Social Media Code

Social commerce has been the latest buzzword over the last few months. With Facebook testing its ‘Buy’ button and Twitter planning to follow suit; the social media platforms have turned serious about growing their share of their e-commerce pie.

As per current estimates, social commerce accounts for between 5 – 20% of sales for nearly 60% of all businesses that market themselves on social media. However this number is about to take a sharp upturn, with social commerce set to account for $30 billion in sales in the US alone, by next year according to Booz & Company.

Social media has been all about reaching out to users, engaging with them and having conversations with them. But the bottom line of every business is sales. How do we move beyond the likes, shares and retweets to getting people to actually buy from us?

Here’s what four of the smartest brands in the business have pulled off to secure their social media revenue streams.

1.  ‘Brick and Click’ goes social in-store

When one thinks of social commerce, it’s usually a combination of social media and the e-commerce arm of a brand. Very rarely is social commerce taken out of the digital context, a fact that is reaffirmed by the results of the Retail Touchpoints’ Social Commerce Survey. According to this report, “only 24% of retailers said they promoted their social presence in-store at the POS, and even fewer said they used in-store digital signage (21%).”

That’s a huge missed opportunity, as Nordstrom has demonstrated very masterfully.

Nordstrom’s Pinterest Integration

Catching on to the fact that Pinterest is a fabulous social network for retail curation and user wishlists, Nordstrom started highlighting items that were popular on Pinterest with a “Popular on Pinterest” tag on the physical item in stores.

Launched as a pilot activity in January 2013, the experiment has been so successful that today every Nordstrom outlet across the US showcases its most popular items on Pinterest with a ‘Top Pinned’ section inside physical stores. Shop assistants are equipped with an in-house iPad app that shows trending items for the day and helps them tag these items appropriately in-store.

 2. Social-based mass media campaigns

Social integration and multi-channel marketing for most brands is equivalent to posting their TV commercials on Facebook and YouTube or creating hashtags with their campaign line on Twitter and promoting it using paid advertising for a while. Smart multi-channel campaigns make every channel an integral part of every user experience.

The core campaign idea does not belong to just one platform. Instead each platform works as a key piece in the overall puzzle, thus making every platform contribute to the company’s bottom line in equal measure. Using project management and collaboration tools like WorkZone or Asana is a great way of keeping track of all the various channels and their interdependencies in such campaigns. Still confused? Read on.

Coca Cola’s ‘Share a Coke’ campaign

Coke started the first step of its campaign with product personalization. For the first time in history, 250 of the most popular first names in each country were shortlisted and printed on the iconic red and white Coke labels, instead of the Coke logo. Coke then used mass media channels like television, outdoors and radio to communicate to users that their favorite drink just might have their name on it. Each bottle also carried a hashtag #ShareACoke to remind users to post pictures of their personalized Coke bottles on social media using the hashtag.

The experience of seeing one’s own name on Coke bottles was so novel and addictive that people actually paid premium prices just to lay their hands on their ‘own’ bottles of Coke and shared them on social media like wildfire. Images of Coke bottles shared on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook with the #ShareACoke hashtag were then plastered across digital billboards, across the country.

Coke also created a microsite – www.shareacoke.com – where users could go and create virtual Coke bottles with the names of their friends and family on them to be shared on social media. The results? Millions of pictures posted on social media, thousands of virtual Coke cans shared online, nearly three times as many Coke bottles sold in the UK as compared to Pepsi during the campaign period!

 3. Social first, retail next

Most businesses look at social media a cheap and must-have marketing tool. However, some enterprising businesses, use social media not just as a marketing platform but as the online home for their business. These businesses are set up, operated, promoted and serviced wholly through social media. Many of these businesses eventually step out of their social media ‘stores’ and set up e-commerce stores online or physical outlets offline.

Lolly Wolly Doodle

A clothing brand targeted at women and little girls, Lolly Wolly Doodle did away with complicated websites with laborious navigation to make their whole business model simple as pie. See a pattern you like? Comment on the post with the size you want, any personalization needs and your email ID. Voila, fastest fingers first and you bought the item! Lolly Wolly Doodle leverages the most fundamental aspect of social media – one on one connections with users. It offered its fans on Facebook a chance to design their own clothing and delivered the bespoke products to users’ doorsteps all through their Facebook brand page.

