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.

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).

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

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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.

The post 139 Unbelievable Instagram Marketing Facts That Will Blow Your Mind appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

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.

The post Top Social Media Marketing Stats for 2017 — INFOGRAPHIC appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

I’m up for the challenge.

Here’s what I know about Visme – a free online graphics tool for bloggers, businesses, and other professionals with limited to no design skills.

Visme translates your ideas into engaging content in the form of:

• Presentations
• Infographics
• Reports
• Web content
• Product presentations
• Graphs & Charts
• Wireframes

So what does Visme have to offer you?

Visme — the Swiss Knife of Visual Content

Have you noticed that many visitors come to your website and leave right away?

According to Visme, it is not your content.

The number one reason people leave your website is because of non-stimulating and outdated images.

One of the key features of Visme is that it allows you to take otherwise boring data and transform it into a straightforward and easy to understand visual format.

So, let’s test this out.

Here’s a “boring” data stat taken from one of our blog posts on Snapchat vs. Instagram Stories: What You Need to Know:

Infographic Maker 101 – How to Create Professional Infographics

Goal: Take the boring stat above and create a beautiful visual presentation.

(Facebook remains the most-used social media brand among all ages with 64%. But among 12-24’s, it has been overtaken by Snapchat (72% to 68%) with Instagram close behind (66%).)

According to Visme, creating infographics is easy. You can start with a blank canvas and introduce your own elements and design, or you can start from a series of starter infographic maker templates to use as a great starting point to create from.

Step 1: Select an infographic maker template

Visme has numerous infographic templates to choose from. Select one that best meets your design needs. It’s easy to customize so don’t worry if the template isn’t a perfect match.

To start my boring stat infographic, I searched through the templates using the keyword “social media”.

Step 2: Create an outline of your topic

The purpose of an infographic is to translate a theme or idea into the form of visual content. Therefore before you populate your infographic, step back and ask yourself a few questions:

• What is the purpose of the piece?
• Who is going to be my audience?
• What message do I want to portray to the viewer?

Pro tip:  There is no right or wrong, but make sure you do have a clear picture of what you want to create before you do begin the process.

Here’s my outline:

Purpose: Take a boring stat and turn it into an interesting visual

Audience: Our blog readers

Message: Wow, that’s interesting!

Step 3: Select from the free assets and upload your own

Now that I’ve picked my theme, I can do any one of the following:

1 – Create a chart or graph. Each chart can be customized with specific bits of data to fit your data needs.

2 – Use the infographic widgets.

Infographic widgets are exclusive mini apps that allow users to quickly translate otherwise boring data into simple and easy to understand snackable pieces of content that are easy to digest.

3 – Add footnotes and references

Step 4: Publish your infographic

This final step is super easy. Review in preview mode then hit publish and voilà…

Boring Stat Infographic: Teens are flocking to Snapchat

My thoughts on Visme (so far):

1 – The app is fairly user intuitive but took a little longer to create my first infographic than I would have hoped for – because there is so much you can do, the tools and settings aren’t entirely intuitive, resulting in a steeper learning curve.

2 – I couldn’t find the Snapchat logo in any of the button sets, so I tried uploading one from my desktop. This process was not easy – again, a learning curve but after a few attempts, I was finally able to load the image.

3 – The animations are fun and simple to do. If you reload this page, check out the animations on my “Boring Stat Infographic”.

With that said, I can’t wait to use Visme again.

What else can Visme do?

As mentioned earlier in this post, Visme is much more than just an infographic maker. I haven’t tried these yet, but you can also do the following:

1 – Presentations

If you’re tired of PowerPoint, Visme offers some beautiful presentation templates for you to use, each with its own collection of slide layouts.

Once you complete your presentation, you can present online via Visme or download your slides as images and paste them into Powerpoint.

2 – Banner Ads

If you advertise online, you can use Visme to create attractive and engaging banner ads in many shapes and sizes.

Even if you don’t advertise, banner ads can be utilized on your own site as calls to action, driving your website visitors to take the next step in your sales process.

Here’s a snapshot of five different default banner types and their sizes

3 – Custom

The custom design area of Visme is one of its strengths, enabling you to use their tools to easily create any type of image, including those share-worthy memes that pepper your social media streams.

So, what’s the difference between Visme and Canva?

Well-known graphic design tool Canva is an amazingly simple DIY tool for everyone – non-designers as well as professionals. For a refresher course on why we like Canva, check at our post on How to Use Canva to Create Beautiful Graphics for Social Media.

However, when it comes to an easy-to-use infographic maker and ability to create interactive presentations, Visme is one of the few visual content creation tools that allows you to add interactivity and animation to all your designs and collaborate with other team members on projects.

Here’s one side of the story from Visme on Canva Versus Visme: What’s the Difference?

In conclusion, Visme is different because:

• It does more than just create one type of content and every template is completely customizable.
• Ability to make any object interactive and add motion.
• Easy publishing. You can download, share directly through social links, or embed in your site.

The embedding option is particularly cool, as it means you can include animations to liven up presentations and reports when they are embedded, adding visual interest to what could otherwise be a boring set of static slides and statistics.

• Fully HTML5 based so content is both web and mobile friendly.

Inquiring minds want to know:

Would I personally recommend this service? YES, with a caveat. Once you get used to the program, you’ll be able to do more than you ever expected. However, if you don’t have time, or only need an occasional graphic, Visme may not be for you.

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Visme also has great blog content. For more creative ways to use Visme, here are some good finds from their blog:

• Interactive Slideshow: How to Create an Interactive Slideshow with Visme
• Graphs & Charts: The Do’s and Don’ts of Chart Making
• PowerPoint Slides: How to Import Your PowerPoint Presentation Into Visme
• Record Audio in your Presentation: How to Create a Narrated Presentation With Voice Over Using Visme

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Have you used Visme? What’s your favorite infographic maker? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The post How to Create Amazing Content: Review of a Unique Infographic Maker appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

I have a confession. Nothing earth shattering but here it is – I’ve been known to use an emoji are two in texts, on social media and email. In spite of myself, I admit it! After quickly scanning my recent correspondence, it appears that I frequently use smileys and red hearts.

What does this say about me? What are these emoji meanings?

In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about emoji meanings and the psychology behind emojis.

1 – Why do we use emojis?

2 – The psychology of emojis

3 – 10 emoji meanings that might surprise you

And, the highly anticipated (click on the jump through to skip the above):

4 – Examples of cool things you can do with emojis or in upside down words: 

sıظoɯǝ ɥʇıʍ op uɐɔ noʎ sbuıɥʇ ןooɔ

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Why Do We Use Emojis

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

Emojis are those small icons—smiley faces, winking eyes, hearts of all shapes, sizes, and colors—that we use in text messages, emails and social media.

They are everywhere these days because they increase the precision and nuance of our often super-brief and open-to-misunderstanding communications. – Alizah K. Lowell, Psychology Today

In a recent study by Appboy, they discovered emoji use in emails had increased an unprecedented 7,100 percent compared to last year.

Why?

In today’s digital age, communicating your marketing message is all about being clear, concise, and direct.

→Twitter gives you 140 characters to get your point across; to do that, we abbreviate “OMG,” “LOL,” and “OMW,” for text messages.

→Crowded inboxes require standout subject lines for readers to open your campaign.

→Instagram now allows you to hashtag emojis. (Instagram reported that as of April 2015, 40% of all messages posted on Instagram consist of emoji.)

You can use emojis in an infinite number of ways. You can use them to:

• Lighten the mood by introducing sarcasm or humor
• Soften a blow
• Find a more comfortable way to express ourselves
• Communicate when words fail us

And surprisingly, emojis are now used for banking passwords!

Consider this infographic published by Social Media Today on Emoji Marketing: Are We Speaking the Same Language? :

Today 63% of social media is made up of images. The use of emojis has opened up many creative opportunities for marketers.

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The Psychology of Emojis in Todays World

1 – In short, emojis are changing our brains!

Emoticons are a new form of language that we’re producing, and to decode that language we’ve produced a new pattern of brain activity. – According to researcher, Dr Owen Churches, from the school of psychology at Flinders University in Adelaide.

Back to my usage of the smiley face emoticon …

The smiley face emoticon first appeared in a post to Carnegie Mellon University computer science general board from Professor Scott E. Fahlman in 1982. Since then, the same pattern of activity as evoked by faces has become attached to what was previously just punctuation.

