Social Media

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….

I’m the kind of girl who forms unhealthy relationships with television characters. I don’t hide it; it says so right in my bio. Only, if we’re being honest, sometimes it’s not just fake people I’m forming life-long connections with. It’s a brand of chocolate. Or a car. Or, in this case, an RSS reader that’s gotten me through search changes, job changes, life changes and everything in between. Change is hard for everyone but, for me, the girl who gets attached with her whole and complete heart? It’s damn near…

Social media. If Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are the tools you’ve chosen to get your message across, who dictates how they’re used? Does social media get its own strategy? If you ask Gini Dietrich, the answer is no. Gini writes: “There is no such thing as a social media strategy. That’s akin to saying you have a telephone strategy or a typewriter strategy.” Susan Murphy of Suzemuse says it even more bluntly: “You don’t want to be a social media expert.” Nothing we haven’t heard before, many will remember Peter…

I oversee the Content and Social Media departments here at Overit. It’s a great gig and I’m lucky to have gotten it. I spend my days evangelizing the importance of integrating content and social into your marketing, breaking down how both can lead to better relationships and sales, and then, at the end of the day, I get to implement what we’ve spoken about and watch your triumphant fist pump when we’ve been successful for you. My job doesn’t suck. But it’s not all rainbows and sunshine, either. As far…