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!

Show of hands if you can relate to this statement:

You have noticed, to your dismay, that your Facebook fans don’t seem to be as interested in your posts anymore.

I have good news that is also bad news: Your situation mirrors every other business on Facebook. 

It’s good news because you do not have to worry that your content is “not interesting enough” or that your fans “no longer care”. It’s bad news because Facebook has spent the past few years tweaking their monetization strategy at the expense of their business page users.

Facebook realized that they were providing free advertising space for those of us with business pages. Their platform is meant for people, not companies, and their overall goal is to provide a valuable user experience. To that end, they are severely decreasing the number of business page posts that are shown in the timeline. This accounts for the drop in organic reach on Facebook – it’s not that your fans don’t like your posts, it’s that Facebook is keeping them from seeing the posts at all.

Why are they doing this?

Because they want you to pay for the advertising space. Facebook has effectively become the MOST robust digital advertising platform we marketers have right now due to its highly specific and targeted delivery options. It’s so detailed that even Google looks to them for data.

This means two important things to Facebook:

• Businesses who choose to advertise are guaranteed positive results because Facebook will only show the advertisement to users who have expressed interest in their product.
  and
• Facebook perpetuates a positive user experience by not bombarding users with random advertisements they would never click on.

It’s hard to find a justifiable ROI in the time spent posting to such low organic numbers these days. But I do not recommend giving up; I recommend implementing a modest budget to promote your posts to your target audience. Consider creating powerful click-to-site ads as well and watch as the people most likely to convert head over from Facebook. Remember: Do not use the “boost post” option, go into the Facebook Ads Manager and really target down to things like interests and behaviors. Get specific!

If you need help bringing your Facebook strategy up to speed, connect with me! Email me: rachel@bellestrategies.com OR shoot me a tweet @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!

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!

Twitter is having a busy month. In addition to their recent acquisition of Machine Learning Whetlab and the announcement of the coming launch of Project Lightning, they are also testing a new eCommerce feature: Dedicated Pages.

Twitter Dedicated Pages are “landing pages” populated with detailed information about a product. Users send a tweet that links through to these Dedicated Pages, and those who click will be presented with extra information, an option to purchase, and a live-stream of the top tweets related to the product.

Photo: Twitter

IMHO, the most influential piece of this feature are the tweets from other users. These “reviews” directly below the purchase button are sure to persuade buyers who are on the fence. Twitter already has a call-to-action button on it’s advertisements, so what sticks out to me about this new feature is the addition of the highly-opinionated Twitter audience right where the buyer will see. For better or for worse, those utilizing Twitter Dedicated Pages will have public opinion prominently displayed.

As always, Twitter is testing the new feature with big names including brands and celebrities. Twitter says, “To give you an idea of what this experience is like, we’ve invited a group of curators to share collections of some of their favorite places and things.” Here is an example of what they mean:

Photo: Twitter “Example collections shared by Demi Lovato and Nike”

If Twitter Dedicated Pages becomes available to everyone, businesses who sell their products/services online should jump at the opportunity to utilize the feature. By creating features like Dedicated Pages, Twitter becomes more valuable to it’s users (relevant content=time spent on platform), and businesses reap the rewards. Simply put, Twitter is giving retailers a way to convert more effectively and that’s always good news to me.

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!

The Facebook algorithm is changing again. This update is actually very interesting, and EXCELLENT news for businesses.

Facebook will begin scoring posts that you spend more time looking at higher. This means, when your scrolling slows because you’re watching a video, checking out a picture or simply reading a post, the new Facebook algorithm will know. On top of that, it will actually be able to ensure that the content you spend time viewing is more prevalent in your news feed moving forward.

According to newsroom.fb.com, “The goal of News Feed is to show you the content that matters to you. The actions people take on Facebook-liking, commenting or sharing a post-are historically some of the main factors we’ve considered to determine what to show at the top of your News Feed. But these factors don’t always tell us the whole story of what is most meaningful to you. Recently, as part of our ongoing effort to improve News Feed, we asked people to rate their experience and tell us how we can improve the content they see when they check Facebook. From this research, we learned that in many cases, just because someone didn’t like, comment or share a story in their News Feed doesn’t mean it wasn’t meaningful to them. There are times when, for example, people want to see information about a serious current event, but don’t necessarily want to like or comment on it. Based on this finding, we are updating News Feed’s ranking to factor in a new signal-how much time you spend viewing a story in your News Feed.“

So what does this mean for your brand? Companies on Facebook have been feeling the pain since January when the Facebook algorithm put user experience in front of brand engagement. This shift in the algorithm means Facebook won’t be ranking your page based on WHAT you are, but only on how interesting you are to your followers.