“There is no innate neural response to emojis that babies are born with. Before 1982 there would be no reason that ‘:-)‘ would activate face sensitive areas of the cortex but now it does because we’ve learned that this represents a face,” says Churches.

This is an entirely culturally-created neural response. It’s really quite amazing.

• You knew that 34 years later and our brain is now fully capable of recognizing and decoding emoticons and emojis as a new language, primarily because social media fully embraced and spread this trend.

2 – Emojis are also changing our speech patterns!

While emoji is not, strictly speaking, a language, in the way that English, French or Japanese are languages, it is certainly a powerful system of communication.

Today emoji is seemingly everywhere, having spread far beyond their original messaging systems.

For example, the New York Subway has now introduced a system, using emoji, to advise passengers of the status of particular subway lines – whether trains are running on time or not.

As the NY City website explains:

“We’re trying to estimate agony on the NYC subway by monitoring the time between trains and adding unhappy points for stations typically crowded at rush hour.”

Here’s an example:

What Are All The Emoji Meanings, Anyway?

Rather than saying “this makes me happy,” you can use .

Rather than saying “I agree with you,” you can use .

Emoji use has skyrocketed as both individuals and brands embrace them—so much so that Oxford Dictionaries named an emoji Word of the Year after seeing over a 3x increase in use in 2015 versus the previous year.

• Surprisingly, though, according to Appboy, when they looked at the most frequently used emojis by brands, they were surprised to find that the “tears of joy” emoji wasn’t the top one used by brands in their marketing messaging – it wasn’t even in the top ten!

They found that emojis most frequently used by individuals differed from those used by brands.

→Individuals using emojis in their Tweets, often use face emojis, including “tears of joy” to express how they’re feeling.

→Brands, on the other hand, use more eye-catching emojis and those that evoke emotional responses. This usage makes sense since brands are trying to grab attention and communicate more with less.

Check out Appboy’s infographic on the Most Popular Emojis Used by People Vs. Brands:

Still confused?

Emojis Have Secret Meanings

Even though older people (I’ll place myself in that category) use emojis, apparently some of them have secret meanings for teenagers that the rest of us don’t know. Beware…

1. The frog emoji. It’s a way of calling someone ugly.

2. A dog emoji. It’s a way of calling someone the “b-word” without actually saying it.

3. A knife, followed by a face, followed by a showerhead. It means they’re calling you a psycho.

Hum.

And, if you use Snapchat regularly, you may have noticed in your chat window there are emojis displayed next to some of your friends. Well if you didn’t know – apparently emojis change over time, depending on how you interact with your friends.

What are the Top Emojis on Social Media?

From Sprout Social, here is an infographic on the top emojis used on social media:

On Twitter:

Emojis used by brands on Twitter:

Emoji hashtags used on Instagram:

What’s that Emoji?

Did you ever see an Emoji and had absolutely no idea what it was supposed to mean?

1 – WhatMoji.com will search any text you enter for Emojis and translate them to text.

Here’s the result of my search on the confused face emoji (opposite of my most often used smiley face):

Along with fellow graduate students, Sanjaya Wijeratne, one of our blog readers, created a dictionary of emoji meanings. If you have the time, this research paper explains how they created the emoji meaning dictionary. Make sure to check out the results of their EmojiNet project at:

2 – EmojiNet: A Machine Readable Sense Inventory for Emoji. Without rigid semantics attached to them, an emoji symbol can take on different meanings based on the context of a message.

The goal of this project is to build tools and algorithms to improve machine understandability of emoji. We built the first machine readable sense inventory for emoji called EmojiNet.

In the example below, I used the ‘Search Emoji by Sense’ field for the word Love as a Verb.

EmojiNet returned the “Green Heart” as the appropriate emoji. The system lets you drill down into the detail of the emoji meaning. Very cool.

So, What Are Some Cool Things You Can Do With Emojis

1 – Dango: Teaching Robots to Feel: Emoji Meanings & Deep Learning

Dango is a floating assistant that runs on your phone and predicts emoji, stickers, and GIFs based on what you and your friends are writing in any app. This virtual assistant lets you have the same emoji-rich conversations everywhere: Messenger, Kik, Whatsapp, Snapchat, whatever.

2 – linkmoji: The emoji URL shortener (.ws) turns any link into an emoji!

3 – imojiapp: Turns selfies or any photo into stickers you can text.

4 – Emoji Translate: Turn your text into emoji automatically.

5 – Bitmoji is your own personal emoji. Create an expressive cartoon avatar. 

Snapchat bought Bitmoji maker Bitstrips in March 2016. Snapchatters can now link their Bitmoji account with their Snapchat account with a few simple steps. This functionality gives the app more personalization – making the Snapchat experience better all around.

6 – Fliptex: Allows you to write upside down on Facebook, Twitter, or your Blog. Type in your text and push the “Flip Text” Button. It’s cool!

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Make sure to read our other popular posts on emoji usage for:

• Email: How to Add a Cool Email Emoji: Watch Engagement Soar

• Your business: How to Capitalize on Influential Emojis in Your Business

• Social Media – Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter: How to Effectively Use New Emoji Slang in Old Social Media

• How to Celebrate World Emoji Day Every Day (It’s Not Too Late!)

We love emojis.

You love emojis.

Let’s celebrate them!

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What’s your secret emoji meanings? I shared mine. We would love to hear from you.

The post Ultimate Guide to Emoji Meanings and How to Use Them in Social Media appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

Oxford Dictionaries pick for the 2015 Word of the Year — was less a pick than a picture.

Apparently, the  or “face with tears of joy” was the most popular emoji — representing 17 percent of all emojis used that year and a 9 percent increase from the previous year.

The Oxfordshire word-watchers explained that:

Emoji have come to embody a core aspect of living in a digital world that is visually driven, emotionally expressive, and obsessively immediate.

Fast forward to today, the countdown is on for #WorldEmojiDay 2016! A global celebration of emojis!

Read more from worldemojiday.com on how to join in the celebration on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Twitter and The World Emoji Day

More than 110 billion emojis have been tweeted since 2014, according to Twitter, which says they can signal a person’s mood or mindset, “unlocking unique opportunities for marketers and brands.”

For a visual, here is a snapshot of real-time emoji use on Twitter (taken at 1:15 pm on July 13) using Emojitracker.

The emojis highlighted in green were in use at the exact moment I snapped this screenshot – and, yes, that is 1.3 billion tweets containing the 2015 Word of the Year, “face with tears of joy” emoji!

Twitter wants to make emoji the new keyword!

Just in time for World Emoji Day, Twitter is now allowing advertisers to target users based on which emoji they’ve just tweeted, or which emojis are in the Tweets with which they interact.

Brands who sell a particular product with a correlated emoji, like Chipotle and Burritos, for example, can target users that are using the emoji (anyone hungry for a burrito?).

This has big implications for brands, as our modern lingo is so emoji-laden — this could do wonders for:

• Sentiment analysis
• Real-time marketing
• Helping brands find new audiences that are interested in their offerings

Consider the following examples from Adweek:

1 – With emoji targeting, Domino’s and Pizza Hut can target people who use the pizza emoji.

2 – Or maybe brands advertising during Tour de France will want to engage with anyone who uses the guy on a bicycle.

3 – Brands can also strike a somber tone with anyone that uses the crying face. (Kleenex, anyone?)

Are businesses embracing emojis as much as Twitter?

Example #1: Cheapflights

Cheapflights certainly is! The Cheapflights website lets users book trips with emojis.

To mark World Emoji Day on Sunday, July 17, and simplify the search process, the site is encouraging users to insert emojis instead of words for their flight origin and destination.

To build functionality, Cheapflights has mapped 40 destinations across the world using popular emojis based on common associations with each city.

For example:

In the image below, a koala and a sushi emoji returned search results for flights between Sydney and Tokyo!

Example #2: General Motors

General Motors tried to! Last year, General Motors, one of the biggest companies in the world, published a press release in emoji. Entirely in emoji.

The result? A mix of media intrigue—and confusion.

Here’s the release, can you decipher it?

This marketing tactic leads to the question “when are emojis a do, or a don’t?”

Using Emojis at Work Can Boost Your Reputation—or Destroy It

Recently, Grammarly dared to ask the question, “Do you think emojis are acceptable in professional settings?”

Much to my surprise, only 12% of the respondents agreed that emojis are appropriate in a professional setting.

So, is it OK to use emojis at the office?

As with most things, moderation is key, new research from the staffing firm OfficeTeam suggests.

