Posts Tagged ‘facebook’
The art of using #hashtags
Twitter, the inventor of the hashtag successfully confused millions of social media rookies in the mid 2000s with its 140 character code like appearance. With the advent of galleries, and embedded videos/images Twitter is a bit warmer to the new user.
However, past the first learning stage (which for me was 2 years – back in 2008 hardly anyone in the UK was on Twitter which made it harder to get to grips with) one could argue that a major part of Twitter’s addictiveness is the hashtag.
Hashtags develop brands, people, breaking news, jokes, fictitious rumours and so much more that its hard to imagine social media without them any more.
So, why are we talking about this now? Continue reading…
Related articles
- Facebook Hashtags Have Marketing Potential, Privacy Issues (mashable.com)
- 3 tips for using Facebook hashtags (prdaily.com)
5 Ways To Make Time For Social Media
What to do when “there is not enough hours in the day” for social media.
Small businesses, regardless of industry and background, tend to share a common enemy. Time. There simply is not enough of it!
Small businesses have to prioritise their work to get things done in time and often marketing, particularly social media, gets pushed to the bottom of the list. It is not an irrational decision to put the needs of paid clients first and the needs of your own business second. However, abandoning your social media until your next quiet spell will prevent you from nurturing relationships with existing customers and communicating your products or services to new ones.
Fortunately, there are ways to make time for social media without compromising your current business! Here are just five of them to get you started.
Guest Post: Why You Should Be On LinkedIn
This past month, professional social networking site LinkedIn has been a frequent point of conversation among my clients.
Rather than hear my opinion on the site, I’ve decided to hand the reins to my good friend and personal branding expert, Jennifer Holloway. She develops compelling LinkedIn profiles for her clients, and knows a thing or two about what not to do! Take it away…
Missing the LinkedIn trick
I’m a huge fan of LinkedIn and as a site that has more than 200 million registered users worldwide, I figure one or two of you out there might be too. It’s a great tool for business (I’ve got clients as a direct result of them seeing my profile) complementing the more social nature of Facebook and Twitter as a way of getting your personal brand out there. Which is why it baffles me that so many people have yet to discover its benefits.
I’m given a number of reasons when I ask someone why they’re not on there, so I thought it would be helpful to share my thoughts on each one…
The Alchemist’s Way: Using Apps for Facebook Competitions
Competitions are a brilliant way of engaging with your audience and help boost follower numbers!
If you’re thinking of running a Facebook competition, there are many ways to go about setting up and running; we recently used an app for a series of competitions, this is what we found…
Our brief was to not only to increase engagement, but to also use the competitions as a way to capture data. As Facebook is designed with certain privacy controls, we needed to think outside of the Facebook box to create a competition. We turned to an integrated app, choosing North Social‘s Sweepstakes app for the job!
Shop Around: If you’re looking for an app to use on Facebook, spend a bit of time researching, reading user reviews, and comparing pricing. We looked at a few different app providers before choosing North Social; we liked the simplicity and flexibility of their service, as well as no long-term contract.
Using this app as a tool for competition came with several advantages:
In particular, the app had 3 stages of user engagement:
1. Like
This stage encouraged the user to ‘Like’ the Facebook Page before entering the competition. This is crucial for maintaining engagement and producing an open channel of conversation on Facebook, even after the user has entered the competition.
2. Competition + T&Cs
The competition page contained a detailed description of the prize, how to enter and a link to terms & conditions, as well as a built-in, customisable data capture form, securely hosted by North Social.
Think carefully about your T&Cs. Include any restrictions on entrants or prize conditions, data protection and permissions – especially if collecting personal information!
3. Share
The last stage encouraged the user to share the competition on their Facebook page. The app had its own ‘share’ button, with customisable thumbnail and copy for driving new entrants.
Each stage was easy to navigate and user-friendly. Plus, it looked professional and helped develop trust with the entrant, particularly with disclosing personal information.
There were, however, a few disadvantages of using an app for a competition.
If you’re considering a competition on Facebook, it’s important to keep these restrictions in mind:
Design
Each stage of the competition required its own artwork; this may not be a restriction if you have creative flair or access to a designer, and/or the budget and time to set up.
Mobile
The strongest disadvantage was the lack of access and integration with the mobile version of Facebook pages. Anyone accessing the competition on mobile, whether that was from their Facebook feed or a link on Twitter, was unable to enter.
Despite the disadvantages, if collecting data is important for your competition, we strongly recommend using an app. The app not only allowed us to keep to our main goal of capturing data, but also helped increase engagement across our Facebook page. For instance, within just two competitions, we had collected a couple hundred names and doubled our number of page ‘likes’.
To find out more about running a competition on Facebook, get in touch with us today! Speak to Michaela via email, michaela (at) fbsa (dot) co or call 07852230970.