The popularity of this custom designed clothing brand soared to such heights that they went from a home based business to exactly $11 million in sales in 2013, and founder Brandi Temple was featured on the cover of Inc. magazine’s June 2014 edition. To top it all, AOL founder Steve Case invested $20 million into the company in 2013.

4. Location based marketing

SoLoMo has been the catchphrase for digital marketers for a while now. One of the forerunners of the SoLoMo craze has been Foursquare that combines each aspect of the social-local-mobile mantra beautifully. Brick and mortar retailers can tap into this fantastic piece of social media to drive footfalls to their retail stores by tracking user check-ins on Foursquare and offering location specific and time bound deals.

Starbucks and Foursquare

As early as 2010, Starbucks tried its hand at social commerce by making Foursquare users unlock ‘Mayor’ badges (this happens by sharing more and more on Foursquare and earning incrementally higher points) which would offer them a $1 discount on a Frappucino purchase made at Starbucks outlets.

While this was a one-off campaign, Starbucks offers users rewards for checking in at their local Starbucks outlets and adding tips about what makes these outlets a must-visit.

Social Media Images: The absolute Everything Guide

We usually digest visual information better than text-based content. We can make use of this when optimizing our social media marketing campaigns to give ourselves an edge over competitors who push out written content via social media.

When it comes to social media, there is no denying the fact that the images we use in our content can have a huge impact on how the content is perceived by the community. See #3, #7, #3, all of which emphasize the same thing.

Whether you are a social media expert, or a newbie in charge of managing content, you will always have to double-check the height and width of every image you post on your favourite channels. Making sure these images look good in all possible formats is a time-consuming and frustrating process, especially since the content is accessible from a variety of devices. Today we’ll show you how to tackle this issue.

In this post we will take a look at some of the most popular social media sites, and give you all the information you need on selecting the best sizes and dimensions for the images that you want to use there. I’ll also try to cover various tips for optimizing these images for your brand strategy and improving CTR.

Interested in tips for a certain social network? Jump right there. Below is the ultimate guide to using images in social media.

      

Facebook Images Size Guide

Cover photos on Facebook are prime real estate for showcasing your brand. I’ve seen some creative ways in which individuals and brands makes use of this space. The official recommendation is to use an image 851 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall.

Profile photos

are advised to be 180×180 images which will be displayed as a 160×160.

Twitter Images Size Guide

Twitter allows us to use post images as long as they’re hosted on pic.twitter.com and are shown inline on users’ feeds. They’ve also just announced their support for GIFs, which is a great way to engage with your audience. There are many ways to do this, and we’ll take a look at some of them in the tips and tricks section.

Google+ Images Size Guide

You can use animated GIFs on G+, which is awesome. And they’re not just limited to post images—you can use them in you cover pics or as your profile pic. Use the PSD file from hughbriss.com as a starting point for your cover pic.

Pro Tip:

If you’re an active G+ user, you’ll love this Chrome plugin by Paul Spoerry, that allows you to add text formatting to your G+ posts.

LinkedIn Images Size Guide

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 300 million members. For B2B businesses, LinkedIn is one of the most essential social networking platforms to generate leads.

LinkedIn does not play nice with long visuals like infographics, which anyone can easily create using our infographics templates. So I would recommend using a small portion of the infographic for your LinkedIn update instead of posting the whole thing.

Also, company posts on LinkedIn have the option of a custom photo, so you don’t have to use the one LinkedIn pulls in automatically.

YouTube Images Size Guide

Six billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube. That’s almost an hour for every person on Earth! Statistics like that make YouTube the go-to place for video content.

Instagram Images Size Guide

Instagram, one of the top photo sharing social networks, is becoming quite popular with small businesses. It’s helping them drive sales and develop their brand. If you have a business that sells an item that can photograph well, then by all means look at Instagram as a potential marketing channel.

