these ads is that given how
much information Facebook has about its
users, apps developers can target their ads
based on demographics and user interests.
This is still very much in a test phase, but
these ads will continue to grow and become
the default way to distribute apps soon.
13

14. Twitter
Twitter has a huge advantage over other social networks because most people
primarily use the service on their phone or on tablet devices. It will also make a lot of
money on the desktop, but it doesn’t have the same challenges that Facebook has in
terms of moving their revenues over to mobile. Over the past year, it has been busy
shutting down their API to other developers because it knows that it needs to control
everything in their ecosystem in order to increase revenue from ads. Word on the
street is that Twitter ads are massively
engaging and are seeing massive click
through rates. The first type of ads are
pretty harmless because they just allow
you to pay to be suggested users.
Where it
starts to get
a little more
interesting
is when
Twitter puts
in sponsored
tweets into the main feed. These are still being tested on a
very small level as it essentially changes the entire Twitter
experience and puts paid content into your feed. That is a
big step and one that Twitter is taking slowly. One or two
ads a day are fine, but what happens when they open it
up to a much bigger and wider market with a self-service
option? Chaos?
14

15. You can also target ads
at people based on the
mobile device they are
accessing Twitter via and
that makes for some
interesting marketing
options especially when it
comes to app downloads.
Foursquare
Considering the data Foursquare has at its disposal, it was inevitable that it would
introduce its own ads. Similar to Facebook, these ads are coming in the form of
“promoted updates,” messages that are presented to users who are within the vicinity
of a business, store or restaurant. These updates will be found in the ‘explore’ tab and
are tailored towards the likes and interests of each user. Currently, the new format is
being tested with a small number of companies, but when it’s released for general use,
businesses and brands will pay Foursquare on a ‘cost per action’ model.
The other method Foursquare used to advertise goods is ‘local updates,’ which is free
and only appears to those users who have either ‘liked’ a venue or have checked-
in a number of times. This is more to reward loyal customers and only appear when
somebody checks-in to a business or looks at the app’s ‘Friends’ tab.
15

16. Mobile Campaigns
KFC
Earlier this year, KFC utilised a variety of mobile
apps and channels to promote its chunky chicken
pot pie. The campaign had a 1970s funk flavour to
it and a Pandora radio station dedicated to only the
grooviest hits was created to entice customers. QR
codes were also displayed on the side of KFC cups;
they led customers on to additional content and
gave them the opportunity to enter a sweepstakes
giveaway.This campaign had a winning humour
at its centre that’s easy-going and helpful when
engaging with potential customers. It was multi-
faceted and takes advantage of many platforms so
as not to be one-dimensional or easily discarded.
Uber
This amazing campaign for limousine
rental app Uber ingeniously incorporated
a great product, with mobile savvy
and, of course, ice-cream. Instead of
using the app to arrange a limousine
pickup, users in seven North American
cities used the app to call an ice-cream
truck to a location of their choosing
and were encouraged to use the
#OMGUBERICECREAM hashtag. A
really novel way to advertise a great if
impractical app that spread like wildfire because of how unique it was. It stands out because
it offered something different and fun, while requiring very little from excited users.
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures and the movie
industry have been keen to use mobile
advertising to hit key demographics.
Famously, cinemas are populated with
mobiles and social media-inclined
teenagers who would be susceptible
to such advertising. Universal were
more than happy to promote the
Kristen Stewart-starring Snow White &
the Huntsmanthrough mobile devices
and across a number of social media
platforms, incorporating Facebook,
16

17. Twitter and Pinterest into their marketing strategy. Quite simply, upon tapping the
ad, interested users would be redirected to the Snow White page, where they could
view trailers and browse photo galleries and buy tickets to screenings of the film,
among other things. It obviously worked, as the film was one of the surprise hits of the
summer, outstripping the likes of Prometheus and Battleship at the box-office.
Target
For Christmas 2010, American megastore chain Target
introduced its iAd, which functioned as both an ad and an
inset ad, featuring on large apps such as that of the New
York Times. If users didn’t engage, it would still function
as a static ad, promoting the chain to discerning users of
popular apps, but they also had the option to click and be
taken to the “Merrymaker” gifting app.Essentially a full-
page interactive ad, the Merrymaker presented users with
gift ideas for the holiday season and general tips to help
them cope with the demands of Christmas or on how to
make their Christmas a little more festive. A clever and
malleable campaign.
Coca-Cola
The soft drinks giant is no stranger to
expense and innovation in advertising,
and the Freestyle app and corresponding
vending machines, launched in 2009,
prove as such. The freestyle app is laded
with games and tasks that encourage
socialisation and sharing on social media,
but the app also works as a remote control
for vending machines spread around major
American cities.
Big whoop, right? Wrong. These weren’t any
old vending machines. These vending machines contained over 100 drinks and allowed
users the chance to create their own cocktail of said drinks if they so pleased. Over the
top, fresh and, with 41,000 interactions to its credit, clearly doing something right.
Glamour Magazine
Last September’s print issue of Glamour
magazine had digital content and
interactive competitions, thanks to the
work of the fine folks at SpyderLink. The
magazine captured over 100,000 users
for its app by using mobile barcodes.
The scans allowed advertisers to gather
data from smartphone users and led the
17

18. users to exclusive content; the move led to an 18% increase in Glamour ‘s Facebook fans.
By taking pictures of the links and sharing them, users could also unlock gift coupons
and other discounts online. A smart way of incorporating mobile users and guiding
them to both online content and to advertisers. This isn’t the first time Glamour has
incorporated SpyderLink into their campaigns. They also used it for its Taxi Shops
campaign to help promote their Fashion Week back in February 2012.
American Express
American Express teamed with mobile
developers Zumobi in a bid to bolster,
diversify and prove their mobile advertising.
Its aim was to create a more personalised
experience for their users, while also
incorporating video, social media and user-
generated content. Users sync their cards with
social media apps to learn the latest offers
on products that they would find intriguing
or essential and have the ability to view other people’s profiles as well as share their
purchases and what not. It’s an app that uses the social aspect to power consumer
demand and sustain spending.
Heineken
Heineken developed the StarPlayer
gaming app in time for the 2010-
2011 Champions League final. Fans,
of course, access their mobiles to
interact and chat with absent friends
and followers about the game they’re
watching, so Heineken were aiming
to tap into this in-built audience as
one of the competitions main, most
visible sponsors. The app would ask
in-game questions about statistics
and ask users to give their opinions on the game as it progressed, and it certainly paid of
for the famed lager company.
Axe (Lynx)
The deodorant kingpins created a fun little game for its
users, that played to its male demographic and gave
them a little puzzle to solve. Supplemented by a print ad
that sent users to this mobile app, Axe beckoned its fans
to complete a picture of a young woman who wasn’t
wearing much of anything. It’s a clever and titillating ad
that played directly to the core demographic in a cheeky
manner and promoted the brand extremely well.
18

19. Starbucks
Finally, coffee giants Starbucks created a very
useful, everyday app for its customers that both
promoted their product and made it easier for
customers to acquire it. 6,800 Starbucks outlets
were equipped to handle mobile payments from
customers using the Starbucks app; it allowed
user to pay via PayPal/credit card and rewarded
them with offers. They simply scan their phone
at the register and avoid any hassle, fiddling for change in their wallets etc. The app made
payment more efficient and increased customer satisfaction and brand loyalty with over
three million users as of June 2011. Google, for once, had been caught napping and are now
looking to implement the innovative 2-D code scanner that Starbucks used to power this
great time-saver. The company has expanded its mobile payment services by teaming up
with Square, which will see its services featuring in 7,000 U.S. stores along with investing $25
million in the company.
Future Trends
Despite the rapid advancements made in the mobile sector, there is still a long way
to go before it becomes the core of any marketing strategy. While it’s safe to say that
mobile advertising is the future, here are a few areas which will be improved over the
coming years.
Improved relevance, behavioural targeting
One of the benefits of mobile is that it’s portable and with location services growing
in popularity, it’s easier than ever to know where your audience is. More importantly,
19

20. you can find out when they’re in the vicinity and will be handy for fixed business and
brands like cafes and restaurants.
But alongside that, marketers will be able to target ads based on location, time and
their behaviour. Apps like Foursquare has already done the latter by using the data
from check-ins to display relevant ads and updates that would interest specific users.
The next few years will see a substantial improvement in these services and what
results they can generate.
Increased focus on interactivity
Currently, the majority of ads are either banner or text, presentable but give you little
reason to click on them. As consumers become more accustomed to the capabilities
provided by smartphones, the hunger for more interactive means of advertising will
increase. Further down the line, users will have grown accustomed to AR, interactive
ads that encourage you to participate and media rich ads that incorporate video and
audio into their message.
There are some examples of interactive ads out there, but the majority require you to
download an app to experience them. Future advertising campaigns will bypass this
requirement, allowing users to jump into the experience immediately.
Mobile search
Tying into the concept of geo-location services, mobile search will continue to be a
major source of revenue for Google and with the possible inclusion of social and other
services like Google Now and Siri, these ads could be even more focused than before.
Measuring ad performance
Currently, we measure the success of ads on a CPM or cost per click basis, but the
terms we use to measure the success of desktop ads doesn’t necessarily mean a
perfect fit for measuring mobile ads. Analysing the success of mobile campaigns is
currently a problem as not everyone has access to the necessary tools to successfully
measure these ads. In future, companies and brands will have developed a much better
idea about measuring mobile ads and the analytic tools available will have improved to
reflect this.
Infographic Sources
- http://www.emarketer.com/PressRelease.aspx?R=1009228
- http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/170935/mobile-growth-influenced-
by-clicks-on-paid-search.html
- http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1726614
- http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/11/3077792/apple-wwdc-2012-stats-ios-mac-
growth
- http://yourstory.in/2012/06/google-play-quick-stats-key-takeaways-google-io-2012/
20

21. The Ultimate Guide To Social Media Advertising
W
ith advertising budgets for more expensive media being gradually
reduced, we’re consistently seeing positive figures for the rise in online
advertising, with some reporting a 17.2% increase from 2011 to 2012.
Increasingly, the trend is to allocate this ad spend on a niche basis by
focusing on the relevant social network. Facebook set the trend here by making a self-
serve ad system available to marketers, with no minimum spend required – similar to
the way in which Google Adwords functions.
Other sites have now followed suit like LinkedIn, and Twitter is ultimately heading
that way, albeit whilst dragging their feet towards making it completely open for
advertisers. For brands and marketers, this represents a whole new approach to
advertising: Ultimately it’s more trackable, has improved targeting options and has
improved analytics. There are also many untapped opportunities, most notable in
mobile advertising. Facebook’s problems with this are well documented, with Twitter
more capable of adapting their existing ad system for mobile users.
As more advertisers turn towards social advertising, costs are evidently rising, but by
looking outside of the big player of Facebook, you can run targeted ad campaigns that
get you in front of the right audience as a part of their social experience as opposed to
interrupting it.
21

22. Facebook Advertising
When it comes to social advertising, Facebook is obviously the biggest platform to
use. It has an incredible amount of information on how to use the platform as well as
case studies and tips that you can avail of. The fact that they collect so much personal
data allows you to target ads precisely, which can help drive excellent results if used
correctly. Here are some of their excellent resources.
Facebook Marketing Page
As you would expect, there is a Facebook page dedicated
to tips, tricks and info about the Facebook marketing
platform. It is a good place to stay on top of all the latest
trends on pages and advertising.
Facebook Offers
A brand new offering from Facebook and only in the
process of being rolled out at the moment. Offers are seen as one of the main ways
in which brands and small businesses will be able to generate real revenue through
Facebook.
Learning Lab
This is the hub from Facebook that has tons of tips, tricks, case studies and other
information about the advertising platform. You can also find some of the best creative
campaigns and practical learning tools here to help you get the most out of the
platform.
22

23. Twitter Advertising
Although it doesn’t generate the same amounts of revenue as Facebook, Twitter is
quietly emerging with its own business model that is perfectly suited to mobile. While
Facebook has had problems with this area, Twitter’s core function means that it’s
perfectly suited for mobile advertising. That said, the company is experimenting with a
number of different advertising models, the main ones listed here.
Promoted Tweets, Accounts and Hashtags
Brands use promoted tweets to spread awareness among Twitter users. They are
suggested to tweeters when they search specific terms on Twitter; the tweet in
question will then appear at the top of the page. Targeted users may also be the
friends of a brand’s Twitter followers; such people are targeted in the hopes that the
promoted tweet will spark conversation between the friends and thus influence their
friends and followers, further spreading the brand’s message.
There is a purpose to this method of stealth advertisement, however. Advertisers can
choose to make their tweets specific to a particular device (iOS, Blackberry etc.) or
a particular geographic area, depending on where are whom they want to promote
to. The promoted accounts feature is now also being exploited by advertisers in their
attempts to gain followers and online popularity.
Twitter’s accounts recommendation engine, ‘Who to Follow,’ will promote brand
accounts to users they believe are most likely to follow said account, on the basis of
their similar interests and Twitter activity.
It is much the same deal with promoted hashtags, which will be shown at the top of
a users trends list. Hashtags are, of course, more liable to spread and be picked up
on by other users, though there is less of a guarantee that influenced users will follow
the brand that is promoting the hashtag. The success of these methods can be easily
followed and charted with the use of Twitter analytics. The analytics feature will monitor
user trends and timeline activity that has been inspired by promotional efforts.
23

24. Age Filter
Twitter recently introduced a new feature called Age Screening. This filter will aid more
age-discerning brands (specifically companies promoting alcoholic brands) to target
a specific age group as well as to weed out Twitter users who are too young to be
buying their products and such.
Age Screening determines whether any new follower is old enough to be compliant
relevant industry or legal age guidelines. However, the technology is far from foolproof.
Upon following such a brand, a user will be sent a direct message linking them to age.
twitter.com, where they will be asked to give their birth date. The age is not shared
with the brand, but it is surely very simple to lie about your age on the internet.
While this isn’t necessarily an advertising related development, the possibility of it
being included with targeted advertising, which Twitter recently introduced, could give
it more data to work from and provide users with more targeted ads.
Self-Service Advertising
Twitter introduced new methods for small businesses to amplify their Tweeters and
exponentially increase their reach in February. When it first began, Twitter teamed up
with American Express – and all businesses using American Express – where the first
10,000 cardholders were allowed $100 of free advertising on Twitter.
Twitter also offers promoted tweets and accounts to small business owners. They do not
pay to have their accounts/tweet advertised, instead it’s when users engage (i.e. follow,
reply retweet etc) do they pay a fee to Twitter, but it’s good value for money. Twitter
will, of course, target users who are likely to have an interest in their business and will
promote the business in question at the right time of day so as to engage as many
people as possible.
Business owners can put a cap on how much they are willing to spend, so they do
not end up with a nasty shock once they become overwhelmingly popular, and they
can also direct Twitter to promote them in certain geographic areas, much as a larger
business can, as well as across the web and mobile devices.
Such self-service advertising is very helpful and allows small businesses using Twitter to
get off the ground without having to incur a large expense to begin with.
24

25. LinkedIn Advertising
Compared to Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn doesn’t focus as much on ads nor does
it offer any major differences in how you advertise. However, despite this limitation,
the site does offer greater opportunities for B2B companies due to its focus on
professionals and is, therefore, a much better suit.
The reason it works so well is because, like Facebook, LinkedIn lets you target specific
demographics like a particular industry, location and seniority and age. Therefore,
it’s perfect for any companies or people focusing on B2B. While Facebook does have
GlassDoor, it targets demographics based on their likes and interests.
When you log in, you will find that ads appear in two different places. The main ads
appear at the side of the page, consisting of a 25 character heading, a 75 character
description, the company name, an image and a URL. The second place ads appear
is just underneath the main toolbar where it is a text only ad. Depending on your ad’s
performance, it may be shown here.You can choose to pay LinkedIn either by CPM
(cost per 1,000 impressions) or by CPC (cost per click), the latter is more expensive, but
better if you’re more focused on generating leads. If you’re in any way familiar with
Google AdWords, you will know what to expect here. Each click will cost between $2
(the minimum CPC) and your bid.
The main thing you need to focus on is creating a strong ad that will appeal to those
demographics you’re targeting. First, make sure your heading and description are
eye-catching and effective. As you only have 25 and 75 characters to work from, every
word counts. Be specific in what you’re advertising as people won’t respond to general
statements and include a strong call to action that’s tailored towards your company3
like “get a free quote”, “download now” or “free trial.” LinkedIn itself provides a number
of tips and guides to improve the success rate of your ads on its site.
Also, remember that you can promote LinkedIn company pages and groups through
ads if you want to direct users towards them instead. Amassing extra followers can be
beneficial if you have a company page as you are able to send out targeted updates.
25

26. Foursquare
Advertising
Foursquare is a bit of an oddity
as while there’s a number
of ways for a business to
advertise, it recently started
rolling out paid ads for brands.
Since it’s a location based app,
most of your audience is going
to be local and so your deals
and offers should reflect this.
We covered Foursquare as a
marketing tool recently (which
you can read here) so we won’t
waste too much time covering this topic. To give a brief summary, the two main ways
to advertise is through local updates and promoted updates. The former are available
to those who liked your venue or have checked-in a number of times, while the latter
are paid ads, allowing users to discover new places and deals to those near the vicinity.
Also, merchant pages and brand pages come into play when advertising any deals or
offers, which has primarily been the way merchants advertised their deals on the app.
Infographic Sources
- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303879604577408481688851336.html
- http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/03/stats-facebook-made-9-51-in-ad-revenue-per-
user-last-year-in-the-u-s-and-canada/
- http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-mobile-ad-revenue-500k-per-day-2012-7
- http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-01/twitter-said-to-expect-1-billion-in-
sales-in-2014-on-ad-growth.html
- http://marketingland.com/twitter-60-percent-of-users-access-via-mobile-13626
- http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-q2-ad-revenue-hits-63-million-2012-8
- http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-31/twitter-ad-sales-to-rise-to-540-million-
in-2014-emarketer-says.html
26

