5 Twitter Tools to Boost Your Productivity

Do you struggle to keep up with your Twitter activities? Interested in tools to improve productivity? Managing your Twitter account doesn’t have to consume all your time. There are tools that can make the work easier. In this article you’ll discover five Twitter tools to boost your productivity. #1: Schedule Content via Tweet Jukebox Tweet […]

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How to Design An Irresistible Facebook Page

11 million people use Facebook every 18 minutes…

7,246 new users are added to the social media mammoth every 15 minutes and 936 million active users login into the site on a daily basis.

Do these Facebook facts make you wonder?

“Am I missing out?”

Even large businesses are gradually distancing themselves from traditional forms of advertising and are battling for new customers on social media sites.

According to a recent study conducted by KA Social, 75% of the world’s population is on social media, and the other 25% of the population is both curious and excited to be on it.

It’s easier, quicker and cheaper to put up a Facebook page with dynamic content compared to traditional and more expensive ways of promoting your brand.

Your Facebook page is an extension or your primary website.

It showcases your business philosophy. A well-designed page isn’t just about how it looks – but also how it behaves. In the ever-competitive market, a perfect design is something that helps you stand out.

Work through the following 5-steps to build a Facebook page and fill it with ‘fans’, ‘likes’ and ‘shares’.

Step 1: Nail your cover photo

The focal point for every business on Facebook is its cover photo. It not only enhances the visual appeal of the business but also lures fans and followers, increasing the brand value.

Cover photos are the first thing that get noticed by users whenever they visit a company page. However, creating and choosing a cover photo that not only catches the attention of users but also resonates the brand value can sometimes be tedious.

Before discussing the creative aspect of your Facebook age, let’s first explore a few guidelines and policies set by Facebook for cover photos.

• Do not include generic terms or special characters. Example: Beer, #@$%
• Do not include superfluous descriptions or unnecessary qualifiers.
• Do not over exceed your text more than 20% of the image.
• Do not mislead your followers by incorrect or deceptive content.

 

As shown in the image, the dimension of the cover photos and profile pictures must be 851 x 315 and 180 x 180 pixels respectively. Cover photos take up almost a quarter of the screen on most desktops, so it is advisable to use high resolution images.

Now, let’s talk about the aesthetics of a cover photo.

Here are three points you must consider as ‘The Gospel of Facebook Cover Photos’.

1. Right focus over left focus – Since your profile pic is on the left, try keeping the text or call-to-action buttons on the right hand corner of your Facebook cover photo.
2. Sync cover photo with profile photo – In the image above, you notice a rectangular overlapping of profile picture with cover photo. Find creative ways to design a cover photo that communicates well with this profile picture.
3. Pin a post right below the cover photo – Don’t overlook the relevance of content. Try pinning down the most important post just below the cover photo to make it more relevant and interesting.

Step 2: Customize your tabs

 

Facebook’s new design puts photos, likes and apps just below your cover photo. The first spot in this layout is reserved for photos, while the other 11 can be adjusted through your admin panel.

So you have a total of 12 custom tabs at your disposal.

Use this opportunity to highlight your unique selling proposition through these tabs.

For example, if you have more ‘likes’, present them first and if you are not on Twitter or you have less followers on Twitter, keep that tab down the list.

Step 3: Pin, Star or Hide

Hovering your mouse over timeline entries shows a dropdown menu where you get an option to pin a particular post. The ‘Pin’ feature helps you show your intended post or content above all other timeline posts. In addition, you can also highlight the post you like by putting a star on it. The time limit to keep a post pinned is about 7 days.

A recently published study by Designhill, reveals that the Facebook posts with fewer than 80 characters get up to 60% more engagement, so it makes sense to ‘pin’ or ‘star’ posts that are concise yet interesting.

Step 4: Track your activity

Use Facebook Insights to keep a track of your page activity. Keeping a track of traffic and analyzing the reach and number of hits will help you choose your future posts more carefully. Besides Facebook Insights, businesses can also create ‘new ads’, define ‘page audience’, add ‘featured likes’ and update ‘publishing abilities’.

Consider yourself the King Caesar of Digital Life. Keep the audience of your Facebook’s coliseum busy and rule them – engage them – engross them by letting the gladiators of your posts fight with each other for more ‘likes’.