Similar to results from the Grammarly survey above:

• Nearly four in 10 senior managers (39%) interviewed said it’s unprofessional to include emojis or emoticons in work communications.
• But, 61% stated it’s OK, at least in certain situations.
• When asked how they feel about these symbols, 59% of office workers said they never or only sparingly use them, while 41% send them at least sometimes.

Here is an infographic of the survey findings conducted by OfficeTeam:

Tips for Using Emojis at Work

To help employees, OfficeTeam offers five tips for when and how to use emojis and emoticons at work:

1. Don’t go overboard. You shouldn’t be using emojis regularly. Using them too frequently could annoy others and muddle your message.
2. Know your audience. Consider your company’s corporate culture and your relationship with those with whom you are communicating. While including a thumbs-up icon in an email to a work friend might be all right, doing so when sending messages to company leaders could easily be frowned upon.
3. Assess the situation. Using emoticons when discussing serious issues can appear awkward or rude. It’s best to leave emojis entirely out of those types of communications.
4. Know your emojis. Today, there are hundreds of different emojis and emoticons. If you are going to use one, be sure not only that you know what it means, but that the person receiving it will understand the message as well. The last thing you want is a misinterpreted emoji.
5. Use your words. When considering using an emoji, if you aren’t positive you will get your point across, leave it out and focus on your words. Either write out what you want to say or have an in-person or phone conversation to discuss the topic.

How to Capitalize on Influential Emojis in Your Business

So, how can emojis be a no-no at the office but skyrocketing in use by marketers including Twitter?

First, let’s look at the advantages of emojis.

Appboy, the mobile marketing automation vendor, analyzed over 9,000 marketing campaigns that use emojis and found emoji usage rapidly growing — increasing at a nearly 8x (775 percent) year-over-year clip. This trend continues to grow in 2016 by 20 percent month over month.

Why?

Advantages of Emojis

• Emojis can be an excellent way to express emotion which might otherwise get lost in using words alone.
• They help with identifying tones such as sarcasm and humor.
• Can replace traditional communication like body language and facial expressions.
• They appeal to a user’s desire for visual content.
• Offer the opportunity to use images along with, or instead of, words.
• They work perfectly on mobile devices and instant messaging.

Moreover, emojis complement our ‘culture of convenience’ as a quick symbol that can be used to replace a whole word or sentence. Many brands have noticed the influence emojis have, in particular among the younger generation and have seized the opportunity to use emojis in their campaigns.

Thanks to PSONA SOCIAL, here are four tips on using emojis in your business:

1 – Keep it simple

When using emojis – don’t overcomplicate it!

→These funny little faces and pictures are usually not intended to be taken too seriously. Therefore it’s best to use them to reinforce the message you want to put across.

For example:

Domino’s made the most out of the Pizza emoji – especially when they allowed customers to place an order through using the Pizza emoji!

2 – Be light-hearted, but aware

As mentioned above, don’t take emojis too seriously!

→They are perfect for brands who want to have fun with their community.

For example:

Taco Bell created a campaign to celebrate the arrival of the Taco emoji. This campaign allowed users to create their own Taco themed emoji’s with an ‘emoji engine’!

Here’s how it works: People who tweet a picture of a taco emoji with another emoji at the brand’s account, for instance, will automatically be sent back a photo or GIF mashing up the two images.

Image 1: Taco emoji + Smiling face emoji with sunglasses (AKA “cool emoji”) sent by a follower to Taco Bell

Image 2: Taco Bell replies with a GIF mashing up the two images

Very fun!

3 – Have a sense of purpose

While it might be advisable to avoid serious topics while using emojis, it can also be an excellent way to get people talking, as well as to raise awareness.

For example:

WWF’s #EndangeredEmoji campaign uses animal emojis to encourage users to donate to the charity and protect wildlife. This campaign works because it is interactive and fun, has a purpose, and the emojis are related to the organization’s message.

4 – What to be aware of

Although using emojis can be fun and an easy way to promote your business, misinterpretations of emojis will happen. 

Consider this example:

Did you know that an emoji may render differently on different viewing platforms (e.g., Apple’s iPhone vs. Google’s Nexus phone), potentially leading to communication errors?

From GroupLens post on Investigating the Potential for Miscommunication Using Emoji, this is what the “grinning face with smiling eyes” emoji looks like on various devices:

GroupLens Research from the University of Minnesota explored whether emoji renderings or differences across platforms give rise to diverse interpretations of emojis.

Taken from their abstract titled “Blissfully happy” or “ready to fight”: Varying Interpretations of Emoji, here’s a recap of the results:

• In cases in which participants rated the same emoji rendering, they disagreed on whether the sentiment was positive, neutral, or negative 25% of the time.
• When considering renderings across platforms, these disagreements only increase.
• Overall, we find a significant potential for miscommunication, both for individual emoji renderings and for different emoji renderings across platforms.

Psycholinguistic theory suggests that interpretation must be consistent between two people to avoid communication challenges. How often does this happen? Therefore, it’s important to be aware of how some emojis may vary and that users might see the emoji differently to how it looks when originally posted.

The next time you have a conversation like this, it’s probably the emoji’s fault!

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Do you think emojis are acceptable in professional settings? Do you use them in your business? We’d love to hear from you!

The post How to Capitalize on the Up and Down Popularity of Emojis appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

What are Facebook Lead Ads?

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

That means Facebook users can submit their information to you in just a click, which results in more leads for you.

Once you’ve captured the leads, you can use Zapier’s Facebook Lead Ads integration to send the leads directly to the email marketing and CRM tools you use such as MailChimp, ActiveCampaign, or Infusionsoft.

This article will show you how to set up a Facebook Lead Ad and how to send your Facebook leads to your email service provider or CRM using Zapier.

How Do You Set up a Facebook Lead Ads?

1) Sign into your Facebook account (in which you are an admin or an editor of a Facebook page).

You can create a new Facebook lead ad form by going to your Ads Manager or Power Editor. In Ads Manager, click ‘Create Ad’. In Power Editor, click ‘Create Campaign’.

2) Click ‘Collect leads for your business’ as your campaign objective.

3) Once you agree to the Terms of Service, you can customize your ad (like choosing the location, age, interests of its audience, and determining text images to include in the ad).

4) Under ‘What information do you want to collect from people?’ click ‘Create New Form’.

5) Give your form a name and select a language. Keep in mind the language you choose here is the language your audience will view your form in.

6) Add a context card. Under ‘What information would you like to ask for?’ you’ll see ‘Full name’ and ‘Email address’ checked. You can also click ‘More options’ if you want to ask for more info. When you’re finished adding questions (3 is the maximum), click ‘Next’.

7) Add a link to your privacy policy and any additional disclaimers you may have, then click ‘Next’.

8) Enter the website URL you want people to go to after they complete your form, then click ‘Next’.

9) Navigate through your form preview and make changes if necessary. Click ‘Create Form’.

How Do You Add Facebook Leads Directly to Your Mailing List or CRM?

You can send your leads from Facebook Lead Ads to a variety of tools by using Zapier. You can either use the pre-made Zapier integration by clicking the ‘Use this Zap’ button at the top of this page or by creating your own from scratch. Let’s walk through how to create your own ‘Zap’, aka integration, between Facebook Lead Ads and MailChimp, for example.

1) Log into your Zapier account and click the orange ‘Make A Zap!’ button at the top of the page.

2) 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.

3) In Step 1 (the Trigger step) of the Zap, type ‘Facebook Lead Ads’ in the ‘Choose a Trigger App’ search bar.

4) Select ‘New Lead’ and then click ‘Save + Continue’.

5) Select ‘Connect a New Account’ and enter your Facebook email address and password in the pop-up box. Then click ‘Save + Continue’.

6) From the drop-down boxes, choose a Facebook page and a previously built Facebook Lead Ads form. Click ‘Continue’.

7) Make sure you have one new existing lead from the Facebook Lead Ads form you selected. Then click ‘Fetch + Continue’.

8) Once you see the ‘Test Successful’ message, click ‘Continue’.

9) In Step 2 (the Action step) of the Zap, type ‘MailChimp’ in the ‘Choose an Action App’ search bar.

10) Select the ‘Add/Update Subscriber’ option, then click ‘Save + Continue’.

11) Select ‘Connect a New Account’ and enter your MailChimp username and password in the pop-up box. Then click ‘Save + Continue’ back on the main screen.

12) Now you can fill in the fields so that the Zap is customized to your data. You need to tell the Zap where you want the Facebook Lead Ads data to go in MailChimp. Click the drop-down arrows on the right side of each field to show the fields that are available from Facebook Lead Ads to add in each section. Click ‘Continue’.

