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Best times to post on social media for 2019

Social media is always evolving, and users’ behavior changes with it. One fact that doesn’t change is that all social platforms move fast, with a constant stream of content vying for attention. You want to get the most eyes possible on your content and maximize engagement by knowing the best times to post on social networks.

It’s not enough to guess when users might log in to a given network, or when audiences in your niche are hungriest for the latest information. Now that more and more brands from all kinds of industries realize the value of connecting with their audiences on social networks, it’s important to understand how your audience uses social platforms and what they want out of your content. An ecommerce brand may see social engagement follow daily and seasonal patterns of shopping engagement, while a corporate thought leadership account may see plenty of clicks at the start of the workday when readers are looking for inspiration.

In order to get granular and find out the best times to publish on social media for four social media networks, we worked closely with Sprout’s data science team to pull this information based on our customers. The data below shows when our 25,000-plus Sprout customers were engaged the most (and least) across major networks and broken down by industry.

Let’s take a look at the unique insights we found for the best times to post on each social network:

Best times to post on Facebook

Best times to post on Instagram

Best times to post on Twitter

Best times to post on LinkedIn

How we gathered this data

Disclaimer: Data from Sprout Social include users from various plan types, industries and locations. All time frames are recorded in Central Time Zone (CST). Number of engagements represents total engagements a brand received on the specific channel during that hour time frame. Industry-specific data includes mid- to high-level engagement times.

Best times to post on Facebook

Facebook has over two billion active users, making it the most populated platform by far. This huge audience means there’s a major opportunity for organic engagement on Facebook, if you keep in mind the current Facebook algorithm. The changes in the algorithm in the last couple of years have emphasized friends, family and meaningful connection, so content that drives genuine engagement is your best bet.

In addition to a content strategy that connects meaningfully with your audience, you’ll best meet this need for engagement by posting at the times when users are most active on the network.

Here are the key data points we found for the best times to post on Facebook:

The best times to post to Facebook are Wednesday at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Wednesday is the best day to post on Facebook.

The safest times to post are weekdays from 9 a.m.–3 p.m.

Sunday has the least amount of engagement for Facebook during the week.

Early mornings and evenings, before 7 a.m. and after 5 p.m. have the least amount of engagement per day.

What we learned

As you’ll see with other social networks, mid-week is the peak period on Facebook. The middle of each weekday, from morning to mid-afternoon, are safe times to post, meaning engagement remains consistent throughout these blocks of time.

While people frequently check in throughout the middle of the day to see what’s going on, the peak times are around lunch breaks. When people have more time to scroll through their Facebook feeds and dig into interesting posts, engagement rises correspondingly.

On the other hand, late night and early evening along with weekend days bring in relatively low engagement. While people may check in or post a few updates from weekend activities in the middle of the day on Saturday, these times aren’t your best bet for reaching audiences.

Best times to post on Facebook for consumer goods

Whether you’re promoting an online shopping experience or driving audiences to brick-and-mortar retail, Facebook plays a key part in your social strategy. In addition to your niche’s unique customer personas, find your audiences when they’re most active at these top times to post for consumer goods and retail:

Disclaimer: Industry specific heat maps are more concentrated to show medium- and high-level engagement.

The best times for consumer goods brands to post to Facebook are Wednesday at 1 p.m. and Friday at 11 a.m.

Other high engagement times include Wednesday from 1–3 p.m, Friday from 10–11 a.m. and Thursday at 5 p.m.

The safest times to post are weekdays from 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

The lowest engagement is on Sunday and every day from 10 p.m.–4 a.m.

Best times to post on Facebook for media

Social is a crowded space for media companies vying for attention, and the Facebook algorithm can make it especially difficult to find a place on users’ feeds. Tap into these times to post to boost engagement:

The best times for media companies to post on Facebook are Tuesday at 5 p.m. and Friday from 8–9 a.m.

Other top times include Wednesday from 8–9 a.m., Wednesday at 5 p.m. and Thursday at 5 p.m.

The safest times to post are Tuesday through Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m

The lowest engagement is on Sunday and every day from 10 p.m.–3 a.m.

Best times to post on Facebook for education

Facebook can be a great source of information for education institutions. Compared to other industries, mornings and nights offer stronger opportunities for schools’ social media content to get seen, as well as some spikes in activity on the weekend. Check out the full details of the best times to post on Facebook for education:

The best times for schools to post on Facebook are Wednesday at 9 a.m. and Saturday at 5 p.m.

It’s safest to post Monday through Friday from 9 a.m–3 p.m, with the most engagement occurring between 9 a.m.–12 p.m. on those days.

Saturday from 12 p.m.-9.pm is also highly active.

Sunday has the least engagement, and the lowest engagement times for schools are every day from 11 p.m.–5 a.m.

Best times to post on Facebook for nonprofit

Facebook is a great place to highlight a nonprofit’s mission with longer form posts and discussions, as well as drawing attention to upcoming events. We found that nonprofits on Facebook frequently see the most engagement during weekday mornings.

The best time for nonprofits to post on Facebook is Wednesday at 8–9 a.m.

Other high engagement times include Thursday at 10 a.m. and Friday 8-10 a.m.

The safest times to post are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday show the least engagement per day, and the lowest engagement times are 10 p.m.–5 a.m. every day.

Best times to post on Facebook for tech

Even with challenges in gaining organic engagement, Facebook is still an essential part of tech companies’ social strategy. Whether you’re looking to tap into conversations geared towards a B2B audience or a B2C one, top times for tech companies to post on Facebook include:

The best time for tech companies to post to Facebook is Wednesday at 10 a.m.

Wednesday from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. is a peak time during the week as well.

The safest times to post are Monday through Friday 8 a.m.–2 p.m.

The least engagement is seen on Sunday and every day from 6 p.m–4 a.m.

Best times to post on Facebook for healthcare

Social audiences increasingly expect healthcare practices to have a social presence. Facebook is a great place to highlight your local practice and provide essential info to current and prospective patients. The best times to post for healthcare to reach these audiences include:

The best time for healthcare practices to post on Facebook is Wednesday at 9–10 a.m.

The safest times to post are Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m.–3 or 4 p.m.

Times to avoid are Saturday and Sunday, which have minimal engagement, and every day from 9 p.m.–4 a.m.

Best times to post on Instagram

Having recently grown to one billion monthly active users, and a median 1.60% engagement rate per post, Instagram is definitely on the rise in the social space. The network has also debuted a number of new features recently, expanding the options for how users can interact with posts on this visual-first platform.

Similar to Facebook’s 2018 focus on a more authentic and personal-feeling social experience, the Instagram algorithm in 2019 prioritizes certain posts algorithmically in a user’s feed, marking a change from the previous reverse chronological order. In addition to the main feed, Stories has grown significantly since its 2016 launch, and 2018 also brought the debut of Instagram TV. Taken together, all of these options let brands create engaging video content of both micro-length and long-form templates.

With all of these ways to reach an audience, plus Instagram’s notable focus on retail, you’ll want to know these key stats for the best times for brands to post on Instagram:

The best times to post on Instagram are Wednesday at 11 a.m. and Friday at 10–11 a.m.

Wednesday is the overall best day to post to Instagram

The safest times to post are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m–3 p.m.

Sunday receives the least amount of engagement on Instagram

The least amount of engagement occurs during late night and early morning from 11 p.m.–3 a.m.

What we learned

While Instagram engagement peaks mid-day and mid-week, similar to the other major social networks, there are a few opportune windows found in the evening and morning during the middle of the week. While the safest times to post are still during those core weekday times, it could be well worth it for certain brand niches to consider if your audiences are among those reaching for the ‘Gram first thing in the morning or last thing before sleeping.

While there is a bit of increased engagement around midday on Saturday, weekends aren’t your best bet for getting eyes on your posts. Similarly, even those late night users eventually pack it in, with engagement dropping in the latest hours of the night and earliest hours of the morning

Best times to post on Instagram for consumer goods

Over the past year, Instagram has cemented its role as a top network for shopping. This means that any retail or shopping business can’t afford to ignore the platform. Improve your chances of cutting through the noise in this busy space by keeping in mind the top times to post on Instagram for consumer goods and retail:

The best time for consumer brands on Instagram is Wednesday at 3 p.m.

The safest times to post are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

Another higher engagement time period occurs on Saturday around 10 a.m.

Sunday has the least engagement, as well as every day from 11 p.m–3 a.m.

Best times to post on Instagram for media

As Instagram expands its video offerings, it’s becoming a unique channel for media companies to highlight their best visual content. Our findings show that Instagram’s audience taps in a bit earlier in the day for media content than other industries, so consider these times to post when planning to highlight your best content:

The best time for media companies to post on Instagram is Friday at 9 a.m.

The safest times to post are Wednesday through Friday from 8 a.m–4 p.m.

There’s also a period of higher engagement that lasts all the way through Thursday night into Friday morning. It’s lower than the highest peak times, but it could be a unique time to capture audiences that aren’t active in other industries’ niches.

Saturday and Sunday have the least engagement for media companies on Instagram.

Best times to post on Instagram for education

For colleges and schools, Instagram is a great opportunity to build your visual identity and highlight on-campus experiences. Engagement patterns trend a bit later in the day for education as the student-heavy audience starts getting on their phones in the later afternoon. Here are the best times to post for educational institutions on Instagram:

The best time to post on Instagram for schools is Friday at 10 a.m.

Other high engagement times include Wednesday at 11 a.m., Friday from 11 a.m.–12 p.m. and 2 p.m., and Saturday at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.

The safest times to post are Wednesday through Saturday at 10 a.m.–8 p.m.

The least engagement for schools is on Sunday and every day from 11 p.m–5 a.m.

Best times to post on Instagram for nonprofit

Instagram is the perfect complement to the rest of your nonprofit’s social strategy. If you’ve promoted an event ahead of time on Facebook, follow up on Instagram to show off photos from the event and start building your brand’s visual identity. Keep in mind these peak times to post for nonprofits:

The best time for nonprofits to post to Instagram is Wednesday at 2 p.m.

Other high engagement times include Monday from 2–3 p.m., Tuesday from 1–3 p.m. and a relatively strong block of time on Saturday from 1–2 p.m.

The safest times to post are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.

Sunday gets the least engagement, as well as every day from 11 p.m.–5 a.m.

Best times to post on Instagram for tech

Trends for the tech industry vary somewhat from the global peak times on Instagram, with audiences tuning into their feeds for bursts of activity earlier in the day. Take these peak times into account for your content planning as you highlight your products, services and company culture on Instagram:

The best time for tech companies to post on Instagram is Wednesday at 6 a.m. and 9 a.m.

Other times that get significant engagement include Wednesday from 10–11 a.m., Friday from 7–10 a.m., and Saturday from 7–11 a.m.

There’s also fairly high opportunity for engagement on Tuesday at 10 p.m., and both Wednesday and Friday mornings show more engagement than other industries at these early hours.

The least engagement on Instagram for tech happened on Sunday.

Best times to post on Instagram for healthcare

It’s clear from our findings that Instagram still isn’t a priority for many healthcare practices. However, considering the high engagement it drives for many other industries, it’s clear that audiences, including prospective patients, are on the platform. It’s well worth it to expand your reach by planning around these times to post:

The best time for healthcare practices to post on Instagram is Tuesday at 8 a.m.

The safest time to post is Tuesday from 7 a.m.–4 p.m.

The lowest engagement times are evening and overnight every day from 6 p.m.–6 a.m.

Best times to post on Twitter

Twitter presents a huge opportunity for brands to connect directly with audiences and manage customer care.

This means timeliness is key on Twitter. While the social network selectively highlights some activity out of chronological sequence based on user interests, most people are still scrolling through to catch up on the latest posts and musings from their group of followed accounts. Posting at off-peak hours could and cause you to miss out on a lot of your potential engagement.

With 500 million tweets sent per day, Twitter provides a goldmine of social opinions and conversation that can inform your brand strategy. In addition to using Twitter listening to know what topics offer the most opportunity to engage, you’ll want to keep in mind these stats for when to post on Twitter:

The best times to post on Twitter are Wednesday at 9 a.m. and Friday at 9 a.m.

Tuesday and Wednesday are the best days to post on Twitter.

The safest times to post are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.–4 p.m.

Saturday gets the least engagement.

Times to avoid that get the lowest engagement are every day from 10 p.m–4 a.m.

What we learned

Twitter heats up a bit earlier in the morning, probably as audiences are starting to go about their day and take a moment to catch up on and digest the biggest news and updates from their areas of interest. The peak times of engagement also carry into the lunch hour, and begin to taper slightly through the late afternoon and evening, finally dropping off as late night approaches.

Like other social networks, mid-week on Tuesday and Wednesday are your top days to post on Twitter, and engagement drops off on weekends. We do still see that morning check-in occurring around 9 on both Saturday and Sunday, just to a lesser extent.

Best times to post on Twitter for consumer goods

Twitter is an essential customer care channel for retailers and ecommerce businesses. Compared to Facebook and Instagram engagement, activity actually builds during the weekend rather than falling off. This could indicate that users are online for answers and help about products they’ve been putting off during the week, or seeking info to complement a shopping trip or outing. Either way, quick response times are essential when people take time on days off to reach out to your brand, so be ready for these peak times:

The best time for consumer goods brands to post to Twitter is Sunday at 11 a.m.

Other peak engagement times include Saturday at 3 p.m. and Wednesday at 1 p.m.

The safest times to post are either Sunday from 9 a.m.–3 p.m. or Monday through Wednesday from 12 p.m–3 p.m.

Friday is the day with the lowest engagement, and the lowest engagement times each day are between 10 p.m–6 a.m.

Best times to post on Twitter for media

Twitter has become a go-to platform for journalists, authors and experts to share ideas and opinions—often around the clock. We saw this reflected in the hotspot of activity that lasts throughout the night from Thursday through Friday morning. There are still some other peak times you’ll want to know about if you’re looking to get your top stories and content in front of Twitter users:

The best times for media companies to post on Twitter are Thursday at 9 a.m. and 8 p.m.

Other high engagement times include Thursday from 4 p.m–8 p.m. and Friday from 7 a.m.–11 a.m.

The safest times to post are Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m.–12 p.m.

The day with the least engagement on Twitter is Saturday.

Best times to post on Twitter for education

Educational institutions can take a unique approach to Twitter by segmenting out different parts of their social stream with separate Twitter accounts for everything from sports teams to dining services. As with other social networks for education, the peak times are shifted a bit from the global top times, so adjust to the unique schedules of your students with these top times to post:

The best time for schools to post on Twitter is Saturday at 5 p.m.

Other high engagement times include Saturday from 1 p.m.–10 p.m.

Weekdays get a bit less engagement, but safe times to post during the week include Wednesday from 8 a.m.–12 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m.–12 p.m.

Best times to post on Twitter for nonprofit

Nonprofits have a great opportunity to build up their community on Twitter and start conversations with the audiences most engaged with their causes. Keep in mind these key times to post for nonprofits on Twitter:

The best time for nonprofits to post on Twitter is Wednesday at 7 a.m.

Other high engagement times include Wednesday from 6 a.m.–4 p.m.

The safest times to post are Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m.–3 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday get the least engagement, as well as every day between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.

Best times to post on Twitter for tech

It’s no surprise the tech industry is consistently active throughout the week on Twitter. Whether you have one or multiple accounts conducting customer service, promoting your brand or sharing thought leadership, consider using social listening or Twitter advanced search features to tap into the topics your audiences are discussing. Consider these top times for the tech industry to get active on Twitter:

The best time for tech companies to post on Twitter is Tuesday at 9 a.m.

Other high engagement times include the rest of the morning on Tuesday from 7–10 a.m. and Wednesday from 8-10 a.m.

The safest times to post are Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m.–1 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday are the days that get the least engagement, and engagement is lowest from 6 p.m to 5 a.m. every day.

Best times to post on Twitter for healthcare

As we’ve emphasized, Twitter is ideal for conversation and customer care. Health questions can be the most pressing of all, so whether it’s an account for a local practice or a major pharmaceutical brand, be ready for your audiences by being aware of the best times for healthcare accounts on Twitter:

The best times for healthcare practices and business to post on Twitter are Wednesday at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

Other notably high engagement times include Monday at 2 p.m., Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Friday at 8 a.m. There’s also additional engagement on Wednesday morning compared to other weekday mornings.

The safest times to post are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.–3 p.m.

The day with the least engagement is Sunday.

Best times to post on LinkedIn

LinkedIn targets a more specific audience than other social networks, and as it continues to grow, we’ve gotten a fuller picture of the best times to post compared to our overview in 2018. In order to provide the greatest accuracy, we didn’t break down this data into individual industries.

The network’s more niche audience is no reason to ignore its marketing power, however. These motivated users tend to generate more leads, especially for B2B marketing. Here’s our findings on when to post on LinkedIn:

The best times to post to Linkedin are Wednesday at 9–10 a.m. and 12 p.m.

The best day to post on LinkedIn is Wednesday.

The safest times to post are Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m.–2 p.m.

The least engagement per day occurs on Sunday and the least popular times to post are every day from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.

What we learned

Considering LinkedIn’s corporate-minded mix of thought leaders, job seekers and company page curation, it’s no surprise that activity is much more concentrated around workdays. Activity ramps up on Tuesday as people get through the Monday rush, and tapers fairly uniformly after 3 p.m. as the last tasks of the workday take priority.

Weekends garner fairly low engagement, which is expected as people step away from their devices and desks on Saturday and Sunday.

How we gathered the data

We understand that these type of reports can raise questions about just where the data is coming from. That’s why we want to be clear about the data we pulled and how we got here.

