Social Networks Archives - dlvr.it | blog Smart Social Media Automation Wed, 06 Mar 2024 19:32:51 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.5 https://dlvrit.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/cropped-dlvrit-logo-512_transparent_favicon-v2-32x32.png Social Networks Archives - dlvr.it | blog 32 32 Facebook Pages Vs. Profiles – What’s Right For Your Business? https://dlvrit.com/blog/facebook-pages-vs-profiles-whats-right-for-your-business/ Fri, 11 Nov 2022 20:53:42 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog/?p=19714 Have you been marketing your business on your personal Facebook profile? Now may be the time to shift your marketing focus to a Facebook Page – in...

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Have you been marketing your business on your personal Facebook profile? Now may be the time to shift your marketing focus to a Facebook Page – in this blog, we will look at the differences between Facebook Pages Vs. Profiles – What’s Right For Your Business?.

It is a violation of Facebook Terms to use your personal profile to represent something other than yourself, such as your business. And recent Facebook changes have made it more challenging for businesses to market on personal profiles. Importantly, Facebook no longer allows 3rd party applications, which are widely used by businesses, to post to personal profiles.

In general, Facebook is trying to encourage businesses to use pages for marketing strategy purposes, rather than using their profiles.

Considering that Facebook Pages are far more useful than personal profiles for businesses, this change is a welcome one. While shifting your business marketing focus from your personal Facebook profile to a Facebook Page may be anxiety-inducing, there are many good reasons to do it – for your existing and future customers.

Notable Differences: Facebook Page Vs. Profile

A Facebook profile is an individual person’s account, while a page is a company’s. A Facebook profile is where a person shares information, such as his/her interests, likes, dislikes, and even his/her relationship status. A Facebook page is where a company posts information about a specific topic. For example, a restaurant might use a Facebook page to promote special deals and events. It might seem similar – and that could be why many people made the mistake – but there is a huge difference.

Regarding a Facebook profile and a Facebook page, they are both simply profiles. The biggest difference is that a profile is meant to show off one aspect of a person’s life, whereas a page is meant to showcase a company’s products and services.

If you don’t want people viewing what you post on your profile, you can make it private. You can do this either by changing your privacy settings or by creating a private group.

Facebook Profiles and Pages

The actual difference is that a profile is for individuals, whereas a page is for businesses or organizations. A profile allows you to connect with others, and post pictures, videos, and messages, whereas a page is used to market a business or organization. You cannot interact with people via a page, whereas you can do so with a profile. To make matters even worse, there are no restrictions on how many people can follow a page.

Creating Your Facebook Business Page

Type in the name of your business and select “Create Page.” If you already have a Facebook Page, you’ll see a link saying “Add a Page,” underneath the cover photo. Click on that link.

Can I Add Friends to My Facebook Business Page?

Yes! You can invite anyone you know to join your Facebook Page. Simply click on the “Invite Friends” button at the top right corner of your Facebook Page.

Is it Easy to Manage My Facebook Business Page?

It depends on whether you’re managing a personal profile or a business page. With a personal profile, you can easily edit your profile by clicking on the “Edit Profile” tab located at the top left-hand side of your screen. On the other hand, if you’re managing a business page, you need to log into your Facebook account and go to the “Admin Panel” section. There, you can view all the details of your page, including its cover photo, description, and who can access it.

Does Facebook Charge for a Business Page?

Facebook doesn’t charge its members for using its services. Like Facebook profiles and groups, Facebook business pages are available for free even if you don’t have any fans or likes yet. You don’t need to pay anything extra for the organic parts of your Facebook business page.

Benefits of a Facebook Profile

You get a lot of benefits when you sign up for a Facebook account. Here are some of them:

  • You can share photos, videos, and links with your friends.
  • You can send messages to your friends through Facebook Messenger.
  • You can play games with your friends.

Why Should I Choose Facebook Over Another Social Networking Site?

First, let’s start with the fact that Facebook has more than 1 billion active monthly users. That means that there are more chances that someone you know uses Facebook than any other website. Second, Facebook is free. Third, Facebook offers an array of features such as messaging, video chat, events, groups, and much more. Fourth, Facebook is very easy to use. It takes less than 10 minutes to learn how to use it. And finally, Facebook is constantly improving itself. For example, Facebook recently introduced Timeline, which makes it easier to browse old posts.

Can I Use My Personal Facebook Account to Manage a Business Page?

No. Only administrators can access the admin panel. In addition, the administrator must be verified. This means that someone else needs to verify your identity. Once you’re verified, you can add additional admins and change permissions.

Why does Facebook ask me to confirm my email address every time I log into my account?

Facebook sends emails to confirm your email address because some spam filters block Facebook mail. We don’t want anyone to miss out on important messages about your account.

Page vs. Profile: Which is Better for Your Personal Brand?

Facebook Pages are best used for local businesses. They allow you to target people within a specific area, such as a city, state, or even county – which is the type of audience demographics that will help you find your ideal audience. This makes it easy to connect with people in close proximity to where you live. You can use Facebook Groups for more customer engagement – to help build relationships with like-minded individuals.

On the other hand, Facebook Profiles are ideal for reaching a wider audience. If you’re trying to promote yourself as a public figure, a brand, or a nonprofit organization, a profile might be a good option. For example, if you’re running for office, you could set up a campaign page. Or if you’re working on a project, you could start a group to keep everyone updated about what you’re doing.

More Differences with Facebook Pages and Profiles

Facebook has altered its platform for third-party applications, in particular. Third-party applications can no longer post to Facebook profiles on behalf of the user. Facebook clearly rejects any strategy involving businesses using personal profiles for marketing purposes. So while automated posting to Profiles is going away, Facebook will continue to support automation to Pages and Groups.

Facebook is continuing to encourage tools that help users manage and automate their business tasks. Business users. That being the case, we must look at the reason that Facebook believes that Business users need Pages and Groups more.

Personal Profiles are geared toward helping individuals share personal details and connect with their friends and family. It provides opportunities to post to your friends, add your job title, and add your education. Nowhere in a Profile are you able to indicate a business entity. This represents a very intentional move on Facebook’s part.

Can I use a Facebook Profile to Promote my Business?

Facebook actually actively discourages using a profile to promote your business. Using your profile to represent your business is against Facebook’s terms of service, and could cause you to permanently lose access to their platform. This risk is definitely not worth losing all the hard work on your profile anyway, and all it takes is one report on your profile to make that happen.

The place where you can indicate a business entity is a Facebook Page. A Facebook Page and/or Group can help your business build its identity, rather than building a person’s identity. Your Facebook Page offers features that help your business hone its Facebook success, with Analytics built right in to help find potential customers. With all these features available, Facebook makes your Business Page a great environment in which to operate.

Groups exist to market to your user base as well. A group can be set up to address a specific group of people or a specific topic. As an Administrator of a group, you can set the topics and enforce the rules of the group.

Groups are a great way to facilitate conversation and market to your desired consumer. By setting up a categorized group, or a group that talks about a specific product, you can find those people on Facebook who would be interested in your product. For example, if you have a company that sells cat toys, you may create a group that appeals to pet parents.

This is a great way for people to discuss their favorite cat products, their pets, and tips for caring for their pets. This being the case, you, as the marketer, have a great opportunity to slip in your marketing opportunities among the discussion.

Why Should I Post to Facebook Pages and Groups Instead of My Personal Facebook Profile?

Personal Facebook Profiles are intended to be for a person, not a business. In making a profile geared toward your business, you are actually performing a disservice to your business. You are limiting the reach of your business to just that of a profile. When you use a Facebook page, you are opening up a lot of opportunities for yourself, including a very powerful suite of Analytics, along with opportunities to implement calls to action and purchase boosts for your posts – a key difference

A call to action on Facebook allows you to connect your customers directly to your resources. You may choose to connect a messenger, a website, a shopping page, or a contact us page. Any call-to-action option provides a valuable opportunity for interaction with a new or existing customer.

Facebook Analytics for Your Business Page

Facebook’s analytics are incredibly robust because of the wide variety of activity that is encouraged on Facebook. For your business pages, you can analyze the timing of your posts, likes of your posts, reach of your posts, and engagement on your posts.

The most valuable analysis that Facebook provides is the analysis of when your followers are online. On a platform like Facebook, timing is everything. Many social media marketers want to know the ideal time to post to their timeline, and there are best practices social media engagement, but Facebook actually puts this info right in front of you.

Businesses can take advantage of so many opportunities through their pages and groups that simply aren’t available on a personal profile. Facebook’s analytics tools aren’t available for personal profiles. They won’t tell you when to post on a profile, but they will absolutely do this on your business page – which is a great way to help you meet your business goals.

Why is a Profile a Bad Idea for My Business?

When you’re using a profile, you’re giving up your business identity. Because profiles are geared toward individuals (and should ONLY be used by individuals), you cannot place your business name front and center. In fact, again, this is against Facebook’s terms of service.

Your business identity cannot be part of your profile when you’re using Facebook. Remember that using Facebook is meant to promote your business. If you’re trying to do that on a personal profile, you are risking losing your access permanently.

Rather than putting all that work into a personal profile, put your efforts toward making your business page more robust. Put your energy into building this out so that your page can become verified. The verified badge helps users understand that this is your official page.

Getting your page verified by Facebook is a great way to generate an air of legitimacy about your business. Unfortunately, this badge will not appear on a profile if you are trying to use it for business.

SEO Differences between Facebook Profiles and Facebook Pages

Within profiles, some choose to use their Facebook bio for SEO reasons. However, while this is a great addition to help with SEO, it isn’t necessarily the best tool to communicate about your business. Your page will allow you to build a complete profile for your business. Facebook has outlined a process to set up your page for your business.

Within that process contains information about how to set up a call to action. This may not seem like an important detail, but it is the one part of the process that can convert into money for your business. A call to action can direct your customers to your website where they can make a purchase.

This source of conversions provides the best possible chance you have from Facebook to get your business page to bring in money for you.

Can I Transform my Facebook Profile to a Page?

Not to worry. Facebook has already thought of that. There is a section of Facebook that will allow you to convert a profile into a page. Rather than losing all that work that you’ve put into the profile, you can retain all of that work. You won’t be losing any of the SEO that comes with your profile content.

A lot of businesses also worry about having people find their new page. There are actually a number of tools that can help with that. For example, Facebook’s people search tool can help. Of course, Ads may be the best solution for your business, but that’s a whole other post.

Not only will you be able to convert the profile into a page, you will also be able to add friends to the page’s followers. Profiles may be a great short-term tool, but for the long term, a page is the better option.

How Do I Complete this Conversion?

With the conversion process, you will not be losing any of the information associated with the profile. The one thing that is lost in the conversion is the metrics associated with your posts. In the end, though, page insights are much more helpful for the analytics they provide.

Conversion also presents an excellent opportunity for page cleanup. Facebook allows you to select the content that you want to transfer. If you have information associated with your profile that no longer applies, you can simply choose to ignore it in the conversion. Beware, though, as the conversion cannot be reversed. If you want to convert, this will be a permanent page, and your profile will be gone permanently.

This is not a bad thing, but it is important to remember that this is a permanent process, so save what you must while you’re converting.

What Happens After my Conversion is Done?

Once you’ve completed the conversion process, a couple of things will happen. First, your friends from the profile receive a notification that you’ve created a new page. They will then have the option to become a follower of that page.

If you choose that friend to follow your new page, they will automatically be removed from following your profile and will transition into a follower of your page. If your profile contained verified status, that verified status transfers over to your page as well.

Facebook also automatically takes care of transferring your profile and cover photo, so you don’t have to worry about that. You also have the opportunity to preview the changes before making the page live.

Wrapping It All Up

Facebook wants your business to be successful, so they provide tools that help your business succeed. When you’re using a profile, you’re ignoring those finely tuned tools that Facebook has spent a lot of time and effort researching and implementing.

Understandably, many business owners are wary of these types of tools, but I promise, it is worth it to use these options. The call to action alone is an invaluable tool for your business. In the end, Facebook pages are simply a better option for most businesses.

