A “URL shortener” is a program to make shorter variations of long URLs. You can use it to make it simpler to recall the subject matter of a lengthy link. A URL shortener can be compared to a bookmarker. However, you store a condensed version of a link to a specific location where you may access it later rather than storing an entire web page to your favourites bar.

Simply copy the brief URL into a browser window to return to the original link.

The capability to monitor how frequently you are shared is another advantage of employing a URL shortening service. This assists you in finding chances to connect with new audiences and may even inspire ideas for next campaigns and social media postings.

URL Shorteners Offer a Wide Range of Benefits:

1. You don’t need to worry about inputting lengthy character strings

2. It makes it simpler to distribute links on various social media networks.

3. It frees up room on social media platforms.

4. Condense a large domain name into a shorter version.

5. To improve your chances of being noticed on search engines, you can add keywords.

There are numerous varieties of shorteners. In this post, we’ll examine a few of the possibilities and discuss why, depending on your needs, each one might be valuable. The benefits and drawbacks of each kind of shortener will also be covered.

How to Use URL Shorteners

One of those tasks that appears straightforward but actually has a variety of approaches is URL shortening. Here, we’ll examine some of the most well-liked ones in detail.

The fundamental concept of URL shortening is rather simple. You begin with a lengthy link, and the URL shortener is a straightforward tool that reduces the number of characters. People can access the original link by simply copying and pasting the abbreviated URL into the address bar of their browser.

The ease with which information may be shared online thanks to shortened URLs is fantastic. They’re notably helpful for linking to destination URLs of certain articles or images when sharing web addresses on social media.

Shorteners: The Three Types

There are three types of URL shorteners: free, premium, and custom. Other free URL shorteners include TinyURL and Bitly. These services are fantastic because they are cost-free and extremely user-friendly. Additionally, they offer fundamental functions like analytics and social sharing. They are not customizable, though, and frequently have a cap on the number of redirects per site.

Create your own solution with custom shorteners – everything about your shortener may be changed, including the name, logo, appearance, colors, and even functionality. Custom shorteners are typically developed using the PHP programming language, which gives them strength and adaptability. Although they frequently cost money, they provide you with complete control over every element of your website.

Last but not least, paid shorteners are created especially for businesses. They frequently include several extras, such as analytics, social media integration, and others. For instance, you may import your complete blog archive into a single post with the well-liked WordPress plugin WP All Import. This improves your search engine exposure and makes it simpler for visitors to find earlier posts.

Effect of Link Shorteners on SEO

Those who dislike link shorteners frequently raise this problem. However, as Google’s Matt Cutts explains, as long as the URL shortener is employing a 301 redirect, the PageRank and anchor text will flow via the shortened link and there shouldn’t be any damage in using them.

Choose the Appropriate Tool for the Job

One of those things, URL shortening, seems like it should be simple to do, but you have no idea where to begin. It’s likely that you’ve heard of it, seen it used on social media, and perhaps tried it yourself. Of course, it may appear trickier to use than it is. And no, in order to shorten a URL, you don’t need to be a web designer or have a degree in computer science.

Shortened URLs allow you to share links more quickly and save time.

On the internet, URLs are crucial pieces of data. They instruct individuals on where to go, what to do, and how to locate items online. But it takes time and energy to type out lengthy URLs. You might want to tweet a link, but you don’t want to take the time to type it out. That is why Bitly exists; by shortening links, we make it simple to share them.

Detailed Reports Regarding Your Shortened Links Are Available.

You will get thorough analytics information for any shortened link you’ve ever shared when you utilize Bitly. These contain information about where the link was shared and how frequently it was clicked.

The Most Well-Known Link Shorteners:

1. Bitly

Using Bitly, you can convert lengthy site URLs into shorter connections. Without having to spell the entire thing out, you can quickly share your customized links on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms.

In addition to providing users and marketers with the ability to shorten links, Bitly also allows them to track click-through rates for individual URLs, view analytics on the total number of clicks and shares for their generated shortened URLs, and integrate Bitly with other tools like social media platforms and other digital advertising dashboards.

It not only provides free accounts, but also subscription plans with analytics and personalized domains. The ability to quickly construct several abbreviated versions of a single URL is its key feature.

Therefore, you can simply copy and paste the original URL into the Bitly box, select the platforms you’d like to share it on, and tap “shorten” if you have a blog post that needs to be connected to a variety of social networking networks (especially when utilizing an automated scheduler). When someone has to read it, you may just send them the condensed version.

2. TinyURL

TinyURL is simple to use and doesn’t demand that users register for an account. Enter a URL into the text box and click “Create Shortlink” to create the link.

Users can shorten any URL they like with TinyURL, a straightforward URL shortening tool. Click the “Create Shortlink” button after entering the URL you want to use. Following that, you’ll have a special, one-time code that you may copy and re-paste onto your original URL.

Preview the end result before clicking on them by making personalized small URLs and using a browser extension. Sign up for a premium account at TinyURL.com if you want to know which websites people visit after clicking on your link.

Although TinyURL is free to use, you’ll need to subscribe to a premium plan if you want to maintain your whole link history.

3. Yourls

Yourls, which stands for Your Own URL Shorter, is a user-friendly link shortening tool that lets you make unique short URLs for your website. You can quickly add unique domains to your account and view data on the number of times visitors click on your short URL.

The URLs you create belong to you, and by including a custom domain name in your shortened links, you may utilize them to build your brand. several practical built-in features to add new functionality rapidly. Historical click statistics, referrer tracking, and visitor location are some of the analytics tools and reports.

4. Rebrandly

It’s time to check out Rebrandly if you want to brand your link shortener with your own domain name. With the help of this tool, you may accomplish so while also adding your own domains or choosing from Rebrandly’s enormous database of more than 2 million domains. Even your own photos can be used.

Rebrandly allows you to directly generate and distribute brand links while you browse the web using the browser add-on. With Rebrandly, you may directly register a new URL by choosing from more than 2,000 domain extensions, including.link,.shop, and other unique links.

Because the corporate name is included in the link even if it is being utilized by another party, branded links raise brand recognition for the company. It increases link trustworthiness, and in comparison to generic short URLs, a branded link can actually increase the click-through rate (CTR) by up to three times (GSUs).

5. BL.INK

Using the link-shortening application Bl.ink, you may monitor clicks on the abbreviated URLs you create. This makes it simple to count the number of clicks on your links.

Five distinct pricing tiers are available, with prices ranging from 12 cents per month to 59 cents per day. Each tier grants access to Bl.ink’s services, including SSL certificates, custom domains, and URL tracking.

The capability to monitor clicks per link is the most widely used function. For instance, you could want to see where visitors are clicking on your website if you’re attempting to market a product or service. You can do that with BL.INK.

To monitor clicks on your social media posts, you can use use BL.INK. You may now view exactly what happened to a link you sent on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or another social media platform.

It’s easy to create custom domains in addition to being able to track clicks on your website. You may ensure that your link always points to the same location in this method.

Finally, you have the option of purchasing SSL certificates. These enable you to guarantee that site users feel secure while surfing your webpages.

Why You Need to Use a URL Shortener for Your Business

It is simpler to share content across many networks when you utilize URL shorteners, which are practical tools. They enable you to use long URLs as text shortcuts by shortening them. But before you begin sharing links, there are a few things you should understand about them.

You can share material across channels by shortening URLs. For instance, you could simply copy the entire URL and paste it someplace else if you wanted to share a link to a blog post. Without having to type the entire thing out, this makes it much simpler to distribute the link.

Utilizing a URL shortener also gives you the ability to monitor how frequently your URLs are shared. When someone clicks on one of your shortened links that you’ve shared, a notification will appear in your dashboard to let you know. You can even set up notifications so that you get an email notification each time one of your links is shared.

Always include a disclaimer if you genuinely want to utilize a URL shortener. Make sure you give a justification for your actions and that you are not deceiving anyone. Make sure you aren’t breaking any terms of service agreements as well. Some businesses forbid the use of specific kinds of URL shorteners because they believe that these tools are too simple to abuse.

Shortened URLs Have a More Streamlined Look

Facebook made adjustments to the way postings are displayed. The social network is making some adjustments to make it simpler for users to find what they’re looking for in addition to modifying the feed’s appearance. One of those adjustments entails URL shortening. Chris Cox, the Facebook product manager, stated in a blog post that “we’ve heard comments about how difficult it may be to remember large URLs.” As a result, we’ll soon start displaying shorter URLs.

Not every sort of link shared on Facebook will be impacted by the change. Photos, for instance, are still immediately connected to the original picture file. However, the whole URL will no longer be included in links to movies, articles, events, businesses, and groups. Links shared via comments, advertising, and status updates fall under this category. Also truncated are any links that are posted in messages.

Each shortened link will have a tiny green icon next to it for users to view. The whole URL will be displayed when they click on it. There is a button in the top left corner of the screen that allows you to keep the entire URL if you choose.

Twitter already makes use of shortened URLs. Users can share links without needing to use all 140 characters thanks to them.

Increase Traffic with Shorter Links

Why then do people employ them? The reason for this is that they want to make sure that the link is shared with as many individuals as possible.

Of course, you still have to manually type the entire address. However, it is still far quicker than attempting to copy and paste the original URL.

Shortened links are a terrific, time-efficient way to spread the word about your content. They let you track it while yet keeping your URL brief. You may shorten your URLs and monitor their usage by using a custom URL shortener. This enables you to precisely determine what information your audience is interested in knowing about your brand.

Gain More Credibility

One of the best methods to raise your brand’s online trust is with a shortened URL. People assume that a short link will be simple to remember and less likely to result in broken links. Additionally, they frequently assume that because there are fewer words to type into a browser address bar, the website behind the link must be reliable.

A shorter URL encourages customer confidence and trust. In fact, customers are more likely to trust a business when they see a shorter URL, according to research done by Moz.

Share Shortened URLs on Social Media

One of the most efficient ways to reach out to potential customers is through sharing links on social media. You must make sure that the links you post are optimized for social shares if you want to increase the impact of your postings. Making ensuring that your shortened URLs are prepared for social media sharing is part of this.

Links were frequently used to abbreviate URLs in the past. But nowadays, the majority of individuals just copy and paste a URL from the address bar of their computer. Therefore, using a URL shortener eliminates the need to write a lengthy 45-character address to reach that location.

For instance, you might get something like /wp/products/product1/ if you abbreviate a URL that ends in.com/products/product1. All but WordPress users won’t find much use in this. You may shorten the URL to /products/product1/ to optimize it for social media, which would make it much simpler to distribute on social networks.

To achieve this, you don’t have to alter your entire URL structure. Just a few extra letters need to be added at the beginning of each URL. This strategy works well for websites when the product catalog is a primary draw for visitors.

Why You Should Use URL Shorteners, in Summary

A URL shortener is an online tool that enables you to create shortened URLs that direct users to different web pages or sites.

Therefore, why use a URL shortener? So, in addition to saving you time, it can help you have a stronger online presence. It can be challenging to type more than the allotted 140 characters if you’ve ever tried to tweet a lengthy URL. An integral aspect of any marketing plan, URL shorteners allow you to reduce the length of the internet links you post, making it simpler to share information about your brand on all social media platforms.

The post Why You Need to Use a URL Shortener appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

One of the biggest challenges with Instagram is determining how to maximize your content outside the Instagram app.

We’ve outlined the steps below in the hope that you can easily extend the reach of your images and video outside Instagram.

Instagram now offers a way to make your Instagram feed available anywhere else on the web. You can even use it on sites like Tumblr, WordPress, and Medium without having to go through the hassle of manually uploading each photo. All you have to do is install the InstaRSS app on your computer, sign into your account, and start posting photos. After that, you’ll see a button in the upper left corner that says “Post to RSS.” Click that, enter the URL of any site where you’d like to post your Instagram feed, and you’re good to go.

You can find instructions for installing InstaRSS here. If you don’t know how to add an RSS feed to your site, check out our guide to setting one up.

How to Create Instagram to RSS

We partnered with Instagram to make creating RSS feeds and linking Instagram to Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest a breeze. Not only will this make social media sharing a cinch, but it will also generate new followers. In a few clicks, easily create an Instagram RSS feed with dlvr.it’s FREE tool.

Instagram is one of the most popular photo-sharing apps. But what about those times when you want to share photos with friends on Twitter, Facebook, and even Pinterest? If you don’t use a third-party app, you’re stuck manually copying and pasting each image into the text editor. Not anymore. With InstaRSS, you can easily share pictures directly from Instagram to Twitter, Facebook, and more.

If you already have an account on Instagram, just follow the steps below.

• Open the Instagram mobile app.
• Tap the three dots icon in the upper right corner.
• Select “Share.”
• Click the “+” button next to “Add URL,” select “Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest,” and paste your Instagram URL.
• You’ll see a preview of how the post will look on the respective network. When you’re happy with the appearance, tap “Post.”

Your Smart Instagram RSS Feed and Instagram Stories

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms out there, especially among millennials. But it isn’t always easy to get the best quality pictures from the app. If you’re looking to improve your Instagram feeds, we’ve got some tips that’ll help you do just that.

First things first: You need to know what type of account you want to use. Are you posting for personal reasons? Or are you trying to grow your brand with business account posts? Either way, you’ll want to make sure that you’re taking advantage of the full potential of the Instagram feed plugin (RSS feed automation tool).

Next up, you’ll want to set up your profile. This includes adding a username, choosing a bio, uploading a cover photo, and selecting your location. Once you’re done setting up your profile, you’ll want to start building your feed. To do this, you’ll want to go to the Explore tab and select “Explore.” From here, you can see trending topics, browse hashtags, and even view the feed content of people you follow.

Once you’re ready to build your feed, you’ll want to choose an image input source. There are three options:

• Uploading Images from Your Computer
• Adding Images Directly Into Posts/Stories
• Using Hashtags to Find Relevant Photos

From Your dlvr.it dashboard, Click ‘Add a Feed’

Click the Instagram Icon

If logged into your Instagram account, click ‘Authorize’. If not logged in, you will be prompted to log in and Authorize

Dlvr.it = Intelligent Reporting

Measure audience engagement across social networks and track the performance of each item you share.

Followers: The change in your total number of followers/friends across all your social networks for the last 24 hours. dlvr.it also shows you how that compares to the maximum/minimum daily follower changes over the last 30 days.