First off, we were luckily enough to work with Sprout Social’s very own data science team to gather together this information from our customers. Joel Booth, a Senior Data Scientist at Sprout, explained how it all works.

“Sprout integrates with the different social media platforms via their API, which allows the application to receive messages on behalf of our customers,” Booth said. “Essentially, this is how we power features such as Sprout’s Smart Inbox and Reports.”

Using ViralPost to publish at the best times

Our data team is constantly collecting data. And this information isn’t just used to put together amazing reports like you’ve read above. In fact, Sprout Social’s very own ViralPost works off this data regularly for our customers.

Booth further explained that Sprout’s proprietary algorithm analyzes the publishing history of our customers and collects data on how and when their audiences engage. This is what makes ViralPost so unique—it allows users to find future times to post that work best for their channels.

“ViralPost is an opportunity for the data science team to not only make our customers’ social efforts more effective, but also easier,” Booth said. “The algorithm can look at more messages, more engagements and more factors over a far wider range of time than a person in order to pinpoint those ideal times to send a message and how those times change week to week.”

Simply put, having publishing times is extremely handy, but why not use a tool that can publish during the suggested times? ViralPost works with actual customer data, just like what we’ve pulled to assemble this report, to give you the best opportunity for your individual account.

Want to see it in action? Sign up for a demo of Sprout Social today!

This post Best times to post on social media for 2019 originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/best-times-to-post-on-social-media/

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How to build the perfect LinkedIn Page

With a rapidly growing user base of 610 million professionals, LinkedIn provides organizations with unique opportunities. Beyond being a prime place to share content and showcase thought leadership, LinkedIn performs almost 3 times better than Facebook or Twitter for generating visitor-to-lead conversions. Creating and maintaining an up-to-date LinkedIn Page is crucial for any marketing strategy.

At a glance, running your LinkedIn Page might seem pretty simple.

But growing an engaged following on LinkedIn is apples and oranges compared to any other social network.

As a certified LinkedIn Marketing Partner, Sprout is now the second company to release “real-time” notifications for comments in the Smart Inbox, making it even easier to build connections with your consumers. “We are continually looking for ways to collaborate and happily worked with LinkedIn to roll-out this new feature so brands can more quickly and easily connect with their customers,” says VP of Global Partnerships, Andrew Caravella.

And given the platform’s best practices and new slew of business features, there’s perhaps no better time to revisit your LinkedIn presence for optimal engagement.

Below we’ve broken down the anatomy of the perfect LinkedIn Page whether you’re looking to optimize your current profile or start from scratch.

Creatives and copy for your LinkedIn Page

First things first: businesses need to cover the basics of their profiles. Although setting up your LinkedIn Page is straightforward, there are some important decisions to make in terms of optimizing your creatives and profile copy.

Choosing a logo and cover photo

Chances are you already have the creatives on deck for your logo and cover photo. In addition to your tagline, this is what users will see “above the fold” when checking out your business.

Unlike Facebook or Twitter where you might use a cover photo of your team, clean and colorful imagery is your best bet on LinkedIn. When in doubt, keep it simple.

Here are some examples of optimized LinkedIn Pages which take different creative approaches to their profiles.

For starters, MailChimp uses a yellow color scheme and a minimalist background that’s on-brand. Nothing fancy, but effective nonetheless.

Drift’s cover photo actually promotes an informational product which is totally fair game on LinkedIn. This tactic shows off their expertise and also serves as a call-to-action for anyone who lands on their page.

Meanwhile, Zapier uses their cover photo to hype up the fact that they’re hiring. This makes perfect sense given that LinkedIn is top spot to recruit talent. Unlike the two previous examples, Zapier uses a text-only version of their logo.

The approach you take to your creatives is totally up to you, though we recommend coming up with a cover photo that’s exclusive to LinkedIn for the sake of giving your profile some flavor.

And just as a refresher, here are the social media image sizes to remember for your LinkedIn Page.

Logo (300 x 300 pixels)

Square logo (60 x 60 pixels)

Cover image (1536 x 768)

Filling out your LinkedIn profile

Any given LinkedIn Page contains a series of subsections. Businesses should ideally fill all of these sections out 100%, with the exception of the “Jobs” section if you aren’t hiring.

About

This section highlights your organization’s basic information, including a brief “About” blurb and a place to list industry-specific keywords in the “Specialties” field. The information here is more akin to a Facebook “About” section versus a stylized Twitter or Instagram bio.

Life

The “Life” section is an opportunity to show off your organization’s culture. Here you can highlight your organization’s values, provide a snapshot of your workers’ day-to-day lives and explain what separates you from other organizations in your space.

Jobs

If you’re hiring via LinkedIn, this section will aggregate and house your job listings.

People

The “People” tab will populate based on which workers have your organization listed as their employer. There’s also a brief demographic breakdown based on your employees’ location, education, roles and skills. This section is valuable for potential prospects and people interested in reaching out to your organization.

Coming up with an effective LinkedIn content strategy

LinkedIn is a unique beast when it comes to your content strategy.

How so? Well, consider how your LinkedIn Page needs to simultaneously speak to totally different audiences.

Current customers and prospective ones? Check.

Employees and recruits? Double-check.

Industry players and competitors who want to watch your latest moves? Yep, they’re checking you out, too.

Part of the beauty of LinkedIn is the freedom organizations have in terms of what they can post, though. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most common types of content we see on LinkedIn Pages:

Question-based content

Picking your followers’ brains is a smart move to encourage likes and comments on LinkedIn. Oddly enough, text-based posts can actually stand out on LinkedIn in a sea of articles and external links.

Articles and industry-specific posts

Unlike other social networks where posting article after article might be looked down upon, doing so is embraced on LinkedIn.

There’s no better place to drop your latest link, granted you couple it with a meaningful caption. Here’s a good example of a conversational caption from Hubspot that eventually leads readers to click through to a new blog post.

Resources and case studies

Considering that 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn, publishing your organization’s resources, freebies and lead magnets is a no brainer. This does double-duty of signaling your influence within your industry while also serving as a helping hand to your followers.

Event coverage

Attending an event or conference? Take your LinkedIn followers along for the ride. This sort of behind-the-scenes content is authentic, easy to create and is a welcome change from solely promotional posts.

Employee showcases

Recognizing your employees on LinkedIn allows you to show off the human side of your business. This example of employee recognition from Lemonade managed to score great engagement while also highlighting their organization’s values.

Culture-centric content

Again, not everything on your LinkedIn Page needs to be promotional. Whether it’s off-the-cuff office content or examples of your organization giving back, anything that shows off your organization’s culture is a big plus. Doing so is powerful for positioning and making an emotional impact on your followers.

Best practices to maximize your LinkedIn engagement

Now that you have an idea of how to fill out your LinkedIn Page and what to post, it’s time to think about how you’re going to maximize your profile’s reach.

Want more followers? Looking to attract the attention of industry players and influencers? Here’s how you do it.

Get your employees involved

Okay, this is the big one.

Employee advocacy is the absolute best way to grow your LinkedIn presence and exponentially increase your content’s reach.

Think about it. When you restrict your organization’s content to your Page, you’re only being seen by your current crop of followers.

But let’s say you have a few dozen employees with a couple hundred followers each. Even if there’s some overlap between your page followers and theirs, this enables your posts to be seen by thousands who’d otherwise miss out on them.

Rather than manually have employees post organization content, platforms such as Bambu or LinkedIn Elevate allow organizations to curate and amplify social content within a single platform. This encourages a uniform approach to sharing content that ensures that as many eyes are on your organization as possible.

Prioritize video content

Video content is quickly taking over social media itself and LinkedIn is no different.

LinkedIn released its video capabilities in 2017 and has been stressing the importance of video ever since. It’s no surprise that video content is among the most popular and LinkedIn and appears to be prioritized by the platform’s algorithm.

From educational video to commercials, organizations should step up their video production ASAP in an effort to stand out on the platform.

Come up with a consistent content calendar

Consistency counts with just about any social network.

Based on our data regarding the best times to post on social media, engagement appears to shift between mornings toward the late-afternoon throughout the workweek. Typically we see most organizations post at least once daily, although we encourage businesses to experiment with frequency.

Having an understanding of your timing and frequency can help you put together a comprehensive content calendar specific to LinkedIn. With the help of Sprout, you can then publish directly to your LinkedIn Page and schedule your content alongside your other social profiles.

Stay tuned for opportunities to connect

Whether your content strategy focuses on posing questions or sharing thought leadership, your audience is expecting to hear from you. 55% of consumers say that liking or responding to a consumer’s post on social media helps brands connect with consumers.

Now with “real-time” notifications for comments in the Smart Inbox, it’s easier to create connections with your consumers with more ease. Think: shorter response times when cultivating conversations or answering questions directed towards your brand. Acting quickly in those moments inspires more engagement from your audience.

Understand your analytics

According to Sprout’s 2018 Social Index, audience insights and data-driven strategy should be the top priority of any organization looking to thrive on LinkedIn.

In other words, you need robust analytics.

What posts are your top performers? When are you scoring the most shares and followers?

Although the platform has adequate native reporting, a third-party reporting solution like the one we offer at Sprout can dig even deeper into your LinkedIn analytics.

For example, Sprout is capable of tracking impressions, engagements and clicks to clue you in on what’s working and what’s not. Based on these numbers, you can fine-tune your LinkedIn presence accordingly.

And with that, we wrap up our guide!

Does your LinkedIn Page look like a million bucks?

Growing on LinkedIn is truly a one-of-a-kind endeavor versus any other social network.

As a result, you need to know exactly how to properly run your Page.

From creatives and content to understanding your data, these pointers can put you on the right path toward building a more engaging profile.

We want to hear from you, though. What has your organization’s experience been like on LinkedIn? Are you experiencing more engagement than usual these days? Let us know in the comments below!

This post How to build the perfect LinkedIn Page originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/linkedin-page/

[minnievirizarry]

How to promote your YouTube channel to maximize views

There’s no better time than now to figure out how to promote your YouTube channel.

Why “now,” though?

For starters, YouTube recently overtook Facebook as the second most-visited site on the web.

In a day and age where we’re spending up to six hours per day consuming video, the writing is on the wall: we need to appeal to our customers’ binge-watching tendencies.

Of course, the boom of video content has resulted in a flood of brands trying to master YouTube channel marketing all at once.

And so if you want to stand out on YouTube, you need to take advantage of as many promotional tactics as possible.

Below we’ve broken down step-by-step how to promote your YouTube channel to maximize your viewership. Whether you’re just getting started or want to see your numbers tick upward, these tips are all fair game.

1. Write engaging, must-see titles

YouTube marketing is all about presentation.

Like, literally.

Titles are make-or-break when it comes to your video’s performance. Ask yourself: are you presenting your content as “must-see” or “meh?”

The key to crafting killer titles is grabbing your audience’s attention without resorting to clickbait headlines. People crave content that’s entertaining, and they likewise want to know what your video is about from the word “go.”

For example, you can take a page out of the playbooks of YouTube giants like BuzzFeed and WhatCulture. Such videos often rely on listicles, question-based titles or hyperbole (“insane,” “…of all time”) to rack up the views.

Athlean X’s fitness-based videos are another good example. The channel’s content manages to sneak in relevant keywords in its titles while also coming across as conversational.

“Best-of” lists and “how-to” titles are always a safe bet, too. Here are some click-worthy titles from Disney Food Blog:

The takeaway here is that you should definitely spend time mulling over engaging titles rather than sticking with the first idea that pops into your head.

In terms of specifics, an oft-cited study from Tubular Insights notes that YouTube video titles should stick between 41 and 70 characters. Meanwhile, tools such as CoSchedule’s headline analyzer recommends 55 characters for an engaging headline. CoSchedule’s tool isn’t specifically meant for video titles but is awesome for brainstorming YouTube-friendly titles to help promote your YouTube channel.

2. Step up your YouTube SEO

Here’s some food for thought: YouTube videos show up in 70% of the top 100 Google search results.

Heck, see for yourself. Any given product or “how-to” query on Google will return something from YouTube.

In fact, YouTube results sometimes even pop up before traditional blog posts or websites.

Listen: YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world in and of itself. Just like people search for products and need problems solved via Google, the same rings true on YouTube.

Think of your YouTube videos like any other piece of content that needs to be optimized in terms of keywords, tags and so on.

In order to increase your chances of showing up, you’ll want to follow some of the best practices for YouTube SEO:

Titles and description: Include target keywords in your titles and descriptions. You can use a tool like Keywordtool.io to help you find keyword ideas.

Mention keywords in your video: According to Brian Dean of Backlinko, saying your target keywords in your video can help YouTube better understand what your video is about.

Engagement: YouTube uses engagement (likes, comments, views) to help determine where videos rank in its search results.

Categories: Use categories to help YouTube get a better understanding of who to show your videos to.

Tags: In addition to categories, you can also add tags to your videos to give YouTube more context about your content. You can use quite a few tags, so add as many as you can think of.

Just like with SEO for your website, don’t keyword stuff. Use keywords when it makes sense, not just for the sake of having them. You can check out our guide on how to optimize your YouTube videos for more specifics.

3. Figure out what your audience wants

With any type of content you produce, you want to make sure it’s aligned with what your audience wants. Whether you’re writing a blog post or creating a video, start by getting to know your audience and what type of content they want to see from you.

If you’re just starting to promote your YouTube channel, take a look at your competitors or other video creators in your industry. Look at which of their videos get the most views and engagement. This will give you an idea of what topics your audience wants to learn about and what style of videos they prefer.

Another solution is to look at your YouTube Analytics if you’ve already uploaded videos. YouTube gives you detailed information on audience demographics, location, engagement and other helpful stats.

4. Engage with the YouTube community

Although you might not think of YouTube as a social network per se, the platform does represent a thriving community where users are engaging via content via profiles, “likes” and comments.

Sounds pretty “social” if you ask us.

As noted earlier, any sort of interaction with your viewers is seen as a positive signal to YouTube. If nothing else, engaging with your subscribers can help you foster a stronger connection with your audience. “Liking” comments only takes a few seconds, as does pinning a top comment as a sort of personal note to your subscribers.

For example, music channel Artzie Musik regularly “likes” and responds to comments on its recent uploads. The channel’s creator regularly goes back-and-forth with subscribers to show appreciation and answer questions, too.

Just as you’d respond to comments and engage with your followers on any other social network, YouTube is no different.

5. Customize your thumbnails

One of the simplest yet effective tactics to promote your YouTube channel is creating custom thumbnails.

Think of your title and thumbnail as a sort of one-two punch to grab a viewer’s attention.

By default, YouTube snags a screenshot from any given video and uses it for the thumbnail. Unfortunately, sometimes the image it grabs will be a blurry shot of you adjusting the camera or a transition.

Not a good look, right?

Creating thumbnails yourself not only makes your videos look more appealing at a glance but also signals a certain sense of professionalism.

Thumbnails don’t have to be rocket science, either. You can even create a template with a particular font and style to make it more consistent and on-brand. This is made especially easy with the help of image creation tools such as Canva. Here’s a good example from Binging with Babish:

6. Cross-promote your videos on YouTube

Chances are you’re covering similar topics on YouTube that overlap with each other.

To squeeze more out of your older content, make a point to cross-promote your videos when it makes sense.

For example, you can drop links in the description of a video and encourage viewers to check them out as a sort of call-to-action. Although some might be disappointed by the recent removal of YouTube’s annotation system, linking in your description encourages viewers to watch your videos all the way through without clicking away.

7. Target the SERPs

As noted, YouTube is totally killing it when it comes to SEO.

And while you shouldn’t totally create content for search engines versus people, you should promote your YouTube channel with SEO in mind.

Specifically, product reviews, how-to’s and long-form (10+ minutes) videos covering keyword-specific topics tend to rank well. If you’re strapped for content ideas or want to capitalize on a trending buzzword in your industry, consider how you can do so through your YouTube channel marketing.

8. Run a contest or giveaway

If there’s one thing YouTube users love, it’s a giveaway. Host a YouTube contest or giveaway to encourage people to subscribe to your channel and engage.

To keep your contests simple, have people like your video, leave a comment and subscribe to your channel to enter.

Follow some of our best practices for running any social media contest:

Make sure you’re following YouTube’s policies.

Give away a gift that’s related to your brand: you want to attract more than just freebie-seekers.

Get creative by incorporating user-generated content and other non-traditional entry requirements.

Be careful with hosting frequent YouTube contests, though. You want to make sure you’re getting results from your efforts: otherwise, you’ll end up wasting time, money and resources. After doing one contest, wait a while and look at your subscriber drop-off rate and engagement numbers. If you aren’t bringing in engaged subscribers, you could just be attracting people who want free prizes.

9. Encourage viewers to follow your series

A smart way to promote your YouTube channel is by creating a specific video series that covers a recurring theme or topic.

Popular foodie channel Bon Appétit actually has a variety of different series that make up their YouTube presence, including their ongoing “From the Test Kitchen” videos.

Series are a win-win for creators and viewers alike. For creators, you hold yourself accountable for creating fresh YouTube content and don’t have to rack your brain for ideas. For your audience, they have something to look forward to and likewise a reason to keep returning to your channel.

10. Embed your YouTube videos on-site

Some of the best places to promote your YouTube channel are beyond YouTube itself.

Case in point, video content is proven to improve conversion rates and lower bounce rate on-site. If you want visitors to stick around a product page or blog post longer, embed a video (like we did below).

Remember: any opportunity you have to funnel your on-site (or social!) traffic to YouTube is a plus.

11. Create playlists to organize your YouTube content

The more videos you create, the more difficult it becomes for people to navigate through your channel.