Recap: Facebook Profile vs Page

Your Facebook profile is public – a business page is where you post news about your brand, events, products, and promotions. If you want people to see what your company is up to, you’ll probably want to use a business page. But there are some important differences between the two accounts. Here’s everything you need to know.

1. Who Can Manage a Business Page?

You can manage your business page yourself, or hire someone else to do it for you. Either way, you’ll need to add a few administrators to help keep tabs on what’s happening on your page. Click on the “+ Add People” button to start adding people to your team.

2. How Many Admins Does a Business Page Have?

A business page can have one administrator or many. Each admin costs $5 per month, and each admin can manage up to five different pages. So if you have three admins, those folks can manage up to 15 different pages. However, you can only have one manager at a time. So if you have two admins, they can both manage your business page.

3. What Happens When I Interact With Posts On My Business Page?

When you interact with posts on a business page, it defaults to interacting as the owner of the page. This means that if you comment on a post, it appears under your name, rather than the name of the page itself. For example, if you comment on a photo posted by your business page, it will show up as “John Smith.” If you comment on a post by another member of your team, it will show up under their name.

4. How Do I Get Involved In The Community Around My Business Page?

If you want to get involved in conversations around your business page, you can either join groups or create your own. To find groups, click on the “Groups” tab in the left sidebar. Then search for groups related to your industry or topic.

5. How Do I Share Content From My Business Page?

To share content from your business page, just copy the URL (the web address) of any post you’d like to share. Then paste it into an email message, text message, or social media post.

6. How Do I Promote My Business Page?

Promoting your business page is similar to promoting a personal profile.

7. How Do I Make Money Off Of My Business Page?

Business Pages don’t generate revenue directly. Instead, you can charge businesses to advertise on your page. This page will be a fantastic business tool to market and interact with the public.

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Facebook Bio Examples – Ideas to Create a Great Bio https://dlvrit.com/blog/facebook-bio-examples/ Fri, 07 Oct 2022 16:05:00 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog?p=14065&preview_id=14065 For most of us, talking about yourself is hard. On social media, you need to get over this fear! That is why your Facebook Bio is so...

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For most of us, talking about yourself is hard. On social media, you need to get over this fear! That is why your Facebook Bio is so important to get right. It’s the perfect opportunity to let the world know what you do and to convince prospects, followers, friends and influencers to engage with you.

Facebook’s “About” section (also referred to as a “bio” in this post) is one of the first things visitors see when landing on your Facebook page. Keeping this section up-to-date in a creative and succinct manner is crucial for the overall appearance, quality and understanding of your page and what you do.

If you think about it, social media bios are the elevator pitch of the digital age. You have ten to thirty seconds – and 160 characters – to convince someone to engage with you.

Here are some quick and easy steps for making your Facebook bio powerful and engaging.

Personal or Professional Facebook Bio?

Many of us have trouble writing our bios. We don’t sure where to begin, but we want to make it intriguing enough to draw someone in. Or perhaps we simply don’t feel the need to compose one. However, the following advice will help you write a fantastic bio that will make you stand out from the throng.

1. Keep Your Bio Brief and Simple

More than 150 words should not be used for your bio. You don’t want to overwhelm people with information. Keep it brief if you do decide to write more than 150 words. Nobody wants to read a novel about you, so refrain from waxing lyrical about oneself. They merely wish to learn more about you.

2. Be Yourself

Make no attempt to sound like someone else. Identify a quality about yourself that sets you apart from other people. For instance, I write. I therefore mention my writing abilities in my bio. By doing this, I can let people know how enthusiastically I support their online success.

3. Demonstrate Your Unique Qualities

Anything that makes you stand out from the competitors should be included. Perhaps you’ve put a lot of effort into developing your brand over the years. Include that in your biography. Perhaps you have a unique skill set that you employ to support business expansion. Describe that in your summary.

The Personal Facebook profile

You should put information about yourself that accurately represents who you are in your personal Facebook profile. It ought to include things like your passions, accomplishments, and motivational quotes. It makes you more comprehensible to readers by providing these components.

Write a compelling profile to start:

Your social network bio should start out with an attention-grabbing headline that draws the reader in.

In the opening paragraph, communicate why you are unique and hiring you would be a good idea.

Your bio should contain keywords that define what you do. This aids Google in comprehending your mission.

1. Write About Yourself and Use Your Name

Visitors will read this first while learning about you. Make sure to give your full legal name, including middle names and maiden names, as well as your  name. The basis of your identity is your name, so pick something memorable and distinctive. If you have several names, you might want to list them all separately.

What Do You Do First?

There are numerous approaches you can take when writing about oneself online. You might either write a lengthy or brief bio. You can include each job you’ve ever held, or you can only mention your most recent full-time position. Or perhaps you’d like to concentrate on your present professional path. Whatever strategy you choose, make sure it’s understandable. Make it simple for readers to understand what you write if you want to promote yourself as a writer.

Consider including some of your prior positions in addition to your current one if you want to highlight your professional experience. In this manner, prospective employers are fully aware of your qualifications. You might even discover common ground with someone in your field if you worked in other fields. For instance, if you worked in web design, you may mention how you contributed to the creation of a website like Amazon.com. If you handled residential or commercial properties, you may narrate tales about your management style.

Of course, there’s no reason why you can’t use both strategies simultaneously. You might state, “I’m a freelance writer with a focus on travel pieces.” Then, you may include samples of your work that are more particular, such as “My most recent post explored the greatest locations to enjoy fall foliage in New England.”

Here, simplicity is the key to success. Avoid using excessive jargon or trying to explain things in a way that is difficult for others to understand. Stick to the fundamentals instead.

Make sure that your profile is simple to read and comprehend.

2. List Your Interests

You ponder this question every day: “What is my daily schedule?” You may be considering which hobbies to list in your Facebook page. Following are some suggestions if you’re not sure where to begin:

Activities you enjoy doing outside of work are called hobbies. They might be doing anything, including playing sports or reading literature.
Make careful to list interests that are compatible with your career objectives. For instance, be careful to highlight that you have led teams in your community if you hope to become a manager someday.

Remember to keep your interests in mind. Some individuals might believe that hobbies are only activities you engage in when you’re bored. But there are numerous varieties of hobbies. Spend some time considering what you want to do. Perhaps you’ve always wanted to give it a try. Or perhaps you have never tried it before. In either case, be sure to add it to your profile.
Avoid making up fictitious hobbies, too.

Things like “I enjoy watching movies” fall under this category. Be sincere and precise.

Keep in mind that your activities reveal who you are. So be sure to showcase who you really are.

3. Remember to Include Your Pets!

The largest social network in the world, Facebook has over 2 billion users who are active every month. As a result, it is among the most widely used platforms for companies looking to connect with potential clients. When writing about your brand on the website, there are numerous things to take into account. Your pets should always be brought up since they are excellent conversation starters.

Recent studies have shown that pets are playing a bigger role in our lives. According to a Harris Poll report from 2018, nearly half of Americans say owning a dog or cat keeps them happy and healthy. In fact, in recent years there has been 20% increase in the percentage of homes with pets.

According to a recent study, social media posts on pets receive more likes, comments, and shares than those about politics or famous people. A post about a family member’s birthday party, for instance, drew three times as many replies as one concerning President Trump. Additionally, a post about a dog getting adopted received almost twice as many comments as one about a famous person.

Why then do we fail to incorporate our cherished pet pals into our online marketing initiatives? It seems that posting pictures of our pets to Facebook actually boosts engagement. According to research in the Journal of Consumer Research, posting pictures of dogs and cats on Facebook results in an increase in likes, comments, shares, and even visits to the profile owner’s website.

The manner in that people interact with animals may be the cause of this occurrence. Depending on how much we care about someone, we prefer to like and trust them. People are inclined to show their affection for us by taking images of our pets. Therefore, the next time you want to advertise your brand, be sure to include a few pictures of your preferred canine companion. You never know, it might become popular.

Quick Tips for Writing the Ideal Facebook Bio For Your Business

Facebook has made adjustments to the way that bios are shown in search results. While some individuals are happy with the change, others think it can be detrimental to businesses because it makes it more difficult to rank well in searches. In fact, according to one study, a post with a bio had an average CTR of just 0.25%.

The good news is that you can take steps to ensure your biography is optimized for social media sites like Facebook. The following five suggestions will assist you in creating the ideal Facebook bio for your company:

Put in a “Call to Action”

Every area of your Facebook bio should have a call to action if you want to increase conversions. Say, for instance, that your business sells widgets. Consider writing “Shop our selection of widgets” or something similar. Visitors will always know where to go next in this manner.

Mention Your Company’s Mission and Values

Keep it brief—no more than 200 words—and stick to the essentials, including your company’s objective. If you’re tempted to include more details, think about removing any extraneous filler. Instead, concentrate on giving your viewers something useful.

Several of the Most Popular Facebook “bio” Errors:

Your Facebook biography should explain your significance to readers. You shouldn’t just say, “I’m a writer,” in your bio. Say something more precise, such as “I am a food writer because I feel that memories of food from our childhood towns connect us to one another and to our world,” instead. A link to your website should also be included so that visitors can learn more about you elsewhere.

Don’t forget to link to your website from your social media profiles. One of the finest strategies to get more people to your website is by doing this. People will undoubtedly click the link if they want to learn more about you.

Make sure your summary doesn’t go on for too long. There is a limit to how long profiles can be, so don’t go over it. A reasonable guideline is to keep it at 300 words or less.

Excellent Facebook Bio Concepts and Examples

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, and it’s simple to understand why. There are many methods to connect with friends and family, and the UI is easy enough for anyone to use. Although many companies have Facebook profiles set up, few actually know how to use them. Even fewer people actually see the value of having a strong Facebook profile or bio.

A Facebook bio serves as your account’s equivalent of a resume or CV. It provides a brief overview of who you are and what you do for potential consumers. Someone will probably look at your profile if they want to know more about you. A professionally written bio will increase your credibility and make you seem more reliable, which will increase your chances of landing a job.

A strong profile or bio can not only make you stand out from the competitors but also increase traffic. Links to your website, blog, and other online resources are acceptable. People will find you more quickly and readily as a result, which will make it simpler for them to become fans of your page. – and of course, be sure to include your contact details.

 

1: Mari Smith

Mari Smith is the founder of Mariposa Media Group, a San Francisco-based digital marketing firm. She recently discussed how she connects with potential clients via Facebook and other social media platforms. Mari says, “I utilize LinkedIn to locate people I want to work with. I research the companies where I want to work and post messages on social media asking if anyone knows someone there.

Facebook is one of Mari’s most effective tools since it enables her to connect with experts in her industry. Mari, however, advises against viewing social media as a purely networking tool. She clarifies, “You don’t want to just hop on LinkedIn and start sending out inquiries. Instead, pay attention to developing relationships with people you already know and make sure those ties are valuable.

 

2: New York Times

One of the most reputable news sources in the world is The New York Times. It publishes some of the most significant articles ever written and has some of the top correspondents in the industry. The paper has been published online since 1996, though, didn’t you know? And that a free daily email newsletter is now available? or that in 2013 it started a podcast? In fact, the Times has taken practically every step imaginable to make readers aware of its existence.

Today, we’ll look at illustrations as a different method the newspaper has used to grab readers’ attention. A simplified method using illustrations makes it simpler to learn, much simpler to remember, and much less scary than reading text.

3. Three Fat Guys

The brief description is used to explain a person’s line of work. The extended version provides extra details about the subject. In this illustration, three overweight guys wine is being discussed. “Tony works in marketing,” we may say. Alternately, “Tony writes.” But it doesn’t actually provide much context. So let’s provide some background.

A boutique vineyard called Three Fat Guys Wine is situated in California’s Napa Valley. Making excellent wines at fair pricing is our aim. We think that tasty food and beverages go together. We like to bring bottles of wine home from our favorite restaurants to savor later. We hope you’ll share our enthusiasm for good wine with us.

That’s much more intriguing now. You’ve provided some background information and some insight into your process. The time is right at this point to use keywords. You might use the following language to target the keyword term “three overweight guys”:

“We enjoy dining and drinking together. Additionally, we enjoy bringing bottles of wine home from our favorite places to drink later. We’d like to occasionally share those experiences with you. Come and share our enthusiasm with us.