13) On the next page, you can view the test data that will be added to MailChimp. Click ‘Continue’.

14) Wait for the ‘Test Successful’ message and click ‘Finish’.

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

Now your new leads from Facebook Lead Ads will be automatically be added to MailChimp.

Everything You Need to Know about Facebook Lead Ads Infographic

By: Connectio

The post How to Capture Leads with Facebook Lead Ads appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

Featuring:

• Read on LinkedIn:

1 – Warren Buffett Just Summed Up the Essence of Leadership In 2 Sentences

2 – MILLENNIALS IN THE WORKPLACE: ARE YOU READY?

3 – How I Learned To Stop Hating Networking Events (Mostly)

• Have a Tip: 15 Social Recruiting Tips Proven to Attract the Best Talent

• Trending Question: Are you a millionaire in the making?

___

Read on LinkedIn

1 – Warren Buffett Just Summed Up the Essence of Leadership In 2 Sentences

“If you’re looking for a manager, find somebody that’s intelligent, energetic and has integrity…if they don’t have the last, be sure they don’t have the first two. If you have somebody who lacks integrity, you want them to be dumb and lazy.”

2 – MILLENNIALS IN THE WORKPLACE: ARE YOU READY?

As of 2015, Millennials became the largest generation in the American workplace. However, businesses are having a difficult time hiring and retaining this generation. 

Nasdaq recently convened a panel of change leaders who discussed how to address the generational gap and harness the skills and talents that millennials bring to the table.

Here are the top takeaways:

1. Provide millennials with adequate support, real-time feedback and coaching
2. Offer purpose-driven and personalized work
3. Make sure work goals are established and are well defined
4. Provide career advancement opportunities for millennial employee retention
5. Maintain transparency and two-way communication (Glassdoor ratings, reviews, employer feedback)
6. Design competitive salary structures
7. Offer mobility and a flexible work environment

Read more.

3 – How I Learned To Stop Hating Networking Events (Mostly)

Networking events can be awkward but are still the best way to meet people who can help your career. Here’s how to make them less painful:

1. STOP FIENDISHLY SWAPPING BUSINESS CARDS

2. SHARE STORIES, NOT JUST FACTS

3. ASK WHY AND HOW

4. BRING A BUDDY—BUT NOT A POSSE

5. USE YOUR OWN TIME WISELY

Have a Tip

Thanks to Adam Seabrook, Co-Founder Betterteam, Inc. for submitting this next featured post on social recruiting. Make sure to read through the 15 proven social recruiting tactics after the infographic.

15 Social Recruiting Tips Proven to Attract the Best Talent

Our step-by-step guide below will help you get started using social media for recruiting, make it easier to bring in high-quality applicants that stay in their positions longer, and improve your hiring process. We’ve also got tips to help you avoid the potential risks of social recruiting.

Question

Are you a millionaire in the making?

How similar are you to the average millionaire (defined as a household net worth of $1 million to $5 million)? Find out below:

• How old are you? A full 71 percent of millionaires fall into the Baby Boomer category. The average age is 66.
• Have you been to college? About 82 percent of millionaires have graduated college, and 100 percent graduated from high school.
• Do you work? Just 41 percent of the group describes themselves as working. Another 49 percent are retired while 10 percent are semi-retired.
• Have you inherited money? Almost 60 percent of millionaires have.
• Why are they wealthy? About 95 percent attributed it to hard work while 83 percent credited education and 79 percent say smart investing helped them create wealth.
• What is or was your occupation? About 16 percent of millionaires said they were managers, followed by professionals at 15 percent and perhaps surprisingly educators at 13 percent.

Read more.

___

Have any social media trends, tips, tools or tricks to share? 

Read any interesting social media facts recently? 

Run across any fascinating infographics?

We’d love to hear from you.

We’re serious! Go to our blog home page and click ‘HAVE A TIP’ in the right-hand corner.

The post What Makes Millennials, Millionaires and Social Recruiting Interesting? [May 8 Roundup] appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

You’ve got to devote time to friends to maintain a close relationship, and as a nonprofit you’ve got to devote time to your audience.

With limited time and resources, content curation is an essential marketing tool for keeping the connection with your nonprofit audience fresh and current. But every organization curates content differently. Many share content only on social media while others use content curation in all facets of their Youtube nonprofit marketing plan.

Today, we will be discussing best practices for curating content for Nonprofits using the social media platform YouTube:

• Why YouTube
• Youtube Nonprofit Success Stories
• How to Curate YouTube videos for Nonprofits
• Curation Ideas
• Donation Cards on YouTube
• Perfect YouTube Post – an example
• Share Videos Across Social Media Using Smart Automation

Why use the YouTube Nonprofit Program

As a non-profit, your definition of success might be different than say, Justin Bieber’s, but you can use video in a similar manner to engage and educate people across the world.

A few things to think about (from the Playbook for Good, a valuable resource for nonprofits looking to benefit from and make the most out of YouTube):

→For many causes, videos may not be part of your current marketing plan, but they are quickly becoming an ideal format for your storytelling. Embrace the medium and start communicating!

With over 800 million people worldwide on YouTube, it’s a global living room like no other. YouTube is also the world’s 2nd largest search engine (after Google) – people are looking for you and your cause every day. What will you show them?

→Do not worry about being “viral,” just focus on creating great content and interacting with the community.

→Do not just “make videos.” Have a video strategy. Interacting with your viewers and having a clear call to action are as important as capturing good footage. Try to address these questions before you pick up the camera.

YouTube Nonprofit Success Stories

Success #1: 

The American Foundation for Equal Rights used the YouTube nonprofit channel to live-stream “8″, a play about the Prop 8 trial in California on marriage equality. The initiative raised more than $2 million dollars and drove a news cycle of approximately 300 articles.

• The donate button remains there today, subtly encouraging viewers to lend their financial support after watching one of the dozens of videos available.

Success#2: 

charity: water posted over 240 personalized thank-you videos for their donors and campaigners, effectively making the audience the stars of the videos and creating a life cycle of donors that were publicly acknowledged and highlighted.

• Taking time to celebrate milestones and recognize supporters should be an essential element of a nonprofit’s social strategy.
• The organization also uses call-to-action overlays on videos to encourage viewers to support the cause through donations.

Success #3:

YouTube comedian Kevin Wu (aka KevJumba) used his YouTube channel to raise money to build a school in Kenya called the Jumba Lenana Academy. He created the channel, JumbaFund, which donates 100% of ad revenue to the school. The channel has over 54 million views and 831,000 subscribers.

How to Curate Nonprofit Videos on YouTube

Step 1: Create a YouTube Nonprofit Channel

The YouTube Nonprofit Program is an excellent way to tell your organization’s story through videos on YouTube.

To start, watch this video: YouTube Nonprofit Program

Step 2: Create a playlist of at least four videos

Playlists displayed horizontally on your YouTube Channel require a minimum of four videos to fill in the entire section.

• Research and “Add to Playlist” at least four videos that speak to your nonprofit’s mission and programs
• When you add your first video, you will be prompted to create and name your playlist
• Select the playlist to add more videos

Step 3: Add your new playlist as a section to your channel

To display your new playlist(s) on your YouTube Channel, you must add it in as a section and then use the up or down arrows to feature it on your channel.

Step 4: Add your website, icons, and channel banner

Since your nonprofit will be driving more traffic to your YouTube Channel, be sure to add your website, icons, and a channel banner to your channel.

Curation Ideas

Here are some ideas to help you curate content and promote others in the process:

1 – Feature other YouTube videos on your channel related to your cause.

2 – Promote other channels in your “Other Channels” module and reach out to others to return the favor.

3 – Find videos from the broader community rallying around similar causes and organize them into topical playlists.

4 – Stay active on your channel feed: ‘like’, ‘favorite’, and comment on videos relevant to your channel and your audience.

5 – Add relevant videos to playlists. Curating videos into playlists is a good way to add value for your audience and build credibility as an expert in your field.

Donation Cards on YouTube

Read: YouTube’s New Donation Cards Help Video Creators Raise Money For Charities

The Perfect YouTube Post

Can your remember the exact specifications and nuances for posting to all the social media platforms? From MyCleverAgency and Sprout Social, here are the elements needed for the perfect YouTube post:

Title: The title is what gets people to click and watch your video so you should spend a lot of time working on it. Limit the title to 70 characters for best results on both YouTube and Google search.

