Tag Archive for: Social Media Marketing

Instagram’s Live Video Officially Launches For All US Users

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Instagram’s live video feature is officially available to all 70 million US users. After announcing the feature in late November, the social imaging platform has announced the feature is available across America and will be rolling out globally over the next few weeks.

While it may be tempting to compare Instagram’s live video streaming to Facebook’s growing live feature, it is actually more similar to the live options available through Snapchat.

With Instagram’s live video, users can broadcast to followers in real time through Instagram Stories. However, once the stream is over it is completely gone. There is no saving or replaying old broadcasts. They disappear as soon as you end the broadcast.

How To Get Started Broadcasting

To get started streaming, you just have to follow a couple easy steps.

  • Tap the camera icon in the top left of the screen or swipe right from the Feed to open your camera.
  • Tap the new Live icon at the bottom of the screen.
  • Tap Start Live Video.
  • Once you are ready to end your stream, just tap End in the top right.

Broadcasts can last up to one hour and you can choose to notify your followers when you go live. The number in the top right corner of the screen shows just how many followers are watching, and you can pin or share comments to others by tapping and holding it. You can also turn off comments entirely if you desire.

Marketing with Instagram Live Video

The idea of marketing your business through live video that immediately disappears may seem unattractive at first. Why bother with vanishing video when you can spend time crafting marketing campaigns that last, right?

However, live video can actually be a great way to make followers feel like they are in on exclusive events and information. The function is especially great for letting your customers and fans see special engagements like product launches or milestones for your business.

You can also use live video to engage your audience in new ways with impromptu interviews or Q&A sessions that help your followers learn more about who you are and why they should be invested in your brand.

For more info on Instagram’s live video feature, check out the video below:

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Almost 80% of Local Businesses Are On Facebook

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FacebookClick

In the age of the internet, Facebook has become one of the premier ways to advertise a local business. Now, a new report from Borrell Associates shows just how many businesses are using the biggest social platform around to grow their business.

According to the report, almost 80% of local businesses have a Facebook page, and 62% are buying Facebook ads to reach a larger audience. In total, that adds up to more than 2.5 million US businesses paying to promote their brands or content on Facebook every year, spending $1,500 on average.

For the survey, Borrell Associates quizzed a mix of US businesses – many of which qualify as small businesses. However, it is important to note that some respondents represent larger brands with annual marketing and media budgets over $100,000.

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Among those surveyed, 85% said they maintain a presence on at least one social media site. The vast majority of those (96%) were on Facebook, with Twitter in second place. Surprisingly, Snapchat does not appear on the list at all.

The data also shows that online marketing of all forms have firmly overtaken more traditional advertising mediums like print or TV ads as the best source of new customers for businesses. Company website and social media were second and third respectively, only outranked by word of mouth referrals.

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A significant number of the respondents were categorized as “social media mavens” by the report, because they consider social media as the absolute best channel for acquiring new customers for their business. However, these businesses are probably not who you think.

Instead of new, high-tech start-ups or large businesses with the budget for extensive social media marketing, these “mavens” are described as being:

  • “Smaller, older, independent companies with less than $1 million in gross sales.”
  • “More likely to have a single location or be home-based than have multiple locations and slightly more likely to cater to consumers (B2C) versus only businesses (B2B).”
  • 76% manage social media themselves.
  • 57% pay to boost posts

A significant number of these companies are also looking at cutting or eliminating traditional advertising from their marketing mix in the near future.

The findings highlight that you don’t have to be a Forbes 500 company or a typical online-based business to benefit from marketing your business on Facebook. Businesses of all sizes are seeing the social platform as an enormously powerful tool for reaching new customers.

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Pinterest Unveils Rotating Showcases For Brands

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Pinterest is giving business pages a makeover that highlights their boards and buyable pins – just in time for the holidays.

The biggest change is the addition of the new rotating showcase. This allows you to show off up to five of your boards and your buyable pins all in one, easy-to-view location.

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“You can use the new showcase space to highlight anything from seasonal content to your all-time best ideas – whatever helps tell the unique story of your business,” according to Pinterest.

