Generated by All in One SEO v5.0.1.1, this is an llms.txt file, used by LLMs to index the site.

# Social Fresh

## Sitemaps

- [XML Sitemap](https://socialfresh.com/sitemap.xml): Contains all public & indexable URLs for this website.

## Posts

- [The Full History of Social Media Innovations: 1997 to Today](https://socialfresh.com/history-of-social-network-innovations/) - Every major social media innovation from 1997 to today in one timeline: the firsts, the flops, and who actually invented each feature.
- [How To Use Content From Other Blogs and Websites Without Violating Copyright](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-use-content-from-other-blogs-without-infringing-on-their-copyright/) - Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This post is not intended as legal advise. If you have real concerns that you MIGHT be violating someone's copyright, do not use it. Or ask permission first. Sharing quotes, facts, and images from other blogs is something many content creators do instinctively, without thinking about whether they are
- [9 Top Marketing Conferences in 2026-2027: An Insider's Guide](https://socialfresh.com/marketing-conferences/) - An event producer's honest ranking of the 9 marketing conferences that deliver in 2026-2027, with dates, pricing, and who each one is really for.
- [Performance Marketing Strategy Manifesto: The Complete Guide](https://socialfresh.com/performance-marketing-strategy/) - Ready to upgrade your performance marketing strategy? Discover how to outsmart Google & Meta, leverage creative best practices, and tap CTV for maximum ROI.
- [12 Top Social Media Conferences in 2026-2027: An Insider's Guide](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-conferences/) - The social media conferences worth attending in 2026 and 2027, with verified dates, locations, and who each one is actually for. Updated August 2026.
- [Social Media Agencies: How to Choose + 15 We Recommend](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-agencies/) - How to find, vet, and hire the right social media agency, plus 15 recommended agencies across enterprise, B2B, small business, entertainment, and video.
- [Tip: You are not tweeting enough](https://socialfresh.com/tip-you-are-not-tweeting-enough/) - I saw a benchmark study recently, from HubSpot, and a couple of their Twitter benchmark stats made me worry. HubSpot surveyed 7,000 of their customers, who I would anecdotally guess are more digitally and social savvy than the average business, on a ton of digital marketing topics. Check out the full benchmark report here (email gated).
- [2 Core Reasons Why Businesses Fail At Social](https://socialfresh.com/reasons-brands-fail-at-social/) - Originally published on Facebook, follow Ted Rubin on Facebook here, or on Twitter here. There are several reasons why I think businesses hamstring their social efforts. 1. Companies Fear Social, Fear the Permanence of the Web First, there’s an overriding, if misguided, pressure to get things “perfect” on social, which is sometimes used as
- [Podcasting beats cold calling](https://socialfresh.com/podcasting-beats-cold-calling/) - Podcasting has seen a resurgence in the last year that may have put it on your business's radar. And you should be considering a podcast for your business. At last year's Social Fresh Conference, we started an on-stage interview series with a few select speakers that we will be continuing at Social Fresh 2015 in
- [If you had to interact with your business ONLY on mobile, would you be happy?](https://socialfresh.com/mobile-only/)
- [Learn from HP's secret 50/25/25 content promotion rule](https://socialfresh.com/hp-content-marketing-promotion-distribution/) - Creating content is a challenge all on it's own. And because of that, we often forget, postpone, or put off content promotion and distribution. While speaking with Paula Berg recently, the Digital Communications Lead at HP, on the Social Toolkit podcast, I asked her about how they they were doing so well promoting their new
- [Brands: Don't end 2015 without a Reddit strategy](https://socialfresh.com/brands-dont-end-2015-without-a-reddit-strategy/) - Reddit was founded in 2005 with the goal of serving as “the front page of the Internet,” where communities could share and vote on content representing a diverse set of sources and themes. It’s a growing focus of attention in the daily lives of its users, attracting more than 70 billion page views and 55
- [The psychology behind membership](https://socialfresh.com/sense-of-community-membershi/) - Recently we spoke in detail about the theory originally developed by McMillan & Chavis detailing the "sense of community". The concepts that make up a strong community and why members join or stick around. The first of four factors that help define a successful community is Membership. In my experience as a community builder, keeping my communities
- [5 Simple SEO Mistakes You Are Making and How To Avoid Them](https://socialfresh.com/common-seo-mistakes/) - Build it and they will come just does not fly on the web. You have to work to get people there and then make them very comfortable so they will stay. Using SEO tactics to drive visitors (getting them there) to a well-designed website (make them comfortable) presents a great one/two punch for a digital
- [Waking Up Your Creative Strategy: For Brand, Content, and Social](https://socialfresh.com/creative-strategy/) - Most brands are boring. I blame finance and legal, but really it's just an unending list of competing priorities and not high level creative strategy. When your brand has a good creative strategy you can easily answer yes to the question "Do we stand out?" or "Are we easily remembered?" Remember this: Your product always
- [How TED used social media to evolve from a single event into a global media brand](https://socialfresh.com/ted-social-media/) - For something to succeed online, it doesn't need to just be good, someone has to want to share it, according to June Cohen, Executive Producer of TED Media. June discussed TED's evolution from a single conference into a global media platform at Mashable Connect, a digital marketing conference. And how, along the way, the key
- [What's a better social media goal: customer loyalty or brand awareness?](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-goals-2/) - In our new report, The Future of Social Marketing, we learned a lot about how brands think about their top social media goals, along with a ton of other data, including where marketers are investing their time and resources, where they are seeing the best ROI, their hiring process, and more. The report (just released
- [10 Reasons Live Event Coverage Should Be A PR Service](https://socialfresh.com/10-reasons-live-event-coverage-should-be-a-pr-service/) - What has your PR agency done for you lately? Are they extending your brand story and brand advocates into new media and audience opportunities? Are they using events to help that cause? They should be. As they continue to spend your marketing dollars — spinning and pitching your story to out-dated newswires and pay-to-play journalism
- [7 lessons on how conference networking can change your life](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-network-at-events-and-conferences/) - So, after weeks of trying, you’ve finally gotten your boss to sign off on that dream social media conference you’ve always wanted to go to. And it’s out of your city. With a bunch of smart people who will teach you a lot. Right? But these are people you don’t know very well. And no
- [How To Sell Out An Event With Facebook Ads](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-ad-case-study-social-fresh-east-2013/) - Social Fresh's social media conference, take place annually with a sold-out crowd of marketers. Every year they've hosted at least one flagship Social Fresh social media conference since 2008. Selling out a major conference while increasing ticket prices is no easy challenge. But, Facebook advertising significantly helped us accomplish this goal. One of the biggest
- [Audience Research: Why Most Companies Get It Wrong](https://socialfresh.com/audience-research/) - Elevate your marketing with effective audience research. Learn how top brands move beyond data overload to uncover real customer insights and drive impact.