Thumbnail: Custom thumbnails attract more people when it comes to overall clicks. Make sure they look great. The best size for a thumbnail is 1280 x 720.

Description: Use keywords in the description to help your videos rank better and include links to your site/blog to increase traffic.

Call To Action: CTA in videos increase subscriptions, likes, and comments.

Smart Automation

To amplify your message, it’s not only important to ‘broadcast yourself’ on YouTube, but also to use every outlet available to reach potential supporters. Leverage networks outside of YouTube to promote your videos.

Sharing videos from YouTube to social media is easy using dlvr.it’s smart automation. All you need is an RSS feed and a little creativity.

Believe me. Automation is easy. By following the steps in the how-to guide below, videos can come to life in your social feed – no clicking away needed to play the video. It creates a better experience for your audience and leads to increased engagement.

Read: How to Create a YouTube RSS Feed and Instantly Give your Tweets a Boost with Video

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How does curation fit into your nonprofit’s content mix? Have any interesting ways to make your YouTube nonprofit channel stand out?

We would love your feedback. Please share in the comments.

The post The Right YouTube Nonprofit Strategy That Will Make You Grow appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

The roundup blog post is the prototype blog content type for content curation. Bring together several resources from others in one post, based around a given theme or idea, and then present it to the world. – Ross Hudgens, The Definitive Guide to Content Curation

3 Key Roundup Blog Post Benefits

A properly executed roundup post can put your blog on the map by:

1. Providing expert input
2. Attracting reader attention
3. Enhancing content distribution

They’re also great traffic builders because of how likely they are to get shared.

From the Daily Egg:

Most publications and blogs these days publish a lot of roundup articles or listicles, and it’s clear why. They’re easy to digest, they offer a new perspective to your readership, and ideally, they drive traffic and help build relationships with your brand.

Imagine…

• If only five influencers shared your roundup on their blog or social media site, driving 300 visitors each.
• And let’s say, from experience you know each traffic spike converts approximately 3-10% of visits to email signups.
• That’s 1,500 new visitors and up to 150 new email subscribers! Maybe more if you’ve delivered outstanding content.

The Sky is the Limit with Roundup Post Topics

Roundup topics range wildly from the personally relevant 10 Modern Prefabs We’d Love to Call Home to the inspirational 5 Best Instagram Accounts to Follow to the helpful 75 Apps That Will Save You Time as a Busy Professional.

But, what is the real secret behind roundup posts?

The Unspoken Truth about Roundup Posts

From Rita Kreig:

• The world is filled with procrastinators like me, who will gobble up clickbait-y roundups like there’s no tomorrow.
• The world is also filled with curious, time-constrained people like me, who appreciate well-written roundups for their substance.
• Roundups work for readers because they are organized, easy to read, and quickly get to the point. Roundups allow readers to skip around, skim for the information you want, and ignore the rest.
• Roundups work for marketers because they drive traffic to your content, allow you to form partnerships with industry leaders, and occasionally score you a high-quality link.
• You don’t have to have “Buzz” in your company name to write excellent, traffic-driving roundup posts. This popular form of content marketing is accessible, scalable, and learnable.

So, we know the secret truth behind roundup posts, but curiosity led us to dig in even deeper, “But, why?”…

Ask the Experts: Why does a Curated Roundup Blog Post Work So well?

Expert #1 – From Steve Rayso, Buzzsumo: 

We are reluctant sometimes to highlight how well list posts work, as we’re all drowning in them, but there is little question, they work well whether in B2B or B2C marketing. They work particularly well as a format for curated content.

The late Cindy King of Social Media Examiner was simply the very best at creating a roundup blog post. Her post on 44 Social Media Tools Recommended By The Pros is currently the most shared on the Social Media Examiner site in the past 12-months.

Expert #2 – From Tor Refsland, SumoMe:

To pull myself out of The Triple Zero Club, I looked around and I noticed that several bloggers were writing something they call “roundup blog post.”

In a few simple words, Tor’s first roundup post resulted in:

• 20,231 page views in 6 days
• 1500+ social shares
• 84 comments
• 185 new email subscribers

Expert #3 – From Heidi Cohen, Actionable Marketing Guide:

A Roundup blog post is “sweet”.

As a specialized form of content curation, a roundup blog post is the content marketing gift that keeps on giving when done well.

Here’s a curated list of Heidi’s top 10 steps to create a roundup blog post:

1 – Develop the roundup post idea and question. Assess what issues and information are relevant to your audience.

2 – Create a list of experts from whom to request input. Anticipate that your list must be longer than the number of people you expect to respond. Not everyone will participate. Even if they like you, they’re busy.

3 – Contact your list of influential people. You need to be able to communicate with them via email or a social media platform. (If you’re a newbie writer without a big name company, blog or media platform behind you, this may be a challenge.)

4 – Add a cushion of time. Don’t expect people to respond immediately! Allow enough time to respond if they’re busy, but not so much time that they forget.

5 – Be persistent in your follow-up without being a pest! Remember this is from the recipient’s point of view, not yours!!!

6 – Combine the input into a single document. Whether you use Google Drive, MS Word, WordPress or another option, wrangle the information into a nicely formatted piece.

7 – Add your commentary. At a minimum, include your response as well as an introduction and conclusion.

8 – Edit and format the content. Make sure you have permission before you change someone else’s words. (I learned this point the hard way by editing someone’s comments for grammar, and it was an issue.)

9 – Optimize the article for search and distribution. Focus your request around a keyword phrase, craft an attention-getting headline, and include a photo. Don’t forget social sharing.

10 – Let contributors know you’ve published the piece. Don’t assume anyone is waiting for your article. Send them a follow up after you’ve published the article. BTW—Don’t forget to thank them for their participation.

Expert #4 – From Mari Smith, Social Media Thought Leader & Top Facebook Marketing Expert:

Hello, world! Every week, for the past two-and-a-half years, I’ve published an email newsletter – called THE SOCIAL SCOOP.  I include my top selections of “OPC” – that is, I curate other people’s content on social media marketing, business building, productivity and other related subjects, along with my own words of wisdom!

Expert #5 – From David Schneider, SEO Hacker:

Last year was an epic year for the roundup blog post.

Do you know why so many people have been doing these? Because they work.

Here are some excellent ones I remember:

• 60 Experts Reveal Top 3 Tools To Grow Your Email List
• 42 Blogging Specialists Explain How to Monetize Email Newsletters and Turn Autoresponder Messages into Profit
• 39 Successful Entrepreneurs Share Their First Ever Sale (This one was my own)

Just Ask Yourself…

Where can you help your audience and save them time by curating content into a list post?

Ask the Expert #6 – Bill Gassett, My Realty Times

Bill is a huge fan of using social media for his real estate business.

Content marketing can offer significant advantages to a real estate agent. It offers an inexpensive way to build a brand, drive traffic to your website and increase the number of leads that come your way. But keeping up a steady stream of content for site visitors is also a lot of work. If you are like most agents, you probably have your hands full with your real estate work, and therefore a limited amount of time to spend writing original content.

Here’s a recent example of a curated roundup blog post from Bill:

Real Estate Round Up: Articles Worth a Look January 2016…take a look at these articles, and if you find any of them helpful or enjoyable, please consider sharing them socially. There is a wealth of great content here from some really terrific real estate authors!

But what separates a bad roundup post from an optimal one? What makes a roundup post perfect?

The following infographic from Siege Media pinned by Robin Good on his Content Curation Visualized board breaks it down from start to finish.

To create an effective and valuable roundup for readers and sources alike, it must contain these elements:

1. Sourced articles with social proof (i.e. highly ranked, linked to, and shared)
2. Plural focus keyword (i.e. “Christmas decorating ideas)
3. High quality images in one format
4. Easy readability (i.e. 16px font, bright images, 50-60 character lines, etc.)

Here are a couple of other highlights to note:

1 – Use a short, keyword-only URL

The URLs of articles ranked on Google’s #1 page contain an average of 37 characters. – SEO SiteCheckup

2 – Use an odd-numbered headline

Odd numbers seem to be more believable and are shown to help people digest the information better. Headlines with numbers are 36% more likely to generate clicks, according to research by Conductor.

3 – Reach out to people mentioned in the post

Tool: Notifier from ContentMarketer.io

Easiest way to 3x your traffic & shares. We’ll find @mentions in your post and let you notify them with one click.

Here’s the full infographic:

Looking for an easy solution to create a roundup blog post?

