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Facebook Loses Nearly $332 Billion Of Value In One Afternoon

Facebook parent company Meta tanked 26 percent overnight, shaving more than a whopping $US237 billion ($332 billion) in overall market value – the biggest one-day drop in history according to ABC, at the same time shaving $US29 billion ($40 billion) off the personal wealth of Mark Zuckerberg.

Mr. Zuckerberg’s nearly $US30 billion loss in personal wealth was the second-largest one-day personal loss in history as per US news outlet CNBC.

This huge drop marked Meta’s worst one-day loss since its Wall Street debut back in 2012 and the biggest single-day loss of dollar value by any listed company. CNBC confirms that the biggest one-day personal drop in wealth was a massive $US35 billion loss for Tesla CEO Elon Musk back in November.

That said, Mr. Zuckerberg will be financially still okay as he still has an estimated personal fortune of nearly $US85 billion ($119 billion) according to the Forbes real-time billionaires index.

Editorial credit: askarim / Shutterstock.com

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How to Increase Social Media Engagement: A 5-Step Guide For Entrepreneurs

Is your social media page not kicking off the way you’d hoped? Perhaps you wish to share your knowledge with others, or you want to start a career with social media, but you’re not getting enough engagement. Although making an account may seem easy, there are certain things that you need to look out for so that you catch your audience’s eye. Publicity plays a large part in what makes a social media page successful and so you need to do it right. Therefore, here are 5 steps you need to take in order to improve your social media engagement.

1. Have a good layout

Graphic design is the very starting point of gaining engagement. Be sure to give your social media page a clean look that is welcoming to your target audience. Keeping the right fonts, having a consistent colour scheme, and spacing things out helps a lot when it comes to attracting others. Organising things so that your content is both chronological and flows well motivates people to pay attention to what you have to say.

2. Advertisement

Finding ways to promote your social media page in other places such as other sites is a good way to gain engagement. People are more inclined to associate with things they are more familiar with and if they have seen an advertisement about your page somewhere else, they would be driven to see what you offer. Also, it increases your page’s chances of getting noticed among a countless number of others, as your page would then be what comes to mind first because they’ve seen it before.

3. Listen to others when it comes to improvement

When someone has an idea on how to improve your social media page, take it into consideration. It shows that you’re willing to respond to people’s constructive criticism, which will then lead them to respond to you, thus increasing engagement. It shows that you are within reach and that they can level with you, which is rare for sites and pages nowadays. This means more people will interact with you as they feel they can without being pushed to the side.

4. Hold events that the audience can take part in

Putting up an event that others gain from is a fast-track to increase your engagement. Occasions such as conditional giveaways and competitions are very appealing to those who are looking for something to gain. Announcing something that the audience can compete for, be it an actual item or a chance to be promoted on your page, piques the interest of many as they have a chance of winning.

5. Introduce something with a limit

You could put on a one-time-only sale or introduce a product or theme that will only be up for a short time. This gives people the impression that they must go to your page and get whatever it is you have introduced before the deadline. This is because they have the fear that they’d miss out as once something is gone, it’s gone.

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5 Ways To Boost Facebook Posts Via Organic Reach

If you want to boost your content reach over Facebook and the engagement on your posts, this article is just the thing for you! Below are simple ways listed that will encourage the growth of unpaid reach, either in small steps or a large whole, depending on your circumstances!

First questions first!

But why is the level of organic reach so little?

The reason is simple and divided into two!

  • The competition has increased significantly over the years and there is a lot of content shared by Facebook users. Alike content tends to get overshadowed.
  • The algorithm has evolved as well. Facebook filters out posts dependent upon the quality of the posts. It prefers the paid reach over the non-paid too!

So, in light of these circumstances, how does one increase the organic reach? What are the tactics and strategies to use?

How to boost up your organic reach?

  • Posting when its off-peak hours:

Using the Facebook insights, posting your content when more audience is online seems like the most reasonable option. But in reality, there is a lot of competition in the on-peak hours and the battle is at its best. Most posts get overshadowed and the most liked by the majority receives all the attention. But in off-peak hours, with lesser storming of the News feed, your posts will receive more attention. And when a post hits a certain engagement mark, Facebook promotes it for free! So, find out your best timings to post from your insights.

  • Embedding your links to other places:

Another simple way to boost your posts is by embedding your content on places apart from Facebook. Place your links on your blogs or channels, perhaps your newsletter too. This not only encourages the people to like, comment and share but also to check out your other posts!

  • Targeting your posts:

Target your audience! Firstly, within your news feed and then on the whole Facebook platform. This will help get more views and people with interest in your content will engage. Click the globe icon and underneath the status option, limit your audience by different qualifications such as age limits and interests etc.

  • Using Facebook video:

There is a new hype for videos in the feed. Facebook users are loving video content and the best way to make your page more captivating is by introducing video content. You should make original video content for your page. It doesn’t need to be complicated stuff; simple slideshow works have also been seen to generate more activity than normal posts in most cases.

  • Quality over quantity:

There is always a rivalry going on in every social platform and the best ones seem to win only. For this reason, make quality your goal, not quantity. Make sure that your content is high-quality, even if you post less. Create original and unmatchable content, and you’ll be sure to get tons of engagement! Spend the time you would use on posting multiple average things on creation of good and higher quality content.

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4 Smart Ways to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business in 2020

Social media marketing has exploded into the online marketing industry within the last few years and has completely redefined it. With well over 3 billion active users, the figures are set only to rise, and many companies have already begun to capitalize on its valuable assets, influence, and connectivity.

We have outlined 4 secrets below to growing your business with social media and ultimately improving your revenue and audience.

 1. Promote your e-commerce store

This point may sound obvious at first, but it is critical that this is executed correctly. Ensure users can easily find your store by linking to it in your profile descriptions, posts, stories, and tweets; However, you must keep in mind that consumers do not want to be ‘sold’ to. Some businesses swear by certain ‘content to hard sell’ ratios, for example, 5 posts of purely unique content and inspiration that your followers will value, then 1 post with a hard sell and direct link to your online shop or service.

 2. Content is King

Little and often, an age-old saying, but one that reigns true in the world of social media. Your customers and followers do not want to be bombarded every hour, they can quickly grow tired of your content, no matter how unique or engaging it is. You have to leave them wanting more.

In terms of what your social media posts should contain. Content really is king. The videos, photos or text that you post cannot be repetitive or flat. Some of the most popular types of posts that have gone viral include humor and creativity. Ensure though that you keep your target audience in mind when creating content and keep it relevant.

3. Influencers and Bloggers

Once a very misunderstood industry. Businesses are now understanding the vast potential influencer marketing has for their business. Influencers are everyday people from all walks of life, who particularly inspire a group of individuals who idolize or respect their values and opinions. By expertly selecting influencers who match your product or service values you have the ability to reach a very niche but widespread target audience.

4. Communication

Social media is a means of communication after all. It is important to engage in conversation with not only your followers but other businesses and brands too. Being polite, witty and friendly when interacting with others on social media is key.

However, you must ensure that any awkward or abusive comments and interactions from users are dealt with professionally and calmly. If you have an employee who controls your business account, it is of paramount importance that they understand this too. The world is watching, and social media has the power to spread rude or abusive reactions from a business very quickly. In the past it has even helped to completely destroy the reputation of brands, so count to 10 and reply with consideration and respect.

 In conclusion, social media incorporates a huge number of target markets, although different platforms appeal to different types of users (for example Snapchat appeals to ages 18-25, and Facebook pre-dominantly ages 18-45), social media as a whole is used by almost every culture, age, and nationality on Earth. As long as you are providing enriching content and utilizing appropriate marketing techniques like influencers or adverts, you will begin to see positive growth in followers and engagement on your social accounts, which should transcend to sales and profit for your business.

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4 Surefire Ways to Get More (REAL) Instagram Followers

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Instagram has been around now for a while, and it doesn’t just end there. It keeps growing.

About 500 million people have an Instagram account, and 300 million of these users are actively using the platform daily. This is great news for social media marketers.

With millions of people using Instagram, you’ll have bigger chances of reaching your target audience. Hence, creating a prolific account on Instagram with a lot of followers is a surefire way to consistently and effectively reach out to your desired audience.

But then comes an important question – first and foremost, how do you attract a lot of Instagram followers?

Stop scratching your head and read on, as this article will discuss the different social media marketing strategies and techniques that you can follow so you can build your own empire of Instagram – with solid followers that keep increasing day by day.

Ensure Consistent Interaction with Your Audience

Gaining more followers means you also have to engage and interact with your followers.

Get a Good Grasp of the Contents that Will Actually Connect to Your Audience

Start by asking yourself who you want to reach out with and the type of mindsets they would likely have. You can then determine what content to create to attract your target followers.

The key is creating engaging and interesting ‘remarkable content’ to delight your followers. But, what makes a remarkable content? Primarily, it means you need to post high-quality images and videos on Instagram. Here are some tips:

• Brighter images generate about 24% more likes over dark ones.
• Higher levels of texture results in 79% more likes compared to those without texture.

Generally, highly personable images tend to draw more audience. Still lost? Check on other successful Instagram accounts and learn their patterns. Additionally, aside from posting great content, consistently posting content is also important. Be careful not to overwhelm your audience though by spacing out your posts.

Offer Payments for Exposure

Here, you’ll have two options:

A. The Shoutout Method

This refers to reaching out to other people with the same or relevant niche as you have and ask them if they want to run a sponsored post.

B. Run Ads

You can run the ads via Facebook Ad Manager.

Encourage Audience Participation

Try posting user-generated content. You can also hold a contest for the best images among your followers or post quotes and ask your followers to tag someone else who can relate to the quote.

Final Words

Many marketers find Instagram an effective tool that helps in generating sales and business growth.

It only makes sense to take the time to understand the importance of growing your followers so you can take advantage of the benefits Instagram has to offer.

In the end, there are several options that you can explore. You can focus on regularly posting engaging contents or offer to pay for exposure. Or better yet, think about combining the different strategies mentioned in this article, to achieve awesome results!

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5 Killer Ways To Increase Your Facebook Page Likes

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Since its inception, Facebook has become one of the most successful social media sites to advertise on. With just under 17% of the population of the planet signed up to Facebook, you can get a much larger audience than any other site to view your posts and engage with your brand. But to make any waves on Facebook, you need Likes and followers. A popular way in recent years to gain Likes is to buy them, but not only is this not authentic, it also doesn’t get your brand noticed by actual potential customers. So how can you get the Facebook Likes that you need, without paying for them?