- [Who's Winning The TikTok vs. Instagram Battle?](https://socialfresh.com/tiktok-vs-instagram/) - The answer is complicated. And Meta thinks they have a plan. If social media were a person, it would be graduating college soon and looking for a job. Actually, social media would skip college, become a creator on TikTok or Instagram, and launch their own fashion or beauty line. Short-form video, and more specifically TikTok,
- [Why Should You Attend a Social Media Conference?](https://socialfresh.com/why-should-you-attend-a-social-media-conference/) - Social media conferences are more important than ever as social media becomes more pervassive in our daily lives and a leading source of product discovery for most consumers. Understanding what work and what is a waste of time for your business is key. Luckily, we all have bosses and/or bottom lines that smack us back
- [Tip: Learn how to create killer content using research](https://socialfresh.com/tip-learn-how-to-create-killer-content-using-research/) - "Having your company or brand attached to a significant piece of research that actually reveals new, useful information is one of the best ways to show your prospects that you are not just trying to sell your stuff, but also trying to contribute to the field." — Tom Webster, Edison Research Sharing really useful data
- [The Rise of Trust Content](https://socialfresh.com/trust-content/) - Updated: December 2024 Trust Content is more important than ever for brand building and driving awareness. Every year as marketers we set new goals and assess the state of an industry that is constantly evolving. The shifting sands beneath our feet are new channels, technologies, and trends. Every year we hear the same questions. What
- [Search and Social Media: 7 Content Development Steps](https://socialfresh.com/7-content-development-steps-that-bring-together-search-and-social-media/) - Elevate your presence in search and social media. Learn how a solid content strategy boosts discoverability, engagement, and results in 7 practical steps.
- [5 Apps For Creating Amazing Instagram Videos From Your Phone](https://socialfresh.com/5-apps-to-create-amazing-instagram-videos-from-your-phone/) - Instagram videos don't have to revert to your typical 15-30 second TV commercial. The best videos can, and should be raw, fun, and inventive. When it comes to Instagram Video, users have been experimenting with more and more ways to create compelling fifteen-second video masterpieces. Finding unique Instagram templates that your business can use consistently
- [8 Apps To Help You Survive SXSW](https://socialfresh.com/8-apps-for-overpowering-sxsw/) - Late this week kicks off arguably the largest tech conference in the US, SXSW Interactive. SXSW is a trio of conferences held in mid-March in Austin, Texas focused on Film, Interactive and Music. This is my seventh year attending SXSW (third time attending Interactive, the rest were Music), so I feel obligated to give a
- [3 Ways To Harness Social Media For Longer Buying Cycles](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-long-buying-cycle/) - Like many of who have been in the industry for a few years, my disdain for catchphrases and clichés has grown to a breaking point. To be honest, if I have to hear the phrase “content is king” one more time, I may pull out all of my eyelashes. (Please do not hold me to
- [15 Tips For Creating Video Content That Converts](https://socialfresh.com/video-content-that-converts-tips/) - Video content is now essential to any organic social, paid social, or content marketing strategy. Your business should be investing more in video content marketing if it's not already. Why video? And why now? First, internet bandwidth finally allows us to watch video from any device without much hassle. Thanks, Netflix. Second. Mobile technology, both hardware
- [5 Examples of Brands that Exceed Social Media Expectations](https://socialfresh.com/5-examples-of-brands-that-exceed-social-media-expectations/) - Do you engage with brands on social media? If you do, what are your expectations? Now that everyone - and every brand - is expected to be a player in the social media game, which brands really surprise and exceed expectations? This come down to their responsiveness, creative strategy, and ability to exceed expectations. The
- [How To Pick Contest Winners From Likes On A Facebook Post](https://socialfresh.com/picking-facebook-fan-page-winners/) - In their effort to drive more conversations in the News Feed and to make it easier for pages to create promotions, Facebook announced big news this week -- updated Page Terms to make it easier for businesses to create promotions on Facebook. With these updated terms page owners can now run promotions on Fan Page
- [Can posting employee salaries to the public improve your marketing?](https://socialfresh.com/buffer-radical-transparency/) - One of Buffer's keystone values is "Default to Transparency." We believe not just in sharing, but sharing whenever it's not impossible. To give you a sense of what this looks like, we share our revenue, equity breakdown, salaries, costs, and even diversity efforts and books we're reading with the public. We knew this would be
- [How To Adjust Your Social Media Marketing During A Crisis](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-marketing-during-coronavirus/) - These recommendations were originally curated from our team and network of experts as a guide to marketing in the age of coronavirus, back in 2020 when COVID hit and no one knew what to do. Marketing at the time felt like shouting into the ether. It was an unprecedented time for many folks (and their
- [How To Speak At More Conferences](https://socialfresh.com/speak-at-more-conferences/) - Speaker are the essence of every conference. And yet, most events give this enough consideration. I know this because, somehow, I still see panels of only whites dudes. Or speakers with sessions and topics that are not actionable or salient enough for the conference theme. If you want to speak at a conference, understand what
- [8 Facebook Competitive Analysis Tools, An Epic Guide](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-page-competitive-analysis-tools/) - How to run a Facebook competitive analysis: the tools to benchmark competitor pages, what to track, and how to turn the data into strategy.