Clicks: The total number of clicks across all your Routes for the last 24 hours. dlvr.it shows you how that compares to the most active and least active days over the last 30 days.

Posts: The total number of individual posts made across all your Routes for the last 24 hours. dlvr.it shows you how that compares to the maximum and minimum daily post days over the last 30 days.

Audience: The total number of active users followers/friends (and reach, when enabled) across all your social networks for the last 24 hours. dlvr.it details the changes for each of your social networks during the last 24 hours.

Popular Posts: The most popular posts made in the previous 7 days, including the number of clicks.

Geo: A global map of your click activity over the last 7 days.

Customize Content with Filters

With the amount of information coming through Instagram at any given time, filtering and customization are becoming more important every day. dlvr.it provides a slew of filtering options to help you battle the elements and publish to your heart’s content. You can easily set up filters with your dlvr.it account to tailor your Instagram RSS feed.

• Want to post items that mention iPhone? How about articles that mention iPhone or iPad? How about items that mention iPhone or iPad, but not if the item mentions Facebook? No problem.

• Want to apply filters only to your headlines? To your headlines and bodies? Only to your categories? To headlines, and categories, but not the body? No problem.

Schedule at Just the Right Time

Instagram recently rolled out an update that lets publishers schedule fresh content posts ahead of time. This feature allows brands to set up multiple custom feeds based on different events like holidays, birthdays, etc. If you don’t know how to use the tool, here are some tips.

• Set Up Your Feed

The first step is to create a profile and select “Schedule.” You’ll see the option to add a custom URL, which you can use to link to your site.

• Add Events

Once you’ve added a custom URL, you’re ready to start scheduling posts. To do this, tap on the “+” icon in the upper left corner. From there, choose what type of event you’d like to schedule.

Link to Other Social Networks

The Facebook link tool allows you to quickly and easily post your real-time updates directly to your Facebook Timeline. This way, people can see what you are up to without having to go to your profile. You can even choose to make it public or just visible to friends.

To use the feature, follow these steps:

• Go to the Facebook link tool.
• Click the “Add a link” button.
• Select the type of link you want to include (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
• Choose where you want the link to take visitors.
• Add the URL of the site you want to share from.

Get FREE Instagram followers with Any Instagram RSS Feed

Instagram is a Powerful Marketing Platform

Instagram is one of the most popular photo-sharing apps out there. Millions of people use it every day to capture life’s moments and share them with friends and family. But did you know that Instagram is actually a great way to promote your brand and build up your audience? If you want to start growing your Instagram account, here are 3 ways to do just that.

• Use the Free Instagram Followers Hack

This method is probably the easiest one out of the three. All you need to do is enter your username into the URL bar, hit Enter, and voila! You’ll instantly receive some free followers. There are no strings attached.

• Post Content Regularly

The second method involves posting regularly. When you post consistently, you give your audience a chance to follow you. And once they do, they’ll see your posts everywhere. So make sure you post at least 2 times per week.

• Create Engaging Videos

Videos are the best way to connect with your audience. They allow you to express yourself better than text alone. Plus, videos are easier to share across different platforms. For example, you could upload your video to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and Twitter.

• Link Instagram to other Social Media Accounts

Instagram is one of the most popular photo-sharing apps out there. If you want to increase your reach, it might be worth linking up your accounts. Here are three ways to do it.

1. Link Instagram to Tumblr

Tumblr allows you to post images directly onto your site. You can use the same account on both Tumblr and Instagram. Simply go to your profile settings and select “Linked Accounts.” Then follow the instructions.

2. Link Instagram to Pinterest

Pinterest is another great place to promote your Instagram posts. You can link your Instagram feed to your Pinterest account in several different ways. Go to your profile settings and choose “Add Account,” then scroll down to “Other Social Media Links.” Follow the steps.

3. Link Instagram to Facebook

Facebook is still the biggest social network around. It’s also a good place to promote your work. To link Instagram to Facebook, go to your profile settings, then select “Connections.” Choose “Add Connection” and enter your username and password.

Instagram now allows users to easily save their Instagram posts as an RSS feed. This feature is similar to how Twitter works. You can use it to create a feed of your favorite pictures without having to manually post each image. Now, whenever someone visits your profile, they will see your latest images.

You can also find new accounts to follow by searching for hashtags on Instagram. Simply type # into the search bar and hit enter. Instagram will show you a list of people who have used that hashtag. You can choose to follow those accounts directly from there.

If you don’t like the idea of sharing your Instagram feed publicly, you can still make it visible to friends and followers only. Then scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap “See what others see”.

It’s East to Include an RSS Feed on your Instagram Site

Instagram recently added support for embedding apps directly into your profile. Now, you can add an RSS feed app to your Instagram account and display it wherever you like. You can even choose where to place the feed within your profile.

The feature allows you to include social feeds from your favorite websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Blogger, WordPress, YouTube, SoundCloud, Vimeo, Flickr, Foursquare, Spotify, Dailymotion, and many others.

You can also use the same technique to add a podcast feed to your Instagram profile. Just make sure you’re logged into your podcast provider’s website and select “Add Podcast.”

The post How to Make an Instagram RSS Feed for FREE appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

eMarketer estimates more than 52 Million people in the US use Twitter on a monthly basis. So, it makes sense to automatically Tweet blog posts to reach potential customers. Nevertheless, there is a right way and a wrong way to post your blog to Twitter.

We’ve outlined a smart auto tweet strategy that will not only help you avoid spamming but also increase followers. In general, the basic idea is to understand your audience and then deliver the right content at the right time.

1 – How to Auto Tweet Blog Posts and RSS Feeds

The recipe below will show you how to auto tweet blog posts or any RSS feed to Twitter in just a few steps. Of course, you are not limited to just your own blog RSS feed. You can also auto-tweet RSS feeds from any blogger as part of your content curation strategy.

1) Go to dlvr.it and create an account with your email + password.

2) Enter your RSS Feed URL from the Automation tab.

3) Once you have this entered, configure your Feed and click on ‘Next: Connect Socials’.

4) Under the Connect Socials screen, click on the ‘Connect New’ button.

5) Click on the Twitter icon and authorize dlvr.it to post to your Twitter account.

That’s it! Now whenever you create a new blog post, dlvr.it will automatically send your blog posts to Twitter.

Here’s what a completed dlvr.it Route looks like:

Now that you can send blog posts to Twitter, we need to add some intelligence. When creating a smart auto tweet strategy, there are a few more steps to take if you want to avoid spamming your followers.

2 – Know thy Audience

To auto-Tweet is not to Spam. Not knowing thy audience coupled with irrelevant Tweets is considered spam.

Twitter Analytics provides detailed performance stats that are not accessible by 3rd party social media analytics tools. Additionally, these stats contain a wealth of information and are available to anyone who has created a Twitter account. However, the key is to understand how to unlock this meaningful data to get the most value.

When you view your Twitter stats, ask yourself a few questions: 

• How does time of day and day of the week influence the performance of your tweets? Do certain times lead to more impressions?

• What is your optimal tweet frequency? Are you burning out your audience by over-tweeting or can you stand to tweet even more than you currently do?

• Is your audience more responsive to a fun and conversational tone or more business-like, professional-sounding tweets?

• How does media perform in your tweets? Do people love videos and photos, or do they prefer text-based tweets?

• How does link placement in your tweets impact engagement?

• What kinds of calls-to-action (CTA) generate the most engagement with your audience? Are blatant CTAs more impactful, or does your audience appreciate subtlety?

I encourage you to read through this helpful guide in understanding Twitter Analytics: 3 Informative Twitter Analytics Reports With the Most Value.

For the purpose of creating our smart auto-Tweet strategy, we want to pay particular attention to Audience Insights and Audience Comparison.

The reports tell us:

1. Who our audience is
2. What blog post to send to Twitter

1 –  Audience Insights

Click the ‘Audiences’ tab at the top of the Twitter Analytics page (see diagram below) and you’ll see detailed stats on your followers, including:

• Demographics: Gender, County, Household Income, Net Worth, Languages, Home value, Region
• Lifestyle: Interests (by category), TV genres
• Consumer Behavior: Aftermarket auto buyers types, Consumer buying styles, Consumer goods purchases
• Mobile Footprint: Wireless Carrier, Device categories

Tip: If your audience is not sufficiently large enough to provide insights, read How to Get Twitter Followers in 7 Easy Steps.

2 –  Audience Comparison

The above provides me with a great level of detail on my Twitter followers. However, one of the hidden gems is the audience comparison feature.

I can compare my followers to what Twitter calls “organic audience.” Your organic audience looks like this:

Your followers + Your followers’ followers

= Your Organic Audience

For example:

If your follower retweets your content, your content is exposed to that audience of your followers = viral marketing!

In the example below, I compare my Followers to my Organic Audience.

(1): My Followers

(2): My Organic Audience

As mentioned above this comparison can be helpful to figure out what to auto tweet.

3 – Use Twitter Search to Find More of The Right Followers

Next, we need to find more followers just like the ones we have. Again, assuming we find customers who would be more interested in what we auto Tweet, plays into our smart strategy.

The first thing to remember when you grow Twitter followers is to  “follow to be followed“.

In other words, this is a gentle way of saying “Hello, pleased to meet you” without being pushy. As a result, if you follow them, and if they like what they see in your Twitter feed, they’ll follow back.

Success on Twitter (and social media marketing in general) is having the right people to follow.

The purpose of Twitter Connect is to help you find people of interest much quicker than before.

The Connect tab also makes it easier to connect with your friends and family by giving you the option to automatically sync your address book.

If you have the Twitter IOS or Android app installed, look for the tab in the upper left of the screen. Click it to expose a wealth of new people to follow.

Twitter recommends people to follow based on the following:

• Who you already follow
• Tweets you like
• Popular accounts in your local area
• What’s happening in the world right now

Furthermore, this handy Twitter Search tool organizes the recommendations using the above criteria, so you know exactly why Twitter recommended someone.

***You control how good Twitter’s recommendation engine is and the results they display.

For example, let’s say own a pizza joint in San Jose, California. You want to find people who love pizza within your given geographical area. Do a Twitter Search for ‘pizza’ in your zip code (continue reading to learn how). Scroll through the Twitter Search results and like tweets.

In the long run, you’ll  start to notice how Connect recommends more people in San Jose who love pizza.

To get even more out of Twitter Search, I encourage you to read: How To Use Twitter Search To Quickly Find More Happy Customers

4 – Schedule Tweets to Avoid Clumping

Scheduling Tweets can be a productivity aid when used “smartly”. Moreover, scheduling Tweets offers the flexibility to plan your message in advance and saves hours of time every week.

Generally speaking, the best time to auto Tweet is between 1 pm and 3 pm, Monday through Thursday. With that said, you will have to experiment with your audience. Review Twitter analytics to learn more about the best time to Tweet.

Not only is scheduling an important piece of a smart auto Tweet strategy but it also avoids having too many Tweets going out at the same time. One of the many reasons Twitter followers unfollow is because of ‘clumping’ – that is the rapid firing off of Tweet after Tweet after Tweet.

Auto-scheduling Tweets is how business savvy professionals build time back into their day.

Smart automation scheduling tool

Queue, by dlvr.it, is a smart social media scheduling tool. Not to mention, Queue delivers a consistent flow of perfectly timed content throughout the day to keep your Twitter audience engaged. Queue manages your Twitter feed while you are out to lunch, on vacation or just not available.

Send RSS to Twitter with Queue

Link any RSS feed to Twitter as a backup content source. With an optimized continuous stream of content, you will increase traffic, engagement and brand recognition. No clumping, no spam and not to mentioned delivered at just the right time.

5 – Find the Right Hashtags and Automatically Add to Tweets

Many studies have shown that tweets with hashtags generate up to double (if not more) user engagement.

1. Increase viewership: Similar to keywords used for search optimization, hashtags help people discover your content in social. You can instantly become more visible and become part of a trending conversation.
2. Build Social Followers: Hashtags help build social followers. If you are an authority on barbecuing, hashtags will help people find you within a room of desperate conversations.
3. Create new customers: Find new prospects and customers. Monitor important hashtags in social and jump on relevant opportunities. For example, you could find a prospect in need of your service or discover a prospect unhappy with a competitor. Hashtags discover conversations that are happening ‘right now’ vs. keywords that will last a long time. It is important to set-up an alert within your favorite social media monitoring tool monitoring the conversations (hashtags) you want to follow.
4. Branding: Hashtags can help brand your business. You can set-up a branded hashtag specific to your business. For example, if you are running a sale, you could create the hashtag #Bobs_barbeque_blowout. If you add the hashtag to your customer communications (email, twitter), your customers can follow the hashtag to stay current on your latest promotions.
5. Revenue: Hashtags help you quickly determine what people are talking about so this will help guide new content decisions and create new product ideas to boost sales.
6. Competition: Track your competition. See what conversations they are a part of or what people are saying about them.

With this in mind, finding the right hashtag is the first step. The last thing you want to do is spam Twitter feeds with irrelevant content because you used the wrong hashtag. Leverage popular hashtags – search for hashtags on Hashtagify

Now that you have relevant hashtags, use them to categorize your content on your blog. In WordPress for example when you create a new blog post you can also add a category.

With that said, by using dlvr.it, we can automatically turn that category tag in the RSS feed into a hashtag on Twitter!

To enable this feature on your Twitter account, you will need to access the Socials Tab.

1) Click on the Twitter account and click on the Edit icon

2) Click on the Advanced tab

3) Click on Auto Hashtag placement and choose where you would like to post your Auto Hashtags (Hashtags Before and After content are limited to 5 hashtags)

• Before Content: This will be placed between any prefixes that you have set and the content itself
• After Content: Placed between your content and any suffixes defined
• Inline: If any category tags are matched within the text, this will automatically be changed into a hashtag

4) Select the maximum number of hashtags that you would like us to generate

5) Choose how you would like blank spaces handled (either eliminate or use underscores)

6) Save, and you’re done!

Additionally, read more about other ways to automatically add hashtags to Tweets.

6 – Add Filters to Target Content

For one thing, followers will call anything irrelevant in their Twitter feed as spam. Again the goal with your auto Tweet strategy is to share the RIGHT content with your audience to avoid the perception of spam.

