Social Media

How To Be More Productive In Social Media Marketing

Are you looking for social media marketing tips to help you be more productive? For starters, the process of doing social media marketing is time consuming and on average, we spend at least three hours daily scheduling and managing our social media accounts.

What if I tell you that there are a couple of ways to be productive on social media?

You see, I've been doing social media marketing since 2004 and I realized that I hate spending hours looking at the computer and doing social media. I rather spend more time with my wife and son (seriously)!

Carry on reading to find the best ways to be more productive in social media marketing.

1. Plan everything in advance

I hate planning but if you want to be more productive on social media, you got to plan in advance.

You work will be more organized once you plan everything. Instead of guessing what you should be doing, you know exactly what to do and when to do it.

Here's a quick guide from Duct Tape Marketing: 7 Steps For An Effective Social Media Marketing Plan

2. Leverage social media tools

I love automation and social media tools allow us to save more time in many ways.

Make no mistake. There are many social media tools that are highly priced and could burn a huge hole in your wallet. So, how do you choose a social media tool?

Here are some guidelines:

Features
Affordability
Customer support
Customer review
Number of social media platforms

Allow me to give you an example. PostPlanner is a social media tool to boost reach and social media engagement. For only $3 per month, you can manage up to three social media profiles at the same time—from finding content topics, analytics and automatic scheduling all under one roof. Click here to try PostPlanner for free.

There are also tools such as Hootsuite which is a great choice if you are managing multiple social media accounts and want to have a bird's eye view on all of them.

3. Take automation to whole new level

With today's technology, automation is a norm and you should be using it as much as you can. What does this means?

There are many tools that allows you to put social media on automation. For example, AgoraPulse allows you to manage and automate all your social media accounts under one roof. There's also IFTTT which is a great addon especially in connecting two apps or more.

If you are looking for complete social media automation (like set once and forget), Socialoomph is a great tool for you to use without burning a hole in your wallet.

Need more tips to be productive in social media marketing?

Click to enlarge the infographic. Credits to Neil Patel and Quick Sprout.

Boost Your Reach & Social Media Engagement Using PostPlanner

Social Media

Every business owner would want to boost their reach and social media engagement. Sadly, they have no idea which tool they should use, and what strategy they should be implementing to achieve the goals.

When it comes to increasing your reach and social media engagement on Facebook, most of us think about using ads. Of course, Facebook has literally reduced the organic reach of Facebook Pages drastically over the years—which made us believe ads is the only way of reaching out a wider audience.

What if I tell you that there is a way to boost Facebook reach and social media engagement without using ads?

Carry on reading to find out more.

What is PostPlanner?

PostPlanner-Review Boost Your Reach & Social Media Engagement Using PostPlanner Social Media

PostPlanner is a social media tool that helps you increase your social media reach and engagement—without spending a dime on paid ads.

And yes, for only $3 per month, you can save thousands of dollars from spending on Facebook ads.

Take a look at social media influencers are saying.

PostPlanner-Testimonial-Kim-Garst Boost Your Reach & Social Media Engagement Using PostPlanner Social Media

PostPlanner-Testimonial-Neal-Schaffer Boost Your Reach & Social Media Engagement Using PostPlanner Social Media

What makes PostPlanner such a powerful social media tool?

There are four distinctive ways for PostPlanner to work perfectly well.

Find the best content for your audience
Take the guesswork out of post performance
Don’t spend hours per day planning posts
Be in control of your social media strategy

Finding the best content

Find-Best-Content-PostPlanner Boost Your Reach & Social Media Engagement Using PostPlanner Social Media

Social media is all about sharing the best content with your audience (to attract them, of course).

Using PostPlanner, you don't have to guess what works and what doesn't. It all boils down to a nice and simple layout for you to make the right decision.

Predict performance of each post

PostPlanner-Post-Performance Boost Your Reach & Social Media Engagement Using PostPlanner Social Media

Analyzing your marketing effort is critical to understand the ROI from it. PostPlanner tool allows you to review and predict the future engagement specific to your audience.

In other words, PostPlanner is able to tell you what works best for your audience—especially when it comes to reaching out to a wider audience and boost social media engagement.