- [7 Social Media Marketing Tips for Financial Services](https://socialfresh.com/finance-social-media-tactics/) - At Social Fresh, one of our core communities is finance. So we've been helping folks in this industry get ahead of their peers for a while now. How should finance firms be using social media and content marketing to get ahead? We've pulled together a list of current tips and trends just for finance marketers.
- [Lessons Learned From Hosting A Virtual Conference](https://socialfresh.com/virtual-conference-lessons/) - We all learned that running a live events company during a pandemic is not optimal. Like many other companies, we Social Fresh had to adapt during the pandemic. We hosted 4 total virtual conferences during the first two years, post covid. We moved quickly to host a virtual conference because so many businesses were struggling
- [How To Claim Your Trademarked Username on Facebook](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-trademark-username-vanity-url-change/) - If you want to change your Facebook page's username and vanity URL, Facebook has a pretty good set of options and forms you can navigate to do so. This was not always the case. First let's be clear about Facebook's terminology. Facebook Page Name This is the text at the top of your page and
- [5 Tips For The Care and Feeding of Social Media Professionals](https://socialfresh.com/5-tips-for-the-care-and-feeding-of-social-media-professionals/) - May I introduce you to the mythical creature that lives in the deep dark caverns of the internet — yes, that's right, it’s the ‘actual’ social media professional. This creature works all hours of the day (and night sometimes) responding to IG comments, writing captions, researching new opportunities, developing short-form video scrips, and moderating customer
- [How Does Snapchat Survive: A few humble suggestions.](https://socialfresh.com/snapchat-suggestions/) - Snapchat will turn 8 years old this year. And, to put it simply, the platform is struggling. Am I a Snapchat hater? No. I would love to see Snapchat succeed. We need MORE competition in the social media platform space, not less. But my honest take today, is that Snapchat is struggling to make money
- [105 Facebook Advertising Case Studies](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-advertising-examples/) - A huge library of real Facebook advertising case studies: 105 examples of campaigns that worked and the lessons behind each one.
- [Turn Facebook engagement into a content rocket with these 3 steps](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-viral/) - During a recent trip to Target, Jim Walter (the proud father of a young girl with autism) discovered that the retailer hired an employee with symptoms similar to his daughter’s. Inspired, Jim turned to Target’s Facebook page to commend management for its impressive decision to hire, regardless of the employee’s clear and present disability. Jim's
- [How RadioShack Made Their Twitter Sponsored Trend Go Viral](https://socialfresh.com/radioshack-twitter-sponsored-trend/) - Originally published at NikisNotes.com You expect young tech startups and hip software companies to lead the way when it comes to social media. So it’s a nice surprise to see an exciting campaign coming from more established brands. RadioShack, a 90-year-old retail brand, has been dusting off its image in big ways and its use
- [25 Twitter handle hacks for when your perfect name is already taken](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-handle-hacks/) - Is your ideal Twitter name taken? With 288 million monthly active users, it’s no surprise that finding a Twitter name is tougher than ever. If your name has gone, you can try waiting 9 months, or contact the user to secure the unused account. If that sounds limited don’t worry, you have other options. While
- [The 3 main expectations customers have for social companies](https://socialfresh.com/social-customer-service/) - As the world becomes more and more dependent on social media, brands are now using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to communicate with directly with their customers. Increasingly as these channels get larger and larger performance marketing budgets, they also get customer comments, complaints, and feedback. Marketing is no longer the most important way
- [The Business Case For TikTok](https://socialfresh.com/tiktok-marketing-for-business/) - [et_pb_section][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text] TikTok is changing the marketing landscape. And yet, most businesses are still not using the platform. Today, we’re going to break down why TikTok isn’t just a playground for teenagers but a stage that businesses are weirdly ignoring. Here are the top reasons TikTok is still an unrealized opportunity for business, and how
- [10 Best Practices For A Branded Scavenger Hunt](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-scavenger-hunt-best-practices/) - Scavenger hunts are, by no means, new. In fact, if you're like me, you probably remember participating in scavenger hunts throughout school - or maybe even as a team building exercise. But with the introduction of geo-location apps like Foursquare and SCVNGR, brands want in on the digital action. Scavenger hunts are a form of
- [Facebook Offers Are No Longer Free](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-offers/) - Increasing revenue is agenda item one, two, and three at Facebook HQ these days. As part of that goal of the recently public company, Facebook will no longer allow merchants to publish offers (coupon posts) without purchasing at least $5 worth of advertising to accompany the offer. Previously, Facebook pages that were defined as local
- [5 Pinterest Contests Examined](https://socialfresh.com/pinterest-contests/) - There are several brands on Pinterest leading the way on experimenting with contests. And more appear to be launching contests everyday. We’ve noticed a variety of contest types ranging from highly detailed pinboard entries to more subjective contests. It is also important for any brand considering a Pinterest contest to review Pinterest’s Terms of Use
- [How to add audio to your Instagram photos](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-add-audio-to-instagram-photos-artworkfm/) - Who says that pictures have to be silent? While Instagram has made it easy to shoot, edit, and upload short 15 second videos, sometimes you don't really want to share video but you still want audio attached to a photo. Now before, you might have had to do some fancy video editing in iMovie which
- [You Are Missing The Biggest Opportunity On Facebook](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-ads-to-fans/) - Social media has been a low-budget marketing practice for over a decade. This is because the practice has been largely based on publishing. Blog posts, tweets, wall posts, and more only cost the salary of the staff creating them. Whereas performance marketing and paid social strategies require ad budgets, creative budgets, and additional tools and