27. 10 Innovative Ways To Get More Out Of Facebook
For Your Business
F
acebook pages are a crucial part of the marketing mix for businesses these
days but with the platform and features changing on a near weekly basis it
can be hard to get the best out of them and many people are surprised at
their options available to them. We decided to put together 10 simple tips
that can help you to manage your page more effectively. Some are simple 2 minute
changes that you can work in to your schedule while others will take some learning
and getting used to but they’ll drastically improve how you use the platform. We
have a decent focus on mobile given how much importance Facebook themselves are
putting on that channel. Get used to these 10 tips and you won’t be saying Facebook
pages are as restrictive as you thought they once were…
Drive Revenue Through Facebook Offers
This is still a pretty new feature but one that is starting to drive very real revenues for
businesses who are using Facebook effectively. The idea is that you can post any type
of offer that can be used either online or in the real world and the fact that the offers
can spread virally via the news feed can give you great distribution. If you have a large
enough community of people who like your page that can be enough to get your offer
kick started but you may also need to lean on Facebook’s advertising platform to help
get the word out about the offer. This is one of the first ways that Facebook business
page owners have had of driving physical sales in the real world and the early word on
the street is very good.
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28. Use Advanced Targeting For Updates
Until recently you could only send out status updates to people based on their
location or language but Facebook have improved that targeting and now give you
nearly as many options when sending out a regular update as they do when you are
using their advertising tool. You might not want to target every single update but
we have seen a huge improvement in engagement levels when you start targeting
updates at specific groups of people based on their interests. This tool is going to be
most useful for people with much larger fan bases that can be segmented down in to
specific niche groups without annoying all likes with one generic update.
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29. Use Facebook Groups For Internal Communication
Facebook groups are one of the most underused items on Facebook and they offer a
great way of improving information flow within a company. Given that most of your
employees are probably already on Facebook and they are increasingly spending a
large portion of their day there it is a great way to get your company talking to each
other using the tools that they already know. If the group is set up correctly you can
lock the group down so as only people within the company see updates and other
content. Use groups for feedback, questions, social events and anything else company
related. Internal communication is just as important these days as anything else so
groups are a great way of improving that on an existing platform that people know
rather than getting them all to embrace something new.
Use The Facebook Pages App
The Facebook pages app is a wonderful addition that
allows you to manage multiple pages through the one
app rather than having to fire up the main Facebook
app which is designed for personal use. The app will
allow you to publish updates, share photos and engage
with your community while on the go. You can also drill
down in to your analytics to see what your fan base
growth and engagement levels are like while out and
about. You’ll probably still want to do most of your
updates, scheduling and engagement on the main site
on a desktop as it is quicker but you have a very real
alternative on mobile devices now.
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30. Reposition Photos After Posting
You’ll often post a photo update to your business page only to realize afterwards when
you see it in the newsfeed that you have it totally wrong. The good news is that you
can actually go in and edit the photo again and reposition it after you have posted
without disrupting the original update.
Block Competitors Names With Moderation Blacklist
Large brands and businesses probably don’t want people talking about their
competitors or other specific terms on their Facebook business page and the good
news is that you can set up a moderation blacklist to block certain words. All you have
to do is head in to the backend of the page and you can type all the words that you
don’t want to see appear on the page. This could be competitors, rude words, specific
products or anything else that you don’t want to have appearing on the site.
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31. Turn Off The Ability For People To Message
The Page
While it is great to give people the opportunity to
send the page private messages we find that with
large pages the volume of private messages can get
pretty high and some business pages simply don’t have
the resources to manage all the replies. Now private
messages might be a great way for some large brands
to manage customer service in a more discrete way
but some pages might just be happy to turn them
off altogether and not deal with the extra volume of
queries. You can head in to Edit Page >> Manage
Permissions >> untick “Show “Message”
Comment On Third Party Websites Using Your Business Page
Identity
Facebook comments are starting to pop up all over the web on websites who are using
them as a way of improving their current commenting system and avoiding spam.
While the vast majority of people leave comments using their personal profiles you do
have the ability to leave comments as your business page as well. This is a great way of
signposting your own page and getting people to click on your logo to find out more
about you. The key here is to leave high quality comments that rise to the top (The
comments with the most likes go to the top of the pile) rather than just spamming lots
of pages to create links. If somebody sees what you are writing, thinks you know what
you are talking about and generally likes what you are saying there is a very good
chance they will then go on and like your page.
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32. Install Facebook’s Power Editor – Match Your Existing Database
With Facebook Users
Power editor is a relatively new tool that completely changes the way people use
Facebook’s advertising tools and although it has been mainly used by large tech
advertisers, agencies and brands to date it is something that anybody can get their
hands on. You can now do really smart things like import your existing email marketing
lists and telephone numbers and match them up to people who are on Facebook
who like your page. You can also run much more advanced mobile ads and generally
customize your ads in a way that you never could on the traditional Facebook
advertising interface. Everybody we talk to is seeing huge success through this tool
and the good news is that it is getting better all the time.
Export Your Insights For Deeper Stats Analysis
Lets be brutally honest about things and say that Facebook insights just don’t offer the
way to slice and digest the data as effectively as we all would like. It feels like a work
in progress and not the finished article like say a Google Analytics. Although they are
clearly improving it all the time you can actually go in and download all the data from
your various pages and export it in to Excel with a couple of simple clicks. We find that
when using the data in something like Excel (or the other program of your choosing)
you can manipulate the data and engage with it in a much more meaningful way to
start to spot trends on your page. It will take a good bit more time but if you want
better results across the board download your data and start playing with it.
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33. How To Make $10,000 From Adsense In 20 Days
Using A Single Blog Post And Facebook
S
o we write this blog to share the latest marketing trends and social media news
from around the world. It is in no way our core business although because the
levels of traffic that it starting delivering last year were so high we decided to
start adding some simple ads around the content. They don’t bring in much
revenue but they do allow us to hire a full time writer and pay all the hosting charges
etc. We do write some posts that get tons of traffic though and I wanted to highlight one
such post that brought in over €10,000 in revenue in less than 20 days.
It happened last November and this post is a mini case study on some of the things that
made it spread and why it was able to bring in so much revenue in a short period of
time.This won’t work for you every time but there are lessons in here that you can use to
help grow individual posts and start creating new revenue streams from your blog.
The 20 Day Revenue
I wanted to focus on one piece of content that really took off. It was one single blog
post that contained a viral video and which was made for sharing. People would watch
it and find it so good that they would instantly share it with their friends. As you can
see the revenue took off immediately (from a base of about €150 a day at the time)
and accelerated as the sharing on Facebook picked up.
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34. The following chart shows the revenue broken down by day with most days bringing in
€300 and the top day driving €1000 in revenue. The average revenue per day was €500
and the €10,000 mark was hit in less than 20 days.
Platforms
Although the vast majority of the revenue is coming from the desktop you can see that
people are still starting to click on the ads on both mobile and tablets. This pace has
also been accelerated over the last year and the percentage accessing via mobile and
tablets has already increased more since then.
Countries
As always the big 6 or 7 English speaking countries were the most effective when it
came to driving large volumes of clicks and a higher cost per click. The vast majority of
the traffic came from the USA with nearly 6 times more revenue than the next revenue
source.
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35. Find Content That People Are Already Sharing
If you want people to share your content
the best bet is to find content that people
already like. Why rely on your own
judgement when you can look at the
popular sites out there that let users vote
on the best videos or content. You could
start by looking here, here, or here. Find a
piece of content that is about to break in to
the big time but that not many people have
seen yet. People won’t share something
that has been covered in loads of places but they will share something amazing that
they don’t think anybody has seen yet. Look for little things like the amount of thumbs
up people are giving a video on Youtube as indications of how much they will share it
from your blog.
Facebook Sharing
The vast majority of the traffic to this post
came via Facebook. As you can see from
the image below the post has been shared
over 20,000 times already and the sharing
from other social networks is also strong.
All of these shares are starting to count in
search results now as well (especially +1s
from Google) so they are telling Google
that this is an “important” piece of content.
The post itself was viewed over a million
times because of the amount of shares it
had. If you think that everybody has a few hundred friends on Facebook and you times
that by 20,000 shares you can see where the volume of traffic is mostly coming from.
Advertise
If Facebook and other social networks can help you grow
your traffic and revenue organically why not give them a
little push to get it all started. Facebook have some great
ad tools that can help your content start to spread and
grow it’s own legs. You won’t want to do this every single
time but as soon as you have a piece of content that looks
like it is going to get shared a lot why not push it with
some ads. The first type of ad is an ad that is targeted at
the people who already like your page. They won’t all see
your content by default (because of Facebook’s edgerank
formula) but you can pay for them all to see it. The logic
here is that if they already like your page there is a good
chance they will share or like your content.
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36. After you have targeted your own Facebook page and the
people who like it you will want to create some precise
targeting ads to go after the wider population. The key here
is that you are driving people to the URL in question. Using
the precise targeting on Facebook I’ve shown the example
here of people who have indicated that they like beer and
targeted them with a picture of an ice cold bottle of beer
and some copy prompting them to click on the image.
You’ll also notice that I have
gone after the countries that
are performing best in terms
of clicks on Adsense and
delivering the best resturn on budget. There will be a
number of campaigns that you can run depending on
the content of your post but here is another example of
a target market that would be very likely to share the
content about the bikers in the cinema…
What is really important to realize here is that one person
clicking on your ad and looking at the content is never
going to be enough. You need that person to find the
content so relevant and funny that they want to share it
with all their friends and drive them to your blog. This stage will take a lot of refining to
figure out what works and what is the cheapest way of getting them there. You might
also be able to use ads on other networks but I always stick to Facebook given their
precise interest targeting.
Flick The Ads On Aggressively
Once you have the critical mass of people coming to the post it is then time to start
placing the ads more aggressively on the post. Bear in mind that this post only took
off about 2 weeks after it was actually posted so this doesn’t happen overnight. We
don’t want to annoy
our regular readers
with aggressive ads
(they are normally
tucked away in the
sidebar far away from
the content) but when
a post is getting this
much traction you are
leaving money on the
table by not placing
ads within the content.
The chances are that
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37. 99% of your regular readers will already have seen this on the day that it was posted
and most of the people coming from all over the world are not our normal readers. We
placed 4 sets of ads all around the content as soon as we started to see the spike in
traffic. People were there to see the video but many would have clicked on the ads.
Ongoing Revenue
These posts won’t come along every single day but when you get one you should
make the most out of it. Leave the ads on the post and add any social media buttons
or plugins that you want to push. With 10s of thousands of people visiting the page the
post jumps up the rankings and people now searching for terms like “Carlsberg video”
will arrive on our blog and possibly click on the ads.
It becomes a bit of a virtual circle with more people liking the page, sharing it,
commenting and pushing it up the rankings. It will never continue to drive the same
revenues as it did during the peak but there will always be a certain amount of sharing
and people finding it through the search engines. Create 10-12 of these posts and you
have a nice little long term revenue stream there for the future.
Summary
Find a piece of content that is amazing and that nobody has shared that much.
Something like the video above before it has actually hit the big time. Embed it in to
your blog and give it a push using social ads to some targeted people who are likely
to share it. Make sure the social buttons are visible for people to push it to their friends
and then when it does take off place ads on to the post. It isn’t always going to work
but you give yourself a good chance by doing all the things above. I will say that when
it does work there is no better feeling as all the hard work is done for you and the
people sharing it drive all the revenue for you. Try it out, see how you get on and share
any tips here that you might have.
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38. 50 Innovative Ways To Use Twitter More Effectively
W
ith over 170 million active users and playing a significant role in media
consumption, Twitter has turned into the go-to site for real-time
updates and gathering snippets of info from those we’re interested in.
Pretty much everyone knows how to put a tweet together and how to
reply to users, but what about more advanced features such as shortcuts, apps and
SEO. If you want to improve your knowledge or want to pick up a few tips and tricks to
help you get more out of the service, then read on.
Twitter
Keyboard Shortcuts
With many of us spending large amounts of time on
Twitter every day, there has to be a quicker way to
use the desktop interface and that comes in the form
of keyboard shortcuts. As you can see from the list
below, there is a shortcut for pretty much every one
of the actions you carry out on a daily basis.
App Security
Over the time that you’ve been using Twitter, there is a very
good chance that you have given some apps permission to
access your account. While most of the apps are fine, it is worth
checking in here to see what apps you have given access to
recently and purging some of the ones you no longer use.
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39. Schedule Tweets
Sometimes you can come up with a good tweet, but feel that it’s not ready to be posted
for the world to see. If that’s the case, there’s a vast number of apps and tools that will
allow you to schedule tweets for later. Tweetdeck is one example and if you’re looking for
something a little more advanced, then Buffer is a great tool to use.
Sensitive Content
If, for whatever reason, you’re tweeting content that isn’t suitable for general consumption,
activating this option in settings will either display sensitive content (those that users have
marked as such) or mark yours. The latter will
mean that users will be warned about your
content before they proceed.
Embedding Tweets
Instead of taking screenshots of a tweet, you
can now embed it into your blog post and
allow visitors to interact with it if they were
viewing it on Twitter. To do this, find the tweet
you want, expand it and click details. You will
see the option “Embed this tweet” appear in a
new screen.
Deleting Location Information
While you can turn geotagging on, sometimes you might not want people to know where
you’re are or have tweeted from. If this is the case, head to settings and you will find the
option under ‘Tweet location.’
#hashtag searching
If you’re looking for particular topics or searching for updates to an event, using a hashtag
to search can bring you more accurate results. Provided you know what the main hashtag
is (eg: #London2012), you can find out more real-time info.
Linking to Facebook account
The majority of social media sites allow cross-posting and Twitter is no exception. In your
profile settings, you will find this option at the bottom of the page underneath your bio.
Discovery
Twitter Search
Twitter recently redesigned its search feature so it’s a good
place to start when discussing features. Behaving more like
Google and Facebook by suggesting users, searching terms can
be filtered by top, all or best yet, ‘People You Know.’ The latter
allows you to see what those users you follow are saying so you
can jump into the conversation or add your own comment.
39

40. Advanced Search
However, if that isn’t enough for you,
you can take things a step further and
increase your search capabilities. When
you’ve viewing a search result, clicking
the cog icon up in the top right-hand
corner to bring advanced search. Here,
you can filter by words, accounts,
location and even moods to find what
you want. Alternatively, you can access
advanced search here.
Save Search
Similar to how you find advanced search. On the
search results page, this is the second option
offered in settings alongside advanced search.
Discover
A section some users tend to ignore, but more
valuable then most people give credit for.
Discover’s main function is to expose you to
content and users you mightn’t have found through
your normal feed. Alongside presenting the major
stories appearing on Twitter, the activity section shows
you everything that’s been happening with those you
follow, such as retweets, follows and favourites so you
could find new content and users to follow.
Follow by
Category
Not content with
presenting news, the Discover section also gives
users the chance to find new people to follow
based on interest. Just click on browse category
and Twitter will present a list of topics that might
interest you.
Finding Friends
Search and categories aren’t the only ways of finding friends on Twitter. In discover, you can click
the ‘Find Friends’ section and find users through your Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail or AOL account.
Follow Buttons
The majority of people have a blog so it’s a good idea to include a follow button so
that people can find you on Twitter. Simply visit Twitter’s button page and select the
share content or follow button, fill out the details and embed it into your site.
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41. Hashtag & Mention Buttons
If you’ve created an event or covering one,
installing a hashtag button is an effective
way of getting the message across. The
process is the same as installing the share
and follow buttons and is handy if you want
to get your content out there.
General Tweeting
Less is More
You may post interesting content or say witty things, but when you’re doing so, you
want to give people the opportunity to retweet your stuff. As a rule, you should leave
leave 20 characters worth of spare to allow this. If it’s possible leave 40 since that way,
the person retweeting should be able to fit in a quick comment.
Modified Tweet
For those cases where you’re retweeting something that’s too big, modified tweets
come into play. Marked as MT, this lets people know that this tweet has been edited so
you can cut down the least essential parts or reword it so you can tweet it.
Shorten URL
Yes, Twitter and every other third-party app automatically shortens apps, but using a
URL shortener has its benefits. For one, all URL shorteners include analytics so you can
see how effective and popular your links are. Handy if you’re a business or blog and
want to see how many clicks a link got.
Twitter lists
Chances are you’re following far
more people then you can keep
up with. Lists are a handy way of
counteracting this. By creating
different lists for different categories,
you can easily follow the same
number of people without being
overwhelmed.
Pace Yourself
The last thing you want to do is spam
your followers and if you’re one of
those people who tweets everything they can think of in the one go, you’re not doing
yourself any favours. Try to space out when you tweet so that you’re more consistent
throughout the day. If that isn’t possible, use one of the scheduling tools mentioned earlier
to space them out.
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42. Images & Video
If you want better engagement or responses,
sometimes an image or video is the way to
go. It’s good to mix up your tweets with a
mixture of the two. If you’re not used to taking
photos or need an excuse to take some snaps,
then things like the ‘photo a day challenge‘ on
Instagram is a great way of getting practice.
Just be sure to choose only the best photos
to tweet if you don’t want to overwhelm your
followers with abstract photos.
Learn the Best Times to Tweet
Tweeting is one thing, but knowing the best times to tweet is another thing entirely. If
you’re being strategic and want to make sure your tweets are seen by as many people
as possible, then this report from bit.ly could help you. Essentially, the best times to
tweet is any time between 1pm-3pm from Monday to Thursday. Bit.ly also recommend
that you should avoid posting after 8pm on any day as well as after 3pm on Fridays.
Hashtag tweets
Most users add hashtags onto their tweets without actually thinking about why they
do it. Hashtags are supposed to signify that you’re talking about a particular topic or
event so in that case, only one hashtag is necessary in a tweet, and two at most. Any
more than that and it’s overkill.
Favourites
The best way to look at favourites is
not to view them as things you like, but
instead things that you would bookmark
for later use. Most of the time, you would
favourite things that you don’t have time
to read, or a comment that you would like
to save for future reference. So treat it as
a resource that you can come back to and
you will find that its value will go up.
Public replies
Sometimes when you’re having a discussion, you want everyone to see it instead of
just the person. It might be to strengthen a point you made with a previous tweet or
to help followers keep up to speed with a discussion. To do this, simply place a full
stop (really you could place any symbol, but this is tidier) and it will appear as a public
tweet.This rule also applies to any tweet that begins with a username.
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43. Twitter Mobile
SMS Twitter
Just because smartphones have
grown in popularity doesn’t mean that
feature phones aren’t still being used.
A section for traditional SMS still exists
in settings, allowing you to receive text
notifications, how many notifications
you want to receive is really up to
you, but bear in mind that you have
to enable certain followers for mobile
notifications first before you can start
using it.
SMS Sleep settings
Because you don’t want to be woken up at 3am by a Twitter user on the other side of
the world, you can choose to switch off updates during certain times. Simply turn on
the settings and choose the times you don’t want to receive notifications.
Tweet alerts
One of the new features for Twitter’s new app update is the ability to receive
notifications every time someone tweets. To activate this, go to the account you want
to keep up to date with and hit the options button (person symbol). Select “Turn on
notifications” and now you will now be alerted to any updates from that account.
Read Articles Later
If you have an Instapaper account and you want to save articles, just go into settings
(found under ‘me’ at the bottom right-hand corner), and go into advanced. Here you
can activate your Instapaper or Pocket account so you can save articles you find in
your news feed.
Image Quality & Size
Under the advanced option, you can adjust other settings such as font size (if the
smallest font is too hard to read) and image quality. The latter is incredibly handy if
you’re having problems loading up images; setting it to ‘low’ will mean a lower quality
image that will load up faster.
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44. Apps
Nurph
Nurph is smart in that it correlates hashtags to create an ongoing conversation
between Twitter users, making it easier for them to respond to one another and chat
through tweeting and creating hashtag chatrooms. You can also create Twitterbots to
guide users to a chatroom and funnel all your replies into the one space. Nurph is the
ultimate in Twitter community curation.
dlvr.it
dlvr.it (‘deliver it’ ) schedules blog
posts to be delivered onto Twitter and
across other social media platforms,
allowing you to keep up with all social
media and projecting your content to
as many people and in as many ways
as possible at one time or many. It’s
fairly by-the-numbers and simple to
use, so as to be effective as possible.
TweetBoard
TweetBoard pulls your Twitter stream into real-time and reformats them into threaded
conversations. So instead of clicking ‘view conversation’ a viewing a feed between
you and few users, TweetBoard will enable you to view the conversation, other similar
conversations and any tangential tweets as well, forming one giant conversation
among you and your friends and followers.
Who ReTweeted Me
Who Retweeted Me enables you to congregate all your Retweeters on one page and
thank them one by one, if you so please. It will tell you how many retweets a certain
tweet has had as well as the average amount of followers the Retweet-ers have and
the potential reach the tweet had with their help. To top it all off, it puts the chronology
of retweeting in a simple graph for you to analyse at your pleasure.
MentionMap
MentionMap displays all your mentions
and replies in a spider diagram, which,
though undeniably nice to look at,
can be awkward to navigate. Type
in your username and the diagram
will appear with legs dedicated to
users you have tweeted, hashtags
you have used as well as tributary
users and conversations. It is a great
way to visualise your tweets and the
connections you’ve made on Twitter.
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45. The Archivist
The Archivist is one of the premier Twitter analytic apps, allowing you to archive tweets
and analyse the biggest trends. Whether you’re searching for stats on keywords,
hashtags or certain users, the Archivist will provide an extensive and aesthetically crisp
analysis of whatever you want.
TwitLonger
Twitter is a hard task-master where TwitLonger is merciful and sympathetic. Sometimes
140 characters isn’t enough and TwitLonger understands as such. You don’t want to
write an entire blog or a novel, but you just need a few more words to convey your
point. TwitLonger will cut you some slack and then post a link to your extended tweet
on Twitter just so everyone won’t miss out on it.
TweetAdder
TweetAdder is a management tool that is designed to get you get more Twitter
followers, but more importantly, it helps bring in engaged followers suited to you and
whatever you are pedaling rather then just pure numbers. It is a good tool for those
that are new to Twitter or want to exploit social media to their business’ advantage.
Fast and easy to use, TweetAdder will get you up and on your feet in no time, helping
you add users and get properly involved with Twitter.
ManageFlitter
ManageFlitter is quite a behemoth.
You can unfollow users and bots
en masse, copy and follow lists of
users from other accounts, and the
in-built analytics are comprehensive
and allow you to pick the best
time to make your most important
tweets. There’s even a search tool
tailored to your account unlike any
offered by Twitter itself; very helpful
and essential for popular accounts/
businesses.
Qwitter
Qwitter is an email service that keeps you up to date on your followers and those
who have unfollowed you and the fluctuation in each. For people with a great deal of
followers, Qwitter would be very useful with its daily updates, telling you how many
people you have gained and lost and putting it in a statistical context as well. It has a
clean design that is similar to Twitter itself and is perfectly effective if you really need to
know these details.
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46. TweetDeck by Twitter
Perhaps the most well known Twitter app out there,TweetDeck is great and quickly
becoming the preferred way to use Twitter among dedicated users as it is far more
expansive and comprehensive than a
standard Twitter news feed. Instead of
merely viewing your ‘following’ feed,
you can view multiple feeds at any
one time, and they can be customised
to your choosing. Most likely, one
would use it to view replies, mentions,
interactions and search hashtags
simultaneously, but there are plenty of
possibilities.
Miscellaneous
Twitter SEO
Social media and SEO has a close relationship. One complements the other and
it shouldn’t be any surprise that you can optimise your Twitter account to take
advantage of this. There are many ways you can do this:
- The first is to pick a name and username that has the main keyword you want (if it’s
marketing then @ABCmarketing etc.). If you already have a Twitter account, then you
can change your actual name, but don’t change your username.
- Include your website address. it’s an obvious statement, but you want to make sure
people can find your site. Don’t use a URL shortener and whatever you do, don’t make
your address direct to your Twitter account, that’s just silly.
- Your bio is also important.
Above all, you want your personality to shine through, but you should include some
main keywords in it. You only have 160 characters so make sure the words in question
are high value.
- Your profile photo is also handy for this. Make sure you rename it before you upload it.
If you’re happy with your profile photo, then just upload it again, but under a new name.
Google Analytics
If you have a blog or site, it’s important to know how much of your traffic originates
from social media. Google analytics has made this easier with the addition of a flow
visualisations, which illustrates how many visits you get from Twitter and other social
media sites. Important if you want an idea of how much traffic you can generate from
the site.
46

47. Create a cartoon
This is cheating a little, but it
does show just how effective
the medium can be if you
apply a little bit of creative
thinking. Electric car brand,
Smart in Argentina created
this brilliant cartoon using just
tweets to highlight their point;
that their car can fit into the
tightest spaces.
Twitter For…
Twitter itself has a vast range of guides and blogs for different sections, which is
bound to come in useful at some point. Some of them include advertising & business,
developers and newsroom just to name a few.
Twitter Stories
Considering that Facebook has just released its own version there, it’s a good time to
go back to Twitter’s version, which is a year old by the way. Simply showcasing the best
stories involving Twitter, the site’s aim is to get you to think of the site differently and
see the creative ways the service has been used.
Know Your Followers
It helps to know who exactly you’re communicating to and with more people stating
their location in their bio, its easier than ever to find out. There are two ways of
going about this, the first way is to go though your followers and make a note of the
countries and locations they’re from. If you have a significant number of followers this
will be quite time-consuming. The second way is to use a third-party tool like SocialBro
to do all the hard work for you, giving you data which you can use to communicate
more effectively.
47