With strategic content development, a closely-managed advertising plan, and the new Facebook algorithm…we should see reach for brands slowly creeping back up. Of course, it will always come down to how engaged your followers are, so keep it interesting!

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!

Big news! The Twitter character limit will be removed in July specifically for Direct Messages!

Announcement: Removing the 140 character limit from Direct Messages. https://t.co/Y885KhE9jR

— TwitterDev (@TwitterDev) June 11, 2015

According to their post, here are ways you can get ready for this update:

We recommend taking the following actions in preparation:

1. Review the new API additions below.
2. Update your GET requests so you will be able to receive the full length of DM text.
3. Adjust your app UI to accommodate longer DM text.

You can test the above changes right now, but the ability to send messages over 140 characters won’t be available until July.

This change follows a few other key updates Twitter is making specifically to their DM capabilities. Remember, Twitter added group messaging in January, and they also offer the ability to DM users outside of your network now.

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!

 

Photo Credit: Mashable

 

It’s becoming harder and harder for businesses to get noticed on Facebook organically. Mark Zuckerberg and his team have been hinting that they’d be putting the squeeze on business pages for quite awhile; and in the past two months we have seen a significant decline in organic reach for the clients we manage.

Long story short, Facebook execs want to ensure your user experience is top notch, so they don’t want you bombarded with too many company posts.

Even though you and many others have liked a page, Facebook is only showing content to about 1% of that pages’ fans.

Crazy right?! Not really – and here’s why:

Over the past few years Facebook has successfully monetized their platform while keeping it fun and engaging for the users. With the immeasurable amounts of data their users provide, they made the News Feed a place filled with people and pages you truly want to see. They did this in part by no longer allowing companies to blatantly advertise to their fans however and whenever they wanted. This is great for you! And it’s even better for Facebook – because they’re a business!

If a company wants their fans to see what they’re doing, they have to pay for it…just like they would in print, or on TV.

Now let’s not forget that Facebook makes all their money from the businesses who advertise, so they don’t want to alienate them either. Even though they are taking away organic reach slowly but surely, they are making it up to businesses by consistently enhancing their advertising platform.

Facebook’s new ads can be so deeply targeted that a business knows when they advertise there, they are getting a much better return than they would on any other medium.

Facebook recently came out with a new style of “Website Clicks” ads that allow a business to feature multiple products/services within one ad. It looks like this:

If you aren’t familiar with these kinds of ads, here is what they used to look like:

It’s not hard to see how much more appealing the new carousel-style ads are for users. This update has significantly impacted how far advertisers’ dollars can go. Specifically, our clients have seen their CPC rates drop by up to 50%. We’re sending practically twice as many potential buyers to their websites, and it’s fair to say these new click-throughs are more likely to convert because they know specifically what they’re going to see when they get to the website.

So if you’re a company with an active following who never had to advertise before…and you’re getting frustrated with your lowww organic reach numbers…I’m here to help you see the bright side. Think of all the advertising and branding opportunities you got in exchange for the time it took you to create and publish those posts!

Think of how great it will be to use Facebook ads that are tailor-made to help you succeed far beyond what you could previously do organically.

Just so we’re all aware – we are not on Facebook’s payroll – but we make it our job to know exactly how to make that platform (and others) work for your business. If you need help with social media marketing, let us know!

Instagram has officially rolled out their sponsored ads. Here are four things to know about this new development in the platform’s shift towards monetizing their 300M+ users:

1) Instagram ads use information from your activity to best determine what ads you will like most. It might seem weird but don’t forget, Facebook owns Instagram!

2) You can hide ads you don’t like and even tell Instagram why you don’t like them. Just click the “…” button underneath.

3) The first Instagram ads you’ll see will be from: adidas, Ben & Jerry’s, Burberry, General Electric, Lexus, Levi’s®, Macy’s, Michael Kors, PayPal and Starwood. They are introducing new brands daily.

4) Instagram ads will never be able to use your photos. If you’re on Instagram you probably don’t care toooooo much about privacy BUT the platform ensures that they’ll never use your private images in ads.

Do you think the influx of ads on Instagram will deter users? We don’t!

 

 

If you manage a Facebook Business Page, take note:

According to a statement released by Facebook, “A lot of the content people see as too promotional is posts from Pages they like, rather than ads.”