Here are some killer tips for creating a successful Facebook page for your brand without spending a penny.

Fill out your page

Filling out your page may seem obvious, but a mistake that a lot of people make is not to fill out their pages entirely. You can add plenty of information to your Facebook page including links to other sites that you have, and all the information that a customer needs, and this is what they are looking for. A sparse Facebook page makes it look like you aren’t taking this seriously and may even make them question if you are a legitimate business in the first place.

Use Insights

Facebook insights is free to use and an invaluable tool to use when advertising on the site. You can access this through your business page on Facebook, and what it does is it lets you see what is working for your page. Which posts are seen the most, liked the most, what other pages your followers are interacting with and when. This is useful as you can schedule your posts for when the most people will see it, and also get an idea of the other kinds of things you could do in the future to gain popularity.

Use a great picture and heading

Appearance is everything these days, and even more so on social media. If you don’t already have a recognizable logo, you need to get one. Make your Facebook page look good, and people won’t mind liking and sharing. You can look at similar businesses to yours to see how they did theirs and how you can do better.

Invite likes

Make sure to invite those who like your posts, to like your page. This can be done by using other sites to drive traffic, or in your Facebook settings.

Share relevant content

Users like pages that share other things they want to see. If you can find videos or posts that are related to your area of expertise or your industry, users will find your page more engaging and entertaining, and thus, will interact more with it. Unless you are already an extremely popular brand, users will quickly get bored if you only ever share your own content. This can also help to build relationships with other users and businesses.

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4 Surefire Affiliate Marketing Tips That’ll Help You Build A Profitable Online Business

Starting your own business can be an overwhelming experience. However, we now live in a world where building a business doesn’t need to be so overwhelming anymore. If you’re looking for a simple way to become an entrepreneur, you should consider affiliate marketing. Basically, you promote other people’s products and earn a commission from it. You just need to find a product, promote it to other people and earn money for every sale that you make. Since there are plenty of affiliate products and services available today, you need to find a great product to promote. Just remember that your desire and determination to succeed is also important.

Find High-Quality Products

Choose high-quality products or services. If it’s of high quality, chances are, the customer support and supply chain process of the company are also of high quality. A company that tries to provide the best value to customers is a good choice as well.

Choose Something You’ll Get Value From

You should choose a product or service that you see yourself using or getting value from. It should be an extension of you. The program you are affiliated with should offer value for all your effort. You should look for a program that provides valuable free gifts. Remember that online reviews and feedback can make or break your business. Once customers get their free gifts, they will be impressed and give you great reviews.

Look for a Niche Market with Big Problems to be Solved

You should look for a niche market with significant problems to be solved and provide a quality solution to these issues. If you are able to fix a problem, especially the big ones, you will gain the trust of your customers and that is definitely a good thing for your business.

Variety of Products

Look for an affiliate program that offers a wide range of products that will encourage customers to keep coming back for more. Variety helps build a solid fanbase, which is definitely good for your business. For instance, if the affiliate program is offering ebooks that discuss weight loss, it is also a good thing if it provides supplements and exercise equipment.  So, you should pick an affiliate program that offers a wide range of products. Customers will also most likely recommend you to their friends and colleagues.

One of the best benefits of affiliate marketing is that you can promote as many affiliate programs as you want. This means that your earning potential is big as well. Some people give up their 9-5 job to focus on their online business. Another benefit of affiliate marketing is that you don’t need to leave your home just to promote a product or service. Even if you are in your pajamas, you can work and sell. You can promote the program on your website or social networking sites. Some affiliate programs provide their affiliates with a website where they can promote the products or services.

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Five Good Reasons Why Social Media Is Crucial For Your Business

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image via Shutterstock / Kues

Social media is a rave that people are really crazy about at the moment. Millions of users are using different social media platforms every hour. With this kind of count, social media would be a great tool to use to spread messages that you want to convey to others without giving much effort from you. Likewise, this is a tool that can do great things for you if you have a business.

Running your own business is somehow a dream that had come to life. Most of us wanted the challenge and the stability it can give to our lives when it became successful.

Business and social media seem to get along harmoniously. If you are an up and coming entrepreneur, chances are, that you are still not doing that great at this stage. And on that note, social media can really help boost your business.

Connect to the customers

Most people are in fact dependent on the social media about what product to buy or service to get. By creating a profile in a social network for your business, connecting to customers will be direct and easy.

 Spreading updates with regards to your business

Through blog platforms, you can update both your suppliers and clients for what is new in your business. Through this, you can start some discussion thread in the forum where you can market your product or service.

It gives an idea of what your customer needs

Through the feedbacks given by your customer, you can take a step in tailoring the product you provide to what they actually need. If you have accounts like twitter for your business, you can use it to make a poll. There would always be complaints by unsatisfied customers but then instead of seeing it negatively try to see it in a brighter light. This should be your priority. Deal with them efficiently and swiftly. The suggestions given by some other customers can be your resource of what to do next.

It gives you an eye to the competition

There are a lot of sites catering to consumer reviews. You can scan them regularly and check what people have to say about you as well as to your competitors. With this, you would know what they are doing and could make a step to atone with it. For example, when most of your rivals have special offerings, it would not hurt your business if you would launch one of your own.

 It can give you the chance to deal with complaints as soon as possible

If you are active in your social media accounts for your business, online PR disasters can be avoided. When there are complaints about your business, you can investigate it thoroughly. If you find out that the fault comes from your side, you can contact the customer and apologize directly. Or you could also offer a solution if you have any.

There are so many things social media can offer you in order to make your business better. If you know how to use your resources wisely, everything will just fall into place.

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5 Ways Your Brand Can Survive The 2018 “Facebook Apocalypse”

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It’s official: Facebook is changing the way you get information from the news feed. This will of course impact businesses and brands in a huge way moving forward. Basically, all business pages will see a significant drop in their standard reach and engagement. Business pages with posts that don’t generate much reactions or comments will see the most significant decrease because Facebook wants to increase “meaningful connections.”

Here’s how you can ensure that your brand maintains a strong presence on Facebook.

Build a Fan Community

One thing you want to do is to build up a community around your brand and message. You want meaningful interactions with people, and you can do this by building a sense of community. Think about local, personal, and stories that make people feel good. Your marketing strategy should make good use of this as you want to have content that matters as it will engage with your fans and build up a trusting community.

Content with Value

You need to have content that is of a high value. You don’t want to just go after numbers; you want content that will matter to the end user. Put a more significant focus on the customer and the client and build content that they will find useful and engaging. The content you create has to have a value as this is what will get people to recognize your brand and build your community.

More Videos

You should be creating more videos and look to make live videos, as well as these, can help your brand. This gives you an opportunity to engage with your customers, and they can ask you questions when you’re live. Video has been rising quickly on Facebook, so you need to make use of it. On the news feed, video content has priority so try to create regular video content to keep users engaged with your brand.

Use Messenger

Chat applications like Messenger are rising, and you should make use of them to boost your brand. You can provide a great customer experience if you use Messenger as you can engage with users and answer their question in a timely manner. The interaction is personal and allows you to provide customer service when needed. You can put a Messenger button at the top of your page to drive users to use it when they interact with you.

Use a Paid Strategy

You should consider paying to get people onto your page as the organic search may not provide you with the customer base that you need. This can help you grow your brand to its full potential so make use of it. You can do this through Facebook advertising, and it can bring you a good result.

The changes to Facebook news feed does not have to be the end of the word for your business. If you use these strategies, it will help you maintain your business and help you get new customers in the future. You need to think of ways to grow your brand and keep its presence on Facebook. Good content and user engagement is going to help you achieve this. Make sure you make use of videos and other pieces of quality content to drive users to your brand more often.

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How To Gain 300 Real Targeted Instagram Followers Per Day

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In 2010, when Instagram was launched, it was merely a photo-sharing app that held its own well against other photo apps that were in vogue. So much so that Facebook bought it for $1 billion in April 2012.

Seven years later, Instagram dons a new avatar- one that’s packed with photo editing, automation, live video features, and filters. Instagram is today regarded as the ‘king of social media’ with everyone wanting to taste success by jumping onto the Instagram bandwagon.

1. Why do you need an Instagram account?

That’s a no-brainer- after all, you need to know what you’re going to use it for- pleasure or business. Your marketing goal needs to be specific and measurable because that’s going to determine how you’re going to use your Instagram account. Any step you take is going to depend on what you’re working towards – be it enhancing audience engagement or creating income from affiliate marketing. Whatever it is, you need a blueprint.

2. Your Instagram profile matters

People are interested in profiles and check out your digital billboard on Instagram. An interesting bio, a warm photo, a distinctive username, social media badges, builds trust and credibility. Make your business visible by placing your account handle on everything connected with your business. Connect with your followers on other social media platforms apart from Instagram.

3. Content and context- crucial for Instagram success

Remember, you want customers and more customers, not just casual visitors. The customer is ‘king’ and can make or break your business. Good content in the form of text, visuals and videos ups the ante on brand value, while context ensures that the right information reaches the right people at the right time.

Always be on top of content, interact and engage consistently, listen to the people’s voices and adapt to changing trends. Share quotes from thought leaders and happy customers, post ‘How-to’ articles and also post content by other users and experts. User-generated content has tremendous value in the eyes of customers and has been known to drive sales.

4. Post eye-grabbing visuals

After all, this is the heart of Instagram and photos, images, and impressive posts are always going to be focal points. Make your visual elements consistent across your website and social media platforms- that helps to reinforce your brand, creates trust and people identify your brand easily. Build familiarity.

5. Don’t forget your hashtags

Hashtags help to grow audiences; they help people find you. Instagram users live on hashtags and hop from one to another. Relevant hashtags describing your content help users navigate better and improve their overall Instagram experience.

6. Become an active member of the Instagram community

Follow people who follow you, comment on user views, and interact with those that provide value, encourage feedback- in short, and participate as much as you can.

7. Go where your users are

By this time, you’ll probably have followers. Identify Instagram users in your particular niche that have a big following, and you follow all of them. Repeat this weekly and build new followers each time. Soon you’ll have enough followers and more on your Instagram site.

8. Partner with relevant users

Choose the right partners (those with a history of cross-promotion) by searching through the relevant databases of influencers. This makes it easier to increase brand awareness and ramp up sales. Set clear terms to the partnership and take full advantage of the cross-promotion.