48. Everything You Need To Know About Twitter For
Customer Service + 10 Brands Doing It Well
T
witter is a wonderful tool, but one way in which brands are using it and adding
great value to their social media activity is by using it as a customer service tool.
Customers will often turn to the medium first to vent about their frustrations
around customer service or a new product, and the shrewd brands are there in
place with a team of people to answer all queries and to help create brand loyalty. In some
cases, companies are able to use it as a cost-cutting exercise with queries handled faster
online and calls deflected from customer service numbers and other costly channels.
Beyond the basic functionality it offers, Twitter is still limited in terms of the premium
features it offers brands, but there are a number of hacks and third party tools that you
can use to help improve your customer service and Twitter themselves will be rolling
out additional features over time. Until Twitter does that, however, you will need to work
with what you have so here are a number of ways and examples you can use to improve
customer service.
Tips For Using Twitter For Customer Service
While Twitter’s functionality is rather limited in comparison to other sites, there are a
number of ways you can improve interaction and ensure that customers leave with a
positive experience. Here’s what you should keep in mind.
Using Apps like Tweetdeck
If you’re going to understand your customers, you will need to see what they’re saying.
Not everyone is going to mention your twitter handle so to get a clear picture of what
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49. people are saying, you will need monitoring tools to help you out. The most popular one
would be Tweetdeck which lets you view numerous streams at once. By typing in your
company name, you can see what mentions, links and comments people are making
about your business. There are many other third-party apps and analytics out there so
try them out and see what fits best.
Respond At Speed
A simple but effective way to build trust and provide a positive experience. If you see
somebody asking a question, don’t leave it until tomorrow. Respond as soon as possible.
Even if you don’t have an immediate answer to their question, it’s much better to show
that you’ve seen their tweet and are working to solve their problem.
Never Let Customers Reveal Their Private Details
Relating to the last point, never let a customer reveal private or potentially private
information publicly. The obvious examples are bank account details, passwords and
addresses, but also things like phone numbers, account names (if it’s about an online
platform) and email would also apply. Put yourself in their shoes: If you don’t feel
comfortable sharing something, chances are your customers feel the same way.
Be Polite And Courteous
A basic TIP but always make sure that the tone you use is polite, even when somebody
,
is criticising your company. It can take one bad tweet to tarnish your reputation so make
sure you’re taking the moral high ground when dealing with complaints. Also, if you’re
getting heated up, remember that you’re not expected to reply straight away so use
those minutes to regroup and get your thoughts together before replying.
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50. Place Your Twitter Handle In Prominent Locations
Twitter’s a fast and snappy way of responding to queries so if you use it for customer
service ,direct people to it. Your own site is an obvious place to highlight this, but also
use your other social media channels and emails to show this as well. For people to use
it, they need to be aware of it so don’t neglect promoting it.
Create A Separate Customer Service Twitter Account
If you’re a bigger company and you’re getting a lot of mentions and comments, it might
be best to create two separate accounts to make things more manageable. This way,
you’ll be able to have one platform for dealing with queries and questions, and another
to help promote the site.
Be Consistent
Another simple but effective tip, always make sure you’re responding to people when
they tweet and do it regularly. Nobody will comment or respond to a dormant account
or one that is only active when it feels like it.
Personalise The Experience
Most companies tend to be faceless corporate identities, but if you make things a little
more human, it can have a positive effect. A good way is to put the first name at the
end of said tweets so people know there’s a person behind the response. If you wanted
to take things a step further, you could include your twitter handle instead. One good
example is Triberr who place the twitter handles of their two co-founders on its bio so
people know who’s responding.
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51. Create An FAQ From Common Questions
If you’re receiving a number of queries and questions, you will probably notice a few
appearing regularly. If that’s the case, instead of answering the same question over and
over again, create an FAQ that answers this. Most people will look through your site first
when looking for information so an FAQ will free up more time for you to focus on the
less common questions.
Use Direct Messages (DM)
Chances are somebody will have a complaint or problem that you need to sort out.
Most of the time, this can be resolved within one or two tweets, but if it gets particularly
heated or involves personal information, it’s best to make it a private conversation
between yourself and the other party. Remember that to send DMs, both parties need
to be following each other so make sure this is the case before doing anything.
Know When To Move Problems On
Sometimes it isn’t always possible to solve a problem on Twitter and when that happens,
be sure to direct them to an email account or phone number to rectify the problem. You
can use Twitter as a way to direct people to other help services so don’t try to solve a
problem in 140 characters if it requires far more than that.
Follow Up
Something brands tend to forget is that when the problem
is solved, there’s still opportunity to interact with people. If
you’ve solved a problem or redirected someone to another
area, make a note of their username and a week later, send
them a tweet to see how things are going. It’s the little
things that will endear you to your fan base and will get
you good publicity sooner or later.
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52. State When You’re Open
Unless you’re a massive company with offices in different parts of the world, chances
are you’re only going to be monitoring your Twitter account during working hours. If so,
place said times on your Twitter bio to avoid confusion. Also, make sure you include the
time zone too as you could very easily have customers from abroad trying to reach you.
Ten Brands Doing Customer Service Right
There are many examples of brands doing customer service on Twitter, but fewer are
getting it right. Since people learn a lot more from example than through theory, here
are some brands that are getting customer service on Twitter right:
Zappos Customer Service
The shoe company makes sure that its customer service team says who they are as
they address all queries and comments. As well as placing their team in the background
image, it also injects some personality into its tweets by asking users to tweet in pirate
talk and talking about the latest sport events.
Hertz
Hertz makes sure that it responds to all questions from its customers, always stating who
the message is from by placing their initials at the end of each tweet. Each member has
their initials on the background image so you know exactly who you’re talking to.
52

53. UPS Customer Support
UPS state what times their customer support account is open for so that customers
know when to expect a response. It also follows the same principal as Hertz and Zappos
by placing their team’s names and photos in the background image.
Best Buy (twelpforce)
Best Buy’s Twelpforce does its best to answer any tech-related queries and brings all the
different services together. While it tweets in different languages, it makes sure that its
answers are as comprehensive as possible.
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54. Uber
Since Uber is a mobile service, it follows up on customer queries by asking how their
experience was, getting feedback and interacting with their customers to create a
welcoming service.
Xbox Support
The Guinness world record holder for most responsive brand on Twitter certainly lives
up to its name by making sure everyone gets a response, even going as far to respond
to people who mention Xbox in passing.
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55. Southern Electric
Southern Electric not only provides help on its Twitter page, but also provides alternatives
for contacting them on its background image. It also states times for contacting them
clearly so there is no confusion.
Royal Mail
Not only does Royal Mail personalise its tweets and respond to queries, but the account
is incredibly funny. It’s also a massive fan of (bad) puns, which is always a good sign.
55

56. Citi
The financial brand has its own customer service account, which it updates quite regularly.
With 18 different people servicing its account, it ensures that everybody gets a response,
no matter how trivial it may seem.
Samsung
One of the biggest technology companies in the world has its own support service.
While it does use it to promote its services, it always finds the time to help customers out
with their devices.
56

57. Stuck With B2B Marketing? The Complete In-
Depth Guide To Linkedin
L
inkedIn is a stalwart of the social networking scene, yet it often suffers from a
lack of limelight around younger, sexier upstarts. Pretty much everyone you
meet in the ‘professional’ world will have a LinkedIn profile. The only problem
is that many don’t actually know how to use it or make the most of different
features available. Of course, you will only get out of it what you put in and there are some
great examples of how LinkedIn can be used for business in ways you might not imagine.
How about raising investment for your new business, purely through LinkedIn?
Also, businesses are just starting to take more notice of LinkedIn, as it opens the
platform to allow for campaigns and apps to run more effectively. Add to that the fact
that LinkedIn has an ad marketplace that runs in the same way as Facebook’s and that
it’s working more on strategic partnerships,
such as their recent addition to the new
Microsoft Office and already you have
numerous reasons to start using it to your
advantage, if you aren’t already.
Why It Matters
It’s easy to forget about LinkedIn and just
use it to respond to the odd contact or post
a link to something you want to promote.
However, if you consider how many
connections you’re likely to have in there,
it can actually be an important part of your
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58. professional life, if you want it to be. The benefits of an active LinkedIn profile, whether
it’s personal or for your business, extend way beyond the immediate connections you
have with benefits such as SEO also being incredibly important.
And, of course, with a public network like LinkedIn, it is almost guaranteed to feature
on employer’s background checks when researching potential candidates. While it may
not be the case that securing a job will be wholly dependent on your LinkedIn profile
and activity, having a professional looking profile that has been properly filled with
your background and work experience will ultimately make it easier for prospective
employers to see what you’re all about.
10 Ways To Help Make Your Profile Stand Out
1. Get Your Profile Picture Right
Profile pictures are a relatively small part of any user’s LinkedIn profile, but it’s
usually the first thing potential employers will see and are of great importance. It is
recommended that users get a respectable head shot taken, but it doesn’t have to be
professionally done (although that would, of course, be preferable).
It can be as simple as standing in front of a neutral background and asking a friend to
take a photo of you with a digital camera of smartphone; as long as you are looking
into the camera and your head and shoulders are visible, it will make for a sufficient
profile pic.
2. Include a professional headline.
Headlines are important as they give user’s a basic idea
of who you are and what you do in a concise form. It’s
important that your headline is crisp and comprehensive
so that it conveys everything you want to potential
employers in 100 characters or less. Think of it as an
initial pitch to users to read further and learn more.
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59. 3. Provide a summary
A good summary is a must and allows you to put your experience in a wider context
beyond your CV/resumé. Ultimately, a summary will, of course, condense your profile’s
content into a few hundred words so it is important that it presents you at your best
and makes the most of a reader’s attention span. After all, there are plenty of others
out there, and you have to show why they should prioritise yours.
4. Make sure your profile
is ’100%’ complete
LinkedIn is keen to assist first-
time users in building their profile
with helpful tips and step-by-step
guides, so much so that your
profile should be up to standard
level in no time, especially if you
import your CV or resumé on to
the site early. Professionalism is
key, so it is important that your
profile is well presented and up-
to-date at all times.
5. List all previous experience, no matter how small
You may find a previous job insignificant or even embarrassing, but readers will use
your resumé to form a better idea of you, both as a person and as a professional, in
their heads. A comprehensive listing of your complete working experience, complete
with descriptions, responsibilities and searchable key words and attributes will leave
you in good stead.
6. Make Connections
It is important that new users try and make at least 50 connections. Put the
foundations in place by searching for people you know well, such as friends, family,
employers/employees and colleagues, or import contacts using your email address.
7. Use applications
If you have a blog or website that could be appealing
to potential employers, then you can link on your
profile. WordPress makes this especially easy; there’s an
application to put an RSS feed on your LinkedIn profile.
It’s an easy way to of displaying your work to users and
on a consistent basis. We’ve included a list of plug-ins and
apps that are compatible with LinkedIn; be sure to use
SlideShare to improve your presentations, or Rapportive,
to help you acquire connections outside LinkedIn.
59

