Social media is a big piece in the content marketing puzzle. The best part about this content marketing “puzzle” is that it’s like one of those made-for-kids, easy-to-put-together kind of puzzles. The second you see how it all fits, it’s a cake walk. Here is all you need to know to be successful at content marketing:

Create Content With VALUE

Mistake to Avoid: Don’t blog about what’s going on at the office with Bob. No one besides (some of) your employees and Bob’s family really care at all about his office-related accomplishments. Cut the “company updates”!

Do it Right: Tap your knowledgeable employees for 20 minutes a week and have them craft relevant, valuable posts about their profession. Maybe Bob is a training manager; have him educate people on the best ways to freshen up outdated training content. Bob can inject his blogs with personality, but the focus should always be adding value and creating credibility.

Use eBlasts Sparingly

Mistake to Avoid: Don’t spam your subscribers with irrelevant “newsletters”. Can we all agree we get enough email? If your email isn’t giving your subscribers something that makes their lives easier, don’t even send it.

Do it Right: Instead of thinking of these correspondences as newsletters, think of them as “credibility-builders”. Going back to the first point, no one needs to know about the company 5k. Give your subscribers knowledge they can use. Try a discount code. Let them in on upcoming events with a pre-sale option. Provide insight into a new tool or product that will streamline their business. Once again, the focus is always adding value and creating credibility.

Pay Attention to Detail

Mistake to Avoid: Here’s a question for you: Have you put an intern, or anyone under 25, in charge of your content marketing? Blogs, social media posts, eBlasts – so many of us consider this “menial” work – so we push it off on the intern or we hire someone inexpensive and green to do it for us. The mistake here is that the content your company is creating makes an immeasurable impact on your brand, and grammatical errors, irrelevant copy, and a lack of cohesion will hurt you. Nothing about content marketing is menial, and businesses should give it as much effort as they give every other department. Don’t trust your digital credibility to someone inexperienced.

Do it Right: At this stage in the game, there are enough talented prospects for hire who understand the content marketing puzzle. Recognize that this person is wholly responsible for your brand outside of your four walls (unless you run commercials and print ads). Take time finding the right fit for your company, and bring them into the fold as much as possible so they can accurately market you throughout the interwebs.

When done correctly, your content marketing strategy will have your audience appreciating and expecting your killer content. Be the expert they can rely on; help them overcome hurdles. Companies who put the time and effort into cultivating awesome content can thrive; so get to it!

Belle Strategies is a boutique Social Media Marketing company based in South Florida. Our team mixes innovative strategies with attention to detail for an online presence that produces tangible results. For assistance growing your brand on social media, contact us!

Sorry ya’ll but I just have to clear something up! ShortStack.com recently put out a blog featuring an infographic titled “How to Manage Your Social Media Accounts in 34 Minutes a Day or Less”.

How nice to think you can effectively manage your entire social media branding in about a half hour, how nice.

The problem is that there are so many misconceptions in this infographic (below) and I’m going to lay them out for you. There is a difference between helping people work more effectively and (innocently, but still) devaluing a profession.

Take a look at their breakdown of those 34 minutes here, then let me give you an accurate description of how a social media manager keeps a brand green and growing:

We’re all busy so I’m going to make quick work of this:

1) Aside from the text-only post we rarely make, posts with images or videos include prep time. How did your logo get on that? When did that #brandedtag get added in the lower corner? How did the video get on YouTube, with key words and all? Hmm. 1-2 minutes to make a post is accurate only if you disregard any prep work that went into creating the asset accompanying it.

2) A few “scheduled” minutes a day to check notifications, DMs, etc? C’mon man. You know we have your accounts ping our phone in real-time whenever someone is interacting with your brand. We are engaging with your followers when they engage with us, that can’t be scheduled. And errmmm it takes more than 120 seconds!

3) The 7 Minute Twitter morning is cracking me up. Find me someone who can visit three websites, find “at least” three blogs they like, write branded copy intros about why they are sharing the blogs, and get everything into their scheduling tool in 5 minutes and I’ll shave an eyebrow.

All in all, the infographic is a really nice reminder: How can you better use your time to be more productive? I like it. I am all about productivity! But I think it’s a bit misleading for people who may be considering hiring a social media manager. And since that’s how I make my dolla bills, I had to speak up.

Any other SMMs have an opinion? Let me know on Facebook, @bellestrategies on Twitter or @bellestrategiessocial on Instagram.

