Social Media

PRSA Boston puts together a Social Media Summit every Spring that provides actionable insights for Social Media Strategists and Public Relations professionals. This year, I was lucky enough to attend and learn from folks who are encountering the joys and challenges of working in the ever-changing world of social media. This year’s theme, Breaking Barriers, is particularly apt, as algorithms continue to change, privacy concerns rule the conversation, and the toxicity of some channels lead us to consider how best to use the different platforms that are available. Read on…

Last week, I attended PRSA Boston’s Social Media Summit to hear insight from industry leaders on creating engaging content, using video for social, and the current and future trends in the sector. While I was overly excited about being named the conference’s top tweeter for my live-tweeting efforts, I was even more excited about the new ideas and information I learned from the speakers. Read on as I share what I learned at the Social Media Summit. Opening Session with Josh Karpf, DraftKings Josh came to the event with experience in…

Yesterday, Facebook announced a new update that includes features like a new in-app camera, a new feed of ephemeral stories at the top of users’ News Feeds and a private messaging feature called “Direct.” Since I previously lambasted Facebook’s Instagram for copying Snapchat with Stories, the feature has grown to reach 150 million daily users (source). By comparison, Snapchat has 100 million daily users (source). The quick popularity of Instagram Stories can be tied to the fact that it had an existing user base before launching ephemeral messaging, the ease-of-use…

How’d your social media efforts work out last year? Did you connect with the audience you wanted? Were you able to drive traffic to your site and increase leads from the right types of customers? Did you enjoy it? Or did social media just kinda… sit there, not doing a heck of a lot for you? If it’s the latter, don’t feel too bad. You’re not alone. But it doesn’t have to be that way anymore. Let’s make 2015 different and give it a happier social media ending. Below are six things…

Ready or not, 2015 is coming, and so are changes to the beloved social networking site, Facebook. While up until now, it’s seemed to be a no-brainer that most brands and businesses can benefit from an active Facebook presence (if engagement is nurtured and you provide good content people want to read, of course), things are about to get shaken up. Yes, it’s still going to be important for brands to be present and engaged on Facebook, but the nature of your organic posts and their ability to reach your…

There’s a lot of talk about how we as marketers can humanize brands. How we, in this era of online two-way conversations, can make brands have personalities that our target audiences – customers, prospects, advocates, members of the press, etc. – will want to engage with. How acting “human” can actually make businesses smarter and more relevant. This conversation has become so extensive that “human” has become a bit of a buzzword. The concept has also gotten away from its fundamental meaning. We didn’t mean every brand had to be…

Starting a business today requires a few things people weren’t focused on when the YellowPages were the go-to place for finding the businesses and services we needed. Is there an appropriate dot com available? Do ugly, unrelated results appear when my innocent brand name is searched? Can I create a suitable 15 character (or less) Twitter handle using some recognizable version of my brand’s name? Among the many decisions small businesses are making today is, “What social media accounts should my company have?” Because everyone’s on Facebook, right? And we…

The question keeps coming up: We’re a local, community-focused organization, do we need a blog or is blogging so three years ago? We can blog directly on LinkedIn now! Shouldn’t we just blog there where the potential reach is greater? Contributed content has become a focal point in our media relations plan. That means we can kill our blog right? No. No. No. The answer is no. To all of these things. The rise in content awareness and content options is great. I am a champion of content (usually). I…

We already know businesses small and large are signing up for social media accounts more than ever. By July 2013, 77 percent of Fortune 500 companies were actively on Twitter and 70 percent had Facebook pages. Smaller businesses everywhere are online as well, posting everything from their daily specials to interactions with people interested in their products (and why they’re better than their competitors). Some are even telling people on Twitter… that they’re on Twitter. If you haven’t heard, we’re on twitter! Check us out @VillaMyriamCafe — Villa Myriam (@VillaMyriamSC) November…

I hate social media accounts whose pages look like a collection of the brand’s billboards. I won’t name names, but you know the ones – post after post after post of “Why Our Company/Product/Service Is Awesome,” and never anything else that might be useful to the brand’s target audience. Your fans like your company’s Facebook page and follow your brand’s Twitter account (and are linked to everywhere else you are) because your company/product/service – we’ll just go by “you” from now on – because you solve a problem for them….