- [Reese Witherspoon On Moving Markets, Asking Questions, & Telling Women’s Stories](https://socialfresh.com/reese-witherspoon-inbound-2023/) - [et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ custom_margin=”24px|||||” custom_padding=”12px|||||” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”4.22.1″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” custom_margin=”10px||||false|false” custom_padding=”0px|||||” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″] Reese Witherspoon took the stage at INBOUND 2023 and emphasized, “Women’s stories are valuable, lucrative, and meaningful.” When Hillary Clinton said,
- [The History of Personal Branding](https://socialfresh.com/history-of-personal-branding/) - This is how it started... There was a time when people named their businesses after themselves. They stood behind the product they built and the service they provided. They had pride in the quality of their work. These people didn't read personal branding books. They didn't use Twitter. Even as early as the 1850s, personal
- [Steal These 9 Instagram Templates and Make Them Your Own](https://socialfresh.com/instagram-templates/) - There’s a myth that if you design something using a template, that you’re limiting creativity. That templates create repetitive content and miss that… special something. It’s nonsense. Creativity THRIVES within boundaries. Some of the most creative content on Instagram starts within a repeatable template or framework. And the truth is, the most successful brands in
- [How To Use Social Sharing Buttons To Increase Email Marketing Results](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-use-social-sharing-buttons-to-increase-email-marketing-results/) - The idea of maximizing an email marketing campaign can be a hard slog. While this form of marketing is the best-converting sales channel, according to numerous reports, practices are constantly evolving. Wondering why? Because of the social era. What you considered as an opposite force – collaboration, power in community, having a social purpose and
- [10 SEO Myths Debunked](https://socialfresh.com/10-seo-myths/) - SEO myths are persistent and costing your brand real money and opportunities. Get clear on how social media, CX, and AI impact search engine optimization
- [Influence Is About Information, Not Egos](https://socialfresh.com/influence-is-about-information-not-egos/) - I know for a fact that I have influenced several people to buy an iPhone in the past 4 years. I also know that I have convinced friends to stay at Hilton hotels and sign up for Hilton Honors. I was a champion of these products, extolled their virtues, and saw people act on my
- [4 Examples of Social Media Policies](https://socialfresh.com/4-examples-of-social-media-policies/) - Your company needs a social media policy, and it should not be as short as “use your common sense.” A year ago, we here at 352 Media Group were guilty of that problem. We had a small, yet budding, marketing department and we never had much need for something formal. Instead, we took the “use
- [Facebook Is Testing Two Rows of Facebook Stories](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-stories-two-rows-stacked/) - Facebook has been very clear. They see stories as the future of social media. In 2017, Facebook added stories to the top of the app's home screen. And every day since then, they've worked to get the app's mainstream user base to adopt and love stories. And it's working. Earlier this year TechCrunch shared numbers
- [The 8 Simple Secrets To iPhone Video Blogging](https://socialfresh.com/iphone-video-tips/) - Is it possible to create a video blog using nothing other than an iPhone? Since January, I've been attempting to answer that question with a passion project -- Talking With Tom. A little background, I decided that in 2011, I wanted to interview 52 digital thought leaders and ask them all just one question --
- [Facebook Ads Are Dead, Long Live Facebook Ads.](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-ads-are-dead-long-live-facebook-ads/) - What works and what withers in the realm of Facebook Ads is a constant game of testing, research, and adjustment. Beyond the usual tumult, Facebook made some significant changes to the platform this 2018 that require adjusting your strategy. Despite the politics of 2018 for Facebook and the changes to their ad platform, Facebook Ads
- [10 Free Tools For Monitoring Your Brand's Online Reputation](https://socialfresh.com/monitoring-your-brand-online-reputation/) - Do you pay attention to what people say about you on the internet? Occasionally Googling the name of your company, product or service might not be enough. The time to start managing your online reputation is before it becomes a problem. If you want to take a more proactive approach and be notified whenever something
- [3 Key Questions Content Marketers Should Be Asking](https://socialfresh.com/content-marketing-questions/) - Would you like access to data behind the online performance of 3.7 million companies? Sure, who wouldn’t? Jeanne Hopkins of HubSpot presented on Content Marketing for Inbound Lead Generation at Social Fresh Charlotte on last Tuesday. She shared tons of actionable lessons and stats from Website Grader’s database of 3.7 million companies. Website Grader is
- [3 Like Gating Alternatives for the New Facebook Timeline](https://socialfresh.com/like-gating-alternatives-facebook-timeline/) - A popular strategy used by Facebook Page marketers and community managers to grow a base of active fans involved developing a custom tab that could be used as a Like Gate. Ideally, this tab would include some type of message and call to action that would tease the user to click Like and become a
- [Conan's Facebook Live Blogging By The Numbers](https://socialfresh.com/conans-facebook-live-blogging-by-the-numbers/) - Originally published on NikisNotes.com Last night Conan O’Brien live blogged his show on Facebook. He posted 96 new status updates to his 1.5 million Facebook fans. His posts garnered more likes and comments than usual, with some updates yielding as many as 1,590 likes and 736 comments. Building Brand Affinity Team Coco was able to build
- [What's The Difference Between Internal vs External Community Building?](https://socialfresh.com/community-building-internal-external/) - A very important distinction for a community builder (or someone looking to hire one) to make is whether they're focused on building internal communities or external communities. The way I see it, you can build an internal community within your existing userbase, customers or audience. OR You can build external communities which aren't part of your
- [NASA Social Media, 9 Lessons](https://socialfresh.com/nasa-social-media/) - Are you struggling to get approval for social initiatives? Trying to navigate red tape so you can partner with Foursquare or Gowalla? Well, if Stephanie Schierholz can do it, you can too. Stephanie is responsible for NASA's main twitter account (@NASA), their popular tweetup account (@NASATweetup) as well as their Foursquare and Gowalla accounts. Since