9. Run challenges and contests

Freebies may not be enough to attract new followers- though challenges and contests if done right, will help you gain momentum and traction. Link to the contest on your blog and announce it to all those on your email list.

10. Use offline interactions to grow online presence

Make sure you add your Instagram handle to product packages and also place a hashtag on the product itself- this is a golden opportunity that many miss out on.

11. Optimize your performance continuously

With Instagram constantly evolving, new strategies have to come into play. Monitor results- keep an eye on follower growth, traffic and number of interactions for every post. Identify what tactics paid off and what didn’t and adapt and change accordingly.

There will be times when you’ll feel like giving up and giving in; you just need to keep in mind that patience is the key – as long as you work hard, you’ll reap the rewards.

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16 Guaranteed Ways to Gain More Followers On Facebook

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With over 200 billion active users, it’s safe to say that a presence in Facebook is an absolute must.

Hence the reason why Facebook remains ahead of other social media platforms when it comes to social media marketing. This is also the main reason why I highly recommend all entrepreneurs to get serious about promoting their businesses on Facebook by creating highly engaging Facebook business pages because that will translate to money in your pocket.

So how do you increase your Facebook following? Read on below:

Like your own page – sounds simple but you’d be amazed how easy it is to forget to ‘like’ your own business.

Invite your friends – use your existing social network to grow your business network. If you have friends who would be interested in your business then don’t be shy about inviting them.

Monitor, the interactions people have with your page – Make sure to check that the people who have interacted with your posts have liked your page. Every now and then go back and check your last few posts. If anyone has engaged with your post but hasn’t joined your page then invite them, you already know they are interested in what you must offer.

Post content – Make sure you update your page regularly. Pay attention to what gets the most response and keep on doing that. If you don’t keep updating your page, you will lose the followers you have, and you certainly won’t gain any more.

Link your personal profile to your business – This will give your business a personable link. People will be able to engage with you as a human being rather than just your business as an entity.

Log in to your business account – don’t forget to change your login. Make sure you are generating content as your business, not just on your personal account.

Go with the trends – there are lots of classic #. Join in with #ThrowbackThursday, #WednesdayWisdom and … #FollowFriday – share other people’s content, if it’s relevant to your niche then you will be building links within your community and reaching more people who will be interested in your business.

Fill everything in – Make sure that you have completed all the details on your page, don’t leave blanks in the About us section.

Link your webpage to your Facebook page – Whatever platform you use for your main website you will be able to add a Facebook widget. This will show the latest content from your Facebook page on your website.

Tag your photos – If you post any pictures make sure you add tags of relevant people or businesses. If you include locations as well, then this will help you to stay visible in your area.

Ask for Reviews – If you have previously satisfied customers then ask them to leave you a Facebook review. Ask all your new customers to do the same. Good reviews are like gold dust; they are the most valuable things on the internet to grow your business.

Check-in – Let people know that you are available.

Get ‘real people’ to like your Facebook page – When you are interacting with people in the real world, ask them to join your Facebook page as well.

Participate in Facebook Threads – Find posts you want to share and then post the URL on your page. This will increase the number and range of people you are able to reach. You will also find that other people will begin to reciprocate the gesture.

Share your page – If you have valuable content on your page then get out there and share it in as many relevant places as possible.

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9 Killer Tips for Using Google+ to Boost Your Business

While Google Plus (Google+) is not as widely used as other social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, it can still be a pretty powerful tool for small businesses. Besides the fact that it has an active social network comprised of 250 million users, it’s also owned by Google so using this social platform means long-term SEO value for your business. There’s also the impressive fact that Google Plus has a number of Google resources that you can use such as YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, Hangouts, and AdWords which are all intended to help you boost your marketing strategy.

If you’re thinking of using Google Plus for your business, here are nine ways you can do it:

1. Create your business Google+ page

Just like most social media platforms, you can set up a personal as well as a business page in Google+. If you’ve already got a personal Google+ page, then you might as well create a Google+ business page. All you have to do is go to “Google My Business,” choose the best business category that’s related to your business, then follow the rest of the prompts to create your business page. You just need a Google or Gmail account to link to, and you should be well on your way to creating a business page.

2. Upload a professional profile photo

As soon as you set up a Google+ page, your profile photo will always appear next to comments on Google+ and YouTube as well as on Google itself if you’re using Google Authorship. Therefore, you need to either upload a business logo or a professional photo. You’re better off uploading a photo of yourself rather than a business logo because you’ll be able to reach out to your customers on a more personal level.

3. Your about page needs to be on point

You need to make sure that your business description in Google+ is very thorough and descriptive because your about page is what Google indexes for its search engine, therefore you need to make it as detailed as possible to boost your search engine ranking. Google+ actually allows bullet points on your About page so that you can use it to your advantage and you can be as descriptive as possible. Make sure your description contains the relevant keywords and links so that anyone would know what your business is all about at a glance.

4. Post consistently

If you’re posting an article on your Google+ page, you have to make sure your focus keywords are contained in that blog post, and you also have to make sure you’re posting consistently. The best thing about Google+ is that it’s run by the biggest search engine on the planet so Google will give preference to search results found on Google+. The more you post, the better your chances are of getting indexed by Google.

5. Use hashtags strategically

Although hashtags are more widely used on Instagram and Twitter, it’s also a thing in Google+. You can link your content on Google+ to related subjects or trending topics using relevant hashtags, and the best thing is, any hashtags you use on Google+ will end up showing up in Google searches. Unlike Instagram where you can use up to 30 hashtags, you only need around a couple of relevant hashtags at the bottom of your content for it to be picked up by Google.

6. Add a variety of multimedia to your content

Content with more images will always rank better than those without in any social media platform, and the same goes for Google+. Try adding videos or even GIFs to make your business page much more attractive to generate more engagement from your readers.

7. Engage with other users

Similar to other social media platforms, if you want your business page to grow then you need to engage with other users to grow your network of connections. Friends on Google+ are organized in “circles,” and a business page can’t actually circle another Google+ user unless that user circles you first. If you want to grow your connection, then you need to interact with other Google+ users constantly. Engage with users and participate by clicking +1 or leaving comments to show others that you want to connect with them on a more personal level.

8. Join Google events and Google+ hangouts

Google+ actually allows its users to create virtual events just like in Facebook. Google’s events feature will enable you to send out custom invitations to anyone even if they don’t have a Google+ account. If you have a live event that you want to promote, you can always choose ‘Party Mode’ where your guests can upload photos immediately and even create a real-time group photo album. There’s also the option of inviting people to Google+ Hangouts which is a multi-person live chat feature wherein Google enables you to interact via text, images, voice call, and video chat. Majority of the businesses use Hangouts to set up conferences, hold meet-and-greet sessions, or keep up to date with their clients.

9. Google Authorship

Google Authorship is actually an SEO tool that makes Google+ users in Google search more prominent. It’s a great way to link the content that you’ve created with your Google+ profile. You can set up Google Authorship by adding a link to your blog or any website that you contribute to – you basically just need to include a link to your Google+ profile at the end of any blog post you publish.

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A Step-by-Step Guide To Acquiring Your First Property Investment

Have you ever wanted to purchase an investment property but you just had no idea how? Well, you’re in luck because we’re about to outline the five-step process of selecting, buying and managing a property.

An investment property is a solid financial move for your future. Whether it’s to boost your retirement plan, retire early or set your family up, an investment property can be a step in the right direction.

You’re not just investing in property; you’re investing in a financial plan. Investing in real estate is a long-term plan, so you need to take the time to talk to your partner or your finance broker about your plan. By setting clear goals and timelines, you’ll have a better chance of achieving them.

Your journey to financial freedom begins here.

Step 1: Finance and Pre-approvals

It is important to consider your short and long-term goals and review your finances.

Check your credit rating – Start budgeting to ensure you can balance your income and expenses to plan for greater upcoming expenses. You should also consider reducing your credit card limit and minimizing your debt.

Find out if you qualify for a bank loan – Discover your potential borrowing power by speaking to your bank, credit union, broker or financial adviser. Otherwise, contact an OAK Lending consultant for obligation-free advice on your pre-approval status on 1300 006 625 or at info@oaklending.com.au. Pre-approval comes from your mortgage broker or directly through your lender.

Step 2: Select and Reserve your Property

Explore and research the properties available, then compare and choose the one that suits you.

Step 3: Review the Contract

Your solicitor or conveyancer will review the contract for sale independently and make sure you understand what you’re signing up to. They will also negotiate with the seller’s legal representative on contract conditions, making the process of documentation and settling easier.

Step 4: Sign the Contract for Sale

If you want to go ahead with the purchase, you’ll need to return the signed contract and pay the balance of the deposit.

Step 5: The Contract Exchange

Once you’ve exchanged signed contracts with the seller, you’ve secured the property. You’ll need to pay the balance of the 10% deposit. You won’t need to pay the balance of the purchase price until the property is settled.

Maximising your Investment

After the settlement, it’s time to take ownership and move in or sign up your first tenant.

For off-plan purchases, settled properties come with a 90-day warranty maintenance period. For any defect issues identified within the first 90-days after the handover, these are submitted by the purchaser to the Builder on a warranty claim form.

For more information, you can email our managing director via mike@starcentralmag.com to start your investment journey.

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15 Killer Tips To Help Build Success For Your Brand On YouTube

If you’ve never heard of YouTube, then you must’ve been living under a rock for the past decade.

YouTube is an incredible source of every content imaginable, and with more than a billion active users, it’s definitely a crucial tool for online marketers. YouTube is so massive that it can be accessed in 76 different languages and has even launched local versions in more than 88 countries. YouTube is also the internet’s second largest search engine which means it can drastically help your overall brand presence.

Now if you want to do well on YouTube, here’s a list of killer tactics that will help you step your YouTube game up an upper notch.

1. Choose an optimized video title

While it has always been an effective tactic to create compelling headlines for any blog posts, the same goes for YouTube – you need to optimize your title. Make sure your focus keyword is included in your video title and try and see if your video title can solve a problem. For example, a title like “diet tips” is nowhere near as effective as a title like “How to lose 10 kilograms in 10 days.”