You can see how simple it is to add keywords to the summary.

 4. Chasing Grace

Jewelry crafted by hand is available here. Their product images are stunning and do a fantastic job of showcasing each item. They make it simple to find what you’re looking for by using a distinctive color scheme and adding some entertaining typography. Customers can freely browse the website because there are no prices posted anywhere on it. Even additional discounts are available to those who register for emails.

The website does an excellent job of showing their work, demonstrating that they provide high-quality items. Additionally, since they don’t specify prices, clients are free to browse and see what appeals to them. They can buy something right away if they think it looks excellent.

6: Nowness

When I was employed by a digital marketing company, one of our clients wanted to introduce a new product. They enquired as to what would be required to ensure that people were aware of it. We created a collection of items, such as blog entries, press releases, and social media posts. There was a video missing, though. So that’s what we did.

We produced a 30-second video describing why this product was great and how it might be used to address various issues. Then, we distributed it widely. Our YouTube channel received over 20,000 views in only 24 hours. And we had more than 50,000 in just two weeks.

It is easy to learn from this. Start talking about yourself if you want to expand your audience. People enjoy hearing other people’s stories. They care about you, thus they want to know more about you. People will react when you put yourself out there.

7. Snipz

One of my favorite tools is Snipz since it makes creating an about page better. Snipz is a tool that enables you to quickly add a call-to-action button to your About Page if you haven’t heard of it.

Recap: How to Stand Out on Facebook Using Your Bio

One of the most crucial places for businesses to establish their brand identity is in their Facebook profiles. They must be well-written and interesting because they frequently provide people their first impression of your company. But how can you distinguish yours from the competition in a way that makes it stand out? What we suggest is as follows:

1. Create a Succinct Bio for Yourself

A Facebook bio serves as a short resume. It shouldn’t be too long because that makes it hard to read. Around 200 words is a good length, while some individuals prefer shorter ones.

2. Add Essential Phrases

In order to find goods or services online, consumers enter keywords into a search bar. In your Facebook bio, you must use pertinent keywords if you want to appear higher in search results. Use your keywords wisely throughout your writing rather than cramming your bio with them. If you sell shoes, for instance, include keywords related to shoes in your description.

3. Maintain Consistency

It’s likely that you won’t need to edit an excellent bio once you’ve written it. You will, however, lose credibility if you consistently start writing something altogether different. Over time, keep your bio up to date with your newest accomplishments.

 

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How to Make an Instagram RSS Feed for FREE https://dlvrit.com/blog/how-to-create-an-instagram-rss-feed-and-3-ways-it-can-instantly-boost-traffic/ Mon, 20 Aug 2018 14:09:43 +0000 http://blog.dlvr.it/?p=4593 Have you ever wanted to share your Instagram photos or videos with your social media audience or display them on your blog post or website? Fortunately for...

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Have you ever wanted to share your Instagram photos or videos with your social media audience or display them on your blog post or website? Fortunately for you, we partnered with Instagram to create a viable solution with an Instagram RSS feed!

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.

Instagram to RSS

 

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.”

How to Make an Instagram RSS Feed

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.

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Marketing Your Business on Facebook: Facebook Pages vs. Profiles https://dlvrit.com/blog/facebook-page-profile/ Thu, 02 Aug 2018 13:00:11 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog/?p=19035 Have you been marketing your business on your personal Facebook profile? Now may be the time to shift your marketing focus to a Facebook Page. It is...

The post Marketing Your Business on Facebook: Facebook Pages vs. Profiles appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

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Have you been marketing your business on your personal Facebook profile? Now may be the time to shift your marketing focus to a Facebook Page.

It is a violation of Facebook Terms to use your personal profile to represent something other than yourself, such as your business. And recent Facebook changes have made it more challenging for businesses to market on personal profiles. Importantly, Facebook no longer allows 3rd party applications, which are widely used by businesses, to post to personal profiles.

In general, Facebook is trying to encourage businesses to use pages for these purposes, rather than using their profiles.

Considering that Facebook Pages are far more useful than personal profiles for businesses, this change is a welcome one. While shifting your business marketing focus from your personal Facebook profile to a Facebook Page may be anxiety inducing, there are many good reasons to do it.

How are things different now for Facebook Pages and personal Facebook Profiles

Facebook has altered its platform for third party applications, in particular. Third party applications can no longer post to Facebook profiles on behalf of the user. Facebook clearly rejects any strategy involving businesses using personal profiles for marketing purposes. So while automated posting to Profiles is going away, Facebook will continue to support automation to Pages and Groups.

Facebook is continuing to encourage tools that help users manage and automated their business tasks.  Business users. That being the case, we must look at the reason that Facebook believes that Business users need Pages and Groups more.

Personal Profiles are geared toward helping individuals share personal details and connect with their friends and family. It provides opportunities to post to your friends, add your job title, and add your education. Nowhere in a Profile are you able to indicate a business entity. This represents a very intentional move on Facebook’s part.

What does Facebook have to say about this?

Facebook actually actively discourages using a profile to promote your business. Using your profile to represent your business is against Facebook’s terms of service, and could cause you to permanently lose access to their platform. This risk is definitively not worth losing all the hard work on your profile anyway, and all it takes is one report on your profile to make that happen.

The place that you can indicate a business entity is a Facebook Page. A Facebook Page and/or Group can help your business build its identity, rather than building a person’s identity. Your Facebook Page offers features that help your business hone their Facebook success, with Analytics built right in. With all these features available, Facebook makes your Business Page a great environment in which to operate.

Groups exist to market to your user base as well. A group can be set up to address a specific group of people, or a specific topic. As an Administrator of a group, you can set the topics and enforce rules of the group.

Groups are a great way to facilitate conversation and market to your desired consumer. By setting up a categorized group, or a group that talks about a specific product, you can find those people on Facebook who would be interested in your product. For example, if you have a company that sells cat toys, you may create a group that appeals to pet parents.

This is a great way for people to discuss their favorite cat products, their pets, and tips for caring for their pets. This being the case, you, as the marketer, have a great opportunity to slip in your marketing opportunities among the discussion.

Why should I post to Facebook Pages and Groups instead of to my personal Facebook profile?

Personal Facebook Profiles are intended to be for a person, not a business. In making a profile gear toward your business, you are actually performing a disservice to your business. You are limiting the reach of your business to just that of a profile. When you use a Facebook page, you are opening up a lot of opportunities for yourself, including a very powerful suite of Analytics, along with opportunities to implement calls to action and purchase Boosts for your posts.

A call to action on Facebook allows you to connect your customers directly to your resources. You may choose to connect a messenger, a website, a shopping page, or a contact us page. Any call to action option provides a valuable opportunity for interaction with a new or existing customer.

What are the analytics that I can access?

Facebook’s analytics are incredibly robust because of the wide variety of activity that is encouraged on Facebook. For your business pages, you can analyze timing of your posts, likes of your posts, reach of your posts, and engagement on your posts.

The most valuable analysis that Facebook provides is the analysis of when your followers are online. On a platform like Facebook, timing is everything. Many social media marketers want to know the ideal time to post to their timeline, and there are best practices for other social media platforms, but Facebook actually puts this info right in front of you.

Businesses can take advantage of so many opportunities through their pages and groups that simply aren’t available on a personal profile. Facebook’s analytics tools aren’t available for personal profiles. They won’t tell you when to post on a profile, but they will absolutely do this on your business page.

Why is a profile a bad idea for my business?

When you’re using a profile, you’re giving up your business identity. Because profiles are geared toward individuals (and should ONLY be used by individuals), you cannot place your business name front and center. In fact, again, this is against Facebook’s terms of service.

Your business identity cannot be part of your profile when you’re using Facebook. Remember that using Facebook is meant to promote your business. If you’re trying to do that on a personal profile, you are risking losing your access permanently.

Rather than putting all that work into a personal profile, put your efforts toward making your business page more robust. Put your energy into building this out so that your page can become verified. The verified badge helps users understand that this is your official page.

Getting your page verified by Facebook is a great way to generate an air of legitimacy about your business. Unfortunately, this badge will not appear on a profile if you are trying to use it for business.

What’s difference between posting to personal Facebook Profiles and Facebook Pages when it comes to SEO?

Within profiles, some choose to use their Facebook bio for SEO reasons. However, while this is a great addition to help with SEO, it isn’t necessarily the best tool to communicate about your business. Your page will allow you to build a complete profile for your business. Facebook has outlined a process to set up your page for your business.

Within that process contains information about how to set up a call to action. This may not seem like an important detail, but it is the one part of the process that can convert into money for your business. A call to action can direct your customers into your website where they can make a purchase.

This source of conversions provides the best possible chance you have from Facebook to get your business page to bring in money for you.

But I’ve spent all this time marketing on my personal Facebook profile

Not to worry. Facebook has already thought of that. There is a section of Facebook that will allow you to convert a profile into a page. Rather than losing all that work that you’ve put into the profile, you can retain all of that work. You won’t be losing any of the SEO that comes with your profile content.

A lot of businesses also worry about having people find their new page. There are actually a number of tools that can help with that. For example, Facebook’s people search tool can help. Of course, Ads may be the best solution for your business, but that’s a whole other post.

Not only will you be able to convert the profile into a page, you will also be able to add the friends into the page’s followers. Profiles may be a great short term tool, but for the long term, a page is the better option.

How do I complete this conversion?

With the conversion process, you will not be losing any of the information associated with the profile. The one thing that is lost in the conversion is the metrics associated with your posts. In the end, though, page insights are much more helpful for the analytics they provide.

Conversion also presents an excellent opportunity for page cleanup. Facebook allows you to select the content that you want to transfer. If you have information associated with your profile that no longer applies, you can simply choose to ignore it in the conversion. Beware, though, as the conversion cannot be reversed. If you want to convert, this will be a permanent page, and your profile will be gone permanently.

This is not a bad thing, but it is important to remember that this is a permanent process, so save what you must while you’re converting.

What happens after my conversion is done?

Once you’ve completed the conversion process, a couple of things will happen. First, your friends from the profile receive a notification that you’ve created a new page. They will then have the option to become a follower of that page.

If you choose that friend to follow your new page, they will automatically be removed from following your profile and will transition into a follower of your page. If your profile contained verified status, that verified status transfers over to your page as well.

Facebook also automatically takes care of transferring your profile and cover photo, so you don’t have to worry about that. You also have the opportunity to preview the changes before making the page live.

Wrapping it all up

Facebook wants your business to be successful, so they provide tools that help your business succeed. When you’re using a profile, you’re ignoring those finely tuned tools that Facebook has spent a lot of time and effort researching and implementing.

Understandably, many business owners are wary of these types of tools, but I promise, it is worth it to use these options. The call to action alone is an invaluable tool for your business. In the end, Facebook pages are simply a better option for most businesses.

The post Marketing Your Business on Facebook: Facebook Pages vs. Profiles appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

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Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, and Snapchat – New Formats for a New Age https://dlvrit.com/blog/facebook-stories-instagram-stories-snapchat/ Tue, 17 Jul 2018 14:34:44 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog/?p=19002 The Story Post format has been around for a few years, originating on Snapchat. Recently, however, Facebook and Instagram have thrown their hats into the ring. They...

The post Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, and Snapchat – New Formats for a New Age appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

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The Story Post format has been around for a few years, originating on Snapchat. Recently, however, Facebook and Instagram have thrown their hats into the ring. They have released Facebook Stories and Instagram Stories as a direct answer to the post format Snapchat popularized. These features provide something that some consider invaluable: the ability to have your posts disappear. The Story format is unique in that the posts leave social media after 24 hours. But there are some things that you need to know before you start using these features.

Why use Facebook Stories or Instagram Stories in the first place?

Because this is a platform on the rise, it is a great idea to get in on the ground floor. Facebook Stories recently hit 150 Million users, beginning to rival Snapchat’s numbers. Facebook has even said that it is likely that the Story format will soon overtake the Feed format of sharing. The shift that we’re seeing is overtaking the text-based post, and moving toward visual posts. Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram have recognized what seems to be obvious to some: the mobile camera is the future. The camera is what we take everywhere with us via our phones. It is what allows us to transmit those potentially important moments to our social media timelines to share with friends, family, and followers.