Related articles
- Check your Facebook Page before it is deleted: rule breakdown (agbeat.com)
- 4 Good Loyalty Apps For Facebook Pages (bigmarketingsmallbusiness.com)
Social Alchemy’s Most Viewed Blogs [May]
Top of the blogs: the most viewed posts from May!
three blind mice
HARIBO Advert 2012 – Just too good
Quiet Storm creative team, Trevor Robinson and Neal Colyer got in touch with pre-viz rep, Rob Taylor to produce storyboards for their ‘Just Too Good’ campaign. Three Blind Mice artist James produced the trace and line before house artist, Jo Ley stepped in to bring each frame to life with colour.
three blind mice
The latest fantastic ‘Have a Break’ ad to hit our screens had it’s pre-production treatment created by non-other than our house team of illustrators and editors. House artists, Paul and Aaron drew and coloured the frames, which were then edited together with sound by suite resident, Sam.
jelly
Yesterday saw the launch of the END7 campaign, dedicated to eliminating seven major neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) as a public health threat to poor communities by the end of 2020.
Voice over was provided by English actor and comedian, Bill Nighy.
jelly
Last week, Tony sent us some of his latest illustrations for his client Ocean Design.
Although we cannot show the brand, we’d like to show you his fantastic illustrations of a fisherman and a yoga woman, which are used for the campaign.
drop your hat
We’re looking for some bubbly characters to join our lovely (even if we do say so ourselves) and ever growing team!
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to spread the word about how fantastic Drop Your Hat is and to get the people of Sunderland to download our FREE phone app through various activities!
agency art animation
A series of moats and fortresses were built over the West Brabant Water Line region of the Netherlands during the 17th century to give protection from invasion by France and Spain. Fort de Roovere was surrounded with a shallow moat that was too deep to march across, and too shallow for boats. In turn the earthen fort had remained protected – until now!
fuelled by social alchemy
Top of the blogs: the most viewed posts from the last 7 days!
29th July – Featuring: Zara Perfume, Gold’n Plump & Linda Clark
Social Alchemy’s Top 7 Blogs [April]
Top of the blogs: the most viewed posts from April!
three blind mice
Here is a sneak peek of what Threeblindmice have been up to the past few days…
Stay tuned for more!
three blind mice
The latest fantastic ‘Have a Break’ ad to hit our screens had it’s pre-production treatment created by non-other than our house team of illustrators and editors. House artists, Paul and Aaron drew and coloured the frames, which were then edited together with sound by suite resident, Sam.
jelly
Spanish illustrator, Gregori Saavedra, has produced this fantastic collage and animation for online services company, 4Funkies.
Initially, Gregori was briefed to produce a large format illustration to go with a song, written for 4Funkies.
jelly
This year our fashion illustrator, Sandra Suy has been a busy lady! Elle Magazine, both near and far, have been featuring Sandra’s fantastic work!
These fantastic hand drawn illustrations are for Spanish Elle Magazine’s monthly horoscope section…
fuelled by social alchemy
14 Inspiring Examples of Street Art
This week we’ve chosen a few of our favourite Pinterest finds featuring street art – everything from outdoor installations to graffiti!
Click on each image to get access to their original site, and see more of our awesome design pins – enjoy!
drop your hat
We’re looking for some bubbly characters to join our lovely (even if we do say so ourselves) and ever growing team!
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to spread the word about how fantastic Drop Your Hat is and to get the people of Sunderland to download our FREE phone app through various activities!
agency art animation
A series of moats and fortresses were built over the West Brabant Water Line region of the Netherlands during the 17th century to give protection from invasion by France and Spain. Fort de Roovere was surrounded with a shallow moat that was too deep to march across, and too shallow for boats. In turn the earthen fort had remained protected – until now!
How do content managers spend their time?
Next in my series of FAQs; how do content managers spend their time?
Only recently have I been able to answer this with some solid figures; this is (generally) how the last two months of content management have been allocated (across all clients):
Taadaa! OK, pie charts are a little 90s but it shows, clearly and colourfully, how an average month is spent managing different areas of online content. Not surprisingly, blogging has the most time allocation with 40+ posts written and scheduled each month!
So, what does this all mean? As a social media content manager, my role is to actively post new content onto different social platforms on behalf of my clients. As you can see from the break down, articles (blogging) and conversation (Twitter/Facebook) are the key roles performed.
If you were to break down the roles further, the majority of my month is spent copy writing (using SEO keywords), editing images in Photoshop, followed by HTML & CSS coding; not forgetting to mention researching content and collecting data.
(In case you were wondering about the ‘other’ segment, that covers other sharing, such as on StumbleUpon, G+, Flickr and Pinterest, to name a few…)
If you would like to find out more about content management, please get in touch! Either drop me an email to michaela@fbsa.co or call +44 (0)113 226 6274