2. Encourage users to interact

You need to encourage users to comment on your video because the more comments you have on your video, the more popular your video looks. Video comments are actually one of the metrics YouTube uses to determine what should appear on the top of the search results so the more comments your videos have, the better its chances are on appearing at the top of the search results. Ending your video with a question is a great way to encourage engagement and discussion. For example, something like “what about you? Are you happy with your current situation?” can be a smart way of getting more video engagement.

3. Produce good quality videos

While it’s important to optimize your videos for YouTube, it’s also equally important to make sure you produce high-quality videos. Mobile phones are more than capable of recording high-resolution videos so you can start with that. However, if you’re really serious about making an impact with your videos, then it may be worth your time to buy a decent camera. There are some excellent ones out there that are priced at less than $500. That may seem like a large sum of money for some people, but you need to look at it as an investment if you want to make money from YouTube in the future.

4. Choose the right keywords

If you’re always doing Keyword research for Google, then you better start doing some more Keyword research on YouTube as well. Majority of YouTube keywords start with “how to,” but it’s always good practice to use Google Keyword Planner to check if your chosen keyword is actually getting any monthly searches. That should give you an indication of what keywords are already in use.

5. Tag effectively

Tagging is one of the most critical ways to rank your video in YouTube search results because it helps users find your video when they try to search for a topic related to your niche. Useful tagging means more video views that’s why you need only to use tags that are relevant to your niche. You don’t need too many tags, 10 to 12 should be more than enough.

6. Copy your competitor’s keywords

If one of your competitors is doing really well on their YouTube channel then why don’t you find out what they’re doing right? You’ll probably find that other businesses and YouTube channels are using similar keywords so might as well join the bandwagon.

7. Use YouTube to find your focus keyword

Did you know that you can use YouTube to help you determine the best keywords to use for your videos? All you have to do is use YouTube’s search bar to generate popular keywords. You can try it by typing in a word like “handbags,” you can see below that the search box will give you several suggestions. Awesome right?

8. Send an email to your mailing list

An email list is an effective form of marketing that never dies down. It’s pretty much like sending a mail to someone; the only difference is that it goes straight to your inbox. As soon as you release a new video, send an email blast to your mailing list and watch the views skyrocket.

9. Encourage people to subscribe

YouTube gives more priority to YouTube accounts with more subscribers so make sure you ask people to subscribe. Asking users to like and comment on your video is a must, but asking them to subscribe is a “double must” because if people subscribe to your videos, that means they’ll keep seeing your content over and over again.


10. Create an attention-grabbing thumbnail

Let’s face it; an eye-catching thumbnail is what grabs people’s attention when they’re trying to search for something. In fact, the majority of the people will click on a video just based on your thumbnail, so you have to make sure that your thumbnail stands out from the pack and that it specifically informs viewers what your video is really all about.

11. Use closed captions

You might not even know this option on YouTube, but if you click on this option the caption is going to appear – it’s actually meant for deaf people. But the thing is, these closed captions are search friendly, so it actually has an unexpected benefit.

12. Embed your own video

Once you’ve posted a new video, you need to embed your video everywhere. Why? Because embedding your video in various blogs and social media sites will result in more eyeballs and engagement in your video.

13. Begin your description with your focus keyword

If you know how to work SEO on your website, then you would know that adding a focus keyword in the first paragraph of your blog is a great way to make your post search engine friendly. Similarly, using your focus keyword in your video descriptions is a must because it’ll help YouTube’s bot to find your video and give it a higher ranking.

14. Review your video’s performance

If you want your subscribers to keep watching your videos again and again, then you need to have actionable stats that will help you figure out how your videos are performing. There’s what you call the watch time report, which helps you see determine how long people are spending on your videos. All you have to do is go to your channel icon and click on Creator Studio then go to “Analytics > Watch time” in the menu on the left side. There’s also the audience retention report which shows your average view duration and your top performing videos. You can view the report by going to “Analytics > Audience retention’ which is within your Creator Studio. There’s also the engagement reports where you can measure your overall performance; there’s the Subscribers report which lets you know how many subscribers you’ve gained or lost, and there’s the Share report which lets you know how much your videos have been shared.

15. Create playlists

It’s relatively easy to create a YouTube playlist once you’re logged on. First, you can start with your latest video then you click the “Add to” option underneath the video to add it to a playlist. Videos can be added to an existing playlist, or you can start a new one. Using playlists is an awesome technique that can definitely increase view time on your videos and retention.

16. Create compelling content

Let’s face it, no matter how well you optimize your videos or channel, if your content is rubbish then your efforts are useless. Content will always be king so make sure that you have content that is unique and that provides high value so that people would want to share it.

Editorial credit: Alexey Boldin / Shutterstock.com

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6 Killer Tips To Make Snapchat Work For Your Business

Editorial credit: Ink Drop / Shutterstock.com

With 173 million daily users that send 400 million snaps every day, Snapchat is quite clearly an untapped social media platform that most businesses should include in their marketing plan.

If you’ve been holding off taking Snapchat seriously, you need to take the blinders off as soon as possible because Snapchat can actually help engage your followers and boost your brand’s visibility – you just need to use it the right way. Here are seven tips and tricks to use the app to your brand’s advantage.

1. Use Snapchat to Drive Traffic to Your Website

Although Snapchat was not really built to drive traffic to your website unlike like social media platforms such as Facebook or Instagram, it can still help drive traffic to your site. Keep in mind that Snapchat doesn’t allow you to include clickable links, so all you can really do is to direct your followers to your website URL – but since Snapchat doesn’t allow clickable links, you need to ensure that your URL is easy to remember for when they decide to use your link later.

A good way to engage your audience is to provide a useful tutorial in your Snapchat story, but don’t give everything away straight away – show just enough to whet their appetites and then tell your followers to visit the particular URL at the end of your story if they want to get more information.

Editorial credit: FashionStock.com / Shutterstock.com

2. Provide behind-the-scenes access to exclusive events

If you want to engage more people to your brand in Snapchat, then you need to take them on a journey with you.

I’m pretty sure your followers would love to see some behind-the-scenes footage of how your business operates on a day-to-day basis or footage of an exclusive VIP event your company went to because that will bring the action to them directly.

For example, high profile designers used New York Fashion Week to grow their Snapchat following by posting behind-the-scenes videos and photos of the event. Since these videos and photos were only available for a short period, their followers became glued to their Snapchat accounts because it made them feel as if they were part of the show.

Here’s an image that was taken from Michael Kors SnapChat story. Michael decided to increase his social media presence via Snapchat since Fashionistas following the New York Fashion Week were also using the app to cover the event.

Everlane is another excellent example of a fashion brand that’s making Snapchat a massive part of their online marketing strategy. They let their followers know in advance about new products and releases, and they also use Snapchat to take you behind the scenes inside their office. At one point Everlane even offered limited edition items to their customers via a “Secret Shop,” and it was only available on Snapchat at certain times.

Snapchat is definitely a big part of Everlane’s online marketing strategy, and it’s something most businesses can learn from.

3. Tap Influencers

It’s a highly known fact that using influencers to promote your brand is the quickest way of getting more people to follow and engage with you.

However, there’s the realistic fact that not everyone has a marketing budget to work with so tapping high-profile influencers is out of the question because it’s going to be too expensive. Therefore, your next best option is to draw B-grade or C-grade influencers because they’d be willing to promote your brand at a much lower price. B-grade or C-grade influencers aka “Micro-influencers” may not be as massive as the big guns in Snapchat with millions of followers, but they still should have a decent following that you can tap.

A great example of a popular brand using an influencer to increase their following in Snapchat was the Sour Patch Kids. Sour Patch Kids teamed up with social media star Logan Paul by asking him to take over their Snapchat account and by doing that, they also invited his more than half a million Twitter followers to follow their Snapchat account.

Digital Training Academy confirmed that Sour Patch Kids received 6.8 million Snapchat impressions and 120,000 new Snapchat followers through the campaign, so it’s safe to say that it was a successful campaign.

4. Offer Special Deals

If you’re selling a service or a product then why not use Snapchat to promote your exclusive deals?

You can promote your discounts and special promotions through Snapchat which in turn will engage your followers and at the same time enable your brand to gain new followers. You can create Snapchat stories highlighting your special deals which should encourage more people to follow your account.

Crunchwrap Sliders, for example, shared this 10-second snap with a special referral code so that they were able to track down how many people actually got their hands on their product.

5. Provide incentive to your loyal followers

A good marketing move would be to reward your loyal followers for following you so that they continue to engage with your brand.

A fun yet effective way to engage your audience is to have a hidden message targetting your followers hidden within your Snapchat Story. You can tell your followers that whoever caught the secret message and responded accordingly will get a prize – but then they have to know that only those who watch the story until the end will get the instructions on how to claim the prize.

You can even tell your followers to take a snap of themselves promoting your brand, and if they send you the snap, they’ll get a prize for their efforts. Keep in mind that you can use these photos on your social media accounts as proof that people are following your brand.

Here’s a good example taken from frozen yogurt chain 16 Handles’ Snapchat account. They offered an exclusive discount to their existing followers that can only be redeemed if they sent snaps eating their fro-yo. They gained new customers by highlighting exclusive times and store locations, and when customers snapped photos of themselves or their friends eating 16 Handles yogurt, they immediately received a coupon code for between 16% and 100% off.

GrubHub effectively used Snapchat by organizing an online scavenger hunt called Snaphunt. They asked their followers to post a snap to them and then they announced ten random winners every day, who received $50 in free takeout.

6. Assert your authority

Addressing a relevant issue in Snapchat may sound a bit too serious seeing that majority of its users are young people, but sometimes, it pays to be the voice of authority in this app.

Take for example soap brand Dove, they got 30 women to chat with psychologists and other ambassadors on Snapchat to share personal thoughts about self-esteem issues. It was a campaign that was aimed at boosting young women’s self-images. Overall it resulted in 75 conversations and a whopping 130,000 views!

In Conclusion

Snapchat has 173 million active daily users, so it definitely needs to be added to your marketing plan.

If you want to be successful in your marketing campaign using Snapchat, then you need to be innovative but at the same time, show some personality and have some fun. The more authentic you seem, the more people will follow you.

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12 Killer Pinterest Tips That Will Set Your Business Up For Success

If you’re not using Pinterest to grow your website and your business – you are seriously missing out on a gold mine.

Most entrepreneurs have promoted their products on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for years, which is a smart thing to do, but a number of entrepreneurs and online marketers have now started using Pinterest to reach new customers.