Save more time and double your results

PostPlanner-Save-Time-Social-Media-Planning Boost Your Reach & Social Media Engagement Using PostPlanner Social Media

Social media is known for being time consuming. Without PostPlanner, I was spending at least 3 hours a day solely in scheduling and being active on social media.

With PostPlanner, I spend at most 30 minutes daily just to schedule posts and getting the right engagement I wanted as well.

The best part, PostPlanner allows me to create different schedules for different social media profiles. Therefore, each post can highly customized based on my audience.

Be in control

PostPlanner-Social-Media-Strategy Boost Your Reach & Social Media Engagement Using PostPlanner Social Media

PostPlanner provides a dashboard overview of all our scheduled posts under one roof. This allows you to be in control of your social media strategy.

And if you ever need to do adjustment, you can easily edit the posts in just a few clicks or simple use the drag and drop feature to change the sequence.

How much does PostPlanner costs?

You will be surprised on how much it actually costs. The smallest plan starts at $3 per month and you can manage up to 3 social media accounts at the same time.

Here's the pricing table for your reference:

PostPlanner-Pricing-And-Plans Boost Your Reach & Social Media Engagement Using PostPlanner Social Media

Of course, you can opt for bigger plans such as Love and Guru for more social media profiles.

Overall, PostPlanner is an excellent social media tool and is definitely something serious bloggers and business owners should be using.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and try PostPlanner today!

Try PostPlanner for free!

5 Social Media Challenges Faced By Business Owners (And How To Solve Them)

Blog, Marketing, Social Media

Erik Qualman once said, “We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it”.

Can you believe that, folks? Social media is a key generator for your business; let it be either an online or a brick and mortar business, you need social media to literally survive in this world.

The challenges small businesses face is inevitable. Yes you — small business owners will face tons of obstacles which will either demotivate you or burn a hole in your pocket. As a social media consultant, I dare to say that there will be challenges in social media especially in two phrases; entry level and sustaining a marketing strategy to compete with the rest.

As Erik said above, social media is no longer a luxury; it is a needs that will determine success in business.

So, what are the challenges small businesses will face in social media? How do you overcome them?

Let’s break them down in this article, shall we?
CONTINUE READING

How Different Social Media Platforms Generate Leads

Blog, Marketing, Social Media

Mike Bird is a co-founder of digital marketing agency, Social Garden. Social Garden specializes in data-driven lead generation & marketing automation to grow companies revenue in the finance, property and education verticals in Australia. Mike is an influencer in the social media marketing & Facebook advertising space and contributes to Social Media Examiner, Social Media Today, Yahoo! Business Advisor and most importantly, the Social Garden blog.

You have your social media accounts all set up and ready to go, but do you know how to use them to generate leads?

Read on and learn how to use each social media platform to generate solid leads and make your social media marketing an overall success.

Facebook

Facebook is like the hub of social media. Everyone can post content from other sites to it, and nearly everyone has a Facebook account. This makes the social media platform instrumental in your lead generation plan.

Above all other social media platforms, Facebook’s advertising services target exactly who you want and can put your content right into the hands of those most likely to use it. After all, you spend so much time creating great, quality content on your blogs so you might as well share it with new potential clients.

The Promoted Post feature puts your best content on the Facebook feeds of those most likely to be intrigued and click. You might promote a link to a free ebook or upcoming webinar you are hosting, or you might promote your most popular blog article. The only think you cannot post is a direct link to any sort of landing or product page. This is not the time to sell.

Whatever promotional angle you decide to use, make sure you have a sign-up form or some way of getting visitors to give you their email addresses. This is the best way to collect the leads that click on your posts.

Twitter

Sending out well-crafted tweets with defining hashtags is a great start, but you might have more success generating leads if you are participating in or hosting Twitter chats. Any Twitter account can host a discussion and anyone interested is allowed to participate. The host will decide on a relevant hashtag so everyone participating can find the most recent posts by searching for the hashtag.

If you are unsure about hosting one, try participating in a few chats to see how it is done. You will meet both other industry leaders as well as consumers, and you will be free to voice your own opinions on certain subjects. This is a great way to gain exposure for your brand and introduce it to a new group of consumers.

