The world of social media is always renewing itself in some way or another. With frequent updates and resurfacing content, it can be hard to keep up with on a daily basis.  It’s important to stay informed of the curent issues and trends so that your social media presence stays relevant. Using social media is one thing, but using it well is the key to online success.  Stay updated and stay informed with the latest social media news!

In Case You Missed It:

By now you have likely read or heard about Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro’s “epic meltdown” on Facebook, ruining their reputation forever. The restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona is owned by Samy and Amy Bouzaglo, and was recently featured on an episode of Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares”. Apparently, the Bouzaglo’s were such a “nightmare” to work with Ramsay fired them.For more on this story, click here!

In case you haven’t heard, there is controversial discussion over Adobe’s recent subscription pricing announcement. Does the new subscription-based model benefit freelancers, hobbyists, or professionals? Click here for more on this story.

If you use the main Twitter website, we can help you out with some seriously useful keyboard shortcuts. Whether it’s navigational tricks or keyboard actions, these handy shortcuts will save you tons of time. More on these shortcuts here.

LinkedIn has so much to offer that is not always taken advantage of by users. Let’s set some LinkeIn goals and talk about how to implement them.

Goals

Make sure that your profile is at 100% completion: As you are filling out your background, education, and work history – LinkedIn will display the percentage that your profile is complete. Continue to provide the requested information until you reach 100%. You want your profile to look as good as possible for all of the views you will be receiving. Lucky for you, LinkedIn just launched a new media feature.

Customize your URL: A customized URL is always more professional, easier to share and distribute on collateral, and helps to brand your social media channels. You can set your profile page URL by going to Profile > Edit, and you will see an option to edit your URL directly under your profile photo. If you can, set your URL as your full name.

Gain quality connections: LinkedIn uses the method of degrees of connections. You can be connected with someone on a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree level. The most valuable connections, however, are your 1st degree connections. 1st degree connections are people that you are directly connected with and can see your entire profile and updates. Any one that they are connected to would be your 2nd degree connection and the people connected to your 2nd degree connections are your 3rd degree connections. If you find that a profile reads “Outside of my network” that means that you gave zero connections in common with that user.

There are a few good ways to gain connections on LinkedIn. You can use the feature that will search through your email contacts or CRM lists and locate those that are on LinkedIn and send them an automatic request to connect. You can also manually search for connections by name or company and send them a connection request. Any time you send a request to someone that is not a 1st degree connection, it’s best to avoid the generic message provided my LinkedIn. Instead, customize your own message and include value and credibility. This will increase the chances of them accepting your request. LinkedIn also has a feature that allows a 1st degree connection to introduce you to his or her connection.

Join LinkedIn groups: LinkedIn groups are a great place to build relationships with those that are in your industry. If you click the ‘Groups’ tab, you have the option to view ‘Groups You May Like’ or ‘Groups Directory.’ You can use either of these tools to find groups to join. Once you join a group, make sure to stay active in posting and commenting on member posts. You can make connections, establish credibility and gain information on what is going on in your industry through staying active in your LinkedIn groups.

Endorse and be endorsed: Part of building relationships with other business owners and people in your industry, is to tell others about what they do. One form of this is by endorsing the skills that your connections have listed on their profile. If you have experienced a presentation with KWSM President, Katie Wagner, you can go to where she lists ‘Speaking’ and click ‘endorse.’ Most of the time, as soon as you view a profile, LinkeIn will ask at the very top of the page, “Does John Smith have these skills or expertise?” you can then click the ‘Endorse’ button to endorse or ‘skip’ if you do not wish to endorse the listed skills.

Endorsing is a way to reach out to a connection, vouch for their expertise publicly, and draw attention to your LinkedIn profile and skills in hopes for endorsements. Be aware that endorsements build credibility on LinkedIn, so it’s not always a bad idea to ask for them.

Now that we have established goals for your LinkedIn, it’s time to start using them. Feel free to endorse my blogging skills while you’re at it. See you there!

photo credit @zambrano

You may or may not heard of FourSquare, a mobile social networking website that lives on your smartphone and  allows registered users to “check-in” at any location and connect with friends. It’s a nifty little app that is not only fun, but can also benefit your business. (For more basic info on Foursquare, click here). Here are some ways to utilize FourSquare to give your business a leg-up.

Have your staff check in. Whether at the office or at a company event, encourage your staff to “check in”. Checking in literally consists of pressing a certain button within the app and can help to personalize your brand by showing that people actually go to your business.