Step 5: Interact with messages

Most people don’t take the time to interact with their customers on social media.

This is the precise reason you should be interacting with your customers when they are busy browsing the content of your Facebook Page. This increases the brand value and establishes a sense of trust with your customers.

As Facebook page admin, you should send personalized messages to your target audience. You can use this feature as a part of online customer service, or at times when you need to discuss something with your audience on a more personal front.

The idea is to have as many conversations and engagements as possible with your customers. As a song titled “every siren is a symphony” by Coldplay  aptly brings forth the ideology, every query raised on your Facebook page will help you connect efficiently with your prospects.

Podcasting provided by Odovox.com

For you

Now that you know what it takes to unleash your mojo on Facebook, I would love to hear how you have been doing it for your business.

Surprise me with your views, ideas and experiences in the comment section below.

Also, before you finally cross-out this page and get set to leave, spare a few seconds and check out the following examples of some of the best designed Facebook Business Pages.

Guest Author: Ankit Roy is a visual artist and spends most of his time conceptualizing off-the-rack designs at popular crowdsourcing company, Designhill. In addition, he’s a social media enthusiast, online market analyst and blogger. When not writing, he loves spending his time playing video games and watching sci-fi movies! 

The post How to Design An Irresistible Facebook Page appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

5 Ways to Use Snapchat for Business

Are you thinking of adding Snapchat to your social media marketing mix? Interested in ways to use Snapchat to strengthen your brand? With Snapchat, you can increase community engagement and brand awareness through innovative marketing campaigns. In this article you’ll discover five ways to use Snapchat for business. Why Snapchat? With over 100 million daily […]

This post 5 Ways to Use Snapchat for Business first appeared on Social Media Examiner.
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The Future of Google+, What New Research Reveals

Are you interested in Google+ marketing? Wondering where the platform is headed? Despite a number of detractors, Google+ has a number of fans and supporters who say Google+ has grown into a platform that wins them business. In this article you’ll discover findings from recent studies focused on the current Google+ activity as well as speculation about what […]

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15 Essential Content Creation Apps You Need Right Now

Writing is your drawcard.

It’s the number one tool you have at your fingertips for marketing an online business.

So it needs to be good.

You need to write compelling copy that engages readers, gets them to listen up and encourages them to buy.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could create content faster without giving up on quality?

Today I’m going to introduce you to 15 content creation apps that will make your job (and life) easier. From coming up with new content ideas, to writing content and eventually promoting it.

Let’s get straight into it.

Coming up with content ideas

This is often the most difficult step for a content creator.

What should I write about?

And frankly, a blank page is not helping at all.

Readers are tired of the same old topics and tips. They are always expecting something out of the ordinary, life changing and breath taking. Without these catchy topics, people won’t come back for more.

So here are some sources of inspiration.

1. Feedly

Feedly offers a daily inspiration of great content ideas.

Things happen all the time, in absolutely every field. But as a writer, you can’t afford to browse tons of websites to look for interesting news. This takes too much time.

This is why Feedly exists! This web app gathers news from different websites all in one place.

Users can select the sources and sort the news by topics. After this, you only have to log in and bam – News comes to you!

Now pick up the catchiest topic one and start writing.

2. Mindnote

Sometimes, people expect to find material solutions to the problems they read about. So a good idea for coming up with an appealing topic is to first find a new and innovative product.

Then, the rest is simple as pie – start the article with the issue, suggest the solution and introduce the product that can actually sort things out. MindNote is the best place to apply this method.

3. ContentGems

ContentGems puts together particular kinds of news in one daily e-mail. You can choose the topics of interest and a list of articles comes straight to your inbox.

This is a great method for coming up with a writing topics every day.

4. FAQ Fox

This is a great place for finding out what topics people are looking for online.

FAQ Fox gathers information from a large variety of websites.

Here is how it works – users type in a term, hit search and select the websites they want to track down. Next, the platform displays questions and answers related to that particular term.

Writers can spot the unsatisfactory answers and create a qualitative article on that topic.

This method guarantees readership!