This means that Facebook is getting feedback from users saying they find Business Page posts more distracting than Facebook ads in the News Feed.

Facebook explained that their goal is to make the user experience inviting, and stated, “Now we’re bringing new volume and content controls for promotional posts, so people see more of what they want from (Business) Pages.”

Here’s what Facebook said they consider “too promotional” (meaning they will limit News Feed visibility of these post types):

1. Posts that solely push people to buy a product or install an app

2. Posts that push people to enter promotions and sweepstakes with no real context

3. Posts that reuse the exact same content from ads

If you’ve already put a holiday sales strategy in place that includes a lot of these posts, don’t worry. Facebook says these changes will not affect the News Feed until January 2015.

You want to make sure you use these kinds of posts sparingly anyway – remember social media is about connecting, not hard sales!

If you’re running a business, you’re probably getting a bit fed up with Facebook. How come you have 1000 fans, but barely 100 people see your posts? We get this question a LOT – so let’s get to the bottom of it.

Just a few days ago, THE Mark Zuckerberg released a statement saying:

“There’s this inherent conflict … Are we trying to optimize news feed to give each person, all of you guys, the best experience when you’re reading? Or are we trying to help businesses just reach as many people as possible? And in every decision that we make, we optimize for the first.”

In a nutshell, the Zuck doesn’t want Facebook to get bogged down with companies pushing their agendas. Behind the scenes, they’re making sure only the fans who truly care about you see your posts. “Well, how do they know which ones care and which ones don’t?” you ask. It’s simple! If a fan engages with your post, Facebook shows them more. If they scroll right by, Facebook cuts you from the line up. Ouch. Cold right!

Zuckerberg also revealed: the average Facebook user is eligible to see ~1,500 news feed updates per day, but only ends up seeing ~100. That INCLUDES all of your friends’ pictures and Buzzfeed quiz results. Facebook is constantly redesigning the algorithm that determines what your fans see, making it more and more tailored to what your fans “tell them” they want through engagement.

So now you know the secret behind why your posts aren’t being seen. Wondering how to get more engagement on Facebook? Check out this blog for that! Or this one!

Great news for those using Instagram as a marketing tool: Captions will now be embedded!

This means your copy will automatically appear below your photo or video. Prior to this change, embedded photos (in blogs or articles) did not make the original caption visible. I’m sure you can imagine how this update will positively effect your marketing efforts!

Here’s what you’ll see next time you get the embed code for an Instagram image:

Instagram, which turned four the day before this news broke, also announced it’s new embed code includes javascript that resizes the embed to fit the site your image is on, depending on what device a viewer is using.

Along with the caption changes, Instagram also made tweaks to the design making images bigger, cleaner, and more defined.

We saved the best for last: It’s easier than ever for readers to follow your instagram account directly from that embedded image! The new design includes a follow button.

Awesome right!

It’s officially Fall now – and as we welcome in my personal favorite time of year, we also usher in a month that highlights many worthy causes. As social media continues to be the best way to spread a grassroots message, I see some very inspiring and unique ways different organizations are kicking off their “MONTH” of awareness. Throughout the month I will be featuring different causes and what they are doing to raise awareness and funds for their causes.

Breast Cancer Awareness and the Susan G. Komen Foundation:
The foundation set this image as their Cover Photo on Facebook and introduced the month long hashtag: #WhatGivesMeStrength and asked people to post using it. Here are just a few of the most touching posts:

 

 

 

Sadly the odds tell us that Breast Cancer has touched you personally in your life. Consider donating to the Susan G. Komen Foundation (or others – there are many wonderful organizations supporting this cause).

Time for another Secret Series installment!

Using Pinterest is often times a big part of a social media marketing strategy (and it is a HUGE part if your client is an online retailer). There are a few insider Pinterest tips and tricks to making your time there useful; let’s get started!

1) ALWAYS make sure your pins have the source section filled out.

Without this, people clicking on the pin will not end up at your/your client’s website. You can fill it out by selecting your pin and clicking edit.

2) Brand your pins!

Add the web address (and logo if it fits!) to extend your reach and continue branding. Use tools like photoshop, picmonkey, and others to add your personal touch.

3) Use keywords in your descriptions.

If your pin is about a bridal veils, you better say bridal veil somewhere in the description. It sure grinds our gears when we see veil retailers just saying “so cute!” – that isn’t going to show up in search results. Here’s a great example of the right way to do it.

 

These are some of our favorite pinterest tips, stay tuned for more in our Secret Series! Check this one out for some of our best Twitter tips! You better know those.