Follow your audience.  By browsing  through your audience check-ins, you can see the places they like to go to get a better picture of their interests and use them to connect to customers. For example, if you’re a coffee shop and you notice a high volume of users checking in at a certain concert or event nearby, you can make mention of it on your other social media channels (you DO have other channels, right?). Something like “Come tell us how the concert was over coffee! We’re open late and can’t wait to see you!”

Check in with clients.  Show people who you are working with. Are you a local T-shirt company making shirts for the local baseball team? Check in at the baseball field and tell people! A cake company dropping off a cake for a wedding? Check in at the venue! Checking in with clients is a way to show where your business goes within your community.

Share tips. Once you’ve got a page made for your business, share relevant tips throughout your community! Give a tip about what off-menu sandwich to order at the place next-door to your business, or the best time to avoid the rush at the local coffeehouse. This will create a more personal connection with customers and will have them feeling grateful to your business even when they are checking in somewhere else.

So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to check in!

For more social media tips,  check us out on Facebook!

If so, you will know that your Facebook fans now have the option to sort how they view content in their newsfeed. The choices include…

‘Most Recent’ (sorting chronologically, instead of by Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm), ‘All Friends’ (shows only content from friends, eliminating fan pages) and ‘Following’ (This is where all the brand content is – it shows fan pages and people you are subscribed to).

At first glance, these changes seem to make it harder for business owners to use their Facebook fan pages to reach potential customers. After all, even the people who ‘like’ your page would probably rather see updates from their friends and family – and now they have the option to sort their newsfeed that way!

So, what’s a marketer to do?

The answer is to focus on what you should have been doing all along: Creating great content. You were hoping for the secret formula? Well, there isn’t one. The truth is that it’s challenging to keep your audience interested, and it just got tougher. Here are 3 hard truths about the new newsfeed. The sooner you learn them, the better your fan page will do.

Your Appearance Matters.

Fans have always been drawn to photos and videos, but now Facebook is making them even more prominent. Visual content is displayed much larger in the new newsfeed – photos, videos and even the preview pictures in links to articles you post. Make sure you’re ready.

Now is the time to pay attention to the quality of the images you’re posting. With the larger size, low quality will be easier to spot. In addition to creating photo posts, make sure you’re adding images to all your blog posts. You’ll want to maximize the attention they get when you share them on your fan page. The cover photo is one of the most important pictures on your page. Now when people interact with your page and it shows up in their newsfeeds, your cover photo will be displayed. Use a great one.

A quick note about photo captions – short and sweet is the way to go. The new layout displays the words over the picture, so don’t muck it up by adding too much text.

You Won’t Be As Popular As You Once Were.

Now that fans have the ability to filter their newsfeeds, chances are a lot of them will try out the new feature. They might even like it. And that means fewer fans are going to see your posts, at least initially.

But look on the bright side. At KWSM, we believe that social media isn’t really about the ‘fan count’ anyway – it’s about incorporating a new way of communicating with your customers into your business philosophy. Social becomes part of the way you do business. If you owned a store and had a down week where not as many people visited, you wouldn’t close the doors, right? Likewise, you need to ride this dip out online. While you will probably see a drop in your reach as people play with the new tools, the fans that find your business – and your content – valuable will be back. And you should be there waiting with open arms, and great posts.

You Need Them More Than They Need You.

It’s true – but your goal should be to change that. More than ever, you need to be creating valuable content that your target audience can’t live without. Be a resource. Teach them something. Entertain them. Leave them wanting more.

Being relevant is a good start. Sometimes things happen in the world that everyone is talking about. (Christmas, summer vacation, the election, the Superbowl…) Get onboard. When a topic is on users’ minds, they are drawn to content about it. In the new newsfeed, Facebook groups similar content together in a bundle. So, if you’re talking about what other people are talking about, you could get more attention.

Also, now is not the time to play hard to get.

With the new ‘Most Recent’ feed option, fans can view posts chronologically. (Note: the ‘Following’ feed where your fan page will show up is also displayed in chronological order.) That means when you post has become more important. So study when your audience is most engaged, and work your schedule around it. Post when you have the best chance of being seen.

Lastly, give them something to talk about. If most people start looking at the ‘All Friends’ feed, then your avenue to that audience is having your fans share your content with their friends.