The rotating showcase can be updated as often as you like, which means you can use it for a whole host of things. For example, you can update your showcase to put a seasonal spin on your page or share items on sale for a limited time.

That isn’t all that Pinterest is rolling out, though. The site is also making several cosmetic changes to business pages:

  • New tabs are available for organizing your boards and pins.
  • Pins you’ve liked are now only visible to you.
  • The showcase will replace your most recent pins on mobile.
  • You can now pick new board covers from mobile devices.

The company says it has also tweaked its layouts to ensure a more consistent experience from smartphone to desktop, and everywhere in between.

“The boards you showcase, the cover images you choose for each board—they look the same no matter where people choose to view your profile.”

The changes have already begun to roll out to all devices and should be available to all users.

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How To Get The Most Out Of Your Social Media Marketing [Infographic]

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Want to get the most out of your social media efforts? There is no one-size-fits-all method that is guaranteed to give you success across every platform like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Each platform has its own demographics and user behavior that means you must adapt to make sure you are striking when the iron is at its hottest.

Matt Booth from AddPeople made that easy to do with a simple infographic breaking down the demographics, user behavior, and best times to post for the biggest platforms you might be marketing on:

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RIP – Twitter Announces It Is Shutting Down Vine

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Not all that long ago, Vine was one of the fastest growing social apps on the market. The app made its name with short looping videos and a large community that took advantage of the medium to create comedy and even frights.

Since being acquired by Twitter, however, the app has gradually lost its place in the social world as other platforms like Instagram and Snapchat have incorporated their own video features. So, perhaps it is unsurprising that Vine has announced it will be ceasing operations and shutting down in the near future.

According to a post shared on Medium, the website and app for vine will remain online so that users will have time to download their Vines and mourn the loss of the app as a community.

The statement didn’t give any firm timeline of when Vine will fully shut its doors, or any explanation as to why Twitter has decided to shutter the app. It is possible Twitter could possibly choose to integrate the app capabilities entirely within its own platform, but so far the company hasn’t made any indication that it plans to do so.

Back in 2012, shortly after it was bought out by Twitter, Vine was sitting as the number 1 app on the iTunes app store and had a consistent 200 million active users. However, the rise of live video and new video features on competing platforms have pushed Vine out of the crowd. According to data from App Annie, Vine is currently sitting at number 284 in the iTunes app store charts for free apps.

Analysis also suggests year-over-year worldwide downloads of the Vine app have been consistently declining across both the Apple App Store and Google Play.

For what it’s worth, Vine co-founder Rus Yusupov only tweet in the wake of the news suggests he regrets letting Twitter take over the company.

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6 Easy Steps To Get Verified On Twitter [Infographic]

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Do you want the most coveted Twitter feature limited to only the biggest names online? You can have it with just a few simple steps.

I’m not talking about a new way to share your tweets, but this one small feature will immediately establish you as an authority across all of Twitter. That’s right, I’m talking about the famous blue checkmark showing that your account is “verified”.

Until recently, Twitter has limited verification checkmarks to specifically selected accounts of well-known actors, athletes, business personalities, artists, and authors. But, as of July, anyone can now apply to receive the lusted after sign of influence by going through Twitter’s verification application process.

It might seem like a small thing, but the checkmark is more than just a blue badge next to your name. It immediately shows that you are an established figure likely tied to a reputable organization. It grants weight to your opinions and encourages other users to follow you as an authority in your field.

If you want to get a fancy blue checkmark of your own and get your site verified, just follow the process detailed in the infographic below from SurePayroll and Ghergich & Co:

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Over 4 Million Businesses Are Actively Advertising On Facebook

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Earlier this year, Facebook was excited to announce that over three million businesses actively advertise on their social ad network. Now, just seven months later, the company has added another million businesses to that number.

In comparison, Facebook’s biggest competition in the social advertising field, Twitter, only took in a little over 130,000 advertisers in the fourth quarter of 2015. The Facebook-owned social platform Instagram announced last week that it has reached 500,000 brands purchasing ads each month, more than doubling from around 200,000 in February 2016.

Really, the only ad network that counters the size of Facebook’s is Google, and they no longer say how many advertisers are active on their network.