Pinterest Images Size Guide

This social networking site with a virtual pinboard interface is certainly picking up steam, and is a great marketing channel, particularly among women. This gives Pinterest an edge over the others, especially if your target audience is largely female.

There are two main ways for images to appear in Pinterest. The first is as a pin on the pinboard, and the second is an image that is opened when the pin is clicked.

Tips and Tricks for using Images in Social Media

Now that we’ve seen which sizes to go for on some of the most popular social networking sites, let’s take a look at some tools and tricks we can use to make sure the content looks awesome.

1. Images: There are quite a few stock photo sites out there, and it’s a good idea to browse through a few of them to find the perfect image to goes along with the content you publish.

2. Personalize: Don’t use the stock image as-is. Add some color, badges, personalized text or other CTA to get more people interested in your visuals. You don’t need Photoshop to do all that—freeware tools like Paint.NET, fotor or PicMonkey can be used effectively to do a lot of image customization.

Two of my favorite tools for customizing and personalizing images are Recite and Canva. There are also a lot of online tools that can help, like those from Internet Marketing Ninjas, Autre planète, and Timeline Slicer.

3. Use images in creative ways: Some interesting tactics I’ve seen include using images with a poll and cutting out answers, as shown below. (This works on the Twitter app and Twitter home feed.)

You can also use the ability to include up to four photos in a tweet. This is available on both the iPhone and Android App, and should be coming to the web app soon.

Social Media Marketing Campaigns: 3 Case Studies

Today’s social media marketing campaigns have a big job to accomplish for brands. They are a vehicle for consumers to discover new products and engage with brands, but companies now expect them to close the deal and drive revenue, converting an online audience into loyal customers.

According to research compiled by MobStac in 2013, 78 percent of consumers rely on social media to guide their purchases, proving that social plays a pivotal role in consumer decisions.

But today consumers are bombarded by marketing messages on television and radio, in magazines and newspapers and on smartphones and laptops. Amidst all this marketing and advertising chatter, brands can increasingly become ignored if they don’t execute a coordinated and cohesive marketing effort that ties television and print advertisements to social media, and eventually convinces consumers to complete a transaction.

The most crucial component of connecting social media and revenue is steering social fans and followers to a website, a process that in theory sounds simple, but in reality requires creativity and well-structured campaigns.

Brands have to build excitement that transforms into buying intention while moving from a Facebook page or Pinterest board to the website. Think of marketing efforts as road signs, traffic lights and billboards all rolled into one effort to inform, direct, and excite your social audience and create momentum toward a purchase.

Case Study #1: JustFab.com

E-commerce subscription company JustFab used an unconventional approach to tie social to their website in a campaign called #JustFabWish. The company asked its network to browse their online collections and Tweet their wishlist link with the traceable and branded hashtag #JustFabWish for a chance to win their ensemble.

The company generated attention for the campaign with an email blast sent to millions of current members and leads. JustFab marketers also promoted the campaign through banner ads onsite, and on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Result: When compared to the prior month, JustFab registered a 140 percent increase in web traffic and a 240 percent increase in revenue from Twitter. The campaign out-performed their second most successful effort by more than 50 percent.

The campaign required that participants go to the website to submit their entry. Once on the website, potential customers were already browsing products, and one click away from making an online purchase.

Case Study #2: Gilt.com

Gilt.com paired digital Ad buys with a giveaway to boost web traffic and partnered with Hanky Panky, a popular retailer of women’s underwear, for a giveaway campaign that highlighted Hanky Panky’s main product on the Gilt.com website.

Sure, it was a simple giveaway, but as the entries increased and daily content and ad budgets were put toward promoting the referral contest, more and more people saw the product and in turn, more people wanted the product.

Result: More than 45,000 people visited the sweepstakes page during the two-week contest and 21,000 people participated. Gilt.com added 3,000 new social fans that would continue to see their products and be driven back to the point to purchase them. There was more than just one winner in that contest; Hanky Panky earned exposure for a product directly from the retail site.