Because this is a platform on the rise, it is a great idea to get in on the ground floor. Facebook Stories recently hit 150 Million users, beginning to rival Snapchat's numbers.
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Facebook’s focus on this format is evident from the fact that they are launching Ads within Stories. Ads have been available on Facebook forever, which target their huge user base. However, Ads within stories is a brand new option. Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, indicated that they are looking to optimize Ads in the Stories timeline. The focus is now centralized on optimizing this feature for businesses as well as individuals. Stories is now being expanded to third party applications, like Spotify, for use within that timeline. One thing is clear: Facebook is trying to stay ahead of the curve and keep Stories relevant in their own platform.

 

Facebook Stories and your Timeline

The first thing that you may be wondering is what the heck a Facebook Story is. This feature is essentially a short term post. The post lasts for 24 hours, and then is launched into internet oblivion, never to be heard from again. However, as of Thursday, July 12, Facebook has made it easier to save your videos or images that you’ve posted through stories. Facebook recently introduced an archive feature that allows you to save posts that you’ve spent valuable time creating.

What is the difference between a Facebook Story and a Regular Facebook Post?

In essence, it is the duration that it is live, and the location in which it lives. The Stories posts will live in a separate section at the top of the timeline. This is what makes this type of story invaluable, but more on that later. The more important thing to know about a story is that it doesn’t work like a regular post. It’s not text-based with shared links or pictures. It is image based. This means that when you post a Facebook story, you won’t be able to explain what the story is about, so your content must be visual.

How do I create a Facebook Story?

Stories, as a visual platform, are specifically geared toward mobile. With that being the case, they are currently only available on the mobile platforms. You can create a story post via your Android or iPhone app and post that to your Stories timeline. This doesn’t get shared to your normal timeline unless you manually share it. If you do share to your normal timeline, you will not lose the content. To create this story, you simply use your camera on your mobile phone to capture your content.

What’s the deal with the archive?

The archive is brand new along with their new Highlights feature! It’s an introduction that Facebook has made that will save those posts that you’ve spent very valuable time creating. The archive allows you to look back over your Stories posts and retrieve those that you find that you want to retain. Simply access the archive, then save the photo, and it will download to your device. From your archive, you can share a post to your Highlights to make it front and center for your followers.

Where will my Facebook Stories appear?

Facebook stories appear in the Stories timeline. This is a very valuable section of real estate on a Facebook timeline. As you’ve probably noticed, your Facebook timeline is organized by an algorithm. Facebook determines which posts are placed at the top of a timeline based on behavior. However, in the Stories timeline, posts are placed chronologically. The timeline is set at the top of Facebook’s application in Android and on the iPhone application. In desktop mode, you don’t see actual stories, but you can see your friends and the last time they posted. It is important to note that Facebook users will not see your Stories unless they follow you. So, tailoring your content for people that you know already follow you is ideal.

If you want these stories posted on your timeline, you can share them on your timeline. This will allow others who don’t follow you to see your stories.

How can I tell who accessed my Facebook Story?

Unlike normal Facebook posts, there are no engagements on Stories. Viewers cannot like or react to your stories. However, you can see who viewed the story. Who is able to see your story is dictated by who you’ve been chatting with on Messenger. If you set your story to Public, your story will be able to be viewed by anyone who follows you, friends, or anyone that you’ve chatted with on Messenger. If you would like to see how many people have viewed the story, you will be able to see this on the story itself. There will be a view count and a list of people who viewed your story. The list is organized with friends first, which means that any friends who viewed your story will be at the top of the list.

 

Instagram Stories

You might be wondering why Facebook and Instagram would both have the same stories feature. Instagram is a platform which lends itself naturally to the Story format. Because Instagram already works primarily in image posts, the Story format is perfect for it. The difference, however, is in how the posts appear, and how the posts are tagged.

What is the difference between Facebook Stories and an Instagram Stories?

The stories are similar in how they function. There are a few differences, however. First, Instagram has released a highlights option. This is a feature that will allow you to retrieve your stories and re-post them to your timeline in a different fashion, under a special section reserved for those highlights. There is also an archive, like Facebook’s archive, that will allow you to share posts to your regular timeline. Like Facebook, though, these posts will only last 24 hours. If you want these stories to retain longer than this 24 hours, you will need to make sure that your archive is enabled. You can also add @mentions and hashtags to your Stories on Instagram, or you can draw on your stories. Instagram stories also feature Snapchat-like filters that can be overlaid onto your video or picture.

How can my followers tell that I’ve shared an Instagram story?

Unlike Facebook, there’s an easy way to tell if someone has shared a story. When there is a story active on your timeline, your Profile picture will be modified with a colorful ring surrounding it. This will alert your followers, or anyone viewing your profile, that you have posted a story. Your followers will also see that you’ve posted a story when they look at the top of their Feed. Your profile picture will appear there. You can also cross post your Stories to Facebook.

Now that I’ve shared an Instagram Story, how can I see who has accessed it?

This is similar to Facebook in that there are no interactions. You will have view counts, like Facebook, and you will be able to see who has viewed your story. Only you can see this information, as it is hidden from the public view. If you have a story that did particularly well, you can share that story from your archives.

What is this that I’m hearing about Instagram Stories Q&A?

Instagram has announced a new feature called Q&A. It is a feature that allows an Instagram Story to become interactive. As it currently stands, there are no interactions or comments on an Instagram Story. This new feature provides the opportunity to direct conversation to a specific topic by asking your viewers a question. You can then interact with those who have viewed your content via a short answer forum.

 

The OG – Snapchat

Snapchat is the original Story format. They created the short term post forum under the premise that some would want their memories to be experienced in the moment, without lingering. In that spirit, the Snap will only stick around for 24 hours before it’s gone. Snapchat also created the types of filters that are overlaid onto your posts. They created the multiple Snap animation, and they created the augmented reality that allows overlay onto any picture.

So, what the heck is the difference between Snapchat and Facebook and Instagram Stories?

Snapchat is significantly different than these platforms. The entire purpose of the platform is to communicate with others in ‘Snaps’ which are short picture stories. You can Multi-Snap, which means that you will see your photos as a short video, rather than a picture. Snapchat has a feature called Snapcodes. This feature is basically a QR code that allows you to Friend someone with a simple scan. These codes can also unlock lenses. A lens is the overlay filter that is signature for Snapchat. Snapchat has also implemented a feature called Snapcash. This is similar to the payment feature in Facebook messenger. This feature also offers a quirky feature that can make it rain on your friend’s screen. Snapchat, in essence, is a self-contained platform within the Story post format. The entire point of the platform is to send Story posts.

So, does Snapchat have an Archive?

In short, sort of. They have a Memories feature. This feature is a manual feature. As a user, you have to manually add each Snap into your Memories, or it is lost. There is an option to auto save, but only Snaps that are posted to your Story. Snapchat also allows you to add memories to a section of the app called “My Eyes Only.” This section is a vault. It is only accessible via a passcode, and if you forget that passcode, you’re out of luck. If you forget it, not even Snapchat has access to it. So take care to add this feature only if you know you will be able to remember your passcode. If you create a new passcode for the My Eyes Only section, it will wipe out all content within this section.

How do people recognize me on Snapchat?

Snapchat is very different from Facebook and Instagram in the way that they create profiles. The profile picture in Snapchat is not an actual picture. They have created an avatar of sorts that is called the Bitmoji. The Bitmoji is created through a different app that has to be downloaded separately from the Snapchat app. This can cause Snapchat to be a little bit more heavy in the amount of space that it takes up on your phone. Facebook Stories and Instagram Stories are both dealt with in their own native apps, but Snapchat needs this additional app to create your Profile Bitmoji.

Why use Snapchat over Facebook Stories or Instagram Stories?

The captive audience. Snapchat is all about the story posts. Your audience is specifically there for the content. They are using Snapchat to view this type of story. It is a great place to test content. If you have some type of content that you’re nervous about trying, it can be great to try it out on Snapchat to see how well it works. It is also a completely different space. Instead of having this tied to all of your other profile content, it’s the focus. In other words, in a particularly noisy Facebook and Instagram world, Snapchat is a breath of fresh air. It is the timeline that can remain clean and organized without all the other stuff that you’re trying to communicate to your followers.

Wrapping it all up

Snapchat, Facebook Stories, and Instagram Stories are all similar in how they operate and how they communicate to your viewers. Facebook Stories and Instagram Stories have recently added a few features that offer the user more customization than previously available. The real estate of the Stories features is invaluable, as Facebook and Instagram are trying to reach back to their roots and bring users back to the pure source of content. Facebook is trying to boost the value of the Stories feature, with new features being added every day. These features can provide the business user an invaluable tool to make Facebook and Instagram far more appealing to their average viewer. So, now that we know what these features are, we need to find out how we can use them to better our business. More on that next time. We will go over the features currently offered in Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, and Snapchat, and offer some best practices for when you’re developing your content.

The post Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, and Snapchat – New Formats for a New Age appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

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Facebook and Twitter 2018 Rules Changes – Update https://dlvrit.com/blog/facebook-and-twitter-2018-rules-changes-update/ Wed, 25 Apr 2018 21:38:09 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog/?p=18722 As you may know, Facebook and Twitter recently revamped their rules and policies. We strongly believe the changes at Facebook and Twitter are for the best and...

The post Facebook and Twitter 2018 Rules Changes – Update appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

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As you may know, Facebook and Twitter recently revamped their rules and policies. We strongly believe the changes at Facebook and Twitter are for the best and will lead to better user experiences and safer social media environments.

However, these changes have created some short-term confusion and uncertainty.

We wanted to provide a quick update on how these changes impact dlvr.it users and the steps we’re taking to help you navigate the new landscape.


Posting to Facebook Groups

dlvr.it has been recognized as a trusted Facebook partner and will continue to provide posting to Facebook Groups.

On April 5th Facebook temporarily blocked all apps from access to Groups. This resulted in dlvr.it losing connection to some Facebook groups. You may need to log into your dlvr.it account and reconnect your Facebook Groups in order to reactivate posting.

Twitter & Duplicate Content

Twitter now prohibits posting of duplicate original content on the same or multiple Twitter accounts. In order to help you comply with Twitter’s new rules, we’ve updated our checks for duplicate content and will not post original content more than once to Twitter.

This means dlvr.it will scan  for duplicate items posted via your feeds or through the ‘create new post’ interface. If you attempt to post an item that you previously posted via dlvr.it, we’ll stop that before it gets to Twitter.

On a related note – we’ve created a Retweet utility that we think you’ll love. More on that soon!

 

Facebook App Authorization

Facebook will soon require users to re-authorize apps every 90 days. This means you’ll need to regularly re-authorize dlvr.it to keep posting to your profile, pages and groups.

Don’t worry, we’ll send you an alert when you need to reauthorize.

 

Posting to Instagram

We’re working on integrating Instagram with dlvr.it and we’ll be making an announcement soon!

 


Through all the recent changes at Facebook and Twitter, our mission remains the same. We aim to provide the most powerful automation tools to help you succeed at social media.

We’ll keep you posted as we continue to update our services and respond the rapidly changing social media landscape.

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New Twitter Rules for 2018 and Beyond https://dlvrit.com/blog/new-twitter-rules-for-2018-and-beyond/ Fri, 16 Mar 2018 22:50:41 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog/?p=18675 In the wake of the 2016 US presidential election, Twitter has been in the spotlight due to the alleged use of the network by Russian bots to...

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In the wake of the 2016 US presidential election, Twitter has been in the spotlight due to the alleged use of the network by Russian bots to influence the election.

Facing heavy scrutiny from the US Congress, Twitter recently announced a number of significant rule and policy changes designed to counteract some common uses and abuses of the Twitter system. Twitter announced policy changes on February 21, 2018 with rules going into effect 30 days later on March 23, 2018.

These policy changes are aimed at reducing the influence of spam across Twitter by limiting the ability of multiple twitter accounts to coordinate the spread and amplification of certain Tweets.