This tactic is where filters make the most sense. Before the auto tweet is sent, dlvr.it can share or exclude specific content based on keywords you enter.

You can filter by the following:

• Title
• Content
• Category
• Author
• Link

You can filter these categories in a number of different ways. The first selection that you must make is to filter by either ‘Match Whole Words’ or ‘Match Sequence Anywhere’.  We have described these cases in more detail below:

• Match whole words: Applies filters on words/phrases only if they appear as a whole word. For instance, if filtering on the word “state”, a) “state” will trigger the filter, while b) “statement” will not.

• Match sequence anywhere: Applies filters on words/phrases if they appear anywhere in a sequence. For instance, if filtering on the word “state”, all of the following will trigger the filter: “state”, “statement”, “understated”, etc.

Once you have opted for one of these two cases, you will be asked for your filter terms. You can choose to filter by the following:

• Must contain all the terms
• Must contain any of the terms
• Ignore items that contain any of the terms

Save your filters, and now your auto tweet strategy just got that much smarter!

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Do you auto Tweet? What are the best practices you follow? We would love to hear from you.

The post 6 of the Best Ways to Auto Tweet That Will Avoid Spamming Twitter appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

Twitterfeed will be shutting its doors on Oct. 31st. Please transition your account to another service before that date

As a result, you likely got here because you need a Twitterfeed alternative.

Best FREE Twitterfeed Alternative

If you’re in the market for a Twitterfeed alternative, you’ve come to the right place.

We not only help you auto-Tweet RSS feeds but we can also link your content to Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and more. In addition, our smart auto-scheduling tool ensures delivery of your content at just the right time. With this in mind, we encourage you to explore what dlvr.it has to offer.

• Given that we’re always adding new features, check back often!

• Not to mention, setting up a dlvr.it account is quick and easy.

• Furthermore, you can get started for FREE, and as you grow, it’s a breeze to add our set of robust features with our paid plan.

Why dlvr.it?

As a Twitterfeed user, you had a certain level of automation.

At dlvr.it, you have as much automation as you need. (FYI, our competitors can’t say that.)

• Need complete automation? We’ve got it!
• Prefer to touch every post that goes out? We’ve got that too.
• Need something in between. We’ve got exactly the right amount of automation for your needs.

To put it another way, that’s what smart Social Media Automation is all about.

We share over 5 Million items for 1,000,000+ customers every day. That is to say; we got this social media and RSS auto-posting stuff down!

In the light of the many questions we have been receiving from customers looking for a Twitterfeed alternative, we put together a list of the most popular questions:

1. What social networks does dlvr.it post to?
2. What are dlvr.it’s features?
3. How do I set-up Facebook?
4. How much does dlvr.it cost?
5. Can I add a Facebook profile and page?

dlvr.it is a Robust Twitter Automation Tool Solution and So Much More

You not only get the same features you loved about Twitterfeed, but you’ll get so much more.

• Auto Tweet RSS: We continuously monitor your news feeds, and RSS-enabled websites and automatically share new content to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and more.
• Scheduling: Queue up content wherever you find it with our browser extension. We’ll share it to your social networks on an optimized schedule.
• Curation: Keep your customers, fans and followers engaged with a consistent stream of content. Simply search for the type of content your audience would love, and start sharing.

To say nothing of all the great added bonuses and features…

✓Incredibly Fast Updates

dlvr.it continuously scans your RSS feeds and automatically populates a queue of content to share on your connected social media platforms.

✓Google Analytics

Set your own UTM tracking parameters on every link you share. Easily view all social media traffic from right inside of Google Analytics.

✓Smart Sharing

Share the right content with the right audience. Target content to your social networks based on keywords, author, tags and more. Also, fine tune your posts with dlvr.it’s powerful find and replace/remove text tool.

✓Optimized Schedules

Tell us what days and times you want us to check for new updates, and we’ll deliver your content right on time. Or just queue up content, and share it when your audience is active and engaged.

✓Engagement Stats

Use dlvr.it’s content sharing and social analytics to gain customer insight. Measure audience engagement across social networks and track the performance of each item you share.

✓Hashtags

Broaden your reach with hashtags. dlvr.it can automatically add contextually relevant, search-friendly hashtags to every post.

✓Engage with Multimedia

Make your updates stand out with images, photos, gifs, video or text. Effortlessly share them to all your social media platforms.

✓Custom URL Shortener

dlvr.it makes it simple to share your own branded short links across social media. Unleash the power of your own URL shortener with every item you share.

✓Share From Anywhere

Reading an article, you love? See a funny photo? Share it to social media in seconds with the dlvr.it Firefox, Safari, and Chrome plugins.

Be that as it may, don’t take our word for it. Our customers offer the most compelling evidence:

Favorite Tweets by @dlvrit

Of course, if you have questions, please visit our support forum or feel free to contact us. We’d love to hear from you!

The post The Best FREE Twitterfeed Alternative to Make Social Media Soar appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

When was the last time you gave G+ any thought?

I’m here to tell you; it might be worth a second look.

Isn’t Google Plus Dead?

Let’s address the elephant in the room. Is Google Plus dead or just slowly dying? Believe it or not, neither is true. Surprisingly, G+ has a renewed focus. Google is putting resources into making G+ competitive – but with a new value proposition (more on that later).

Matter of fact, take a look at the 2016 Google Plus user stats collected by Statistic Brain:

Before we discuss the renewed focus of Google+, it’s important to understand a small change Google made that led to our conclusion.

Auto-post to Google Plus Personal Profiles [and Business Pages]

When dlvr.it launched the ability to auto-post to Google Plus business pages, the first question many of you asked was “What about Google Plus Personal Profiles?” Unfortunately, at that time, Google had not created a way for us to do that.

If there was one thing that frustrated us was the lack of posting to Google Plus personal profiles using dlvr.it. After repeated requests to Google to add this feature went unanswered, we gave up asking and put our focus on other social networks.

We couldn’t figure out why they held back on adding this when Facebook had not.

Now, four years later, our ask has been answered. We’ve partnered with Google Plus to bring you the ability to post to Personal Profiles. But the reason why may surprise you (keep reading).

So, what does this mean for you?

1. Think about G+ as another place for you and your content to be discovered by the 27M people who share common interests.
2. Convenience! No more bouncing in and out of dlvr.it to manually update your G+ personal profile. You can finally get insanely organized and productive all inside of the dlvr.it app.
3. Last but not least, remember G+ is Google. Google search is the largest search engine on the planet, and the two services (G+ and Google Search) are tightly coupled.

It’s pretty easy to add G+ plus your social media calendar.

1.) Login into dlvr.it, click the Socials icon and “Add Social”

2.) Click the G+ icon

3.) Choose your Google account

4.) Choose your Google Plus Personal Profile

Why Should You Care About The Return of Google Plus?

After four years of not posting to personal profiles, why has Google had a change of heart?

We asked ourselves that very question.

The answer is simple; Google+ has a renewed focus on content. It’s not about who you know (like Facebook), but rather, it’s about what you know (content – images, video, blog posts).

With this in mind, it now makes sense why they would open up auto-posting to Personal Profiles.

Google only wants your content!

What’s more, Google+’s renewed focus is directly aligned with Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible.

They’re not in the business of organizing the people of the world in a Facebook kind of way. They tried that and failed.

They’re taking Google Plus into a new direction. The more content that easily pours into Google+, the more benefit you get and Google gets.

Google Plus Renewed Focus

For many years, Google Plus had been a Google version of Facebook. Although Google was slow to realize that they couldn’t compete with Facebook, they are finally breathing new life into Google Plus.

You can now tailor your Google Plus social media stream around topics rather than people.

With Facebook, for example, I connect with people. The thing about people is we have many interests. The reality is I don’t share all the same interests of my friends but yet for the most part, in my Facebook feed, I get ALL my friends streams of consciousness.

On the other hand, Google+  is taking a different approach. Google came to realize that I may only like content related to basketball – so, let me connect with people who share my interest and passion for basketball.

If the same person shares information on G+ that includes their other hobbies,  interests or what they had for dinner, I don’t see it. No more unwanted cat gifs, images of what they are eating, and other meaningless status updates.

We can finally say; G+ has a unique value proposition which is to connect people around their interests and hobbies and make it accessible.

The Google Plus SEO Debate Ranges On

What’s important to realize and often overlooked is Google Plus is Google! One could surmise, Google can use your search history to influence the content you see on Google+ and vice versa.

However, what is likely on the mind of many small businesses – is there “really” a connection between Google Plus and SEO?

SEO experts have been debating the value of Google+ and its impact on search rankings. There is evidence to suggest that Google Plus posts do pass SEO benefits (the same is not true with Facebook and Twitter for example).

However, as with all things regarding Google search, no one “really” knows for certain. In our research, we found only one hint of G+’s SEO impact.

According to excerpts posted by the Wall Street Journal from Eric Schmidt’s book, ‘‘The New Digital Age’, Schmidt explains the importance of content posted to Google Plus.

It should come as no surprise that Google would tie the two together. Search is Google’s big moneymaker. If Google wants people to engage on Google+, connecting it with search is one sure way to do it.

The critical extract reads:

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevant.”

If there are any hints at any SEO value, it’s worth the time to post to Google Plus. Why? Because it’s super simple to do with dlvr.it’s integration of both Personal Profiles and Business Pages. You no longer have an excuse not to share your blog content on Google+.

The Time to Give Google+ a Second Look is Now

To recap, Google+ has many differentiating features that make it unique in the social media market.

1. Enhance your SEO: Content shared on Google Plus is indexed more quickly and appears in search results faster than any other social media channel. Read 10 Dead Simple Tips to Take Advantage of Google for SEO
2. Brands are people too: Unlike Facebook, Google Plus Pages will have the ability to interact and engage with any Google+ user – a major plus.
3. Increase Engagement: Google Plus circles are a natural way to target specific content to users. Now, you can see the right content by the right customer (taking your privacy settings into consideration). As a result, you should expect higher engagement.

What’s next?

Head on over to dlvr.it and connect your G+ plus personal profile (and business page if you haven’t already done so).

Pundits are saying G+ is back! No time like the present to give it a second look.

The post Surprisingly, Google Plus is Back. What You Need to Know. appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

First of all, Facebook People Search contains a wealth of information on what people like, their hobbies, food they eat, pets they love, brands they associate with, images they share, competitors they follow and endless demographic information.

Secondly, all these details can be used to generate better content, create better connections with prospects, craft better ads, and sales pitches.

Facebook Search puts all this data at your fingertips. However, you need to string together the right query parameters to extract detailed information on prospects. 

Understanding How Facebook People Search Works

Facebook People Search is a useful tool to find targeted prospects and boost revenue. However, you have to learn how to extract the data first.

Because Facebook People Search responds to both keyword searches (similar to Google) and natural language queries, it makes searching through Facebook something like a game of Mad Libs.

Think of natural language queries as phrasing questions the same way you would ask a human.

Natural language search is search carried out in everyday language, phrasing questions as you would ask them if you were talking to someone. These queries can be typed into a search engine, spoken aloud with voice search, or posed as a question to a digital assistant like Siri or Cortana. – Search Engine Watch.

For example, if you own a “bait and tackle shop” in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and you’re interested in reaching customers in your local community who like fishing, you might use the following query:

“People who live in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and like fishing”

When you understand how queries can be structured, it’s easier to determine what type of question will yield your desired result. 

Generally speaking, you can use Facebook People Search to find:

• What Facebook users think about your competitors’ products and services so you can get a clear picture of how to position your business.
• The overlapping interests of your target customer base so you can create more relevant content on your Facebook page.
• What Facebook Groups and Pages are most popular among a business’s target customer base, so you know which groups your prospects are hanging out in – ultimately you can join those groups.
• What hobbies and interests are shared with prospects so you can create deeper connections and conversations with them.

Find Customers Using Facebook People Search

Facebook People Search can handle a surprising number of parameters so you should take advantage of this to learn more about your target audience.

Using the bait and tackle shop as an example, you can search for people on Facebook who liked a competitor who lives in your city. The search query, could like something like this:

• Fans of [page] who visited [city, state] 

In the example above, you can see I used two criteria to find the exact person – Facebook Page and City/State.

You can also take a more targeted approach to a people-focused search. For example, let’s say you want to reach women who are married and like fishing. You might search for something like this:

• Women who live in [city, state] and are [married] and like [something]

Now that you have the basic structure down, you can start experimenting with different queries that return the results you are after.

But, beware: While you can layer and string together a plethora of search queries, consequently you could be severely limiting the result. These conclusions are where the experimentation comes in.

Whether you sell to consumers or businesses, you can pinpoint people on Facebook that are more likely to buy what you sell.

Search Queries to Uncover the Right Customers

Don’t think that Facebook is just for B2C sellers either. There are more people on Facebook than LinkedIn, and the level of data locked in Facebook People Search is much deeper than you will find through LinkedIn Search. You can find not only where they work but what they love which will help you find commonality with your prospects.

Search Examples

Below are a few examples you might use to find and learn more about prospects. You can search for specific people, Facebook Pages, City, State, favorited pages and more.

1 – People who work at [company] and live in [city, state] and like [page]

2 – [type of business] liked by people who like [something]

3 – [type of business] liked by people who like [page]

4 – [type of business] liked by people who live in [city, state] and like [something]

5 – [type of business] visited by fans of [page]

6 – [type of business] visited by people who work at [company]

7 – [type of business] visited by people who work at [company] and like [something]

8 – Favorite pages of [company name] employees

9 – Favorite pages of [profession]

10 – Pages liked by people who like [something]

11 – Pages liked by people who like [something] and visited [city, state]

A practical example:

Imagine you sell recycling services to businesses  – we’ll call it Greener Earth – and business is slow. By using a business-focused query, you might discover that a lot of “NewCo” employees (your target company) care about recycling and also like a local coffee shop.

The search queries might look like this.

• People who work at NewCo and live in San Francisco, CA and like recycling
• Favorite pages of NewCo employees

Consequently, you may hold an informational meeting at the coffee shop or do a cross-promotion with the store owner. For instance, you could do a trade with the coffee shop owner and offer your services in exchange for a window sticker, flyers or a green recycling bin with your logo on it. 

In fact, queries like these, paint a three-dimensional picture of your ideal customer.

While conducting market research for Greener Earth, you might just learn that many fans of your business also like the Facebook page for America Recycles Day.