“How do you know it’s working?”

When is comes to social media ROI, this is likely the #1 question asked – and it doesn’t have to be difficult to answer.

Social Media ROI (return on investment) is an important business metric. Measuring the success of your campaign is the only way to understand it’s level of efficiency.

HOW to measure the campaign is where things get tricky. Social media ROI has proven to be difficult thing to measure because in most instances, social media is used a branding tool. How does a company measure the value of branding?

Thanks to this thorough and insightful infographic by MDG Advertising, you can see the opportunity is there! The key to keeping your clients happy and feeling accomplished is setting the right expectations for success.

It’s not about “likes” anymore; here’s how to measure social media ROI!

Guy Kawasaki once defined the core values of five main social media services and we wanted to build on his ideas.

Facebook = People.

Facebook is mostly for communicating with those with whom you already have some connection. As a personal branding tool, you’re often posting about yourself, your achievements, and this is normal and acceptable. However, if you create a business page to endorse anything other than yourself, you need to consider other factors. Facebook is still all about people, but you must engage with your fans rather than simply promoting the business. Interesting articles, videos and images, tips and tricks – these are all ways to bring value to your business in the eyes of your fans.

Twitter = Perceptions.

Twitter can help you build your reputation and visibility. Increase your reach by interacting with others on Twitter: be generous with your “favorites”, retweet things you believe your followers will enjoy, and send at least two tweets a day. Consider the 5:1 ratio as a loose guideline for how often to tweet out relevant content via other reputable sources vs. tweeting about your business. Don’t feel pressure to come up with content and witty musings to gain followers who want to hear from you; do your research, read a lot, and find articles by other people who know what they’re talking about. Share their work! Not only does it create new relationships, it provides high-end content to your followers.

Google+ = Information.

Google+ is for sharing information. Google+ is not Facebook, it never will be, and that’s ok! Use it to connect with other people in your field; learn from them and offer your insights when it makes sense. Don’t consider Google+ a place to find new business so much as a place to cultivate relationships with your peers, and to constantly learn new things about your field.

Pinterest = Awareness.

Pinterest, when used as a branding tool, is all about pinning attractive images that stand out and get people to click. If you’re using Pinterest to drive people to your blog, your images need to have a CTA and be visually appealing at the same time. Be creative, keep it simple, and look at what the pros are doing. Pinterest is extremely valuable for driving traffic, so use it to create awareness for your business!

LinkedIn = Professionalism.

Kawasaki says to pimp yourself on LinkedIn! He clarifies that he means this in a good way: “LinkedIn can help you position yourself as a serious person and influencer.” You can implement this as a business as well, but LinkedIn really is more for an individual person. Consider it like this: Guy has pimped himself so successfully that people don’t need to follow his business on LinkedIn, they just follow him, and in turn, he can promote his businesses as needed.

In conclusion, representing yourself and/or your business on social media means using the platforms the best way possible. Tweak your content between platforms to get the most out of them!

The end of 2016 marked my fifth year in the social media marketing field. I intended this blog to be about practical tips I gleaned over the year, but as I wrote, it evolved into a “How I Got Here” story.

I’ve never told it before, so the ringing in of a new year seems like a perfect time.

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Blogging used to be online “diaries” – remember that?

Now we have a gaggle of social media platforms that provide us with at least 140 characters worth of constant diary entries…and blogging has become a way to make money. Even the people who are still using a blog as a “diary” have turned it into a business! This means if your business has a website, you should be blogging. Let’s talk about why:

Why Blog for Your Business? To Drive Traffic

Bringing people to your website is the point of all your online efforts (social media, etc.). You want your business to show up in searches when people are looking for you even if they haven’t typed in your exact business name. For example, if you own the “Spine and Orthopedic Center” office in Boca Raton, Florida, you want your website to show up when people search “spine doctor boca raton”. In order for a search engine to find your site relevant enough to show in those search results, your website must be doing lots of things! One of the most important things is consistently adding new, key-word rich content to the site. That brings us to the next point!

Why Blog for Your Business? To Add Key Words to Your Site

Blogging allows you to add new pages to your site on a regular basis, which tells search engines that your site isn’t stagnant. Within those blogs, you can (and should!) include specific key words you know your target audience will be searching for. In the case of the spine office, words to include would be, “spine”, “doctor”, “surgeon”, “boca”, “boca raton”, and on and on. Without utilizing a blog, there are only so many times you can include those key words throughout your website. The more you can utilize relevant words, the better chances you have at a search engine raking your site higher.