That’s why playlists are so important. Not only do playlists allow you to group your videos into categories to organize your channel, but also appeal to your viewers’ desire to binge.

For example, Beardbrand’s grooming channel uploads daily and therefore has amassed hundreds of videos covering tons of topics. The channel’s various playlists help guide subscribers to relevant content without having to dig for it.

12. When in doubt, ask for engagement

Sometimes simply asking for engagement is the best way to get your videos spread.

After all, not everyone who enjoys your video is going to drop a “like.”

Especially if you’re an up-and-coming channel, there’s no shame in asking for some love directly. In fact, asking visitors a question to answer in the comments suggestion or to check out another video are perfect ways to keep the engagement rolling. You can likewise link to other videos or drop an external link to your site to serve as a sort of CTA.

13. Give live streaming a try

Live video is one of the biggest social media trends and it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

With apps like Facebook, Periscope and Instagram making it easier than ever to stream live video, more and more brands are getting on board.

YouTube has been offering live videos for years but has only recently started picking up steam. You can take a look at some popular YouTube Live videos to get a sense of how other brands are using the platform.

Some examples of how you can use YouTube Live are:

Webinars

Live tutorials

Q&A sessions

Product demonstrations

Don’t worry if your streams don’t go as smoothly as you’d like. Part of the fun (and risk) of live video is you never know what’s going to happen. The unpolished, organic nature of live video is exactly what makes it compelling. For more tips on how to get started with YouTube Live, check out Google’s introduction to live streaming.

14. Collaborate with other creators and brands

A tactic some of the biggest YouTube stars used to grow their following is collaborating with other users. Each collaboration gives you exposure to a new audience. And the best part is those new viewers are more likely to subscribe to your channel since you’re working with a content creator they already know, like and trust.

The key to a successful YouTube collaboration is finding the right partner. You want to collaborate with content creators that share similar passions with your brand so your video comes off as authentic. This now-classic collaboration between BuzzFeed and Purina is a prime example of a thoughtful collaboration that doesn’t feel overly promotional.

15. Run a paid YouTube ad campaign

With marketing in general becoming more pay-to-play, you always have the option to promote your YouTube channel via ads. YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to choose from:

Display ads: These ads show up on the right-hand sidebar of videos, and are only available on desktop.

Overlay ads: These are semi-transparent ads that are displayed on the bottom part of a video. They’re only available on desktop.

Skippable and non-skippable video ads: These ads show up before, during or after a video. Skippable ads can be skipped after five seconds, but non-skippable ads have to be watched all the way through before the viewer can watch their video.

Bumper ads: These are non-skippable ads that have to be watched before the viewer can watch their video. They can be a maximum of six seconds.

Sponsored cards: These are cards that get displayed within relevant videos. You can use them to promote your products or other content.

For your ad creatives, you can either use an existing video or create something new for a specific campaign. The advantage of using an existing video is you can choose a clip you know has been effective in the past. If a video has already gotten a lot of views and engagement organically, running paid ads can amplify your results.

On the flip side, creating a new video for your ads will allow you to create a more targeted piece of content that you have more control over. For instance, you can create an ad with a specific call-to-action at the end to direct viewers to a landing page or another video. You can learn more about YouTube’s video ad formats here.

16. Regularly publish your YouTube content to social media

It’s no secret that video content crushes it on social media in terms of engagement and performance.

As a result, you should regularly promote your YouTube channel to your social followers to encourage them to become subscribers. As soon as a video goes live, make a point to let your followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn know about it. You can likewise create snippets or previews for each social platform that also link to your latest production.

With the help of Sprout Social, you can schedule your content and cross-promote it without having to jump from platform to platform. Features such as ViralPost can also help ensure that your content goes live based on when your social audiences are engaged.

And with that, we wrap up our guide to YouTube channel marketing!

How do you promote your YouTube channel?

Growing a YouTube audience doesn’t happen by accident.

And yes, it can certainly feel like a grind if your space is crowded with competition.

That’s exactly why it pays to have a variety of promotional tactics in your back pocket. Although some of the tips above require more effort than others, each one can help you get more eyes on your channel and more subscribers as a result.

We want to hear from you, though. Are you struggling to promote your YouTube channel? Any advice to fellow creators? Let us know in the comments below!

This post How to promote your YouTube channel to maximize views originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/how-to-promote-your-youtube-channel/

[minnievirizarry]

5 best practices to amplify your Facebook video ads

If you’re a regular Facebook user, you might have noticed a surge in the number of video ads on the platform. While businesses still use photo ads and carousel ads, they’re growing increasingly fond of the video advertising format. And there’s a good reason for that – people love watching videos. In fact, Facebook has an average daily video view of eight billion.

The case for Facebook video ads

A study by Locowise found that video content managed to reach 13.4% of a Facebook page’s total audience while photo content reached 13.13% of the total audience. Although the difference in reach isn’t much, videos have an impressive lead in engagement rate. The study found that videos engaged 5.49% of the audience reached while the engagement rate for photos was 4.67%.

Source: Locowise

Best practices for more impactful Facebook video ads

With the above stats in mind, here are five best practices you should follow if you want to create Facebook video ads that have an impact.

1. Establish the value of your product

Your video should be able to establish the value of your product by demonstrating what it can do for the audience. If you want people to take action after watching your video, make sure it’s not just entertaining. Otherwise, they’re just going to keep scrolling, looking for the next piece of content to consume.

Create videos that showcase exactly what your product is capable of and what problems it can solve. This will give the audience a better idea of how your product can be of value to them.

Adobe Spark, for instance, created Facebook ads using videos created by its users. Since the ad is trying to promote the platform’s video creation feature, showcasing an example of the end result is the perfect solution to demonstrate the types of videos that can be created using Adobe Spark.

2. Include a teaser summary

Sure, your video may already have a headline and subheading, but that’s not always enough to engage your audience. You will need to include additional context that sets up the video in a compelling and captivating way.

You also can use the space to give additional information about the product that didn’t make it into the video. Or you could even add a short teaser phrase or question that compels people to watch it.

Take for example the following ad from Lensball. They’ve included a summary with a brief explanation of what the product is and ended it with a call to action (CTA) to visit the brand’s site.

3. Design videos that resonate without sound

A 2016 internal Facebook study found that 80% of people have a negative reaction to the unexpected playing of loud video ads, though through the same research, Facebook also found that 41% of videos were meaningless without sound. And according to Digiday, roughly 85% of video views on the platform happen with no sound. So if you want to create video ads that have an impact, you need to design for sound off first. Fortunately, Facebook gives you the ability to easily add captions to your video ads, including the option to enable automated captions.

The Lacoste Facebook video ad is an excellent example of one that’s designed for sound off. Titled “Timeless,” the ad told a love story spanning decades and showed the characters growing and evolving by displaying an evolution of their style. The only constant was the protagonist’s polo shirt, signifying that it’s a timeless style choice.

Source: Facebook Business Success Story

4. Aim to engage in the first 3 seconds

The first three seconds of your Facebook video ads are the most critical. If you can’t immediately intrigue the audience during this period, there’s a good chance they’re not going to watch the rest of the video. According to Facebook, 65% of people who watch the first three seconds of a video will continue watching for at least 10 seconds. And 45% will continue watching for 30 seconds.

For America’s Test Kitchen, switching from still images to animated videos had a significant impact on their lead ads. They ran a test on three different types of motion: animating a recipe, animating a logo and animating a still image of a fried egg. All of these motions were added during the first three seconds of the video.

They found that the bold food image seemed to resonate most with the audience. And the animated version of the fried egg performed much better than the still image. Their leads increased by 45% and they were able to reduce their cost per lead by 31%.

Source: Facebook Business Success Story

5. Avoid landscape videos

There are three Facebook video ad specs you can use–vertical, square and landscape. If you want your ads to have a bigger impact, you’re going to need either vertical or square videos. This is mainly because a majority of Facebook users access the platform on their smartphones, as opposed to desktops and laptops. And square and vertical formats are more suitable for mobile screens, leading to their success.

Compared to landscape videos, square videos take up 78% more space on a user’s News Feed. This means your ads will be fully on display and easy to see. Aside from that, a study by Animoto found that square and vertical formats outperformed landscape videos in terms of views, engagements and completion rate.

For example, the Jane Goodall Institute decided to run an A/B test using square and landscape videos for their Facebook ad. They spent $50 on each version but  square video proved to be the big winner. The square version recorded twice as many views and three times as many shares as the landscape version.

Source: Animoto

Square and vertical videos look better on mobile, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be sacrificing your ad aesthetics on desktops and laptops. The following screenshot of a vertical MUBI video ad is from a laptop. It looks just as attractive as it would on a smartphone, so you won’t be making any compromises if you switch to square or vertical Facebook video ads.

Have you tried any of these best practices to improve your Facebook video ads? Which one’s your favorite? Let us know in the comments below.

  This post 5 best practices to amplify your Facebook video ads originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-video-ads/

[minnievirizarry]

How to foolproof your Facebook advertising strategy

If you have absolutely no idea how to approach your Facebook advertising strategy these days, you aren’t alone.

It’s no secret that Facebook’s organic reach has taken a nosedive. Recent algorithm changes have basically forced businesses to invest in paid campaigns or abandon ship.

But before you write off Facebook as a lost cause, think again.

Facebook is still the preferred place for 97% of marketers to run paid ads for a reason. After all, Facebook boasts the largest user-base of any social network and one of the most engaged.

In other words, if you have an audience of any kind there’s a non-zero chance they’re active on Facebook already. Combine that with the fact that Facebook’s ad targeting is insanely in-depth and it’s crystal clear why your business should still be on board.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Facebook ads are foolproof on their own. In this Facebook advertising guide, we’ll break down the best practices of running ads on Facebook and what you need to know to get started.

1. Define your target audience

The biggest benefit of Facebook ads is the ability to target specific people who are most likely to buy.

And only those people.

Unlike PPC of the past, modern Facebook advertising lets you get granular with your targeting, only serving ads to relevant users. Below is a quick breakdown of how businesses can drill down and define a target audience that’s ready to click through and convert.

Creating an audience

For starters, use Facebook to create ad audiences from scratch. Businesses can define audiences based on specific parameters such as:

Location: for example, local businesses can target their own cities or serve ads to nearby neighborhoods where new customers might be waiting

Age: if your audience has a broad age range (think: millennials versus baby boomers), you can segment your ads accordingly rather than take a one-size-fits-all approach

Interests: based on your users “likes” and Facebook activity, the platform can highlight potential customers (think: a local bike shop targeting users following Schwinn’s brand page or list “biking” as an interest)

Demographics: additional details such as education level or relationship status can help you target specific social media personas that resemble your real-life customers

Custom Audiences

Also known as “remarketing ads,” Custom Audiences can be a game-changer for your Facebook advertising strategy.

Simply put, these types of ads target members of your audience who’ve interacted with your business in the past.

Maybe they’re former or current customers. Perhaps it’s someone who engaged with your Facebook page or visited your site.

With the help of tools such as Facebook Pixel, businesses get a sort of “second chance” to win over leads who already know who you are. Here’s a snapshot of what you can use to create a Custom Audience, including a customer file such as your email list.

Lookalike audiences

Another key feature of Facebook ads, Lookalike audiences empower businesses to target new prospects based on their current customers. In short, you can target a Facebook audience that resembles your most loyal customers or people who’ve already engaged with your ad campaigns. If your Facebook advertising strategy is centered around prospecting and awareness, Lookalike audiences are for you.

2. Pick the right types of ads

Just as businesses have endless options for ad targeting, they’re likewise spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing the types of ads they produce.

Consider first the three different types of goals related to your Facebook advertising strategy:

Awareness: increasing your reach and introducing your business to potential customers via Facebook ads

Consideration: encouraging interactions between prospects and your marketing messages

Conversions: taking those “would-be” buyers and convincing them to become full-fledged customers

These goals will ultimately determine the direction you take with your ads, including the creatives and ad types that you choose. Although some brands may have soured on Facebook as of late, there’s no denying the new ad features they’ve rolled out recently.

For example, collection ads are booming right now. A revised spin on high-performing carousel ads, these eye-popping messages allow brands to show off multiple products at once.

  As noted, remarketing ads are a proven way to bring former customers back into the fold by serving as a sort of “Aha!” moment in their Facebook feeds.

And although Facebook Stories are still relatively young, many brands are killing it with full-screen Stories ads to compel people to click.

With so many choices, it’s important to familiarize yourself with Facebook’s ad specs and new features.

And actually, that leads us to our next point!

3. Sort out your ad creatives

Chances are you already have some ad creatives and sleek product photos on deck, right?

That said, what clicks with customers on Facebook is surprisingly specific. Based on best practices and what we’ve found based on our own research, here are some key creative tips for your Facebook advertising strategy.

Don’t neglect entertainment value

Being boring is a kiss of death for any ad campaign and Facebook is no different. The more entertaining you make your ads, the less they feel like, well, ads. Whether it’s humor or imagery that catches people’s eyes, strive to avoid static, stuffy campaigns.

Speaking of which…

If possible, use video

You’ve heard it a thousand times but it bears repeating: video content is totally crushing it right now. Videos are capable of showing off your ads in action, perfect for both raising awareness and grabbing users’ attention. Oh, and don’t forget that Facebook has explicitly encouraged brands to get on board with video in the wake of their algorithm shift.

Think of a video ad as a sort of mini commercial for your brand. Stopping scrollers in their tracks, video is fair game for just about any business. A noted Facebook success story, brands like SakeTrek have seen exponentially higher downloads and in-app purchases as a result of video ads.

Come up with a compelling call-to-action

Any sort of engagement is a plus with your Facebook ads, but ultimately you’re on the hunt for clicks. To make those clicks happen, you need a strong call-to-action.

This ad from Drift is a prime example of how to use your CTA to encourage direct, specific actions. Encouraging users to save their spot before time runs out, the engagement and views for this ad speak for themselves.

Sticking to the principles above, you can better position your ads for clicks and conversions.

4. Test and track your campaigns

Before you jump knee-deep into your Facebook advertising strategy, you need to figure out how to navigate the platform first.

And yeah, there’s definitely a learning curve involved.

With so many metrics to track and variables to watch, we don’t blame any marketer for getting a bit overwhelmed.

This is exactly why we encourage newbies to run smaller test campaigns to get their feet wet and make adjustments before blowing out their budgets.

Speaking of budgets, Facebook can serve your ads for you based on what they perceive as “optimal” engagement or they can run on a set schedule. There is no “right” answer for how to budget, just know that you can quickly drain your dollars if you don’t set restrictions.

On a related note, Facebook recently announced that they’re moving toward campaign budget optimization for all ads coming September 2019. In theory, this should spell good news for brands to help them squeeze more out of their ad budgets.

Another key piece of Facebook advertising is the platform’s reporting features. Again, Facebook gets incredibly granular in terms of what you can track. If you want to figure out if you’re getting a positive ROI or relevant click, look no further than your reports. Tracking specific events, reach and amount spent, you have a wealth of data at your fingertips to figure out what’s working and what’s not.

5. Combine paid campaigns with organic activity

In most cases, it’s in the best interest for businesses to adopt a hybrid social media strategy.

That is, organically targeting customers through content and community-building while supplementing your Facebook advertising strategy with paid campaigns.

Doing so gives you the best of both worlds. Although organic reach is indeed throttled, that’s no excuse to abandon Facebook or neglect the potential of employee advocacy or customer service to connect with customers. Although paid ads encourage conversions, organic activity can help you build relationships and familiarity with your brand.

Tools such as Sprout’s analytics make it easier to track how you’re doing on Facebook for both your paid and organic campaigns alike. Here’s a snapshot of how Sprout simplifies and highlights the success of your hybrid strategy.

Oh, and Sprout’s paid performance reports provide a simple, straightforward illustration of how your paid campaigns are doing without getting into the weeds. This serves as a quick diagnosis of your Facebook advertising strategy and whether or not you’re seeing growth.

What does your Facebook advertising strategy look like?

Hopefully, this Facebook advertising guide served as some much-needed direction if you’ve been struggling with the platform.

And believe us, there are plenty of folks struggling with Facebook right now.

But although many business’ relationships with Facebook is complicated, the value of Facebook as an advertising channel is undeniable.

We want to hear from you, though! What does your Facebook advertising strategy look like these days? Have you had to make any major changes after the algorithm update? Let us know in the comments below.

This post How to foolproof your Facebook advertising strategy originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-advertising-strategy/

[minnievirizarry]

How to regram on Instagram

Incorporating others’ content into your Instagram feed is a common and effective Instagram strategy. User-generated content (UGC) is often used by brands to showcase their customers and influencers. To find UGC, read up on how to listen and monitor on Instagram.

To use UGC, you’ll need to know how to regram on Instagram. In this article, we’ll walk you through a few of your regramming options. Options vary from free to paid tools and apps.

Can I regram without leaving Instagram?

No – unlike Twitter and Facebook with their easy Retweet and Share features, Instagram does not have a repost button. Since its inception, Instagram has maintained a preference for original content. But that certainly doesn’t stop its users for finding creative ways to regram.

As you can see above, sharing to other networks is easy but it is not possible to regram without the help of another app or program. Later on in this article, we’ll provide you with several different ways to regram.

When it comes to directly publishing to Instagram with an app, it’s important to note that it’s offered for business accounts and official Instagram Partners. Be wary of apps that are not part of the official program but still offer the service.

How to regram manually with a screenshot

Without the use of another app, you always have the screenshot option.

Here’s how to regram with a screenshot:

Find the post that you want to regram.

Screenshot on your phone.

Crop the photo to take out all extra materials.