Case Study #3: Lilly Pulitzer

Fashion retailer Lilly Pulitzer decided to entice the Audience with an Exclusive Offer. They used the power of exclusivity to launch a campaign that granted early access to online sales for those that opted into their newsletter. Their social sign-up program helped create a massive buzz around the launch of the sale.

By the time the early birds had their carts filled, there was another group of fans clamoring to get in on the regular launch. The campaign made their social audience excited to get on their website and actually buy product.

Result: Lily Pulitzer ended up collecting thousands of email addresses of potential customers, doubling the size of their email database and giving the brand a lasting connection with a new customer base. The social teasers and following email campaign translated into measurable revenue during the online sale.

It doesn’t matter if brands use their website as the starting or ending point; weaving together social elements such as email campaigns, Facebook landing pages, Hashtags and contests, is an essential tactic for brands to reap revenue during and after a social marketing campaign.

Ways to Motivate Your Followers to Amplify Your Content Marketing

Brands want it, fans create it, Google embraces it and Facebook loves it. User Generated Content (UGC) is the “Holy Grail” of social media and content marketing and it’s becoming key to cracking the elusive Facebook fan feed and getting your well-thought-out and “oh so intelligent” posts seen by the rest of the world.

So how do you get more of it without breaking the bank buying commercials during the Super Bowl? Read on and don’t forget to share!

#1. Make it emotional

Reno was tired of being beat down by people who probably had never set foot in the Biggest Little City in the world. So they created a campaign that encouraged people to share why they love Reno and tie it back to a BIG reason and a LITTLE challenge.

This resulted in hundreds of people submitting videos, images and stories on a microsite they created. The content from this site was then shared on the group’s Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. They also encouraged citizens to tag #biggestlittlecity so the organizers could easily track the social conversation.

People went crazy using the hashtag over 2,000 times in a few short months and taking the message to the masses that Reno was experiencing a cultural and technological revolution. The result was an authentic, grassroots movement supported almost entirely by UGC. They even made a TEDx video because of it.

#2. Show me the LOVE

People love contests — and when the reward is right folks will share just about anything. Contesting is one of the best ways to get fans to share content and to spread your message for you.

Contesting and engagement programs such as Offerpop can help even the most HTML-challenged folks create quick contests such as Tug of War, Look Books, quizzes, deals and offers — all designed to get your fans to create content for you by offering a little bit of incentive.

#3. Acknowledge and engage

We all love comments on our blog, Facebook shares and Pinterest re-pins. It’s like Christmas coming early. A good social media manager tracks all of this and responds back with a personal comment, a reciprocal retweet or at the very least a courtesy “like” on their social media networks.

When someone is already engaged with your brand the best thing you can do is continue that conversation by asking questions, offering to provide more information or just checking in every once in a while.

 #4. Crowdsource blog content

We all get writer’s block. And lets face it not everyone wants to hear from the same person over and over again.

Why not create a blogger ambassador program and encourage your friends, fans and cohorts to submit content that they create. Snack maker Nature’s Bakery created an entire blogger ambassador campaign working with athletes that have values that the company embraces. The ambassadors not only provide content for their blog through images, videos and stories but they also tag Nature’s Bakery in pictures from all around the world thereby connecting their own healthy audience with Nature’s Bakery and their fan base.

Check out tools like GoodBlogs.com that help you aggregate blogs from writers across the globe for a small fee.

#5. Ask for a Retweet

Ever try asking fans to RT and add a comment, photo or tag a friend? Pretty simple right? Next time you post the most epic 140 characters EVER ask your fans to retweet it and add a quick comment or photo? Heck with Twitter’s new snazzy tagging feature you can even ask them to tag 20 of their friends who might want to be “entered to win.”

See, UGC doesn’t have to be rocket science. It just has to be interesting.

#6. Make it easy

Don’t make your fans go through five steps to share their content with you. Asking them to take a picture, e-mail it to you, sign a photo release form and then fill out a survey isn’t going to get you a ton of content. Make it easy for fans to get their content to you by using a #hashtag.