Read more:

• 3 Easy Solutions for a GREAT Content Curation Strategy
• How to Build a Massive Email List with a Curated Newsletter (in 15 minutes or less)

___

Your audience is listening. What will you share?

We’d love to hear from you!

The post What do Science and Curated Blog Posts Have in Common [from the experts] appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

This week featuring:

• Top Tweet of the Week: Confirmed: Google to Stop Showing Ads on Right Side of Desktop

• Social Media Growth Hacks:
  • 16 Top Marketing Blogs and Publications You Need to Be Following
  • Want To Be Successful With Content Marketing? Teach, Don’t Sell

• Productivity Tips:
  • The Organizational Cost of Insufficient Sleep
  • How Exercise Makes You Smarter, Happier, and Less Stressed

‘Exercise is like taking a little bit of Prozac and a little bit of Ritalin,’ says a Harvard researcher, describing the amazing effects of fitness on the brain.

• Trending on Facebook: Opening up instant articles to ALL publishers

___

Top Tweet

16.1K Shares: Confirmed: Google To Stop Showing Ads On Right Side Of Desktop Search Results Worldwide

A long-running test is now rolling out for desktop queries: Google will no longer show ads to the right of its search results, with two exceptions.

Google is rolling out a dramatic change that removes ads from the right side of its desktop search results, and places ads only at the top and/or bottom of the page. At the same time, the company says it may show an additional ad — four, not three — above the search results for what it calls “highly commercial queries.”

Ads will not appear on the right side of desktop search results, with two exceptions:

1. Product Listing Ad (PLA) boxes, which show either above or to the right of search results
2. Ads in the Knowledge Panel

Read more.

Social Media Growth Hacks

1 – 8.7K Shares: 16 Top Marketing Blogs and Publications You Need to Be Following

The best marketers are incessantly learning. Why? They can’t afford to stop.

The marketing industry must constantly evolve alongside the audiences it attempts to reach. Cutting-edge is adequate, and everything else falls by the wayside. Where can marketers go to learn from influencers within the industry?

Here are 3 of the 16 marketing blogs and publications you should add to your reading list this year:

1. MarketingProfs: Blog for marketers of any ilk. Constantly stocked with legitimate content.

2. Business Insider: A rising star in the content world. Think of it as the Huffington Post for business and marketing professionals.

3. The Knowledge Bank: Touches on all aspects of content marketing and branding–from thought leadership and content creation to lead generation and content distribution.

Read more.

2 – 14K Views: Want To Be Successful With Content Marketing? Teach, Don’t Sell

The idea of teaching instead of selling seems to turn marketing on its head, and yet it’s at the core of content marketing. “Teach, don’t sell” is exactly what makes content marketing different from advertising.

Here’s the part you might not like hearing. You teach instead of sell, because frankly, nobody really cares about your marketing.

So how can you avoid triggering their “THEY’RE SELLING!” radar? Here are three ways:

1) Don’t include a call to action that asks them to buy.

2) Tell them what they want to know, not what you want to tell them.

3) Be generous.

Read more.

Productivity Tips

1 – 3.8K Shares: How Exercise Makes You Smarter, Happier, and Less Stressed

Being nagged about exercise isn’t fun or motivating. Plus, it’s cold out there in a lot of America. So how can you convince yourself to do what you know you should do: move more? Forget guilt and pep talks. Maybe science is the answer.

“We need to move,” says Harvard psychiatrist John Ratey of our evolutionary baggage, early in his talk on the science of how exercise positively affects the brain. “It’s only 10,000 years ago that we were hunter-gatherers and we moved anywhere from 10 to 14 miles a day.”

Read more.

2 – 3.3K Shares: The Organizational Cost of Insufficient Sleep

Sleep (mis)management, at one level, is obviously an individual issue, part of a larger energy-management challenge that also includes other forms of mental relaxation, such as mindfulness and meditation, as well as nutrition and physical activity. But in an increasingly hyperconnected world, in which many companies now expect their employees to be on call and to answer emails 24/7, this is also an important organizational topic that requires specific and urgent attention.

Read more.

Popular on Facebook

5.5K Shares: Opening Up Instant Articles to All Publishers

A new way for publishers to create fast, interactive articles on Facebook.

We’re excited to announce that on April 12th at Facebook’s F8 conference, we will be opening up the Instant Articles program to all publishers—of any size, anywhere in the world. To date, we’ve been working with a few hundred publishers around the world to build an incredibly fast and immersive reading experience for people on Facebook. While we were getting feedback and making improvements to Instant Articles, in parallel we’ve been building the tools to open up Instant Articles more broadly.

Read more.

___

Have any social media trends, tips or tricks to share?

Read any interesting social media facts recently?

Run across any fascinating infographics?

We’d love to hear from you!

Please share!

The post The Best 5 Articles and a Science-Based Productivity Tip You May Have Missed in Social Media [Week February 21, 2016] appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

This week featuring:

• Top Tweet of the Week: 

Work, Sleep, Family, Fitness, or Friends: Pick 3

• Social Media Growth Hacks:
  • How to WIN on Facebook
  • Why Small Businesses are Getting LinkedIn WRONG

• Productivity Tips:
  • How to Improve Your Job Performance in Two Seconds (yes, your Mother was right!)
  • Facebook Turns 12 — Trillions Squandered in LOST productivity

• Bonus Fun Fact (includes a video): Taking Naps at Work Will Make You More Productive

Top Tweet

54.7K Shares: Work, Sleep, Family, Fitness, or Friends: Pick 3

Social Media Growth Hacks

1 – 5.4K Shares: How to Win on Facebook: 8 Lessons Learned From Analyzing 1 Billion Posts

If you want to know what works when it comes to marketing, you need to study the competition…The BuzzSumo team decided to compile as much data as possible on marketing on Facebook, and then complete an in-depth analysis.

Here’s a peek at one of the eight lessons learned on how to win on Facebook:

1. The best time to post isn’t when you think it is

Intuitively, it makes sense to post when the most users are online, which is during the day. That way, a greater percentage of your followers could potentially be exposed to your posts.

But the BuzzSumo analysis actually found the complete opposite.

The pattern is remarkably clear.

Posts get the most engagement when the total amount of posts is at its lowest.

Read more.

2 – 3.3K Shares: Why Small Businesses Are Getting LinkedIn Wrong

The social network can be a great place to promote a startup. Here’s how to do it right.

Here’s a glimpse of the eight tips on how small businesses can use LinkedIn:

Tip #1 – Don’t use it for marketing

Tip #2 – Tap your network for trips

Tip #3 – Don’t help competitors

Tip #4 – Keep critical activity private

Tip #5 – Don’t focus on lead generation

Tip #6 – Sell the business, not yourself

Tip #7 – Get focused when hiring

Tip #8 – Ask for help

Read more.

Productivity Tips

1 – 4.3K Shares: How to Improve Your Job Performance in Two Seconds

Your parents were right. Stop slouching to work smarter.

Posture matters more than you may think. In fact, there’s evidence that whether you sit up straight or slouch affects the quality of your work.

Another good read: 7 Awesome Standing Desks that Will Change Your Life

2 – 4.5K Shares: Facebook turns 12 — trillions in time wasted

Twelve years ago Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with a simple dream: to have everyone spending as much time as possible clicking around on his website. Today, the social network site’s users are closing in on $3.5 trillion in squandered productivity.

→So what’s the best gift you can get Zuckerberg on his company’s birthday? Just open up your browser or phone to Facebook, and don’t forget to give him your 20 minutes.

Read more.

Bonus Fun Fact

4.3K Shares: Taking Naps at Work Will Make You More Productive

Turns out you shouldn’t work all that long and that you should take naps during the day. Seriously! It’s science! Watch the New York Magazine video below to hear more about the data that proves napping may be key to your productivity.

Another good read: 5 Perks of Sleeping on the Job and How it Might Just Save Businesses Billions a Year

___

Have any social media trends, tips or tricks to share?

Read any interesting social media facts recently?

Run across any thought-provoking questions?

We’d love to hear from you!

Please share!

The post 5 Articles and One Thought-Provoking Tweet You May Have Missed in Social Media [Week of February 7, 2016] appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

This week featuring:

• Top Tweet of the Week: Why I Won’t Write Emails Like A Man ~ (Yep, I’m Sorry!)