- [Learning From 21 Unique Location-Based Marketing Case Studies](https://socialfresh.com/foursquare-case-studies/) - Last Updated on 7/11/2019, Originally published in 2009 Location-based social networks were the darling of social media around 2010. Foursquare was leading the way with what seemed like a new Fortune 500 endorsement each week. It is unclear why these platforms receded in popularity. Privacy may have been the main barrier to these tools maintaining
- [Black Hat Social Media Is Here To Stay](https://socialfresh.com/black-hat-social-media/) - Pssst, wanna know a secret? "Black hat" techniques for using social media are thriving, much to the chagrin of many social media purists. It was inevitable for this to happen. For years, the concept of black hat has been tied to the SEO trade. Those who profess to practice SEO honorably decry these practices and
- [How To Create Facebook Community Guidelines](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-fan-page-community-guidelines/) - Facebook fan pages have emerged as a universal lifeline to customers. The number of brands sharing news, addressing customer service issues or fostering discussion in these passionate communities is growing rapidly. With the amazing conversations Facebook creates, there are some inherent risks. Creating a set of "house rules" will encourage productive participation by users and
- [Breaking Down Top Facebook Pages for the Education Industry](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-pages-education/) - The education industry is engaging in an interesting debate between those who champion social media as a tool for students to take learning to a new level and those who attempt to keep it out of the classroom altogether. The Detractors Many feel there's no place for Facebook and Twitter in the classroom and the
- [3 Tips For Making Sure Your Next Brainstorm Doesn't Suck](https://socialfresh.com/brainstorming-tips/) - Jason Keath (@jasonkeath) is the CEO and founder of Social Fresh. He was a presenter at the most recent Social Fresh Conference. Jason is a creativity keynote speaker and his session focused on owning your creative process, and how to get more out of your brainstorming sessions with colleagues. Brainstorm meetings are pervasive in culture
- [Community Manager Job Description, A Definitive Guide](https://socialfresh.com/a-definitive-community-manager-job-description/) - When I met with Sarah Prevette about the Community Management job at Sprouter I had never heard the term before, and I really had no clue what the role meant within a company. This was late 2008 and it was still a really new position, without definitive job descriptions or templates. She described the job
- [Creating Useful Marketing One Frozen Burrito at a Time](https://socialfresh.com/useful-content-burrito/) - “You are in two businesses,” Joe Pulizzi says. “You’re in the ‘whatever business you’re in’ business, and you’re in the media business.” Greg Ng lives, breathes, sleeps, and eats this dichotomy. But mostly, he eats. Ng is the founder and sole proprietor of Freezer Burns, a video blog devoted exclusively to reviewing frozen foods found
- [10 Community Manager Tools You Might Not Know](https://socialfresh.com/10-community-manager-tools-you-might-not-know/) - Community Managers are often faced with the grueling task of sourcing out the best tools to use for social media. With new platforms launching weekly, it can be daunting. Do you go with a paid version or do you use one of many free tools to save money? With limited time on your side, you
- [20 Examples of Epic Content Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/epic-content-marketing/) - Originally published on Digital Innovation Today Real content marketing is an endeavor. It involves a brand truly becoming a publisher and not just a marketer. It involves Youtility. It involves consistency. And it gets results. Here’s a great presentation from Joe Pulizzi, author of Epic Content Marketing and founder of the CMI (Content Marketing Institute). These 20 epic examples of content
- [The 4 Core Building Blocks of Community](https://socialfresh.com/building-blocks-of-community/) - Last week someone asked me: How do you build a community? I paused. I hadn't thought about it before. For the past three months, much of my time and focus has been on growing the Product Hunt community. I never considered myself a "community builder" but in retrospect, perhaps I am. At the risk of
- [5 Key Benefits Of Social Customer Service](https://socialfresh.com/5-key-benefits-of-social-customer-service/) - Originally published at SocialBusinessNews.com Last week, thinkJar and Sword Ciboodle released a whitepaper, We Are Social: The State of Social Customer Service, and in it identified the top 5 primary benefits of social customer service: Increased Customer Satisfaction Meet Customer Expectations Intangible Benefit Increased Loyalty Reduced Cost of Customer Support Other benefits included increased revenue
- [Tip: The Necessity of 60 Hour Content](https://socialfresh.com/tip-the-necessity-of-60-hour-content/) - If you've ever heard me talk about content marketing, you know that I am a big believer in spending MORE time on FEWER pieces of content. That's why we create our own Instagram Templates that anyone can customize and use for their own business. A piece of this is making sure you have a few
- [Are "stories" really the future of social media?](https://socialfresh.com/stories-social-media-future/) - Snapchat launched to the world in 2011 as a weird sexting chat app. Remember that? Then in 2013, Snapchat gifted the world with stories and changed social media forever. Last quarter Zuckerberg and company reported that Facebook "stories" had 500 million DAU (daily active users). That's a really big number. It also means Facebook's main
- [The Social Media Technology Pyramid](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-technology-pyramid/) - What makes each social network different is the type of content created, how that content is created, and why that content is created. Consumers share a large variety of content for different reasons on different social networks. And social media platforms are evolving, which changes what we share. Snapchat and TikTok have been big drivers
- [Facebook Boycott: How To Pivot Your Ad Dollars #StopHateForProfit](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-boycott/) - Facebook's 3 billion monthly users is larger than any country, organization, or religion in the history of humanity. With that size comes influence. And responsibility. Social networks, Facebook especially, have a responsibility to reduce their negative impact on society. That's the premise behind the #StopHateForProfit Facebook boycott campaign from the ADL, NAACP, Sleeping Giants, and a
- [Is The Metaverse The Future Of Social Media?](https://socialfresh.com/is-the-metaverse-the-future-of-social-media/) - Facebook is now Meta. Instagram is adding NFTs. Twitter is adding avatars verified on the blockchain. So is Reddit. Is this all a distraction? Or is there an underlying shift to crypto and VR that businesses need to pay closer attention to? There is a shift happening. One that is very important to every business.