You can even use apps like Offerpop’s Hashtag Gallery to aggregate all those lovely images promoting your brand and put them on a single page on either your Facebook or website. Pulling all that content together really shows momentum and results in more fans entering the contest. If EVERYBODY is doing it, who wants to be left out?

#7. Say thank you

So you’ve gotten your fans to submit videos, photos, memes and blogs on your behalf. And you haven’t parted with any cash money at all. It’s now time to say thank you and reward those fans for giving you so much royalty-free content to work with.

Pick one and make them the fan of the week, randomly select a photo or video and tag that person letting them know they are the lucky winner this week and will receive (insert amazing prize of your choosing). Give a little and you will get a lot more in return!

#8. Connect it to the customers

People like to share. It’s just natural. And people love to share on social media. Obama ‘s social media peeps captured this with their “Share your Stories” campaign which encouraged people to share who they are and gave people the opportunity to like their favorite stories and share them. It also gave the Obama campaign a boatload of quality, emotionally driven UGC for their other networks and created thousands of “messengers” on social media.

By connecting the content back to the customer and their experiences and emotions brands have a much stronger chance of having their message shared.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/04/09/8-ways-to-motivate-your-followers-to-amplify-your-content-marketing/#3BYVYj6qFTq0TFKv.99

The Top 15 Social Media Marketing Strategy Mistakes to Avoid

Social media is the most popular online activity, so it makes perfect sense for businesses to want to tap into that audience to try and increase sales. Right now, more than 90 percent of businesses use social media in one form or another.

But, simply opening an account or sending out some tweets is not enough to make social media platforms a viable and profitable part of a marketing strategy. By avoiding some basic missteps, many businesses have the ability to increase ROI and create more opportunities from social media accounts.

#1. Not having a strategy

Less than 20 percent of businesses say that their social media strategy is mature. Social media users are inundated with information and messages every second of the day. Businesses that don’t have a social media marketing strategy won’t ever cut through the clutter and deliver an effective message to their target audience.

Creating a strategy includes having distinct and measurable goals, developing a clear social media policy, thinking through a brand’s social media voice, and planning out a content calendar with end goals in mind. Without a clear strategy, businesses could create the best content on the web, but receive little to no engagement.

#2. Not integrating with other digital assets

Social media works best when integrated with other digital marketing efforts. One mistake many businesses make is to leave their social media accounts on islands. Not only should the accounts be linked together through profiles, but they should also be directly tied to websites, emails and paid search advertising campaigns. Not connecting these accounts reduces the amount of reach each asset has separately.

Twitter

#3. Not using images

Images on twitter cause tweets to take up more space on the feed and help drive engagement. Tweets that include an image have 200 percent more engagement than tweets without images. While an image may not be appropriate for every tweet, businesses should include one whenever possible to help draw attention to their message.

#4. Not taking advantage of hashtags

Hashtags are a great way for businesses to insert themselves into conversations and trending topics that make sense, while also doubling engagement.

For example, businesses can use the hashtag #throwbackthursday, or #TBT, to cash in on one of social media’s longest lasting regular Thursday conversations. For this hashtag, it makes sense to post an old image or ad, because it flows with the conversation. Using a new ad or product image would stand out and seem promotional. Using strategically chosen hashtags can help businesses find their target audience, reach non-followers in large numbers and help grow a brand’s influence.

#5. Not using a consistent voice

A business’ Twitter account should be used for business, not personal anecdotes. While unique, funny and chatty messages can make a Twitter account seem more “human,” getting into arguments, insulting other brands or using it to advance the unrelated interests of executives pushes the platform off-message and can create backlash.

Brands shouldn’t have their Twitter account act and sound like a robot either. Repeatedly sending out the same messages can create ill will from consumers as well. The key is to find a happy middle ground where the brand’s voice is consistent, caring and human at the same time.

Facebook

#6.  Not utilizing images or using the wrong size image

Visual stimulation helps drive engagement on social networks. In fact, 40 percent of people respond better to visual information than plain text according to Zabisco. On average, photos get 50 percent more impressions than any other post type on Facebook, while also gathering more likes and comments according to a study by Roost.