Twitter’s policy changes impact all Twitter users – not just the bad actors. So whether you are a Russian bot farm operating in St. Petersburg or an upstanding small business trying to market on social media, you are now subject to Twitter’s new rules.

New Twitter Rules

This means many common and effective tweeting practices relied on by legitimate Twitter users are no longer allowed.

For instance, if you manage more than one twitter account – you can no longer post the same or similar original content to those accounts. This limitation applies regardless of whether the Tweets are published to Twitter at the same time, or are scheduled/queued for future publication.

If you’re used to simultaneously publishing or scheduling tweets across multiple twitter accounts, you’ll no longer be able to do this. Twitter removed this option from TweetDeck and all apps must follow by March 23.

Per Twitter: “One of the most common spam violations we see is the use of multiple accounts and the Twitter developer platform to attempt to artificially amplify or inflate the prominence of certain Tweets.”

Additionally, Twitter is now stepping up enforcement of other policies related to duplicate content. Twitter rules prohibit duplicate updates on a single account. This rule was previously only loosely enforced by Twitter. For instance, Twitter previously blocked identical posts to the same account only if the posts were attempted within the same 12 hour period. Twitter is now poised to enforce this policy much more aggressively by restricting all duplicate content posting, even if it the posts are made even days or weeks apart.

If you are like many major brands, and recycle the same tweet more than once on a single Twitter account – you’re now in danger of suspension or termination from Twitter.

How do these changes impact your use of dlvr.it?

Most importantly, our goal is to help our users make sure they are playing by Twitter’s new rules. We want our help our users avoid any problems with Twitter that could lead to their accounts being suspended or blocked.

To that end, we’re making some changes to dlvr.it and the way we handle posting to Twitter. We’ll be rolling out these changes next week.

You may connect only one Twitter account to an RSS feed for automated posting

— You will no longer be able to connect more than one Twitter account to a single RSS feed for automated posting.
— If you have any feeds set up for automated posting to more than one Twitter account, we’ll deactivate posting to Twitter.
— We are working on tools to enable you to post the original content to a single account and then retweet out to other accounts you own. This will be available soon. Stay tuned!

You may select one Twitter account when posting or scheduling content

— When posting or scheduling tweets, you’ll be limited to posting or scheduling that update to a single twitter account at a time.
— You may build another, differentiated post for posting to another Twitter account.

No EverQueue posting to Twitter

— We’ll no longer support automated recycling of original posts to Twitter via EverQueue.
— You will not be able queue additional EverQueue items for your Twitter accounts and any existing Twitter EverQueue posting will be deactivated.
— We’ll continue to support EverQueue posting to Facebook and other social networks.

Automated HashTags

— We will limit the practice of automatically including hashtags on Tweets.
— You can continue to manually add hashtags to posts, However, the automated addition of hashtags as prefixes or postfixes to Tweets will be deactivated.

What’s next?

We understand these changes may not be welcomed by all of our users. But the new Twitter policies apply evenly to all Twitter users and apps – even if you’ve been responsibly using Twitter for upstanding purposes. The goal of these changes to dlvr.it is to ensure all our users continue to play by Twitter’s evolving policies.

There may be some pain in the near term as we all adjust to the new Twitter rules. In the long term, these updates may result in a  better Twitter experience for law abiding Twitter users. Expect adjustments and tweaks to Twitter’s policies as these new changes take effect. We’re closely monitoring the situation and will be updating dlvr.it’s features as Twitter tweaks and clarifies their policies.

We’ll be making announcements in the coming days and weeks regarding some fresh new features to help our users navigate the new Twitter landscape. Stay tuned!

What do you think?

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the Twitter policy changes. Will these new rules result in a better Twitter experience? Will these policy changes keep unsavory actors from gaming Twitter? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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Facebook Support for Beginners https://dlvrit.com/blog/facebook-support/ Tue, 03 Oct 2017 13:00:00 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog?p=18304&preview=true&preview_id=18304 I would be willing to wager that all of us have had to contact Facebook support at one time or another in our lives. You may have...

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I would be willing to wager that all of us have had to contact Facebook support at one time or another in our lives. You may have been restricted, your post may have been flagged, or you might have accidentally locked yourself out of your account. Whatever the occasion, Facebook has a vast support network that can be difficult to navigate. Fortunately, we have created this handy guide to help you maneuver through this intimidating world.

Basic Facebook Support Navigation

There are 6 tabs contained on the homepage of Facebook’s support site. They all have subcategories that are very important to understanding how Facebook works with support issues.

Using Facebook

There are several options listed under this category in Facebook support. They range from Creating an account to Accessibility. There are useful step by step guides as to how to do everything that you can do on Facebook. The first is Creating an Account. This guide walks you through the process of creating an account, but more importantly, discusses the security features on Facebook. The rest of the Creating an Account tab goes over the basics of Facebook, providing information about Friending, Messaging, Photos, and even more. These are the pages that will provide the most important information in operating a Facebook page.

Managing your Account

This section discusses some of the vital information about your Facebook account. This goes over how to change your password, secure your account, and how Facebook manages names and allows availability. You can also find security settings and profile settings guides under this category. It also goes over common questions related to notifications and Ad settings.

Privacy and Safety

This category is fairly self-explanatory. It discusses privacy and safety. There are guides about blocking people, maintaining your safety, and hacked or fake accounts. This is the section that you will visit if you’re having any security issues.

Policies and Reporting

This is the section that is normally the most important if you’re having issues with Facebook. If you’re being labeled a spammer, or if your account gets blocked for some reason, this is the place to go. Facebook provides policies on copyright issues, abuse, and community standards. The most vital section in this menu is regarding reporting abuse.

Support Inbox

Your support inbox is where you will find all personalized communication. If Facebook has removed a post, has received a support ticket, or is otherwise involved in your social media life, this is where you find those communications. This could be related to spam, an account restriction, or a general question you had about a specific matter.

Why does all this matter?

Facebook has so many different issues that can come up. It is so vital to get to know their support site because chances are, there will be something that comes up. I, myself, have had a post removed for spam reasons, when the post was literally only to alert people of a scam going around Facebook. With a platform as large as Facebook’s, something is bound to happen. I find that even Facebook makes mistakes, and if they do, it s important to notify them so that they may learn from it.

I understand the support site, but how do we contact them?

There are only certain circumstances that require direct communication with Facebook. Sometimes, your answer is as simple as looking at the support document pertaining to your issue. For example, if you need help with reporting a profile impersonating your own, simply to to the Reporting and Policies tab in the help center, and click on Hacked and Fake accounts. Once you have reached that page, you will see several subheadings. One of these subheadings has a step by step process that will help you report that pesky profile.

Even Facebook has a need to directly communicate with their users, though. For example, if your post was deleted because Facebook believes that the post was spam, they will tell you in your support inbox. They will also give you the opportunity to appeal their decision. You do have options to ask Facebook to review their ruling. There also may be other circumstances in which you need to contact Facebook directly. One of those examples is if you’re managing an account for a deceased individual. In Facebook’s help site, you are able to click on the topic for this issue, and you will receive direct instructions to contact Facebook for further assistance. Fortunately, these circumstances are rare, and are only required in cases outside the norm.

Why use Facebook anyway?

Facebook is one of the world’s most utilized social media platforms. It is vital that you have access to this technology simply for the marketing performance alone. If you take the time to post your content on Facebook, that is a huge audience to which you are marketing, simply by being on Facebook. If you market locally vs on Facebook, you will always have a higher percentage of viewership. Whether or not this turns into conversion is up to you.

However, there are methods to convert higher viewership for your posts. For example, you can strategically repost content to reach different audiences. You can reuse Evergreen content as a way to bring in new traffic, or even use third party content to help boost your page. All of these methods will help you find a niche that will appeal to your target demographic.

What should I avoid?

The most important thing is to avoid making Facebook consider you a spammer. Facebook has certain policies about spam, that they do not publish in specific detail. However, having assisted users with Facebook issues, primarily, Facebook flags posts because they come in too often. Avoid using your Automation service as a barrage of content that haunts your users, rather than provides necessary information. Make sure that your content is relevant, well spaced, and does not meet common spam standards. Some posts may not seem like spam, but Facebook will flag them for other reasons. Don’t hesitate to reach out to Facebook and establish a dialogue if necessary.

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How to Select the Most Visually Appealing Facebook Images for Your Posts https://dlvrit.com/blog/facebook-images/ Tue, 23 May 2017 17:30:00 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog?p=17843&preview=true&preview_id=17843 We all know that Facebook is one of the most widely used social media platforms in recent history. In fact, according to Pew Research Center, 79% of...

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We all know that Facebook is one of the most widely used social media platforms in recent history. In fact, according to Pew Research Center, 79% of all online adults are on Facebook. These are moms, grandmas, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, and friends. Most importantly, these individuals are the people that will be looking at all of your content. Your content must catch their eye on their timelines. According to Brandwatch, users spend an average of 20 minutes per day on the site. This means that you have to quickly stand out above the hundreds of other posts competing for limited attention. How do you do this? Facebook images are the best method to draw your audience’s attention to your content.

Images are extremely powerful in conveying messages in social media even with a single glance. – Kristel Cuenta

How do I select the right Facebook images?

Choosing a Facebook image can be a daunting task. Selecting the best sized image for Facebook is the first step. Even the idea of a picture to match your message can sound complicated. There are a few rules to select the most appropriate images.

Facebook itself has published a cheat sheet about selecting the right images for an ad campaign.

facebook images cheat sheet

What can we learn from this, even if we’re not planning on purchasing Facebook Ads?

We can learn a lot from this:

  • First, we can learn that even your high traffic evergreen content can potentially become stale over time if it is not updated. Refreshing the Facebook images in your evergreen content can draw a bigger crowd.
  • Second, we learn that even something as minuscule as poor lighting can destroy interest in your post. The details in your images matter!
  • Third, we can learn that even when using fresh images, consistency is important to keep your audience engaged.

Related to this sentiment, make sure that your image is consistent with your message. Don’t choose a picture that makes no sense with what you’re talking about. If you’re writing about your restaurant, post an image that could’ve come directly from your restaurant, or even take a high quality, well-lit photo of your restaurant.

Consider experimenting with different Facebook images

Consider Facebook’s advice to keep your images fresh.

James Scherer chose a few examples in his article about posts that drew attention on Facebook. Some did poorly, and some did well. I, however, like to view these images in a context of “how can they change the image without changing any text?” This was the lone standout for me:

The reason that this post stood out was that it was very simple to change the picture without needing to change any text at all. Just choose another photo of a holiday scene. Perhaps a scene with a family surrounding a beautifully decorated tree. Maybe a picture of a door with a wreath. Possibly even a GIF that showed this same door opening to reveal snippets of a Twitter conversation. The possibilities are simply endless with this post content and using Facebook images can draw your audience in even more.

Don’t forget to connect with your audience

Some of the most effective Facebook posts that I’ve seen in recent years are Facebook posts for non-profit organizations. These organizations use their charitable subjects to solicit donations, and they do it quite effectively. This post is one that I came across on my own timeline recently:

Why is this post effective?

The story is told by the dog initially. This post has used a happy, healthy dog to draw your attention and then draws your attention even further by telling the dog’s story. In this case, the dog, Parsley, had her life turned around by a grant offered by a non-profit organization. Posts like these can help your audience understand the good work that you’re doing and why you need further donations to help more pets. I find posts like these highly effective because they remind us of our own dogs and cats and therefore, help us to make a decision as to whether or not to donate funds to these causes.

Most of all, make it personal!

Your Facebook readers will not care about your story unless you care about your story.

Make an appeal to your readers to help them understand why your business or topic is important. Help them to comprehend the appeal of your product or business and then help them access it. Stock images are helpful to draw attention, but helping your audience to connect with your posts on a personal level is the best way to reach someone who will remain loyal to your following for a long time to come.

  • Show those you want to reach a new view into your life.
  • Show them your surroundings or your business.
  • Give them a behind the scenes look at what you would want them to know about the operations of your business.
  • If you are running a non-profit organization, introduce your viewers to some of the beneficiaries of your donations.
  • If you’re running a print shop, show them some of the products that you are passionate about.
  • Even show them a team member who is dedicated to making the best product for a customer.

