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6 Visual Apps for Creating Social Media Content

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By Krisit Hines

Do you need to create content on the go?

Looking for mobile apps to help?

A number of mobile apps let you create professional-looking images, animations, and video using only your mobile device.

In this article, you’ll discover six mobile apps to create content for your social media profiles.

All apps mentioned are available for iPhone users and all screenshots are taken from an iPhone 6. A few apps (Photo Grid and Kanvas) are also available on the Google Play store for Android users.

#1: Kanvas

Kanvas is an app for both iPhone and Android. You can create a variety of content types, including quote images, GIF bursts, video, flipbooks, and more. Once you install it and set up your free account, Kanvas helps you create each of these content types by tapping on the plus icon at the top right of your home screen.

Note: When you create an account, you’re also creating a profile on the Kanvas network. To set up your profile, tap on the profile icon at the bottom right of the screen, and thentap on Settings.  Read More

16 Social Media Tools The Experts Swear By

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Keeping up on the freshest social media tools and software is a pretty difficult challenge for the average social marketer.

New tools are being released all the time. Old ones are retired or acquired or lose that one key feature you really needed them for. And testing every new option is not realistic.

To help you weed through the options out there for measuring, publishing and monitoring, we reached out to past Social Fresh Conference (our social media conference) speakers.

The answers covered a wide set of solutions that every social marketer should know about. From some of the oldest tools, Radian6 and Tweetdeck, to some of the most popular, Buffer and Simply Measured, to several tools that you probably do not know about.

Check out full list below.  Read More

Why Social Media is Important for Small Businesses

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If you’re one of the few small businesses that are not yet plugged into social media, you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. Do you really need to use it, or can you just get by with an optimized website and an e-newsletter? The short answer is yes, you need social media – at least you do if you want to reach customers and stay competitive. Here are just a few reasons why social media is so important for small businesses.

Your customers are already using it.

According to a 2011 report published by Nielson, Americans spend nearly a quarter of their online time on social networks and blogs. This means that chances are much of your target market is already using social media. If you want to reach clients and prospects, you need to be where they are – by using social media you’ll increase the odds that your marketing message will get through to a significant number of them. [Read more…]

Benefits of Facebook Advertising

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It is no secret that Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world with over 1 billion users. Can you imagine just being able to reach out to a fraction of those 1 billion users to tell them about your business? 3 Benefits of Facebook Ads What would that do for your business? If utilized properly the benefits Facebook Ads provide to businesses are endless and will drive the right type of potential customers to your website’s door.

Here are 3 amazing benefits Facebook Ads provide for small and large businesses alike.

Retargeting
What is retargeting? Also known as “remarketing,” retargeting is when online advertising uses information from a previous web search to influence ads on future websites visited. How does this work? When a user visits other websites, a cookie is created on their computer with that website’s data. Later on, that same user visits Facebook like they do several times a day. Facebook is able to read those cookies and use that information to place ads from the websites the user was previously on that day or days before. Keeping product engagement after the consumer has left your website is a huge benefit Facebook Ads offer your business. It’s the very reason you see ads for the products you recently searched for. And, this benefit is available to all businesses using Facebook’s advertising platform.  [Read more…]

5 Ways to Improve Your Instagram Marketing

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By Jenn Herman

Is there a place for Instagram in your marketing plan?

Do you want to use Instagram effectively for your business?

Instagram is more than a fun, photo-based social network. It can help you promote your products or services, get more leads and generate conversions.

In this article I’ll explain how to use Instagram to drive big results for your business.

#1: Add a Link to Your Instagram Profile

The only place where you can put a clickable link on Instagram is in your profile, below your bio description.

If you’re going to see any success with Instagram, you must use this link effectively. The good news is that you can change this URL as often as you like.  Read More

3 Ways to Optimize Facebook Ads For Better Results

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By Jason How

Are you running Facebook ads?

Do you want to get more out of your ads?

The right optimization can make or break your ad campaign. Target audiences, timing and ad creative are all important considerations.