Why? Well, let me give you some quick facts about Pinterest, and you’ll see why.

– As of now, Pinterest has a whopping 175 million active users

– 50 billion pins have so far been used by Pinterest users

– 2 million is the total number of Pinterest users who save shopping pins on their boards daily

– 81% of Pinterest users are female

– Time magazine referred to Pinterest as one of the top five social networking sites

Looking at these insane stats, I think it is safe to say that if you’re not using Pinterest to grow your website or your business, then you are seriously missing out on a gold mine. Especially retailers that cater to women.

So for all the newbies out there, what is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a free website where users can upload, save, categorize, and manage various images known as “pins” as well as other media content such as videos through collections known as “pinboards.”

Pinterest enables users to discover new ideas and find inspiration for anything and everything. Pins are actually ideas that can help you get creative, whether you’re launching a new product or promoting your existing ones – Pins are saved to Pinterest boards, making your ideas organized and easy to find.

A lot of people use Pinterest for a number of reasons, most people use it though to look for inspiration, particularly those people looking for ideas about new products to buy. Now before we look at how to use Pinterest for your business, let’s first look at how to set up a business account on Pinterest.

How to Create a Pinterest Business Account

– First, you need to go to Pinterest for Business and sign up. Complete all the details about your business.

– Now choose five or more ideas relating to your niche then read and accept the Pinterest Business Terms of Service and click “Create Account”.

– As soon as you sign up you’ll see something like this:

To give you a basic overview of the features of Pinterest, a “Pin” is an image or video that you can choose to save to Pinterest. If you have a businesses account then your image needs to contain a link for referral traffic because every pin links back to the original source. Pinterest users aka “Pinners” also sort their pins into collections called “boards” in order to keep things organized. So far there’s been a mind-boggling 100 billion pins to date and that’s pretty incredible stats!

– Next, you need to upload your most current photo or logo, choose your username that should be a direct representation of your business, add a bio that includes keywords that are optimized for search engines, add your location then add your website. Keep in mind that Pinterest is a visual social media platform so think visual.

To change your settings click at the top of Pinterest to open your menu, click settings to open your settings, scroll down to the Profile section, click change picture, then choose file, let it upload, then finally click save settings.

– Some basic terminologies you need to know besides boards and pins are “Secret Boards” which are also boards but the difference is that they’re secret so only you or anyone you’ve invited to pin with you are able to see your pins until you make the board public. There’s also the “group boards” which functions the same as normal boards but the only difference is that it has multiple pinners sharing content within the board. You’ve got the option to “repin” someone else’s content which simply means that you can share that specific pin with all of your followers similar to retweets. You’ve also got access to the “Pin It Button” which is a widget or plugin that can be added to your website or blog.

How To Set Up Pinterest Boards

Now that the technical stuff is out of the way – it’s time to start setting up your Pinterest Boards. I recommend around 5 boards, to begin with, so you get the basic idea of how Pinterest works. Think of boards as folders containing your photos, you’re basically sharing your photos with other people.

First, you have to name your board.

Keep in mind that the name of your board should be based on your chosen keyword so if you want your board to be search engine friendly then you need to choose a name that’ll represent your niche.

Your Pinterest Board Name needs to be attention-grabbing and highly clickable, it needs to contain your chosen keyword and specifically catered to your niche. Your main aim is to encourage pinners to browse through your boards and pin as much as they can so you need to also choose visually captivating images that can link and drive traffic to your website.

Try to make your board names more fun with a bit of attitude and personality – but at the same time really descriptive and direct to the point so that pinners can immediately grasp what your boards are all about.

 Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a board and start with a few pins. Let’s say I want to create a board about movie trailers and link the pins to one of my websites, instead of naming the board movie trailers, I’d want to make the name sound more catchy so I’d name it “addicted to movie trailers.”

Next, you add the name of your board, in this case, it’s “Addicted to movie trailers.”

Once you’ve created a board it’s going to look like this, once you see this in your screen, you need to click on “create a pin” to start posting pins.

As soon as you click on create a pin you’ll end up with this two options – “The Web” and “Your Device.” If you want to drive traffic to your website then I recommend that you click on “The Web.”

Once you click on “The Web,” this prompt will come up. Basically, it’s asking you for a link to your website. So I go to my website, get the link to the article, then post it on this tab.

Click “Next” and you’ll be given a choice of a pin, either you choose from the photos Pinterest has extracted from your website otherwise you can choose to upload your own image.

As soon as you’ve chosen a photo to pin, you then need to provide a description of the photo – be as detailed as possible. Once that’s done you’ll be taken to the page below which means that you’ve just added your first pin. The photo will be clickable which means that it can potentially drive traffic to your website.

Add more photos and repeat the same process and before you know it you’ve created your first board and first set of pins.

How to get your pin to the top of Pinterest Search

There are three main factors that usually helps a pin reach the top of Pinterest and these three are a compelling photo,  a highly optimized board name that supports the pinned content and a compelling blog post.

Now if you want to create a pin that can go viral then you need to look at these eight elements.

Compelling Description

Your pin description needs to be compelling enough if you want pinners to repin and click through to your photos. Take some time and work on your description before you hit that publish button.

Pin Size

A pin size is a big deal when it comes to creating a viral pin. According to danzarella.com, portrait and vertical images are the best to use on Pinterest. Award-winning social media marketer Dan Zarrella studied over 11,000 pins and discovered that taller images are actually more repinnable. I recommend trying the size 800 x 1,300 pixels because this size has worked well for me in the past but really, you need to try testing things out in Pinterest so you can find out which Pin size will do wonders for you. The minimum size is 600 x 900 pixels, make sure you don’t make your pins longer than 1500 pixels because they will get truncated.

Simple and Uncluttered Images

Granted that Pinterest is a visual social media platform, you still need to make sure that you don’t post photos that are way too busy to look at it literally hurts your eyes. I recommend using bright colors on a white or neutral background. Simple yet captivating photos tend to perform well on Pinterest. The colours red, pink, and purple tend to be repinned more, while green, blue, black, and yellow has the opposite effect,

Compelling images

According to Pinterest, informative pins are up to 30% more engaging than other pins and using some simple text on top of the image to quickly describe the pin helps make the pin more pinnable. Images with multiple colors apparently get repinned 3.25 times more than the ones with a single dominant color and medium lightness is repinned 20x more than very dark images. Don’t post images that are too light or too dark, stay natural.

FIle names

Since search engines can’t really see your images, you need to include file names that contain your targeted keywords. You’re most likely get much better search performance with “pacific_dresses.jpg” than you will with “JPEG23343.jpg.” If you do it this way, when someone pins your images from another blog or website using Pinterest’s browser button, the image alt-text by default is what is going to be used as the pin description.

Clear and legible Font

Obviously, you need to pick a font that people can read otherwise no one would click on your photos. Try to pick a photo that’s not too busy that it eats up your font, the neater the better.

Compelling images

According to Pinterest experts White Gloves, images without a human face receives 25% more repins. “Lifestyle images” drive 159% more likes and repins because it helps your audience actually visualize what they can do with your products and it shows your products being used in real life.

Optimize your Board Name

If people can’t locate your board then obviously they’re not going to find the content on your board. Therefore you need to use a board name that your target audience is searching for so that they can find your content.

 Now if you want Pinterest to work wonders for your business here are twelve killer tips:

Follow your competition

What better way to find out what sort of Pinterest strategies you can implement in your own account than by following your competition and figuring out what’s working for them?

You can find out who your competition is by searching them on Pinterest or using good old Google. Once you’ve pinpointed out other businesses related to your niche then explore their Pinterest accounts.

What’s working for them?

What sort of photos is getting more engagement?

Do they have active followers on Pinterest?

You need to determine what’s working for your competition, implement those strategies on your own Pinterest account and if you can improve on it.

Turn your Pinterest Page into a Business Page

There’s no massive difference between a personal page and a business page; the only difference is that business pages have added analytics features so you can get more data to help you. You can insight like how many unique users your Pinterest account gets, or which of your content gets the most repins.

You also need to create boards that are a direct reflection of what your business is all about. Creating boards that reflect your business is great for branding purposes.

Add a Pinterest Hover Pin It Button to your photos

A Hover Pin It Button is an excellent call to action because it’ll drive referral traffic from Pinterest direct to your website.

This button actually appears over the images on your website whenever a Pinterest user’s mouse hovers over them. It’s a great way to drive traffic to your site because it makes it easier for Pinterest users to pin images from your website.

Pinterest provides detailed instructions on how to use it so you should be able to get it going in just a few minutes.

Interact with your followers

If you want to actively engage your followers, then don’t forget to engage with people that comment on your photos.

Customers love a brand that interacts with them so a quick response to a user’s comment is good public relations and will engage your followers.

Build rapport With Influencers

Building rapport with influencers is a must for every social media platform because these people have hundreds and thousands of followers that might also follow your brand.

Start following the influencers in your niche and interacting with them. Repin their content, like them and even make comments on them. If these influencers can see that your brand is reaching out and making an effort, then they might decide to collaborate with you.

Optimize your Pinterest account for SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) should always be present on all your social media accounts, and the same goes with Pinterest.

Make sure your username is a direct reflection of your business for SEO purposes; your ‘about’ section should also contain keywords preferably long tail ones that are related to your niche. Make sure the file name and description of your pins are related to your niche, include relevant hashtags on your posts and of course, include links to your website.

Your business description is also a relevant piece of your Pinterest account so make sure you make it count.

Look at using Rich Pins

Pinterest has five types of rich pins that’ll enable you to add a pin that’s specifically related to your niche. These are the five:

•Movie pins which include reviews, cast members and ratings
•Place pins which include a map, an address and a phone number
•Article pins which include the link, the headline, the synopsis and the author
•Product pins which tell you where to buy and includes real-time pricing and product availability
•Recipe pins which include ingredients, serving information and even cooking times

Figure out which rich pin applies to your niche then apply for it, this should give your followers more specific information about the pins that interest them.

Invite users to a Group Board

A group board is a great way to engage with your customers and potential clients.

Create a group board then invite other Pinterest users to pin on your board. Of course, as the admin of the board, you have the power to control which pin stay and which pins go, but this is definitely a great way to gain potential new customers and followers.

Don’t be afraid to use old photos

Most people who follow brands businesses are usually keen on seeing their journey so why not dig up your old photos and do a throwback board?

Take your followers on a walk down memory lane by showing the progress on how you started to where you are now; success stories are always a hit with the masses.