Create a new Instagram post with the fresh photo.

User beware, though, this method is limited by your phone model’s resolution. If you have an older model, your photo may display a little blurrier to someone using a new model.

How to regram with Sprout Social

Because Sprout Social is an official Instagram Partner, we can offer both the repost function and the auto-publishing function via our mobile app.

Here’s how to regram with Sprout Social:

Find the post you want to repost.

Click on the three dots in the upper right corner of the post.

Click copy link.

Open the Sprout Social app

Click the in-app notification “Found Instagram Share Link! Tap to Reshare.”

It’ll open up a prompt. Choose “Schedule or Queue” or “Repost Now.”

The account’s name, username and first few caption lines will be copied over. Edit to suit your brand’s voice.

The Instagram post will be automatically published.

The beauty of using Sprout for your regramming efforts is that you can save posts as drafts. There’s no need for you immediately repost the photo. Secondly, the photo that’s reposted does not have a watermark. This is important if you want to keep your feed looking seamless.

In addition to this method of regramming through Sprout, you can also republish posts found with your monitored hashtags through the Feeds tab on the iOS app.

How to regram using Repost for Instagram +

There are many regramming apps out there. Many of these apps are free with paid features, such as removing a watermark. You may also need to contend with watching ads or having them in corners of the apps. Repost for Instagram + is one such app that is free to use.

Here’s how to regram with Repost for Instagram +:

Find the post you want to regram.

Click on the three dots in the upper right corner of the post.

Open up the Repost for Instagram + app.

The post will appear. You’ll have a choice on which corner to place the repost overlay. You can also have no overlay.

Choose if you want to copy the caption or not. Click repost. If you do choose to copy the caption, the app will add “Posted @withrepost •”.

The app will request to open up Instagram.

There are a few pros to using this app. If you aren’t able to invest in a social media management solution yet, a free app is an easy choice. You’re also able to keep potential reposts in the app without publishing them immediately. When you copy a link over to the app, the post will appear in the app along with previously reposted photos. When it comes time to repost, select the one you want and publish it.

Finally, if you only want to only save the images and upload to a social media publisher, go through the motions for reposting. After you click on repost, the image will be saved to your photos.

How to repost with Later

Another free service with paid plans, Later offers a “Search & Repost” feature. You’ll need hashtags to find the post.

Here’s how to regram with Later:

Find the post you want to repost. Look at its hashtags and identify one to use to search by (the least commonly used would be the easiest).

Open up Later online.

Navigate to the left sidebar and find “Search & Repost”.

Enter one of the hashtags used on the post.

Find the post and click “Add to Library”.

The first few lines of the caption and hashtags the user used will be copied over.

In your library, find the post to schedule it.

Image: Later

Later’s Instagram publishing features are robust. You’re able to upload photos and videos, schedule them as you’d like and preview your Instagram grid. Its free plan limits you on the number of posts you can make in one month.

How to repost in Stories

We’ve been discussing a lot about how to regram in the Instagram feed, but what about Stories? You may find yourself with lots of potential content but it might not fit into your feed for a number of reasons. The post could be too visually off brand for you. Or you want to reshare someone’s Story that mentioned you. Here’s how to repost with Stories.

Reshare from feed to Story

It’s easy to reshare an in-feed post to your Story. Keep in mind that if you are sharing from a private account and you have a public one, you will only be able to share the post in DMs and not in your Story. If you’re unsure if the account is private, a warning will appear when you try and reshare.

Find the post you want to share.

Click the airplane share icon.

Select “Add post to story”.

Instagram Story will appear in edit mode with the post’s photo embedded in the center.

If you tap the post, it will change the design and offer the first few words from the caption.

Add what you’d like to the Story and then click “Your Story” to post it.

When someone sees your Story, they can click the embedded item and it’ll take them directly to the original post.

One fun twist on this is to place the UGC in the Story itself. Converse created a roundup of posts that mentioned them and the result is an entertaining recap.

Repost from Story to Story

Maybe someone’s Story is so good that you want to repost it into your own. Or maybe they mentioned you and you’d like to repost that. For the former, we recommend asking permission to repost and then taking a screenshot. For the latter, it’s easy to do.

If they mention you, the Story will appear in your DMs.

Find the DM. Click the “Add this to Your Story” prompt that appears on Stories that can be shared.

It’ll take you to the Story creation screen where you can resize the Story and add items to the background.

A good example of this tactic in use is Whole Foods’ recap of the best Story mentions they’ve had. See the above video to see how this was put into action.

Reshare from Story to feed

Maybe your Instagram Story had a lot of traction and you think it’d do well in your feed. It’s possible to repurpose your Instagram Story into a feed post.

Open up the Instagram Story you want to post. It can be a current Story or one in your Archive.

Select “Share as Post…”

This will take you to the screen where you can start a new post.

4 Best practices for regramming

Now that you know how to regram, you need to learn about best practices. We do not recommend reposting whatever you want. Be thoughtful and be kind.

1. Ask for permission and give credit

Instagram policy states that the original photographer owns the right of the photo. Using their photo without permission is a violation of this policy. Original photographers can file an intellectual property violation against you, which may lead to post deletion or account disablement with repeat offenses. For more information on what copyright on Instagram means, review their help page.

There are a couple of ways to ask for permission:

In a comment: post under the photo and ask if you can repost with credit.

Send the post as a DM to the account and ask for permission.

Go a step further and add a link to your terms of use like Airbnb does.

2. Keep true to the original photographer

This means you should keep edits at a minimum. Try not to crop or add filters in a way that would take from the original work. Additionally, pay attention to the original caption. If there’s a caption that was written to emotionally match the photo, don’t just take the photo and write about your upcoming sale.

A simple credit line like Girlboss does above is a great way to give credit to the original post.

3. Mix up original and regrammed content

A feed that features only regrammed content is really just a repost account. If you’re a brand with services and products, content is still king and original content still performs well. Using UGC in your strategy should be more about highlighting your customers’ feedback and uses of your product.

4. Keep it on brand

Visually and in writing, you want the items you repost to still be relatively on brand. For example, if you have a brand color of green and it shows up throughout your account’s feed, then you wouldn’t want to repost something that is mostly bright pink.

For captions, if you’re quoting the original post, you’ll want to make sure that it still positively reflects your brand and the brand voice. Check out the user profile to ensure that they’re also a good account to repost from. While it’s not a formal endorsement, reposts still work as a boost for the creator.

Topshop uses a mix of original and regrammed content. You’ll notice that the visual feel of their feed is still relatively the same, though.

Conclusion

Regramming on Instagram is pretty simple now with a variety of apps available to you. The strategy is not only great at creating stronger bonds between you and your customer, it gives you additional content. With this guide, we hope you learned the basics of how to regram and the best practices to use when doing so.

This post How to regram on Instagram originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/how-to-regram/

[minnievirizarry]

How to one-up your competition with social media industry analysis

Reality check: conducting industry analysis doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming.

In fact, it’s arguably easier than ever.

And we have social media to thank for that.

Whether it’s competitor activity or trends dominating your space, industry analysis through social media provides real-time insights for businesses.

How so? According to data from the Sprout Social Index, the following two types of posts receive the most engagement via social:

Content that educates followers

Content that highlights new products and services

The takeaway here is that social media is a prime place to conduct industry analysis. If you want a better understanding of what your competitors are doing or what your customers want, the information is out in the open.

That is, if you’re listening for it.

What is industry analysis, anyway?

Industry analysis involves researching your target audience, competitors and customers to uncover relevant product and content insights.

Social media manages to highlight the happenings of your industry in real-time without any sort of filter.

Want to know what your competitors are promoting? Curious about what your customers are buzzing about? Chances are you can find the answers in your social feed.

Just as consumers adopt trends at a break-neck pace, businesses are expected to keep up. Think about industries like fashion and food which are so time and trend-sensitive. Whether it’s the latest festival fashion or the milkshake IPA craze, brands that don’t have a pulse on the social space are definitely missing out.

Social media industry analysis isn’t just about what your competitors are doing, though. To figure out where you stand in your industry, it’s crucial to look inward. This means digging into customer insights to see what you’re doing that’s winning over actual buyers to uncover new trends as well.

When people think social media, they often think “likes” and follower counts, right?

But we’re not talking about vanity metrics here. Instead, social media industry analysis involves answering three specific points:

What products is your audience currently interested in?

What are the challenges and desires of your audience?

Where do you stand versus your competitors when it comes to addressing the two points above?

Why you need to conduct social media industry analysis right now

Although there are benefits to reading through in-depth reports and white papers, social media has its own distinct set of advantages for industry analysis. Here’s a quick breakdown of why modern companies need to mind the social space.

Authenticity. Again, social media allows businesses to engage with actual customers with real desires and challenges. You don’t have to second-guess what your audience wants: they’re more than happy to tell you directly.

Accessibility. The amount of data available via social media industry analysis is absolutely staggering. Popular products? Your competitors’ content strategies? Sales objections and opportunities? They’re all available via public posts across social.

Timeliness. This is perhaps the biggest benefit of social media industry analysis. Whereas more time-sensitive research or analysis can date itself quickly, social media highlights real-time insights and conversations.

How to conduct industry analysis with social media

The beauty of social media analysis is that there are endless conversations to analyze.

Therein lies the challenge, though.

How do you see the forest through the trees? Below are some key steps to conducting industry analysis and how businesses can tap into their most valuable conversations.

Understand where your competitors and customers are talking

Industry analysis involves looking at both competitor and consumer behavior.

Social media allows you to dig into both simultaneously.

For starters, following companies and industry publications on LinkedIn makes sense for both competitor analysis and uncovering how your customers are changing based on data. Here you can track competitor milestones as well as breaking news relevant to your industry.

  On the flip side, platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are great for spotting real-life insights and experiences for actual consumers. These networks will clue you in on pain points people are actually facing which can affirm (or challenge) the trends you see from industry players.

The takeaway here is that social media industry analysis means being in multiple places at once. Confining your presence to a single platform means that you’re inevitably letting conversations fall by the wayside. This doesn’t mean that you necessarily need to be active on every single social network but at the very least have your ear to the ground across the web.

And hey, that leads us directly to our next point.

Discover and uncover relevant industry conversations

There’s no denying that navigating social media can be daunting, which is why businesses need to hone their search when conducting industry analysis.

Not unlike traditional search, industry terms and keywords are a solid starting point. Hashtags are more or less the social equivalent across most social networks.  Relevant terms (#fallfashion, #contentmarketing, etc) can highlight trends, conversations and influencers.

  With the help of hashtag analysis, businesses can spot related conversations coming from consumer and competitors alike.

Speaking of competitors, much of industry analysis involves keeping an eye on your competitor’s milestones and content. While follower counts and “likes” certainly matter, they shouldn’t be your top priorities.

Following competitors can clue you in on milestones, initiatives and new product roll-outs as they happen. Why are they scoring mentions? How does your positioning compare to theirs?

Take for example Herbal Essences’ recent cruelty-free product initiative. This announcement scored them some seriously positive press and resulted in a flurry of competitor call-outs from their satisfied customers.

Being aware of competitor activity and positioning as it happens makes it easier for your business to respond and adapt. To help organize your industry analysis efforts, check out our competitive analysis template.

Beyond direct competitors, also mind the major bloggers, influencers and publications that cover your industry. For example, competitor analysis tools such as BuzzSumo can help highlight blogs and industry players scoring major social shares. Although these people might be neutral toward your business, their opinions certainly hold weight in your space.

Talk to your customers

This might seem like a no-brainer but your customers are one of your best sources when it comes to industry analysis.

Think about it.

They know you. They trust you.

And they’re the ones who are going to give you honest, unfiltered feedback on what they want from your business.

Besides, the majority of consumers support brands that are open, transparent and honest. Social feedback, whether it be positive or negative, is key to determining where you stand in your industry.

That’s why you can’t afford to ignore social mentions and comments. Every shout-out or complaint is a potential data point regarding what your business is doing right or needs to improve upon.

And hey, that’s exactly why social listening goes hand in hand with industry analysis.

How to conduct actionable industry analysis with social listening

For the sake of capitalizing on customer conversations and uncovering trends, strategic social listening is a game-changer.

Rather than sift through thousands of posts, Sprout can help you conduct industry analysis in the fraction of time it would take to do so manually.

For starters, Sprout’s query builder allows you to track mentions and keyword phrases related to your business as they happen in real-time. This analysis includes hashtags, too.

  Look at your share of voice

In addition to seeing what people are saying about you or your competitors, you can dig even deeper by analyzing your share of voice. In short, you can figure out how your mention volume compares to other businesses in your space. These touchpoints speak directly to how well your brand is engaging its target audience.

See what your sentiment is

Just because you or a competitor is scoring a ton of mentions doesn’t necessarily tell a complete story.

Because behind every mention of your brand is some sort of emotion. That’s where sentiment analysis comes in handy. 

Sprout’s sentiment analysis features track over time how your brand is perceived by its audience. This helps ensure that you’re seen as a positive force in your space and stay in the good graces of potential customers. Likewise, this can help you spot potential problems with your social presence and nip them in the bud.

Track your growth

Of course, the end-game of industry analysis is to grow your influence and customer-base. By measuring your engagement volume with the help of Sprout, you know exactly whether or not you’re building buzz or free to push new initiatives. Our social listening performance report lets you know at a glance how your brand is performing and whether that growth is happening.

  And with that, we wrap up our guide to industry analysis!

Ready to conduct social media industry analysis?

Through social media, there’s more industry data at your fingertips than ever before.

And while there may indeed be a lot of noise, there’s also a treasure trove of business intelligence to gather which can help you stand apart from your competition.

Digging through that data means taking a strategic approach to analyzing and listening to your industry’s conversations. With the tips above and tools such as Sprout, you can translate that data into action.

This post How to one-up your competition with social media industry analysis originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-industry-analysis/

[minnievirizarry]

How to master social listening for sales

The fact that companies are expected to be active on social media is a no-brainer.

But what about individual salespeople?

Reality check: scoring sales on social media isn’t just a matter of “if you build it, they will come.”

Sure, you might have a marketing funnel that attracts and converts customers directly from social media.

However, don’t neglect the role of individual sales reps in closing those deals.

Customers acquired via social selling by employees are seven times more likely to convert according to industry data by Bambu. Not only that, but those same reps are also more likely to exceed their sales quotas.

The takeaway here is that salespeople should have a pulse on customer conversions on social media. That’s exactly why social listening for sales is a must-do for modern companies.

Step-by-step social listening for sales professionals

Before sending your team “into the wild,” it’s important to understand how social listening empowers your team to build meaningful relationships with new customers.

In this guide, we’ll cover how to harness the power of social listening for sales step-by-step. We’ll cover best practices, strategies to uncover sales conversations and use your social data to close more deals in the future.

1. Figure out where your prospects and leads are hanging out

Social listening for sales can be incredibly daunting because there are so many conversations happening at once. Given that consumers aren’t shy about calling out brands for being too “salesy,” it’s important to listen to conversations before barging in on them.

That’s why it literally pays to hone your search for prospects and leads. The “best” networks for sales vary from business to business. Chances are you won’t confine your search to a single platform, though.

For example, B2B companies should most definitely be tuned into LinkedIn which is responsible for approximately 80% of B2B leads on social media. Salespeople are capable of following the updates of companies and individual employees alike, both of which can help you build a list of potential outreach candidates.

Meanwhile, platforms like Facebook and Instagram are more practical for B2C brands. This is where you’ll not only find tons of potential customers asking for recommendations but also talking about their most recent purchases and experiences.

And then there’s Twitter, a platform that’s fair game for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Combined with communities such as Quora and Reddit, businesses clearly have plenty of ground to cover when it comes to uncovering leads and prospects.

To keep you from falling down the rabbit hole, social listening through Sprout can help narrow your search for sales opportunities. From brand mentions to product queries, you can focus on the platforms that matter most to your sales team.

But this begs the question: what terms and searches are going to lead you to those sales in the first place?

2. Identify sales-specific conversations and keywords

Social listening for sales means being in tune with conversations your real-life customers are having.

And so identifying buyer intent ultimately boils down to what people are searching for on social media.

Below is a snapshot of the conversations and keywords that matter most for sales. Any combination of these terms can help highlight questions, pain points and concerns that salespeople can address directly.

Help-specific terms. These terms signal prospects who are looking for specific answers that could result in a sale. This could mean a product recommendation or a piece of content (“help,” “recommend,” “tips,” “ideas,” etc).

Industry terms. These terms are specific to your industry or whatever product you’re selling. These terms signal a certain level of awareness that means that they’re probably beyond the “just browsing” phase (“web design,” “email marketing,” “ecommerce,” etc).

“Need a platform to get my ecommerce business off the ground. Total newbie here. Thoughts?”

Geo-specific terms. For brick-and-mortar businesses, these are terms that can help you tap into local markets based on your business’ location (“Austin,” “Texas,” “Southwest,” “downtown,” etc).

Transactional terms. These terms highlight prospects ready to spend but are stuck on making a decision (“sale,” “price,” “pricing,” “cost,” etc).

“Why is it so hard to find an email marketing tool with transparent pricing?”

Brand mentions. Obviously, it makes sense to keep an eye on your mentions for leads and prospects who are familiar with your brand. These instances include direct tags and brand mentions alike (@SproutSocial versus “Sprout Social, for example).

“Thinking about getting started with @SproutSocial but I’m on the fence…”

A combination of social monitoring and listening can lead your sales team right to people who might need some reassurance or an extra “push” to become full-fledged customers.