Commitment is the name of the game with this type of post, and your images should reflect that.

I found my perfect image, now what?

Now that you’ve found your perfect image, there are a few steps that you will need to follow to make sure that Facebook picks out that image. The best method to choose the correct image is to utilize Open Graph image tagging. This is the type of tagging that will most often tell Facebook which images are the best to use. If you use a WordPress site, you can utilize this procedure to add these tags to your posts. Once you have added your Open Graph tags to your post, you can simply put your RSS feed into dlvr.it to automatically pull and post your content. Simply prioritize your Open Graph tags as your preferred image detection, and dlvr.it will take care of the heavy lifting. Here’s some pro tips to control the images posted to Facebook.

Once you’ve nailed your images, you may want to explore other pro tactics to boost the traffic and visibility of your Facebook page.

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139 Unbelievable Instagram Marketing Facts That Will Blow Your Mind https://dlvrit.com/blog/instagram-marketing/ Wed, 22 Mar 2017 14:05:58 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog/?p=17655 There’s never been a better time to ramp up your Instagram marketing efforts. The photo sharing app has blossomed into the top visual social network and has...

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There’s never been a better time to ramp up your Instagram marketing efforts. The photo sharing app has blossomed into the top visual social network and has emerged as a favorite social platform for brands and marketers. Thanks to Website Builder for their sharply designed infographic below, read more on the 139 Instagram facts and statistics for businesses considering a dive into Instagram in 2017.

Instagram Marketing Facts

  • 49% of the top brands use Instagram. This is projected to increase to over 70% by the end of 2017.
  • 50% of Instagram users follow at least one business
  • Nike is the most followed brand on Instagram with over 68 million followers

Instagram Demographics

  • 55% of US 18-29-year-olds are Instagram users
  • Instagram users are affluent – 56% of Instagram users earn over $50,000 per year
  • Instagram has an extremely dedicated and active user base
  • 80% of Instagram’s users are from outside of the United States

A staggering 50% of Instagram’s 600 million users are active daily. That’s 300 million actively daily users!

What are the Best Times to Post on Instagram?

The best time to post to Instagram may surprise you – it’s not during regular business hours. Many of the top posting times are early morning and late at night.

  • Sunday: 5 pm
  • Monday: 7 pm & 10 pm
  • Tuesday: 3 am & 10 pm
  • Wednesday: 5 pm
  • Thursday: 7 am & 11 pm
  • Friday: 1 am & 8 pm
  • Saturday: 12 am & 2 am

Read more on The Unscientific Guide to Determine Best Times to Post on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and More

Fun Instagram Facts

Over 95 million photos and videos are shared every day on Instagram

  • 40 billion have been shared so far

Selena Gomez is the most followed celebrity on Instagram with 105 114 million followers (as of March 2017)

  • If Gomez were a country and her followers were the population, it would be the 12th most populous country in the world.

Selena Gomez - Queen of Instagram Marketing

FC Barcelona (Soccer) is the top professional sports team on Instagram with 42.5 47.8 million followers (as of March 2017)

  • FC Barcelona’s has 7.7x the number of followers as the most followed US sports team – the Golden State Warriors (NBA), with 5.6 6.2 million followers (as of March 2017).

FC Barcelona - Queen of Instagram Marketing
Still not sure you should be on Instagram?

Check out this very informative infographic from Website Builder to learn more about this exciting social platform!

139 Facts about Instagram You Should Be Aware of in 2017

Instagram Marketing

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Are you ready to dive into an Instagram marketing plan? dlvr.it has partnered with Instagram to make creating RSS feeds and linking Instagram to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest a breeze. In a few clicks, easily create an Instagram RSS feed with dlvr.it’s FREE tool. Read more here and here.

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Top Social Media Marketing Stats for 2017 — INFOGRAPHIC https://dlvrit.com/blog/top-social-media-marketing-stats-in-2017/ Mon, 06 Feb 2017 21:47:00 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog/?p=17561 The social media marketing landscape seems to change by the hour. Hot new social media trends emerge and disappear with astonishing speed. How does a social media...

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The social media marketing landscape seems to change by the hour. Hot new social media trends emerge and disappear with astonishing speed. How does a social media marketer make sense of all the hype? It’s always good to start with the data.

The actionable social media marketing stats in this infographic will help you chart your social media marketing strategy for 2017. Here are some of the key insights:

Facebook is Dead. Long Live the King.

With the rise of new social networks like WhatsApp and Snapchat, many pundits have been predicting the demise of Facebook. This may be true, eventually. But as of 2017 Facebook remains the top social network in the world.

A whopping 79% of all US internet users are on Facebook. Looking more broadly, Facebook reaches 68% of all US adults (not just internet users). Despite the hype and excitement surrounding the new social media networks on the block, Facebook remains the undisputed leader.

Your social media marketing strategy for 2017 should include a big dose of Facebook.

Pinterest Drives Retail Shoppers

If you’re a retailer, Pinterest should be at the top of your social media marketing shopping list for 2017. The image-centric social network has become one of the largest drivers of retail referral traffic on the internet. Pinterest now drives 25% of all retail referral traffic. Moreover, 93% of Pinterest users are there to plan and make purchases.

Let’s go shopping!

Images and Videos Boost Engagement on Social Media

Sharing images and video on social media works. This should come as no surprise to savvy social media marketers. Here’s some hard evidence to back up what you’ve already known about social media and rich media posts.

  • Twitter: Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks that tweets without images.
  • LinkedIn: Posts with images result in more comments.
  • Facebook: Over 100M hours of youtube video are watched on Facebook daily
  • Snapchat: 400M Snaps shared per day, or 9,000 Snaps shared per second

Mobile Is Where Social Media Happens

The vast majority of time spend on social media happen on mobile devices.

  • More than 80% of time spent on social media platforms happens on mobile devices
  • More than 50% of all YouTube video plays are on mobile

Social Media Marketing Stats for 2017 Infographic

This smart infographic is from Red Website Design. The infographic visualizes data from The Wordstream Blog.

Top social media marketing stats for 2017
Top social media marketing stats for 2017

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How to Link Facebook to Twitter With SMART Automation https://dlvrit.com/blog/link-facebook-to-twitter/ Thu, 03 Nov 2016 13:15:00 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog?p=17325&preview_id=17325 The subtle nuances of when to post, why to post and where to post on social media, can be overwhelming. This uncertainty is especially true for small businesses....

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The subtle nuances of when to post, why to post and where to post on social media, can be overwhelming. This uncertainty is especially true for small businesses. To make posting across multiple networks simple, Facebook offers an easy way to link Facebook to Twitter. And, so does Twitter as discussed in our post on How to Link Twitter to Facebook with Smart Automation.

However, the one-stop shop approach of posting content from one social media platform to another, in one (or two) simple keystrokes (e.g., link Facebook to Twitter and Twitter to Facebook), may be acceptable for some, but it all depends on your intent and audience.

As a user, I find it annoying when people constantly cross-post. There’s a reason why we’re friends on Facebook and a reason why I follow people on Twitter – but the reasons are quite different. If I want to see what you tweet, I’ll follow you on Twitter, but I don’t necessarily want to be your friend on Facebook. – Found on Quora in response to the question: What are the pros and cons of having Twitter crosspost to Facebook?

Option #1: Link Facebook to Twitter via the Facebook Interface

Pros: Automatically connecting Facebook to Twitter

  • Automation saves you time.

The time-saving nature of automation is true. But, how many times a day, week or month do you post on Facebook vs. Twitter?

For example, every social media platform offers different ways to connect, and the way you share information and connect with people through Facebook is very different to the way you would connect through Twitter.

Twitter is fast-paced, you can Tweet ten times a day and not be seen to be bombarding your followers, however, if you posted at this frequency through Facebook, this could be overkill.

Cons: Automatically connecting Facebook to Twitter

Publishing a Facebook post to your Twitter (or vice versa) may seem like a good idea, “killing two birds with one stone”, but none of your Facebook friends or Twitter followers will be thankful that you did… in fact, it may cause quite the opposite reaction. – Stir Up Media

  • Your followers follow you on TWITTER because they want to read your TWEETS and your Facebook followers are “liking” your page because they want to see your posts… they don’t want to be sent away to an entirely different social media platform to read what you have to say; it annoys the heck out of the majority of them.
  • Your Facebook posts can be much longer but will be cut off after 114 characters (or so) to include a link to the complete post.
  • While hashtags are well established on Twitter, they are not very common on Facebook and make no sense to most people. Using hashtags through Twitter may also not quite make sense through Facebook, or when tagging a business or name through Facebook – it won’t translate and connect through Twitter on an auto-post – they simply don’t quite marry when you connect them in this way.

How to Auto Link Facebook to Twitter (from Facebook)

Step 1: Go to facebook.com/twitter and click on the ‘Link to Twitter‘ button. You can connect your personal profile (at the top) and/or any of your Facebook pages, all from this page.

Note: You must be logged in to the Twitter account you are trying to link.

Step 2: From here, it will take you to a prompt to authorize Facebook to use your account. If you are not logged in, you will need to enter your Twitter username and password first.

Step 3: Once you click on ‘Authorize app‘ it will redirect you back to Facebook where you see the following screen and can select what type of content you’d like to share by clicking on the boxes.

Link Facebook to Twitter settings to setup your account

Here you can decide how much information you want to share on Twitter then click ‘Save Changes‘ and you’re all set!

Now you’ll be able to simply post a status update on Facebook that will keep you from having to log into both services and post two separate updates.

HUM…are you sure this is what you want to do?

***Note: since Twitter has a 140 character limit, it will automatically truncate your post with an automatically created short URL that will link back to the original post on Facebook.

HUM…

I’m not going to sugar coat this…the easier solution is to connect Facebook to Twitter directly through the Facebook interface.

However, with a few extra steps using Zapier + dlvr.it (option #2 below), you have much more control over what to send, how often and when.

Option #2: Link Facebook to Twitter via dlvr.it with smart automation

Pros:

1 – dlvr.it uses smart social media automation

This solution is very different from the automation used by Facebook in option #1 above.

With dlvr.it, you have as much automation as you need.

  • 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.

2 – dlvr.it allows you to share just the right amount of automation for your social media needs.

  • Hands-free auto-posting
  • Handcrafted curated posts on an optimized schedule
  • Fine tune sharing based on keywords, author, tags and more

Cons:

  • The major drawback is the amount of time needed (initially)

It takes a few extra minutes to work on setting up dlvr.it and then using Zapier to string together an RSS feed. But, once completed, you’re ready to go – use as much or as little automation as you need.

How to Link Facebook to Twitter – the smart automation solution

Step 1: You’ll need to create an RSS feed using a tool called Zapier. Don’t fret; this may take an extra few minutes, but you’ll have to do this just once.

Once done, follow the steps below to create a Facebook RSS feed.

This recipe will make it incredibly easy to supercharge your social media and dlvr.it accounts.

Get Started

  1. Click ‘Make a Zap!’. You will land on an editing page where you can tell Zapier what data to pull and where you want to put it. You can name your Zap in the top left corner of that page.

How to Create a Facebook RSS Feed Step 1

Choose a Facebook Page

Next, you need to tell Zapier, which Facebook Pages account to grab data from.