- [The TikTok Audio Trap: Build A More Sustainable Short-Form Video Process](https://socialfresh.com/tiktok-audio-business-accounts/) - Short-form video platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are audience-building opportunities. With their emphasis on bite-sized, visually engaging content, these platforms offer a unique opportunity for brands to connect with younger audiences and stay relevant in an ever-changing digital landscape. But there's a catch: when it comes to audio, many brands are at
- [The Popularity Mirage – Don't fall for unrelatable brand marketing examples](https://socialfresh.com/the-popularity-mirage-dont-fall-for-unrelatable-brand-marketing-examples/) - “Can you make it look more like Apple?” When I first entered the agency world in 2006, there was this running joke that everyone wanted to look like Apple. Just 30 days into my first agency job, it happened. A rebrand client asked me to make their website look more like Apple. Ok, so not
- [5 Unpublished Stats on the Future of Social Media Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/the-future-of-social-media-marketing-stats/) - 42% of social marketers plan to invest significantly in Instagram over the next year. Facebook is still the #1 social network for marketers when it comes to investing money and resources. 76% of digital marketers we surveyed have earmarked a majority of their budget for Facebook. However, Instagram came in second, with 42% of digital
- [Brands Could Be The Next Target of Fake News in 2017](https://socialfresh.com/brand-fake-news-2017/) - This past presidential election saw a major outbreak of fake news. Buzzfeed News
- [Trend to watch: the marriage of fandom and entertainment marketing](https://socialfresh.com/fandom-marketing-2017/) - One of many TeeFury designs appealing to fandom Non-Entertainment Brands Take Note Remember: if you're working on a brand outside of entertainment, you can still learn plenty from entertainment's cultivation of fan communities. Some brands already have high levels of engagement, particularly in the fashion and beauty space. One thing that retailers such as H&M
- [Turning statistics into stories: the key to nonprofit marketing](https://socialfresh.com/turning-statistics-into-stories-the-key-to-nonprofit-marketing/) - Guest post by Ayla Tezel, Executive Vice President, Communications at Wounded Warrior Project. Originally published here. ---- The number of nonprofit organizations in the United States has skyrocketed, from more than 630,000 in 1999 to more than 1.5 million by 2016. I expect that number to grow, and public charities will continue competing for limited
- [How To Build Your First App: 7 Secrets From The Founders](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-build-your-first-app-7-secrets-from-the-founders/) - Many cities have local developer or app focused meetups. Even if you’re not going to hire a development company, start networking and identify local resources. Search online, talk to people who work in technical fields, and connect with local groups. Maybe there’s a tech Meetup event you can attend. #2 Tell Everyone We keep our ideas
- [The MAU - A Dying Social Media Metric](https://socialfresh.com/mau-social-networks/) - MAU, or Monthly Active Users, has been the main metric by which we measure the health and growth of social networks since before MySpace thought Facebook was just some college fad. It’s been the best shortcut for Wall Street and advertisers to gauge which social networks are engaging the most people and which social networks
- [2019 Social Media Trends that didn't exist 5 years ago](https://socialfresh.com/2019-social-media-trends/) - 81% of the entire US is online. We're clicking like, favorite, comment every day. Some of us for hours a day. Because of the diversity of that audience, social media trends are changing rapidly. As a social media professional you know what works today may not work as soon as a month from now. Here
- [6 Tips to Improve Brand Continuity on Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/improve-brand-continuity-on-social-media/) - What brand continuity means on social media, why most brands break it without noticing, and 6 practical ways to keep your identity consistent.