• Social Media Growth Hacks:
  • Facebook Rolls Out Audience Optimization for Publishers
  • Why You Won’t Recognize SEO in Five Years

• Productivity Tips:
  • Why You Should Read 50 Books this Year (and how to do it)!
  • The 8 Self-Assessments You Need to Improve at Work This Year

• Bonus Infographic: The World’s Most Spoken Languages In One Fascinating Infographic

Top Tweet

77K Shares (sourced from LinkedIn): Why I Won’t Write Emails Like A Man

Have you seen (or even tried) Google Chrome’s new plug-in that is supposed to help you write stronger, more impactful emails? “Just Not Sorry” launched about a month ago and once downloaded, will underline phrases in red that could weaken a message. And you guessed it – the prime target audience for this app is women!

“When I started reading some of the articles from the app creators I realized that this was really focused on women helping women write emails more like men and it was pretty shocking to me,” says Amy Martin.

Two very bad mistakes that could cost me my credibility in the workplace:

1. I apologized.
2. I used the word “just”.

Read more.

Social Media Growth Hacks

1 – 2.8K Shares (sourced from socialmediaexaminer.com): Facebook Introduces Audience Optimization for Publishers

Today, we’re launching Audience Optimization, an organic targeting tool to help publishers reach and engage their audiences on Facebook and better understand the interests of people clicking on their posts. This tool lets you improve the relevancy of your post by indicating who is most likely to engage with it, which can increase engagement at both the post and Page level.

Audience Optimization gives you the following three features:

• Preferred audience
• Audience restrictions
• Audience insights

Read more.

2 – 3.1K Shares from HubSpot Blogs: Why You Won’t Recognize SEO in Five Years

As marketers, we’ve gotten quite good at evolving our playbooks when it comes to SEO. But the changes we’ve seen to this point are nothing compared to what’s coming next.

We are in the early stages of a new era of search — an era tied closely to more sophisticated patterns such as mobile, social, and voice search, among other things. And for the first time, this isn’t just a matter of adding a new chapter to our SEO strategy, it’s a matter of creating entire new playbooks.

Here are the three emerging search patterns that are changing the face of SEO:

1 – Mobile Search

2 – Social Search

3 – Voice Search & Personal Assistants

Read more.

Productivity Tip

1 – 12.2K Shares from Fastcompany.com: Why You Should Read 50 Books this Year (and How To Do It)

FROM MARK ZUCKERBERG TO BILL GATES, ALL OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL LEADERS ARE AVID READERS. HERE’S HOW TO BUILD THE HABIT.

If you want to get ahead in business, sit down and pick up a book. Warren Buffett spends 80% of his day reading. Bill Gates reads for an hour each night before going to bed. And Mark Cuban credits part of his success to the fact that he is willing to read more than anyone else.

Read more (no pun intended!).

2 – 4.9 Shares from Harvard Business Review: The 8 Self-Assessments You Need to Improve at Work This Year

We all need to grow — not only to stay engaged in our work but also to keep up with our employers’ changing needs. And this is the perfect time of year to set personal development goals and start making progress on them.

Here’s a sneak peek at the assessment under Work/Life Balance:

Are You Focusing on What’s Important?

Read more.

Bonus Infographic

6.2K Shares from collective-evolution.com: The World’s Most Spoken Languages In One Fascinating Infographic

Whenever I meet someone of a different ethnicity, out of sheer curiosity, I always ask if they speak the language of their heritage. Business deals can go in an entirely different direction if someone knows even a few words of another language, and, let’s be honest, traveling around the world and practicing different words you’ve picked up is fun.

This interesting infographic shows which languages are spoken the most around the world.

Read more.

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Have any social media trends, tips or tricks to share?

Read any interesting social media facts recently?

Run across any fascinating infographics?

We’d love to hear from you!

Please share!

The post 5 Articles and 1 Fascinating Infographic You May Have Missed in Social Media [Week of January 31, 2016] appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

This week featuring:

• Top Tweet of the Week: The Big Agenda: What Ad Industry Needs to Know About 2016

• (2) Social Media Growth Hacks: How to Get 1,000 Visitors to Your Next Blog Post Using an Influencer Group Pos

• Productivity Tip: Why I Taught Myself to Procrastinate

• Bonus App: Stuck in an unproductive meeting — again?

• Bonus Video: EVERY MEETING YOU’VE EVER BEEN TO (IN TWO MINUTES)

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Top Tweet

3.7K Shares: The Big Agenda: What Ad Industry Needs to Know About 2016

Unilever spends $7.7 billion on global advertising, and $15 million protecting that investment.

That’s how much the consumer packaged goods giant has committed so far to its Foundry program, which has vetted 4,000 marketing-tech startups and done pilots with 80 to date. The program is among the most ambitious and highly organized forms of “future hunting” that goes on in most marketing departments today. And it points to what’s on the agenda as the industry comes to grips with perhaps the most pressing issue of 2016:

How to achieve marketing efficiency when consumers are going out of their way to avoid ads, and the bottom is falling out of the middle class, making mass marketing even less relevant.

Read more.

Social Media Growth Hacks

First the video:

1 – 2.7 Shares: Why Certain Things Go Viral

2 – 3.7K Shares: How to Get 1,000 Visitors to Your Next Blog Post Using an Influencer Group Post

Creating valuable content on your website through a blog post that demonstrates your expertise will help you to build your brand, drive traffic and create leads. But entrepreneurs often struggle to get enough visitors to validate the time they spend creating and promoting their content. In this article, we outline what you need to do to create your Influencer Group post.

Here’s a sneak peek at the five steps:

1. Find a list of influencers in your industry.

2. Get started on content.

3. Create the content.

4. Reach out to the influencers.

5. Start your social-media promotion.

Read more.

Productivity Tip

21.4K Shares: Why I Taught Myself to Procrastinate

NORMALLY, I would have finished this column weeks ago. But I kept putting it off because my New Year’s resolution is to procrastinate more. I guess I owe you an explanation. Sooner or later.

We think of procrastination as a curse. Over 80 percent of college students are plagued by procrastination, requiring epic all-nighters to finish papers and prepare for tests. Roughly 20 percent of adults report being chronic procrastinators. We can only guess how much higher the estimate would be if more of them got around to filling out the survey.

But while procrastination is a vice for productivity, I’ve learned — against my natural inclinations — that it’s a virtue for creativity.

Read more.

Or, alternatively read: The Psychology of a Procrastinator: 15 Ways to Overcome and Get Things Done

Bonus App

8.5K Shares: Estimate the Cost of a Meeting with This Calculator

Stuck in an unproductive meeting — again? Everyone agrees that meetings can be a waste of time, but they’re actually a waste of money, too. How much? In a study of time budgeting at large corporations, Bain & Company found that a single weekly meeting of midlevel managers cost one organization $15M a year!

Read more.

Bonus Video

4.2K Shares: EVERY MEETING YOU’VE EVER BEEN TO (IN TWO MINUTES)

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Have any social media trends, tips or tricks to share?

Read any interesting social media facts recently?

We’d love to hear from you!

Please share!

The post 10 Articles and Videos You May Have Missed in Social Media [Week of January 17, 2016] appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

This week featuring:

• Top Tweet of the Week

• Two Social Media Growth Hacks

• Two Productivity Tips

• Bonus Infographic (from Facebook): Millennials, Moms and Multicultural Shoppers Drive Majority of Mobile Transactions

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Top Tweet

30K Views: The Most Overlooked Factor Of Content Marketing: Scannable Content

Scannable Web content makes it easy for potential customers to engage with your business, but the practice is often overlooked. Pick up a few tips on how to write, lay out and test content that makes people want to read, follow and purchase from you online.

I hate to have to break it to you, but very few people can read the content on your website. It’s not your fault. Blame the screen. Reading online is significantly more difficult than reading from print. In fact, it’s 25 percent slower. Why?

Read more.

Two Social Media Growth Hacks

1 – 3.4K Shares: 7 Essentials for Making Your Content-Marketing Business Thrive

Despite the widespread use of content marketing, the majority of companies struggle with the effectiveness of their content strategy. According to the Content Marketing Institute, only 38 percent of B2C marketers say their content marketing is effective. In B2B circles, this percentage is even lower — 30 percent.

While this is an unfortunate statistic, it’s also a fantastic opportunity for anyone considering starting a content marketing business. This post will walk you through seven strategies for running a successful content marketing agency – helping businesses with their content strategy, creation, and promotion across all their digital marketing channels.

Read more.

2 – 2.9K Shares: Why Content Strategy Isn’t Enough

In the good old days when I was using Aqua Net, the average time for a Fortune 500 company to reach $1billion in market value was 20 years.