  1. In Step 1 (the Trigger step) of the Zap, type ‘Facebook Pages’ in the ‘Choose a Trigger App’ search bar.
  2. Select ‘New Page Stream Post’ and then click ‘Save + Continue’.
  3. Select ‘Connect a New Account’ and enter your Facebook email address and password in the pop-up box. Then click ‘Save + Continue’.
  4. From the drop-down box, choose a Facebook page. Click ‘Continue’.How to Create a Facebook RSS Feed Step 2
  5. Make sure you have one recent page stream posted to the Facebook page you selected. Then click ‘Fetch + Continue’.
  6. Once you see the ‘Test Successful’ message, click ‘Continue’.How to Create a Facebook RSS Feed Step 3

Configure the RSS Feed

  1. In Step 2 (the Action step) of the Zap, type ‘RSS by Zapier’ in the ‘Choose an Action App’ search bar.
  2. Select ‘Create Item in Feed’ and then click ‘Save + Continue’.
  3. Now you can fill in the fields to customize the Zap. Play around with the settings to format your RSS feed.
  4. Click the drop-down arrows on the right side of each field to show the fields that are available to add in each section. You can copy the settings we selected below. Click to see how the RSS feed formatted with these settings.
  5. Name your RSS feed and click ‘Copy to clipboard’.
  6. Add a Title. We chose the ‘Message’ field.
  7. The Source URL is where the feed item should link. Choose ‘First Action Link’.
  8. Next, add the body content of the feed item. With the limited options available, we opted to show the ‘Message’ field which means the title and the body content will be the same in the feed.
  9. The Author name, Author link, and other fields are optional.

How to Create a Facebook RSS Feed

  1. Click ‘Continue’.
  2. Click ‘Create + Continue’ then wait for the ‘Test Successful’ message and click ‘Finish’.

How to Create a Facebook RSS Feed Step 5

Save the RSS Feed

  1. Choose a folder to store your Zap in (optional).
  2. Toggle the Zap to ‘On’ and wait for the green checkmark to appear.

How to Create a Facebook RSS Feed Step 6

Share your Facebook Page Updates

Add the new Facebook RSS feed URL to dlvr.it. Route the updates to link Facebook to Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and more. When you click on the links inside the content, readers are redirected back to Facebook to consume the entire update. Here you will also be able to customize the RSS feed a bit further by automatically adding hashtags, prefixes, and optimized schedules.

What Next? How to maximize your Facebook RSS feed

dlvr.it’s smart social media automation is all about how little or how much you want to automate to link Facebook to Twitter and your other social networks.

1 – If you don’t want to send everything from Facebook to your other social accounts, use Filters.

2 – Does scheduling makes sense for you? If so, make sure to schedule at the right time.

3 – Looking for content to share? dlvr.it’s content curation feature keeps 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.

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In Conclusion

1 – If you don’t post a lot of content on Facebook, automatically connecting Facebook to Twitter directly through Facebook’s app might not make a difference to your Twitter followers. My suggestion is to use option #1 above – it makes perfect sense for your needs.

2 – However, to take full advantage of all that dlvr.it offers through its smart automation features, follow option #2 above to link Facebook to Twitter and vice versa.

The post How to Link Facebook to Twitter With SMART Automation appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

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Surprisingly, Google Plus is Back. What You Need to Know. https://dlvrit.com/blog/google-plus/ Thu, 13 Oct 2016 13:15:00 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog?p=16833&preview_id=16833 I had to check my calendar to make sure I wasn’t in some time warp. Or better yet, a “Back to the Future” type Hollywood movie. It’s...

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I had to check my calendar to make sure I wasn’t in some time warp. Or better yet, a “Back to the Future” type Hollywood movie. It’s 2016, and I’m writing about Google Plus.

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:

Total number of Google+ active members 375,000,000
Total number of unique Google+ monthly visits 27,000,000
Average time spent on Google+ per visit 3:46
Percent of online adults that visit Google+ at least once a month 22 %
Percent of smartphone users that use the Google+ app at least once a month 30 %
Average sales order for a visitor referred from Google+ $40

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”
How to Add a Google Plus Personal Profile to dlvr.it

 

2.) Click the G+ icon
How to add a Google Plus Personal Profile to dlvr.it

3.) Choose your Google account

How to Add a Google Plus Personal Profile to dlvr.it

 

4.) Choose your Google Plus Personal Profile

How to Add a Google Plus Personal Profile to dlvr.it

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.

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How to Use Snapchat to Boost Engagement: 7 Awesome Tips https://dlvrit.com/blog/how-to-use-snapchat/ Tue, 27 Sep 2016 16:32:11 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog?p=16479&preview_id=16479 Snapchat opened its doors only five years ago. Today this social media platform is stronger than ever, and it looks like its future is even brighter. However, if...

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Snapchat opened its doors only five years ago. Today this social media platform is stronger than ever, and it looks like its future is even brighter. However, if you’re a business owner that’s over 20 years old, there’s still a decent chance you don’t know how to use Snapchat.

Snapchat grew in one year as much as Twitter has in four. The growth and dominance of Snapchat prove it is the latest social network that you need to pay attention to.

Editors note: In this post on how to use Snapchat, we welcomed user submissions from our blog readers. Who better to help us understand Snapchat than an avid user and aspiring writer, Mike Jones. 

How to Use Snapchat to Boost Engagement

In this post, we’ll discuss seven Snapchat tips guaranteed to give you a boost in your social media engagement.

First, it’s important to understand the real backbone behind Snapchat.

1 – Understanding Snapchat

Understanding How to Use Snapchat to Boost Engagement

Without embarrassment or apologies, Snapchat succeeded in bringing a different card to the “big guys’ table”. On the contrary, thanks to this card, the website wins more and more territory among social media users every day.

This card is about Evanescence. The creators behind Snapchat understood that the one element that defines a real-life conversation to be genuine and desirable is in actuality, its perishing character. You can’t find the dialogue saved on any hard disk, but a Snapchat becomes a memory that inspires a feeling inside of us.

Definition of evanescence - how to use snapchat

The same rule of meaningful conversation stands as a backbone for today’s Snapchat. Visual stories from a Snapchat disappear without a trace after 24 hours from their creation. The success of this innovative feature makes us think that the Internet shouldn’t store our humanity (a wishful thought).

This disappearing act brings some bad news and good news when thinking about how to use Snapchat for your business.

  • The bad news is that you have only 24 hours to prove a point.
  • The good news is that every 24 hours you have a clean page to create the recipe that boosts engagement.

2 – Cracking Snapchat Stories

How to use Snapchat by cracking Snapchat stories

How to use Snapchat in a natural and organic way to boost engagement is to beat Snapchat at its own game, namely by creating compelling stories. The platform runs entirely on snaps, which are videos or photos that open the door to a narrative. Using snaps to promote your brand:

  • Gives you access to a low-cost marketing channel that creates highly personal connections
  • Engages users with one another

To make the most of your 24 hours, you should respect a key element that differentiates snaps from other videos or photos. That is – every snap posted – should have a raw personality.

Snapchat doesn’t require big budgets or an elaborate marketing strategy

This character means that the story of a snap doesn’t require a large budget or much forethought, but should convey an original message, and be spontaneous. Snapchat doesn’t speak the language of business. But rather, consumers come to Snapchat to show the world their real face and have fun at the same time. So, it is important to forget about marketing strategies while on Snapchat and come up with new ways to make consumers see your brand.

Every story can receive an impactful boost by using Snapchat features. Businesses shouldn’t restrict the use of lenses, face swaps, emojis or special texts in their posts. These features increase the engagement in a fun and natural way. Rumors have it that Snapchat will move its content to the 3D level, so be prepared for new methods to deliver stories – sooner than later!

By cracking Snapchat stories, the result will help forge the key to success. Remember that snaps have 24 hours to become memorable through authenticity and originality by showing pieces of reality that inspire your brand to greatness.

3 – Show your Brand’s Personality

 Show your Brand’s Personality - How to use Snapchat

Users make a choice before joining Snapchat. That choice is to ditch the glamorous filters of Instagram and the pressure of posting only “perfect” stories on Facebook for the envy of friends. Instead, they seek new ways to show the world their real personality. This human aspect might mean exposing their “not so cool” traits, such as silliness or awkward situations.

Before creating their first story, businesses have to learn how to use Snapchat in this new way of socializing. Fortunately, companies can choose from several methods to make their brands more personal and to boost engagement.

How to use Snapchat to make your brand more personal

  • Snapchat exclusive sales. This method is the perfect platform where you can design some private sales. Make sure you post the campaign only here and nowhere else. It is a good way to create the feel of a community, where only Snapchatters can enjoy exclusive perks.
  • Snapchat promotions. Again, this method has exclusivity at its core, but it is more than that. This time, Snapchat users have to do a little extra work to gain access to your promotion. Giveaways are fun to host, especially when everyone that participated gets a reward. The participation usually sticks to what Snapchatters love most, namely taking pictures or videos that respect a theme related to your brand.
  • Exclusive previews of new products. Before showing the world your brand new product, entrust your community with your exclusive news. Showing Snapchatters your product before anyone else will create a unique bond with them based on trust. The excitement of a new product is something worth talking about. Sparking up the possibility of a viral event will boost engagement.
  • Behind the scenes videos. Snapchat gives its users a friendly environment to post daily events. As no one has only perfect days in a row, snaps about ordinary daily activities are most appreciated here.

Your brand is not just a professional product. Brands have regular faces, meetings, daily office routines, office parties, a kitchen with coffee, etc. Show Snapchatters that they are part of your community through behind the scenes videos that surprise them. Such as:

  • A crazy brainstorming session of the marketing team
  • A philosophical dialogue between colleagues over coffee
  • The process of product creation

Users will feel that they can relate to your brand, which humanizes it.

4 – Allow Takeovers

How to use Snapchat through influencers

There are many influential Snapchatters whose voices inspire thousands of followers on a daily basis. Even greater news is the possibility that there are important influencers out there that have something to do with your field.

It is a good strategy to discover these famous personalities within the Snapchat community and contact them with the purpose of collaboration. For example, clothing retailer, Wet Seal worked on a Snapchat campaign that was entirely taken over by an influencer with the username MsMeghanMakeup. She had a community of more than 300,000 followers, and her experience with this social platform enabled her to gather 9,000 connections in just two weeks for the fashion retailer.

We wanted to be thoughtful about how we could exponentially increase our reach, so we partnered with an influencer in the teen space. – Leslie Hall, President at Wet Seal’s digital agency ICED Media

This campaign demonstrated one of the most effective engagements boost that Snapchat ever saw.

→Key Takeaway: Allow the help of influencers, especially when your Snapchat profile is at its beginning.

5 – Activate Snap Ads

Snapchat has made it easy for businesses of all kinds to advertising on its platform. The website recently introduced the option of snap ads, which are approximately 10-second promotional videos that appear between stories. These ads seem like normal posts – which give them an organic nature. You can also include a swipe up option, like other snaps, to lead viewers to pages with additional details, such as websites, longer videos, and articles.

Snap Ads can appear even during a live snap. They can target audiences based on gender, age, type of content they engage with or mobile network careers. What’s fascinating is that Snapchat discovered that the click through rate on a Snap Ad is 5x higher than on other social platforms.

6 – The Power of Geofilters

Snapchat doesn’t employ hashtags, but it nonetheless has a similar version of them. The new hashtags are the Snapchat geofilters. These are little decorations that appear on snaps. The use of the geofilters is to let viewers know the location of the Snapchatter by showing the name of the city, neighborhood or other places.

Businesses can now create sponsored geofilters of their own. Whenever users snap a photo, they have the option to use the filter of the location to explain where they are. The little art can cover bars, shops or restaurants, but they can even be active during an event.

This way, if a business doesn’t own a certain location, the marketing team can manage campaigns where Snapchatters have to be in a particular place, use the brand’s geofilter, and have a chance to win an exciting prize. Snapchat claims that a nationally sponsored geofilter from the U.S. can reach 40% to 60% of its daily users. And when you think about the fact that Snapchat has around 150 million daily users, you can just see how much geofilters can boost engagement.

7 – Sponsored Lenses

 How to use Snapchat - use the Snapchat lens to boost engagement

There’s a third way to invest in Snapchat advertising. A favorite feature of this social platform is the lens. Users can add these interactive animations over a photo or a video, and the result is funny and entertaining. Users can now throw up rainbows, have kitty faces, big eyes, change into zombies or famous characters.

Businesses can join this popular trend with sponsored lenses. Snapchatters tend to love sponsored lenses and use them to personalize their snaps. With just one caveat – as long as you come up with a new and exciting twist on the user experience! Snapchat researched this social feature and found that their users play around 20 seconds on average with a Sponsored Lens. That gives the businesses enough exposure to clearly boost the engagement of their brands.