- [Engagement is Dead. The New Metric is Attention.](https://socialfresh.com/engagement-attention/) - Guest post by Carrie Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Media and author of the book "Work It: Secrets for Success from the Boldest Women in Business" At the dawn of social media (2004 if you start at Facebook, 1997 if you are a Six Degrees purist), the mark of personal popularity was friend count. You wanted
- [The Importance of Mobile + Video for Your Social Media Strategy](https://socialfresh.com/the-importance-of-mobile-video-for-your-social-media-strategy/) - The Importance of Mobile + Video for Your Social Media Strategy Shannon Paul (@shannonpaul) is the Vice President, Senior Social Media Marketing Manager at Fifth Third Bank and joins the Social Toolkit to talk about long term visions, finding the right fit of strategy, and all the software that helps her manage it all in
- [Snapchat is the first social network to capture this element of our lives](https://socialfresh.com/snapchat-marketing-keys/) - On most social networks we post the best and worst parts of our lives—in a highly curated way. We share the highlight reel. This highlight reel effect is even more true for brand accounts. Where curation is governed by what generates revenue, stays on brand, and gets approved by legal. But, the story is different on
- [Consider tweeting fewer links](https://socialfresh.com/consider-tweeting-fewer-links/) - Twitter use to be so cool. It was a water cooler conversation everyday. A chat room you never wanted to leave. And then it wasn't. I still love Twitter. But anyone who has been on the microblogging social network for more than a few years can tell you there use to be a lot more
- [The 3 most overlooked social media strategy steps](https://socialfresh.com/the-3-most-overlooked-social-media-strategy-steps/) - If every piece of your company is moving in their own direction, you can be sure of one thing: none of you will be moving forward together. The key to a successful social media strategy for any organization is internal alignment and a clear vision, says Adrian Parker, VP of Digital Marketing at Patrón. "Without
- [Will Snapchat Discover A Business Model?](https://socialfresh.com/will-snapchat-discover-a-business-model/) - Ever since he turned down a cool $3 Billion from Facebook, Evan Spiegel has been on a mission to prove his ephemeral messaging app isn’t going to disappear any time soon. The 25 year old Snapchat CEO headed to Cannes this year to court mad men & women—and more importantly, their purse strings. Like millions of
- [7 Influencer Marketing tips from American Eagle](https://socialfresh.com/influencer-marketing/) - Influencer Marketing has matured. Your brand should no longer be thinking about using influencer marketing. You should start today, no matter how small the first step. From TV commercials featuring Vine stars and celebrities to Instagram posts featuring brand advocates and bloggers, we’re seeing influencers everywhere. Especially representing brands. Developing an influencer program from the
- [3 tips for getting your audience to digitally pay attention](https://socialfresh.com/paid-attention-fair-yakob/) - My good friend Faris Yakob is one of the smartest marketing and advertising folks you'll ever meet. I just finished reading his book, Paid Attention, and I highly recommend it for anyone who runs a business or works in marketing. It's a great glimpse at the soul of advertising and marketing. A key takeaway from Paid
- [The best way to convert your Youtube viewers](https://socialfresh.com/youtube-channel-trailer/) - YouTube is becoming more important as brands look to expand the use of video as a quality engagement opportunity. LEGO is a great example of a brand invested in YouTube and is consistently growing a large video subscriber base on the platform. Businesses of any size can build the same type of resource. One technique
- [3 quick tips for turning social data into revenue](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-audience-data/) - The term big data is ambiguous and overused. I prefer to talk about audience intelligence. We have more information about our customers, fans, and target audiences today than we could ever hope to understand. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data out there and the number of places it’s coming from.
- [Stop creating content that doesn't convert](https://socialfresh.com/content-converts/) - The Kapost blog has a great post by Laura E. Peterson on creating what they call "brilliant microcontent" from a stable of Pillar Content. A content pillar is, from KaPost, "a substantive piece of content on a specific topic or theme which can be broken into many derivative assets. These smaller pieces then drive traffic
- [3 Snapchat marketing fundamentals for brands](https://socialfresh.com/snapchat-marketing/) - Our friends over at Firebrand Group just came out with a new free ebook on Snapchat called the Marketer's Guide to Snapchat. If your brand is just getting started on Snapchat, thinking about jumping in, or just wants to reaffirm what you already have going on this young platform, this ebook is a great resource.
- [Your Business Should Be Testing Twitter's 6 Retargeting Ad Features](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-retargeting/) - When it comes to social ads, Facebook is the leader of the pack. But, increasingly so, Twitter has been upping their game with an quickly improving social advertising feature set. What I wanted to share with you today is the extent to which custom audiences are available on Twitter and other targeting options. That's right,
- [54 Clear Warning Signs That You Work in Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/signs-you-work-in-social-media/) - If you're reading this, you likely work in digital marketing. Join hundreds of your peers at the most advanced social marketing conference of the year at Social Fresh 2015. A few years ago I came clean with the fact that… and this is hard to say… I work in social media. I really hate when
- [What are Facebook video ads good for?](https://socialfresh.com/tip-what-are-facebook-video-ads-good-for/) - Facebook video and Facebook video ads are important for your business. Based on Mixpo's recent State of Video Ads report, Facebook will overtake Youtube in the next 12 months as the leader in online video ads. But, Facebook videos ads work better for some things than for others. I reached out to Mixpo to ask
- [Tip: Do not focus on Facebook](https://socialfresh.com/tip-do-not-focus-on-facebook/) - Bleacher Report is one of the most popular sports news websites in the world, so much so that they are competing with the likes of ESPN, CBS, etc. And they are not committed to Facebook, which is a different strategy when compared to most publishers. As the largest social network with a ton of tools designed
- [Tip: 6 Lessons For Building A Highly Engaged LinkedIn Group](https://socialfresh.com/kapost-content-marketing-linkedin-group/) - Community is a truly under-utilized instrument in the social marketer's toolkit. Keeping customers and potential customers engaged in conversations that your brand hosts, takes part in, or can learn from is incredibly valuable. Whenever I see a great example of a brand hosted community, I like to find out why it is working and share