Get smart when it comes to naming your Images

If you want Pinterest users to find your website photos, then you have to tweak your image names a little bit. Add keywords and hyphens, and that’ll make your image more search friendly.

For example, instead of a standard camera name like EOS SBCS0000.JPG – try “women’s-designer-shoes.jpg.” This should help make your photo easier to find online.

Use other forms of media

While we all know that Pinterest is a visually driven social media platform, there’s also the option of using other media to make your brand stand out.

Try posting videos from YouTube or slideshows from SlideShare – that should make your brand stand out more. You can also try audio from SoundCloud to make things a bit more interesting.

Don’t use too many hashtags

You need to choose hashtags that are relevant to your pin’s theme. If you’re using a hashtag that is more than one word – try capitalizing the first letter of each word to make it easier for Pinners to read your hashtag. For example, instead of #bluedress try typing #BlueDress.

Unlike Instagram where hashtags are a vital component to making your content go viral, in Pinterest, you don’t use more than 20 hashtags in your pin descriptions because it’ll look spammy and it’ll turn Pinners off. The less clutter there is in your pin description, the better.

Keep in mind just because you are using hashtags in your content, it doesn’t mean your content will automatically shoot up to the top of the Pinterest search engine because you’re still competing with other pins using the same keywords and hashtags. If those other pins are appropriately optimized with high repin numbers, those pins will always be ahead of your pins. You need to wait for at least a couple of months until you actually see a new pin’s value. SEO is a long-term game – it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.

In Conclusion

If you’re not using Pinterest to market your products or services, then you’re seriously missing out. because more than 87 percent of Pinterest users have bought a product because of the website.

Pinterest is one of the biggest website traffic drivers in the world and is actually 80% more viral and three times more effective at generating leads than Twitter. So if you’re an entrepreneur who wants to take your business to another level then what are you waiting for??

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15 Powerful Twitter Marketing Tips (That Actually Work)

Can Twitter actually help boost your business? Or is it just a social media platform that’s mainly catered for teeny boppers who loves following their favorite celebrities?

The honest answer to this question is yes, Twitter can give your business a much-needed boost, but you need to know how to use it properly to get results out of it.

As of the fourth quarter of 2017, Twitter has an average of 330 million monthly active users – you don’t want to miss out on tapping such a vast market right?

If you want to know how you can use your Twitter account to gain new potential customers and engage your existing followers

then read on and find out.

1. Interact with your followers

If you want your Twitter account to engage with your customers, then you need to start interacting with them.

It doesn’t matter if you get a positive or negative tweet about your brand, you need to address these feedbacks to show everyone that your brand care.

If someone is giving you positive feedback, then you need to like the tweet and even retweet it – if people can see that you’re actively interacting with your followers, then they’ll engage with you too.

Don’t forget to retweet and mention other Twitter users and “like” tweets. You can mention other Twitter users by including their @usernames if you want to respond to something someone said about your brand and you want them to know about it. Retweeting or Tweeting what someone else has tweeted before is also a great tactic on Twitter because it creates a sense of goodwill.

If your business gets mentioned in the media, you have to make sure you tweet right back and mention their username to show them that you’re aware of what they said and you’re happy to respond to them. You can also offer a”Twixclusive.” A Twixclusive is an exclusive on Twitter that your followers can’t find anywhere else. You can tweet behind-the-scenes videos or photos, Connect with followers in real time by hosting exclusive Q&A sessions, interviews and chats.If your content is high-quality, you’ll end up getting more retweets that could potentially attract new followers.

2. Integrate Twitter into your blog

If you have a website, then it’s definitely a good idea to integrate your Twitter account into your blog so that you can encourage whoever reads your article to follow you on Twitter. You can either embed tweets or apply the Twitter share button or even the “Click to Tweet” button.

3. Post consistently and create a relevant profile

If you’re an entrepreneur, then you obviously need to have consistency in your social media profiles, so you need to choose
a username that is a direct reflection of your business. Twitter allows up to 15 characters for usernames, so you need to choose wisely and smartly. On that note, once you’ve chosen a username, you need to create a compelling profile. Choose a relevant profile pic (your business logo) and a compelling cover image as well as a brief but clear bio highlighting specific points about your business. People should be able to pick up what your brand is all about based on your Twitter profile.

4. Tweet briefly but consistently

If you’re not active on Twitter, then people will assume that your Twitter account is dead weight, so no one is going to follow or engage with your brand. You need to show everyone that you are actively tweeting about something hence the reason why celebrities tweet all the time. Try to tweet at least once a day or more if you can and maintain consistency.

On that note, Twitter actually has a 140-character limit so keep it short and sweet. You can also use tools to help you manage your Twitter account more efficiently. Here are a few good ones you can use:

TweetDeck: This tool great for scheduling Twitter posts and monitoring mentions among others.

HootSuite: This tool allows you to monitor all of your social media profiles from one location.

TwitterFox: This tool is a Firefox plugin that allows you to see tweets in a popup menu within your browser, so you don’t have to exit your current browser to check your Twitter account.

SocialOomph: This is a tool similar to TweetDeck that enables you to schedule your tweets in advance.

Followerwonk: This is a service that enables you to grow your social reach and review your Twitter analytics.

5. Post compelling and shareable tweets

Try to make your tweets compelling and always keep the interests of your followers in mind. Make your tweets more conversational, friendly, unique, or even funny to get your followers to engage. Try to also include other forms of media in your Tweets to make it more engaging. You can add images, links, animated gifs, and even videos. Tweets that include other media types tend to get more retweeted than those without. You can also plan your content to make sure that you are consistent with your Tweets and your followers know what to expect from you.

For example, Mondays and Tuesdays can be posts about your blog articles, Tuesdays and Wednesday’s can be a spotlight on what’s trending within your niche, Thursdays can be special promo days where one of your followers can win something and Friday through to Sunday can be a tweet highlighting special interviews with industry heavyweights. Having a content plan is must if you want your Twitter account to grow. You need to also tweet links to your content more than just once. Posting a single time is good, but reposting your content is better because not everyone is going to see your content if you only post it once. I recommend spacing out your tweets, so you’re tweets are always on people’s timelines all the time. You can use tools like Tweriod that can tell you the best time to Tweet something or when your followers are most active on Twitter.

6. Be at one with your competition

If you’ve just created your Twitter account and you don’t know what to do yet, why don’t you follow your competitors and see what they’re doing with their Twitter accounts that are engaging their followers? Find out what they’re tweeting about and their Twitter strategies and then implement those strategies in your account as well. Try to find a way to improve their tactics, that way; you’ll eventually get more engagement from your followers.

7. Follow other users

If someone follows you on Twitter, don’t be afraid to follow back. Just make sure you check out who you’re about to follow because you don’t want to be following a spam account. If it’s someone relevant to niche or a potential client, then you need to follow them right back. Especially aim to follow influencers in your niche, if you’re not sure who they are then there are tools such as Klout, Twellow, or Commun.it that’ll help you locate influencers. Once you’ve found these influencers, engage them, mention them and retweet their tweets, you can also use Buzzsumo to filter out and find influencers in your niche.

If they can see that your brand is actively interacting with them, then they’ll most likely follow you back. You need to follow these influencers, like and retweet their content and engage in their content. The key is to build relationships with people so that Twitter users will remember your brand.

8. Use strategic Hashtags

A hashtag is an extremely powerful marketing tool used by businesses in Twitter because the “#” symbol is a keyword or a phrase used to describe a topic or a theme. Hashtags in tweets are used to categorize a specific topic or a theme in a way that makes it easier for other Twitter users to find and follow other people’s relevant tweets. Basically, once you hashtag a word via Twitter, the specific hashtag goes into the world of hashtags which will enable Twitter users who are not following you to view your tweets and your content, so you get more eyeballs on your tweet. Hashtags increase engagement with new Twitter users that’s why it’s important to use relevant hashtags that’ll describe your content.

9. Use Twitter Lists

Twitter lists are an excellent way of keeping up with what’s trending in your industry and connecting with relevant people in your niche. Twitter lists are actually curated groups of users segmented by category. You can create lists for yourself or subscribe to other users lists. It gives you a sneak peek of what users are talking about and enables you to keep in touch with other people in your industry and your customers.

10. Use Twitter Chats

Twitter chats are actually scheduled hashtag discussions that highlight specific topics. If you’re an expert in your niche, then you can always host a Twitter chat where your customers and even potential customers can ask questions about your business and your niche. Cool tools like TweetChat or Twubs are available if you want to make your Twitter chats more manageable.

11. Use Twitter Cards

Twitter Cards enables users to attach rich photos, videos and media experiences to their Tweets, which can eventually result in more traffic to their websites. Majority of Twitter Cards are typically free, but then Lead Generation Cards are part of Twitter’s advertising program which means it can only be used within Promoted Tweets. The cost will, of course, depend on your marketing budget and how much you are willing to bid for each engagement.

12. Use Twitter in real time

If you have a special event or you’ve been invited to an important event, a great way to engage your followers is to live-tweet the event as it’s happening. Live tweeting is a great way to engage your audience especially if you’re attending a high-profile event.

13. Measure your engagement

If you are using Twitter for business, then you need to monitor your Twitter account’s metrics to make sure that you’re on track to achieving your goals. Are your followers engaging with your tweets? Are you getting new followers? Is your website getting any traffic from your Twitter account? How many people are interacting with your posts? If you’re not measuring your Twitter performance, then you won’t know where to improve on.

14. Try a ‘Flock to Unlock’ Campaign

Twitter’s Flock to Unlock campaign is an effective way of encouraging your followers to execute a specific type of action for you to reveal an exclusive deal. The choice to reveal the special deal in your initial tweet or keep it top secret until a specific benchmark has been met is entirely up to you. ‘Flock to Unlock’ Campaigns creates a much-needed buzz and builds brand awareness. If you want to stir things up a bit in Twitterland, then this campaign is gold.

15. use Twitter Ads

If you have a marketing budget, then you may look at using Twitter ads to expose your account to other Twitter users who may want to follow you. There are three different types of Twitter ads, and that’s Promoted Accounts, Promoted Tweets, and Promoted Trends. Promoted accounts are where Twitter will promote your Twitter account so you can gain new followers. Your account will show up in other people’s timelines and search results.Promoted Tweets is where Twitter will promote your regular tweets to other users who aren’t following you yet and who don’t know about your brand. Promoted Trends is where Twitter can promote a hashtag. When users click on your chosen hashtag, they’ll be able to see your promoted tweet first before they see all the other tweets.