“Wow!” you might say. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as America Recycles Day.”

What a very promising promotional opportunity!

How to Search Facebook Posts

Now that you found prospects, and know their interests, the next step is to find not only content they share to further enhance your customer profile but to improve your own content strategy. Moreover, the right post-focused query can help you unearth this treasure trove of information. 

First, you might start by studying your competitors and identify what kinds of posts get the biggest reaction from their customers. 

What are your competitors sharing? What are your prospects sharing? 

To find Facebook Posts loved by your prospects, try these queries:

1 – Posts liked by people who like [page]

2 – Posts liked by people who like [something]

3 – Posts liked by people who live in [city, state] and work at [company]

For example:

For Greener Earth, your search might look like this:

1 – Posts liked by people who like recycling

2 – Posts liked by people who like NewCO

3 – Posts liked by people who like [Competitor’s Page]

Through these queries, you might discover that people who like recycling responded well to a competitor’s post about recycling paper and responded poorly to a post about the cost of recycling.

In fact, if you notice this behavior occurring enough times, you could focus your sales pitch on ways to reduce paper usage and educate prospects on the long-term cost savings. 

Putting Facebook People Search in Action

You’ve created a target list of prospects, started to write and share posts they love, but now you want to take your prospecting to the next level and contact them directly.

1 – Expand your personal network

Using Facebook People Search, you can discover people who aren’t your friends and who like a particular Page you like.

For example, find common hobbies and include a note that helps create an immediate connection. 

• People who are not my friend who like [page]
• Movies liked by people who like [page]
• Favorite music of people who like [page]
• Sports teams of people who like [page]

Or, network within Facebook Groups.

However, this isn’t a license to blast everyone with a self-promotional message. Ultimately you want to come across as being helpful and personal (without being creepy because you have a ton of information on group members.)

• Groups of people who like [topic] and like [page]

2 – Request Facebook Friends to like your Page

Find friends who haven’t liked your Page and then invite them to check your Page out.

• My friends who like [page]

3 – Learn about your prospects or customers without surveys

In the past, if you wanted to find out more about your customer’s hobbies, interests, favorite TV shows, etc., you had to survey them. As a result, you wasted a ton of time and spent a lot of money. With Facebook search, you can now get a good snapshot – for free and in a few keystrokes – which only takes seconds.

• Interests of people who like [page]
• Pages liked by people who like [page]

You can then create content or ads that resonate with your target audience.

4 –  Compare Fans to identify new markets or products

Use Facebook People Search to find cross-promotional opportunities, new markets to target or strengthen a loyalty program. This query shows what your customers do when they aren’t doing business with you.

• [Type of business] in [city, state] visited by people who like [page]
• Products liked by fans of [page]

5 – Sort Your Fans’ Page Likes by Gender and Age

Maybe you need to appeal to the interest of specific genders within your Facebook fans for instance to create targeted content or ads.

• Page liked by [male/female] in [city, state] visited by people who like [page]
• Interests of [male/female] in [city, state] who like [ your page]
• Pages liked by people over the age of [number] who like [ your page]

6 – Show up in location-based searches

Are you on the radar of local landmarks or places near you that people visit often?

Use this query to see if your business turns up in the results.

• Places near [place] visited by people who like [attraction] 

If your business is not appearing in a local search, learn how to boost your search ranking in Facebook Search.

A few more Facebook People Search tricks

1 – Don’t ignore the videos and photos tabs. Ultimately the results can provide guidance in choosing images for your blog posts or ads.

2 – For a massive list of Facebook search queries, visit Wrightimc.com.

3 – Learn how to delete your Facebook Search history.

4 – View your past searches.

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There are “literally” hundreds of possible search combinations. This information can be used to learn about your fans, improve your Facebook ad targeting, and do market research.

___

Have a few tips using Facebook People Search? We would love to hear from you.

The post How to Use Facebook People Search to Boost Revenue [Without Buying Ads] appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

Facebook search is possibly the most powerful, under-used feature on the social network.

Facebook has a wealth of information you can’t get anywhere else – even on Google and they made a few attempts to get search right. However, pundits believe they may have finally cracked the nut with their latest effort.

Facebook Search Isn’t Quite Google – Yet

Facebook’s intent is to be the “go to place” to surface real-time information on current trending news.

Google is still the search king for daily search queries. However, what’s important to mention is there are other social networks – including Facebook – that are quickly gaining ground on Google.

Consider the following search queries per day across several social networks:

• Google Search: 3.5 Billion – Internet Live Stats
• Twitter Search: 2.1 Billion – dlvr.it blog
• Pinterest Search: 2 Billion – Pinterest blog
• Facebook Search: 2 Billion – TechCrunch

Why is Facebook boosting search?

The main reason why Facebook is so focused on expanding search is that it hopes to increase ad revenue.

Although Facebook makes a ton of income on ads already – nearly 6 Billion in Quarter 1 of 2016 alone, they have said they are running out of ad space.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, is hinting at a future search monetization strategy, saying:

There’s a reasonable amount of behavior in there (Facebook search) which is looking for things that, over time, could be monetizable or commercial intent.

Obviously, Google has proven there is money to be made with search. The question for Facebook is whether or not they can create a viable monetization strategy around real-time conversation content in their search index.

Facebook Search: Find the People and Posts that Matter to You Most

People on Facebook are attempting to find what their friends are up to.

Twitter search has been the go-to-place for information on live events and breaking news – similar information that Facebook is now surfacing.

Facebook’s renewed focus on search means trouble for Twitter.

Although queries for “dentist” or “burrito” could surface recommendations from friends that compete with Google results, Facebook search wants to become the place for you to find all types of public conversational content.

You can search by:

• People
• Posts
• Photos
• Videos
• Places
• Pages
• Groups
• Apps
• Events

You can also search by likes, interests, times and other categories.

How does Facebook Mobile play into Facebook Search?

Consider this fact, 54.2 percent of Facebook’s 1.6 Billion active users use Facebook mobile. Facebook has made trillions of posts available on the Facebook mobile app.

• So, next time you are interested in where your friends are or looking for a ‘fun restaurant’, you can surface this information at the very moment you are hungry and looking for a place to grab a bite with friends.

• And when you’re looking for friends in a particular geography, just search for “friends who live in” and include the name of the country, city or whatever geographic parameter makes sense for you.

Advantages of Facebook Search

1 – Facebook’s index of ‘conversational content’, including reviews, recommendations, likes, and visit data is a huge advantage over Google because the data can be leveraged to deliver more personalized results to the user based on what their friends liked or paid attention to.

2 – And Facebook didn’t just stop at building a keyword based search index. They realized that their audience’s time is shifting to mobile, messengers and chatbots.

• What this means for Facebook is a new approach to search that would make sense of the conversational content users were sharing.

3 – To take advantage of the major time and attention shift of its customers, Facebook needed a fresh take on combing through trillions of pieces of unstructured conversations. To this point, Facebook launched what they are calling DeepText artificial intelligence.

• The tool analyzes text continuously so that the social network can provide services and content that match up with what people are sharing or might need.

Techcrunch reports the first place Facebook will use DeepText is in Facebook Messenger and chat bots.

One of the first obvious applications for DeepText will start rolling on Messenger. When DeepText identifies a sentence it thinks means you need a ride, it will suggest you use Messenger transportation integrations with services like Uber and Lyft.

How do Facebook Lead Ads factor into Facebook Search?

Facebook is not only creating a new way to present compelling content to people promptly, but if monetization search is in the future, maybe Facebook Lead Ads give us a peek at how they plan to monetize it.

A Facebook Lead Ad looks like a traditional Facebook Ad, but—when a Facebook user clicks on one—it displays a form that is pre-populated with the user’s phone number, email address, and other information the user has already given to Facebook.

• This type of ad unit is perfect for mobile because it doesn’t force users to leave Facebook and travel to some unfriendly mobile landing page the advertiser created.

How to Rank Higher in Facebook Search: Five Optimization Tips

Facebook uses 44 ranking factors in its EdgeRank algorithm to determine what appears in user feeds. According to TechCrunch, there are approximately 200 factors that establish the order of the search results including:

• Like history
• Previous points of engagement
• Previous searches
• Geography of searcher

Similar to optimizing your website for search, there are a number of things you can optimize to improve your search presence within Facebook search.

How to optimize for Facebook Search?

1 – Post Timely Information

Past: In the past, to see your update, I had to be following you.

Present: Now (based on your privacy settings), when using Facebook search, I could surface your updates.

Facebook includes public posts into search results, so if you’re looking for information about a current event or trending topic, you’ll likely see results from people outside your network alongside posts from people you know.

PRO TIP: As a small business, you want your post settings to be public so potential customers outside your network can find you.

Facebook promises, “As you type, we’ll highlight things that are happening right now so you can follow popular stories as they unfold.”

• It’s important to keep in mind how fans use Facebook. For example, they want to be:
  • entertained
  • to find timely news
  • to find where their friends are
  • and where they visited
• Your Facebook updates should mirror this information.

According to a study from TrackMaven, posts with 80+ words garner 2x’s as much engagement.

Facebook users are willing to read! Also, this gives you more opportunity to include relevant keywords in your updates.

2 – Include Photos and Videos

When you search on Facebook, you can view the results in four different categories: Top, Latest, People, and Photos. What this means, to get noticed, is that a compelling photo increases the likelihood.

And don’t forget about video posts on Facebook. Video posts have 135% greater organic reach than photo posts.

3 – Optimize Your Facebook Page

Your Facebook page is probably not going to turn up in the search results, but it is a good practice to keep your page in order because when you do surface in a search query, and that user clicks to your posts, you want to make a great first impression.

Read the following for more Facebook optimization tips:

• Facebook Cover Photo tips: Include the right size for mobile.

• Facebook bio examples: Create a keyword rich Facebook bio.

• Call-to-action: Make it easy for visitors to get to your site or add their email.

4 – Participate in Popular Conversations

“When a link gets shared widely on Facebook, it often anchors an interesting public conversation,” Facebook said. One click will display the most popular public posts connected to a specific link, therefore allowing users to jump into the conversations on those posts.

• The more actively you participate in discussions related to your niche the better the opportunity you will surface in the search results.

5 – Use Facebook Instant Articles

Facebook’s goal is “… to connect people (quickly) to the stories, posts, videos or photos that matter most to them.”

What’s more, is that 50% of their users access Facebook mobile so it only makes sense that Instant Articles has the potential to be a ranking factor.

Instant Articles allows any… “publisher to tell great stories, that load quickly, to people all over the world,” according to Facebook.

Facebook wants to keep users on their platform and will likely give preference to businesses who use Instant Articles.

___

It’s Your Turn

What’s your experience with Facebook Search?

Have you discovered other ranking factors?

We’d love to hear from you.

The post 5 of the Best Facebook Search Tips That Will Help More Customers Find You appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

Here are a couple of personal examples:

• I had an issue with my garage door – when I would open the door, the sunlight would hit the safety sensor, and the door would not close. I searched YouTube for a video on how to fix it. Using just an empty toilet paper roll, duct tape, and scissors, here is the simple fix I followed on YouTube:

• My son wanted to put in a batting cage in our backyard. I searched YouTube for instructions on how to level the ground and create the framework. (Finishing the project is still on my “to-do” list but thanks to YouTube, I know how to build it!)

• Not so surprising: My kids prefer watching YouTube vs. turning on the TV for their entertainment source. Just found them watching this Crazy Plastic Ball PRANK!!

So, how can your business capitalize on the uber popularity of YouTube?

As with Google SEO, there are some best practices to follow to ensure higher ranking videos in YouTube search. If you use the proper optimization techniques, your videos will not only rank high in YouTube but other search engines as well.

Like Google, YouTube has a sophisticated search algorithm. I scoured the Web to find only the best YouTube search optimization tips. Here are nine of the best tips I found:

How to Rank Higher in YouTube Search

1.) Understand What’s Already Working

Search to see what others have done. There are lots of YouTube search filters to play with. “Sort by upload date” to see most recent videos. Sorting by rating is another very useful option because it gives you more insight into what people seem to react to more positively. Also, play with searching for channels and playlists to find more competitors.

Source: Ann Smarty, ReelSeo

2.) Choose the Right Keywords

Your goal is to find keywords that have YouTube results on the first page of Google. These are called, “Video Keywords”. Unlike a typical SERP with ten webpage results, with video keywords, Google reserves a good chunk of the first page for video results.

If you optimize for video keywords, you’ll also get targeted traffic to your video directly from Google’s first page.

Source: Brian Dean, Backlinko

3.) Pick the Perfect Name and Description

When naming your video, use long-tail keywords that describe what your video is about. A title like “How to Build Your WordPress Blog For Beginners – WordPress Tutorial” incorporates several applicable keywords, such as “WordPress Blog” and “WordPress Tutorial.” A title like this is more likely to be ranked for this particular topic than something along the lines of “Build Your Blog From Scratch.”

Source: Ian Clearly, RazorSocial

4.) Create a Vanity URL 

One important, yet often overlooked aspect of building your YouTube presence is the vanity URL. A vanity URL is simply a custom, easy-to-remember URL that allows users and customers to find your channel with little effort.

Source: Samuel Edwards, Entrepreneur

5.) Optimize the Header Image

Optimize the image you use for the channel header. It’s as simple as choosing a jpeg file and editing the actual file’s title, description, and author properties. Include keywords where they make sense, just like you would use in a web page’s title tag and meta description.

Source: Albert Costill, Search Engine Journal

6.) Annotate Videos

YouTube describes watch time as one the most important metrics for measuring the success of channels and videos. The more successful the video and channel, the higher ranking. One of the most powerful ways to increase your watch time is to annotate videos.

Source:  Amir Jaffari, Moz

7.) Use Keyword Focused Titles for your Playlists

YouTube’s search algorithm takes into account many factors to determine what videos show up for what keywords. Keep this in mind when naming your playlists because it’s one of the factors YouTube takes into account to determine the subject matter of a video. Keep the title short, descriptive and use YouTube’s Keyword Suggestion Tool as a reference for finding keywords with a substantial global monthly search volume.