While the highlight of Facebook’s advertising announcement was the overall growth in advertisers, they also highlighted just how big of a factor mobile is in their ad network. Not only do more than 80% of Facebook’s advertising revenue come from ads shown on smartphones and tablets, but approximately 40% of Facebook’s active advertisers also have created ads on mobile devices.

Another major player in Facebook’s ad network is video advertising. More than 20% of Facebook’s active advertisers have purchased video ads, and over four million new video ads are created on Facebook every month.

While every social network has its benefits, it is hard to argue with the sheer size of Facebook’s ad network. No other social platform gives you the massive audience and versatile tools that make Facebook ads so popular with advertisers.

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Instagram Lets Brands Filter Out Abusive or Inappropriate Comments on Posts

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How many times have you spent several minutes, maybe even hours, planning and scheduling the perfect post to social media, only to receive a torrent of hate in response? I don’t mean disgruntled customers voicing a complaint. I mean the abusive, hateful, and often vulgar comments that flood social media posts from brands, celebrities, and anyone else who chooses to post on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

These awful comments have become so commonplace many just view them as an unfortunate fact of life, but some social platforms are starting to take steps to erase the hate from their sites.

This week, Instagram unveiled a new filter that users can enable to hide inappropriate or abusive comments and messages aimed at making the image-sharing platform a safer place for brands and users alike.

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According to the announcement from Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, Instagram hopes the new feature will help foster a community where “everyone feels safe to be themselves without criticism or harassment.”

The new feature allows users to hide comments containing words or phrases that are frequently reported as inappropriate, but posters can also list custom keywords or phrases they wish to have hidden in comments under their posts.

While the feature gives posters more control over the comments they receive, it isn’t without its limits. The filter only blocks negative or inappropriate comments and can’t be used to block other abusive types of media uploaded to the site like image memes or videos.

Brands who receive rampant hate from trolls or abusive users also still have the ability to delete comments, report users, or block specific accounts.

Enabling the filter is easy. Just click the gear icon in your Instagram profile and click on the new “comments” feature. From there, you can toggle the filter on and off or add your own list of words or phrases you wish to have blocked from your page.

While the tool may be an effective way to filter out the random abuse many receive on social media, I would caution brands from using it as a way of hiding messages from users with legitimate complaints or issues, as that only tends to make matters worse.

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Add Twitter’s New Message Button To Your Site Today

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Twitter has introduced a new way for users to get in touch with your brand directly from your website with the Message button, as the company announced in a tweet today.

The button can be embedded on any website and allows anyone with a Twitter account to direct message you with just a single tap.

The button is stylistically what you would expect from Twitter’s other buttons and is very easy to set up. However, you should double-check your settings to make sure you can receive direct messages from everyone, not just your followers.

To add the new Message button to your site, just head over to the Twitter Publish page. Scroll down and select the Twitter Buttons option.

Image Source: Danny Goodwin/Search Engine Journal

Image Source: Danny Goodwin/Search Engine Journal

From here, select the Message button option.

Image Source: Danny Goodwin/Search Engine Journal

Image Source: Danny Goodwin/Search Engine Journal

Input your Twitter user name and user ID (found in the “Your Twitter Data” section), and finally click Preview. This generates a code you can paste anywhere you want on your website. You can even customize the button to autofill messages, hide usernames, or select a default language.

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Image Source: Danny Goodwin/Search Engine Journal

The new button is just one of several ways you can use Twitter to provide customer service, answer questions, and keep people excited about your brand. Add it to your site now to find out what your customers have to say.

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22 Reasons For Your Brand To Get On Instagram Today

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Instagram is still typically thought of as a niche social platform. But, with over 300 million daily active users and counting, the Facebook-owned app is far from a scrappy upstart.  It’s a hugely popular platform that is still being overlooked by advertisers and brands.

Brands that incorporate Instagram into their social media strategy have been shown to receive high levels of engagement and brand awareness. Even more, the platform has been shown to be a powerful lead generation tool.

These aren’t the only reasons your brand could benefit from being on Instagram. In fact, Buzzoid compiled 22 reasons you should consider the platform into a stylish infographic. Check it out below, or at Buzzoid’s site.

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