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Hopefully, with these seven tips, you have enough insight into how to use Snapchat to promote more engagement with your brand. Do you see a Snapchat campaign in your future? All indicators support that Snapchat should be part of your social media mix. So, now is a perfect time to board the Snapchat boat to increase brand awareness.

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Pros and Cons of Facebook Ads: How to Determine the Best Strategy https://dlvrit.com/blog/facebook-ads/ Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:22:28 +0000 https://dlvrit.com/blog?p=16483&preview_id=16483 As of the second quarter 2016, Facebook had over 1.71 billion active users – are you reaching the right ones? My guess, probably not. But if you’re...

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As of the second quarter 2016, Facebook had over 1.71 billion active users – are you reaching the right ones? My guess, probably not. But if you’re like me, spending money on Facebook Ads is like blindly throwing darts.

You may have dabbled in spending a couple of bucks to boost your Facebook page posts but were probably disappointed with the little response – leaving you feeling like you wasted your money. Sound familiar? Do you find yourself wishing there was a better way to reach your target audience on Facebook? 

Unless you’ve taken one of Mari Smith’s Facebook Ads webinars or are a social media expert, it’s hard to know where to start and how much money you should spend.

In this post, we’ll discuss the who, what, where, why and when of Facebook advertising.

1 – How Facebook Ads work

2 – Who Should Advertise on Facebook?

3 – How to Target Facebook Ads

4 – How create a successful campaign

5 – Importance of images for Facebook Ads

6 – How to track performance

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People who like your Page spend an average of 2 times more as your customers than people who aren’t connected to you on Facebook. (Facebook Ads fact)

How Do Facebook Ads Work?

In researching this post, I realized that I didn’t quite know the difference between Facebook Ads and a boosted post and when should I use one or the other? It turns out, the answer to this question isn’t always an easy one. It depends on what your goals are for advertising and what audiences you want to reach.

Thanks to Reload Media for the following explanation:

What is a boosted post?

A boosted post is the most basic advertising you can do on Facebook. You create a boost by allocating advertising budget to a post already on your business page. Taking my husbands business page Evan Garber Arts as an example below, you can see the ‘Boost Post’ option in the bottom right-hand corner.

Boost Post vs. Facebook Ads

  • The post on its own would only reach a tiny portion of Evan’s current audience which could be as little as .05%!
  • Boosting the post allows you to ensure a much larger audience sees the post in their news feed.

Typically, use boosted posts when the goal is to achieve audience engagement such as post likes, shares, and comments.

What are Facebook Ads?

Facebook ads are a more advanced way to advertise on Facebook and require you to create an ad account.

Facebook ads offer the greatest number of options for advertisers, and the type of ad you choose to use will depend on your marketing objectives. Objectives include Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion and contain the following goals:

1 – Awareness

  • Boost your posts = Post Engagement
  • Promote your Page = Page Likes
  • Reach people near your business = Local Awareness
  • Increase brand awareness = Brand Awareness

2 – Consideration

  • Send people to your website = Website Clicks
  • Get installs of your app = # of App Installs
  • Raise attendance at your event = Event Responses
  • Get video views = # of Video Views
  • Collect leads for your business = Lead Generation

→Interested in generating more Facebook leads? Make sure to read Everything You Need to Know about Facebook Lead Ads.

3 – Conversion

  • Increase conversions on your website = Website Conversions
  • Increase engagement in your app = App Engagement
  • Get people to claim your offer = Offer Claims
  • Promote a product catalog = Product Catalog Sales

Here’s a simple image from Facebook, explaining how Facebook ads work:

How Facebook Ads work

Who Should Advertise on Facebook?

First, take a moment to think about why advertising on Facebook may be worth the investment for your business.

Perhaps you’ll recognize some of these challenges that Mari Smith hears from Facebook Page owners on a regular basis:

  • Your fan growth has reached a plateau.
  • You’re unable to reach more of the fans you do have.
  • You’re not sure if paying to promote (boost) your Page posts “actually” works.
  • When you do pay to boost posts, your organic reach goes down.
  • You’re afraid of wasting money.
  • You’ve tried ads before and didn’t get good results (read: a solid ROI, return on investment).
  • You’re not really sure what to advertise.
  • You don’t understand Facebook’s ad terminology.
  • You don’t know who to turn to when you get stuck….

Next, consider what type of business do you market to. Are you a business to consumer (B2C) or business to business (B2B) company?

From the Moz blog, take a look at the pros and cons of advertising on Facebook.

Pros of Facebook Ads

  • Campaigns are easy to track
  • Immediate influx of traffic
  • Complete control over your daily budget and maximum CPC
  • Instant return on investment (You can easily define a cost per conversion and understand what your profit is)
  • More targeting options, including, towns, regions, age, likes/interests, income bracket, and other demographics
  • Easier to set up than Google AdWords
  • The ability to reach people early on in the buying process, before they are aware of their need, while capturing those who are conscious of the need in a subtle way
  • You can use images and videos to capture the interest of your target market, helping you to sell your products and services
  • CPC is relatively cheap, depending on your industry (On average, our clients have paid no more than $0.61 per click)

Cons of Facebook Ads

  • If set up and managed incorrectly, it can be costly
  • Depending on your target market, the majority of the large potential audience can be irrelevant (For instance, we would not recommend Facebook Advertising if someone only served or supplied their products and services to one town)
  • There is no option to target your ads at certain times within the day or on certain days of the week unless you choose a lifetime budget (Most of our clients request daily budgets)
  • Only really suitable for those operating in B2C markets.
  • Reaching people too early in the buying cycle could potentially reduce your goal conversion rate

Conclusion:

1 – If you are operating in a B2C market, Facebook advertising could be the ideal cost effective solution for you.

2 – On the other hand, the main con of Facebook Advertising is that it’s not recommended for B2B companies.

How to Target Facebook Ads

One of the biggest advantages to advertising on Facebook is your ability to target specific groups of highly engaged people. In fact, according to Facebook, compared to the average online reach of 38% for narrowly targeted campaigns, Facebook targeting is 89% accurate. 

Facebook ads let you target by:

1 – Location

2 – Demographics

3 – Interests

4 – Behaviors

5 – Advanced Targeting (e.g., custom audiences, lookalike audiences, audiences from your website, etc.)

Here’s a snapshot from the ‘Ad Set’ section in Facebook Ads where you can define your target audience by the feature sets listed above.

Define your audience, budget and schedule for Facebook Ads

How to Create a Successful Facebook Advertising Campaign

Here are the creative steps to creating ads that feel at home in the Facebook feed, as well as help deliver business results – at least according to Facebook:

1 – Identify your business goal

Start by deciding what your ad is intended to do.

  • Are you trying to push a certain product?
  • Drive foot traffic to your store?
  • Encourage website views?
  • Improve trust?

Identifying the purpose of your advertising will help you build posts that deliver the desired results.

2 – Identify your audience

Decide who your target audience is before you design your ad. It may affect the image and the way you write copy.

  • How old are they? 18-25? 25-54?
  • Where do they live? Anywhere? In Boise, Idaho?
  • What kinds of things are they interested in? Family Activities? College sports?

3 – Choose a topic

When deciding on the topic of your ad, think about your audience, and what would be interesting to them or offer them some valuable information.

  • Do you feature employees to build trust?
  • A new item to bring back old customers?

Knowing what the subject or theme of your ad is will help determine everything else.

4 – Choose an image (see more on images below)

Images are the first thing people will notice about your post. So take time selecting and curating the images you put there – this is how people will see your business.

5 – Write your copy <– (Notice how this is way down at the bottom of the list. Read more on why images are everything in Facebook ads!)

You don’t have to be a novelist to write effective text for a Facebook post. Following a few simple tips can help make your writing more effective and consistent in your ads. Most importantly, if you do nothing else, spellcheck.

Ask yourself the following:

1 – What’s the best reflection of your businesses personality?

Is it funny? All business? Adventurous? Every business has its unique identity and the more authentic you are, the more effective your ads are likely to be. Be yourself and be consistent in your tone of voice.

2 – What is important?

***Remember, people scroll through Facebook quickly, so the chances they’re going to stop and read a novel are slim. Stick to the relevant information and pay attention to the character count limit.

Elements of a successful ad

As a helping hand, here are a few tips again from the Moz blog to get you started on the road to creating a successful Facebook Advertising campaign:

  • Keep your information short
  • Make sure to include an offer or price
  • Use keywords
  • Include persuasive or engaging imagery/video (see more in the next section on the importance of images in your campaign)
  • Place your URL above the image/video in the text section
  • Use taglines and hooks to draw your potential customers in (i.e., “Make This a Year to Remember)

From AdExpresso’s eBook on The Science of Successful Facebook Ads, here’s a quick overview of what a typical Facebook ad should look like:

The Science of Successful Facebook Ads

A couple of data-backed facts on the most popular type of Facebook ad:

1 – Most popular: Page post Link ad

Data shows that the most popular type of ad is the Page Post Link Ad and is ideal for promoting your external site. Use the Link ad to send people directly to relevant sections of your website.

See example of a post link ad below found in my Facebook feed for Tecovas (everyone needs one awesome pair of boots!):

Facebook ads example of a Post Link ad

2 – High Engagement: Video ads

Video ads, which currently make up 15.1% of all Facebook ads, can drive high audience engagement.

Best practices of a video ad:

  • Use the video to show your audience a short example of your work.
  • Embed the video in an ad that promotes your offer or business.
  • Include a CTA to sign up to receive more information at the end.

3 – Photo ads are good for generating comments and likes, but not good for traffic, and you can’t include a CTA.

4 – Other ad types of ads such as Events and Offers are good for highly specific aims, such as promoting a time-sensitive webinar or sale.

Images for Facebook Ads

Images are everything in Facebook Ads

The good and bad news: Images are everything in Facebook ads.

Consumer Acquisition found that images are so important, they’re responsible for some 75 to 90% of an ad’s performance.

If you look at AdEspresso’s anatomy of a Facebook Ad diagram, it’s obvious how important images are – more so than the actual copy.

1. Pick An Interesting Subject

Focus on the things about your business that make it stand out.

The people.

The environment.

The products.

Try to pick an image that will grab your audience’s attention as they scroll through Facebook.

2. Shoot for Quality

If possible, avoid these three things:

  • Low resolution (which leads to pixelation)
  • Blurry photos
  • Clip or stock art

You can do this by taking photos with your smartphone of things that aren’t moving (that includes your hands while you take the photo), in well-lit places. It also means paying attention to the size of the image specified by the ad you’re building (square vs. rectangle).

3. DIY Photography Tips

You can take great photos on your smartphone.

  • Take the time to set up your shot.
  • Make sure there’s proper light and that you don’t have a lot of things crowding your frame.
  • Try using a photo app that offers filters. They take an average photo and make it feel more professional.

A few more tips from AdEspresso. Do these images grab your attention?

Tip #1: Eye Contact Helps Build Trust

Facebook Ads: Eye Contact Helps Build Trust

Tip #2: Focus On Lips

Notice the power of red!

Facebook Ads: Focus o n Lips

Tip #3: Beards Rule

Researchers from Australia looked at how people rated the attractiveness of men who were clean-shaven, had light stubble, heavy stubble, or were in full bloom beard-wise. They found that the men with the heavy stubble are always rated as more attractive than the clean-shaven guys.

Tip #4: Pregnancy Bumps Can Release Our Care Chemicals

Facebook Ads: Pregnancy Bumps Can Release Our Care Chemicals

Conclusion: We spend our entire lives looking at other people, so we’re drawn to them in ads as well. We love looking at eyes, lips, and bodies — it’s just in our nature. Adding something slightly different, like facial hair or a pregnancy bump can also make your ad stand out from the rest.

For more inspiration, download AdEspresso’s eBook on 500+ Facebook Ads Examples to get inspired. The best advertisers are those that constantly try new ways to improve their performances. New designs, new audiences, new ads’ copy. In this eBook you’ll find 500+ real world Facebook Ads Examples to get inspiration from for your campaigns!

How to Track Performance

Coming soon…

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What have your experiences with Facebook Ads been like? We’d love to hear from you. Please share in the comments.

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