Source: Brian Honigman, Kissmetrics

8.) Add a Clear Call-to-Action

We’ve talked about the importance of watch time above. To keep your audience watching your videos and/or subscribing, have a clear and specific call to action, like:

• subscribe
• comment
• like
• watch another video
• visit your website

Not only is it important to include a call-to-action in the video itself, but it’s also a good idea to have a call to action in your video description. Provide a link to subscribe, if that’s your focus, or a link to your email newsletter, or any other prompt you would like viewers to do.

Source: Sandrine Sahakians, Buffer

9.) Share Videos Across Social Media

Google wants signals (including links) from websites that real people use. So it’s looking for action from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. For your videos and links to rank and look relevant in YouTube’s algorithm, share them across social media. This FREE YouTube converter is a perfect hack to share your videos across social media – instantly.

Source: Bill Flitter, dlvr.it

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These are some of the best tips I found. I would love to hear your thoughts? Have a few YouTube Search tips to share? Add them in the comments.

For more YouTube tips, continue reading: How to Win Big on YouTube This Year

The post 9 of The Best YouTube Search Tips That Will Make You Rank Higher appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

A few weeks ago I was speaking with my in-laws about Instagram. I suggested they create an account for their Italian restaurant Lotsa Pasta in Danville, CA. I envisioned images of fresh baked garlic bread, golden pasta and decadent meatballs filling their Instagram account.

My old-school Italian father-in-law immediately responded with, “We don’t have time for that.”

Like any good son-in-law, I disagreed and assured him it doesn’t take much time.

Within the over 500 million Instagrammers — more than 300 million of whom use Instagram every single day, I’m sure there are a few many pasta lovers out there. And I guarantee you that out of the 95 million photos and videos shared per day; there are probably not enough pictures of superb meatballs – especially my father-in-laws (oh so good).

I insisted, “You need to share your meatballs around the world!”

Why? Instagram users are buyers.

Unlike Facebook users who report that their primary reason for using the channel is to connect with friends and family, Instagram users may have more of a shopping drive. Specifically, 70% of the 16,000 users in Iconosquare’s 2015 study (previously known as Statigram) reported that they have already looked for a brand on Instagram.

I laid out a simple local marketing strategy for my in-laws that included some of the following tips to get more followers on Instagram.

Each tip only takes a minute or less to do.

9 Ways to Get More Followers on Instagram

1.) Take Advantage of Hashtags

Hashtags are a great way to spread your brand and get more followers on Instagram. Instagrammers use hashtags to discover content they care about. They are keywords found within the body of text or added to the end of your status update with the ‘#’ symbol before the word.

Hashtags are to social as keywords are to search.

When you post a picture, include relevant hashtags that represent your brand and that are unique to the image/video you are uploading.

For example, an Italian Restaurant in Danville, CA might use the following hashtags.

1. #takeoutfood
2. #Italian
3. #Danville
4. #Pasta #meatballs
5. #lotsapasta

As you can see, they start very generic and get more specific to the restaurant.

Use Instagram search to find relevant and popular hashtags. For example, a quick search of #meatballs turns up related hashtags and displays the number of updates using that hashtag.

2.) Post at the Right Time

Unfortunately, the pronouncements as to the “best” time to post on Instagram are not based on science. Social media is always “on”. The key is to find the right balance for you, your audience, and your content.

For example, when is the best time to post for a local family restaurant?

Answer: Post when mom and dad are thinking about food during lunch time from 11 am – 1 pm and on their way home from work, 4 pm – 6 pm.

Best of the Best on Instagram

• Days to Post: Instagram engagement remains fairly consistent throughout the week with a slight spike on Mondays

• Time to Post on Instagram: 2 am and 5 pm

• Post Frequency: 5 times per day

• Engagement Fact: From The Huffington Post, posting at 5 pm is an especially good time to engage people who have hopped on Instagram at the end of the workday and are procrastinating before they leave for the evening.

3.) Cross Promote Instagram Content to Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Creating an Instagram RSS feed of your Instagram content provides flexibility to extend the reach of your images and video taken inside the app. This tutorial shows you how to create an Instagram RSS feed quickly and share it to 3rd party social networks.

With an Instagram RSS feed, you can get more followers on Instagram by exposing your content to your existing social audience.

1 – Display photos or videos on your blog. Check out these examples to help show your Instagram photos on your site:

• Instapress is a plugin for WordPress
• SnapWidget works on any website

2 – Share on social. Add your Instagram feed to dlvr.it and share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and more. Sharing on multiple socials will extend the reach of your images and generate free Instagram followers.

3 – Boost SEO. Create a Storify or RebelMouse page to make your photos and videos visible and searchable.

Bonus:
Create a visual newsletter using your new Instagram feed, dlvr.it and MailChimp.

4.) Create an Interesting Bio

Instagram can make your small business stand out in the crowd. The first step is to create good Instagram bios.

Instagram bios are one of the first things customers and Instagram users see. We all know the value of a good first impression. Instagram is no exception. It’s important to have good Instagram bios that draw in users and encourages them to follow you.

Crucial! Don’t forget to make sure you have your website in the URL link in the bio – this is the only place on Instagram where you can have an active hyperlink.

1. Username: Your Instagram username should resemble your business name as close as possible.
2. Bio: Keep your bio short and to the point. Most of all, keep it informative and fun.
3. Profile Image: For business accounts, it’s always best to use your company logo as the profile image.
4. URL: Don’t forget to put your business’s website or Facebook (or other social media) URL page link in the bio
5. Hashtag: Include a clever hashtag that makes sense for your business.

5. Search the Competition

This tip comes from Selfstartr.com. If you need a bit of inspiration or ideas on what to post to Instagram, see what your competitors are posting.

Here’s how:

1. Make a shortlist of your competition. For example, if you’re a restaurant, then your competition is the other restaurants in your area competing for hungry consumers.
2. Go to Instagram search and see what people are saying about your competition, what they are posting and what hashtags they are using. Also, look outside your local market for inspiration.
3. Make a note of what you like. After looking around at other restaurants you like, you can get a better idea of what is working for them and the type of look and feel you want to capture in your Instagram posts.

Spend a few minutes looking around. It will pay off in the end.

6. Use Filters

Using the right filter on your images is an important method to get more followers on Instagram. Instagram provides filters that allow you to add ‘special effects’ to your images.

Canva, a favorite online design tool explains:

“There are dozens [filters] to choose from, each brimming with possibility: With the swipe of your finger, you can boost contrast, inject vintage flavor, or simply enhance the overall effect. The bonus? Along with transforming an ordinary snapshot into a photographic work of art, applying a filter can increase the number of views and comments your post receives.”

Studies have shown that even though a No-Filter post is the most used, the Filters that get more likes and overall engagement are as follows:

• Mayfair
• Inkwell
• Amaro
• Walden
• Lo-Fi

If you are aiming to get more followers on Instagram, try a couple of these filters when you post a picture.

7.) Find and Follow Meatball Evangelists

Just like any social network, follow to be followed. But how do you find people to follow?

Again, use Instagram search.

Instagram provides details on how to find friends to follow or people you don’t know.

An alternative to Instagram search is Picodash. They provide a tool to search Instagram profiles, images, and hashtags.

In the case of Lotsa Pasta, you not only want to find meatball lovers in your local community but also people who love meatballs and talk about Italian food on a regular basis – no matter their location.

Jayson DeMers from AudienceBloom offers these tips to get more followers on Instagram.

1. Find people you already know: While logged in, go to your profile page and click in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Tap on ‘Find Friends’ to follow people on your Facebook friends list, contact list and suggested users list.
2. Search for people or companies you know using Instagram’s search bar.
3. Find people you might like to follow via Instagram’s Search and Explore feature. Click on the magnifying glass icon, and then scroll down to ‘Explore Posts’ or ‘Explore People’.
4. Follow influencers in your industry. A tool like Keyhole will allow you to search users and posts by hashtag, and sort the results based on the number of likes they have received.
5. Follow users who are following influencers in your industry.
6. Search for industry-related hashtags. This detailed search is perhaps the most efficient strategy for finding targeted users to follow in your niche.
7. Do a Google search for influential users in your industry (e.g., “social media” + Instagram).
8. Use a tool like Gramfeed to search Instagram for people, places and photos.

8.) Find Posts to Like

Getting more likes on social media makes you happier according to science. To get likes, you have to like. Likes are a way to tell Instagrammers you dig their work. It’s like paying a compliment. By boosting the number of likes you give, you will, in turn, get more likes.

Good Karma!

Use Instagram search to find relevant content to like. Also, look through your Instagram feed.

TIP: One of the best ways to get more followers on Instagram is to ask a question in your photo’s caption area.

9.) Measure Success

You want to spend time on activities that are fruitful and get more followers on Instagram. Here are some free Instagram tools that will help you do anything – from automated posting to tracking success.

But what does success on Instagram mean? What do you measure? According to Sprout Social, a social media monitoring company, there are four key metrics to track.

1. Comments received. This metric tells you how engaging your content is. TrackMaven found that brands average 18.54 likes per photo per 1,000 followers, but just 0.63 comments.
2. Engagement per follower. This metric tells you your engagement rate, relative to your audience size. When this metric is increasing, it shows that your followers are resonating with your content and that your page is a priority for them since they’re liking and commenting on multiple posts. If this number is low or shrinking, it means users are engaging with your content every once in a while but probably not checking your page regularly.
3. Followers gained. This metric tells you how much reach your posts have. When you look at this metric, measure it over a period of time. Tracking it day by day isn’t going to give you the information you need to make informed decisions.
4. Referral Traffic.  This metric tells you how much traffic your website is getting from Instagram. If you want to promote a new piece of content or a special on Instagram and be able to track the results, use UTM parameters.

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Get more followers on Instagram – continue reading more tips to grow Instagram followers including how to get FREE Instagram followers.

Share your success stories in the comments or contact us if you have a great tip or article to share – we’re happy to feature you on our blog.

The post 9 Easy Ways to Get More Followers on Instagram in a Hurry appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

Since social media is what we do around here – of course, I was intrigued!

About Yubl

The app launched in February 2016 and has continued to skyrocket in interest. See the Google Trends search results below:

Yubl could be the right product at the right time to take on Facebook by offering a fresh alternative. Yubl intends to be the destination for millennials who are defecting from “parent saturated” Facebook.

Consider these statistics:

• Between 2011 and 2014, over six million 13 – 24 year-olds left Facebook. (Of that, just over half are in the 17-24 range.)

• In a short period, Yubl has become the 4th ranked highest social networking app in the App Store – ahead of Skype and Pinterest. This rapid growth shows tremendous progress and potential for the newly released app.

It looks like it’s time to dig deeper into what is making Yubl so attractive to teens.

What is Yubl?

Yubl (pronounced Yubble) is a mobile-first social message app. If Instagram and Facebook Messenger had a child, it would be Yubl. Yubl’s mission is to become the “next-generation social networking and messaging platform.”

The video below provides a short introduction to what sets Yubl apart from other messaging apps:

Yubl has been built for today’s users and their needs — we’ve created something that encompasses everything people love about mobile technology and much more. It delivers a richer, more engaging, and hassle-free way to communicate by bringing users closer together with friends, interesting content, and their favorite brands and personalities. The only limit is their own imagination. – Yubl Founder, Gareth Evans

Yubl’s Goals

The team behind Yubl has ambitious goals that they are backing up with a very thought out product targeting younger, digital-savvy millennials where creativity and expression are cornerstones of social networking. Its unique features are separating it from other messaging apps like Facebook, Snapchat, and WhatsApp.

Yubl has three main ‘settings’ for conversations:

1. Private: one-on-one or invite-only group
2. Public: open forum across the entire social network (including brands and celebrities)
3. Explore: is for searching and finding other users such as brands and celebrities

You can connect with friends, brands, and celebrities using simple text-based messages or photos.

3 Unique Features

Yubl has three unique features that separate it from most messaging apps. They include interactive “buttons” that let users cast a vote, see a location or follow a link.

1. Blank canvas. It provides a blank canvas for users to create something entirely from scratch. Choose a background color, add photos and videos from your camera roll, move them around, graffiti over the top, change the fonts, plaster some stickers, etc.
2. Pinpoint and Whereabouts. Friends can press a button to post their location on a map that’s visible to everyone in the group. Similarly, you can place a pin on a map to show where to meet at a future time.
3. Interactive buttons (vote). Interactive buttons are used to solicit opinions from your friends — “What shirt should I buy?” “Pizza or burgers?” There are five interactive buttons available: Vote, Count, WebLink, Whereabouts, and Pinpoint.

What’s interesting to note, Yubl doesn’t assume the type of conversation you want to start.

You don’t start with a blank text box, a camera capture button or an uploading tool, but an entirely blank canvas for you to create something unique. You can just enter text, use a sticker in the app, upload a picture or video – wherever your imagination takes you.

For more details on how to use Yubl, they have an excellent YouTube channel with explainer videos.

Yubl for Business

Yubl was built specifically for generating responses from audiences. This design intention makes it an invaluable tool for social media marketers. It relies on real-time engagement, with users reacting to posts rapidly.

With Yubl, discussions take place within the post, not buried in the comments. You can interact with the content in a way that you can’t with other platforms. It’s a definite leap in the march towards more intuitive social marketing.

Centered Around Brands

Evans does not hide the fact that brands are the focus of Yubl’s business model. When asked about his five-year plan, Evan says, “We want to contribute to bringing people closer to each other through the digital space and build relationships between commerce and customers in a way that is constructive, rather than intrusive.”

Explore Feature

Yubl’s Explore feature gives us the closest hint as to how it will make money. They have partnered with some well-known companies, including Red Bull, Starbucks, and ASOS. These brands interact with users and publish content through the app.

The Explore feature keeps the branded content in a separate section until a user ‘opts-in’ to follow that brand. Using Instagram as an example, brands shouldn’t worry about whether users will follow. GlobalWebIndex found that 53 percent of Instagram users follow brands.

You can see in the image below, one possible way a brand can use the interactive buttons.

Brands can create interactive posts that allow followers to vote (and see the results) of their favorite products.

One particular feature, although small, that brands are praising is the ability to add a hyperlink in an update. This addition allows users to easily buy things they see on Yubl or interact with different properties of the brands. To date, on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, you cannot add links in posts without workarounds.

From Digiday: Adrian Lee, digital strategy and innovation director at agency Vizeum, thinks it’s an attractive prospect. “Anything that brands can do to remove those barriers that make users move through multiple different brand properties to get to an e-commerce piece will drive sales,” he said.

