As social media evolves, questions arise on the psychology of social media sharing. The New York Times published a study revealing why people share. How conscious are your decisions on social media? What motivates your sharing habits? We can all categorize friends’ personalities on the internet. Where do you fit into the online world? Need help with your brand’s personality on social media? We specialize in social media management. Contact us today for a consultation.
Audience targeting
How To: Use Keywords to Optimize Your Blog Posts
Focusing on optimizing your blog posts for optimal user traffic is no new idea. But if you’re new to blogging, you need to know that optimization is a key ingredient to a successful blog. Here at SocialNicole, we prefer the incredible Yoast SEO plugin to help us optimize our posts. But there are so many details to keep in mind for optimization that sometimes how to use keywords to optimize your blog posts just becomes overwhelming. Assuming you understand the basics, let’s take a look at a few key tips that you should keep in mind as you’re prepping your posts.
Key Tips: Use Keywords to Optimize Your Blog Posts
A Clickable Keyword
Finding a great keyword with low competition and high searches is a difficult battle on its own. However, it’s also important that your headlines catch some attention. How often a piece of content gets shared positively impacts its SEO. You may have a great keyword, but if you’re going to include that keyword in your post title, it better be catchy.
URLs and Headings
Keywords are crucial and should be included in both your URLs and headings. It’s easy to fit your keyword into your URL, but it takes a bit more creativity to include the keyword in your heading. If you can find a way to fit it in, get it in a large heading, such as a Level 2, in order to really catch readers’ eyes.
Photos
Don’t get so caught up in the words of your post that you forget about including awesome photos. After resizing your photo for optimal online use, it’s important to also optimize your photo’s file name and alternative tags.
Do Your Research
Above all else, the most important thing to remember when optimizing your post is to do thorough research. Spend the extra time searching for a keyword that has low competition and high searches, while remembering to make it normal enough to fit into the content of your post. Interested in connecting with SocialNicole for some expert optimization help? Contact us here!
Using RSS and Buffer App to Streamline Your Social Sharing
After working so hard to find shareable, quality content, it’s important that the content easily gets to consumers. RSS (Rich Site Summary), is a way for readers to easily subscribe to content that they are interested in reading. This provides an automatic streamline of content from the source directly to readers. It is a great tool to get content to read for research or interest, but also acts as a great way for your business to easily and automatically share content on a larger, simpler scale. Using RSS and Buffer app to successfully streamline your social sharing can be simple – follow these five tips below to streamline in no time! 1. Buffer app is a great tool used to schedule posts to your Twitter account. Buffer App should be used for RSS posting and sharing other posts with your followers. You can grab these articles from whichever RSS reader that you personally use and automatically share it with your Twitter followers. 2. If you’re having difficulty keeping track of all the RSS feeds you follow, rename them so that you know who to specifically tag when mentioning the article. Do this right away when following the blog so that you don’t forget. Keep all your feeds organized. 3. It is ideal to have at least 10-15 articles scheduled in the Buffer hopper throughout the day. To avoid sounding automated, mention where the article came from. If you don’t currently follow the blog on Twitter, take some time and follow them if they are relevant to your field of business. Sharing articles and mentioning the source of the articles is a powerful of networking and being authentic. For example, “Very great article via @example…” This isn’t necessary for every single post, but have a goal of doing this 60-75% of the time that you share. 4. Another way to avoid being automated is to make your posts personal. Instead of just buffering the article you find in your RSS reader, insert a summary or teaser of the article. For example, “Here’s a great tip you should check out from @TwitterAccount’s “5 Best Practices of Content Marketing”! Shoot to do this 20-50% of the time when scheduling an article. Create an interesting hook to entice readers. This will add value to the reader and help guide readers to what the article may be about. 5. Each month, review the blogs in your RSS and delete any that are not producing good content and add new ones you find. Also remember to be daily adding new blogs to your feed if you are sharing new links and find a blog you think is valuable.