60. 8. Create a Group
Groups can be the absolute nadir of LinkedIn, equating to glorified forums and filled to
the brim with users you do not want to be associated with. However, creating a niche
topic group that is defined by specificity and exclusivity will be show you to be an
authority in your field, and you will be able to curate important information that will be
of use in your search for the next big opportunity.
9. Add a video to your profile
Most people won’t have a video, which will make you stand out
all the more. Videos are obviously easier to digest than text; they
will make your profile more memorable and ensure you make
a strong first impression. Obviously, videos are a good way of
showing the person behind the profile and will allow you to
connect with readers on a personal level, while also effectively
showing off your skills.
10. Keywords
Think of employers like magpies and keywords like shiny things. You need to put some
thought into creating your profile – making sure to litter keywords throughout – so that
you best match what fellow users are looking for. It can be easy to impress someone or
even show up on someone’s radar with the right words; the better you use them, the
more likely you are to show up in search results worldwide. Be wary though, you run
the risk of sounding SEO-orientated if you use too many buzzwords. Remember: you
are a person, not a professional archetype.
Making Groups Work For You
Perhaps one of the major features that LinkedIn has over other social media sites is its
groups feature. Granted, this isn’t a unique feature by any stretch of the imagination,
but what LinkedIn groups have over other social media sites is the type of audience
they attract.
While Facebook and Twitter can attract almost anyone, with LinkedIn, you know the
type of people asking and answering questions are professionals and have a good
working knowledge in their field. There are numerous reasons why you should join
a few groups relating to your position if
you haven’t already, but for those who are
unsure about how to proceed, here’s some
pointers to keep in mind.
1) Focus on a few select groups
When you join a group (or the admin
for said group accepts your application),
you should get a feel for each group. For
example, which groups are most in-line with
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61. your profession or expertise? What type of questions are asked? What discussions does
this group usually have? How many are active users?
You should also consider the number of members each group has. Don’t go for the
biggest groups as you will end up getting lost within the noise. Instead, aim for specific
groups within your industry and make sure you’ve more than one keyword in your
search. It’s better to search for ‘social media PR’ instead of ‘PR’ as the latter will bring
up general groups or subsections that have nothing to do with you.
Also, if you want to get noticed, the type of groups you want to join should have
roughly 500 – 4,000. That’s why it’s important to research how active these groups are
when you’re starting out.
2) Be consistent
When we say be consistent, we don’t just mean posting comments, but making sure
you’re visiting your groups regularly. You should visit each group at least two times a
week so that you’re up to speed with what’s happening.
While you do get daily emails regarding groups (and weekly emails if you don’t visit
often), it’s better to take a proactive approach and visit these groups yourself so that
when something comes up that you can comment on, you will be one of the first to
provide information and insight into a particular topic.
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62. 3) Identify the top
discussions and engage
Usually, the most popular
discussions in a group are
pushed up to the top for all
to see. Because of this, it’s a
good idea to weigh-in on the
discussion and offer your opinion
or advice of certain topics.
Alongside that, each LinkedIn
group has a chart showing
you the top influencers, that
is those people who gain the
most traction in the group. If you’re engaging with these discussions either through
providing insight into a topic, responding to comments or even asking your own
questions, users will respond and will begin to see that you are a valuable member of
the community.
4) Ask Questions
This links back to the first point, which is know your audience. Once you do, you will
know the type of discussions people will respond to and the type of questions that will
benefit the group the most and be able to start your own discussions.
Knowing what’s members find important is crucial so have a look at previous
discussions to see what resonated and which ones were the most valuable. You don’t
want to repeat these discussions, but you want to find out the topics and subjects that
allowed such interaction. It’s best to take a sporadic approach to this, you don’t want
to be that one person who’s constantly posting stuff online and unless you’re the group
admin whose job is to facilitate discussion, this is a bad thing.
5) Make sure you’re providing value
It’s ok if you want to link to an article or piece that you’ve written on a group page,
but make sure you’re contributing and adding value to the group. Chris Brogan made
a rule for Twitter which can
be easily applied to any social
media site which goes like this:
For every promotional tweet
you post, 15 should be sharing
or providing content.
You don’t need to go to this
extreme if you’re providing
helpful and insightful comments,
but its worth keeping in mind
if you don’t want to look like
you’re spamming the group.
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63. Company Pages
Why Create One?
The same reason why you would
create a group page. LinkedIn’s
audience are professionals
so they will take a far greater
interest in what’s happening
with your business (provided
you make it relevant to them). It
also appears in Google search
alongside LinkedIn’s search
engine so the chances of being
found by professionals increase.
Alongside that, it gives you
a platform to promote your
services and products as well as any other events or items you want to get out there.
Thankfully, LinkedIn provide a step-by-step guide about setting up a company page so
we don’t have to bore you with the how-to part.
Once you’ve filled out the details and your page is set up, it’s time to see what else you
can do with company pages.
Follower and Page Statistics
When you’ve promoted your page
to everyone you know and you’ve
amassed a sizable audience, the
first thing you should check out
are follower and page statistics.
As well as giving you a quick
overview, you can also get a further
breakdown of each statistic such
as follower demographic, recent
followers, update impression, and
unique visitors. This will give you an
idea as to any emerging trends or
demographics.
Also, knowing what type of follower you have and how many there are is important
for when you start using targeted updates.
Follow Button
At one point, the only social button you could get for LinkedIn was the share button for
articles. Earlier this year, LinkedIn decided to introduce the follow button, allowing users to
follow the company page directly from a site. Handy as more people would be inclined to
visit your site and you want to make it as easy as possible for users to follow you.
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64. Targeted Updates
One for the bigger company
pages, targeted updates
allows you to post to specific
demographics, so if you’re
posting an update that’s only
relevant to European followers,
it’s perfect. However, if your
page has less than 1,500, it’s
probably not recommended to
use this as you will probably end
up ignoring a significant amount
of followers through this. The
exception is if you’re posting something very specific and the people not seeing the
update are a tiny minority.
Linkedin Today
With people spending more and more time-consuming content on Twitter and
Facebook, LinkedIn came up with its own content offering last year called LinkedIn
Today. It essentially personalises your business news, based on what your LinkedIn
network is reading. You can also follow
news by category, company or by
suggestions that LinkedIn provides you.
Essentially, LinkedIn Today is an online
business newspaper for the online
generation. Think of it as the Financial
Times, but carefully curated and
constantly changing to help filter the
news that is most important to you.
Here are a few tips that will help you get
more out of Linkedin Today.
Browse and manage your
news categories
To enhance the experience, click on
the browse category, which will give
you a huge list of the news broken
down into the various categories that
might be of interest to you. Taking
time to curate these at the start
will mean that you have a better
experience at a later date.
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65. The best news for you is
often the news that your
connections are sharing
and commenting on. By
clicking on the “Trending
in your network” tab, you
will see all the content
that people within your
network think is important.
You will find that this news
is incredibly relevant to
you and your business
because of the time you
have spent curating your
connections.
You can also choose to follow individual news sources like blogs, websites and media
sites much in the same way as you would on Twitter. By taking the time to curate these
news sources, the news gets even better for you and all the rich media blog posts,
videos and articles relevant to you will start popping into your feed.
LinkedIn Apps & Plugins
ConnectedHQ
Connected is a dashboard
that manages all your contacts
from across your email address
book, social networking
friends/followers/connections,
calendar and phone contacts,
unifying them and making
them easily manageable as
part of one contact list, a
corresponding profile will then
be created for each.
Connected presents a device for
constructing a comprehensive
online contact list with minimal effort and little fuss. It takes details of your contacts
from across the internet and melds them into a cohesive whole. Connected will be
integral to the site’s ongoing development as the internet’s premier business network.
SlideShare
LinkedIn’s current aim is to reconstruct traditional business networking for an online
generation. In the case of SlideShare, users can host documents and presentations
on the site to share with their contacts. As part of LinkedIn, SlideShare can be used
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66. to share CVs, PowerPoint presentations, Excel
spreadsheets among many other file types and
will surely represent a useful tool for LinkedIn
users and their connections as they try to
transfer their business and interactions online.
Rapportive
Gmail add-on Rapportive, which LinkedIn
acquired in February, displays a wide range of social networking details about the
contact you are emailing.
Rapportive and its new owners will continue to build the extension, but at this moment in
time, one can add Gmail contacts on Facebook, LinkedIn and Gmail all from your Gmail
account and without having to manually search for them on individual sites, one at a time.
IndexTank
IndexTank is innovative in that it allows its
user to develop search apps with relative
simplicity and without said users having
to host their own software. LinkedIn
bought the company in October and has
since open-sourced its technology.
Back in October, LinkedIn predicted that
upwards of one billion searches would be
made on the site in 2012, and IndexTank’s
engineers will be of great assistance as
they attempt to maintain demand and
facilitate user activity without disruption.
HookFlash
HookFlash is a video chat
app – think of Facebook chat
or Skype and you will have a
pretty decent idea as to how
it works. Sign in with your
LinkedIn account and any
connections you have on the
site and you can message
them or call them whenever
they’re online.
Currently, the app is available
for iPad only, but there are
plans for an iPhone app and
an Android version to be
released later in the year.
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67. There are also a number of plug-ins for LinkedIn too, which will further enhance your
experience. You can find most of the plugins listed here.
CardMunch for iPhone – Scan your business cards using an iPhone and it will
calibrate the information given with a potential LinkedIn contact.
Tripit – Allows you to plan trips with LinkedIn contacts or even plan a trip together
with LinkedIn contacts. Using Tripit, you can also see which of your contacts will be in
which city at what time, providing greater potential for networking meetings.
Reading List by Amazon – Allows you to share and compare reading lists with
your LinkedIn contacts, a proverbial ice-breaker for you and your virtual business
acquaintances.
LunchMeet for iPhone – Put yourself out there and advertise your luncheon spot
to all your many, faceless LinkedIn friends, encourages people to use lunch as a
networking tool rather than an important daily meal.
WordPress – Automatically submits your WordPress blog posts to your LinkedIn account.
Box.net Files – Add the Box.net Files application to manage all your important files
online. Box.net lets you share content on your profile, and collaborate with friends and
colleagues.
SlideShare Presentations – Allows you to upload and display your presentations with
the people in your LinkedIn network.
Portfolio Display – Use Portfolio Display to show off your multimedia work on your
LinkedIn profile.
GitHub – Learn more about the projects your connections are working on, and indeed,
tell the world more about what you are working on yourself.
Blog Link – Connect your LinkedIn profile to your blog.
Events – Find professional events, from conferences to local meet-ups, and make the
right connections with other professionals at the event.
Projects and Teamspaces – Share and track unlimited tasks, projects, documents and
Google Apps.
Legal Updates – Get legal news that matters to you and your business. (Lawyers,
upload your articles and other content. Be found for your expertise on LinkedIn.)
Real Estate Pro – Access your local real estate and office space market. Follow active
brokers, agents and professionals. Track new property listings and available spaces and
stay informed of completed deals in your area.
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68. Polls – The Polls application allows you to collect actionable data from your
connections and the professional audience on LinkedIn.
Lawyer Ratings – Lawyers can showcase their Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review
Ratings™ and Client Review Ratings to further validate their stated credentials and help
them make the right connections.
LinkedIn for Outlook – Put a face to your Microsoft Outlook contacts and find their
corresponding LinkedIn profile.
Lotus Notes Widget 1.0 Beta – Get your email and LinkedIn updates all in one place;
quickly learn more about people who send you email; search for people you want to
contact and work with; share your status, see what your connections are working on.
FB LinkedIn Resume – Extract important details and parts of your LinkedIn profile to
post on your blog.
Infographic Sources
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2012/06/27/how-linkedin-strategy/
- http://press.linkedin.com/node/1191
- http://press.linkedin.com/about
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69. The Complete Guide To Creating A Killer LinkedIn
Company Profile – Including 10 Simple Tips
I
f you’re a regular LinkedIn user, you may have noticed that the company pages
has underwent a significant redesign. Following the redesign of the main
LinkedIn page and LinkedIn Today, the company pages has experienced the
same facelift and have given them much needed vibrancy.
While there are obvious changes such as the introduction of a cover photo, other
changes mightn’t be as obvious. So now that all page owners have had access to the
new layout for a bit, it’s time to start finding out exactly what they have to offer.
Company Profile Overview
Over the last few years, there have been many different places for companies to
interact like groups, profiles, company pages and the stream itself. However, just as
Facebook moved all brands and businesses to pages as the central presence, LinkedIn
is now doing the same.
While it may be annoying for any marketing efforts that you have carried out on other
parts of LinkedIn in the past, you should now focus all your energy on the company
pages. Think of the company profile in exactly the same way you do your Facebook
page although you’ll almost certainly be using LinkedIn differently. The pages are a
great hub for pushing out company updates, sharing new positions in your company
and showing off your products and services
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70. Cover Photos
One of the major features that LinkedIn has introduced is the addition of cover photos
for brand pages. The dimensions for cover photos are 646 x 220. This is smaller than
Facebook’s cover photo, but it follows a very similar format. There is the opportunity for
multiple cover photos, as they are allowed on the ‘Home’, ‘Careers’ and ‘Products’ Pages.
Speaking of which, LinkedIn cover photos for your products and services page is a
feature brands often overlooked. The Products page allows for three different cover
photos that can be clicked through as a slideshow, and allowing you to highlight a
specific cover when a user lands on a page. One nice feature of the LinkedIn cover
photos is the ability to insert links for each photo, something that Facebook lacks.
Post Updates
When you’re posting a link onto your company page, you’ll notice that you have one or
two extra options available to you before you hit share. As well as being able to edit the
heading and intro blurb, you’re now given the option to include a photo and select one
to use. Granted, this is a feature
that’s been available for a long time
on Facebook and Google+, but it
does emphasise how LinkedIn is
improving the visual aspect of the
site to ensure more people will visit
and stay on the site.
A small, but useful addition is the
character count which appears
underneath the text box. While you
already have an idea as to what’s a
long message, this will help as you
try to make non-link updates short
and succinct.
Something else that’s also worth reminding about is the targeting functions
underneath your status. This was a feature of the old company pages, but it’s given
greater importance with the redesign. If you have a significant number of followers and
only want to target a specific industry, location or demographic, you can do so here.
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71. The targeted audience function is only useful if you have a diverse audience and want
to ensure people only see content that’s relevant to them.
What about when you post something and you want to see how well it did? Thankfully,
within a day of posting an update, you will be provided with statistics relating to
its performance underneath the photo of said post. Not only will you get figures
for impressions, clicks and shares, but you will also be told what percentage of
followers engaged with a post. It’s a great way to see how certain posts do and better
understand what your audience is looking for.
About Section
The About section, which was placed at the very top of the page, has been moved to
the very bottom. This is a little odd as visitors will have to scroll down past a maximum
of ten updates to see it. However, the pages are designed to promote multimedia
content (cover photos, connections, links, careers, etc.) and chances are that those who
are really interested in your company will seek it out anyway.
Remember that the first thing people will see is your cover photo and your posts so
that will need to catch their attention first.
Brands Using Profiles Effectively
Although all the functionality is there, not that many of the biggest brands in the
world are using the pages effectively yet. One of the main reasons for this is that many
companies are dubious about grouping all their employees into one easy to find page
where their competitors could easily sift through them and poach them.
Having said that, considering the fact that you can gain followers on your page in the
same way you would on Twitter, it does offer a great way to build a community and
have a group of people that you can push your content out to. Here are some brands
that are doing it right.
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72. AT&T
One of the largest phone companies in the world has an excellent page and over
170,000 followers. It clearly puts a lot of emphasis on its page because it has all the
tabs properly designed, including their products and services.
Salesforce
One of the biggest enterprise tools in the world is becoming increasingly social in its
offerings. It’s leveraging LinkedIn as a recruitment tool as it continues to build a large
following on its page.
Zipcar
Not one of the biggest companies, but Zipcar is showing how LinkedIn company
profiles can be used effectively and regularly for staff recruitment. The tabs on its page
provides good information on the company such as videos, and there’s a constant
stream of jobs being posted.
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73. Hubspot
The marketing software company was one of the first to get access to the new layout
and it’s clear to see why. A cover photo that stands out, regular blog content with
standout images, and a clear tone means it’s works well.
Dell
A comprehensive careers page, some great content from both its own and external
sites and regular interaction from its 335,000 strong followers shows that Dell knows
what it’s doing with its company page.
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74. Careers Page
Another section that has gotten a new lease of life, career pages are simply a place for
your company to advertise new jobs on the site. For normal company pages, you will
be greeted by a snapshot of employees and the opportunity to post positions for a fee
(more on that later).
However, if you’re a larger brand, and you can afford to spend a bit of cash, you
can upgrade to a fancier and more comprehensive page. You only have to look at a
company like Dell, for example, to see how much brighter and how much content
features to understand the benefits.
For one it has a significant cover image covering the length of the screen. Scrolling
down you can see that everything is clearly presented as connections and vacant
jobs are given prominence. A brief summary about what the company does with
accompany video and some testimonials showing that the company is to be trusted.
Saying that, its main function is to advertise job opening in your companies and to target
professionals in the demographic you’re looking at. Prices vary per region and demographic
aimed, but using Ireland as an example, the price for posting a job on the site is €139.95 for
30 days. There are also 5-job packs for €110.99 per job and 10-job pack for €89.50 per job.
Products & Services Page
If the main company page shows your social media efforts, then the products and services
page is where the real company details are. The tab allows you to add all the important
information about your company and what you offer.
While most people will still look for that information on your website, it’s important to
remember that some potential customers might be finding you for the first time through
LinkedIn. The page can be a very useful way of driving traffic and even sales via your
LinkedIn page. You can make the tabs and individual products link through to your website
or places where customers can actually buy from you.
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75. Adding products and services is easy and you can add as many as you wish. Customisation
is rather simple and along the usual details that you can add in key features, URLs,
company contacts, YouTube video and promotions if you have one running.
What’s also of value is the recommendations section. Here, you can see how many
people have recommended your services and any recommendations from your
networks of connections. You can also place video content here too, locating it on the
right-hand toolbar.
Page Tips
1) Videos On Products Tabs
Videos are a great way of showing
off what you can offer clients and
customers. If you have any of your
own content hosted on Youtube or
other video sharing channels, we
recommend you get it into the sidebar.
2) Use Advertising To Drive
Audience
While you will pick up followers for your page organically, LinkedIn does offer some
very targeted advertising options that can help you build a following. It can be broken
down by location, job title and there are many other advanced targeting options. It is
fairly expensive, but that is because it is both focused and effective.
You can have a look at all the advertising options, but if you’re serious about using this
as a company page where you share the best content, you will want to start spending
a little to build your audience.
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76. 3) Use LinkedIn Buttons On Your Site
We keep talking about the benefits of social buttons, but they really are a great way of
getting content shared. Yet you know you could do the same for your company page?
Adding a share, follow, endorse or recommend button can help drive views and gain
you some new followers so choose the ones that you feel are most important and add
them in.
4) Create Multiple Product Pages
Chances are you might have offices based in different countries and you want to direct
certain visitors to them instead. Simply go into ‘Edit’ on the services tab (located on
the top right-hand corner) and it will be the first option presented to you. Click create
new audience and fill in the details. This is also handy if you offer more than one
service and you want to target different sectors.
5) Add Cover Photos For Products Page
You could do this with the old company profiles but since cover photos have taken
greater prominence, it’s worth adding in or updating them. Simply scroll down the edit
product page and you will be presented with three blank banners. Add your images
(640×220 pixels) and the URL and you will get a rotating spotlight module displaying
all three.
This is handy if you’re promoting different products, sections of your company or
simply trying to provide a call to action for visitors. For example, mobile network AT&T
uses its cover photos to promote new products, offers and events, all of which can be
seen below.
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77. 6) Use Insights To Your Advantage
LinkedIn’s insights are comprehensive in comparison to similar first-party efforts
so be sure to use it to your advantage. You will be given a breakdown of follower
demographics, engagement, impressions. This is important if you’re using targeted status
updates as you need to know your audience if you want to effectively target them.
7) Use Description Tags
Scrolling down the edit page, you will see the option to enter in your company
specialities. This is important if you want people to find you so make sure you fill in as
many as you can. Think of it as SEO for LinkedIn and use relevant keywords to ensure
the best possible chance.
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78. 8) Update Regularly
Nobody is going to visit your page or follow you if you rarely update so make sure you
get into the habit of posting content regularly. If you have a blog, post content from
that, but you can also mix it up with interesting articles from other sites too. The key is
to provide value so build it up.
9) Add Different Services
Vary your content in your products page and when adding a new service in, ensure
that the image is unique from the other services you have included. When someone
first sees your page, the first thing that will catch their eye are distinct images so
making sure they’re different is a good way of getting the unique qualities of your
company across.
10) Control Your Page
Depending on the size of the
company, you may want to
dedicate one or two people
to managing LinkedIn duties.
You have the option to
allow anyone with an email
registered to the company’s
domain name to be an
admin, but this should only be the case if you have a small company. If it’s medium
sized or bigger, it’s better to just have one or two people managing it instead.
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79. 40 Tips & Tricks To Help Improve Your Google+
Experience
D
espite having rubbed many of the tech press up the wrong way when it first
came out, Google+ has developed a passionate fan base. Whatever your
views on it, there’s a lot to take away from Google’s social media effort,
developing a reputation for blogging, photography and design.
But whether you’ve been using the site since day one or have just recently jumped into
it, there’s a lot of little tricks, add-ons and features that you can take advantage of and
make your experience richer.
General Use
Text & Image Shortcuts
If you want certain parts of your
post to stand out, you can insert
symbols for it to stand out. If you
place two asterisks before and after
the selected text, you can bold the
text. Similarly, using two underscore
symbols will format your text in
italics and using two hyphens will
strikethrough the text.
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80. Some quick key shortcuts:
Space = Scroll down stream
Shift + Space = Scroll up stream
Q = Jump to chat
J = Scroll down by single post
K = Scroll up by single post
Return = Start comment
Tab + Return = End comment
Also, you can add videos, photos and links to your post by simply dragging them
directly to the share box.
Hashtags and mentions
Similar to Twitter, you can mention people in your updates by using the @ symbol
and mark your post’s topic using the hashtag symbol. However, the handy part of
Google+’s hashtags is that when you check a trending topic, you can pause the feed,
allowing you to see what’s going on without being overwhelmed by constant updates.
Linking to a Post
If you want to link to a post on Google+, just right-click on the post’s date/time of
post and select “copy link address.” When you put it into your address bar or post it
on a different site, it will bring people to that post. Alternatively, you can go into post
options and select “Link To This Post.”
Editing/Modifying a Post
Ever post something and notice a typo or feel you could have phrased it better. If so,
you can edit a post long after you’ve posted it. Go into your post settings and select
“edit post.”
News Feed
Filtering Noise
If you’re following numerous
people and you want to
see more content from a
particular circle and less from
another, you can filter how
much noise comes from each
circle. To do this, go into a
circle’s feed and underneath
your name, you will see a
slider allowing you to bring
more or less updates from this circle into your main feed. Handy if one circle is
dominating your feed and you want to hear what others are getting up to.
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81. Send Private Messages
Although Google+ doesn’t have a private message function like Facebook (although
you could argue that it has and it’s called Gmail), you can send messages only
intended for one or two people. When you’re posting an update, just get rid of
whatever circle is there and type in the names of those you want to communicate with.
When you post it, only those people will be able to see your message.
Blog Posting
Because of its formatting and style, Google+ is better for directly publishing blog
content on the site than other sites. When you’re writing a post, you can mix it up by
posting long-form posts which can be 100,000 characters long. Sometimes, longer,
more comprehensive posts can get a lot more engagement so experiment to see what
people respond to best.
Circles
Inviting Friends
While you’re linked up to your Gmail profile, you can find people based on specific
friends. Just go into Circles, and select find people. When you’ve done that, simply
drag one of your friends to the search bar and you will get suggestions based on that
person.
Friends’ About Page
If you’re Gchatting with someone, you can access their about page by clicking on their
name in the chat window. Doing this will direct you to their about page without leaving
the chat.
Finding people
If only a few of your friends are on Google+
and you want to get more out of it, there’s
an active community out there for you
to discover. While Google has its own
suggestions page, Creative Web Design
posted a number of Google+ directories to
help you find the most followed and most
interesting users on the site.
Hangouts
The jewel in Google+’s crown, hangouts let you talk to a number of your friends at the
same time. While starting a hangout is easy, when you’re on Gchat, you will be notified
anytime your friends are holding a hangout so you can join in. The same notification is
given when you’re on Google+ itself on the right hand side.
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82. Design
Google+ changed the option to only have thumbnail images at the top of your Page,
which is what Google heavily adopted themselves across their brand pages. Now you
can upload a banner image, giving your profile page a strong design. Make sure you’re
utilising this new feature, as it’s part of a recent update Google made to it.
- This clever template tool will help you when you are designing a cover image to
fit with your profile image. It will allow you to see which part of your photo will be
cropped so you can test the design before going live.
- If you do want to go for the thumbnail option, then why not go for a good old photo
hack? Check out this collection of
clever hacks for a bit of inspiration.
- If you’re running a company
Google Plus page, you should
consider creating a small ‘twibbon’
style icon that can be overlaid on
your employees’ profile pictures. This
will allow them to be easily identified as official admins/moderators of your Google
Plus page, and this will carry through when they join other circles.
- If you’re stuck for inspiration for cover images, you can access a handy resource here
which contains some pretty nice
cover images to jazz up your
profile.
- Try and make the most of
video posts on your profile.
When you upload a photo you
have the option of adding text
onto the overlay banner, which
will help with your design and
encouraging people to view your
content.
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83. - One for the more advanced
designers here (and we’re not
totally convinced this is a nice
feature), but you can follow this
guide to find out how to create an
animated profile picture. Use with
caution as you don’t want to risk
putting people off with a profile
that’s too busy. However, if you
spend time on a nice animated
image, then you can add a bit of
colour to your profile page.
Links
Google Ripples
One of the handiest features
of Google+ is its ripple feature.
Using this, you can see how viral
or how shared a particular post
or link was. So long as the post in
question is marked public, you can
go to that post’s options and select
“View ripples.” Alongside a visual
representation, you will each each
person’s post on the right hand
side when you zoom in.
Mobile
Send Feedback
Did you know that if you’re using the iPhone app, you can send feedback to the
Google+ team just by shaking your phone? Now you do!
Instant upload
You can change the settings on this so that photos are only uploaded when you have a
wi-fi connection. Useful if your 3G connection is slow
or you’re reluctant to use your network data.
Photos
Editing Photos
Google+ has an impressive array of features for
editing photos, which puts it on par with many photo
sharing apps and programs out there. Alongside
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84. the basic features like cropping, sharpness and rotating, you can apply filters to your
images as well as other fun elements like speech bubbles and fake beards, if you feel
your photo is enhanced by these additions.
Cross Posting Images
If you want images from your other accounts to go to your Google+ account, a handy
way is to upload everything onto dropbox. Using If This Than That, you can make sure
Instagram, Facebook Camera, and Flickr uploads go into Dropbox. This way, you can
download them from Dropbox and later upload them onto Google Plus. This is only if
you don’t save uploaded photos onto your phone.
Import Photos
There are a number of ways to bring your photos from your other social media
accounts, mostly in the form of plugins.
Facebook - Move Your Photos, a chrome extension that will move your Facebook
photos onto Picasa.
Instagram - You can use the IFTTT method or you can use Instaport which will export
them to Pisaca.
Flickr - You can use FlickandShare or Migratr to complete this.
Events
Party Mode
An interesting feature from Google+ events is
the ability to group everyone’s photos together
to create one massive album. Everyone that’s
attending the event can take and automatically
upload photos onto an events album, showing
everyone what’s happening in real-time.
Only Show Important Events On Google Calendar
If your feed is getting clogged up with events from Google+, you can disable these by
going into settings in calendar. Scroll down to near the bottom and you find options
either to only send reminders when you’ve responded ‘yes’ or ‘maybe,’ or to only show
invitations that you’ve responded to.
Check Availability
If you have been invited to numerous
events, but are unsure as to which
ones you can attend, you can see if
you’re free at that time by clicking
“check availability” on the event’s
page. Here you can cycle through
each day to see if there are any other
events on during that time.
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85. Brand pages
Disable comments
For brand pages, if a post is receiving too many spam comments or if the topic at hand
is quite sensitive, you can disable comments as well through post options.
+1 Plugin Button
Like all the major social media sites, Google+ also has its +1 button, which you can add
to your site. You can find the code for it here and you can adjust the size, width and to
an extent, the shape. https://developers.google.com/+/plugins/+1button/
Importing your content from Facebook.
Although you can’t do it directly, there are steps you can take to add your existing
Facebook content onto your Google+ page. How To Geek has a great guide about how
you can bring all your Facebook data, photos and videos to your Google+ profile.
Privacy
View as…
Similar to Facebook, you
can see how your profile
looks to the outside
world. Simply go into your
profile, type in the name of
someone you’re following
in your circle to see what
they’re presented with
when they visit your profile.
This is helpful if you’re
applying different privacy
settings to different circles.
Privacy through circles
While Google+ is mainly a public site, there are numerous ways to make sure you’re
only sharing info with people you trust. The first is through circles, creating them gives
you the opportunity to share your next post with them only and the next time you post
something, that circle will automatically be selected. You can also control which circles
you appear in as well, you can block or ignore users through this so they can’t see your
profile.
Restricting search visibility
If you don’t want your profile to appear in Google search, go to your about page and
edit settings there. Near the bottom of the page, you will see a section called ‘public
discovery.’ This controls whether your profile is visible on search or not.
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86. Two-Step Verification
If you want to give your account an extra
layer of protection, you can activate two-
step verification here. What this does is if
somebody somehow gets access to your
account’s username and password, when
they enter it, your phone receives a text or
voice mail with a code to enter. This means
that would be hackers would need to steal
your phone as well to be able to access your account.
Tagline
Not everyone has the time to read through your about page, so taglines are a handy
way of summarising what you’re about. It’s best to treat it similar to Twitter’s bio as you
want to make sure it’s snappy and to the point.
SEO & Links
Author SEO
If you’re a blogger or write content online, you can make sure that Google’s search
engine recognises who you are by filling out your ‘About’ page. Link to your other
social media profiles, link to your website (make sure you do the same thing vice
versa), fill out your profile and add people to your circles. The more you do this, the
more people who will add you to their circles and the chances of your profile popping
up beside a blog post.
The debate about how much Google+ influences your search rankings is unclear, but
you can at least place things in your favour by fleshing out your profile.
Tagline
Not everyone has the time to read through your about page, so taglines are a handy
way of summarising what you’re about. It’s best to treat it similar to Twitter’s bio as you
want to make sure it’s snappy and to the point. Your tagline will also appear beside
your name on things like Disqus.
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87. Creating A Vanity URL
If you’re linking to your profile and you want your URL to be a little…snappier, then
there are a number of services to avail from. Gplus.to is one such example. Simply give
a nickname, add your Google+ ID and voila, a new shorter address is yours.
Miscellaneous
RSS Feeds
If you want to create an RSS feed for your profile (or someone else’s profile), there are
a number of different apps that will help you do this. Sites like Plu.sr and Google+ to
RSS will help you do this.
Save content onto Evernote
If you’re a regular user of Evernote, you can save content directly from it onto your .
Simply find the email address for your Evernote account, add it onto a new Google+
circle called “Evernote,” then any time you want to save something from Google+
onto it, just share with that circle. Google+ will send the content in an email and
Evernote will translate into a notebook item in your account (Tip originally from
ComputerWorld).
Chrome Extensions
If you’re a chrome user, there are a number of extensions out there that will improve
the experience for you. Such extensions include:
Google+ Tweaks: Lets you preview images when your mouse pointer hovers over them
and uses the entire screen when you decide to go full screen.
Google +1 Button: Lets you +1 and share a page, wherever you are on the web.
Circle+: Let you add people to your circles on Google+, wherever you are on the web.
Streamified - Lets you cross post to other social media sites
Photo Zoom - Lets you zoom in on photos on Google+
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88. Chrome Sharing
If you have Chrome for iOS, the app has been recently updated to allow sharing on
different social media sites. You can now share links and pages you find onto your
Google+ account. For Google+, you now have the option to open up web links either
on Safari or on Chrome.
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89. How To SEO Optimise Google+ & Stay Ahead Of
The Competition
I
t’s been more than a year since Google unleashed its latest social media site
to the world, and while it didn’t get off to the best start (there’s still a lot of
debate about what qualifies as an active user), it’s found and developed a core
audience. However, even if you haven’t warmed to it, there’s a very important
factor to take into considering and that is how it affects your SEO rankings.
At the Web Summit earlier this month, the Co-founder & CTO of Hubspot Dharmesh
Shah talked about how Google’s search engine is looking for three things: Useful
content, clean design and fast websites. Tying into this was the importance of Google+
and how it can benefit you and search engines by focusing on the Google part.
Therefore, we’re going to look at the ways in which you can optimise your profile or
business page and ensure that your content gets seen more.
Install a +1 button
A little obvious considering that social sharing buttons are part and parcel of any social
media site, but what makes Google’s buttons more valuable is that they are the biggest
driver of organic traffic. If you don’t have one installed on your site, then get on it.
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90. Importance In Titles
Since Google+ posts appear in Google’s search results, it’s usually the first line of your
post that’s treated as the title of your post. So you want to make sure you put a bit of
thought into what your title is going to be as Google is very quick in scanning new
content on its site. To bold something, use the * symbol at the beginning and end of
what you want bolded, it may come in useful.
Insert numerous links
One of the joys of Google+ is that there’s no limit to the number of links you can place
into a single post. These links work separately so if somebody shares them, +1′s or
links to them, their value will increase which can only be a good thing for you.
Use The About Page To Your Advantage
The About page is important as it
fleshes out your profile and lets you
link to other social media profiles like
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. However,
what you may be interested to know
is that you can embed links directly
into your description. These links
would be valued the same way as any
other link so take the opportunity to
insert one or two into it.
This also applies to business pages as
well so make sure you fill everything
out to get the maximum effect.
Be Active
Like your company blog, an inactive account won’t do much good for building links
so make the effort to update regularly, comment and +1 stories in your feed so that
your ranking goes up. Also, your reputation on the site will increase too so that’s also a
good way of increasing views.
Get Author Accreditation
One of the major benefits of having a
Google+ account is that you can be accredited
for your work. If you’re a blogger, you can put
yourself down for it by going into your About
page and adding yourself as a contributor
to your site. Depending on the blogging
tools you’re using, you will have to add your
Google+ account into your author profile (For
WordPress, it’s under contact info), but once
you’ve done that, Google will do the rest.
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91. It may take a little bit of time for Google to recognise your name (it might be wise to
expect it to happen over the course of a few weeks), but once it’s approved, you’ll see your
name and profile appear with your articles, which could mean people would be more likely
to click on your work.
SEO Optimise Search Terms
This was a tip spotted by Ronnie Bincer back in May and it’s something definitely
worth keeping in mind the next time you’re posting targeted content. If you’re looking
to associate a post or article upon a search term, simply type it into the Google+
search bar, you can post something and have it tagged in relation to the topic you’ve
searched. So if you’ve written a blog post on marketing, you can enter the relevant
search term into Google+ and post there with the appropriate tag.
Ability To Edit
Perhaps one of the biggest features that Google+ has is the opportunity to edit
previous posts. While this mightn’t seem major, it means that you can repurpose
content and change any part of your content. This is handy if you make a mistake or
spot a typo, but it’s also good for repurposing content so that it’s more relevant to
Google’s search results.
Create A Vanity URL
Back in August, Google started rolling out vanity URLs for verified users and brands
with the expectation that this would be extended to everyone like on Facebook.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened just yet, but there are numerous ways to create
one for yourself. One example is Gplus.to where you simply give a nickname, add your
Google ID and a new, shorter address is yours.
91

92. YouTube – The Complete Marketers Guide To The
World’s Biggest Video Sharing Website
Y
ou don’t need to be an expert to see that YouTube has become something
more than mainstream. With over three billion hours of video watched on
YouTube each month, it’s the fourth largest site on the Web, and it’s obvious
to say that the site has surpassed the internet and has become a part of
our social conscious.
Brands have latched onto this and to show just how far priorities have shifted since
then, more are launching advertising campaigns online first to gauge reaction before
they hit TV screens. You only need to look at events like the Superbowl or the Old
Spice “The Man Your Man Can Smell Like” campaigns and look at the number of ads
debuting on YouTube first to properly understand this.
The viral nature of YouTube means that while it’s incredibly difficult to create a hit
without some things working in your favour. Back in November 2011 at a TED talk,
YouTube’s trends manager Kevin Allocca presented the three things that make any
video go viral: tastemakers, participation and unexpectedness. Of course, achieving
is by far easier said than done, and while you’re not going to come up with the next
Nyan Cat, there’s a lot you can do to make the medium work to your advantage.
Tips & Tricks
Share
Found underneath each video,
the share button is a lot more
powerful than you’d expect.
Alongside the option to share on
the major social media sites, you
can also get the embed code (if
92