API Functionality, SoundCloud and StubHub Integration

• Yubl is working on bringing API functionality to the platform according to Alphr. This feature means that soon you’ll be able to drop YouTube videos into your Yubl’s, allowing you to resize, rotate and layer up YouTube content just like you can do with anything else in Yubl.

• Also, Yubl is adding SoundCloud integration. This feature will allow a verified musician to share their latest track with followers directly within the app.

Furthermore, a StubHub integration lets users buy tickets without leaving Yubl. You can see with the combination of voting (“Taylor Swift concert anyone” ) and pinpoint features (the show concert location), integrations with companies like StubHub make the platform extremely beneficial and powerful to both users and brands.

The best advice for social media marketers to be successful on Yubl

1 – Create fun and compelling content designed to entertain and to make audiences feel a part of something. If you are a light-hearted fun B2C brand, you are likely to have early success.

2 – Understand the target audience of the app. According to Yubl press releases, the app targets the 18-24 age group.

3 – Use the Explore feature to follow brands or celebrities.  Learn how to use the platform before jumping in.

Here are three use cases:

1 – Create unique mobile-friendly content that allows a user to vote on products, new inventory, colors or styles before ordering new stock. Gain feature feedback quickly. Make users feel a part of the process.

2 – Take simple polls asking for opinions.

3 – Set-up meet-ups. If you have a physical store, create a special event or hold a sale at your store. Get early feedback on who might attend. Yubl’s Pinpoint feature enables this type of interactivity.

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In Conclusion

To be successful in a crowded world of messaging apps, Yubl needs to get the message and the features right. The Buttons feel like they could be the way to grab attention. If advertisers, influencers and content creators don’t grasp the platform, it’s not going to be somewhere people want to spend time.

Ultimately, users will decide.

Happy Yubling!

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The post Yubl, Fast Growing Social Media App That Will Make You Drop Facebook appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

Tracking followers who unfollow you may be just as important as those who follow you. Most social media analytics provided by various social networks do not provide this data. Thankfully for us, developers also asked the question “who unfollowed me” and created tools to track it.

I don’t think you should obsess over this, but it is a nice to have an insight into this data especially if your unfollow account is increasing at a high rate. At that point, it’s time to look at your social media strategy and identify the main reason(s) for your high unfollow rate.

3 Reasons Followers Unfollow

Reason #1. You take too long to respond

When purchasing online, 71% of visitors expect help within five minutes, while 31% expect this help to be immediate. What’s more important, nearly half of consumers will go elsewhere if you can’t meet their expectations.

Social media plays a huge role in the purchase decision. For example, according to a survey by the social media advocacy company Social Media Link, 71% of people trust Facebook for product and service recommendations. It’s more important now than ever to stay on top of responding to customers when they have questions (or complaints).

Reason #2. Your content is boring

Let’s be honest, as a brand, you are at a disadvantage when competing for consumer mindshare in their social media stream. Friends and family take preference.

According to BuzzStream, when asked why they unfollow brands; consumers stated that the number one reason is that the content is repetitive and boring. Don’t give up. It just means you have to be more creative with your content.

Reason #3. You post too frequently

No one said social media is easy. It’s a balance of many things including the right content at the right frequency. According to BuzzStream, 20% of consumers said they would unfollow a brand that posts more than six times per day. Additionally, you want to avoid clumping – sending your posts out all at once.

Personally, I am of the opinion that posting once per day is too infrequent especially on Twitter’s fast moving stream. Plus, if you have international reach, you have a greater chance of missing those followers if you post only during your work hours. On the other hand, posting more than twice per day on Facebook could have an adverse impact.

7 Tools to Track Who Unfollowed Me On…

Who Unfollowed Me On Instagram

1 – Crowdfireapp

Crowdfire is one tool that will help you see who unfollowed you on Instagram. They do offer more than just unfollow stats. However, one of their more popular features is tracking recent unfollowers.

From the Crowdfire website:

Recent Unfollowers and Inactive following: These tell you who unfollowed you and users who are inactive (features that Twitter and Instagram do not inherently have).

Who Unfriended Me On Facebook

2 – SadlyUnfriended 

It is sad when you lose a friend. Unfortunately on Facebook, unfriending is a just a click away. Use SadlyUnfriended to track those friends who no longer want to be connected.

From SadlyUnfriended website:

SadlyUnfriended is a simple to use application that connects with your Facebook account. When your Facebook friends list change, whether being someone unfriends you, or you make a new friend, we will show you. It’s as simple as that.

Who Unfollowed Me On Twitter

3 – unfollowgram

One of the most popular tools to track unfollowers on Twitter is unfollowgram. With unfollowgram you can check who:

• Unfollowed you on Twitter
• Doesn’t follow you back
• You don’t follow back
• Manage followers/following

FYI: unfollowgram used to offer this same service for Instagram. It was quite popular, but because of recent changes to the Instagram API, they no longer offer it for Instagram.

Who Blocked Me On Snapchat

Tracking blocks or unfollowers on Snapchat is a bit more of a process. The number one answer on Quora to the question, “How do I know if someone deleted me from Snapchat?” is from Josh Lim, a serial Snapchat user.

“Once you’re blocked, that person will no longer show up on your friend’s list, he/she will no longer appear in your inbox, and his/her Story will no longer be visible to you. When you search for that person, he/she won’t appear in the search. It’s as if they’ve disappeared.”

Who Unfollowed Me On Tumblr

4 – Stalkr

Catch those who unfollow you on Tumblr with Stalkr. Like the name implies, Stalker tracks who unfollows you and doesn’t follow you back.

From the Stalkr website:

Finding out who unfollowed you on Tumblr couldn’t be easier. We store a list of all your followers so that you can track who unfollowed you on every scan. We keep a record of your unfollowers under your account history. All your unfollowers, in one place. Simple.

Who Unfollowed Me On Pinterest

5 & 6 – SnapChum and Followers

It can be hard not to take it personally, but getting unfollowed on Pinterest is bound to happen. If you asked yourself who unfollowed you on Pinterest, turn to SnapChum and Followers. Both are free apps to track unfollowers.

Like many of the tools on this page, both free apps do a lot more than track unfollows but the more sought after feature is to find out who unfollowed me.

Who Unfollowed Me On Google+

7 – Circloscope

Circloscope is a Chrome extension that provides an easy way for you to manage your Google+ account. Martin Shervington the author of The Art and Science of Google+ and a marketing consultant, highly recommends Cirloscope.

All in all, Circloscope is an essential circle management system for your Google+ toolkit. I don’t know how I would manage my profile or pages without it.

Circloscope is a premium app that requires a small monthly fee.

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If you notice your “unfollows” rate increasing, you may be interested in learning about the most common reasons people unfollow and how to be friends again.

Know of any other tools to track who unfollowed me on social media? Please share in the comments.

The post How to Track Who Unfollowed Me Across All Social Media appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

First, the stats:

5 Snapchat Statistics that Prove the Power of Snapchat

The growth and dominance of Snapchat might just prove it is the latest social network that you should start paying attention to.

Stat #1: More well known than Pinterest or LinkedIn

More Americans are familiar with Snapchat than with Pinterest or LinkedIn. In the past twelve months, awareness of Snapchat among Americans ages 12 and older, grew from 60% to 71%.

Stat #2: More users than Twitter or Pinterest or LinkedIn

Hard to believe since all three platforms have been around much longer.

Stat #3: Grew as much in one year as Twitter has in four years combined

• In 2013, 15% of Americans said they used Twitter. By 2016, 21% of the country claimed Twitter usage – a 6% growth rate in three years.
• Between 2015 and 2016, Snapchat user growth went from 17% to 23% – a 6% growth rate in just one year!

Stat #4: Second-favorite social network

Not quite the same as Facebook’s massive 65% usage, however, the Snapchat app is second most often used platform in social networking. Instagram is third.

State #5: Incredibly popular among young Americans

Facebook and Facebook Messenger remain the most popular social platform among Americans 12–24 years old, with 32% saying they use Facebook most. Snapchat is second with 26%, far outpacing Instagram at 17%.

Source: Edison Research

Snapchat Hack Fit for Business

Snapchat is starting to look like a marketing channel with a large number of users, most of whom are engaged and willing to give you at least ten seconds of their time to view your promotions and buy from you. There are many ways you can use Snapchat to grow your business. The trick is to find the right Snapchat hack that gives you the most hope and inspiration. Each Snapchat hack below provides some guidance as to what is possible.

Here are 13 of the best growth-focused Snapchat hacks to help you grow on Snapchat:

1.) Simple Snapchat Hack to Grow Followers 

Are you noticing the Snapchat logo taking over Twitter? There’s a reason. It’s a simple Snapchat hack. Snapchat users can quickly add friends by taking a snap of the Snapchat ghost (a.k.a Snapcode). It’s no longer necessary to remember the spelling of Snapchat usernames or have someone’s phone number – snap their Snapcode to add them to your friend list.

Savvy Snapchat users realized that the quickest way to grow their Snapchat following would be to share their Snapcode on other social networks with a simple message “Add me on Snapchat.”

Here are three variations of incorporating Snapcode in Tweets:

a.) Snapcode as a Tweet image

b.) Snapcode embedded in a status update image

c.) Snapcode as a profile image (although Twitter is now cracking down on this)

2.) Generate Repeat Business

16 Handles, a frozen yogurt brand, asked customers to take pictures while eating frozen yogurt and send it to the company’s Snapchat account. In return, participants received a discount for their next purchase.

In one day, 1,400 snaps were exchanged between 16 Handles and their Snapchat followers. Followers got discounts on frozen yogurt, and 16 Handles found a way to generate repeat business.

3.) Cross-promote Specials

NARS, a cosmetics retailer, promoted a special Snapchat viewing to their large Twitter and Instagram following. This promotion resulted in new followers on their Snapchat account from people who were curious about the special announcement.

At exactly 12 P.M. EST, NARS sent out a 3-second video snap to all their new friends.

4.) Leverage Influencers

Wet Seal, a teen clothing retailer, enlisted the help of a 16-year old to help them grow their Snapchat followers. Who knows better than a 16-year-old in growing Snapchat usage!

The teen, who went by the name of MissMeghanMakeup, had over 200,000 YouTube subscribers, 49,000 Twitter followers, and 101,000 Instagram followers. Meghan took over Wet Seal’s account for two days and documented her life using Snapchat’s story feature. (Stories are snaps that can be tied together and last for 24-hours.)

At the end of the two days, Meghan had added 9,000 new followers to the account.

5.) Match and Mirror

The chameleon effect also called unintentional mirroring, is hardwired into the brain. The chameleon effect refers to our unconscious matching of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of our social environment. It has evolved as a way to help us get along with others.

Snapchat is the perfect platform for implementing the matching and mirroring strategy.

This hack comes Tom Ordonez:

Do this exercise. Follow people on Snapchat. Follow their stories. Match and mirror their behavior. Send them a few snaps. Use this strategy and it will change the way you build connections.

6.) Offer Contests and Promotions

You can’t talk about growth hacks on new social media platforms without including contests and promotions. It is a no brainer. Think of ways you can keep your followers coming back.

• From Social Media Examiner: Offer promo codes or discounts to the fans who watch your entire Snapchat story, or ask them to take a snap while holding your product (See #2 above).

• GrubHub, for example, was the first brand to execute a Snapchat scavenger hunt. During a five-day campaign, they asked their followers to post a daily snap, whether it was a food selfie or a food doodle.

7.) Create Exclusive Content

Show off your company and make sure to highlight your culture (be authentic).

Fashion brand and startup Everlane excels at this, pulling back the curtain to educate customers while producing enticing content. They use Snapchat stories to highlight tours of offices, happy hours and manufacturing warehouses.

8.) Create a Story

Use Snapchat Stories feature to compile short videos. This feature allows Snapchat users the option to piece together pictures and videos taken throughout the day into a slideshow.

• McDonalds used the feature to advertise its new Bacon Clubhouse Sandwich. The video featured NBA star LeBron James. McDonalds added bits and pieces of video and imagery to the story throughout the day.

You don’t need LeBron or Stephen Curry to pull this strategy off. Just some creativity.

9.) Create a Geofilter

This hack is one of my favorites. It shows Snapchat can work with any budget for any company or in this case, city.

This Snapchat hack comes from Roy Harmon. I encourage you to read the entire process Roy used. He used Snapchat Geofilters. Geofilters are location-based graphics that you can place over your photo. They are a fun way to spice up your pictures and let your friends know your exact snapping location. You can create and submit a Geofilter for your business like Roy did.

If someone takes a snap in the geo area you submitted, your overlay may appear on their snap. This overlay is a paid feature of Snapchat.

 I targeted two areas in Downtown Greenville to test Snapchat’s viability in a smaller town. 

I ran two geofilters, one in the afternoon in Falls Park during an event (the Duck Derby), and one that night on Main St.

Overall, I’m happy with the results. For $51.64, my filters were visible for 11 hours. They were seen 6,977 times and used 159 times. That’s less than a penny per view and about $0.33 a use.

 10.) Target Snapchat Users

1. Access your permissions settings in the Snapchat app. Find the setting for ‘Who Can View‘ your snaps and stories.
2. Change ‘Everyone’ to a select group of friends or followers. Erik suggests to keep it manageable – under 100 people.
3. Manually add each Snapchat username to the targeted group, either by typing in usernames or using the ‘Added me’ feature.
4. Return to the ‘Who Can View / My Story’ settings and change the value to ‘My Friends’.

   You now have developed a powerful targeting and segmentation tool and can direct what group sees your snaps. In the example below, you can see exclusive content only reaches the target list

11.) Buy Snapchat Followers

Chris explains how to buy legitimate Snapchat followers using Facebook and Twitter advertising.

12.) Share Snaps

Show off your Snapchat pictures and videos on Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and Google+. This hack requires 3rd-party tools to archive your snaps and share them elsewhere.

13.) Email Snaps

Add your Snapcode to your email signature. You first need to download your Snapcode. The video shows you how to get your Snapcode from the Snapchat app. Once you have your Snapcode, add it your email signature.

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Hopefully, these thirteen Snapchat hacks de-mystify the marketing possibilities on Snapchat.

Have a Snapchat hack to share?

We’d love to hear them. Please add them in the comments.