Specifically, you can save some serious time with the help of advanced listening features in Sprout such as the query builder. This tool allows businesses to highlight relevant sales conversations as they happen. No more jumping from platform to platform, no more searching “by hand.”

3. Capitalize on your competition

Chances are you aren’t the only business on the block using social listening for sales.

That’s why it’s crucial to monitor competitor mentions on social media in addition to your own. It’s common to see people pit brands against each other on social media: if you can respond in a timely manner, odds are you can win that person over.

Such conversations are a prime opportunity to share helpful content and highlight your unique selling proposition. The goal here isn’t to trash your competition, but to provide a helping hand.

Even in cases where you don’t make the sale, you can learn valuable information such as sales objections or services that a competitor offers that you don’t. The mere act of replying shows that you’re actively listening and represent a positive voice in your industry.

On a related note, salespeople can use sentiment analysis to understand the emotions behind your business.

Maybe people are stoked about your latest launch. Perhaps they’re disappointed in your lack of a certain feature. Either way, sentiment analysis gives salespeople a better sense of how people feel about your brand at large and what customers expect from you as a result.

4. Gain more meaningful audience insights

If nothing else, social media for sales is invaluable for improving your customer personas.

What products and services are people hungry for? What challenges are they facing?

Again, consumers today are anything but shy when it comes to sounding off about businesses. From demographics to specific pain points, there’s perhaps no better place to gather information to give you a more complete picture of your target audience.

Take a look at Xtensio’s customer persona template creator to see just how granular companies today are getting in terms of their personas. 

Each of these points can be filled out with the help of social media. This speaks to why it’s so important for brands to not only listen to their own customers while following competitors and relevant industry publications, too.

5. Respond to questions and queries in a timely manner

Timeliness matters when it comes to responding to customers on social and potential sales opportunities are no exception.

As highlighted in our guide to Twitter customer service, moments on social media are fleeting. Leaving people hanging is not only a bad look for your business but could very well result in lost sales.

And when we talk about timeliness, we’re talking about within 24 hours at the very most.

This again speaks to the importance of social media monitoring. Having real-time access to your audience ensures that you don’t let any potential opportunities fall by the wayside. With tools like Sprout which allow sales and customer services teams to collaborate and see who’s saying what, you can craft responses that make sense based on your specific conversation.

Sprout actually allows you to tag and tier your conversations based on their needs and priority. This keeps your social inbox from becoming a free-for-all and ensures that your customers get the attention they deserve.

  6. Warm up your list of leads and prospects

Lastly, don’t neglect the importance of making brief touchpoints with your leads and prospects on social media.

Not everything needs to be about the “hard sell.” Instead, simply following, “liking” and sharing the content of your target audience can do the trick. Doing so helps sow the seed of customer loyalty as you stand out from competitors who might not be giving their leads the time of day.

There’s a reason why so many sales reps rely on social media for account-based marketing. Any engagement with your audience is a plus: before hitting someone with a sales call or email, consider how you can test the waters of your conversation through a brief “like” or comment.

And with that, we wrap up our list!

How are you using social listening for sales?

No matter what your business or industry might be, there’s a place for social media in your sales strategy.

From warming up potential relationships to dealing with leads directly, salespeople need to have their ears to the ground to uncover new opportunities.

That’s exactly why social listening is so important. With the help of tools such as Sprout, you can zero in on conversations that help score more sales while also learning more about your target audience.

We want to hear from you, though. How do you spot sales opportunities on social media currently? Do you have a specific strategy in place? Let us know in the comments below!

This post How to master social listening for sales originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-listening-for-sales/

[minnievirizarry]

10 Sprout features you might not know about

From Publishing to Reporting, Sprout Social continues to develop new features designed to enhance your workflow. With all of the features available on Sprout, you might be overlooking a few easy opportunities to save time and gain greater insight into your social performance.

To help you make the most of Sprout features, our experts on the Customer Support team created a list of 10 great Sprout tips that can help you get the most out of your social marketing.

Publishing

1. Create posts tailored to each social platform

Scheduling to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter all at once saves time, but you may want to change the content to fit the platform. On Instagram, you may want to add your hashtags, but on Facebook and Twitter, you may want to include links to your website.

You don’t need to repeatedly copy and paste content to create customized posts for each network. This Sprout feature provides a more streamlined solution: Schedule + Duplicate.

You can create your post for Instagram with hashtags, then click Schedule + Duplicate to see the post automatically reopen in your Compose window with any text and attachments. From there, select your Facebook Page, edit the post as you’d like and send it out! This will also allow you to quickly schedule the same message across multiple Twitter profiles.

How to execute:

Open the Compose window > create the post for your first platform(s).

Click the green caret to open the dropdown menu > select Schedule + Duplicate.

Click Schedule and the post will re-open in Compose.

Make your modifications > send out the post again.

Pro-tip: Use this feature to publish links to Twitter and Facebook. You can delete the URL for Facebook so that only the link preview shows, but include the URL for Twitter to ensure a Twitter Card is created once published.

2. Preview your Instagram grid on mobile

When publishing to Instagram, you can preview your grid by using Sprout’s mobile app. This Sprout feature allows you to envision how all of your posts will look together once published.

How to execute:

Open the Sprout mobile app.

Click Publishing > Calendar > scroll to find your Instagram post.

Click on the grid icon at the bottom of the post.

Pro-tip: The grid previews the date that the message is scheduled to publish. To preview all of your scheduled messages on the grid at once, click on the grid icon while viewing the message scheduled furthest out.

3. Receive notifications for failed messages and repost

While we hope that post failures do not happen often, we also know that temporary server errors or formatting issues may cause a post to be rejected by the native networks. To make sure that you do not lose any of your carefully curated content, enable failed message push notifications in the Sprout mobile app.

How to execute:

Click the gear icon in the Sprout mobile app > Notifications Preferences > toggle on Failed Posts.

If you receive a push notification for a failed post, click on the bell icon in the upper left corner of the Sprout app > Publishing.

From there, click on the post under Failed Posts.

Edit the post if necessary in the Compose window > then click Send.

Pro-tip: You can enable additional Sprout push notifications—like Successful Scheduled Posts and assigned Tasks—in Notifications Preferences on the Sprout mobile app as well.

4. Schedule directly from your browser with Sprout’s extensions

When working from Google Chrome and Firefox, you can install Sprout’s extension to share a link any time you come across interesting content.

How to execute:

Open Utilities & Goodies in Sprout while working in Google Chrome or Firefox.

Click to install the Chrome extension or the Firefox bookmark.

Open the extension while viewing a webpage you’d like to share > schedule your post!

Pro-tip: While you’re in the Utilities & Goodies tab, take a look at Sprout’s other timesavers, like Keyboard Shortcuts!

Engagement

5. Optimize your Brand Keywords with Search Operators

If you don’t already have Brand Keywords set up on your account, this is one Sprout feature you’ll definitely want to check out.

If you’ve already set up Brand Keywords, though, you can still optimize these using Search Operators. Are users frequently referring to your brand as “Sprout Coffee Inc.” instead of “Sprout Coffee Co.”? You can make the most of Brand Keywords by using the “OR” search operator. Create the following Brand Keyword to make sure you’re not missing any opportunities to engage your fans:

“Sprout Coffee Co.” OR “Sprout Coffee Inc.”

For more Brand Keyword ideas, you can check out our full list of Search Operators below:

How to execute:

Edit your Brand Keyword in the Smart Inbox

Add a new filter like OR or -@sproutcoffeeco.

Pro-tip: if you’re running a campaign and your Inbox is crowded with @mentions for that campaign, you can filter them out by creating a temporary Brand Keyword.

For example, if Sprout Coffee Co. has a campaign to @mention the handle and use #50percentoff, they could turn off the main @ mention filter for the duration of the campaign and instead create a Brand Keyword with “@sproutcoffeeco -#50percentoff” to filter through the noise.

6. Moderate ad comments in the Smart Inbox

Many social media marketers are creating ad content to engage their audiences. Once you’ve created your ads, you can also respond to incoming comments on these posts for Facebook and Instagram.

You can connect your Facebook Ad Account in Sprout (which does not count as additional profiles) to begin interacting with your ad comments alongside your organic content.

How to execute:

Click the + icon in the top right corner of Sprout.

Follow the prompts to connect your Facebook Ad Account.

Engage with your new ad comments in the Smart Inbox, distinguished by the $ icon.

Pro-tip: After connecting your Facebook Ad Account, you can also boost posts directly from Sprout, and track paid performance in Sprout’s Professional and Advanced Plans.

7. Delete or hide comments from the Inbox

While scrolling through your Smart Inbox, you may find a spam comment on your Facebook Page. You can delete or hide this right from your Inbox with this Sprout feature, which was recently released for Instagram as well!

How to execute:

In the Smart Inbox, hover over the message you would like to hide or delete > click on the gear icon at the top right corner of the message.

Choose Hide on Facebook or Delete.

Pro-tip: You can find this feature on Sprout’s mobile app by clicking the three dots icon in the bottom right corner of the comment.

8. Automatically complete @mention only comments

While followers tagging their friends in a comment boost your brand’s visibility, these comments can crowd your Inbox. To save time, you can enable Complete @mention Comments in Inbox Settings.

How to execute:

Open Settings > Inbox Settings.

Toggle on Complete @mention Comments.

Pro-tip: Use Bulk Mode to quickly mark other messages as Complete.

Reports

9. Tag messages to track message performance by type

Message Tagging is a Sprout feature on Sprout’s Professional and Advanced Plans. With Tagging, you can customize your outgoing and incoming message tracking to best fit your social media goals.

For example, you can track how many negative comments compared with positive comments you received on a particular post. You can also track how many incoming comments a campaign generates.

In addition to incoming messages, you can track which posts or types of posts are performing best. If @SproutCoffeeCo posts one photo of an iced latte and one photo of a hot latte each day on Twitter, the author can tag the outgoing post with either “iced” or “hot.” In the Tag Report, users can then compare which types of posts received the most impressions, engagements and clicks.

How to execute:

Create a tag from the Compose window, Tagging settings, the Smart Inbox or the Sent Messages Report.

Apply this tag to applicable incoming and outgoing messages.

View the Tag Report to track message volume and post performance.

Pro-tip: On Sprout’s Advanced Plan, you can enable automated rules to auto-apply tags on specific incoming messages.

10. Export your Sent Messages Report to filter posts

Sprout’s Sent Messages Report provides in-depth metrics on individual posts during the reporting period. To search through the report by any of the available information—including author, text and tags—export your report as a CSV. When opening the report, you can then filter by those columns or search to find a post. The export includes a direct link to the posts as well to view posts natively.

For Facebook posts, you can discover additional metrics in the export, like Reactions separated out by type.

How to execute:

Open Reports > Cross-Channel > Sent Messages.

Choose the network you would like to view in the right sidebar.

Click Export > Export CSV.

Pro-tip: Twitter videos and photos include a link to the video or photo in the Message column of the export, which distinguishes these posts. Filter the Message column by “video” or “photo” to isolate media posts in the CSV.

Conclusion

Between scheduling content, engaging with followers and reporting on your brand’s social progress, we know you have a busy day. These Sprout tips can help you do it all!

Do you have a favorite Sprout feature to optimize your workflow? Let us know on Twitter at @SproutSocial.

This post 10 Sprout features you might not know about originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/10-sprout-features/

[minnievirizarry]

The next era of social is about trust: Sprout Sessions Live kicks off with a real bang

If you’re familiar with #SproutSessions, you know it’s a free digital conference where we host a variety of marketing and social talent from your favorite brands to talk shop. We recently took that format and made it live as a half-day, traveling event with speakers and panels that explore what it means to foster real connection on social.

Yep, we’re pretty excited about it.

Sprout Sessions Live is more than a learning opportunity. It’s a chance to make the buzzy phrases that surround your work feel attainable. We launched in our home base, Chicago, where the community did not disappoint. Eighty marketers came together to network and share insights about the evolution of people’s expectations for today’s brand/consumer relationships.

Learn about our takeaways from the Chicago event below and check to see if Sprout Sessions Live is coming to a city near you.

Brands are the new champions of connection

Our CMO Jamie Gilpin kicked things off by acknowledging the elephant in the room: trust. There’s a growing mistrust between people and established institutions in our society. We’re bombarded with this sentiment in headlines and can’t ignore the paradigm shift happening.

People have shifted their trust to the relationships within their control—brands. And we know what they want—real connection.

The wins and losses of relationship building

Our all-star panel brought us right into the heart of what it means to build meaningful connections with customers. Luka Dukich of the Chicago Bulls, Andrew Rosch of Trek Bikes and Mallorie Rosenbluth of Grubhub shared the stage to discuss their evolving relationship with social communities.

Defining connection

Every social media manager knows that a smart approach to content starts with defining what connection means to your brand. For Luka, it’s focusing on community and the universal appeal of content.

The Chicago Bulls are one of the top five most followed sports teams around the globe, (mostly thanks to Michael Jordan). But most followers are outside the U.S. That means Luka’s team needs to consider content that’s relevant to a variety of different kinds of people around the globe. People who may never set foot in the United Center.

“We no longer feel good about just pushing content out. We want to find new places where people are and be a part of the conversation, not control it,” he said.

Luka and his team have found great success with building a community on Reddit. Rather than moderating discussion threads, the social team became active participants. They started relationships with fans there, sending them videos from games so they can share. It’s a small action that goes a long way in organically changing the tone, because fans know The Bulls are present and helping. It changed the facelessness and highlighted real people behind the brand.

“Just creating an account there has changed everything. We don’t want to control the narrative beyond what we should be. We just want to be a part of the conversation,” Luka said.

The power of listening

Mallorie delighted the room with a story of how listening elevated the way Grubhub interacts with its social community.

Imagine you’re craving a Cheesy Gordita Crunch from Taco Bell, but for whatever reason you can’t reach one. You helplessly Tweet about needing Taco Bell delivery service, hoping one day your prayers will be answered.

Well, Grubhub found you. When the company was gearing up for the launch of nationwide Taco Bell delivery, they swept Twitter for Tweets just like that, new and old, surprising them with gift cards in the days leading up to the launch.

The response from the community?

“I forgot I even wanted this but gosh do I want it!” Mallorie said. It was a fun and unexpected win that couldn’t have happened without social listening.

Low risk, big payoffs

Andrew emphasized that making customers the voice of what you’re trying to do is a simple, low risk effort that pays off in a big way.

During the Tour de France, Trek launched a Twitter contest to let a lucky fan announce the race’s roster for the year (a big deal within the cycling community.)

It took the idea of making your brand’s actions about fans by literally handing the brand’s Twitter handle over. It can be scary, but for Trek it paid off. And it’s a move that harmoniously aligns with the company’s mission.

“We just want people to enjoy riding a bike. It’s that simple sometimes,” Andrew said.

  The ‘how’ of listening

Sprout’s very own Patrick Cuttica took us from the ‘why’ of social listening to the ‘how.’

One of the biggest ways you can be transparent and build trust is showing who’s behind your brand. That can mean everything from highlighting your employees and culture to putting your brand in the hands of the people that love it. And that’s where listening tools come in.

Data and empathy may not seem synonymous, but the data you get from listening ensures you’re driving relevant experiences. It provides an unobscured view of what people actually want. The takeaway here is that when you think of analytics, don’t dismiss it as less human. It’s actually what drives more human marketing.

Patrick left the room with this thought: “Think beyond audience engagement and campaign management and ask yourself this: are you just doing what you think a social marketer is supposed to be doing? Or are you driving real experiences?”

He also left folks with a sneak peek at Sprout’s product roadmap. But you’ll have to join us next time to hear more about that.

Connection IRL

The day wasn’t all presentations, there was a lot of group-led discussion between presentations. To wrap us up, people shared their biggest takeaways. Some felt validated in their everyday work through seeing familiar brands talk about universal struggles, and others felt inspired to push themselves beyond comfortable marketing.

While people continued to mingle, trade business cards and Twitter handles (and grab more donuts), Jamie brought it all together with these parting words: “We’re all trying to do the same thing: connect.”

It was a healthy reminder that no matter your industry, we all have the same goal. If a table of professionals from healthcare, sports and B2B marketing can come together, realize they’re trying to solve the same problems and arrive at the same consensus, it has to be true.

Hope to connect with you at Sprout Sessions Live Toronto…..or DC, San Francisco, London, New York, Sydney or Melbourne!

This post The next era of social is about trust: Sprout Sessions Live kicks off with a real bang originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/sprout-sessions-live-kicks-off/

[minnievirizarry]

The importance of social media sentiment analysis (and how to conduct it)

Today’s marketers are rightfully obsessed with metrics.

But don’t forget that your customers are more than just data points.

And yeah, it’s easy to overlook our customers’ feelings and emotions, which can be difficult to quantify.

However, consider that emotions are the number one factor in making purchasing decisions. With so many consumers sharing their thoughts and feelings on social media, it quite literally pays for brands to have a pulse on how their products make people feel.

Enter the world of sentiment analysis.

Rather than let your customers’ emotions fall by the wayside, brands today can translate those feelings into actionable business data.

In this guide, we’ll break down the importance of social media sentiment analysis, how to conduct it and what it can do to transform your business.

What is sentiment analysis?

Sentiment analysis is the process of retrieving information about a consumer’s perception of a product, service or brand.

If you want to know exactly how people feel about your business, sentiment analysis can do the trick. Specifically, social media sentiment analysis takes the conversations your customers are around the social space and puts them into context.

Think of sentiment analysis as a subset of social listening. While businesses should obviously monitor their mentions, sentiment analysis digs into the positive, negative and neutral emotions surrounding those mentions.