Why Blog for Your Business? To Gain Credibility

We know blogging isn’t just for personal use anymore; taking the time to research and write a professional, informative blog for your website tells your customers that you are passionate about your business. It showcases your knowledge as well as your commitment to providing the best information possible. Your online branding is essentially your “first impression”, new customers will look you up before hiring you, that’s a given! Blogging consistently says, “I make time to stay relevant in my field by reading about it and writing about it.”

I hope I have answered your question, “Why Blog for Your Business?” in a way that helps you understand it’s importance for your overall digital presence. If you have writer’s block, you can always reach out to us at Belle Strategies – if you couldn’t tell – we love blogging!

If you’re wondering how to add line breaks in Instagram, wonder no more! Follow these steps to ensure your formatting looks exactly how you want:

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I recently received an email from a client asking about boosting Facebook posts.

She was under the impression that giving in and finally hitting “boost” would kill the small organic reach her posts received. In fact, that’s exactly the opposite of what happens.

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Just yesterday, Snapchat announced the release of their custom geofilters. Users can create Snapchat filters for their brand (or just for fun) and make it available within a certain area for as low as $5.00 USD. This is a huge addition for brands that produce events and of course, brick and mortar storefronts.

As if that news wasn’t cool enough, Snapchat has now launched a new lens called Birthday Party. You’ll only be able to use it in special scenarios – guess when! Yep, on your birthday, or your friends’ birthdays!

This snaphchat filter will automatically show up on your birthday as long as you’ve added your special day to the app. It’s a celebration-like filter with the words “Happy Birthday” and confetti!

Here’s another great feature: Snapchat will keep you in the loop when it’s one of your friends’ birthdays by putting a cake next to their name. You can activate the lens to send them a birthday message with this filter AND a new update allows you to add the date as well.

Marketers and other interested parties have been discussing Snapchat’s monetization capabilities for awhile. Snapchat originally offered lenses for $0.99, but they moved away from that and have instead been offering sponsored lenses. The addition of the custom geofilter along with the discover section should effectively quiet anyone who has been concerned with their ability to generate revenue.

Want amazing Snapchat resources? Check out my good friends over at www.snapchatstrategy.com!

For more tips and other social media marketing trends, keep up with me on Twitter and Periscope @bellestrategies.

Belle Strategies is a boutique Social Media Marketing company based in South Florida. Our team mixes innovative strategies with attention to detail for an online presence that produces tangible results. For assistance growing your brand on social media, contact us!

Social media users were in an uproar when rumors of a “dislike” button for Facebook began swirling in September. CEO Mark Zuckerberg never actually said they’d be releasing a dislike button, and today we found out exactly what it was he meant when he said they were intending to expand on their Like Button.

Currently in beta testing in Spain and Ireland only, their brand new feature is called “Reactions” and it allows a user to empathize with a post in six different ways (instead of the current thumbs up). These new Facebook emojis include love, laughter, happiness, shock, sadness and anger. Facebook says they plan to test it in these two countries so they can tweak it before rolling it out to bigger audiences.

If and when they come Stateside, these new Reactions would be available on both desktop and mobile, though there are no plans to integrate them into other Facebook products like Messenger for example.

You might be wondering how these new Facebook emojis differ from the currently available stickers.  These six emojis will appear when you hover over the like button with your mouse or touch the like button on your mobile device and will inherently be easier to use.

Thanks to TechCruch, we can see what these new Facebook emojis look like here:

This opens a new data stream for marketers because we will be able to get a better understanding of how our communities engage with the posts. Imagine how much easier it will be to determine the type of content that resonates with your community when you can literally see their reactions! Facebook says that this data will eventually make it into their analytics dashboard (which means it will inevitably be used for future advertising targets).

Belle Strategies is a boutique Social Media Marketing company based in South Florida. Our team mixes innovative strategies with attention to detail for an online presence that produces tangible results. For assistance growing your brand on social media, contact us!

Besides Google, there is no other internet platform collecting more data on you than Facebook. And to be clear:

Facebook is catching up to Google thanks to their data-collection company Atlas.