5. Creativity Portal

Creativity Portal is famous for helping writers and other artists guide their creativity. It provides inspirational materials – e-journals, articles, posts, and so on.

How can you take advantage of this platform?

Read about the topics you are interested in and use them for inspiration, information, writing style, etc.

Just remember not to plagiarize!

Creating better content

Sure, marketing is kind of on auto pilot these days. But writing still requires a human mind. And yes, I know how exhausting this can be!

Fortunately, smart IT guys have invented several content creation apps to help us research, write, edit, and design content.

Below, I have chosen some of the top picks.

6. Papersgear

Proofreading takes some time and energy. Wouldn’t it be better to start writing the next article rather than edit the already completed one?

In this case, you just need some professional editors willing to verify and improve the content. Papersgear has a great team with experienced employers who can help you publish nothing less than perfect articles.

Also, if you need help with writing something, count on this website. Writers cover all niches and deliver pretty impressive work.

7. Hemingway App

The famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, was well known for his style – simple, short sentences. As a consequence, this is exactly the purpose of this platform – to guide writers to create easy to understand phrases and texts. After all, this is the main requirement for online content.

The app is really easy to use – you just copy and paste text and see the evaluation.

At first, I was happy to learn that our articles were at college level or higher. But guess what? This is the opposite of what you should aim for!

Online readers need to grasp the meaning of an article as fast as possible. The tool also spots passive voice. This is something to be avoided, because it makes sentences long and harder to understand.

8. InboundWriter

Ok, you already have the topic of your next article. But now, it is vital to know how to write it and what to include in it.

The solution is to use InboundWriter. This tool allows you to monitor certain topics and spot the improvements you will need to make to resonate with your readers.

9. Creately

This tool is amazing when it comes to organizing and structuring a future article.

Your life becomes easier when things are clearly sitting in front of you. So use this platform to create diagrams, charts, infographics, and so on.

It works on the basic principle of drag and drop, and it even accepts photos. However, it has a major downside – every project is public, unless users pay for it.

10. Glipho

Glipho allows writers to publish their content and users from all around the world can come up with ideas for the sequel. What better method to find out what people want to read about?

Submit a part of an article, and wait for reactions. Then choose the best idea and finish the text.

Content targeting and optimization

After the content is done, it is time to check its effectiveness. Marketers bet on emotional keywords and SEO. These methods are great to ensure readership.

There are online tools that can evaluate content from this point of view. They will tell you if a title is too long, or not strong enough; if the content is redundant or it has way too many SEO terms.

In this way, you will know what exactly to do in order to improve the content and make it more “commercial”.

11. Headline Analyzer

Did you know that only 62% of readers go beyond the headline of an article?

As a direct consequence, this one is vital for attracting and keeping readership interested. Learn how to boost your headlines by using this online tool.

The Headline Analyzer, created by CoSchedule, is more than useful. It says what kind of words the title contains (common, uncommon, emotional, powerful); the headline type (if you got “generic”, keep trying); it analyzes the length; it even offers a Google search preview and an e-mail subject line preview; it shows you the keywords and the sentiment caused by the titled (you need positive emotions).

12. Zmags

The team at Zmags can create digital materials meant to capture your audiences attention and bring in more and more views. The website owns several products that help writers create and publish content.

13. PRWeb

Attract readers by letting them know you exist.

Use PRWeb to send search-engine-optimized press releases. These ones will promote the articles to everybody interested on that particular topic – subscribers, visitors of the website, and even journalists.

14. Scribe content

This is a valuable tool for every writer and marketer. Scribe analyzes the readers’ preferences and tells you if the content is optimized for sharing.

How does it do that?

Well, it collects conversations from Twitter and Google+, regarding the term introduced by the user.

Then, it also guides users towards creating content that will be better ranked by search engines. In the end, the result will be an easier and more effective marketing campaign.

15. Test My Marketing (TMM)

TMM offers a professional opinion regarding any kind of marketing and advertising materials. The team is made up of professionals in the field who can tell you from one look if the campaign is going to be successful or not.

Or course, after all this criticizing, the marketers will also offer you some guidelines for improving the content. Take advantage of these precious indications and use them for future campaigns.

What do you think…

Which one is your favorite?

What content creation apps would you add to this list?