93. you want to play the video on an external site) & shortened link for your video. The
handy part about the latter is that not only can you choose to link to the HD version,
but you can choose exactly what time you want the video to start. Handy if you want
to highlight a particular part of a video.
Stabliser
If your video suffers from shaky camerawork, then this tool is a godsend. Found in
enhancements, this feature smooths your videos out and allows for a less jittery
experience. Have a look at the before and after videos presented below to gain an idea.
Creative Commons
If you want to place a
soundtrack in your video
and you’re unsure whether
you will be breaking
copyright, YouTube gives
you access to over 150,000
pre-approved tracks to
select from. Simply choose
a track and it will play over
your video. Be warned
though, as the music will
play over any previous
audio such as voiceovers.
Create Video Apps
YouTube video maker isn’t
the only tool that you can
use to create a video. The
‘Create’ section on YouTube
allows you to make videos
without having to record,
upload files or do any
editing.
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94. Captions
Although YouTube provides automatic
transactions, they’re not the most
reliable (Exhibit A: the accompanying
screenshot). Simply go into editor and
upload your transcription. Also, you
can adjust the font, font colour and
background colour through clicking
‘settings’ on a video’s caption settings.
Tags and Search
It’s a basic tip, but if you want your video to be found, you need to get specific with
tags. It’s fine if you want to include general tags like ‘business’ or ‘technology,’ but
make sure you have an even greater number of specific tags to help people find your
video, otherwise they’ll get buried in the search results.
Annotations
Handy if you want to provide additional
context to what’s happening on screen
or link to a page, you can insert speech
bubbles, notes, titles, spotlights and
labels. You can also make sure the
pause the video at a specific point if you
want to place emphasis on a particular
section or provide a call-to-action.
YouTube Speed Test
If your videos are streaming slowly
and you feel that it’s down to your ISP
provider, you can visit YouTube’s speed
test and compare your city to other cities
and countries across the world.
Enhancements
If you want your video to have a different feel,
then there are a number of filters that you
can apply. If you get tired of applying filters or
don’t find one that suits, you can still revert
back to its original look.
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95. Video Analytics
Although you can get a quick recap of stats
underneath each video, you can get even
more detailed stats for each video in the
video manager page. Simply click on stats on
the right-hand side of a video and you will be
presented with a wide range of info including
performance, engagement, demographics
and discovery.
Creators’ Corner
A fantastic resource for those who just
don’t know where to get started or wanting
to really improve their output, YouTube
provides users with tips on production,
editing, promoting and additional tools
and resources to help you produce the best
videos possible.
Advertising
If you’re creating video content, it helps to know what tools are at your disposal when
you sign up. As mentioned earlier, there’s a substantial amount of traffic coming into
the site every day and because of that, there are a number of ways to help promote
your channel. Here are some of the main ones.
Promoted Videos
The first is promoted videos which
can usually be found on the top
right-hand corner when you’re
viewing a video. Designed to take
advantage of a viewer’s habit to
click on the next video they see,
Promoted videos are normally
triggered by specific keywords
which relate to the video being
viewed, and if you’re familiar with
how Google AdWords works, you
will find the same applies here. Your
video’s performance can be tracked
in YouTube Insights, an analytics
tool that is available for all videos.
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96. There are also featured videos, which follow the same format and appear in the search
screens, but these are reserved for those brands who have a commercial relationship
with YouTube.
Brand Channels
Similar to how Facebook pages work,
YouTube Brand Channels brands can
drive traffic by engaging viewers
and gaining subscribers. The page
allows you to customise elements like
the background image, the channel
banners and the branding box to give
your page a unique look. When you
load up a brand page, you’re greeted
by a main video while also presenting
you with featured playlists for you to
browse through.
InVideo ads and In-Stream Ads
InVideo ads are transparent overlay ads that
appear on the lower portion of your video.
Usually they appear shortly after the video has
started and can be closed if the viewer wants
to. If the viewer does nothing, they will minimise
automatically.
In-Stream ads are streamed before a video
starts or midway through it. Usually, viewers are
given the chance to skip the ad five seconds
after they start playing. If a viewer watches 30
second of the ad or watches it to the end, the
advertiser is then charged.
YouTube’s Main Brands
PlayStation is the most popular brand on YouTube, and it truly dwarfs the competition,
with a mammoth 124,246,048 total channel views – that’s over 77 million ahead of its
nearest competitor, Coca-Cola. However, the Sony console fails to break the top ten
when it comes total uploaded video views; Angry Birds creator Rovio comes out tops in
that category, nearly 300 million views ahead of energy drink Red Bull.
The upper echelons of both lists are littered with familiar names, such as Red Bull, Nike,
Nokia, Google and Electronic Arts. The large technology companies listed above are
reliant on previews and advertisements of their new products for their millions of views,
while Red Bull pulls in views with their uploads that pertain to extreme sports. One
name that is surprisingly high on both lists is Old Spice, and it’s fairly obvious as to why.
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97. Channel Views Uploaded Video Views
1) Playstation 124,246,048 1) Rovio 621,925,202
2) Coca-Cola 46,761,145 2) Red Bull 310,377,983
3) Old Spice 34,379,893 3) Old Spice 293,716,206
4) Walmart 18,685,497 4) Electronic Arts (EA) 210,294,952
5) AXE (Lynx) 16,112,917 5) Disney Pixar 180,140,977
6) Nike 13,049,506 6) Google Chrome 145,487,708
7) Nokia 11,412,083 7) Nike 141,017,905
8) Cartier 10,989,836 8) Evian 128,512,656
9) Apple 10,821,178 9) EA (Germany) 118,986,672
10) Google Chrome 10,325,227 10) Sony Music India 115,592,592
[Stats via Socialbakers]
YouTube Music
Good music can make or break a video and there are several options when it comes to
uploading a video to YouTube. The first is uploading the video without any music and
once uploaded you can go to YouTube Editor where you have the choice of thousands
of songs that YouTube have the license to and which you can use on your video.
The second option you have is that you
can upload whatever song that you want
(providing YouTube has a deal in place
with the label) and let YouTube serve
ads against the video. The revenue from
these ads will go to the record label and
although you can have a quality song
on your video, the ads are plastered all
over the video which takes away from the
overall quality of the video.
97

98. Most phones will have a YouTube app either built in or one that you can download
from the app store. The apps provide an excellent experience for viewing content, but
are not really built for uploading and sharing content that you’ve produced yourself.
Uploading A Video From
Mobile
Go to the video in your Camera Roll and select
the video you want to publish. Click on “Send
to YouTube.”
Fill out the details including
description, title and tags. Also, you
can choose if you want the video to
appear publicly, private or unlisted.
All videos from mobile will be uploaded in standard
definition because they are going over the 3G
network and this is the default setting. If you want
to take advantage of the fantastic new cameras on
your smartphones, you will have to connect to a
Wi-Fi connection to upload in full HD.
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99. YouTube Mobile Site
With a huge increase in smartphones, consumers are using YouTube on the go more
than ever. Most phones will have an app that you can download, but you can also access
the mobile version of the site which offers more functionality than the apps often do. You
can engage through comments and watch full HD videos among other things.
The mobile site also allows you to record videos with one tap of a button and those
videos are uploaded in full HD phone (if your phone is good enough). This table shows
which phones support the mobile experience:
YouTube Remote
YouTube Remote seems like an obvious development for YouTube in this, its seventh
year of existence, but it is a symbolic one, also, as more people eschew conventional
television and get more of their fix online. By going to YouTube Leanback and
downloading YouTube Remote app, you can now remotely control YouTube on your
laptop, desktop or internet-enabled television using your smartphone or other mobile
device. Upon accessing the app, you will be presented with two tabs: Search and
Recommended, much like you would be upon accessing your account on a desktop,
and it’s just as simple to use. From there, a playlist of your selected videos will be
created at the top of your remote’s screen to be played on a screen of your choice.
99

100. The videos will appear in fullscreen
on your chosen screen and can be
controlled by keyboard/mouse, but
that would defeat the point.
The app and the screen are well-
synced, ensuring ease of use; it’s
very simple to pause, skip, fast-
forward and rewind. It’s smart,
too. Upon selecting a video, a
list of related videos will show up
as well as ‘Topics in this video’,
which link to Wikipedia, and
IMDb profiles of famous parties
involved or additional, enlightening
web content that you might find
engaging. However, if you leave your remote inactive for too long, it will disconnect
and will likely re-start your playlist once reconnected, which is frustrating. YouTube
have also taken this opportunity to make intermittent adverts seemingly unskippable in
spite of the option to does so left teasingly in the lower right hand corner.
Apart from these minor faults, it works much like YouTube normally would, except
with additional motion allowed to you, the user. You can like and dislike, share and
flag videos as usual, but now you can roam about as you do so, which is always nice.
It might be somewhat redundant or convoluted if you’re working at your desktop or
laptop, but is sure to be a nice addition for those relaxing at home or hosting any kind
of guests.
The YouTube remote can be downloaded for any Android device on Google Play.
Beyond Video
As YouTube tries to keep up with an evolving web and dealing with ‘upstarts’ such as
Facebook, they are beginning to adapt the platform to take advantage of new content.
We’re seeing more cases of Youtube partnering up with major media brands, artists
and sporting events to become the home of live content online.
Its success was on full show when they partnered with the Indian Premier League to
broadcast live cricket matches. This was their first major sporting announcement at
the time, in 2010 and a healthy 39 million video views to date, this is clearly the right
direction for them to take.
Since this announcement, YouTube has explored a number of partnerships such as
the Coachella Festival, where they livecast a number of concerts. This also saw them
experiment with multi-channel live streams, where users could switch between three
channels to view a performance at any one time. Add in the likes of U2 and Barack
Obama, who have both featured in live stream projects with YouTube, and it is clear the
direction it’s beginning to take.
100

101. Rather than simply act as a destination for mass-uploaded content, it’s turning into
a major content provider, which it needs to if they want to survive. Facebook is
increasingly becoming a default platform for user generated video content as it simply
makes more sense for users to go for a one click upload via the Facebook mobile app
where they are already connected.
But Facebook doesn’t get video like YouTube does, and it certainly doesn’t get live-
streaming like YouTube does, or has the power to. The platform is vast and it may well be
turning into a media company of the future, where content is owned by the people, but
facilitated and importantly monetised by them. Quite where YouTube’s owned content
sits within here remains to be seen, but it’s starting to look aggressive in their tactics.
It has hovered up the top talent on YouTube before by bringing them in-house and
giving them production facilities where they can make even better videos. This makes
the site even more money and I would expect to see it move into this area more and
more. Social media is clearly about the content and YouTube, it seems, now want to
own this content like never before.
Stats and figures provided by Infographics from YouTube.
101

102. How To Increase Your YouTube Video Views The
Right Way
Y
ouTube is one of the most important social media tools that we use and
as the second biggest search engine in the world, it presents a wonderful
opportunity for brands and businesses to have their content seen by a
large audience. The only downside is that with billions of videos on the site,
getting attention is not easy and YouTube is packed with brilliant videos that only have
a few hundred views.
Today, we’ve compiled a huge list of tips and tricks that will help you get more out of
the biggest video sharing site. The amount of views that your content ultimately gets
will come down to the quality of the content because people will start sharing it then.
Advertising
One of the most obvious ways of getting
views is to simply pay for them, but it
is amazing how few people know that
advertising is an option on YouTube. One of
the best ways of getting views is by making
it appear in the sponsored videos section
of the site. YouTube offers a wide range of
advertising, but by simply appearing at the
top of search results in the same manner as
on Google Adwords, it means your video
can get highly relevant clicks.
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103. Embedding Videos
Pretty obvious that the more places that your video is embedded in, the more views
that you will get. Have a look at some of the stats on videos and you’ll see that the
main place people see them is when they’re embedded on third party sites. Don’t just
expect people to find your content on a whim though as you will have to proactively
go out there and ask people to feature it, submit it to sharing sites and generally find
sites where your content will be relevant to their audience.
Increasing Interaction On Videos
The more people who comment
or click on the like button, the
better your video will perform in
the rankings. YouTube uses these
as a metric to see which videos
people are liking and engaging
with to show better results to
future people searching on the
site. This doesn’t mean that you
should try and game the system,
but if you find ways to encourage
people to like the video or leave
comments, it will definitely help
you in the long-run.
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104. Making People Watch The Videos For Longer
This is one of the most recent changes to the YouTube algorithm and it’s one that
makes a lot of sense in terms of determining the quality of videos that get watched on
the site. The longer that people spend watching your video, the better it will perform
in future search results. There is absolutely no way of gaming this or trying to come
up with little tricks because the best and only way of making sure people watch your
video for a long time is making sure the content is so compelling, they simply don’t
want to click on to the next thing.
Leave Annotations And Captions
You can easily add captions and annotations to your videos and you will often see
these on some of the most viewed videos on the site. The idea here is that you can
prompt people to do things such as like, comment or engage with your videos in
subtle ways. You can also turn annotations into clickable links so if you have a video
that is getting a lot of views, you can point people to another video, channel or playlist
to help drive traffic to that video too. You are only limited by your own imagination
when it comes to annotations and captions on YouTube so come up with innovative
ways to help them increase your video views.
104

105. Choose Your Best Thumbnail
The thumbnail pic is what appears
when people are searching for it and
the image that shows when the video
is embedded on a third-party site.
Therefore, you want to make sure
that the image used best represents
your video. While YouTube’s video
editor gives you the choice of many
screenshot thumbnails, you do have
the option to upload a custom one,
which can make your video stand out
more when you’re looking through
the search results.
Attract Subscribers
Attracting subscribers can be difficult if you don’t have a plan, but thankfully there are
a number of ways to boost that number. The most straightforward method is to do it in
your own videos. Provide a call-to-actions in your video by asking them to subscribe,
why they should do it and how to do it. Other places you can promote your video
content include your own blog, your different social media channels and embedding a
subscription widget on your site.
105

106. Fill In The Meta Data
It might seem boring to fill in the titles, descriptions and tags but they work. YouTube’s
search engine needs ways to recognise relevant videos and by filling these out, you
increase the chances of your video being discovered so take the time to come up with
relevant keywords, phrases and tags.
Create Timely Content
People always look for content that is timely and relevant. So if it’s coming up to
Christmas, release something that ties in with that. Is Apple releasing a new product?
What are the big news or sporting events at the moment? If you think what people are
most likely to be searching for and make content specifically for that, you have a much
better chance of appearing in search results.
106

107. Add a YouTube Widget To Your Blog
Another way of directing people to your YouTube site is to add a subscriber’s widget to
your site. This is a box that will contain your username, logo, and number of videos and
subscriptions your account has. What you need to do is to place the widget’s embed
code into the source code of your site or blog the same way you embed a YouTube
video. YouTube itself has a more detailed post explaining how to do it here.
Interact In The Comments Yourself
YouTube comments are a wild place that seem to attract a particularly nasty group
of commenters. While they might have negative things to say about your video, one
of the best ways to get people coming back is to have an active discussion thread.
Jump in as your own channel profile and engage in the comments as much as you
possibly can. Don’t be scared to disagree with other people and say things that could
encourage more comments. The more people involved in the discussion, the more
people that are coming back to your video to see what’s going on.
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108. Be Consistent
Nobody is going to come
back to a channel if they
don’t know when the next
video is going to appear so
put a schedule together that
ensures you’re producing
content consistently. When
you’re scheduling, it’s best
to know what you’re going
to be covering for the next
four or five videos and if it’s
possible, create them long
before they’re due to go up.
That way, not only are you ahead of schedule, but if you want to produce a video that
deals with something current, you had the leeway for it.
If it is a case that the next new video isn’t going to appear until later than usual, then
highlight it at the end of your latest video or on your site. Your viewers will appreciate it
and there won’t be any confusion when it happens.
Don’t Create Long Videos
When you’re getting started, short, snappy
videos are the best way to get people
hooked. Preferably, four to five minutes
would be the longest video you want to
create since people want to watch as much
as they can in the short space of time they
have. The shorter it is, the easier it is to
finish and the better chances you have
of getting your message across. When
people become more familiar with your
content, you can lengthen it if you wish.
Create Playlists
Playlists are a great way of grouping brilliant videos you like and uniting them under
the one common theme. While many create them for their own personal fun, you
can use them to help increase your own video’s views. Simply create a playlist that
follows the same theme as the video you want to promote and then slot your video
in with them. Playlists usually appear near the end of a search page so you won’t get
immediate views, but if you share the playlist around and it grows in popularity, your
video may get a number of views on the top of its success.
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109. Get Personalised Recommendations
There are numerous commerce studies which shows that personal recommendations
are more effective so why wouldn’t the same apply when promoting your video. If you
have a number of friends online, find out whether they would mind sharing your video
on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn. The aim is for the post, update or share to
be genuine and for it to be shared by other people for the same reasons.
This should only be a once-off however, as your friends would probably get annoyed
if you ask them to promote your latest video again and again. Also, don’t beg. There’s
really nothing more unappealing than that.
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110. Use YouTube Keyword Suggestion Tool
If you’re struggling to come up with the appropriate SEO related words for your
video, YouTube’s Keyword Suggestion Tool is a great way to discover key phrases that
you can use for your video. You can also copy in your video URL to get suggestions
for your video.
Upload A Transcript
While it’s usually overlooked, you should provide a transcript whenever you get the
chance as it will give you a major advantage when it comes to SEO. If you have a
script for your video, uploading it up is simple, but if you haven’t one, transcribe
the video and upload one as soon as you can. YouTube does offer an automatic
transcription tool for videos, but most of the time it’s hilariously inaccurate so provide
your own when you can.
110

111. Use Video Responses
If there’s another popular video out there, you can potentially piggyback off it by
creating a video response. Normally, users upload a video in response, but you also
have the option to choose a video that you’ve already uploaded. The reason why this
is useful is when you scroll down, video responses are the first thing you will see. The
possibility of your video appearing there is dependent on how popular the video is
and how many other users posted responses. Be warned though, each video in your
account can only be used as a video response one so choose wisely.
Create Backlinks
If you want your video to be
more prominent in Google’s
search rankings, then you need
as many high-qualities links
as you can get. Try and get as
many links to your content as
possible through social media
sites and blogs and share it
with other sites who might be
interested in covering it.
111

112. The Essential Guide To Using Pinterest For
Marketing
A
fter getting $100 million in funding and a $1.5 billion valuation back in May,
Pinterest is facing a challenging time, despite its popularity. The recent news
from Amazon’s Zappos Labs which found that, in comparison to Twitter and
Facebook, the site doesn’t generate that many sales. Also, throw in sites like
The Fancy which shares many similarities, but has taken a more commercial route by
allowing the seller to feature (if they’re the ones pinning it) and its’ clear that Pinterest
has a lot to face as it embarks on the next stage of its life.
But there are a lot of positives relating to the site. With 11.7 million users, Pinterest
doesn’t quite match the figures boasted by the other major social media sites, but with
over 100 million visitors monthly, it has a large active fan base. How the removal of the
‘invite-only’ tag will affect the site remains to be seen – although you could base some
of its success on its exclusivity – but there are many reasons for marketers to get in on
the action, or to give it a second chance.
112

113. Marketing Opportunities
If you haven’t gotten started with Pinterest, here are some basic ideas that will help
you grow your page into something that will get numerous repins and followers.
Create Boards Relevant To Your Brand
Pinterset prompts you to create boards when you start up, but don’t underestimate
how effective this can be. An important thing to remember is that users can choose
to follow boards instead of the company page so you may find that you have more
followers on a particular board than on your page.
When you’re creating boards, make sure that they’re relevant to your brand, but think
about what areas will provide brilliant images for you to pin. For example, if you’re a
music store, you could have a board dedicated to live concerts and album covers. If
you’re a furniture store, you can create a board entitled “Dream Homes” where you
show beautiful designs. If you have a stunning or interesting board, people will repin it
and start following you.
Interact With Users
Like all sites, Pinterest is a two-way street and while you can pin all the content you
want, you also need to get out there and interact with your followers. Follow them, pin
some of their content (if it’s relevant) and comment on their posts.
Use your Other Social Media Accounts
There are two reasons why you should feature other social media sites in your strategy. The
first reason is for promotion. Make sure you’re linking to it on your Facebook and Twitter
accounts so that people know it’s there for the chance of nabbing a few new followers.
The second reason is that if you regularly use sites like Instagram, Flickr, or Facebook
camera, you can cross post those image on a separate board for everyone to see. Be
selective with the images you post online though as not every image is going to be
worth repining.
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114. Install plugin buttons
If your site content is visual, you can have your visitors do the hard work for you by
installing a plugin button on your site. The more people who are pinning your content,
the more exposure you get
Focus on Indirect Marketing
If users think you’re just going to post your own content repetitively, then the chances
of them following you is very slim. Make sure your content is diverse and interesting
first before you try to promote your own stuff and even then, do it sparingly. What you
should be doing is pinning content that your audience will find interesting, like gift
ideas, cool gadgets and interesting campaigns.
Apps & Plugins
Pin It Buttons
Like all the major social media sites, Pinterest has its own Pin it button which you can
add on your blog or site. You can find it here on Pinterest’s main site.
Pinstamatic
Pinstamatic allows you to
pin the usual webpages
and images, but also create
quotes, pin Spotily songs and
even places. A handy way of
diversifying your content and
make it more than just images
and pull quotes.
Repinly
The Pinterest dictionary is probably the first place you should go to if you want to find
content for your Pinterest page. Highlighting the most popular pin on different boards,
it will show you what’s pins are trending so you can get ideas for your own board. You
can also add yourself to Repinly’s dictionary if you want other users to find you.
Spliced image
If you ever looked at certain boards and wanted to make the photo layout do
something different, then this tool could be what you’re looking for. It allows you to
create an entire board that looks like one image, and it’s a good way to create eye-
catching designs on your page without much effort.
Spinpicks
Currently in Beta mode, SpinPicks is an interesting way of discovering new content
from a number of platforms including Instagram, Twitpic, Flickr, Reddit, and YouTube.
The site pulls in this content from these sites, but you can limit it to content from just
Pinterest which will show you pins you can click through and introduce you to new
people to follow.
114