In a nutshell, you can pay Twitter to promote your account to get more followers, you can pay Twitter to promote a video and then pay for Twitter users to view it or you can pay for Twitter to promote your tweets for brand awareness and website clicks. Bottomline, you need to choose a Twitter ad campaign based on your goal.

In conclusion

If you want to grow your customer base using Twitter, then you need to use it the right way.

You need to set goals to figure out what sort of result you want then you need to stay active on Twitter and engage your followers by retweeting their tweets and mentioning them when applicable. You can also use Twitter ads to gain more followers and engagement if you have a marketing budget to work with.

What about you? Have you used Twitter yet to grow your business?

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5 Advanced LinkedIn Marketing Hacks That Will Help You Double Your Business

If you’re not using LinkedIn for your business then you are seriously missing out.

For the newbies out there who haven’t heard of LinkedIn before, it’s a social network that is designed for career and business professionals to connect with each other. Unlike Facebook wherein, you can ask to be a friend of anyone you like, LinkedIn is not about numbers, it’s about quality, not quantity. It’s about building strategic relationships and connecting with people that are relevant to your business. In fact, if you reach 500 connections LinkedIn will actually stop showing your number of connections to other users.

LinkedIn has over 65 million business professionals from around the world and majority of its members are decision-making authorities for their companies so it’s an amazing platform that you can utilize for your business.

1. Use LinkedIn to grow your email list

Email lists have always been at the top of the list for a number of online marketers because your message goes directly to your target’s inbox. Whenever you make a new connection in LinkedIn try to be polite and thank them for the connection – then try to invite them to be a part of your email list. Since you’ve connected with them already, nine times out ten they’ll probably say yes. Of course, it’s always a good strategy to offer something in exchange for their emails, maybe offer a free eBook that you’ve written? You’ll get a much more favorable response if you’re exchanging something of value in return for their emails because most people think you will spam their inboxes.

2. Laser-focus on your target market and connections

Advertising in LinkedIn is way different than advertising on other social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram because you can laser-focus on your industry, job roles of LinkedIn users who would normally purchase your product and even the company size. For example, if your company is selling high-end women’s shoes, you can focus your entire advertising campaign to female executives of businesses with over 100 employees that are focussed on fashion – these women can afford high-end shoes and have the budget for them.

3. Stay active and post constantly

If you want your connections to recognize that you’re an authority on your field then you need to stay active on LinkedIn.

Provide daily status if you can and create blog posts to show authority. Keep in mind that you are catering for your connections and possible new connections that have come across your profile so keep active and stay relevant by posting authoritative blog posts. Try to join LinkedIn groups that are relevant to your target market as well. This is an excellent way to find out what your target audience is buzzing about and joining groups will also enable you to message the members of the group even if you’re not connected.

4. Post compelling content

If you want other professionals to notice your brand and you as an authority figure in your industry, then you need to post topnotch content that is highly compelling. Keep in mind that your connections and audience are also professionals in their field so they would only see value in your content if it’s going to help them in the long run. Keep in mind that if a post begins to gain traction, LinkedIn will actually put a spotlight on it in one of their categories, and you’ll get more eyeballs on your post and your profile.

5. Sponsored Updates

Sponsored updates is a great way to engage a more targeted audience on LinkedIn because it allows you to get your content in front of a larger, more qualified users. Basically, you can pay to push your content onto a LinkedIn user’s feed similar to boosting a Facebook post. The beauty of using this function is that you can customize your content to laser-focus on a person’s job title, company that person works for or even what sort of skills they have. It’s a great way to reach decision makers and authority figures from various companies so you need to make sure that the content you’re pushing is compelling and that you also have a prominent call to action.

6. Make sure you claim your custom URL

If you’re serious about growing your brand then you need to claim your custom URL and make sure it includes your name in it. If you’ve just met a potential sponsor or client, chances are, they’ll probably Google your name to get a feel for you and LinkedIn profiles are usually at the top of the search results that’s why custom URL’s are very important. On that note, make sure that the summary section on your own profile is topnotch. Having a custom URL is pointless if your summary section is lame. Make sure that you write in the first person and that it clearly sums up your expertise and why you’re an authority in your niche. It’s what prospective customers or clients will look at if they come across your profile.You have roughly 2,000 characters to make a kickass profile so make it good. Don’t forget to include your contact information in your profile as well to make it a lot easier for potential clients to reach you so that you can turn random people into qualified leads.

7. Don’t be pushy

No one likes a pushy salesman so if you come across as one of those annoying pushy salesmen you’ll most likely turn other people off. LinkedIn is all about connecting with other businesses and professionals so if you want to make an impact on LinkedIn then you need to focus on building relationships. Try to connect with other entrepreneurs and prospects on a more personal level and build rapport. Make people like you. Most people will say yes to something if they like the person.

Being a hardcore sales rep out of the 70’s will get you nowhere because LinkedIn is full of smart professionals who have probably heard what you’re selling anyway.

8. Have a business profile page

If you have a Facebook page and an Instagram page then you definitely need to have a business page on LinkedIn as well.

The look and feel of your business page should be consistent on all social media platforms so make sure the visuals and content are consistent all throughout. Stay active on LinkedIn because the more active you are the more relevant your brand becomes. If you come across a business page that hasn’t been updated in three months what would be your opinion of that business? You’ll probably think it’s not in business anymore. You’re better off not having a business if you’re not planning to update regularly. Maintain a consistent and active business page on LinkedIn and you’ll have a better chance of earning more qualified leads.

9. Create your own LinkedIn group

Similar to creating a Facebook page, creating a LinkedIn group is a great idea because it’ll connect you directly with potential clients or customers. If you want other LinkedIn members to join your group all you need to do is join as many groups that you can that are related to your brand or your niche. Once you’ve been accepted to the other groups, focus on getting the members of that group to join your own group by sending them each a personalized invite. Laser-focusing on your target members is essential here so you need to invite members that you feel could be your potential customers. The more personalized your invite is, the better your chances of recruiting them to join your group. Once your group has a decent size, you need to post valuable content to keep them compelled. if they can see that you’re offering something of value to your group then they’ll more than likely become your client or customer in the future.

In Conclusion

One in three professionals in the world actually owns a LinkedIn account, and 50 percent of key decision makers use LinkedIn for business purposes so if you’re not using it for your business then you’re seriously missing out on a potential gold mine.

LinkedIn provides valuable networking opportunities, allows you to build rapport and relationships with other professionals, establish authority, generate quality leads, gain awareness for your brand and improve your reputation. So what are you waiting for??

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3 Major Secrets To Actually Attracting Advertisers To Your Social Media Accounts

Can you really make money from social media even if you don’t have a website?

The simple answer is yes you can. However, you have to bear in mind that for every superstar influencer making millions on Instagram or Facebook, there are also hundreds of thousands of people who are not making any money at all. The brutal reality is that nothing is ever guaranteed.

Since Instagram has boomed to insane heights, there’s also been a boom in social media influencers who are earning ridiculous amounts of money via Instagram. Top influencers like Selena Gomez, who has over 122 million followers, can earn over $550,000 per post. Kim Kardashian earns an average of $500,000 per post so you can see how some people can make millions out of their Instagram account.

Obviously, the brands that are willing to pay top dollar for influencers want to make sure they maximize their money so they would be looking for influencers who have a lot of followers. So how do you get sponsors to advertise on your social media account? Here are a few tips:

– You need to do your research. Approaching a sponsor without knowing what they need is like rushing into a war blindfolded. Take a look at their Facebook page and Instagram and Twitter account for example. What are they lacking? Is there a way for you to help them out? Are they engaging their followers? Can you suggest a few things that you can improve on if the sponsor decided to give you a chance to explain yourself?

– You need to post consistently. If you want to gain new followers and engage your existing ones then you need to post compelling content consistently. That’s the best way to gain authority and get people and brands to take notice.

– You need to tag brands, especially on Instagram. If you want a specific brand to take notice, you need to tag their Instagram page. If they like your posts and photos, they might even end up sharing your posts on their Instagram account which means more eyeballs for your account.

– Make sure brands know that you are open for sponsorship. If you want potential sponsors to reach out to you then your profile needs to specify an email or a phone number where sponsors can reach you for promotional opportunities. Make sure it’s really loud and clear that you’re open to potential partnerships.

– Be bold and send them a direct message. Tell the potential sponsor how much you love their brand and that you have some great ideas for a possible collaboration. If you message a sponsor but you don’t get a response at all, don’t lose heart because they probably a thousand emails themselves. If they do response then try to get an email address, it’s much more professional than chatting on Facebook or Instagram. Here’s an example of an email that can get you results.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I hope this email finds you well.

My name is Mike and my Instagram account is @miketheinfluencer. I’d love to be given the opportunity to collaborate with your brand.

Just to give you a quick outline of what my Instagram account is all about,  my account focuses on men’s suits, based on my 10 years of being a fashion stylist. The people who follow me tend to be men aged between 21-36 who are actively prepared to spend for decent suits, which seems like a good match for the audience your brand targets with marketing. I currently have 10,000 followers, and an 85% engagement rate on my posts and I was previously a brand ambassador for Montagio Mens Suits Sydney and InStitchu.

I think there’s a great opportunity for us to benefit each other, and I’d like to propose a collaboration. Please let me know if my book account sparks any partnership ideas.

Thanks for your consideration!

– Try to interact with the brand’s posts and use their hashtags. If you do it constantly, their bound to take notice, especially if your social media profile has a decent amount of followers and you keep tagging them repeated again and again.

In Conclusion

Most brands hesitate to invest money into social media because they worry about the return on investment.

If you want to gain sponsors for your social media account then you need to do your research, back your proposal with some convincing statistics and generate results. If you can provide results to potential customers then you’ll get sponsors that’ll come back to you again and again.

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10 Proven Strategies That’ll Help You Create A Profitable Facebook Page

What began as a way for Harvard college students to connect with each other has now grown into one of the world’s biggest social networks and the best marketing resource out of all the other social media platforms.

Facebook currently has over 200 billion active users.

Yes, you read that correctly, 200 BILLION users.