To optimize images on Facebook, businesses should make sure to use the correct image size, which varies depending on where the image is going to be used. For the average post, that means uploading a 1,200 x 1,200 pixel image, while Facebook ads have different guidelines businesses should follow  to drive the most potential engagement.

#7. Not removing the URL from a post

When you put a link in a Facebook update, the social networking site automatically creates a clickable image that also works as a link. Because of this, businesses don’t need to include the URL in the post. While having the extra link doesn’t hurt anything, it does show to some users that the business doesn’t understand the capabilities and features of Facebook, so it’s best to delete the extra URL.

#8. Not interacting with followers

Social media is meant to be interactive and consumers expect a certain amount of responsiveness from businesses on Facebook. Responding to posts, thanking consumers for commenting and addressing complaints helps consumers feel more connected to the brand.

Businesses should have a strategy in place to respond to commenters, both negative and positive, and how to use the social media platform as a part of a crisis management strategy. Not every comment needs a response, but responding to followers helps build camaraderie and trust between brands and consumers, which can affect future sales and word of mouth marketing.

Google Plus

#9.  Not using the platform at all

Google Plus may be the most underutilized social media platform today. It is directly integrated with Google search results, making profiles an integral part of any digital marketing or search engine optimization strategy.

#10.  Not utilizing circles or communities

Circles on Google Plus allow businesses to segment followers into groups and address each segment separately with unique content. If circles aren’t utilized, each piece of content goes to every single follower.

To increase conversion rates and engagement, instead of pushing content to everyone, businesses should create content that appeals to specific audiences and then post that content to the applicable circles and communities.

Pinterest

#11.  Not including descriptions or prices

Pinning images to Pinterest is simply not enough if businesses want to use the social media site to drive traffic and increase sales. Despite easy access, many businesses are forgoing the use of rich pins, which include a thorough description of the item and the price.

Descriptions should use terms that people search for and be as descriptive as possible and including the price entices pinners to click the link. In fact, a study from Shopify found that rich pins with prices get 36 percent more likes and repins than regular pins.

#12.  Not using active images

Pinterest is all about visual stimulation, but many businesses are using static and uninspiring images to portray products. Instead, businesses should use colorful images that show the products in action. For example, instead of a picture of a sweater on a table, use an image of someone wearing the sweater doing something fun. Curalate looked at a half million

Pinterest images and found that factors like color, white space and even the inclusion of faces make a difference in terms of engagement.

#13.  Not linking to product page

Businesses should strive to make it as easy as possible for shoppers to go from browsing Pinterest to buying a product. To do that, businesses should link directly to product pages instead of home pages or other non-related content. The more links and moves a consumer has to make before buying a product, the less likely they are to make a final purchase.

Instagram

#14.  Not using hashtags effectively

There is no limit to the number of hashtags a business can attach to a post and for some that freedom has led to an overuse of this normally effective outreach tool.

Hashtags allow people to filter through the millions of posts every day, and it’s very tempting for businesses to try and wedge their way into conversations where they don’t organically belong by using hashtags. But, just like traditional marketing outlets such as email, traditional mail and phone calls, spam can turn off consumers. Instead, businesses should only use hashtags that directly apply to the post or the company.

#15.  Not providing content users demand

Many businesses decide to use Instagram as another way to push static ads that could be posted on any other platform. However, Instagram is best used when businesses give consumers a behind-the-scenes look at what is going on and give insight into the personality of the brand.

Instead of posting a touched up photo destined for the pages of a magazine, businesses should use Instagram to send out a picture of the photo shoot, the models laughing, the chefs cooking, or the crew eating some pizza around a big table. Businesses can stay on message and keep a consistent digital voice while still allowing followers to feel personally connected, which in turn fosters more sharing and increased followers.

Wrapping it up

Brands should strive to create their own social media voice, while also attempting to optimize their social media efforts by avoiding the common pitfalls listed above. Social media has the ability to be an effective and cost controlled method for reaching out to potential consumers, engaging with current fans and helping increase sales.

Just like any other marketing strategy, social media efforts should be continually monitored and updated for full effect.