Sharing in Real-Time: Live Social Media
Crowds of people. Endless noise. Everlasting excitement. The marketability of a live event can hardly be intensified – unless you throw in some live social media sharing. With so many different social media management tools out there, people often schedule posts to various feeds so that their links, text, videos, or images post at a certain time on a certain date. Though this is an efficient way of managing one’s account, there is incredible hidden value in sharing live social media, in real-time, at big events.
Network
Being present and live during a real-time event is a great way to network. Being live and active shows that your business is run by real people, not just an automatic scheduler. Having conversations via the social media channel of your choice makes you and your business more “real,” giving you the opportunity to individually interact with customers, other businesses, and experts in your field. Live social media gives your business a personality and a voice. Not only can you build your business credibility and partnerships, but you can also speak directly with consumers and receive feedback. Live real-time events are great jumping off points for interaction – make an initial connection about the Super Bowl score and casually move the conversation toward a customer’s current purchasing preferences.
Getting Started
Large sporting events such as the Super Bowl, award ceremonies like the Academy Awards, and national charity events are all great events to tweet or post live during. Posting in real-time at these kinds of events shows that you are up-to-date on news and culture, rather than always focusing on selling your product and/or service. These large real-time events attract many people from all across the country (and in some cases, the world). This means your audience will be enormous. Be intentional about talking to a general public while still focusing on making individual connections. Though posting live social media during national events is fun and valuable, it’s also important to engage in live social media for local events. Your audience might be a bit smaller, but this will allow your business to be recognized within your own community. On this smaller scale, your business is much more likely to make personal connections with customers and other businesses that may be easier to follow up with. Live social media sharing and interacting during real-time big events allows you to leverage connections, potential customers, and push your brand values. Being active during these events versus scheduling posts is a powerful tool to generate new ideas for your business and make valuable connections with customers. Ready to embark on some live social media sharing? SocialNicole would love to help you get started!
Content Marketing Help: Learn the Basics
Content marketing is very essential to having a successful business and/or gaining new customers. It is the heart of having a great marketing plan. It drives traffic to your website and social channels, all while potentially influencing sales of your product and/or service. Because the process can get complicated, we want to provide some content marketing help. Content marketing does not necessarily mean that you are always selling your business. Rather, it is the content that you put out there for the public to view. This content informs readers about the field of your business and relatable topics. But developing a great content marketing plan isn’t always easy – so we’ve dwindled it down to the basics, giving you the basic content marketing help that you need.
The Rules of Posting
1. Related Content
As mentioned before, it is important to post content related to your field of business. It doesn’t make sense to own a fashion blog and post about cooking. Sharing current news about your field of business shows that you are informed about your area of expertise. Doing research on your field of business also gives you insight on competitors in the market and keeps you up-to-date about changes you will need to make in your own business to keep you on top of your game.
2. Effective Title
Having an effective title will intrigue readers to open your post in the first place to read about it. Research key terms that people would use to describe your business and try to include that in your article title. Search to find great websites that can help you choose an effective title, read other blogs within your industry, and ask other field experts for ideas when deciding on a catchy title that will draw in customers.
3. Research
There is a ton of information out on the Internet, just waiting to be found. To help your credibility, seek information from well-known websites and experts. Avoid very opinionated content from the Internet about your field of business. Your content should be unbiased since the opinions of readers are unpredictable. Make sure that the news is current and well-researched before posting from any of your channels.
4. Length
After ensuring you provide enough information on the content, do not exceed 1-2 pages of writing. There is only so much information you can provide on a topic. It can bore the audience if your post is too long. Be concise in your post and get straight to the purpose of the post. This will save readers time and should give readers the answer they were looking for. Have too much content? Split up your posts into a series – this will leave customers coming back for more. These are just the basics of content marketing. Once you’ve mastered these few skills, there’s plenty more to learn about how to make your company’s content marketing plan the best that it can be. Interested in some help developing a plan? Connect with SocialNicole – we’d love to help! Photo Credit