In this article I’ll share three tips for making the most of your Facebook ad campaigns.

#1: Reach the Right Audience
Many marketers optimize their Facebook ads based on the soulless numbers they see on that platform, which often leads to reaching the wrong audience.

For example, when you run a campaign to increase your page likes, you only care whether your ads are increasing the number of likes. But consider that the number of likes says nothing about your fans’ relevance to your business. For all you know, a substantial portion of fans could be fake—that’s definitely not the audience you’re going for.   Read More

How to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Visibility

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By Laura Roeder

Are you tired of your Facebook posts getting buried in the news feed?

Want to get your Facebook posts seen?

Facebook algorithms dictate how many people see your updates. Two recent changes should help you get more organic reach and lower your frustration level.

In this article, I’ll share how you can adjust your Facebook tactics to make the most of news feed visibility today.  Read More

14 Tools to Streamline Your Social Media Marketing

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By Stephanie Shkolnik

Do you want to manage social media more efficiently?

Do you have the right tools?

To streamline your approach, you’ll need resources that work well with your business.

In this article I’ll share the best tools to manage and optimize your social media marketing.

#1: Find Your Audience

Once you define your target audience(s), find the social media platforms they frequent online.

Here are tools you can use to find your audience across the web.

Followerwonk

My favorite (and free) hidden gem is Followerwonk. Specific to Twitter, this tool allows users to search Twitter bios (or Twitter profiles) by keywords. It helps build influencer lists for engagement at a later time. So if you search “technology editor,” the tool will pick up any profiles mentioning this phrase in an easy-to-consume list for simple identification.

Traackr

An influencer marketing platform, Traackr creates specific lists of influencers and their qualifications, based on the criterion put into the system—whether it’s a region (New York) or topic (chocolate-lover).  Read More

10 Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing

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There are many guides, best practices and tips for social media marketing out there. This is a different list. These are 10 principles that are fundamental for organizations that are building a social media plan. The goal is to help you establish a mindset that will help you come up with a strategy. I learned these principles after more than a decade of working on social media and community strategies for start-ups to Fortune 50 organizations..

To start on a light note, let me share an extended version of an entertaining way to explain social media 101

The 10 fundamental principles for social media marketing

1. Social Media is not a strategy. Social media is interaction, it’s a channel, a tool that can be used for many things – like email, or video conferencing technology or a CRM system or in-person meetings. Social is most effective when integrated with other parts of the business to support a business strategy. Read more.

2. Social strategists are coaches. A mature social team crafts the strategy, provides a technology foundation, guidelines and coaching to enable multiple groups in the organization to be active in social media. If the social media is the only one participating in the conversation, you are doing something wrong. Read more.

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How to Drive More Facebook Traffic to Your Website in 5 Easy Steps

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By Andrea Vahl

Would you like to drive more Facebook traffic to your website?

Is quality Facebook traffic important to your business?

Getting Facebook fans to your website (and then hopefully onto your email list) is even more critical with Facebook’s recent announcement of decreased organic reach for pages.

Use these five steps to help you get more traffic Facebook to your website.

#1: Make Sure You Have a Steady Stream of Shareable Content on Your Website

If you have a website that never changes, you’re going to struggle to get much traffic to it. Posting links to the same page on your site over and over is as futile as Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill.

These days, the name of the game is content marketing and you had better figure out how your business can participate.

The fresh, new content you post on your site is important—not only for social media marketing, but also for search engine optimization. Google rewards sites featuring fresh content with higher ranking. But you don’t have to post epic blog articles three times a week to win at the content marketing game. Posting something new and helpful once a week or even once a month can benefit your website traffic.

Here are some ideas that can help you brainstorm how you can add new content to your website:

  • Post a weekly tip about your niche. It doesn’t have to be long; a paragraph or two with a nice photo will do just fine. Start with the frequently asked questions that come in from your customers.
  • Post a weekly news bite with a photo about what is happening in your business. This works well for businesses that have events.
  • Curate a list of top 10 helpful articles from around the web that you found that week. Add a short sentence about why you liked them. Read More