115. Browser Extensions
There is a vast number of Pinterest plugins and extensions for both Chrome and
Firefox. Here are some of the best:
- If you just want quick and easy pinning, Pin It for Chrome lets you pin any image that
appears on screen while Right-Click for Firefox gives you the option to pin sites and
images by simply right-clicking them. Also, Easypinner for Chrome give images a little
Pinterest icon for easy pinning.
- Pinterest Pro for Chrome gives you extra features when you use your browser,
including right-click images to pin and zooming in on pins by hovering over them.
- Pin Search for Chrome lets you use any picture from Chrome to do an image search
on Google
- Pinzy for Chrome lets you enlarge pinned images by just hovering over them.
- URL2Pin.it lets you pin screenshots of web pages that you’re currently on.
Pinterest Influence
If you want to see how influential you are on Pinterest, there are a number of services
available. The first is PinPuff, which gives you a brief dashboard regarding how valuable
your pins are, what your most popular boards are and scores rating your virility and
reach. The handy thing is that you don’t need to sign in to use the service – just an
email and a username – so if you wanted to, you could find out how other Pinterest
pages are doing and compare.
Another way is to use PinReach, which helps calculate a score for you showing how
popular you are. The score is calculated through factors like followers, repines, and
boards. The site also lets you know what your most popular boards are, and how you
compare to the most popular Pinterest users.
115

116. Pinterest Analytics
PinReach is a pretty nifty way to monitor the activity on your Pinterest page and boards.
By connecting up to Twitter or Facebook and entering your username and email, you will
gain access to a dashboard showing the stats of your page. Such stats include the history
of your repines, your most popular pins and advanced analytics on your followers.
Another option is Pintics, which lets you see traffic and sales from your pins and boards
as well as manage multiple accounts.
Marketing Campaigns
Kotex’s Women’s Inspiration Day
Feminine hygiene and toiletries company Kotex found a perfect ally in Pinterst,
a famously female-driven social network in its relative infancy. Kotax, as directed
by Israeli advertising agency Smoyz, sent virtual gifts to 50 influential females on
Pinterest, and asked them to pin the gifts of their profiles. Upon doing so, the women
would be sent an actual gift, which they would then, without fail, post about on
Pinterest, as well as Facebook, Twitter and even Instagram. The 50 gifts got upwards
of 200,000 impressions across social media platforms, quite a return on such a small
investment for Kotex. An innovative way of harnessing this fledgling social media that
shows incredible knowledge of and desire to cater to a brand’s core demographic.
116

117. Peugeot
Peugeot recently hosted a scavenger hunt for puzzle pieces across the major social
media platforms, but it was anchored by Pinterest and its image-driven ethos. Users
had to scour the French car manufacturer hid parts of a main image on its website
and Facebook. Once they had found them all, their task was to assemble the piece to
form a whole on their Pinterest pages. The first five to do so won a prize. Overall, the
competition drove interest in Peugeot’s social media brand to unprecedented levels.
Guess
Fashion house Guess asked its Pinterest fans to create boards inspired by four of their
branded colours for Spring 2012. Users had to work in service of ‘Noir Teal’, ‘Hot House
Orange’, ‘Red Hot Overdue’ and ‘New Plum Light’ to be in with a chance of winning
a pair of colour denim jeans from the Guess collection. The winner was selected by a
panel of judges and wasn’t just determined by popularity, though that was certainly
factored into the decision and helped spread the word about Guess.
Honda
Honda recently created a Pinterest account and set about discouraging users from the
site. The company offered $500 to the site’s top five users for them to stay off the site,
or rather, take a ‘pintermission’. Honda wanted these five people to get away from the
117

118. internet and accomplish some of things they wanted to do before they die. Of course,
it was then their prerogative to post about their experience on Pinterest once they
had done so. This creative campaign came in relation to the Honda CR-V, as Honda
believes it is a car that encourages people to tackle their bucket lists, but maybe the
campaign was just weird enough to pique interest.
British Midland International
Airline BMI surprised random Pinterest fans with trips abroad as part of a ‘Pinterest
Lottery’. Posting images of worldwide holiday destinations as disparate as Beirut,
Nice, Moscow and Marrakech, BMI asked its fans to re-pin all the images of holiday
destinations that boasted the company’s logo that they posted (six in total). A lucky
winner was then selected at the end of each week that the campaign ran, and they
would be rewarded with a pair of return-flight tickets to any destination BMI flew to.
You’re bound to be successful with such a great and sought-after prize, so it is no
surprise that this campaign was as successful as it was.
118

119. ModCloth
Clothing brand ModCloth help a ‘pin
it to win it’ contest that had several
conditions for its participants to fulfill
in order for them to stand a chance
at winning. Users had to be following
@ModCloth on Twitter, include
relevant hashtags when pinning, etc.
Participants then had to pin 20 items
fitting the ‘Something ModCloth,
Something You’ criteria. Categories
such as ‘Something vintage’, ‘A lovely
location’ and ‘A creative cocktail’
were all included in the list of 20.
The contest presented a challenge
to users that would take time and
effort and prove a sustainable way
of increasing brand awareness; it has
been aped by other notable fashion
brands since.
Sephora
Another female-focused company, cosmetics brand Sephora, held a competition on
Pinterest to boost its popularity. Sephora wanted its fans to create ‘Sephora Color
Wash’ boards and spread word of the competition on their own boards. The chosen
winners, of which there were ten, would win a $250 Sephora gift card. The boards had
to be pinned in the hair and beauty category, and users also had to post five images
featuring their favourite colours. The competition helped users to engage with each
other and the promoted products.
119

120. A Platform For E-commerce?
As is the case with any site that explodes in popularity, at the start of 2012, the
conversation about Pinterest shifted towards how can generate revenue and its
potential as an e-commerce platform. While the former hasn’t materialised yet, the site
already landed $100 million in funding off the back of a $1.5 billion valuation back in
May. Its investors include Max Levchin, a founder of PayPal, Japanese e-commerce site
Rakuten, and investment company Bessemer Venture Partners.
The reasoning for Rakuten’s involvement (and the lack of U.S. investment) was that
Pinterest was looking for a ‘global strategic investor’ that would help the company
grow internationally and help stave off foreign clones.
Currently, Pinterest is the fourth most popular social media network out there, behind
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter respectively, which is no mean feat considering that
many were fearing that it come crashing down once the hype around it had worn off.
The idea of Pinterest being a medium for e-commerce makes sense. It’s highly visual,
users do explore the site for new content ideas and repins can be effective way to
curating a wish list. The fact that users visit for these reasons will mean that traffic
coming from Pinterest will be more targeted than other sites.
However, that’s not to say it’s all plain sailing. A report released today (August 29th)
from Amazon’s online store Zappos suggests that while consumers share more on
Pinterest than on Facebook or Twitter, sales from Pinterest posts contribute the smallest
amount of revenue.
On the Zappos platform, Twitter brought in the most revenue – an average of $33.66
an order – while Facebook posts garnered $2.08 per order. Sales from Pinterest,
however, were $0.75 on average, showing that the endorsement per pin. Yet earlier
reports have it that Pinterest users spend twice as much as Facebook users and have a
higher conversion rate so it’s difficult to say which one is right or wrong.
120

121. But saying that, it’s easy to forget that Pinterest is still a site finding its feet after some
explosive growth. Now that it has evened out, Pinterest needs to make sure it holds on
to these users first and ensure it doesn’t let the last few months go to waste. If it can
maintain and grow its current traffic, there’s nothing to say that Pinterest won’t become
a valuable assist for e-commerce merchants.
Infographic Sources
- http://www.businessinsider.com/this-stat-reveals-the-incredible-potential-of-
pinterest–and-why-amazon-google-or-facebook-should-buy-it-2012-7
- http://econsultancy.com/ie/blog/9803-pinterest-drives-more-sales-than-facebook-
stats
- http://www.appdata.com/apps/facebook/274266067164-pinterest
- http://econsultancy.com/ie/blog/10598-10-interesting-digital-marketing-stats-we-ve-
seen-this-week-12
121

122. The 101 Marketer’s Guide To Instagram – Tips,
Tricks, Case Studies And Campaigns
W
hen Instagram first came to the iPhone, few would have expected it to
become so dominant. Four billion photos later and the app has become
the most popular photo sharing app ever created and is iconic in
bringing the Polaroid look to digital photos.
Despite being criticised for being hipster and cheapening the art of photography, these
criticisms tend to miss the point of what Instagram is about. It’s not about inserting
filters for the sake of making them look retro, but it’s to help amplify and convey a
mood that mightn’t be possible through normal means.
The emergence of Instagram and other camera apps only allows regular people
to become photographers themselves and while it certainly not going to replace
professional photography any time soon, it still allows smartphone users to do more
than snap random shots.
Granted there will be some that will use the service terribly, but
that’s the price you pay when you’ve got 80 million users signed
up to your service. Now that Android users have been using the
service since April, now’s as good a time as ever to start using
the service or take the steps to become a power user.
122

123. Where it All Began
Believe it or not, Instagram is not even two years old yet, having been founded in
October 2010. For the first 18 months of the service, it was only available on iOS
devices and it was only in April of 2012 that it was made available to Android users.
Although Instagram is adding more web functionality since it was snapped up by
Facebook, it has always been a mobile social network, which is one of the main reasons
why it was acquired. Kevin Systrom and Michael Krieger actually spun the company out
of their previous app which was called Burbn, which wasn’t getting much traction.
From its early days, the growth was impressive, but they were also known for the way
they ran the startup, sticking with just four employees for the first year, despite the service
doubling in size every month. Indeed, when it was acquired by Facebook in April 2012
for $1 billion, it only had 13 employees. To put Instagram’s impressive growth and life into
perspective, The company wasn’t even 600 days old when it was acquired by Facebook.
With 80 million active users on the platform. Users now visit the site as a new way of
sharing their photos and in December 2011, Apple Inc. named Instagram “App of the
Year” which helped solidify its position as a mainstream app with huge potential.
123

124. Best Apps For Instagram
Considering how popular Instragram is, it’s no surprise that a dizzying array of apps,
extensions and supplementary websites have popped up. They range from desktop
browsers to instant printing apparatus and everything in between, and below are ten
of out favourites, plus a list of a few you might find useful yourself. Each title contains
links to each app.
iPad Apps
iDarkRoom
iDarkRoom will fuel Instagram users’ love for eye-
catching effects with its expansive range of colour-
contrasting filters, blurring techniques, texture
effects, cropping options and editing functions –
there are 20 colour filters, 11 paper effects and 13
light leak & effects for you to play around with.
The name is a good indication of what you can
expect from the app, and it clearly aims to help
users to edit and tinker with their photos with a
greater degree of professionalism and complexity
than standard IG users can. The interface is clean
and simple and photos are easy to share on social
networking sites or assemble in a photo album.
iDarkRoom is available for the iPhone, but is
compatible with Instagram.
Flipboard
Although you wouldn’t think it, the social magazine reader
can also be used to display your Instagram photos too. The
format lends itself perfectly to the photo sharing app by filling
the screen up with numerous photos. It’s almost like flicking
through an album the way its set up.
Instagallery
Instead of presenting as many photos on screen as possible,
Instagallery just focuses on one photo at a time, allowing you to
appreciate each one in full-screen.
iris
While the other apps here go for style and follow the Instagram
template, iris gives users a simple and clean presentation that
allows you to take each photo for what it’s worth instead of
trying to decide which ones are worth your attention.
124

125. InstaPad
Instapad pulls off the impressive feat of packing in
as many photos into the screen as possible without
making you feel overwhelmed. Browsing is easy and
you’ll lose hours as you browse through your feed
and discover the work of other Instagram users.
Web Apps
Statigram
Statigram is the most prominent web-based Instagram account management
application, and it is rather comprehensive in its functionality. It functions much like
Facebook or Twitter would, so users can effectively translate their Instagram experience
onto their desktop browsers. You can chat with your followers, view/respond to
comments they make on your photos and analyse follower and image viewing statistics.
The intersection between social media and metrics is well occupied by Statigram, so
much so that you could be chatting with a follower while considering the best time to
post a photo or pouring over which of Instagram’s various filters will get you the most
likes. It all comes in a sleek package that is easy to use as well as on the eyes.
Carousel
Carousel is an Instagram client made for Macs. Firstly, you will need to sync it with
Instagram account, but then it will present a whole new viewing experience. There are
some really cool and unique features, including multiple viewing windows, the ability to
view your photos by location and even some quirky, vintage designs to boot.
Much like Statigram and Inkstagram, Carousel
translates Instagram onto desktops with an
interface that is easy to navigate and relatable
to social networks with its ‘Popular’ tab (akin
to trending photos) and a chronological feed,
reminiscent of Facebook or Twitter. Again, it is only
available to Mac and iPhone users, but those of
you who fit such criteria will be impressed.
125

126. Snapseed
This IOS-exclusive photo-editing
app is probably the best currently
available on the market. It is not
exclusive to Instagram, however,
but it is compatible with IG and will
enable you tweak your photos to
very minute specifications. Users
can easily bring their photos up to
standard with the automatic adjust
feature instantly bringing out the
best in your shots.
From there, you can make manual
adjustments to the brightness, contrast, white balance and various other settings.
Snapseed also offers a good range of filters and a range of other novelties; you can
choose image borders or even magnify background objects, before sharing your work
on IG.
Hashgram
Hashgram is Google for Instagram, plain and simple. It doesn’t even try to hide the fact
with its design, which is eerily reminiscent of the world’s largest search engine. Much
like Google, it is incredibly simple to use: you simply type in your search term and
either select ‘# tag search’ or ‘@ user search’ before a cacophony of Instagram images
appear before your eyes.
Alternatively, you can select ‘<3 I’m popular’ for the most popular images on
Instagram. So there’s not a lot to Hashgram, but it is a comprehensive search tool for
Instagram and fills a glaring need for Instagram users worldwide.
126

127. Instake
Instake is simple in that its sole function is to download photos from Instagram so
you no longer have to take mere screengrabs to save them to your phone. You can
view photos either as a normal feed or to specifications, such as most popular, your
own photos, photos you have liked etc., or you can just search Instagram to find the
pictures you like. You can select individual photos to download or you can select all
the photos on any given page; either way, by using Instake you now have an option
unavailable to you when using Instagram alone.
My InstaAlbum
If you’re taking photographs and love curating, then you’ve got to have photo albums,
right? Well, just because all your photos are already displayed on the internet, doesn’t
mean they can’t be nicely compiled and ordered for the viewing pleasure of your
aesthetically-minded friends and bored relatives.
My InstaAlbum, available through the Apple store, allows you to organise your IG
photo’s by date, location, tag or filter; it can also determine your most used filters,
photographed locations, and tags. There’s not a lot to InstaAlbum, but it is an
extremely effective organising and sharing tool that makes the IG photo stream easier
to navigate and makes uploads to Facebook or DropBox exceedingly simple.
Postagram
With Postagram, you can use your best images to send as postcards. Simply select your
picture, type in the address along with a personalised message and it will be sent it in
the post.
It’s a simple idea that adds an element of DIY and bygone ways to your Instagram
experience and is surely a nice novelty app to be enjoyed by both the sender and
recipient. It’s a fun way of bringing Instagram offline, bringing a new edge to your
holiday postcards or a hint more personality to an emailed message.
InstaPrint
Now, InstaPrint isn’t easily
downloadable or available
as a website, but it is pretty
cool. Say you have a special
occasion coming, one
that is sure to see many,
many photos being taken;
well, instead of getting
proper cameras, you can
go to the InstaPrint and
rent one of their printers.
InstaPrint adds a distinctly
Polaroid-esque edge to you
photography experience.
Each printer is set to a
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128. specific location or hashtag, so it is easily synced with every part-goer’s IG account
to automatically print your nicest or most embarrassing shots. Is more physical
evidence of your nighttime exploits a good idea? Perhaps not, but it’s a fun addition
nonetheless.
Some we may have missed
InstaCat, InstaPuppy, Pictarine, ExtraGram, Webstagram, InstaFB, InstaDrop, Insta-
Great, GramJunction, Cartagr.am, Screenstagram, Heroku, Gramfeed, Instarium,
Instagrid, InstaWar, Pic-a-Fight and many more.
Instagram Filters: When To Use Them
With 17 different filters to play around with, it’s easy to take any photo and then
choose a filter. But if you put a little thought into it, you will find that both the quality
of your Instagram photos will greatly improve.
Normal
What it does: The ‘Vanilla’ of Instagram filters. Not every photo requires modification
so why do something for the sake of it?
Use it for: Any photo you want.
Amaro
What it does: Adds more light to the image,
but most of all towards the centre so the
darker the photos, the more you will notice
the filter effect.
Use it for: If you want to give your photo a
somewhat aged appearance.
Rise
What it does: Gives photos a nice glow so if
you’re looking for softer lighting,
Use it for: Any close up shots of people.
Hudson
What it does: Gives certain photos an icy
look. The slight tint and altered lighting gives images a wintery feel.
Use it for: Whenever you’re outdoors. Particularly nice if you’re taking photos of
buildings or monuments.
X-pro II
What it does: If you want your photo to become more vibrant, X-pro II is the filter for
you. Makes images appear warm and colourful.
Use it for: Can be used for a wide variety of photos, but only if you want certain
colours to stand out more.
Sierra
What it does: Makes images softer but unlike Rise, Sierra gives images a slightly faded
look, making colours almost calm and soothing.
Use it for: Nature and outdoor shots are the perfect images for this.
128

129. Filter: Lo-fi
What it does: Adds rich colours and strong shadows makes an image’s colour richer
and stronger shadows. Use it for: Food, food, food!
Earlybird
What it does: Mostly faded and blurred colours, gives images an older feel.
Use it for: If you really want to go down the ‘cool’ route, slap this filter on.
Sutro
What it does: Gives photos a somewhat smoked look, with emphasis on purple and
brown colours to achieve the effect.
Use it for: If you want to give images a creepier look so Halloween like events.
Toaster
What it does: The most noticeable of all the filters, gives the centre a burnt look and
makes the image look aged.
Use it for: Summer nights out, so beer gardens, picnics and your friend’s BBBQ (the
extra B is for BYOBB).
Brannan
Effect: Greyish tint gives images a darker, more metallic look.
Use it for: Anything with strong shadows.
Inkwell
What it does: Turns photos black and white. Exactly what you’d expect.
Use it for: Anything where shadows and light is the main feature.
Walden
What it does: Gives images a washed-out look, and a pleasant, breezy feel.
Use it for: Any summery or bright, happy photos.
Hefe
What it does: Much like Lo-Fi but the colours aren’t as dramatic.
Use it for: Anywhere where you want to enhance vibrant colours, but not too much.
Valencia
What it does: For a faded quality, much like if the photo was taken in the 1980s.
Use it for: Anything you want to give an antique look.
Nashville
What it does: Images get a nice, warm feel with a slightly pink tint to help achieve the
effect.
Use it for: Anything you want to look back on with nostalgia.
1977
What it does: Like the title suggests, makes your photos look like they were taken in
the 1970s.
Use it for: Making images look like they were taken in the 1970s.
Kelvin
What it does: Give images a bright, vibrant feel. Provides photos with a radiant glow
that you will either love or hate.
Use it for: Any photos that you want to give a nice, warm feeling.
129

130. The Best Brand Campaigns on Instagram
Ford
This might not be a groundbreaking
campaign, but it’s nice to see a brand
like Ford really embracing Instagram.
To promote the new Fiesta, Ford ran a
weekly photo challenge on Instagram,
where users had to upload photos with
hashtags that reflected certain aspects
of the car. The activity was then brought
back onto their Facebook Page, where the
content was hosted within a hub.
Levi’s search for talent
Levi’s is running a long-term campaign on Instagram, to find the next star for their ad
campaigns. All you have to do is upload a picture to Instagram with the hashtag #iamlevis.
So far, over 3,000 photos have been uploaded with the hashtag, which is not a bad result
for what’s still a fairly niche platform. People from all over the world can enter, with the
winner starring in the Levi’s 2012 brand campaign.
ALDO Moodboards
A great example here of using Instagram’s API and combining with gamification to
offer an engaging user experience. When you visit the site, you can select the images
that you want, gathered via Instagram, to create your moodboard which can then be
shared to your Facebook profile. It would be nice to see the campaign go a little bit
further in terms of the execution as the mechanic is exciting, but good to see a brand
using Instagram’s API to extend their offering.
130

131. O2 road trip
O2 in the UK has just launched a new campaign on Instagram, which has it sending
five influential Instagrammers – Mike Kus, Jiri Siftar, Dan Rubin, Finn Beales and Naomi
Atkinson - on a road trip around Europe. The campaign has been put together to
promote its EU roaming package and you can follow photos of their travels through
the #O2Travel hashtag as well as following O2 on Instagram to see some of the best
images reposted.
Giorgio Armani Frames Of Life
Fashion brands seem to be particularly taken with Instagram and Giorgio Armani is
getting in on the act. For its frames of life campaign, it’s asking followers to upload
a picture of them wearing sunglasses. And when you visit the Frames Of Life site,
Instagram pics are pulled in alongside the frame styles in their new collection, bringing
user’s content right into the site experience. While the ‘Frames of Your Life’ campaign
has been run previously for Armani, the Instagram element is a new addition, which
you can take part in by uploading a pic to Instagram with the hashtag #framesoflife.
make you look like the photographer you wish you were.”
131

132. Infographic Sources
- http://blog.instagram.com/post/28067043504/the-instagram-community-hits-80-
million-users
- http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-04-03/tech/31279486_1_android-app-photos-
statistics
- http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/28575-instagram-now-has-80m-
users/
- http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/04/04/instagram-for-android-hits-1m-
downloads-in-under-24-hours/
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/04/23/facebook-paying-300-million-
cash-23m-shares-for-instagram/
132

133. Foursquare – Why Brands & Marketers Should Be
Getting On Board
T
alk about mobile and chances are that someone will mention Foursquare.
Having spent three years quietly building up its app, it now has over 20 million
users signed up to it. It’s obvious that it’s popular, but there are more reasons
behind its success than just letting users check-in to places. Through use of
gamification, providing tips and highlighting deals and providing engagement that
other sites can only dream of, it means that brands are thinking up of new strategies to
help engage with what is a relativity modest, but highly engaged audience.
While primarily a mobile app, Foursquare has also expanded its services to the
web, creating a specialised portal that takes advantage of the capabilities offered
by desktop. While being set up for mobile obviously helps Foursquare – especially
since many other sites are making the transition – the desktop presence gives it the
opportunity to really build upon its success.
Why Should You Use It?
With 20 million users yet only close to a million merchants using the service worldwide,
there is great scope for businesses to take advantage of the platform. The obvious
reason why it’s popular is so that people know where you are and where you’ve been.
However, Foursquare has become more about discovering new places and providing
tips and recommendations.
133