If your fan page posts are already getting lots of interaction from fans, you’re going to survive this new newsfeed just fine. After all, no one filters out stuff they want to see. So, keep making your posts valuable and engaging, and stop worrying that you’ll be ignored.

Want to try the new newsfeed for yourself? Click here to get it. (https://www.facebook.com/about/newsfeed)

Then join us on Facebook to tell us what you think!

The world of social media is always renewing itself in some way or another. With frequent updates and resurfacing content, it can be hard to keep up with on a daily basis.  It’s important to stay informed of the curent issues and trends so that your social media presence stays relevant. Using social media is one thing, but using it well is the key to online success.  Stay updated and stay informed with the latest social media news!

In Case You Missed It:

When you count down the hours until a new episode of your favorite TV show airs, the last thing you want to encounter is a spoiler on social networking sites. Is there anything worse? Didn’t think so. Setting out to fix that very issue, 17-year-old Jen Lamere recently took home the top prize at the TVnext hack event in Boston (where she was the only female participating) for her Twivo app for Google Chrome. For more on this story, click here!

 Interacting with your friends on Facebook just got a lot easier — If you’re a Bing user, that is. Starting Friday, Bing will show comments from Facebook relevant to your search in the sidebar. From that search, you can Like a friend’s post, comment, or see the original post in its entirety on Facebook. Click here for more on this story.

It may seem like everyone already has all the mobile devices they need, but shipments for notebooks, tablets and smartphones reached 308.7 million in the first quarter of 2013, up more than 37% in the same quarter from the year before. According to new data from Canalys, Android continues to dominate the mobile market, making up nearly 60% of those shipments. Apple only accounted for about 19% of the share and Microsoft brought in 18%. More on this story here.

Social Media Bootcamp is June 7, 14, 21 & 28 from 9am – 12pm at the KWSM office in Aliso Viejo.

For more information, visit our Workshops page.

Register now for Social Media Bootcamp and reserve your place.

See you there!

Can social media save JCPenney’s brand? Thanks @dollydahl for the photo!

Does social media work? Here’s a success story from a popular national retailer.

Recently, JCPenney revamped its brand, ousting its outdated department store “sales and coupons” strategies and launching an entire makeover emphasizing low prices and modern and hip clothing lines.

I don’t remember the last time I stepped into a JCPenney store, and there’s a high chance that I’ve never even been to one at all (maybe my mom took me one day when I was still in a stroller, who knows?) The point is, I’ve never had a desire to shop at JCPenney. It was only until recently when I noticed all of its changes that JCPenney caught my eye. Suddenly, I began seeing JCPenney’s new commercials on TV and YouTube everywhere, advertising clothing pieces that actually looked like items I wanted in my closet. I appreciated that JCPenney was stepping out of its comfort zone and pursuing different business models that would be more relevant to today’s generations.

Of course, there are many people who disagree.

Turns out, JCPenney’s changes have elicited harsh criticism from its former loyal customers, and its sales have been plummeting.

In response, JCPenney recently launched an apologetic ad campaign urging customers to not only come back, but to also voice their opinions through social media. The campaign has garnered a huge response; Thousands of people, from disgruntled former customers to enthusiastic new fans, have been writing on JCPenney’s Facebook wall and tweeting using the hashtag “#jcplistens,” expressing their thoughts on all of JCPenney’s changes.  “We’re listening,” JCPenney says, and it’s true—JCPenney has diligently replied to nearly all of the comments coming in, and is expressing genuine concern and care for its audience.

This case is a great testament to how vital social media is for businesses’ reputations today. JCPenney made drastic changes to its company, which garnered negative attention, but instead of sweeping all of that under the rug, JCPenney is using it to build transparency and better customer relations. And, talk about a great PR move! JCPenney owned up to its changes and chose to address them with its customers, and turned the entire ordeal into a campaign that will surely catch many more people’s eyes.

If you haven’t already, go take a look at JCPenney’s social media and observe how the company is using these channels to interact with its customers.

What do you think about JCPenney and its social media campaign? Let us know on our Facebook page!

photo credit @rachacha88

Contrary to popular belief Instagram is not a hipster unit of measurement, but a social media channel that harbors a one hundred million strong user base. However, since Instagram is all about visuals, many small businesses tend to neglect this channel because they feel that their business isn’t visually interesting or doesn’t have enough brand awareness (think Coke or Apple) for people to care. FALSE! Here are just a few ways to utilize Instagram to promote your small business.

