Why you should start exploring video

Very interesting video about Facebook vs YouTube that talks about the business models for each platform and why your content may not reach as many people as you think on Facebook. Definitely worth a watch.

Video is a very different kettle of fish though than the average post to a FB page and may require considerably more thought, equipment and time, but my experience lately has been that the return can be considerable. Worth thinking about.

Quick Tip: Facebook Page - Pin to Top

Sometimes you may want to "re-use" an older Facebook Page update that's now moved down your Page's timeline. Perhaps it was initially for an upcoming Waiheke event and now, closer to the date, you want to be sure that visitors to your Facebook Page notice this event. An easy way to do this is to use the Pin to Top functionality. To find this option hover your mouse over the post you want to promote until you see these icons appear in the top-right of the post:

Clicking on the right 'pencil' icon will reveal a drop-down menu. From this menu select Pin to Top:

This will shift the post to the top and add an orange bookmark icon to the post:

This post will now stay at the top, causing even new posts to display below it. To remove this post and put it back into the normal timeline flow of your page just hover over the orange bookmark and 'unpin'.

Note: I've just added an email subscription to this blog so if you'd like to be updated on when I make new posts to Waiheke Social Media please subscribe using the Follow by Email option on the top right. Thanks, Brent.

Setting up a Social Media Calendar

So you're a small business and you're going to take social media seriously, you've got all your accounts lined up, URLs pointing towards your main website, logos in place, etc .. but now what? A good thing to do is to start work on a Social Media Calendar. A social media calendar can help create a cohesive layer to an overall content strategy.

To create the calendar use a spreadsheet - I personally like Google Docs because the spreadsheet is there wherever I am and can be easily shared or viewed by others that you may be working with - but even an old school paper calendar will do. Set aside one hour at minimum to brainstorm and plan the content you aim to highlight in the upcoming days, weeks, or even months. Take into account any significant events that may be taking place over the period you decide to plan for, ie. holidays, special business events, local events, conferences, product releases, and other occurrences that might have a significant social buzz. By including all of the information and links to relevant sites in your calendar, you will have developed a single resource that you can refer to when deciding what to post. For Facebook you should be aiming to post at least once per week and probably not much more than 3 times per week, and for Twitter I try for at least one tweet per day.

If you're using a tool like Hootsuite to manage your social media you even have a calendaring tool built right in where you can schedule tweets or facebook posts ahead of time.

Using Facebook Promoted Posts

Last year Facebook shared a statistic saying that a brand pages' content is only seen by 16% of it's fans. Not long after this announcement Facebook released it's Promoted Posts functionality where a brand can now pay $5, $10, $15 or $20 to increase the amount of fans that will see a post on their wall. Facebook users see promoted posts labeled with “Sponsored” directly in the news feed rather than in the right column where Facebook ads are placed. Promoted posts appear both on desktop and mobile and have the same targeting ability that regular posts do, meaning you can geo-target for your companies customers - a helpful feature for businesses like those on Waiheke that might use such functionality to target likely visitor groups (like Aucklanders), or even locals.

For more information on Promoted Posts, see: https://www.facebook.com/help/promote or get in touch with us if you need help.

Social Media course at Waiheke Community Education

The advent of the Internet and the rise of Social media have had considerable impact on almost all facets of our society. Over four meetings at Waiheke Community Education I will provide an introduction into the foundations of social media, reviewing some of its' history, its' basis in the values of openness and sharing, and its' current dominant platforms.

We will explore and practice how to use social media effectively for a range of use cases and audiences, and review its use in marketing, audience building, and community engagement. We will inevitably need to consider the role of mobile devices. The use of a phone, particularly a smart phone is encouraged in the meetings - please bring them if you have them.

Specifically we will be looking closely at Twitter & Facebook, and the use of a third party client (mobile or web) to access both platforms.

To enrol in the course please visit: waihekecommed.co.nz/courses/social-media-2/

Case Study: Emma Hughes Photography

We recently helped Emma Hughes Photography develop an online social media presence. Emma wanted to develop a Facebook business page but without adding too much extra work to her already busy schedule as a popular wedding photographer. Emma was already a steady blogger on her Wordpress blog, http://www.weddingsonwaiheke.co.nz so rather than recreate content on both platforms we integrated her Facebook page with her blog using a Facebook application that automatically posts her blog updates to her Facebook page wall. In the process we also secured a Twitter account which is automatically updated as well. We also looked at how her blog could be more easily shared across multiple platforms by her readers and installed the AddThis set of icons as well as the Facebook Like widget.

In the three weeks since starting her Facebook Page Emma has attracted 69 fans to the page and is starting to gain some valuable insights into the demographics of her Facebook visitors. Many people may not be aware that Facebook pages also come with an "insights" page that tracks the age and sex of visitors to your page as well as country of origin and other consumption metrics such as media consumption (pictures, video, etc.) Since starting a Facebook page, Facebook is now the third top traffic referrer to her blog, although this traffic does have a fairly high bounce rate according to Google Analytics. This is probably not of too much concern as it might be in other sites, because this is a blog and readers might be expected to only read the story they have been referred to from the post that appears on her Facebook wall.

The above process is a relatively standard and straight forward configuration and works well for people or businesses that are already blogging. If you would like more information on how to set this type of arrangement up for your small business or enterprise please contact us.