Hence the reason why Facebook remains ahead of other social media platforms when it comes to social media marketing. This is also the main reason why I highly recommend all entrepreneurs to get serious about promoting their businesses on Facebook by creating highly engaging Facebook business pages because that will translate to money in your pocket.

So how can you make your Facebook page more profitable?

Simple, you need to attract potential customers by engaging them first on your Facebook page and then eventually driving them to your website. But here’s the thing, you have to do it organically though. Doing this organically won’t cost you anything besides your time and effort. You need your customers to engage with your content because the more organic reach you have, the better your chances are of converting potential buyers into actual buyers.

So the big question is: how can you engage potential buyers? How can you get organic reach?

Well, first we need to take a look at how Facebook’s news feed algorithm actually works first. Then we can take a look at some practical strategies we can implement to increase your business page’s organic reach.

There are a ton of factors that decide which posts eventually show up in a user’s news feed. Adam Mosseri, the VP of News Feed at Facebook, explained in detail how the algorithm works by presenting a real-world problem – he compared it to ordering something for his wife at a restaurant as an example.

Adam broke the explanation down into four steps:

1. He goes over the menu to determine what his options are.

2. He takes into account all of the information that is at his disposal (for example, what does his wife like to eat, is it lunch or dinner time, what’s good at the restaurant?)

3. He then comes up with predictions in his head (for example, would his wife enjoy having salmon for lunch today or would it be weird if he ordered her a chocolate soufflé for breakfast?).

4. After considering all of this information, he’ll be able to then place his wife’s order.

Here’s a quick summary of his explanation:

Inventory – What’s on the menu?

When you first open your news feed, Facebook’s algorithm immediately takes an inventory by reviewing all of the stories posted by your friends as well as the pages you follow which is similar to Adam reviewing the menu.

Signals – Is it lunch or dinner time?

Facebook then reviews all the available data and tries to decide how interested you may be in a particular story. Facebook refers to this information as “Signals”. This is what Facebook uses to rank your content. Facebook takes into account things like who posted the story? What’s the frequency of posts from that person? What’s the average time spent on the content? What phone is the user on? What time was the content posted? What’s the overall engagement the post already has? When was the story posted? Facebook even takes into account your friend’s tags or even recent comments from a friend.

Predictions – Would she enjoy the salmon?

Facebook then uses these signals to create predictions and calculate the probability of specific outcomes; for example, how likely are you to click or comment on a story? How likely are you to spend time or share a story?

Score – Place an order.

After coming up with predictions and calculating the probabilities, Facebook combines all the information it has gathered to calculate a “relevance score,” an actual number that represents how interested Facebook thinks you may be in a particular story.

Adam eventually pointed out that Facebook doesn’t really know how interested you are in a specific story – it’s an educated guess at best. In a nutshell, Facebook’s algorithm uses these four steps to help it decide as to how to rank your content in the news feed.

So what’s Facebook’s ultimate goal for its News Feeds?

Just like Google, Facebook cares the most about its users. Facebook only wants its users to experience high-quality and relevant content.

So how can you boost your Facebook organic reach taking into account its constant algorithmic changes? Below are ten effective strategies.

1. Focus on providing valuable content rather than reach

Going after Facebook’s organic reach can only get you so far. In hindsight, it should just come secondary to providing valuable content because your audience should come first.

When you post Status updates – your primary focus should be engaging your followers and getting likes and comments. When you post links – your primary objective should be driving traffic to your website.

So how do you do that?

Simple, you need an attention-grabbing headline as well as an attention-grabbing photo. The post should also be short; it should just be around 40 characters or less for maximum engagement. Here’s a perfect example from Buzzfeed.

2. Find out what your audience wants

What better way to gain engagement than by finding out what your audience actually wants?

Maybe they want to see photos? Or perhaps they want links or videos?

The best way to find out is through your Facebook Insights which I will explain in more detail later. You need to keep a sharp eye out and figure out which content gets more likes and shares.

Another way is to conduct a voting poll on your Facebook page to figure out what content appeals to them the most. You can create a Facebook voting poll by clicking this link on your page.

3. Build authority

It’s nowhere near enough to just focus on increasing your business page likes because realistically, the number of likes on your page gives no indication as to how the content you post will perform.

What really matters is building authority and strong presence online because by being an authority in your field, you’ll be able to command your audience to respond favourably to your posts. Therefore, they will be more likely to positively engage with your content.

If you want to increase engagement on your page here’s what you can do:

– Only post content that is relevant to your business and make sure that you post consistently.

Posting about a cute cat video on a business page that sells plumbing tools is just plain dumb and will get you 0% engagement because you’re just posting irrelevant content.

– Promote your Facebook page on your other social media platforms.

If you have a huge following on other social media channels such as Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter, you can leave a link of your Facebook page in their bio section.

– Use your audience insights to track and analyze your organic search.

You need to identify where your weaknesses are by gathering significant metrics to measure your page’s performance. Without this data, you won’t know where to focus your efforts on.

Here’s how to export insights data from your Facebook page:

First, you need to click on the “Insights” tab at the top of your page.

There’s a button on the top of the insights page, that will allow you to export your data called “Export Data” – click on that.

A window will then pop up with three different options for your page insights. Pick an option and then click “Export Data” to save your data to an excel file.

Next, you need to take a look at your post metrics. I personally see more value in post metrics than page metrics because while page metrics will give you a comprehensive view of your page’s performance, post metrics, on the other hand, will provide you with a more thorough look at how your followers are interacting with your content.

To take a look at your post metrics you need to go to “Posts” and then “Post Types.”

With this information, you’ll be able to tell what types of contents your followers prefer and which ones have the highest organic reach.

– Invite people who have liked your content to like your page.

To do this, you need to first select one of your more popular posts.

and then click on the group of people who’ve liked it. Invite them to like your page, and I bet that you’ve got a 95% chance that they will like your page.

4. Publish compelling content

You need to publish “evergreen content” if you want to engage your followers – a type of content that is always relevant to readers and highly unlikely to become immediately dated.

The word “evergreen” is usually used by editors referring to the type of stories that are always interesting to readers. The idea behind this kind of posts is to write compelling stories that can be easily found by search engines while making sure they are always fresh (forever green) without needing to be updated so that your followers engage with your content.

Once you’ve found a compelling post that has gone viral, you can always repurpose that post by taking note of this content and approaching that piece of content and putting a new spin on it or change the context. Make sure you publish your repurposed content at different times. This guarantees that there always be some fresh eyes that get to see and engage with this “new” content.

5. Share other people’s compelling content on your page

Another smart way of getting your followers to engage in your page is to look at other similar Facebook pages from across the internet and sharing their viral content in your page.

Here’s the thing, you can’t just press the share button, and that’s it. Instead, you need to put a different spin on it. A great example is Problogger’s reading roundup of posts related to blogging. It’s a great way of putting a new spin on other people’s engaging content.

6. Post content when it’s the best time to post on Facebook

The best times to post on your Facebook page is when your followers are active on the network. This data garnered by Optimal times shows 20 studies that prove that posting at the best days and times will help you get more traffic, more engagement, and of course, more followers.

This data taken from 20 studies proves that posting at the best times will help you get more traffic, more engagement, and more followers.

Of course, I don’t recommend that you blindly follow this post because every Facebook page is different, I live in Australia, and I find that for my pages, the best time to post is past 5 pm on a weekday as most of my audience are on their phones on the train on the way home and around 3pm on weekends.

But to make it easier for you, I suggest that you take a look at your Facebook Insights to find out exactly when your fans are online.

You go to your Facebook Insights and go to post, and you’ll see the most popular times your audience visited your page. You can even monitor the social media marketing posting strategies of your competitors by visiting Fan Page Karma if you want to take a peek how your competitors are going.

7. Keep an eye out for the latest Facebook app updates

Just like Google, the Facebook app gets updates all the time. You need to be on top of these updates because there’s always a new feature released and you need to take advantage of these updates so you can master it faster than anyone and be ahead of the game.

Here are some updates worth noting:

Facebook stories: Similar to Snapchat and Instagram stories, Facebook stories are short user-generated photo and video collections that can be viewed up to two times and disappear after 24 hours.

360-degree photos and videos: this feature gives you the ability to capture a 360, panoramic view of pretty much anything you want.

Video autoplay: Facebook users no longer have to manually tap the play button to play a video. You can now watch a video while still scrolling through your news feed.

Facebook offers: This feature enables you to create and share coupons, discounts, and other promotional offers on your Facebook business page.

8. Share your content on your Facebook Profile

If you want to boost post views on your latest post, then you need to first share a post on your Facebook page then share it from the page on your personal Facebook profile.

This is a useful technique for posts that you feel would resonate well with your Facebook friends. There’s also that chance for them to share your content if they like it so your brand will be exposed to a new crowd.

9. Use hashtags effectively

If you’re always on Facebook, then you’ll surely be familiar with hashtags and how they actually work.

But do you know how to use them efficiently for maximum engagement?

After analysing more than 1 billion Facebook posts from over 30 million pages, BuzzSumo discovered that Facebook users are in fact prone to hashtag fatigue. Posts with a lot of hashtags shockingly performed worse than those without.

Therefore, hashtags should be used in moderation – according to online marketing guru Neil Patel only two hashtags maximum should be used in any given post.

Why only two?

After analyzing 200,000 brand posts on Facebook, SurePayroll discovered that interactions were highest when only one-two hashtags were used that’s why.

To make the most of hashtags, your hashtags need to be unique so that it doesn’t get confused with anyone else’s. You can also use your hashtags to search for your content. This way, you’re enabling your users to continue to refer to your past content by carrying out a hashtag search.

10. Run a competition

Facebook contests are an excellent way to establish brand presence quickly.

First, you need to determine the reason for the poll, are you looking to generate more fans or more leads? The answer to this question will decide what you’ll do next.

Next, you need to figure out what sort of competition you need to run. If your goal is to get more emails then you need to establish an email grab system, if your goal is to get more followers on your Facebook page, you can require willing people to follow and like your page before they can enter the competition. Just make sure you have a decent price for the winner of the contest, offering something silly like “exposure” on your Facebook page is not going to get you anywhere.

Don’t forget to review Facebook’s guidelines when it comes to running contests and challenges before you start any contest – you don’t want Facebook to shut down your Facebook page for not following instructions.

Let’s face it, Facebook is an incredible marketing tool.

As long as you put into practice the ten strategies that I’ve enumerated above, you’ll definitely be well on your way to improving your organic reach and generating more income for your business.

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