Showcase your company culture.  Show people the inner-workings of your company. Post photos of your customized desks, or your secretary’s obsessive sticky notes. Show them your outfits on casual Friday or snap a shot of someone hard at work. This will allow potential customers to get to know your company on a personal level and so will instill trust in them as well.

Show off the merch. If your company sells a particular product, Instagram it! Show off a different item each day or each week and ask questions about it. Post two pictures side by side and ask which users like better. If your company doesn’t have merchandise that it’s selling, show off that sweet new lunch sack or stress ball with the company logo on it!

 Celebrate good times (visually). Celebrations are always a good idea. Celebrate employee birthdays, anniversaries and company milestones. Bring balloons, donuts (because everyone has an emotional attachment to donuts),  or even just smiles! Have someone snap a picture and upload it to the company Instagram account. Show people how fun you are and how much you appreciate and care about your company and the people who keep it running.

 Do good. Then show it. Giving back to the community is good on several different levels. Have your company sign up for a community event, or volunteer (even if it’s just for an hour or two) at a local food bank. While there, have someone snap shots of  employee participation. By investing in your community, you will not only get that warm and fuzzy feeling that only comes from helping others, but you will have content on Instagram that shows customers how much you care. And people like people who care.

So what are you waiting for? Go get yourself an Instagram!

Not Deleting the Link

Did you know that once the preview of the link shows up below your post, you can delete the link?  This is one of the most common mistakes I see on Facebook.  By deleting the link, it cleans up your post a lot and makes it clear where you want your fans to click.

Simple Text Posts

It used to be that you could only post text to Facebook.  Those days are long gone.  It’s all about visual content!  Statistically, text posts get the least engagement.  In addition, these posts often get relegated to the “News Ticker” and never even show up in the main newsfeed of your fans.

Long Posts

This is Facebook, not a blog.  If you need to communicate a lot of information, you are better off putting it on a website and linking to it.  Better yet, create a short video with the information.  Unfortunately, long posts like this one will get skipped over because they are too long and are too much to consume on Facebook.  Studies show that the most engaging posts are 90 characters or less.

Feeding in From Other Channels

When you feed your posts in from another channel (like Twitter), it becomes painfully clear that you are doing so.  How you talk on Twitter unfortunately does not translate well to Facebook.  Twitter is more about short and quick, like an instant message.  It’s ok to abbreviate on Twitter because you only have 140 characters.  Abbreviating on Facebook looks weird.  Also, although hashtags are (allegedly) coming to Facebook, they aren’t here yet.  So for now, keep your #wittyruntogethercomments off facebook. 

Overtagging

When you tag 3 or more other pages in a post, it starts to look A LOT like spam.  I am a huge fan of tagging other pages, but this is going a little far.   When you tag this many other pages, it really starts to seem like you are just trying to get in front of their audience.  Instead, when you tag a page, be sure it’s to give them credit for something you are sharing or to let them know about something they might be interested in.

Now that you know some of the most common mistakes, you can avoid them and post more engaging content.  If you have any you would like to add, I would love to hear from you!  Write a comment below or on our Facebook page.

The world of social media is always renewing itself in some way or another. With frequent updates and resurfacing content, it can be hard to keep up with on a daily basis.  It’s important to stay informed of the curent issues and trends so that your social media presence stays relevant. Using social media is one thing, but using it well is the key to online success.  Stay updated and stay informed with the latest social media news!

In Case You Missed It:

Twitter has hired Cynthia Gaylor from Morgan Stanley to run its corporate development team, bringing in a veteran investment banker with experience in acquisitions and initial public offerings. Twitter is expected to be the next big IPO to emerge from Silicon Valley. But executives have kept quiet about the company’s precise plans. For more on this story, click here!

Twitter updated its app for iPhone and Android Wednesday, adding the ability to view Trends from around the world or focus on those in your backyard. Located in the Discover tab, the feature shows you what’s trending on Twitter as whole. You can also drill down to tailored trends within the app. They’re based on your location as well as who you follow on Twitter. The idea is that you’ll see trends specifically catered to your own personal interests. Click here for more on this story.

The Oracle of Omaha, a long-time investor in traditional media like newspapers, finally caved Wednesday afternoon and joined the ranks of Twitter. His first tweet, a simple five-word, twenty-three character burst came at 12:20 PM EST. “Warren is in the house,” he wrote as @WarrenBuffet. More on this story here.