Whether you are participating or hosting, there are a few things to keep in mind when posting. These will help you make better use of your time and hopefully generate more leads:

Stick to the designated hashtag.
Add insightful comments that show your understanding of the industry and the topic at hand.
Stay on topic and do not pitch any of your services or products.
Research the people who are active participants by checking out their profile. If you think they might be a good fit for you, follow them. More than likely, they will follow you back.

Be active in Twitter chats and your brand will reach new consumers.

Cendrine Marrouat of Social Media Slant hosts a monthly Twitter chat using #smslantchat where users discuss various aspects of digital marketing.

Instagram

Want to give your audience a behind-the-scenes look at your company? Instagram, the photograph platform, is perhaps best used for showing off the personal side of your business. It gives you the chance to showcase your staff’s antics and offer a glimpse at what it is really like to be a part of your company.

By introducing your staff members to the world, you’re giving a face to your brand and humanising it. Your brand inspires these people at work every day so show your consumers why it is so great to work for you and be a part of your company.

You can also send live updates from promotional events you attend and show readers what you are up to. This is a great way to attract people to a local event or trade show that you are participating in, and you can offer small discounts to followers who attend the event or trade show and stop by your booth.

Pinterest

Want to show off your company’s creativity and style? With Pinterest, you can create a board that represents your brand, and you can create multiple boards to meet the needs and wants of certain sectors of your audience.

To generate the best leads from Pinterest, optimise your pins for maximum pin-ability:

Craft the perfect board to match your audience’s tastes
Select visually stunning images – create your own or use others you love (Hint: tall images tend to get more pins)
Use your URL or UTM parameters to lead visitors back to your website
Create a short and sweet copy description – less than 200 words is best
Include a relevant hashtag if necessary

Promote your boards on multiple sites and encourage your followers to pin their favourite posts.

LinkedIn

One of the best lead generation features about LinkedIn is LinkedIn Groups. The site hosts hundreds of individual niche groups that participate in monthly, weekly and some even daily discussions together. The groups bring all sorts of industry professionals with similar interests together in one place where they can talk about the issue that matter most to their business.

There is no limit to the amount of groups that you can belong to, and you can always start your own group. You might start a small business support group for your area and invite other local small businesses in your area to participate. You can share marketing ideas and connect with other businesses who might be interested in doing some cross promotion with you.

Regardless of whether you start a LinkedIn group or participate in existing ones, you should be regularly posting questions, commenting on other’s opinions (politely) and answering any questions that people post. Like Twitter chat, active participation is key, and you should avoid doing any sales pitching. Doing so will only make people think that you are there to sell it them.

Research the participants in the group and take note of anyone who continually asks questions. You may answer them directly on the group chat and then follow up with a more in-depth direct message. This will help you build a good relationship with your fellow group members and portray your expert knowledge.

Thinking About Social Network Marketing? 3 Tips To Get Started!

Blog, Marketing, Social Media

Social network marketing is a gold mine when it comes to building traffic, revenue and sales.

It is not undeniable that if you are not doing social media, you are losing out; big time. And like it or not, we are already halfway through 2014.

Some says that 2015 will be a huge year for digital marketing trend which is wonderfully compiled by Lee Odden of Top Rank Blog (read more about it here).

The social media pace is getting fast and the ‘slow and steady’ don’t win the race anymore.

If you have yet to start any social media campaign, you need to start right now. Yes, drop whatever you are doing and start creating a social media account on Facebook, Twitter or a zillion other accounts.

But wait! You have already done that.

Good job, you have just started your first step in any social media campaign.

The moral of the story is not many of us realized we had already started some sort of social media marketing, regardless we are aware or not.

While creating an account is easy, you need more than that.

For starters, you need followers. Tons of them.

There are several fundamentals when it comes to building more followers such as:

Luck
Timing
Funnel

Luck is rather challenging as we have no control over them. Lucky for you, it is much opposite when it comes to ‘timing’ and ‘funnel’.

Tip #1: Timing matters for any social network marketing

Timing is everything. According to the Fast Company, you only need:

Around 5 tweets a day
5 to 10 Facebook updates in a week
Approx. 20 times on LinkedIn in a month

Take a moment to think about this. What’s your first thought?

Mine is simple; “Are you freaking joking me?! I post around 15 times on Twitter and Facebook plus 5 times on LinkedIn daily!”