Google did it in 8.
Facebook in 5.
Uber and Whatsapp in 2.
Snapchat: just 22 months.

To expect growth at this speed is unrealistic for most companies, yet that’s the new role model.

…As marketers, we’re forgetting that it’s not just about the content we produce, it’s about the experience people have with the brand and the company we’re working so hard to build. Ensure people, not technology, are driving marketing efforts.

Read more.

Two Productivity Tips

1 – 20.7K Shares: 11 Tweaks To Your Morning Routine Will Make Your Entire Day More Productive

“Eat a live frog first thing in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” – Mark Twain

I don’t know anyone who couldn’t use a little boost in their energy, productivity, and self-control.

Researchers at the University of Nottingham recently published findings from their exploration of 83 separate studies on energy and self-control. What they found will change the way you start your day.

Sneak peek at Tweak #2:

…But drink some lemon water first

Drinking lemon water as soon as you wake up spikes your energy levels physically and mentally. Lemon water gives you steady, natural energy that lasts the length of the day by improving nutrient absorption in your stomach. You need to drink it first thing in the morning (on an empty stomach) to ensure full absorption. You should also wait 15-30 minutes after drinking it before eating (perfect time to squeeze in some exercise). Lemons are packed with nutrients; they’re chock full of potassium, vitamin C, and antioxidants. If you’re under 150 pounds, drink the juice of half a lemon (a full lemon if you’re over 150 pounds). Don’t drink the juice without water because it’s hard on your teeth.

Read more.

2 – 7K Shares: 8 Signs You Have A Strong Personality That Might Scare Some People

When people encounter someone with a strong personality, they don’t understand the kind of person they are dealing with.

Some people think you dominate. Some just think you are rude. But none of these are the truth. These words do not reflect your personality at all. In fact, strong people are often kittens on the inside. It’s just that people with domineering personalities just give you a bad rep.

Does any of these sound like you?

• You Don’t Put Up With Excuses
• You Are Careful About Who You Let Into Your Life
• You Hate Small Talk
• You Can’t Stand Insensitivity, Idiocy or Ignorance
• You Know How to Listen
• You Do Not Need Attention
• You Are Fearless
• You Take Insecurity As An Opportunity

Read more.

Bonus Infographic

Millennials, Moms and Multicultural Shoppers Drive Majority of Mobile Transactions [Infographic]

According to Facebook, Millennials, Moms and Multicultural shoppers are “driving the future of mobile in the US”. As we head into the final stretch before Christmas, Facebook’s released a new infographic summarizing their latest research into mobile shopping trends, including the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the users most likely to make purchases via mobile.

Read more and check out the full infographic below:

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Read any interesting social media facts recently?

Have any social media tips or tricks to share?

We’d love to hear from you!

The post Social Media Roundup: Top Posts Week of December 20 appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.

“Only Put Off Until Tomorrow What You Are Willing to Die Having Left Undone” – Pablo Picasso

Do you find yourself saying:

• I’ll finish that when ________ .

• I’ll take care of that as soon as ________ .

• I know I should do this now but ________ .

And, then the day sweeps away and tomorrow comes and goes?

What Does Procrastination Mean?

Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished. It is the practice of doing more pleasurable things in place of less pleasurable ones or carrying out less urgent tasks instead of more pressing ones, thus putting off impending tasks to a later time.

Sometimes, procrastination takes place until the “last minute” before a deadline. People may procrastinate personal issues (raising a stressful issue with a partner), health problems (seeing a doctor or dentist), home care issues (patching a leak in a roof), or academic/work obligations (completing a report). Procrastination can lead to feelings of guilt, inadequacy, depression and self-doubt.

Procrastination is the Gap Between Intention and Action

There are many ways to avoid success in life, but the most sure-fire just might be procrastination.

• Procrastinators sabotage themselves.
• They put obstacles in their own path.
• They actually choose paths that hurt their performance.

Why do People Procrastinate?

1 – Twenty percent of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators. That is as many as 1 in 5 adults (not just students!) may be chronic procrastinators.

For a habitual procrastinator, procrastination is a lifestyle, albeit a flawed one. And it cuts across all domains of their life. (Psychology Today)

Examples of a chronic procrastinator:

• Don’t pay bills on time.
• Miss opportunities for buying tickets to concerts.
• Don’t cash gift certificates or checks.
• File income tax returns late.
• Leave their Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve.

2 – Procrastination is not a problem of time management or planning.

Procrastinators are not different in their ability to estimate time, although they are more optimistic than others. “Telling someone who procrastinates to buy a weekly planner is like telling someone with chronic depression to just cheer up.” – Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at De Paul University in Chicago

3 – Procrastinators lie to themselves.

When we procrastinate, we are making excuses for poor performance and behavior. We become expert at making excuses to put off things that we need to get done.

Here are some phrases that indicate you are making excuses and are procrastinating (a nicer way of saying you are lying to yourself), which will hinder your success:

“I work best under pressure.”

When you procrastinate, you try to trick yourself into thinking that you perform your best when pressured by a deadline. However, this is never the case. When you put things off until later, you have less time to review and finalize, so you have more errors in the finished product. (Ziglar Vault)

“I am too busy right now.”

Procrastinators try to justify putting things off until later by saying that they don’t have the time to do what they need to do. However, this excuse usually means that you will still be very busy later. Time is always the same, regardless of how “busy” you are.

“I’m not a procrastinator; I’m a perfectionist.”

Both types of people like to take their time, but the difference here is that there is motivation for delaying. Perfectionists want their work to be the best it can be, while procrastinators just avoid getting things done at all costs.

It’s easy to procrastinate when you can convince yourself that everything is important, but panic soon sets in.

Effects of Procrastination

People experience the devasting effects of wasting time and not meeting deadlines at both the business and personal levels. Procrastination may result in:

• Stress
• A sense of guilt and crisis
• Severe loss of personal productivity
• Business and social disapproval for not meeting responsibilities or commitments.

These feelings can combine and may create further procrastination.

The bright side?

Overcoming procrastination…with effort is possible!

How to Stop Procrastinating

Wouldn’t it be a breath of fresh air to get on top of things and stop feeling guilty, stressed, and sometimes even hopeless about our ability to stick to priorities?

Here are five hacks that will help you beat procrastination:

1 – Schedule your day in 15-minute blocks.

Multi-tasking is one of the easiest ways to procrastinate because it allows you to delay less-enjoyable tasks. The best way to prevent that and increase your productivity is by using time-blocking.

First: Start by planning out your day and everything you would like to get done.

Next: Divide those tasks into 15-minute blocks, because it will allow you to set realistic deadlines and not waste time.

Dividing time into blocks is known as the Pomodoro Technique.

Suggested apps to make time-blocking easy: TimeDoctor and RescueTime

2 – Set S.M.A.R.T goals.

A goal without a plan is just a wish. When you have concrete tasks with deadlines, your chances of delaying are much lower than they would be if the task isn’t well defined. S.M.A.R.T goals are the enemy of procrastination.

Suggested apps to help track your progress: Nozbe or Strides

3 – Use the George Washington method.

The George Washington method involves picking an arbitrary point in your day and setting this as “noon”. You then move forward in segments, only focusing on the hour you’re currently in. It’s simply another way of organizing your time.

Interesting fact: This is the same strategy that the White House cleaning staff still uses today.

4 – Remove distractions from your workspace.

Busy workspaces are unfortunately very distracting and conducive to procrastination. If you’re really serious about staying focused, you need to create a distraction-free workspace. Some ideas include:

• Position your computer screen away from the window. This tactic prevents you from getting distracted with what’s going on outside of your office.
• Remove knick-knacks from your desk. While stress balls, bobbleheads, and interactive gadgets may look cool, they actually reduce your focus.
• Uninstall distracting apps from your computer and delete bookmarks to websites that don’t pertain to business. It’s amazing how much time you can waste on your computer by mindlessly clicking through these websites.

Read: 5 Practical Science-Based Tips to Make You More Productive

5 – Find accountability partners.

One of the best things you can do is find some accountability.

• If you work from home, this may look like asking your husband/wife to check in every day to see what you’ve done.
• If you have a close friend or colleague who is in the same industry, then you can do a daily progress call with them.

Have a look at this infographic for 15 techniques to fight your tendency to procrastinate:

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Procrastination isn’t something you can afford to take lightly.

What are your tips for beating procrastination?

We’d love to hear from you.

Please share!

The post How to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done [Infographic] appeared first on dlvr.it | blog.