Does your product give customers a sort of warm, fuzzy feeling? Are you meeting their expectations with your quality of service? Sentiment analysis can answer these questions and then some.

Bear in mind that your mentions, whether they be positive or negative, don’t happen in a vacuum. Rather than obsess over a one-off compliment or complaint, brands should look at the bigger picture of their customers’ feelings. For example, a flurry of praise is definitely a plus…

…and a flood of complaints can clue you in on problems with your product or service that need to be addressed.

The beauty of social media for sentiment analysis is that there’s so much data to gather. With more and more consumers tagging and talking about brands on social, chances are you can already start analyzing how your customers feel about you. Additionally, social sentiment analysis encourages businesses to take a more proactive approach to social media and engage with their customers directly.

How to conduct sentiment analysis yourself

With a basic understanding of what sentiment analysis is, let’s talk about how you actually go about conducting it. Although sentiment analysis can result in valuable insights to brands, it’s not without its challenges.

Find out where folks are talking about you

As noted, consumers are sounding off on brands like never before. This rings true both on social media and off.

Businesses obviously need to be paying attention to their social mentions on Twitter or Instagram where customers are addressing you directly. Doing so is a great way to capitalize on praise and address criticism in a timely manner.

That said, you also need to monitor third-party sites and review forums. This includes Google Reviews, Reddit and sites such as Yelp!

And if you’re in the realm of ecommerce, your on-site reviews are particularly valuable. Don’t neglect the insights from loyal customers who arguably mean the most to your business. Here’s an example of positive sentiment from one of J. Crew’s product pages.

Monitoring all of these platforms manually can certainly be time-consuming. That’s why we recommend a social listening tool such as Sprout for the sake of saving time. For example, with Sprout, you can pick your priority networks for listening to avoid monitoring your mentions “by hand.” Additionally, you can track keywords related to your brand in cases where customers don’t tag you directly.

Choose your terms for sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis is only effective when you’re able to separate your positive mentions from your negative ones.

That means searching for relevant terms which highlight customer sentiment.

Some sentiment terms are relatively straightforward and others might be specific to your industry. Either way, your sentiment terms need to be divided into positive and negative terms. Below is a quick example of what some of those terms might look like for a sentiment search.

Positive: best, love, high-five, amazing, perfect, thanks

Negative: worst, hate, ugh, disappointed, bad, avoid

To show what basic positive sentiment analysis looks like in action, let’s search the term “love” alongside @Glossier on Twitter. The results are a list of compliments and praise from satisfied customers:

See how that works?

Put your mentions into context

This is where sentiment analysis gets tricky.

The volume of sentiment-related terms in your searches doesn’t always tell the full story of how your customers feel. It’s crucial to double-check your mentions and leave some room for analytical error.

Here’s a good example from Netflix’s Facebook page. Fans are obviously singing the praises of their programming, but they’re also throwing in terms like “ugly,” “cry” and “depressed” while doing so. If you saw those terms pop up in your mentions without context, it might be cause for alarm.

Sarcasm can likewise create confusion when it comes to sentiment analysis. When somebody tweets “I love it when I lose my luggage after a nine-hour flight,” they obviously aren’t thrilled about their experience.

Although sentiment analysis is going to be accurate most of the time, you’re always going to have these sorts of outliers. A combination of manual listening and machine learning is ideal for getting the most “complete” sentiment analysis possible, which actually leads us to our next point.

Let a sentimental analysis tool do the legwork for you

Sprout’s social listening capabilities can help eliminate some of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks related to social listening. The sheer volume of conversations happening right now is reason enough to invest in a third-party listening tool.

For starters, Sprout monitors and organizes your social mentions in real-time. With the help of our query builder, you can pick and choose terms related to sentiment analysis that you want to track.

Meanwhile, your Active Listeners allow for one-click access to queries including complaints, compliments and specific customer experiences.

Oh, and don’t forget your sentiment analysis report. Sprout’s report monitors not only your positive, negative and neutral mentions for a particular time period, but also digs into how those mentions have evolved over time. In other words, you can determine whether your brand perception is improving or not from month-to-month.

How to build a better business through sentiment analysis

The insights gleaned from sentiment analysis can translate directly into positive changes for your business.

Below is a snapshot of some of the benefits of conducting regular sentiment analysis regardless of what you’re selling.

Step up your customer service

As noted earlier, sentiment analysis encourages brands to keep a closer eye on their mentions. This means being more attentive to comments and concerns as they pop up. Addressing these mentions, both negative and positive, signals that you’re listening to your customers.

Spot opportunities to improve your products

On a related note, monitoring compliments and complaints can help you understand what people want to see from you in the future. Consumers today are anything but shy when it comes to sounding off, but it’s still up to brands to open their ears for feedback.

Conduct comprehensive competitive analysis

Just as you want to know how people feel about your business, you should also have a sense of how your audience feels about your competitors. Especially when people are searching for recommendations, multiple brands are tagged side-by-side. Through sentiment analysis, you can understand why someone might bounce to a competitor or prefer their product to yours.

Make sure your messaging is on-point

Finding your tone on social media can definitely be a challenge. Right now, many customers are engaging with humorous brands like MoonPie specifically because of their snark. Increasing your positive mentions might mean tweaking how you talk to your customers and build more buzz.

Monitor your long-term brand health

This is the big one.

Just as you mentor your traffic and followers, tracking sentiment over time ensures that you have a positive relationship with your audience and industry.

Sentiment analysis is particularly important when your business is making big moves. For example, product launches, pricing changes and another big announcement could see a significant shift in your brand sentiment. Keeping an eye on these numbers on a regular basis can provide you with peace of mind or spot a potential crisis before it occurs.

And with that, we wrap up our guide to sentiment analysis!

Do you know your followers and customers feel about you?

Your customer’s feelings and emotions are simply too important to ignore.

Through sentiment analysis, there’s no second-guessing where people stand on your brand. With the ability to monitor and analyze the conversations happening on social media and beyond, you can use those feelings to make actionable decisions on behalf of your business.

We want to hear from you, though. How do you keep an eye on your customers’ emotions? How much stock do you put into your compliments and complaints on social? Let us know in the comments below!

This post The importance of social media sentiment analysis (and how to conduct it) originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-sentiment-analysis/

[minnievirizarry]

How to use Quora for marketing

Should you be using Quora for marketing?

In 2019, Quora turned 10 years old. However, you might have missed that it can also be a powerful platform for reaching your brand’s audience. More than 300 million monthly users are scouring Quora at any given time and now marketers have a variety of ways to reach them.

If you’re looking to develop your thought leadership presence, confirm your authority in your niche or simply spread brand awareness, Quora is the way to go.

However, just like any social marketing campaign, you’re going to need a strategy.

Here’s your guide on how to use Quora for marketing.

Q&A: What is Quora?

Quora is an information-focused site where people ask and answer questions.

The queries range from “Who would win in a fight between Superman and Captain Marvel?” to “How to market on social media.”

With around 400,000 topics on Quora right now, you’re sure to find something worth talking about. Similar to Reddit, Quora relies on a credit-based upvoting system. The more people that upvote your answer, the more exposure it gets. On Quora, you can:

Publish content like you would with LinkedIn’s publishing platform.

Target your questions to specific Quora users to collaborate with industry influencers.

Search for specific topics and keywords related to your business.

Spend money to get your questions in front of more people.

Why you need a Quora marketing strategy

A question and answer site might not seem like the most exciting addition to your social media marketing strategy. However, Quora is excellent at generating organic awareness, improving your reputation and even helping you to learn more about your audience. On this platform, you get:

Exceptional reach: Share questions and answers with over 300 million monthly visitors. Quora is one of the best-respected UGC platforms around.

Search visibility: Quora questions are searchable through Google. Your content here remains evergreen, driving people back to your site whenever a problem is trending.

Thought leadership potential: There are already countless high-profile writers on the platform, including Noam Chomsky, former President Obama and Justin Trudeau. Join their ranks and boost your brand.

More high-quality traffic: Drive customers back to your website by answering their questions and demonstrating how your product or service solves their problems.

Insights into your audience: Quora is a platform for real people in search of real answers. If you help your audience, they’ll support you in return by investing in your products and services. You may even end up with a few new brand advocates.

How Quora magnifies your marketing

Social media marketing on Quora is powerful.

The platform doesn’t just give you another way to reach your audience. It also provides a roadmap into what they’re looking for from your business.

Why spend money on expensive consumer surveys when you’ll find out what your customers are asking for on Quora? Questions and answers are an excellent insight into your customers, how they think and what they need. What’s more, if you’re struggling with writer’s block and you need to update your blog, your Quora marketing strategy will help.

If countless people are talking about a specific topic like “How do I increase my Instagram followers?” you know it’s worth writing about.

You can even follow topics on Quora to see what your competitors are doing. Getting ahead of them and actively catering to the problems your customers have ensures that you remain relevant.

Paid advertising on Quora

When you create a Quora account and log into the platform, you’ll see your Ads Manager under the Create Ad option in your profile. You’ll need to create an ad account to get started. From there, when you go to the Manage Ads page, you’ll be able to see your spending summary, divided into four sections:

Clicks

Conversions

Impressions

Spend

There are a variety of ways to use Quora for marketing. When it comes to paid ads, the best option is often conversion targeting. Quora’s conversion optimization campaigns use a specific “conversion” pixel to allow companies to track the impact that Quora ads have on their website.

To use the conversion pixel, you’ll need to place it on your website so that you can track the movement between your site and the platform. You’ll also have to set a Cost Per Action (CPA) and pay on a CPM basis.

Like most forms of social media advertising, you’ll be able to target your ads to show up for specific keywords. Additionally, you’ll be able to choose the kind of customer you want to reach by selecting “interests” that your ad relates to.

Best practices on using Quora for brands

In an age when customers are growing increasingly tired of traditional marketing campaigns, advertising teams need to think outside of the box.

Successful promotion isn’t just about disrupting your audience and dragging them to your website anymore. You need to find your customers, wherever they are and deliver the kind of value that makes them want to follow you. Quora is a great tool for this type of marketing since you’re demonstrating value when you create detailed answers to audience questions. It’s important to remember that the mission on Quora is to answer questions meaningfully rather than just blasting an advertising message to as many users as possible. This means you’ll need to spend a bit of time getting to understand the nuances of this platform’s community.

So, how do you get started?

1. Create a brilliant bio

No matter which social platform you’re using, a great profile is always essential. Quora is somewhat unique in that you can’t create a profile for a brand in most cases, only individuals. You’ll need to identify who in your organization will be posting answers.

Quora shows the first 50 characters in your profile as a tagline above each answer you give. It’s a good idea to include your company name here, so readers can see where you come from. Your full bio can also include clickable links. While it’s essential to use these links sparingly, they help drive traffic back to your most useful website-based resources.

If your brand focuses on multiple niches, create topic-specific bios. For instance, you might have one bio that demonstrates your expertise as a healthcare marketer and one where you thrive as a personal trainer. To create topic-specific bios click on your profile page. In the right-hand side, you’ll see the Knows About column.

Next to each topic you choose, you’ll be able to describe your experience in that area. Once you’re finished proving that you know your stuff, fill out the rest of your Quora profile with:

Your interests: Make sure they relate to your business or specialist area.

A detailed “About Me” section: Include information that shows your thought leadership. Add links to your website (sparsely) if it means you can offer greater context.

Your employment and education credentials

Your location or the cities that you visit regularly

An eye-catching profile picture. A clean head and shoulders shot is often the best choice for professionals.

A complete bio helps you to get found on Quora and it also makes you seem more credible when you answer.

2. Track relevant topics with notifications

One of the best ways to use Quora for marketing is to conduct research.

You’ll be able to learn about what people in your industry are saying, track topics and have questions sent to your inbox. To begin, type a keyword into Quora’s search box that you want to follow.

Quora delivers a list of autocompleted topic suggestions for you to explore. When you click through to a topic page, you’ll also see another list of related topics at the side.

Hit the Follow button to start following a topic. You’ll also need to make sure that your email notifications are set up correctly if you want to get alerts. Go to your Settings page and click on Emails & Notifications. You’ll be able to choose the frequency and types of emails you get from Quora.

3. Find the right questions to answer

An essential part of learning how to use Quora for marketing involves knowing which questions to answer. There are millions of queries floating around on the platform today. However, not all of them will deliver value for your business.

After all, you want to show people that you’re an expert in a specific space.

One of the easiest ways to find relevant questions is to type a keyword into the query box at the top of the platform and select Search. Once you’ve brought up a list of questions, filter your results to queries from the last month or so. You’ll want to focus on topics that are relevant right now both to get visibility and add your authoritative voice to completely new discussions.

To get the most out of your Quora marketing strategy and build brand presence:

Choose topics that fit your business: Look for terms that you’ve written about recently, or a problem that your product/service solves. Any question that you answer with meaningful stats and case studies is excellent for social proof.

Find threads with a lot of upvotes: When you’re browsing through Quora, you’ll see an Upvotes section under each question. Threads with a lot of upvotes often have the most views. If you give an insightful answer, it may get thousands of views a day.

Answer new questions too: Don’t focus exclusively on the most popular queries. You’ll have a greater chance of filling your profile with evidence of your knowledge if you answer new questions early.

4. Answer questions with passion and authority

Once you’ve found questions that are relevant to your business, make sure that your answers stand out. One or two sentences on “How to use Pinterest” won’t impress anyone. However, an insightful response with links to relevant content on your blog, case studies and statistics demonstrates your thought leadership.

Remember, show your passion for the topic and don’t be afraid to let your brand’s unique tone of voice shine through. If you’re trying to appeal to a younger audience, you might even try Quora’s version of emojis.

One of the easiest ways to construct a fantastic answer is to pull snippets from the content you’ve already created. Grab a crucial quote from a recent article and expand on it, complete with a link back to your site. Here’s a great example of a useful answer:

If it’s helpful, add an image to your answer too. Graphs and charts are excellent at capturing attention. Remember, people follow visual instructions up to 323% better than written ones.

5. Connect with other Quora users

Quora isn’t just a search engine; it’s a social media platform. That means you need to be “social” with it. When learning how to use Quora for marketing, don’t forget about the importance of engaging with potential leads and customers.

Like most social channels, Quora allows users to communicate directly with other people. For brands, this is a great way to enrich your relationships with customers. On Quora, you might even find that people are asking questions about your specific product or company. Who better to answer those queries than a leading employee of your business?

Find people to connect with by:

Tracking the top answers and followers of relevant topics

Creating and contributing to boards that cover topics in your industry

Sharing content outside of Quora that links back to your solutions in the platform

Quora is an excellent way to address any concerns or queries your customers have too. According to Sprout Social data, 55% of people call brands out to get a response or resolution. Find people talking about your company and respond to them in a meaningful way. The more value you give, the more likely it is that you can turn unhappy clients into advocates.

6. Review your analytics constantly

When you run any other social campaign, you use tools like Sprout Social and native analytics to track your results. The same rules apply to your Quora marketing strategy.

Being active on Quora is an excellent way to build credibility and thought leadership. The more answers you give, the more your presence and reputation will grow. However, you’ll also need to find out exactly what kind of impact your efforts are having. That way, you prove the ROI of your Q&A sessions.

On your Quora page, you can review all of the analytics for the questions you’ve answered. You’ll be able to track everything from how many people viewed your response, to how many upvotes you got. What’s more, when you add a tracking link to your answers, you’ll also have a way to measure how many valuable click-throughs you’re getting too.

With this information, you’ll see which questions are generating the most value for your brand. That makes it easier to determine where you’re going to continue sharing your knowledge in the future.

It’s time to start marketing on Quora

Learning how to use Quora for marketing is a fantastic supplement to any promotional strategy.

With Quora, you highlight your position as an industry thought leader, drive traffic back to your website and build valuable relationships with customers.

While there are many tricks and tips to grow your presence on Quora, the most important one to remember is that you need to deliver value. Present yourself as a helpful, knowledgeable resource and your customers will flock to you in search of answers.

Do you have a Quora marketing strategy yet? Let us know what’s worked for you in the comments below.

  This post How to use Quora for marketing originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/quora-for-marketing/

[minnievirizarry]

Always up-to-date list of Instagram ad sizes & specs

The various Instagram ad sizes and specs are daunting to the majority of us. Updates, new feature releases and much more make this a task not suitable for the faint of heart.

Some of us have our in-house documents floating around with the appropriate Instagram ad sizes–but who updates it and keeps track of the changes? That’s where we come in. Let us give you a bookmarkable blog post that includes everything for your Instagram needs.

Here’s the complete list of Instagram ad sizes and specs:

Instagram image ad sizes

Instagram video ad sizes

Instagram Stories ad sizes

Instagram carousel ad sizes

Instagram image ad sizes

In the incredibly short time span of March to September last year, Instagram monthly advertisers grew from 1 million to more than 2 million. Marketers see Instagram as advertising gold because of the unique opportunities to engage with users.

And for Instagram image ads, there’s nothing quite like taking up the majority of a device’s real estate with a single ad. Think about it–Instagram is really the only “one at a time” scrolling social media platform–so ads get users full attention.

Easier said than done–right? Well let us help you by getting the correct image sizes for Instagram ads. The three Instagram image ad sizes include:

Instagram landscape image ad

Instagram landscape images are typically wider and do not take up the traditional full square of the Instagram post. The Chicago School of Media Theory explains landscape art is typically viewed as a representation of mountains, prairies or inland scenery, which focuses on the spectator.

You didn’t realize you were going to get an art history lesson–did you? But landscape images have a unique purpose to show the entire scene. This is ideal for brands who want to go all out to provide breathtaking glimpses into their world.

Image guidelines

The recommended landscape image ad size is 1200 x 628 pixels.