The post What’s the Right Snapchat Hack That Will Grow Your Business appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

Revenue Potential of Ranking High in LinkedIn Search

Social media, especially online professional networks (e.g., LinkedIn), play a vital role for senior executives making company purchase decision at B2B companies according to IDC.

• 84%, of C-level and VP-level buyers, use social media for purchasing
• 75% of B2B buyers consult social media when making purchasing decisions
• 63% of C-level/VP-level buyers have used online professional networks for purchase support in the past 12 months

Furthermore, IDC found that 50% of the purchase process is complete before a salesperson becomes involved. That means buyers are spending time up front doing research on LinkedIn. According to LinkedIn, half of all their users are likely to buy from a company they engage with on the platform.

That means a few things for you:

1. It’s important to find your business through LinkedIn Search
2. It’s important to have a cohesive presence across the entire LinkedIn Platform  (Profiles, Company Pages, Groups, etc.)
3. It’s as important to approach LinkedIn similar to as you would SEO

Steve Degener, a small business B2B online trainer in the retail sector, knows the importance of being found in LinkedIn Search.

LinkedIn continues to be a very important communication tool for our business. We use it to connect with industry peers and drive interest to our online courses for Loss Prevention and Human Resources. We rate the site as our top communication channel for the Loss Prevention Academy and WZ Academy.

LinkedIn Search Optimization Tips

Just like with search engine optimization, there are certain ranking factors to consider when building out your LinkedIn Profile. These tips apply whether you are a seller, hiring manager or applicant.

A ‘buyer’s’ journey begins with the LinkedIn Search or LinkedIn Advanced Search box that appears at the top of a profile page. When you drop down the menu to the left of the box, you can choose to refine the search by only searching within those LinkedIn services.

We’ll explore how to optimize the four key areas that can impact your ranking potential.

The four areas to optimize to outrank the competition:

1. People (LinkedIn Profiles)
2. Companies (LinkedIn Company Pages)
3. Posts (LinkedIn Publishing)
4. Groups (LinkedIn Groups)

Linkedin Profile Tips

Prospects, customers, vendors, and clients research you before they do business with you. Take the time to control what they discover about you and your brand. Make your LinkedIn profile your best personal branding tool. It starts with the headline.

Before you get started, create a list of relevant keywords you want your company associated with. The secret for increasing traffic to your LinkedIn Profile is to apply effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. The keywords should be relevant and intuitive. Meaning, what search terms will a prospect use to find you on LinkedIn?

1.) Create a headline that gets noticed

The typical profile headline reads like mine (did) – job title followed by company name.

In my opinion, that is not very compelling. Think of how your profile will appear in LinkedIn search results. You want to stand out.

When crafting your headline, think benefits vs. features.

a. Write a headline that includes a value proposition. Answer the question from the perspective of the person who is viewing your profile – What’s in it for me?
b. Use power words and dynamic language.
c. Include keyword(s) that will help people find you. In my case, ‘social media’.
d. Treat it like a conversation starter. Show your personality (but don’t overdo it).

2.) Add a professional looking headshot

Let’s get real for a second. Does your profile still look like you? Is it professional?

Use a current professional profile picture. LinkedIn is not the place to use a casual snapshot. Profiles with a photo receive a 40% InMail response rate. Your LinkedIn profile has 11x more chances to get viewed if you add your picture.

Read this excellent study, my colleague, Debra put together on creating perfect profile pictures – filled with tips backed by research.

3.) Customize your public LinkedIn profile URL

LinkedIn assigns a profile URL that is not very pretty. It’s full of numbers and letters. You can create your own customized LinkedIn profile URL. The structure is https://www.linkedin.com/in/CUSTOMNAME. For example, mine is https://www.linkedin.com/in/billflitter

a. ) A friendly URL makes it easy to share in an email signature, on your business card and any branding material
b.) It is more memorable
c.) If someone is searching on Google to find you, your LinkedIn profile will have a better chance of appearing in the search results

To create a customer profile URL, follow the instructions from LinkedIn.

4.) Use keyword anchor text

You can enter up to 3 websites in your contact information section.

1. Click the pen icon to edit your Websites
2. Select ‘Other:’ from the drop down menu
3. Use attention grabbing keyword rich anchor text for your URLs. You can up to 30 characters.

Entering relevant anchor text helps with crawling your LinkedIn profile (within LinkedIn). It also lets people know what your link is about. However, keep in mind that it DOES NOT pass along any link juice. Don’t count on these for valuable backlinks.

5.) Optimize the LinkedIn Summary and Job Descriptions

Think of the profile summary as “Cliff Notes”. Use blog like tricks to encourage scanning and brevity in the summary and job descriptions. Personal branding expert, William Arruda explains, “The summary receives the most prominent position on the screen in LinkedIn, so it’s the ultimate place to tell your story.”

• Make the information accurate and easily scanned
• Include relevant keywords
• Cut out the fluff
• Make succinct short paragraphs of 3-5 sentences
• Use lists and bullet points
• Include common misspellings of your name. AKA/Common Misspellings: Will Flitter, William Flitter

Examples of a LinkedIn Summary

Below are few examples of summaries from people spanning a few types of industries that follow the above tips.

Example #1:

Example #2:

Example #3:

Example #4:

6.) Be accepting

The LinkedIn search algorithm relies heavily on your network. The search results favor people you’re connected to (1st connections) and people they are connected to (2nd connections). The more people connected to you, the more likely you will show higher when someone is searching for what you offer.

Pro tip: Accept invitations from everyone – within reason.

Tips to Optimize LinkedIn Company Pages

Google loves LinkedIn company pages and frequently ranks them high in search results. With that said, your Company Page needs to be properly optimized. Similar as with SEO for Google, LinkedIn search rankings depend on:

• Authentic and high-quality content
• Keywords
• Authority (engagement from audience)

1 – Share quality content frequently

As with all search engines and social networks, content is their fuel. LinkedIn is no different. BrightEdge conducted a broad analysis of the Top 100 brands on LinkedIn. They uncovered that 50% of the top 10 brands by recommendations also appear in the top 10 by # of monthly updates.

Conclusion: With 5.7 billion professional oriented searches performed last year, it is important to approach LinkedIn from a search perspective – the same as you do Google. Share high-quality content that includes keywords on your LinkedIn company page.

2 – Create targeted content

The goal here is to increase engagement. LinkedIn takes engagement of your company page into consideration when deciding where you rank in searches on their site. Linkedin provides tools that allow you to create targeted variations of Company Page updates — you can target based on company size, job function, industry, seniority, geography, and language.

Take advantage of adding Showcase Pages to your LinkedIn Company Page. Showcase pages are an extension of your LinkedIn Company Page and allow you to highlight a particular service offering or brand. Showcase pages are another place for your targeted keywords.

Conclusion: Think of this as landing page optimization. Don’t take a one sized fits all approach to your company page. Invest the time to share targeted content to your different customer types. Create Showcase page for each product or service offering.

3 – Encourage your employees to be active

Have your employees associate your company with their profile and share relevant company updates in their personal feed. Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn is 100% business focused so sharing a company update is entirely appropriate. What’s the impact on your company page?

BrightEdge found companies that have a greater proportion of their employees on LinkedIn had more followers on their company pages. In fact, nine out of the top ten brands with the most followers on LinkedIn, have at least 60% of their employees on LinkedIn.

Conclusion: Active employees equal more LinkedIn company page followers. The more company page followers, the higher ranking in LinkedIn search results. Plus the more reach and potential interaction with your content. Remember from tip #2 above; engagement correlates into higher rankings.

Along those same lines, learn how your employees can establish a drip marketing campaign in their personal LinkedIn feed.

Tips to Optimize LinkedIn Pulse

LinkedIn Pulse allows you to write long form posts on LinkedIn. In other words, it’s a blogging platform integrated within LinkedIn. One of the biggest benefits of LinkedIn Pulse is its built-in audience of over 200 million people.

There are not too many secrets to reveal that you don’t know already if you are optimizing your blog for SEO and engagement. Take the same approach with Linkedin Pulse. It is another place to distribute your existing content.

Prospects can find you based on what you publish on LinkedIn. 

Authors and readers are Pulse’s primary beneficiaries, according to Akshay Kothari, Pulse co-founder and LinkedIn’s product lead for content. “As an author, you have this amazing potential to reach millions of people [who are] really interested in what you’ve written about,” he says. “It really goes beyond a few hundred or thousand connections you have.”

As you can see from the image below, it looks much like the editor in WordPress.

LinkedIn offers several tips on the type of content that gets the most engagement.

Not surprising, engagement is essential to boost search rankings within LinkedIn.

• What concrete advice would you give to someone hoping to enter your field?
• What will (or should) your industry look like in 5, 10, or 15 years and how will it get there?
• What is the biggest problem your industry needs to solve?
• What skill is essential in your job or at your company, and why?
• How has your job, profession or industry changed since you started?
• What else would you do if you started all over again and why?
• How did you get your start in your profession?
• Advice for career advancement.
• Challenges for the future of your profession.

Furthermore, pay attention to the details:

1. Write compelling headlines
2. Add compelling visuals
3. Post at the right time

One of the more important aspects of Pulse is anyone can follow your posts – even if not connected to you. 

Tips to Optimize LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups are a powerful way to establish credibility in your niche.

The Content Marketing Institute shares the benefits of LinkedIn Groups:

• You’ll find more qualified leads within targeted groups without having to pay for them.
• Sharing relevant and useful posts helps you build credibility for your content creators, your brand, and your content.
• You are tapping into a community that can give you feedback on topics and ideas you’re developing.
• Groups also provide opportunities to help solve problems for others or to share useful insights.

It’s a no-brainer to join existing groups in your area. However, have you considered creating your own LinkedIn Group? People want to do business with experts in their fields. Plus your profile is highlighted in your group page. If your prospects find your group, this is a significant advantage.

5 LinkedIn Group Tips:

1. Plan. Create a plan for the group. What is your group’s mission? It’s easy for the group to lose focus without a plan.
2. Focus. There are over 2 Million groups. To stand-out, create a group with a tightly focused niche audience. It’s about reaching the right audience – not just have the largest groups. For example, if you are an SEO company, maybe you start a group for a specific customer persona or category – SEO for Law Firms, for example.
3. Invite. Use LinkedIn Search to find the exact target customer that might be interested in your group and invite them to your group. This invite allows you to get in front of a prospect without trying to sell them something. Boost their ego. Tell them you would love for them to offer their expertise in the group. Start building your relationship from there. Way the pros and cons of an invite only group. If it makes sense, don’t let anyone in that doesn’t fit the group’s focus.
4. Engage. Add engaging content that starts a conversation. You want your group to be active.
5. Optimize. Create a compelling title and description for your group that filled with your keywords.

Bonus Tip:

Search other groups to see questions and content your prospects are posting. Assuming you already posted a reply on the group, email content relevant to their question and conversation.

LinkedIn Search Tips Summary

LinkedIn is a robust platform that provides useful tools for marketers. There are plenty of ways to communicate to your target audience and establish credibility – Profile updates, LinkedIn Company and Showcase Pages, Pulse, and Groups. My advice is to participate in all of them to have complete coverage. It does take work to cultivate relationships on LinkedIn. However, if you are reaching a B2B audience, it is well worth the time.

1. Complete Profile: Take the time to control what they discover about you and your brand.
2. Revise Company Page: Pack the first 156 characters of your description with keyword-rich sentences.
3. Schedule Content: LinkedIn shows the busiest time on LinkedIn is mornings and midday, Monday through Friday.
4. Post Often: 20 posts per month can help you reach 60 percent of your unique audience
5. Optimize Profile for LinkedIn Search: Add keywords and phrases that will help you get found in LinkedIn search
6. Reach the Right Audience: Go to your LinkedIn Company Page and click the “Analytics” tab. Here you can review best performing content, demographics and more.
7. Keep it Social: Start conversions with prospects. Comment on updates. Follow-up on conversations started.
8. Show off: Add your products and services as a showcase page on your company profile.
9. Participate in Groups: Join groups or start your own.

___

Have any LinkedIn search tips to share? We’d love your feedback. Please share in the comments.

The post 5 LinkedIn Search Tricks That Will Make You Stand Out appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

Messaging apps are a clear indication of the rapid emergence of different kinds of communication tools serving the next generation of online users. For us small business owners, they add to an already complex and varied landscape of marketing options. You might have just mastered SEO or optimized the best time to post on social media and now comes along this new ‘thing’ to figure out – sooner rather than later.

Facebook Messenger and the Rise of the Chatbot – Should You Care?

Inquiring minds want to know:

Is Facebook Messenger just a blip?

What about WhatsApp – is it a passing fancy?

And, then there is Slack. Is this just the latest marketing fad?

Self-destructing messages that made Snapchat big news are starting to become mainstream. Its user base has reportedly hit 100 million people.

Consider the numbers:

• Facebook Messenger has over 900 million monthly active users
• Over 1 billion messages are sent every month between people on Facebook Messenger and Businesses/Business Pages
• Facebook bought free texting app WhatsApp for $19 billion
• Over 2.5 billion people have at least one messaging app installed
• Within a couple of years, 3.6 billion people will have a messaging app installed
• 49% of smartphone owners ages 18 to 29 use messaging apps
• WhatsApp users average nearly 200 minutes each week using the service and sent more than 7 trillion messages in 2015
• According to market research company Flurry, free message apps like KakaoTalk, Viber, and WeChat—now boast an astonishing 3 billion combined users

If those numbers didn’t convince you that messaging apps are a big deal, the following chart should.

The combined user base of the top four chat apps is larger than the combined user base of the top four social networks.

Understanding Facebook Messenger

Facebook claims it has one-sixth of the planet in its user base, therefore, making it the largest single communications network in history.

The company is turning its mobile Messenger service into a platform that can host other apps within it (chatbots), thus making it unnecessary to click away.

To me, this seems very reminiscent to AOL but at a MUCH larger scale.

The Messenger app lets you:

1 – Reach friends wherever they are now

• Text your friends for free using your existing data plan
• Reach friends on their phones and the web, so they never miss your messages
• Know who reads your message, and who hasn’t

2 – Easily message friends or start a group conversation

• Share photos, videos, stickers and more
• Include friends of friends in conversations
• View your most important group conversations in one place

3 – Get right to your messages

• Access your messages and chats wherever you log into Facebook
• Get free push notifications on your phone or tablet, so you see each message as soon as it arrives
• Quickly switch between multiple conversations with in-app notifications

Facebook believes Messenger can become a primary channel for businesses to interact with their customers, consequently replacing 1-800 numbers with a mix of artificial intelligence and human intervention. It is encouraging developers to create chatbots on the Messenger platform.