Guest Author: Melinda Osteen is a dedicated marketing manager, social media guru and lifelong travel fanatic.

The post 15 Essential Content Creation Apps You Need Right Now appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

6 Tips for Pinterest Marketing in Just Minutes a Day

Is your Pinterest marketing taking too much time? Are you ready for a better Pinterest marketing plan? Timesaving Pinterest marketing tactics can deliver more results with less effort. In this article, you’ll discover 6 tactics to help you market on Pinterest in minutes a day. Get Started on Pinterest If you haven’t already done so, […]

This post 6 Tips for Pinterest Marketing in Just Minutes a Day first appeared on Social Media Examiner.
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4 Influencer Marketing Tools You Need to Manage Campaigns

Influencers in just about every industry are shaking up the digital world with their access to big and highly engaged audiences. More than ever, brands, marketers, and PR pros are talking to their customers through these super-influencers. The reason for this is simple: customers don’t trust brands and marketers when it comes to making purchase decisions.

According to BlogHer, 47 percent of U.S. readers consult trusted peers or influencers to find new ideas, trends, and ultimately, to make their purchasing decisions. Customers are smart enough to read through a brand’s shiny marketing message, so consulting people with real opinions only makes sense.

As influencer marketing takes off, though, the people managing these campaigns are jumping in head first without any idea of how to organize the process from start to finish. While the very premise of influencer marketing is authenticity — and you can’t automate authenticity — there are a handful of tools that can certainly help you streamline the influencer marketing process.

From finding influencers and managing outreach to finding trending content and tracking success, below are 5 influencer marketing tools for managing influencer marketing campaigns.

Streak

Once you’ve found the right influencers to reach out to, you’ll need a system for tracking all of your outreach efforts (otherwise the whole setup will go haywire). The beauty of Streak is that it integrates directly with Gmail. Unlike most CRMs, you aren’t limited to specific categories to organize your pipeline.

Through campaigns, things like the blogger’s name, email address, contact date, notes, and publishing dates are tracked. Streak is so simple, no matter what you need to track, you can do it in there. Plus, you can also associate an email thread with a contact in Streak so you can keep track of every single conversation with an influencer.

Sidekick by Hubspot

If you’re planning an influencer campaign you will likely be doing a lot of outreach until you narrow down to the perfect bloggers. With that in mind, tracking email opens is incredibly helpful. While Streak does this as well, Sidekick by Hubspot gives you live notifications when someone opens your email.

This transparency means you can see who is interacting with your emails – if at all – and how many times. It allows you to make timely follow ups in hopes of getting a response from the influencer. You can even schedule emails for later so the influencer receives a follow up at the appropriate time.

Topsy

Once you start building partnerships with influencers, you’ll need to know what content is trending in your industry. Ultimately, you’ll want influencers to create content that resonates with their readers and your target customers.

Topsy is a brilliant tool for finding top performing content in your industry and even analyzing the sentiment of the content. Simply type in a keyword and Topsy will pull up the top trending content for it – including links, tweets, photos, videos, and influencers.  You can even pull up mentions to see how customers are interacting with that content. Topsy is a great starting point for rolling out any kind of content campaign.

Mixpanel

Okay, so you’ve had some influencer articles go live and you want to see if readers are actually clicking over to your site and what exactly they’re doing once they get there. Measuring your ROI is essential, and let’s face it, Google Analytics just doesn’t cut it. Sure, you can track visits to your website, social shares, and engagement but what about tracking actions from individual visitors?

As Mixpanel says, “Actions speak louder than pageviews” and we couldn’t have said it better ourselves. With Mixpanel, you can see how customers move through your funnel, whether they convert, or where you might lose them along the way. You can see live updates from individual users so you can follow along as they experience your site. All of these amazing tools help you fix issues in your funnel and tweak them to improve your conversion rate.

So there you have it – five influencer marketing tools for setting up influencer marketing campaigns, keeping outreach organized, finding top performing content in your industry, and tracking the success of each campaign.

What are your favorite influencer marketing tools for managing marketing campaigns?

Image: Streak

This article, "4 Influencer Marketing Tools You Need to Manage Campaigns" was first published on Small Business Trends