The minimum resolution is 600 x 315 pixels

The proper aspect ratio is 1.9:1.

All formats should be either JPG or PNG.

All image files are 30MB max.

All the caption maximum length is 2,200 characters, but 125 is recommended.

Instagram square image ad

Much like the landscape format, an Instagram square image focuses on width, but takes up more space of the overall post layout. The square doesn’t use all the space provided per post and typically is used for portrait-style images.

You don’t have to limit your scenic images to landscape, but make sure the square format doesn’t crop your images awkwardly.

Image guidelines

The recommended square image ad size is 1080 x 1080 pixels.

The minimum square image ad resolution is 600 x 600 pixels

The proper aspect ratio is 1:1.

Instagram vertical image ad

Possibly the most popular photo size organically is the vertical, or portrait image. This is due to the fact it’s what your image is preset to when you snap an image on the app or upload one. However, the specs are not much different besides the overall ratio and resolution.

Image guidelines

The recommended square image ad size is 1080 x 1350 pixels

The minimum vertical image ad size is 600 x 750 pixels

The proper aspect ratio is 4:5.

Pro Tip: Remember when creating ads in the ad creation feature, it’s possible to select Crop Image. This helps you ensure your ad comes out exactly how you planned.

Instagram video ad sizes

Did you know a quarter of all Instagram ads are single videos? The popularity of video isn’t just surging on Instagram either. But to make sure you’re on top of your video strategy, you must ensure you’re using the correct sizes and specs.

Video is where things can get a little tricky, but again–don’t fret–we’re here to help your brand! Check out the various single video ad sizes below:

Instagram landscape video ad

Just like the landscape image, Instagram’s landscape videos are for the same scenic purpose. This style of video allows users to showcase a more cinematic approach to video–mostly viewed on mobile–for its followers.

Video guidelines

Instagram landscape video ad minimum resolution is 600 x 315 pixels

The proper aspect ratio is 1:91:1.

Recommended video formats include MP4 and MOV.

Max video size for all formats is 4GB.

Max video length for all formats is 120 seconds.

Video max frames is 30fps for all formats.

Instagram square video ad

Not much changes when you select the Instagram square video format. Pay attention to how your ad and call to action appear on a mobile device–not to crop anything important in the actual video.

Video guidelines

Instagram square video ad minimum resolution is 600 x 600 pixels.

The proper aspect ratio is 1:1.

Instagram vertical video ad

As you’re likely gathering, organic and paid formats are similar. And for vertical video ads, make sure to pay attention to the resolution and aspect ratio changes.

Instagram vertical video ad minimum resolution is 600 x 750 pixels.

The proper aspect ratio is 4:5.

Instagram Stories ad sizes

You didn’t think we would forget Instagram Stories here would you? We’d never! More than half of brands have posted an Instagram Story? Not only that, but the addition of Stories drove the time spent on Instagram by users up nearly 28 minutes.

There’s real power to using Instagram Stories in your social media advertising strategy. Make sure you have the right Instagram Story ad sizes below:

Instagram Stories image ad

Instagram Stories have a lot of features that make single image ads ideal for your marketing campaign. With GIFs, stickers and marker tools, you can easily direct users to clicking or swiping to find more information.

Image guidelines

The Instagram Stories image ad recommended resolution is 1080 x 1920 pixels.

The minimum resolution for Stories ads is 600 x 1067 pixels.

The proper aspect ratio is 9:16.

All formats should be either JPG or PNG.

Max image size is 30MB.

Pro Tip: Additionally, advertisers may want to limit overlay text on images as Facebook’s Ad Manager could reject your image. Consider this for all image formats as well.

Instagram Stories video ad

According to Social Media Week, roughly 70% of Instagram Stories videos are watched without sound. It’s really important to make sure your videos drive the right message, all within the correct specs.

Video guidelines

The Instagram Stories video ad recommended resolution is 1080 x 1920 pixels.

The proper aspect ratio is 9:16.

All formats should be either MP4 or MOV.

Max video size is 4GB.

Must have a resolution minimum of 720p.

Instagram carousel ad sizes

If a carousel option for Instagram advertising sounds familiar, that’s because Facebook has carousel ads, too.

This type of ad format allows brands to showcase multiple images or videos in one single ad. It’s truly the best bang for your Instagram ad buck. See the full specs details below:

Instagram carousel image ad

If you’re like anyone else on Instagram, you flip through content at blinding speeds. Why not try to keep users around for awhile with more than one piece of visual content?

Image guidelines

The recommended resolution for an Instagram carousel image ad is 1080 x 1080 pixels.

The proper aspect ratio is 1:1.

All formats should be either JPG or PNG.

Max image size is 30MB per image/card.

Instagram allows 2-10 images/cards per ad.

Instagram carousel video ad

Something many users forget is that you can use up to 10 videos for a single ad! Make sure your brand has the right balance of content as not to overwhelm your audience on a single post.

Video guidelines

The minimum resolution for an Instagram carousel video ad is 600 x 600 pixels.

The maximum resolution is 1080 x 1080 pixels maximum.

The proper aspect ratio is 1:1.

All formats should be MP4.

Max video size is 4GB per video/card.

Max video length for is 60 seconds.

Instagram allows 2-10 videos/cards per ad.

Pro Tip: When you create Instagram carousel video ads, there must be a thumbnail image. The ratio for this image is recommended to match the 1:1 video aspect ratio. Additionally, thumbnail images cannot have more than 20% text taking up the image.

To find more information, check out the Facebook Help Center and Instagram Business Help Center. Want to know more visual specs? Check out our complete guide to all the social media image sizes and our complete social media video specs guide as well!

This post Always up-to-date list of Instagram ad sizes & specs originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-ad-sizes/

[minnievirizarry]

Always up-to-date list of Facebook ad sizes & specs

Last updated: March 26, 2019

Let’s be real for a second–if you’re spending even a penny on advertising, you should be considering Facebook. Why? Nearly everyone is there.

New data from eMarketer forecasts marketers to spend $21 billion on US Facebook ads in 2018. This would account for 19.6% of the market (Google claiming 37.2% of the share). And to compare Facebook’s dominance against other social media networks, total shares equal 83% of ad spend in the US.

So we can all admit Facebook ads are a pretty big deal. And that’s why we’re here to make sure your content looks pristine by using the correct Facebook ad sizes. Click the jump links below to skip ahead!

Facebook Feed ads

Facebook Carousel Ads

Facebook right column ads

Facebook in-stream video ads

Facebook Instant Articles ads

Facebook Marketplace ads

Audience Network native, banner and interstitial ads

Sponsored Message ads

Messenger Home ads

Facebook Collection ads (Including Canvas)

For more information on other social media image sizes, check out our always up to date guide below!

Related Article

Always Up-to-Date Guide to Social Media Image Sizes

Last Updated: March 5, 2019 Whether it’s a brand promotion, video, news update or even a meme, visual content rules Read More …

Facebook Feed ads

Every advertiser is fighting for space on a user’s Facebook Feed. This is the prime real estate for Facebook ads to stand out to users. Available both in image or video format, these ads will appear on both mobile and desktop. Let’s get started:

Image guidelines

Recommended image dimensions is 1200 x 628 pixels.

Minimum width and height of 600 pixels.

Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9, but crops to 1.91:1 with a link.

Recommended image formats are JPG and PNG.

Images with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Character limits

Text: 125 characters.

Headline: 25 characters.

Link description: 30 characters.

For more information on social media character limits, check out our guide below!

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Facebook Feed video ads

In the US, Facebook video posts have increased by 94% year over year with a video audience of 8 billion daily views. The ridiculous growth in video has many businesses shifting all of their focus on video. Below is the information for Facebook feed video ads–which is not to be confused with in-stream videos (we’ll cover this next).

Video guidelines

Recommended to upload the highest resolution video possible.

Minimum dimensions 600 x 315 (1.9:1 landscape) or 600 x 600 (square).

Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9 (Horizontal: 16:9, Square: 1:1, Vertical: 4:5 or 2:3 and Full Portrait: 9:16).

Recommended video formats are .MP4 and .MOV (see full list here).

Max video file size is 4GB.

Video length max is 240 minutes.

Character limits

Headline: 25 characters.

Link description: 30 characters.

Facebook Carousel ads

Facebook Carousel Ads are a perfect way to showcase your brand with multiple images or videos. For retailers, it’s great to show various colors, sizes and other key details to convince users to buy. This format is available for both video and image for all Carousel ad placements. Additionally, Facebook Carousel Ads are available on six different ad types:

Facebook Feed (Image and Video)

Facebook Right Column

Facebook Instant Articles

Facebook Marketplace

Facebook Audience Network Native, Banner and Interstitial

Messenger Inbox

Luckily, there’s only a few differences between each ad type within Carousel for image and video ads. See the specs here:

Image guidelines

Minimum width and height of 600 pixels (minimum 254 x 133 pixels for Messenger Home Carousel Ads).

Recommended image dimensions of at least 1080 x 1080 pixels

Minimum 2 cards and max of 10 cards per Carousel Ad.

Recommended ratio is 1:1.

Max image size of 30MB.

Recommended image formats are JPG and PNG.

Images with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Video guidelines

Recommended resolution is minimum of 1080 x 1080.

Minimum 2 cards and max of 10 cards per Carousel Ad.

Recommended video formats are .MP4 and .MOV.

Max video file size is 4GB.

Video length is 240 minutes.

Video thumbnails with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Character limits

Text: 125 characters.

Headline: 40 characters.

Link description: 20 characters (optional on Instant Articles).

Facebook right column ads

Ah–the sneaky right column photo ad. Everyone knows it and for businesses, this ad type can work extremely well. However, while they only appear on desktop, data shows they have the highest CPC (cost per click) among other Facebook ad types.

Image guidelines

Recommended image dimensions is 1200 x 628 pixels.

Minimum width and height of 600 pixels.

Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9, but crops to 1.91:1 with link.

Recommended image formats are JPG and PNG.

Images with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Character limits

Text: 125 characters.

Headline: 25 characters.

Link description: 30 characters.

Facebook in-stream video ads

Facebook in-stream video ads are different from regular feed ads as they only last 5 to 15 seconds. According to CPC Strategy, the average on-target rate is nearly 90% and have a completion view rate of 70%. The quick, digestible videos are perfect for brands trying to catch the attention of users with small interactions.

Video guidelines

Recommended to upload the highest resolution video possible.

Recommended aspect ratio is 16:9 (ratios fall between 9:16 to 16:9).

Recommended video formats are .MP4 and .MOV.

Max video file size is 4GB.

Video length is 5 to 15 seconds.

Highly recommended to include video sound.

Captions are likewise optional, but recommended

Video thumbnails with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery

For more info on the various video specs, check out our complete guide on all the social media video specs and ad sizes!

Related Article

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Last Updated: March 7, 2019 Staying relevant and capturing your audience’s attention is a constant challenge for marketers. And now Read More …

Facebook Instant Articles ads

Looking to promote a piece of content across Facebook? The release of Facebook Instant Article ads allows quick-loading and interactive content through Facebook’s app. Additionally, advertisers have the option to place ads within the articles as well. This ad format is available for image and video:

Image guidelines

Recommended resolution is 1,200 x 628 pixels.

Minimum width and height of 600 pixels.

Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9, but crops to 1.91:1 with link.

Recommended image formats are JPG and PNG.

Images with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Video guidelines

Recommended to upload the highest resolution video possible.

Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9.

Recommended video formats are .MP4 and .MOV.

Max video file size is 4GB.

Video max length is 240 minutes.

Video thumbnails with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Character limits

Headline: 25 characters.

Link description: 30 characters.

Facebook Marketplace ads

Facebook Marketplace works as a hub on the network to buy and sell items with others in your community. While scrolling through this feature, you’ll run across Facebook Marketplace ads. This is ideal if you’re wanting to attract users to your site searching for a specific product or even location. Both video and image are available formats.

Image guidelines

Recommended resolution is 1,200 x 628 pixels.

Minimum width and height of 600 pixels.

Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9, but crops to 1.91:1 with link.

Recommended image formats are JPG and PNG.

Images with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Video guidelines

Recommended to upload the highest resolution video possible.

Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9.

Recommended video formats are .MP4 and .MOV.

Max video file size is 4GB.

Video max length is 240 minutes.

Video thumbnails with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Character limits

Text: 125 characters.

Headline: 25 characters.

Link description: 30 characters.

Audience Network native, banner and interstitial ads

If you’re looking to advertise to users on other valuable spaces, but through Facebook, this format is perfect for you. Facebook Audience Network ads work natively, on banners and interstitial ads. Whether it’s pre- or mid-roll placements, it’s nice knowing your content will appear on trusted publishers. Think of this as Facebook’s own Display Ads. Again, there are both image and video options here:

Image guidelines

Recommended resolution is 1,200 x 628 pixels.

Minimum width 254 pixels and height of 133 pixels.

Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9, but crops to 1.91:1 with link.

Recommended image formats are JPG and PNG.

Images with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Video guidelines

Recommended to upload the highest resolution video possible.

Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9.

Recommended video formats are .MP4 and .MOV.

Max video file size is 4GB.

Video minimum length is 10 seconds and the maximum is 121 seconds.

Video thumbnails with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Character Limits

Text: 125 characters.

Headline: 25 characters.

Link description (optional): 30 characters.

Sponsored Message ads

Did you have a user interact with you on Facebook Messenger, but they didn’t convert? If you want to re-engage and target these users, you can use Sponsored Messages to reach back out. However, selecting this format turns off other placements and again, you can only target those with existing conversations.

Image guidelines

Recommended resolution is 1,200 x 628 pixels.

Minimum width is 254 pixels and height of 133 pixels.

Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9, but crops to 1.91:1 with link.

Recommended image formats are JPG and PNG.

Images with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Character limits

Text: 125 characters.

Headline: 25 characters.

Link description: 30 characters.

Facebook Messenger ads

When users scroll through their Facebook Messenger Home, sponsored ads are available to appear between conversations. This ad format is only available for image content and only appears on the Facebook Messenger app.

Image guidelines

Recommended resolution is 1,200 x 628 pixels.

Minimum width is 254 pixels and height of 133 pixels.

Recommended aspect ratio is between 9:16 to 16:9, but crops to 1.91:1 with link.

Recommended image formats are JPG and PNG.

Images with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Character limits

Text: 125 characters.

Headline: 25 characters.

Facebook Collection ads (Including Instant Experience ads)

Facebook Collection Ad is a great way to provide a highly visual browsing feature all within the ad placement. While it’s only available in Facebook Feeds, this ad type allows a cover photo or video (both available on Collection ads) to showcase several products. Additionally, when users click the full-screen version, users are sent to an Instant Experience (formerly called Canvas). Here, users are brought to a scrollable mobile engagement experience to learn more about a brand.

Image guidelines

Minimum width and height of 600 pixels.

Recommended ratio is 1:1 for square and 16:9 for landscape images.

Max image size of 30MB.

Recommended image formats are JPG and PNG.

Images with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Video guidelines

Recommended resolution is minimum of 1200 x 628 pixels.

Recommended video formats are .MP4 and .MOV.

Max video file size is 4GB.

Video length is 120 minutes (recommended less than 2 minutes).

Video thumbnails with 20% text or more could increase chances of failed delivery.

Character limits

Text: 90 characters.

Headline: 25 characters.

For more information on the various ad sizes and specs, check out Facebook’s video requirement page and ads guide.

This post Always up-to-date list of Facebook ad sizes & specs originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-ad-sizes/

[minnievirizarry]

The ultimate social media listening guide for marketers

You’ve heard the talk about social media listening but now you want to know how to put it to use. Listening isn’t a fad and it’s not going away as long as there are online discussions to monitor. These conversations are a significant source of intelligence for your marketing efforts if you know how to incorporate them into your strategy.

To review what social media listening is and how it’s different from monitoring, check out our thorough listening guide here.

This article is meant to be a practical, how-to guide to social listening for social media marketing professionals. In it, we’ll review how you can use social media listening for your company or organization, as well as proving its value to the C-suite.

Advantages of social media listening

Incorporating social media listening into your overall digital marketing strategy has several important benefits. These advantages span the entire company, from product development to customer service.

Immediate research: Analyzing current social media listening data provides you with immediate research that does not need to run through focus groups or other in-person structured analyses. This data is also in real time, providing you with the most accurate findings for timely action.

More affordable: Coordinating focus groups and hiring marketing research agencies can be pricey. Social media listening can be performed at a lower cost than traditional research methods while returning a potentially wider sample of individuals.

Preventative: When you execute social media listening, you’re paying attention to trends and common service complaints. This sort of listening prepares you to take action if needed and prevents a potential backlash to your company.

Depending on how your social media listening is set up, you may find it easier to create and maintain than other research methods. Demographic data is easily available to social media managers already and Twitter advanced search techniques can be executed in minutes. With less cost and time to set up, you’ll free up more resources to take action on your findings.

Create a brand analysis

The clearest use for social media listening is a brand analysis. It’s also very likely that you have the tools in place for this already. To perform a brand analysis, you’ll need data like what keywords are often mentioned with your brand, what customers are talking about online about you and how are they reacting to your products.

A brand analysis ranges from an overall company sentiment to a product-level sentiment. You’ll want to set up social media alerts that cover this range. For a general analysis, a quarterly check-in is acceptable while a more timely one might be necessary for campaigns.

A word cloud like the above helps you understand what is most commonly associated with your company. If the words that show up are desired, then you’re on the right track. If not, then it means you need to understand why they’re there and plan on how to change it up.