Let’s talk about ROI myth and it is broken down into two parts:

Higher number of shares will contribute to higher traffic but higher bounce rate
Lower number of shares will contribute to lower traffic but a lower bounce rate

This can be concluded that while there is absolutely no wrong-doing choosing either one of them, the method of reaching out to the prospective readers is important.

What’s work for me is around 10 tweets, 5 Facebook shares and 3 LinkedIn updates close to a daily basis. How about yours?

There is no ‘absolute timing’ when it comes to social media scheduling. Yes, there are guides to help you with it but at the end of the day, it is totally dependable to your visitors (time of action).

Tip #2: Creating a funnel that drives traffic from social network marketing

Are you using social media for marketing? If you are, you need good funnels to drive traffic and sales.

Social network marketing basically means reaching thousands and thousands of readers with just a few clicks of the button.

In social media, the easiest way to create funnel is by creating quality posts with the proper Call To Action (CTA).

And when it comes to social media marketing techniques, there is no one else better than Rebekah Radice. Check out her latest article on 5 Ways To Create A Social Media Call To Action That Converts.

In short, a funnel can be done using:

Knowing your (company) value
Be exactly clear what you want your readers to do (read, click, buy etc)
Understanding the market
Speak your audience language
Simply by asking for a kind retweet, reshare or a +1

My social network marketing method is rather simple. I would share the same post using various CTA’s in a period of one week (or a couple of days). Judging from the response, it would provide us with a huge understanding on what readers love and what is driving those clicks.

Tip #3: Social network marketing done right

Social-media-done-right Thinking About Social Network Marketing? 3 Tips To Get Started! Blog Marketing Social Media — The right social network marketing strategy will drive traffic to blogs and websites

I’m a huge fan of social media automation. Running a hectic life with various projects from my start-up agency and as well as my lucrative day job is a no joke.

After all, it’s our job to ensure that we put food on the plate right?

Social media is business for me. Believe it or not, most of my business traffic comes from social media.

If you want to rank well on Google, you need search engine optimization. In social media, you need social media optimization.

To kick start social media, all you need is the right technique. Allow me to share mine (you can share yours using the comment form below):

Identify the right social media platforms
Understand what your goals are and focus on them
Building some social media metrics

There are more than a dozen social media platforms out there and you need to choose the most lucrative one for your social media campaign.

Using Google Analytics, determine which platform provides you the best traffic and clicks.

If you are starting up a social media marketing and time is a huge factor for you, you can simply choose the top 3 most productive platform to work with.

Social media is always a two way traffic. This means that you need to be active and as well as utilizing the power of automation.

And my go-to tool would be HootSuite Pro. Honestly speaking, having the ability to sync 50 social accounts at the same time is godly.

Bonus tip: Setting up HootSuite Pro for maximum social network power

HootSuite Pro offers up to 50 social accounts (free one offer 5 accounts) and this means that you need tons of planning.

There are two things you have to decide:

What you want to view on the timeline?
Which account you want to sync with HootSuite?

The below is an example my timeline. I separate them into platform based and even client’s tab (not visible for obvious purpose).

Each tab can holds up to 10 timelines and this includes mentions, private messages, scheduling etc.

Segmenting the timeline is important to ensure that you have enough visibility and contribution to avoid being labelled as spam or self promotion. This is where the segmentation in the image come into play.

HootSuite offers scheduled posts and you can schedule up to 5 accounts at one time.

The trick here is simple. Schedule posts which are highly attractive and relevant to the group or audience. Do that and you’ll get a winner!

HootSuite starts from $8.99 per month and you can it for 30-days free using this link: Free 30-days HootSuite Pro

Tell me your thought on social network marketing and if you are feeling generous, let’s discuss on social media strategies to increase traffic and sales revenue.

Social Media

1. Plan everything in advance

2. Leverage social media tools

3. Take automation to whole new level

Need more tips to be productive in social media marketing?

What is PostPlanner?

What makes PostPlanner such a powerful social media tool?

Finding the best content

Predict performance of each post

Save more time and double your results

Be in control

How much does PostPlanner costs?

Tip #1: Timing matters for any social network marketing

Tip #2: Creating a funnel that drives traffic from social network marketing

Tip #3: Social network marketing done right

Bonus tip: Setting up HootSuite Pro for maximum social network power

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