134. While check-ins mightn’t seem like
a big deal, it’s when you consider
the data that you can gather from
this that things get interesting.
From numerous check-ins, you
can find out about a person’s
interests, what they like to do with
their free time, and find out which
users are loyal customers because
the more they visit, the more likely
they will have good things to
say. It’s no wonder that Facebook
introduced its own check-in and
location mapping service before
allowing Foursquare to be an
open graph app.
Its capabilities as a social media marketing tool is really just being explored. The
platform is ever changing with Foursquare making little adjustments here and there to
improve the experience for both users and businesses. Some changes are for generating
revenue (Promoted Updates) while others have come from user suggestions (the return
of the nearby friends feature). User experience is still king, but the next few months will
be crucial as the mobile app tries to become a fully fledged business.
Foursquare For Businesses – How it Works
While users are the heart of the service, brands have been slowly getting in on the
action. There’s a dedicated user base to be taken advantage of and provided you can
provide incentive for them to check-in regularly, there is a lot to take away from it. Here
are the basic ways to reach your audience.
134

135. Merchants Page
This is the traditional business page and is essential if you want to even use the service
to promote deals and discounts. All you need to do is claim your venue by filling
out this form and before you know it, users can check-in when they arrive on your
premises. This doesn’t have to
be limited to just restaurants
and bars, any building or place
can be checked-in so if you offer
goods or services and you have
a physical location, there’s no
reason why you shouldn’t have a
merchant page.
The first thing you need to do is
to claim your venue. If it doesn’t
already exist, you can create it
here and add in additional details
such as Twitter profile, type of
venue and map location. Once
you’ve created and claimed your
venue, Foursquare will verify
that you’re the manager or
responsible for the place through
phone or email, depending on where you’re based. After this, you will be able to
connect with customers and run special offers. Of course, you will have to get the word
out that you can be found through word of mouth, social media promotion and real
world advertising (highlighting that you can be found on Foursquare in-store, etc.)
Alongside being able to offer deals and let customers know what to expect, you will
be able to alert your best customers to new deals and updates when they’re near the
vicinity. There are also analytical tools available to use so you can keep track of how
many people check-in and see how popular new deals or offers are.
Brand Page
Mainly for those businesses that don’t have a
physical presence. When you boot up the app first
of all, you will be suggested a number of brand
pages to like so you can follow their updates. Like
Merchant pages, Brand pages can also create
location-specific events for users to check-in and
communicate to them through updates.
Brand pages will get web versions as well as in-app
pages, the former being a cross between Twitter
and Facebook’s own brand pages. If your brand has
a physical location (Starbucks, H&M, etc.), you can
combine the brand page with your merchant page.
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136. Types of Advertising
Foursquare has recently pushed new methods of advertising so that businesses can get
the word out about the latest deals. Here are the main ones to keep in mind.
Local updates
Only available to those users who have ‘liked’ your venue or have checked-in a number
of times, local updates will be automatically shared with them when they’re in the same
city. These updates will appear as soon as somebody checks into a business, or looks at
the app’s ‘Friends’ tab. This rewards loyal customers and allows businesses to take care
of those who are regularly bringing them business.
This feature is available to all companies and services that have claimed their business
on the site.
Promoted Updates
Promoted Updates work differently to Local Updates. While Local Updates gives users
a better way of keeping up with new updates from businesses and places they already
like, Promoted Updates allows users to discover new places. These updates can be
found in the ‘explore’ tab.
The major difference is that, as the name suggests, businesses are required to pay for
the privilege of using Promoted Updates. These work the same way as Local Updates,
businesses can promote new services, deals or specials through it and it will appear to
anyone who is near the vicinity. These ads are tailored towards your likes and interests
(i.e. the places and venues that you regularly check into) so if you regularly check into
restaurants, your updates will reflect that.
Businesses and companies pay Foursquare on a “cost per action” model, instead of views or
impressions their updates receive. At the moment, the feature is only available to a number
of companies and businesses, but expect it to be rolled out for general use pretty soon.
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137. Custom Badges
You may remember the mention
of gamification (the word that
nobody really understands),
and this comes in the form of
badges and mayorship. The more
varied places you check into, the
greater the chance you have of
obtaining a badge. IF you check
into a specific place a number of
times, there’s the chance you will
become mayor of that spot, which
if a business is savvy enough, will
use that position as a way to offer
special deals or discounts.
While mayorship is rather self-explanatory, custom badges are really for one-off
events, mostly for credit so that users can say they attended an event or did something
exclusive. Anyone can apply for once (form found here) although you have to specify
why you want to create a new badge and state what people have to do to obtain it.
If Foursquare like the idea, you will get a response within two weeks and six to eight
weeks to get ready before your campaign launches.
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138. Foursquare Campaigns
Fulham FC
At the tail end of last season, English Premier League football club Fulham made
Foursquare one of its official social media channels and urged its fans to use
Foursqaure on game days. Their main aim was to get 250 check-ins at their home
ground, Craven Cottage; doing so would earn the ground a Super Swarm Badge.
As an added incentive, Fulham and Foursquare offered every fan to check-in at the
ground special offers on tickets and merchandise once the club had reached that
magical 250 mark on one game day. The club has been reasonably successful in
harnessing Foursqaure and, at present, 3,095 people have checked in at the Cottage;
with the new season approaching, they’ll be hoping to see that number quickly rising.
Miami Ad School’s Metropoli
The creative folks at the Miami Ad School has built a reputation for their innovative
concept campaigns, and their Foursquare-infused Metropoli game is no exception.
Metropoli combines Foursquare’s check-ins features with popular board game Monopoly.
To buy a property, Foursquare users must first check-in there, and friends who check
in later must pay rent to the
owner, of course, but in virtual
Metro dollars instead of actually
currency or Monopoly money.
Metropoli adds a competitive
and fun, additional social
element to Foursquare. Once
again, providing an incentive for
people to use it and check-in at
their favourite places.
Metropoli (Formerly
Foursquaropoly) from Deanna
McDonald on Vimeo.
Euro RSCG
There’s nothing you cannot do with a little
hard graft and subterfuge, as Belgian
ad agency Euro RSCG recently proved.
As part of a massive recruitment drive,
RSCG checked-in at the offices of 43 of
their rivals every day, until they had done
enough to become the mayor of each
location, amazingly enough. From there,
they released tips on the 43 pages and
linked each location to their recruitment
page as a way of encouraging opposition
talent to come to their agency.
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139. Foursquare is still very, very niche in Belgium, so it is doubtful they were very
successful, but this was certainly an extremely aggressive (almost shameless) campaign
that is sure to get attention and give people ideas in using social media for corporate
espionage and manipulation.
KLM
Dutch airline KLM went out
of their way to surprise their
customers early last year, using
Foursquare other social media
sites to decide which surprise
gifts to buy KLM fliers arriving at
Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.
Fliers, who checked at particular
KLM-endorsed locations, would
then have their social media
output scoured over by the
airline as they searched their
personal preferences for the
perfect gift. Verging on stalker-
ish? Probably, but such personalised gifts certainly marked “how happiness spreads” as
KLM intended and garnered them plenty of positive publicity.
7-Eleven and Super 8
Foursquare, American convenience store 7-Eleven
and the studio behind last year’s sci-fi blockbuster
Super 8 teamed up to award prizes to Foursquare
users checking it at 7-Eleven stores across the US.
21,000 prizes were available, and the campaign very
smartly ensured that more people went to the store,
used Foursquare and heard about the JJ Abrams-
directed flick.
It worked out so that every 88th check-in got tickets
to see the film, every 88,888th person won a weightlessness experience with Zero
gravity corp, and the 888,888th person won the final prize of actually going on a
private mission to space estimated at a more than $100,000 value. Quite astounding
prizes, really, and more than enough to get you to use Foursquare.
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is all about health, and partnered with Foursquare last month to encourage
more people to get active and start going to local, state or national parks in the US as
part of a budding competition. With every visit, the park received 100 points and the
totals were tallied up to decide a winner.
The winning park received a $100,000 donation from Coke; the parks, in turn, put
139

140. on additional activities and exercises for
Foursquare users. It’s quite a nice way of getting
people out the house over the summer, while
also encouraging them to get active, enjoy
Coke products and to see their local parks.
Starbucks and (RED)
AIDS prevention and awareness
charity (RED) and coffee titans
Starbucks got Foursquare users to
check-in at Starbucks joints across
the US and Canada recently, and with
every check-in, Starbucks donated $1
to The Global Fund, up to £250,000.
The campaign is a simple way of
leveraging social media activity for
charitable benefit and doesn’t ask very much fo Starbucks customers/Foursquare users
at all but to keep doing what they were doing. Savvy and kind-hearted.
Tips and Tricks
- If you’re looking for a location that you checked into a while back, but can’t
remember the name, you can search through your archives and find it. On the web,
you can access your check-in history (foursquare.com/username/history), and search
for it using terms like place, person and categories.
- If you accidentally checked into the same place more than once, you can delete the
duplicates. Simply go into your check-in
history, and select the check-in you want to
get rid of. There will be an ‘x’ located to the
right of the location’s name. This is useful as
you can normally only make 30 check-ins in
the one day. You shouldn’t need to check-in
that many times, but it’s handy to know.
- Because you won’t be looking at your
phone 24/7, a handy feature to use is
radar, which will make your phone vibrate
whenever you’re near somewhere or
something interesting. Simply go into
settings on your profile page and you will
find radar there.
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141. - Also in settings, you can
manage local updates under
account settings. If your feed it
clogged with updates and you
want to filter out updates, simply
go here and untick them. Brands
that you like and places that you
check-in regularly will feature in
this list.
- Your privacy settings are
important if you like to keep
certain details to yourself, or if
some of your friends here are
people you don’t know that
well. Here, you can choose to hide your mobile number (if you provided it), email and
control how much of your actions can be viewed by the public.
- Relating to the last point, you can also adjust notifications in settings and decide
whether you want to be alerted to check-in notifications (nearby check-in make by
your friends).
- You can add apps onto the service, but not directly on the app version itself. There
are two ways to go about this: The first is to go into the app itself and connect it up
to your Foursquare account. The second is to go into settings and select ‘Add and
Manage Connected Apps.’ Here, you will be given a number of suggestions ranging
from Instagram, Path, Soundtracking, Sonar and Lanyrd (provides info when you
check-in at a conference or professional event).
Infographic Sources
- http://www.slideshare.net/WaveLab/10-social-networks-and-a-bunch-of-stats
- http://statspotting.com/2012/04/foursquare-statistics-20-million-users-2-billion-
check-ins/
- http://liesdamnedliesstatistics.com/2011/04/foursquare-users-spend-3-5x-as-much.
html
- http://www.factbrowser.com/tags/foursquare/
- https://foursquare.com/business/
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142. The Complete Marketer’s Guide To Tumblr
C
onsidering the success and hype that surrounded Pinterest earlier this year,
another site has been quietly going about its business and slowly growing
is Tumblr. Since it was first created in 2007, Tumblr is one of the older social
media sites out there, but has found a dedicated audience thanks to its quick
and easily digestible posts. Also, the major difference between Pinterest and Tumblr is
that while Pinterest is more about sharing links to content, Tumblr is all about blogging.
While designed to house longer posts, Tumblr is more commonly used for posting
images, GIFs and videos. The popularity of the site is such that it’s given birth to a
number of blogs that have gone viral over the last few months.
For brands, the appeal should be obvious: As users are more interested in visual posts
and easily digestible content as well as a younger audience, and since brands are
becoming more visual thanks to other sites, there is a lot of scope for promotion as
well as opportunities to increase brand awareness.
142

143. Why Use Tumblr?
It would be easy to write off Tumblr or see it as an afterthought. A mere 120 million
people frequent the social networking/microblogging site, a number that is dwarfed
by titanic contemporaries such as Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and Blogger, but that
is still an extremely sizeable demographic to target for brands and advertisers. The site
is among the fastest-growing online, currently, and brands are starting to take notice,
making Tumblr a core element of their online marketing plans, for a number of reasons
beyond its increasing popularity
It is far more consuming that its competitors. Tumblr users are found to spend well
over two hours per day on the site; that’s an average time only bettered by Facebook,
so it’s clear that Tumblr is a far more immersive site than most. People get lost on
Tumblr that isn’t found on other major social networks; it is strangely addictive and
people will engage with anything from amusing banalities to high-powered advertising
campaigns if they are presented correctly.
143

144. Tumblr also retains an air of inclusivity that other sites simply do not. No content is
restricted on the basis of membership, and the entirety of the site is completely open
to whomever wants to view it. So, although the number of active Tumblr users is quite
a bit smaller than other sites, that number can grow quickly and the potential for
stealth sharing is extremely high. The reblog button is also a godsend that will help
sharing increase at an exponential rate with the right campaign; the word will spread
quickly if brands get any traction on Tumblr.
And though, we are talking about Tumblr as an alternative to mainstream social media,
the site does, in fact, facilitate synchronisation extremely well, especially with Facebook,
Twitter, Blogger and WordPress. The sites openness also lends itself to search.
Increased traffic is a distinct probability if your campaign has the Google algorithm at
its back, and as Tumblr is so easily integrated with Google Analytics that brands should
be able to easily manipulate the SEO to their advantage.
As far as actual advertising content goes, it helps that you can accomplish a wide
range of things on Tumblr that you cannot on certain other sites. Brands can post text,
photos, links and videos all together or how ever they choose, which grants them a
broader scope for advertising campaigns.
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145. Tumblr & Brands
So the platform is growing at a massive pace and people are looking at billions of
pages, but are there any brands getting in on the action? The answer is yes! There are
plenty who have, but prefer to stick to the safe ground of Facebook or Twitter. Here
are some of the brands and businesses that have been embracing Tumblr and doing it
really well to date.
Universal Music
Given the target market on Tumblr, the fact
that it is rich media content and that people
can easily share content, it’s no surprise that
Universal Music is on the list. They give lots of
their different artists exposure on the site.
Elle
Magazine
As you would expect, there are lots of traditional
publishers jumping onto Tumblr to try and drive
people over to their magazines and other forms of
traditional media. It suits a brand like Elle because of
the amount of stylish, and rich photos they have.
Alexander
McQueen
The second
fashion type
brand on the
list and this Tumblr is a joy for anybody obsessed
with the world of fashion. Lots of endless scrolling
of beautiful images, which act as a great shop
window for the designer’s clothes.
The Today Show
One of the biggest TV shows in the USA
uses Tumblr to share content that is getting
talked about online. Because of the size of
their audience, people share its posts all day
long thus exposing the TV brand to a much
bigger audience.
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146. IBM
One of the biggest tech companies in
the world was quick to embrace Tumblr
and although its content can feel a little
corporate at times, it does help you
understand more about what they do.
Topshop
Bit of a no-brainer for one of the biggest
retail outlets in the world to be on Tumblr
and it essentially uses it as an extension
to their shop window. Tons of people
share the outfits they like the most and
effectively exposing the brand to a bigger
online audience.
Etsy
If ever a brand was made to have a Tumblr,
then it has to be Etsy. The home craft site has
a lot of examples of the latest goods added to
their platform and this is one Tumblr where you
could lose hours at a time browsing.
Tips & Tricks
Post Offline
A nifty little Tumblr feature here, allowing you to upload posts offline, via phonecall.
When you’ve configured your account in the settings, you can call
and record your blog post, which Tumblr will then automatically update for you. Pretty
cool.
Queue your posts
The nature of a Tumblr blog means you’ll likely be posting little and often. This might
get a bit too much for your readers, so you can let Tumblr do the hard work for you
and help with restraining your level of posts. Their ‘queue post’ option will allow you
to space out your posts without having to actually delay uploading something when
you want. You can find this option in your dashboard, then simply select how often you
want posts published within a set timeframe.
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147. Add Google Analytics
If you’re serious about your Tumblr, you should think about adding Google Analytics,
which thankfully is pretty easy to do. You don’t need to know any hard code in order
to do this. Under ‘appearance’ on Tumblr, you’ll have the option to add in your code,
which you can generate from Google Analytics. Then simply log in to GA to find
out the latest activity on your site, with advanced metrics such as traffic sources and
average site visit giving you a deeper insight than Tumblr itself.
Edit Multiple Posts
If you want to edit numerous posts at the same time (give them the same tags, delete
posts etc.), simply use Mega-Editor http://www.tumblr.com/mega-editor. Here, all your
posts will be visible allowing you to make quick changes.
Hot Keys
There are certain keys which make using your dashboard that bit easier. Use the ‘J’ or
‘K’ keys to move forward or backwards, you can like the current post by pressing ‘L’. If
you want to tag, press the ‘Ctrl’ key. To reblog without having to leave the dashboard
or tagging , simply click the reblog button while pressing the ‘Alt’ key.
Blog via mobile
If you have a Tumblr and a smartphone, then you should absolutely be combining
the two. Tumblr’s apps make for an incredibly easy way to update your site on the go.
The iPhone app in particular is really easy to use for photos. Simply take your pic then
upload to Tumblr directly with a short description and tags.
Paid Advertising
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148. With its popularity, it was only a matter of time before Tumblr would begin venturing
down the route of paid advertising. In this case, Tumblr’s founder and CEO David Karp
announced that the site would be introducing paid advertising back in April. This was
originally a surprise due to Karp’s scepticism about digital advertising but the site is
gradually introducing advertising into the mix and create a new way o,f generating
revenue (the other ways it makes money is by taking a cut from the sales of custom
blog themes and allowing users to highlight posts for their followers for $1).
The advertisement comes in the form of a ‘Radar’ post which appears on a user’s
dashboard as an ad unit. The section usually highlights the most popular posts from
across the site so any advertisements would feature alongside these. Ad slots could
be bought for an entire day and are marked by a dollar sign to highlight that it is not
organic content.
So far only one major campaign has been held here, but it was a significantly large one
to begin with. In June, Adidas bought a month-long slot to promote its latest football
Tumblr blog for the 2012 UEFA European Championship in Poland and Ukraine. The
campaign included the usual images and videos, but developed it further with fan
reactions, tributes to players from former tournaments and podcasts.
The only problem is that while it was announced back in April, there’s nothing to say
just how successful this advertising model is. Tumblr, and by extension brands, is still
learning how effective the medium is and it may be another while yet before any case
studies begin to emerge. Yet saying that, the fact that Adidas, one of the top brands
in the world, took a chance with it is encouraging for the site as it looks to host more
large scale campaigns.
148

149. Other brands who have opted for Tumblr advertising include luxury fashion retailer
Bottega Veneta, which ran Radar and spotlight (a section that highlights content
creators from specific interests) ads the week before Adidas’ campaign. However, there
has yet to be another brand who have run a campaign to the same scale as Adidas’.
Infographic Sources
- http://www.webcost.info/tumblr.com
- http://therealtimereport.com/2012/01/27/social-networking-stats-tumblr-reaches-15-
billion-monthly-pageviews-rltm-scoreboard/
- http://statspotting.com/2012/02/tumblr-statistics-15-billion-pageviews-a-month-
1000-servers/
- http://mashable.com/2012/01/23/tumblr-15-billion-pageviews/
- http://venpop.com/2012/why-your-brand-should-consider-tumblr-for-social-media-
marketing/
149

150. The Complete Guide To Email Marketing – Every-
thing You Ever Wanted To Know
W
hile social media tools like Facebook and Twitter dominating our online
strategies, one of the most successful forms of online marketing ever is
email and today we have a look at some of the tips and tricks to running
a good campaign. When you think about it, one of the first things most
of us do every day is check our email. So if you can deliver good, targeted content with a
strong call to action, it is going to be highly effective in terms of driving sales.
On the flip side though, many of us consumers have been bombarded by so many
spam emails and added to so many marketing lists that it can have a negative effect. In
many cases, users block emails as spam or report the company for adding them to a
list without permission so it is massively important to do this correctly, creating brilliant
content and following all the right procedures. People might be saying that email is
dying, but as far as we can see, it still works great and here are some tips on how to
get the most out of it.
What Are The Best Times To Send Emails
You could have a brilliant email campaign featuring amazing content that’s fully
optimized for people to open and click on your links, but if you send it at the wrong
time, you don’t stand a chance. The common knowledge is that the best time is to
send it sometime during the working day between Tuesday and Thursday, but that only
works if you are in a specific country and your audience is located in the same time
zone. It also depends on the product you are trying to sell or the message you are
trying to get across.
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151. 151

152. Making Email Mobile Friendly
Like everything in marketing these days, one of the newest options available is mobile
and how that affects what you do. A couple of years ago, the vast majority of people
would have opened their emails on their desktops or laptops, but that trend has
changed with nearly everybody now using their mobile devices. Most of the big email
software companies are aware of this change and have introduced mobile friendly
templates and new ways of targeting consumers on their mobiles.
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153. Link Through To A Mobile Optimized Website
Presuming that your email has been opened and that somebody has then decided to
click on a link within the content, you will want to make sure that they are arriving on a
mobile optimized page. Send users to a page that is full of tiny links, which requires them
to squint to see the content and they’re going to leave in a hurry. You can’t just downsize
your content for a mail screen. Instead, you should be creating landing pages with
mobile users in mind. It could be the difference between a lot of sales and none at all.
Go Big On Images
You have to be prepared for people flicking through their emails, and the simple fact is
you will be lucky if your email is viewed for more than five seconds on a mobile device.
It can be very hard to get a user’s attention when there are apps and social media
tools to keep them entertained. The use of images is one way of doing it and we’ve
seen large images taking up the entire screen and linking to a sales page performing
really well.
The ‘From’ Line Is The Most Important
When viewing emails on a mobile device, the subject line (which is what most good
email marketers focus on) is nowhere near as important as the “from” line. As you can
see from the image below, the “from” field is by far the biggest font so you are going
to have to have something there that people really want to click on.
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154. Building An Effective Mailing
List
There are a number of general rules to
keep in mind when you’re launching
an email campaign, none more
important than getting people to
sign up and continue receiving your
emails. There are a number of ways
of encouraging users to sign up and
to get the content in front of them, so
here’s what you should keep in mind.
Know Your Audience
Knowing who you’re targeting is important as your newsletter or weekly emails will
have a theme. If it’s social media, then market it as such. This audience will form the
core of your email database so know what they want and market accordingly.
Place A Sign Up Form On Your Site
For your readers to sign up, you
need to make them aware that your
newsletter exists. However, you must
do it in a way that doesn’t disrupt their
overall experience. The best way to do
this is to place in a prominent location
on your site so that it’s immediately
noticeable. Normally, slotting it in
the sidebar is better as you don’t
risk making your page look too busy,
which could put some people off.
Place A Sign Up Form On
Facebook
The same principal to your site applies here, you can place sign up forms on your
Facebook page, placing it as a tab on it. There are a number of sites which provide this,
one of the more popular examples would be MailChimp, which provides a video and
screenshot tutorial showing you how it’s done.
Place a Pop-Up Box On Older Blog Posts
Since a great deal of visitors would arrive at your site through
Google and other search engines, the chances are they will visit one
of your older posts. This is a good place to place a pop-up box as
these visitors aren’t regular readers so they’ll only see it once when
they first visit the site. Provided your content is good and it doesn’t
appear for regular readers, your sign-up rates will increase.
154