Another valuable source of information is the sentiment report. Enter brand names here and see what percentage of the online discussion is positive or negative. In Sprout’s own Sentiment Summary, as shown above, there you can easily view percentages and the trends over any course of time. If you check in on this report on a regular basis, you’ll be able to identify negative trends before they become a catastrophe.

Monitor: brand keywords, misspellings, word clouds

Result: brand sentiment, customer sentiment

Conduct a competitive analysis

One of the most useful parts of social media listening for marketers is its value for conducting a competitive analysis. Checking out what your competitors are doing well, where you can fill in the gap and what their customers complain about will inform your marketing strategy. Our guide to competitive research with listening deep dives into this type of data.

The Sprout Listening report generates themes around the topic you’re looking at. Create one for your competitor and see where they’re performing well and where they could improve.

Another component of the competitor analysis is the share of voice (SOV). This means how much digital space your brand’s voice is taking up in conversations. Are you mentioned more often than your competitors? Where are you dominating the conversation?

In the example above, once you’ve generated the needed reports, you could use these insights to do things like:

Identify your competitor’s weakness is not talking about the value of hydration for their sports drink. Create your next marketing campaign around hydration.

See that the competitor’s most common complaint is unresponsive customer service. Check your own service model and establish one or speed it up.

Notice that their latest campaign had dominated the online conversation but most of the time, customers are discussing your products. No need to act on this information except for a pat on the back for yourself.

Monitor: competitor’s performance, share of voice

Result: share of voice, competitor gap, product development, marketing campaigns

Inform your content strategy

You likely already look at how well your content is performing but do you go beyond that data to find content inspiration? Use social listening to see what others are discussing.

By creating a word cloud around “pizza” and “Chicago,” you can easily see which other words are also being used. Now is a good time to talk about your delivery services, especially if it’s feeling like Antarctica outside.

Let’s say you have multiple products in your sports clothing lineup. Which ones are being discussed more and which are not? Perhaps your sweats line needs a little more attention online. You could use this data to add more sweats-oriented content or create a campaign around it.

And finally, a potential impressions report helps you predict how one type of content will perform. Are you having trouble deciding if your pizza campaign should be in a video or text? Use a report to help you decide instead of flipping a coin.

Additional actions you can take to aid your content strategy:

Use demographic data to see who is resonating the most with your content. Once you realize that mid-thirties women love your videos about hiking, add that to your personas or develop a new one.

Use a hashtag report to see which are the most engaging. Use this hashtag in future posts and to find new people to follow. This report would also surface some content that’s useful for a user-generated content strategy.

Identify potential influencers who are engaging with your content. Then use a potential impressions report to see what their reach would be.

Monitor: competitor’s content, own content

Result: content performance, potential impressions report

Develop your product or service

Social listening lets you identify ways you can improve or add to your current lineup. Because listening data is immediate, it leads to quicker action for your company. Add updates to your app or see where your competitor is missing features. If it makes sense for your brand, add those features to your own product.

Let’s say you’re opening a new restaurant and you want to know what people want to eat the most in your location. Use social listening themes to identify which products are dominating the conversation and therefore, must-haves on the menu. If this report was pulled for an existing location or a competitor, you would see which products are performing poorly and explore that more. Why do the burritos have the most negative mentions? How can you fix this?

A listening report that includes locations is highly useful for growing companies. Let’s say you’re an international franchise company and you’re looking for new locations. Which locations are becoming popular travel destinations and where are your competitors opening up? If you set up the parameters correctly, you can identify your next potential locations with one report. Use this to supplement your other location research data.

Additional ways you can use social listening for product or service research include:

Monitoring industry trends to notice that more people want veggie burgers on the menu. Your restaurant doesn’t have it yet but you use listening data to see what type of veggie burger people are talking most positively about and you add it to your menu.

See that negative reactions to your new eyeliner product discusses its high cost. Drill down to see if the reactions are within your target market. If so, consider lowering costs or developing a new product at a lower cost.

Realize that your competitor released a new necklace but the complaint around it is its durability. Use this information to create a campaign around your own products’ materials and add to your FAQ documents.

Monitor: product sentiment, industry trends

Result: feature requests, bug reports, pain points, popular items

Conclusion

Social media listening is no longer limited to only monitoring your brand’s performance online. Instead, advanced uses of it can go as far back in your company’s development stage to the ideation phase. Every step of product development can be informed by social media listening.

Setting up your monitoring and using it to inform your listening is a continual process. One day, you may be looking at how a product is being discussed online. Another day, you’ll see data for your next franchise location. The possibilities for social media listening are endless.

This post The ultimate social media listening guide for marketers originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-listening-for-marketers/

[minnievirizarry]

5 social listening services you can offer your clients

Social listening services have been a huge selling point for us lately. More of our clients (and brands in general) see the value and importance of customer service through social media. Because of this, we’ve found unique ways to use social listening services for these clients.

Not that customer care is the only way to service your clients with social listening. There are actually five different services we’ve been able to offer to our clients, which we’ll unpack below.

The benefit of social listening services for your clients

A little background: At B Squared Media, we’ve been selling done-for-you social media management and advertising services for nearly seven years.

Our clients range from small to enterprise. For the most part, we’ve seen the medium to enterprise clients take an interest in social listening services.

We’ve offered these services through our partnership with Sprout Social, using Sprout Advanced Listening.

As with all of our services, we provide “done-for-you” support, meaning that our team manages the software and social listening services, while reporting on the key performance indicators (KPIs) or goals we determine with each client.

Social listening can be used in a myriad of ways for your clients. We like to break our listening services into three major groups, (which we stole from Sprout Social, who taught us these three use cases):

Industry intelligence

Competitive intelligence

Brand intelligence

I’ll outline these three use cases, plus give examples and some KPIs and goals below as we go through each of the five services we sell, which we have examples for.

Two social listening services for industry intelligence

Let’s start by looking at services for industry intelligence.

There are three opportunities to sell social listening services for Industry Intelligence.

Audience & trend analysis

Product & content research

Influencer marketing research

Let’s take a deeper dive into two of these services below.

Product & content research

At B Squared, our marketing mantra is “Think Conversation, Not Campaign.” So, as we use social listening to measure conversations around the brands we monitor, we automatically start collecting data on what content our audience engages with most.

For example, we tag all of our client conversations with special tags that allow us to see when products, services or even hashtags are used, more or less.

You can use social listening to look at your competitors’ content, too.

Here’s a cool example of how we use social listening to help us with content and product research.

This client, a luxury appliance brand, has us using social listening to find instances of when clients are using “how do I …” or “how to …” type content around their products.

In the example graphs above, you can see that 83% of people using these types of questions were referring to widget A and 17% (or one person) had a pain point around cleaning product 2.

What we can do to solve these pain points is to take this information back to the client and have them produce “how to” videos that directly address the issues consumers are having with their products.

In the future, when these how-to scenarios come up, we can send the customer straight to a video that speaks directly to the issue they’re having. And over time, we can see that this content shows up in search. Our hope is that the customer doesn’t even have to ask on social how to solve for X once the how-to product video ranks.

Influencer marketing research

As it stands, our clients can’t afford to hire a Kardashian for their influencer strategies (nor do any of them have the desire).

However, they are extremely interested in working with micro influencers in their industry. We use social listening capabilities to do find them.

It’s a more-than-simple process, too. We just look for individuals trending around certain topics that align with our clients’ brands.

Our KPI here is to find suitable micro influencers and pass them to the client to start a conversation and possible relationship.

Two social listening services for competitive intelligence

When we look at the competitive landscape, there are three opportunities where social listening services can help:

Competitor comparison

Sentiment research

Tactical differentiation

Here, we’re going to focus on another two examples.

Sentiment

Sentiment is a great way to take the temperature of your brand as a whole or to dive deeper into specific campaigns, products or topics associated with your brand.

Using the same luxury appliance client, we can see from the below graphs that there is a lot of negative sentiment around customer service. And 10% of that relates to “no call back” from the customer service department.

  Once again, we take this information to the internal team for a fix. In this particular instance, a new customer service training, system, or software is implemented in hopes of seeing the negative sentiment around customer service go down or turn neutral/positive.

On the positive side, you can see there’s 41% positive messaging around “brand love.” This is the type of content we’d look for to create UGC or user-generated content.

Tactical differentiation

Another fun way to use social listening services for competitive intelligence is via tactical differentiation. We actually sell this as “competitor warfare,” which plays to both #1 and #3 in the competitive intelligence group.

For one, you can easily use listening to pinpoint your biggest competitors on social media and compare their messaging to yours.

Once you’ve identified your closest competitors, you can then use listening tools to help understand how your similar campaigns measure up. In other words, what types of campaigns and content strategies do your competitors use and how can you differentiate yourself?

Let me tell you, clients love “competitor warfare.” Add in some paid research from a tool like SEMrush and the sky is the limit with research and reporting offerings.

One social listening example for brand intelligence

Lastly, brand intelligence is another place to consider selling social listening services.

And again, there are three opportunities to leverage when coming up with your menu of listening services:

Brand health

Customer experience

Campaign analysis

Brand health

For clients who just want to dip their toe into the vast pool of social listening, may we offer you–or may you offer them–an audit?

Sure, you can call it a “brand health overview” or something fancy, but we just like to go with a “social listening audit.” Use your gut and play to the tone and voice of the client and what would resonate best with them.

By running a “basic” social listening audit for your client’s brand, you can identify things like:

Frequently-asked customer questions

Feedback or conversation topics

Complaints

Audience demographics

Overall brand sentiment

Share those insights with the client in your custom audit deck, and ta-dah, you’ve got yourself a pre-contract, value-add tool that should whet your clients’ whistle to go down the other rabbit holes we explored in this post.

Social listening as a service

At the end of the day, there are a variety of ways to utilize the three listening groups to create different listening services for your clients…and even more ways to pitch them.

Maybe you want to offer everything in one, comprehensive done-for-you service. Or maybe, like us, you want to offer different service tiers for different clients.

No matter how you slice and dice the capabilities of social listening, there are many options available to you to nurture your client relationships and rake in the revenue while doing so.

B Squared Media is a Founding Member of the Sprout Social Agency Partner Program.

This post 5 social listening services you can offer your clients originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/5-social-listening-services/

[minnievirizarry]

How to conduct smarter social listening for consumer brands

If you want to know exactly what your customers want in 2019, you don’t have to look very hard.

Well, sort of.

Consider that product-related posts are among the most popular across social media. Whether it’s a shout-out or call-out, consumers can’t stop talking about products.

And on a related note, a staggering 60% of consumers actively seek out new products and services via social. Rather than dig through Google results, users can seek out authentic answers from actual people.

The takeaway here? Social media is an absolute goldmine of B2C intelligence. That’s exactly why social media for consumer brands is so important.

Want to know how to position yourself against your competitors? Wondering what products and services your customers want to see in the future?

Through B2C social listening, these answers and so much more are out in the open.

How to use B2C social listening to make better marketing decisions

Chances are you’re already monitoring your mentions and going back-and-forth with your customers. You’re probably keeping a close eye on your follower count, too.

And hey, that’s good!

There’s a massive difference between monitoring and listening, though. While monitoring certainly matters, social listening for consumer brands is about translating your customer interactions into, well, action.

In this guide, we’ll break down exactly how social listening for B2C can help attract new customers and ultimately make more informed marketing decisions.

With that, let’s dive right in!

Fine-tune your customer personas

The benefits of creating social media personas are well-documented.

Most B2C industries are crowded with competition. As a result, brands need to dig deep and define exactly what their target audiences look like as “one-size-fits-all” customer profiles just don’t cut it.

Maybe you’re a clothing company targeting environmentally-conscious females in their thirties. Perhaps you’re a grooming brand and your audience is millennial men with beards.

Either way, you’re going to want to be tuned into the pain points and desire of that audience, right?

Social listening for consumer brands means spotting trends and keywords related to the conversations that those customers are having.

For example, let’s say our female audience seems to be buzzing about “vegan” or “hemp” products. Meanwhile, our bearded audience seems to be discussing “hair loss” a lot more lately.  Listening to what your followers and customers are talking about allows you to adjust your personas accordingly and tap into niches that you otherwise might have missed.

Provide more comprehensive customer service

In a world where half of all consumers sound off on businesses via social, the need to provide speedy and thoughtful customer service is universal for B2C brands.

And although Twitter is often seen as the go-to customer service channel for many companies, you can’t afford to ignore the likes of Instagram and Facebook for customer care.

Social listening means not only listening to the variety of concerns among your customers but also what they’re concerned about. This allows you to properly allocate your customer support team and come up with solutions for your customers’ most common questions.

Overcome common sales objections (and uncover opportunities)

Just as you want to know why customers like your products, you need to pay attention to folks who aren’t buying from you.

This series of interactions from Yeti is a good example of how social listening for consumer brands can help businesses overcome objections and uncover opportunities. While Yeti’s posts get tons of love from their followers, they also receive meaningful feedback and questions from their followers.

Each of these comments is totally legitimate and could serve as a sort of “lightbulb moment” for a new product. Part of social listening for B2C is collecting these moments and spotting trends from them. If you see overwhelming demand for a specific product, perhaps it’s time to make it a reality.

Also, remember that your business is just a single voice in your industry’s conversation. Listening to your competitors’ activity is an absolute must-do. For example, B2C brands should have a pulse of customer mentions including product comparisons that pit your products against someone else’s. These sorts of reviews are all the rage on YouTube and social media at large.

These sorts of conversations can clue you in on what your current customers love and likewise what sets you apart from the competition.

Figure out where you stand in your industry

On a related note, understanding how exactly you stack up against your competitors can be tricky.

Metrics alone often don’t tell the whole story. For example, comparing follower counts between two brands is often apples and oranges when engagement rate is what’s more relevant.

This again speaks to why social listening for consumer brands matters so much. Rather than stare at a laundry list of metrics wondering what they mean, listening can provide some much-needed context including:

The positive and negative sentiment surrounding your brand mentions online

Whether or not your followers are digging your content and products

What specific terms people are using to discuss your brand

For example, do you know how your potential audiences feel about your industry at large? Sprout’s social listening and analytics features such as sentiment analysis can help brands understand where the love is coming from and what’s cause for complaint.

Meanwhile, reporting via Sprout also highlights the most popular keywords and hashtags related to your business. Combined with sentiment analysis, you can understand what people are saying about your business and why.

Highlight your unique selling proposition

Hidden within the data points above is your brand’s unique selling proposition.

Again, B2C brands need to have their positioning on point if they want to stand out in a sea of competition.

Specialized features, price points and speedy service are just a few concerns that your prospects and customers have about whatever you might be selling. B2C social listening encourages brands to dive deep into what their target audience is looking for.

Beyond your own mentions, consider how conversations on platforms like Reddit can highlight the specific needs of customers that you or your competition might not be aware of.

Capitalize on your customer interactions

Customer mentions are invaluable for B2C. Whether it’s a shout-out or customer photo, such mentions serve as valuable social proof and marketing firepower that show off your satisfied customers.

Of course, such moments are time-sensitive. Through social listening, you can track your mentions in real-time to craft meaningful responses that capitalize on your most important customer interactions.

Looking at your biggest brand advocates and most-shared products, brands have an even better idea of what drives engagement from their followers.

Note that not all of your mentions are necessarily going to be positive. This again circles back for the need to provide stellar customer service. Especially in the case of a question or call-out, sleeping on comments is a bad look. Social listening ensures that you respond in a timely manner.

Measure the success of your marketing campaigns

This is a big one.

B2C brands are expected to consistently roll out new campaigns, both for the sake of keeping up with social media trends and producing fresh content for your followers.

Of course, those campaigns come with some sort of price tag. Social listening empowers brands to put your most important campaigns into context to see if they’re actually paying off. For example, consider how social listening can help brand assess the following:

New followers and buzz for your business following an influencer campaign

Mentions and purchases leading up to and after a product launch

The ROI of running a social media contest in terms of new followers and sales

Sprout features such as engagement tracking can assess spikes in activity as a result of such campaigns. Businesses should rightfully be held accountable for the success (or lack thereof) from social campaigns to ensure that they can get the most bang for their buck.

How to streamline social listening for consumer brands

Now that we’ve broken down the benefits of social media listening for B2C, the question remains: how do you start tracking all of this stuff?

Fair question!

There is a decent amount of data you can gather “by hand” to get your social listening strategy off the ground. For starters, you’re going to want to conduct some competitive analysis to determine what other companies are targeting your customers. Similarly, businesses should understand how to spot hashtags and keywords relevant to the products they’re selling.

Of course, nothing beats an advanced listening tool such as Sprout to give you a comprehensive overview of your B2C social presence. For example, Sprout’s reporting can pull hashtags and phrases associated to your business including competing brand names to watch.

The process is tracking these terms is a cinch, especially with the help of Sprout’s query builder. Instead of just monitoring your brand’s mentions, you can spot conversations that could lead to new customers which otherwise would have gone totally unnoticed.

The beauty of Sprout is that our listening tool gives you a bird’s eye view of social media as well as the web at large. In other words, you can track the networks that matter the most to your business and have detailed reports delivered directly to your inbox at a moment’s notice.

How’s that for listening?

What does your B2C social listening strategy look like?

People are inevitably talking about your business online or at the very least your industry.

So ask yourself: are you listening?

From new products to better positioning, B2C brands have so much to gain when they’re able to tap into the conversations of prospects and customers alike. That’s exactly why social listening for consumer brands is such a worthwhile investment.

We want to hear from you, though. How well are you listening to your customers? How do you keep your ear to the ground on industry conversations? Let us know in the comments below!

This post How to conduct smarter social listening for consumer brands originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-listening-for-consumer-brands/