Facebook chat may just be the next frontier in marketing. While I am not suggesting that you rush to the next cool hip thing, what I do encourage you to do is understand the shift that his happening in social media.

If you have not yet tried it yet, you can download Facebook Messenger here for:

• Windows
• Mac
• Mobile
• Andriod

Chatbots for Business

You can’t talk about messaging and free social apps without talking about chatbots. A chatbot is an example of smart automation. They ‘live’ inside the messaging apps and automate daily routines (i.e., ordering pizza, finding recipes, delivering news, 3D Printing).

A chatbot is a service, powered by rules that you interact with via a chat interface (Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Slack, iPhone (Siri), etc.). They have human characteristics and can have a conversation with a person. They use artificial intelligence to interpret the conversation from a real person.

ChatBots are happening because there is broad consumer fatigue with apps.

Today’s consumers are spending over 85 percent of their time on their smartphones using native applications, but the majority of their time – 84 percent – is spent using just five non-native apps they’ve installed from the App Store. – according to a Techcrunch report.

So, the general idea is not to create more apps but to build on top of the apps people are already using.

Siri, the iPhone assistant, might be the closest example of a chatbot you have used. You ask Siri a question, and it returns an answer. Chatbots on Slack or most messaging apps, work in a similar way.

Chat apps are the new browsers. Chatbots are the new websites.

One important question to ask is, are your customers ready to interact with chatbots?

According to new research, the answer is YES:

89% of customers would prefer to engage with AI-driven virtual assistants to speed up finding information from companies.

In today’s wave of self-service companies like Uber and Airbnb, shoppers want self-serve. Chatbots can make it easy for consumers to get answers and information on their own terms, and with tools, they are already using.

If you are considering a chatbot with Facebook, note they require the bot to respond within 24 hours of receiving users’ inquiries. They’ll also allow you to send promotional messages to push sales and the like—a reversal from previous rules.

For example:

Let’s look at a very simplistic example of how a chatbot could work.

You want to order the latest Stephen Curry basketball shoes at Zappos.

Today: You go to Zappos and scroll through layers of pages to find the shoes you want.

In the Future: You fire up the Zappos chatbot in Facebook Messenger and tell it exactly what you want. The conversation would mirror as if you were ordering the shoes over the phone.

Buying shoes are clearly not the only thing you can do with chatbots. Here are a couple of other examples from Matt Schlicht:

• Weather bot. Get the weather whenever you ask.
• Grocery bot. Help me pick out and order groceries for the week.
• News bot. Ask it to tell you whenever something interesting happens.
• Life-advice bot. I’ll tell it my problems, and it helps me think of solutions.
• Personal finance bot. It helps me manage my money better.
• Scheduling bot. Get me a meeting with someone on the Messenger team at Facebook.
• A bot that’s your friend. In China, there is a bot called Xiaoice (built by Microsoft) that has over 20 million people to talk to.

What else can chatbots do?

Here are a few more examples:

1 – According to 3dprintle co-founder Michael Golubev, his company’s chatbot has already generated an increase in orders.

We’ve seen over one hundred orders already just in that period of time, which is I think like 56 percent more conversion rate than we see from using the website.

2 – According to Wired, chatbots within WeChat enable its 600M monthly users to book taxis, check in for flights, play games, buy cinema tickets, manage banking, reserve doctors’ appointments, and even apply for mortgages, without leaving the app.

3 – A CNN chatbot sends news stories that became personalized over time.

4 – The 1-800-FLOWERS chatbot allows you to order flowers without calling the 1-800 number.

5 – Similar to Apple launching app stores, the largest messaging apps are launching their own chatbot stores for consumers to find the chatbots they need.

• Facebook
• Slack 
• Telegram
• Kik

Both Microsoft and Google are making a substantial bet on chatbots with the development of their own platforms. Slack created an $80 million fund to spur the development of chatbots that run inside the service.

The Challenge with Chatbots

To use a chatbot, you have to opt in. You have to initiate an action.

• The biggest challenge messaging apps present are the billions of conversations happening behind closed doors. We are moving from public social networks to private micro-networks.

These conversations used to take place in public on Twitter and Facebook. We could quickly find potential customers through public profiles and understand their needs through the public conversations they had on social networks.

The transition from public to private conversations could be painful for internet marketers. However, private conversations always existed, and small businesses found a way to continue to reach their customers and prospects. The telephone is a great comparison to private instant messaging apps because just like a phone, you can have a conversation with one person or a small group.

Marketers, of course, realized the revenue potential of selling over the phone. The telephone gave birth to a new industry – telemarketing. Where the people are, the money will follow. Facebook is rumored to be adding ads in Messenger.

But what about scale? Is marketing scale dead and giving rise to one-to-one/few communication? How can small businesses keep up?

• Another challenge for marketers is they won’t have full control over the user experience. The messaging app controls that.

Furthermore, although the intelligence that powers the chatbot has come a long way, trying to be conversational and natural with chatbots are still generally limited in what they understand.

How to get started with Chatbots

It’s important to get your chatbot marketing strategy right. You want your chatbot to be useful and solve a problem. It is more important now than ever before, given the limited real-estate in chat apps and consumer’s short attention span.

Delivering a high-quality customer experience will require effort. There are plenty of companies who are eager to help put together a compelling chatbot customer experience for you.

BetterBrands: The London-based startup launched a chatbot marketing platform that helps business get their chatbots up and talking. Asaf Amir, the CEO, said a self-service platform will launch soon.

Pypestream: The 50-person firm makes automated messaging services for 3,500 clients ranging from utilities like Washington Gas to publishers like Billboard.

Swyft: To date, Swyft has worked with more than 300 popular global brands such as MillerCoors, Sony, Interscope Records and SEGA to create chatbot strategies. They help plan and execute.

Great services you can use to build your chatbot (from Matt Schlicht):

• wit.ai (bought by Facebook)
• howdy’s botkit (raised $1.5+ mil in funding)
• api.ai (raised $8.6+ mil in funding)
• textit.in
• Chatfuel (Ycombinator company)
• IBM’s Watson
• BeepBoopHQ
• Dexter (owned by Betaworks)
• converse.ai
• Gupshup
• Netomi
• Assi.st

On Quora, you can find an informative discussion including more links on how to make chatbots.

___

There is no doubt; Facebook Messenger is pushing for a chat app-centric web with chatbot doing the heavy lifting, and it’s not going unnoticed. Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon are taking notice. If Facebook is right, they will be on top of the mountain – soon.

What are your thoughts on a messenger centric web and chatbots?

Have you used a chatbot that impressed you?

What has your experience been?

The post Facebook Messenger and the Rise of the Bot – Should You Care? appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

Generally speaking, Twitter stats are a view of ‘what happened.’

Just like most tools, the results are only as good as your strategy and the work you put in. In this post, we’ll provide a few tips on improving your Twitter social media marketing strategy based on your Tweet stats.

First, think about these questions:

What’s your Social Media Marketing Strategy for Twitter?

Why did you set up shop on Twitter? What did you hope to achieve?

Some of the main reasons you may be using Twitter include:

• Sharing information and content
• Driving engagement for promotional activities
• Interacting with prospects and customers
• Networking
• Branding
• Reputation management

Lee Oden from Top Rank Marketing Blog challenges you to answer the question:

Where does Twitter fit into your marketing strategy?

Understanding where Twitter fits within the overall mix of online marketing and communications will help with: allocating, monitoring and engagement of resources, establishing a working social media policy, workflow management and reporting.

Once you answer the question of why (see above), you can then build your Twitter analytics strategy to find the answers you need within the stats that Twitter provides.

When you view your Twitter stats, ask yourself a few questions: 

• How does time of day and day of the week influence the performance of your tweets? Do certain times lead to more impressions?

• What is your optimal tweet frequency? Are you burning out your audience by over-tweeting or can you stand to tweet even more than you currently do?

• Is your audience more responsive to a fun and conversational tone or more business-like, professional-sounding tweets?

• How does media perform in your tweets? Do people love videos and photos, or do they prefer text-based tweets?

• How does link placement in your tweets impact engagement?

• What kinds of calls-to-action (CTA) generate the most engagement with your audience? Are blatant CTAs more impactful, or does your audience appreciate subtlety?

(Thanks to Hubspot for this great list of questions.)

How to Access Twitter Analytics

The good news is that Twitter Analytics is FREE.

The dashboard is the best place to find detailed information about how your tweets are performing. The analytics dashboard also provides you with performance graphs for the last 28 days. You can also see all your Tweet interactions and the best tweets you shared.

PRO TIP: Append your Tweet URLs with UTM parameters for even more insight inside Google Analytics.

With Twitter Analytics you can view:

1. Total tweets posted
2. Impressions those tweets received
3. Overall engagement and engagement rate
4. Top Tweets
5. Number of visits to your profile
6. Total mentions
7. Follower count
8. Total retweets and who retweeted
9. The reach of your retweets
10. Most engaged followers
11. Total Likes

To start:

1 – To quickly access the data, you can go straight to analytics.twitter.com.

2 – Alternatively, once you log into your Twitter account, you can access Twitter analytics through these steps:

Step (1): Click your avatar in the upper right to expose the drop down menu

Step (2): Click Analytics

Within your analytics dashboard, you will see a menu along the top of the page with several options. See example below. Make a mental note of this as we will be exploring a few of these menu options throughout this post.

Navigating Twitter Analytics

Social Media Examiner explains the importance of Twitter analytics as, “Being able to mine your Twitter data for a deeper look at what’s working and what’s not is a major factor in promoting your brand on Twitter.”  

Personally, I’ve found a lot of value hidden in Twitter stats to help improve my Twitter marketing strategy. I can also test what I find on Twitter on other social networks  – an added benefit!

I’ll be covering the following topics and will use real examples:

• Audience Insights
• Audience Comparisons
• Best Performing Tweets

1 –  Audience Insights

Click the ‘Audiences’ tab at the top of the Twitter Analytics page (see diagram above) and you’ll see detailed stats on your followers, including:

• Demographics: Gender, County, Household Income, Net Worth, Languages, Home value, Region
• Lifestyle: Interests (by category), TV genres
• Consumer Behavior: Aftermarket auto buyers types, Consumer buying styles, Consumer goods purchases
• Mobile Footprint: Wireless Carrier, Device categories

Newbie Tip: If your audience is not sufficiently large enough to provide insights, read How to Get Twitter Followers in 7 Easy Steps.

2 –  Audience Comparison

The above provides me with a great level of detail on my Twitter followers. However, one of the hidden gems is the audience comparison feature.

I can compare my followers to what Twitter calls “organic audience.” Your organic audience looks like this:

Your followers + Your followers’ followers

= Your Organic Audience

For example:

If your follower retweets your content, your content is exposed to that audience of your followers = viral marketing!

In the example below, I compare my Followers to my Organic Audience.

(1): My Followers

(2): My Organic Audience

This comparison can be helpful to understand future content decisions.

Example #2:

• Goal: Broaden my reach
• Organic audience assumption: Shows more interest in Tech News

Taking your goal and the interest of your organic audience into consideration, what should you do:

1 – Look to share more content on topics that were of interest to both my followers and my organic audience, rather than topics that were interesting to just my followers

2 – You can also compare your audience to a Persona (parents, generation x, small businesses, etc.). This comparison is extremely valuable if your target market fits into one of the Twitter Personas.

This comparison provides insight into the Persona groups interest and whether or not your current efforts are on target to attract that type of follower.

It also compares them to your current audience. Here again,  I might look to share more content on topics that resonate with the Persona group.

Example #3:

• Goal: Reach Small Business owners on Twitter.

Remove the comparison from the query and you have just the Small Business Persona Interests. Again, you can tailor your content strategy to fit the interests of the target market.

3 – Best Performing Tweets

The Tweets tab holds the answer to what content is resonating with your followers. If your engagement looks flat, review the above reports. Maybe you’re missing a key interest area.

To access Tweet analytics, click the Tweets tab (see image below).

In the example below, I’ve highlighted my Top Tweet. This tweet tells me that my audience is interested in mobile marketing solutions. I curated this article, so the results are interesting because it also provides me with a great topic for my next original blog post! Furthermore, of my top-performing tweets, 90% included an image.

Twitter provides the following stats on each Tweet:

• Total # of impressions
• Engagements (retweets, likes): Total # of times a user has interacted with a Tweet.
• Engagement rate (clicks, retweets, replies, follows and likes divided by total # of impressions)

The ‘top’ tweet in the image above, also had the most impressions. As I look through my data, I see other tweets had fewer impressions but a higher engagement rate. Since engagement is more important to my marketing initiatives, I put more weight on the details of those Tweets (i.e., what was the headline, call-to-action, and image, etc.). I want to repeat what works.

What do I do with the Twitter Stats?

The data should bring to light what you need to change or what works.

For example:

You are a real-estate agent that sells high-end homes. Your Twitter demographic data clearly points to the fact that your audience’s household income is well below your target audience. Time to tweak your content strategy and find new people to follow.

List of other action items Twitter analytics may create:

• Use Twitter search to find new people to follow based on the Twitter Interest category data (e.g. find more people like “x”)
• Identify what Tweet mechanics work, and which aren’t as effective. Keep an eye on elements like different calls to action, the inclusion of rich media and copy length.
• Pay attention to when you tweet. Note which time of day and day of the week yields the highest engagement and impressions.
• Is your audience mobile? If yes, is your site mobile friendly?

Bonus Pro Tip

If you are feeling adventurous and a master of your data, try this tip from Shift Communications.

Shift suggests comparing your Twitter analytics reports to your Facebook analytics reports.

How are your two audiences similar? How are they different? With enhanced data from Twitter, you can now better understand if you’ve got the same audience or two very different audiences, and use that information to guide your content strategy.

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Don’t’ like the data you discovered in your Twitter analytics? Want better results from Twitter? Continue reading seven key ways to get more clicks from each tweet.

The post 3 Informative Twitter Analytics Reports With the Most Value appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.