155. Sign Up Via Purchases
If you’re an online retailer, chances are that including email addresses are already part
and parcel of completing the sign-up process. Again, provided you inform buyers
that you may send them emails relating to the company, it’s another great way of
leveraging emails.
Encourage Sharing
Word of mouth and personal recommendations are the best way to promote
something so if you have a newsletter or weekly email, why not encourage people to
share your stuff. With different social media outlets out there, it’s worth trying out.
Run Competitions
Competitions are a great way to build up engagement and convince people to get
involved. Everyone wants to win something so provided that the prize is good and you
inform them that you could be emailing them again, then it’s perfect.
Purchase Opt-in Databases
This is one option you’ll need to be very
careful with, but if you want to inject your
mailing list with a new lease of life, then
purchasing an email list can help as it will
provide you with a targeted list. The only
reason we’d be reluctant to recommend
this is that there are a lot of spam sites
offering the same thing so make sure the
site you’re purchasing from is reputable
and above board.
Create Different Email For
Different Audiences
If you’ve built up a good database and have email addresses that are associated with
different sectors, then you can send more targeted content to these people. Providing
variety is a good way of reaching more people, but make sure it’s something you
have the time to do in the long-run. It’s pointless to start sending out four different
newsletters only to cancel three of them because of
time-constraints.
Release eBooks Or Reports
Providing value for readers and visitors is the best way
to get followers and if you release valuable content
like ebooks or reports for free, people are bound to
download it. While you’re doing that, get visitors to
provide their email address so they can download it.
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156. Be Transparent
We mentioned this in one or two earlier points, but it’s worth repeating again as trust
is vital to success. Clearly state how a visitor’s email will be used (newsletters, monthly
emails, product updates, etc.), and you’ll find that most will respond positively.
Guest Blogging
If you’re writing blog posts for different sites, you can include a call-to-action and link
in your author byline. This allows you to promote your services through other sites.
The Legalities Of Email Marketing – How Not To Spam People
There is nothing more annoying than getting spammed by a company that you didn’t
sign up to, or not being able to opt out of their email updates once you have signed
up. Luckily, you are protected by some pretty important rules that companies should be
adhering to (although many don’t) so make sure that you’re doing things the right way.
The main rules you should keep in mind are:
1) Make sure the content and reasons for emailing are clear and easy to understand.
2) Provide users with an easy way to opt out or unsubscribe from emails.
3) Create a double opt-in to ensure that all subscriptions are from the person in question
and not someone using someone else’s email address without their knowledge.
4) Never sell or disclose personal details or an email list to a third-party.
5) Send a confirmation email when someone subscribes or unsubscribes.
6) Don’t’ spam users, make sure your emails are consistent and relevant.
7) Provide a valid email address for those who want to contact you directly.
8) Promptly deal with complaints or queries that may arise.
9) Build up your email list organically through site opt-ins and subscriptions.
10) Provide a privacy policy on your site clearly explaining what user details will be
used for, and then follow it.
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157. Creative Campaigns
When you think about creative marketing campaigns, it is always sexier tools like
Google, Facebook and Twitter that spring to mind, but there are many cool things
that can be done with email as well. Some of the biggest businesses in the world are
powered by email marketing so coming up with creative ways of doing that is always
essential. Here are three examples of creative email marketing campaigns that you can
take inspiration from.
Digital Accomplice – Video Campaign
Digital Accomplice ran this campaign after hosing a webinar on B2B video marketing,
sending out a video email. The email directed them to a page with an embedded video
offering a free strategy assessment and a call to action, getting them to fill out the
form underneath.
Image via Digital Accomplice
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158. Within the space of a day, the email received twice the industry average for opens
and clicks, 34.1% of its email were opened, while 7.3% were clicked on. While the
results only correlate to one day, it’s worth considering if you’re thinking of including
multimedia content and are targeting a specific demographic.
Artbeads.com
Jewellery maker and retailer
Artbeads.com wanted
to peruse targeted email
marketing, but wanted to
make sure that different
demographics were catered
to. So it tested a number
of targeted emails over the
year by writing the email in
a personal tone (including
the CEO of the company),
made the email specific to
the user through using their
first name and thanking
them for their purchases, offering an exclusive discount and placing a deadline on it.
The result was that the email achieved an open rate of 20.25% and a CTR of 4.36%.
The overall conversion rate was 0.71%, and was 208% higher than their previous efforts
which ranged from 0.04% to 0.23% depending on the period.
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159. Ecclesiastical Insurance
Back in 2010, insurance group
Ecclesiastical wanted to target
existing brokers to alert them to
its new online service. So to catch
attention, it created an email
campaign featuring a finger sprint
race video in the style of Chariots of
Fire. It also worked with a company
called Vismail whose proprietary
software enabled graphics and
embeddable videos to get past
firewalls and ensure that the video
actually played when the email was opened. Overall, the cost was £14,000 but after
5,084 deliveries, it had an open rate of 21%, the email was refowarded on average
3.5 times – meaning the total number of times it was opened was 3,556 times – and
its CTR was 10% (552 times). The results showed that the video was reshared to large
groups of people (5+), with one contact having their email opened over 106 times.
Infographic Stats & Figures
- http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/when-is-the-best-time-to-send-emails
- http://www.webmarketinggroup.co.uk/Blog/when-is-the-best-time-to-send-out-
email-marketing-campaigns-1640.aspx
- http://blog.getresponse.com/best-time-to-send-email-infographic.html
159

160. Five Ways To Increase Engagement On Social
Media
F
or any brand page, the question of getting more fans or followers will come
up sooner or later. While there are underhanded ways of obtaining followers
(paying for fake followers is the main method although we strongly advise
against it for obvious reasons), the best way is to make your page more
engaging for your fans. While this is a long-term strategy, the results are well worth it
so here are five quick tips (and some guides below) to help you out.
Content, Content, Content
The golden rule of social media. If you don’t have the basics in place, then it doesn’t
matter what you post, if it doesn’t make people want to interact or share, your efforts
aren’t going to go far.
Posting links is all well and good, but make sure you mix it up a little. Post photos,
videos, ask questions, make statements, crack a joke, respond to users. Just make sure
you’re giving people a reason to follow you in the first place, and adding value and
variety to their news feeds is the way to go.
Know Your Audience
A lot of sites have either first or third-party analytics that will provide you with
much information about your followers and fans. Knowing factors like age, location,
profession and gender can help you determine the best type of updates to post and
who will be most likely to read them. This way, you can adjust your content to be more
appealing towards your biggest demographic.
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161. Timing Is Everything
Tying into the last point, there’s no point posting something if most people aren’t
going to see it. The majority of research out there suggests that early afternoon is
generally the best time to post. However, you’ll need to do your own research first to
find out the best times for posting before you can do anything. This will involve trial
and error for the most part, but
Another thing to take into consideration is timezones. More often than not, the
majority of your followers will be located in the same, or close to the same timezone
as you so you won’t have to make major changes. However, if your fan base is more
international, then you will need to experiment by posting at different times to
measure engagement.
Be Consistent & Don’t Spam
If you want people to pay attention to you, then you need to make sure they’re
expecting you to update. Nobody wants to follow an inactive or inconsistent account,
so make sure you’re posting regularly. On top of that, avoid tweeting in quick
succession as it will mean that followers will get annoyed that their feed has been taken
over with your updates. Also, it’s more valuable to space out your tweets.
Hashtags
Really this is a Twitter and Instagram specific tip, but don’t underestimate how valuable
hashtags can be. Not only do hashtags provide context, but also gives non-followers
the opportunity to discover your content. One hashtag is more than enough so don’t
spam users by throwing every hashtag you can think of.
Guides & Opinion
Since there are so many similar guides like this, here are some more tips and guides to
sink your teeth into.
- ReadWriteWeb has a quick guide about what and when to post on Instagram.
- Jeff Bullas highlights ten ways you can increase fan engagement on Facebook.
- OpenForum gives similar advice, but for Twitter this time.
- Raka Interactive took the data from bit.ly’s research and created a handy infographic
based on its findings.
- Marketing Pilgrim post explains the caveats behinds broad studies relating to post
and the importance of doing your own research to find the best times.
- Focusing on the best times to post, Jon Loomer explains on his blog why you
shouldn’t take such research literally.
- ReadWriteWeb features again, this time it explains the purpose of hashtags.
161

162. The Guide To Search: Why Social & Mobile Are The
Future
S
earch is currently in a transition period right now. As algorithms become more
complex and the major search engines introduce new features, it’s clear that
our expectations about how search should work and what it can do for us has
risen with every new development. It’s not enough that it just suggests relevant
information. Now we demand that it comes faster, becomes more accurate and
matches our tastes and interests. Throw Siri and Google Now (or at least, the potential
of Siri and Google Now) into the mix and the idea that the very concept of search will
be radically different in three to five years time is a distinct possibility.
Social search was seen as the next step in this process. Using our profiles to filter and
curate the content we want to see, the results have been mixed. Google’s insistence
on using Google+ and its +1 system has been criticised because it neglects the more
popular social media sites to plug its own. On the other hand, Bing has struggled to
even dent Google’s hold on search, despite championing its social search feature –
partly because Microsoft has a stake in Facebook. Throw in the massive rise of mobile
search, and the concept of search is evolving in a way that we mightn’t have expected.
Yet one thing is certain: With more and more content being created online, a new way
of curating and processing the vast waves of information out there will necessity. With
Google making small changes to search – both on desktop and mobile – and Bing
pushing its social credentials even further, the race is on to see who can discover (or
possibly stumble) upon the next stage of search.
162

163. Where Is Social Search Headed?
Despite social platforms like Twitter and Facebook making huge strides and pulling in
hundreds of millions of users, it’s still Google that controls search for the large part.
Facebook has had a flawed search experience since the site launched and even a
partnership with Microsoft and its search engine Bing has not been able to help them
improve. Twitter has a wealth of “real-
time” data with the couple of hundred
million tweets they see every day, but their
search experience is also poor.
Despite the fact that Twitter and Facebook
are not making the best strides in the
battle for social search, Google does
recognize the threat that they pose and
that search will eventually be powered by
humans rather than just algorithms, which
is why it invested so much time, money
and energy into Google+.
While its spiders can crawl the web
and their page rank system has proved
the foundation of the company over
the last decade, it knows that it needs
to find out more about the people
browsing the web and what they
actually like. The fact that people spend
so much time on Facebook – and that
it is effectively a walled garden to which
Google has little or no access to – has
to be a huge worry for the world’s
biggest search engine, especially with
users volunteering so much useful
information to the social network.
There have been persistent rumors about Facebook getting into search, or at least
improving the experience on their own site, and it is something that we would love to
see happen. I’d love to be able to tap into the wisdom of my friends to find the best
restaurants, bars, holiday destinations and books. We do see it happening through
frictionless sharing for the likes of movies on Netflix, songs on Spotify and other apps
through open graph, but that is a different type of discovery than search itself.
Despite all the knowledge within Google, Twitter and Facebook, none of them have
cracked social search yet and I fully expected one of them to have done so at this
stage. One thing that is certain is that it will be one of those three companies who will
eventually crack it. A startup might lead the way with a totally new solution, but one of
the big guys would inevitably acquire that company and fold it into their own offering.
As far as true social search is concerned, we are all still waiting.
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164. The Development Of Mobile Search
The major focus of mobile is that most search queries relate to location. Naturally,
the majority of users search while they’re on the go, but this has a far greater bearing
than you might expect. As the above infographics highlight, many users search when
they are shopping and make shopping decisions soon after their search, meaning that
localised search plays a massive part in how mobile will develop. While desktop search
is primarily focused on providing as much information as possible, people on the move
don’t enjoy the same luxury, not having the time or screen space to filter through
numerous results.
Instead the focus has turned towards providing a concise answer and making sure the
process from search query to result is as smooth and as frictionless as possible. In a
way, this is probably the avenue that mobile search will go down for quick inquiries
and local searches, while for more research intensive searches, brands and businesses
will have to optimise their sties to deal with this.
While the same search engines are available on iPhone and Android (oddly Bing’s app
isn’t available outside the U.S.), the only two that seem to be treating mobile differently
are Google and Apple. The latter’s effort, Siri, was the first real attempt at creating a
mobile only search engine through the form of a personal assistant. While it’s by no
means perfect (and it does search through Google, it must be added), Siri did at least
introduce the idea that mobile search could be more than just an afterthought and
give the very idea of personal search some credit.
As a search engine, Siri’s use is quite limited, yet one-third of people are said to use
it to search the internet and 87% say that they use it once a month, suggesting that
while it hasn’t exactly set the world alight, it’s doing enough to engage users and has
given voice activated search something to work with.
164

165. Google, on the other hand, has been trying
a number of different approaches with
its search engine – unsurprising since it
is its main business. Google Now, one of
the latest features introduced alongside
Android’s Jelly Bean, is its closest rival to
Siri as it too has voice control, but it does
things differently.
Tailoring it to suit your needs, you can
have it present different information and
updates to you at various times so things
like how busy traffic will be, times of flights,
sporting updates and translations can be
accessed or timed to help you out. All of
this is tailored using existing info like web history, your current location and location
history. Since Google automatically keeps track of your previous web searches (unless
you turn it off ), this is the basis for social search: Taking information we already know
about ourselves to make the system more effective.
Siri’s influence spreads even further into Google’s own search app, which recently added
voice recognition so you can ask questions and answer them with a brief statement. It
works separately to Google Now, only drawing on results directly from the search engine
instead of your previous searches, and if its promotional video is anything to go by, it will
provide more diverse and snappy answers than Siri currently does.
Considering that Google Now was just released, it’s too early to comment on whether
it’s more successful than Siri or not. However, the gauntlet has been thrown down and
both Google and Apple will work towards making Google Now and Siri faster, smarter
and better to the point where having them is essential.
165

166. Web & Mobile analytics tools
Google Analytics
Google Analytics makes it easy for anybody to manage and analyse a website. Once
you’ve copy/pasted the GA code onto your site, you should be set to go and explore
the many ways in which Google can
analyse your blog or website. You can
monitor many sources of information
with GA: visitors, traffic sources, content,
ecommerce and goals. That’s all fairly
standard – tracking how many visitors
you have, how they are getting to your
site and what pages they’re viewing – but
the goals tab is especially helpful in that
it allows you to set aims and then guides
you along as you try to achieve them, a
vital and knowledgeable assistant.
The site’s dashboard is simple to navigate
and is open to customisation, so you can
get the facts that are most important to you upfront. The visualisations of the analytics
are especially clear and very malleable seeing as you can easily choose the range
over which you are gauging interest and compare activity over certain time periods or
across certain pages. Free and simple to use, GA is pretty much essential.
Crazy Egg
What makes Crazy Egg unique is its use of heat and scroll maps, which not only show
what pages your users are viewing, but what parts of those pages they are viewing in
particular. Heat maps will shows which links are most clicked on, while scroll maps will
tell you if people are scrolling through the whole page, or just moving on quickly.
These are minute details which display why people are viewing particular pages rather
than just if they are. Crazy Egg is really meant to be used to measure how many clicks
are being made, but its visual manifestation is creative and appreciably easy to follow
since it annotates any particular page with visual aids rather than with stats and graphs.
WebTrends
WebTrends is a pensioner in comparison to many of the other analytic sites mentioned
here, but it still packs a punch in some areas, in spite of its competition far outstripping it
in others. Story mode still presents data in a package that is simply consumed and takes
various statistics and lots of information from across your site. Assets such as Analytics
9, Ad Director, Marketing Warehouse, Professional Services, Score, Social Measurement,
and Visitor Intelligence come at a price, but are well-suited to analysing your traffic
and helping you increase it. Its ability to measure traffic and referrals remains largely
unmatched still, but its all-encompassing ability may be superfluous, daunting or off-
putting to many users and small businesses and it fails to surpass younger rivals in the
latest aspects of analytics. With that said, WebTrends is still a sound investment for those
that are especially serious about their analytics.
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167. Facebook Analytics
SocialDon
There’s not a lot to SocialDon, but it is very simple. Log in using your Facebook account
and then using Don to compare statistics between any pages (you don’t have to be an
admin, though it would surely be advisable that you were). The dashboard is quick to
load and stats are presented in line graphs that clearly state the facts.
The analytics are all as you would expect, but the
‘talkability’ data offers something beyond the
norm and you can, of course, change the date
and intervals over which you want SocialDon
to measure data. You can also measure yourself
and your contributions to your various pages
if you want, or if your business is in need of a
social media evaluation and makeover. It’s a
helpful little tool, but SocialDon is by no means
comprehensive.
Pagelever
Pagelever is probably best know for its work
with YouTube and those who has glanced at the
analytics on YouTube videos can see the contextual knowledge that Pagelever provides.
Pagelever can give you pure numbers, but it also gives milestones that you will find
interesting and help you to replicate and improve on any successes you may have.
The aim of Pagelever is to cut though noise by showing businesses what is working for
them on Facebook and what isn’t, in the hopes that will reduce their posts and refine
their content and yet still continue to grow their popularity. Pagelever will present you
with stats and graphics tell you what and when it is best to post and why that is so.
Twitter Analytics
Twitsprout
Twitsprout is a one-page Twitter analytics service that concisely summarises all your
Twitter account’s key statistics and presents them in an easily understandable format.
That all the important facts and figures
are presented on one page is what
makes Twitsprout stand out, and updates
are tailored to activity rather than a set
schedule – so you will be alerted via email
when RTs or followers are increasing/
decreasing at an abnormal level, for
instance.
The graphics are informative and very
colourful (which is always a plus), and stats
are explained for those that are getting to
grips with Twitter and analytics with very
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168. few buzzwords and little jargon. Finally, Twitsprout is smart; it can evaluate trends and
interpret them in a way the unindoctrinated eye just can’t, so it is perfect for new users
and flourishing businesses.
The Archivist
The Archivist is one of the premier Twitter analytic apps, allowing you to archive tweets
and analyse the biggest trends. Whether you’re searching for stats on keywords,
hashtags or certain users, the Archivist will provide an extensive and aesthetically crisp
analysis of whatever you want.
It is very extensive, but it also immediate; literally type in the account hashtag or
keyword you want to analyse and the results will pop up in a matter of seconds. There
is no programme or anything to downloadable, it is done purely online, but you can
download the results into an Excel spreadsheet or a .zip file if you want once you’ve
signed in, which should alleviate worries about organisation.
Twitalyzer
Twitalyzer will give you a complete overview of your Twitter account’s influence based
on, among other things, number of followers, number of people following, retweet level,
number of retweets by others, how often an account replies to other users and engages
in conversations. Again, it doesn’t have to be your own account, you can just type in any
username if you really want to know that type of thing.
It puts a visual preference on numbers as opposed to actual statistics as the final
percentages and numbers come up in large type while their corresponding graphs and
charts are dwarfed in comparison. Twitalyzer offers additional metric points and reporting
data, making it one of social media’s most complete analytics/measurement apps.
Social & Mobile SEO Practices
Having a social media and mobile presence is all well and good, but you need to
optimise both sectors if you want your site to benefit. Your social and mobile search
strategy should complement your main SEO strategy, so make sure you have a
traditional SEO strategy first before you start focusing on social.
Social SEO
Post your articles immediately on social media
While this should always do this, there’s an extra benefit that you mightn’t have
considered. According to Mitch Monsen of WhiteFire SEO, social media helps content
get indexed faster. So if you’re posting a time-sensitive post or if you focus on
reporting, it helps to be quick. The faster you post something, the faster you get into
Google’s index for your keyword terms and the faster you show up at the top of the
results. So when you get the chance, post it onto Twitter and Google+.
Provide sharable content
Content is very much king, and while we’re not saying you should create content solely
for the sake of sharing, but by focusing more on what people want, the chances of it
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169. being shared and liked increases.
According to Jordan Kesteler of PETA, there are
two reasons for this. The first is that it’s good for
SEO as more shares mean more links to your site,
which is always a good thing. The second is that
if a popular user or account shares your content,
their whole network may see your post the next
time they search for similar material, resulting in
another boost in your ranking.
Use Twitter Directories
Building up links to your Twitter profile doesn’t have to be hard provided you do two
things: Tweet often and use Twitter directories. The latter is handy for getting your
content to those who might be interested and CNET has a great list on the best Twitter
directories out there.
Twitter SEO
We covered this originally in our 50 Twitter tips list last week, but it’s worth repeating
to help improve your social SEO rank. Essentially, make sure your name and username
has the main keyword you want, include your full website address and fit keywords
into your bio and profile picture. The same would apply to both Google+ and to an
extent, Facebook.
Mobile SEO
Different Keywords for a
different format
Just because certain keywords work
for search doesn’t mean that you
will get similar results for mobile.
As mentioned earlier, mobile search
usually focuses on local so if you’re a
retailer, create keywords that reflect
your location. For other sites, have
a look at your analytics tools to see
which keywords come up when users
search through mobile and use that
data to form your keywords. The
traditional SEO rules apply so make
sure they’re optimised for mobile use
as well as desktop.
Make Your Site Mobile Friendly
Not exactly an SEO tip, but it’s important that your site is suited to mobile. A desktop
site isn’t going to work well on a portable device (unless it’s a tablet), so you should
design your website to reflect this. Some brands go for apps, but a better way is to
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170. optimise your site to work on a smaller screen. Even if it’s relatively basic looking in
comparison to your main site, that’s much more useful as it will (a) load faster and (b)
users will find the content they’re looking for faster.
Create mobile-friendly content
Linking to the last point, Neil Patel of Quick Sprout makes the point that you should
figure out a way to host your mobile site and mobile exclusive content. Your regular
desktop content can stay the same provided you’ve reformatted it for mobile users
(see last tip), but the best thing to do is to host your homepage and mobile only pages
on m.domain.com subdomaion or /m subfolder.
Patel says that you can redirect to your desktop pages, but to use canonical tags so
that the links are directed back to desktop pages.
Infographic Sources
-http://www.tekgoblin.com/2012/07/07/over-3-billion-searches-on-google-each-day/
-http://www.biakelsey.com/Company/Press-Releases/120418-Mobile-Local-Search-
Volume-Will-Surpass-Desktop-Local-Search-in-2015.asp
-http://searchengineland.com/google-50-percent-of-smartphone-users-exposed-to-
ads-took-action-74760
-http://www.viralblog.com/mobile-and-apps/11-incredible-mobile-marketing-statistics/
-http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.
com/en//events/thinkmobile2011/pdfs/time-for-mobile-is-now.pdf
-http://www.google.com/events/thinkmobile2011/presentations.html
-http://thesocialskinny.com/99-new-social-media-stats-for-2012/
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