Beginning in October, the Facebook Like and Share buttons you see and engage with around the internet (not directly within Facebook) will begin sending your browsing history over to Facebook. This means when you visit your favorite online shopping hubs, the blogs where you get your latest sports news, and any other site that has a Facebook Like or Share button embedded, Facebook is going to know about it.

For social media marketers like me, this is another great bit of news regarding Facebook Ad Targeting. Specifically, my Facebook ads can now more accurately reach the audience I’m targeting. Thanks to Facebook, I’ll know if you’ve ever been to my client’s website, and hit you with an ad to remind you to visit again. There are 100 other ways to use this new information, and I’m excited to try them all! This technology (retargeting with pixels) isn’t new, but the fact that they’re making it much easier for the advertisers is a big deal.

The best part is, like a pixel that sends data once a user hits the page, a user doesn’t even have to click on a Facebook Like or Share button for data to be sent. Visit a page with one of those buttons, and you’ve done all you need to do for Facebook to know you’ve been there.

If you don’t like this news, Facebook says they will let users opt out of seeing ads based on their non-Facebook activity. I’ll update you on that once I see how it works. As you know, Instagram also uses Facebook Ad Targeting data on it’s platform, so this is twice as nice for those of us in the field.

Belle Strategies is a boutique Social Media Marketing company based in South Florida. Our team mixes innovative strategies with attention to detail for an online presence that produces tangible results. For assistance growing your brand on social media, contact us!

Now that Facebook has effectively dominated video sharing within the platform, they have added a new feature to help users enjoy a video without interrupting their scrolling.

This floating video feature allows users to detach the video from the player so it “floats”.

Users can drag it anywhere within the browser window. By doing this, a user can watch the video and continue scrolling through the News Feed without interruption.

The first thing that came to mind when I read this news was how Facebook floating video will make branding more effective, especially for certain verticals. Let’s consider music artists for example:

Since the point of uploading a video is to utilize both a visual and audio component, when a Facebook user clicks play and then scrolls down, the artist’s exposure decreases considerably because the visual component disappears. Now, fans can pop-out the video and keep watching while they simultaneously scroll the News Feed.

You can see the positive impact this will have for all brands in the long run. Even if it’s in the users’ periphery, watching the video (vs. only listening to it) is much more desirable from a marketing perspective.

There are a few drawbacks – users cannot drag the floating video outside of the browser. It will also stop playing if you leave the News Feed. Right now, the floating video cannot be resized; and this feature only works on desktop. Since over half of Facebook’s users are accessing the platform via mobile, I eventually expect to see a mobile-friendly version of this feature.

Since Facebook began testing embedded videos about a year ago, and officially released the option to users this March, they have seen exponential growth. Brands have embraced this feature as shown below:

Image: SocialBakers

The floating video feature isn’t visible to everyone yet, but when it becomes mainstream, I expect to see more individual users opting for embedded video vs. the old standard of a YouTube share.

Belle Strategies is a boutique Social Media Marketing company based in South Florida. Our team mixes innovative strategies with attention to detail for an online presence that produces tangible results. For assistance growing your brand on social media, contact us!

In an effort to make sure users are having the best experience possible, Facebook has enhanced their “follow” feature and is testing something new: Facebook See First.

Soon, you’ll be seeing the option to choose Facebook “See First” as a setting for your closest friends and favorite brands. This means that when you log into Facebook…wait for it…the accounts you’ve selected will be seen first!

This is great news for users and brands alike:

1) Facebook See First offers a way to ensure content isn’t getting drowned out. Their constant algorithm changes are always working towards this, but Facebook See First allows a user to influence what shows up in their news feed in the most impactful way yet.

2) Brands and public figures may see increased organic reach based on the fact that their loyal followers will inevitably utilize Facebook See First to keep from missing anything.

This new feature comes on the heels of Instagram’s recent update that allows you to turn on/off post notifications when your favorite users post something.

As social media continues to evolve into an all-encompassing information source, the smartest thing these companies can do is create features like Facebook See First, because ultimately users won’t stick around if the content isn’t relevant.

Here’s something to get you thinking:

How can brands use this new feature to better engage with their target demo? Will Facebook soon come out with a new ad type that urges new See First followers, vs. new Page Likes? Will the Page Likes metric finally be obsolete? Hmmm. Time will tell!

Belle Strategies is a boutique Social Media Marketing company based in South Florida. Our team mixes innovative strategies with attention to detail for an online presence that produces tangible results. For assistance growing your brand on social media, contact us!