- [Tip: Be Amazing to the Customers You Have, to Get the Customers You Want](https://socialfresh.com/tip-be-amazing-to-the-customers/) - Scenario 1: Guy walks into a bar, goes up to the first woman he sees, and says “You don’t know me, but I’m awesome in bed.” The woman throws her drink in the man’s face and turns back to her friend. Scenario 2: Guy walks into a bar, and just sits and chills with a
- [How to Make Your Referral Marketing Campaign a Mobile Success](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-make-referral-marketing-campaign-a-mobile-success/) - We are living in the age of the mobile consumer. Research from McKinsey has shown that word of mouth is the primary factor behind 50 percent of purchasing decisions, and that consumer-to-consumer word of mouth can generate two times the sales of traditional advertising. Other stats also support the overall growth of mobile: 80% of
- [Tip: Turn Your Company's Email Into A Content Library](https://socialfresh.com/email-content-marketing-library/) - This tip is one of dozens from a report we are releasing next week called the Content Marketing Template. It's the comprehensive guide for building a content plan that delivers real business results. If you are reading this, you likely send tons of emails every day. Your boss, your coworkers, your employees — they send
- [Tip: The real benefit of "big data" and listening](https://socialfresh.com/tip-the-real-benefit-of-big-data-and-listening/) - As marketers we hear a lot about listening, monitoring, and big data. Today's tip is a preview of our webinar next week with Forrester and Synthesio on helping your social media focus more on the customer (click the link to register now). The amount of data available to businesses today, especially through social media, is mind
- [The Facebook Fangate is Dead, Your Technical Guide](https://socialfresh.com/the-facebook-fangate-is-dead-your-technical-guide/) - Well, it has finally happened. Facebook killed off fangates last week as of November 5, 2014. The general rule for these kind of changes on Facebook is that you get at least 90 days to update your apps, and this change was no different, originally announced in August earlier this year. According to Facebook, 90%
- [Is Real Time Marketing Actually Worth The Time? Finally An Answer](https://socialfresh.com/real-time-marketing-data/) - It seems like everywhere you turn these days, you’re reading something about real-time marketing. Whether it’s yet another mention of Oreo's Super Bowl moment, or a marketer poking fun at brands trying to capitalize on the latest trend, RTM has been a hot topic in digital and beyond over the past few years. We don't
- [Why you should be marketing on Yo right now](https://socialfresh.com/yo-marketing/) - Widely known as the most useless app of 2014, Yo has emerged from it’s shell and you should be marketing on it already. Most people still think Yo is about sending a simple Yo to your friends and at it’s core, it still is about sending a simple Yo to someone. Yo now has marketing
- [Six Ways Target Could Respond to the #AlexFromTarget Trend](https://socialfresh.com/six-ways-target-could-respond-to-the-alexfromtarget-trend/) - Imagine that you’re a typical high schooler. You throw on your red team t-shirt and khakis and go to work on a Sunday like any other teen in America. You’d like to maybe get enough gas money to go out and be a clown on Friday night with the rest of your friends. You come
- [Tip: The Perfect Number of Instagram Hashtags](https://socialfresh.com/tip-the-secret-sauce-of-instagram-hashtags/) - Last week, the team from Piqora joined us at the Social Fresh Conference to discuss marketing on Instagram and Pinterest. During their presentation, they shared a stat about Instagram hashtags that surprised and intrigued me:
- [The First Step of Declining Organic Reach Is Acceptance](https://socialfresh.com/the-first-step-of-declining-organic-reach-is-acceptance/) - It feels as if a contract was broken. When discussing the declining organic reach of Facebook posts this is a common sentiment heard when talking to people who manage Facebook brand pages. It’s usually followed up in one of two directions. One path is acceptance with an understanding it’s Facebook just trying to earn more
- [The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Revolution Is Here](https://socialfresh.com/the-bring-your-own-device-byod-revolution-is-here/) - For years many people were convinced that web-conferencing could signal the death knell for the live events industry. The ability to connect over the internet to anyone in the world and have a conversation stirred up the possibility that people would no longer need to put on large and elaborate meetings, and it meant that
- [Tip: The Vanilla Ice Rule of Content Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/the-vanilla-ice-rule-content-marketing/) - I call this week's tip "the Vanilla Ice rule." At the next Social Fresh Conference, later this month in San Diego, I am going to give a presentation on this and something I call content envy, but I wanted to give you a quick preview first. Content envy is the pressure we all put on
- [Tip: The Secret To How Buffer Creates So Much Awesome Content](https://socialfresh.com/buffer-content-secrets/) - Buffer runs one of my favorite company blogs. They set a great example for anyone looking to utilize a blog to grow their business (which everyone should all be doing). One of the two content creators over at Buffer, Kevan Lee, recently shared how they generate so much high quality content. Buffer writes 4 or
- [A Masterclass In Social Marketing: 7 Tips From The Experts](https://socialfresh.com/masterclass-expert-tips/) - Twice a year the smartest minds in social media come together at Social Fresh Conference. They share their best strategies and tactics for building a better business using social marketing. We pulled together some of the best tips these social media leaders brought to the stage at Social Fresh. Grab one of these recommendations and incorporate
- [Tip: Data isn't sexy, but visual storytelling is](https://socialfresh.com/tip-data-isnt-sexy-but-visual-storytelling-is/) - I wanted to share a quick Social Fresh Conference insight from one of our speakers, Josh Karpf (@jkarpf), Global Director of Social at Spotify. I thought this was a cool way to turn data into a visual story and would be useful for your business. Spotify noticed a huge spike in conversation on social around
- [14 things social marketers say](https://socialfresh.com/freshecards/) - One of the big themes we've seen a steady increase in through all the Social Fresh Conferences has to be the focus by marketers on visual storytelling. Quality images are no longer an option for many businesses, but a consistent investment. So to help promote our social media conferences this year, we decided to steal
- [How Tim Cook changed the Apple Watch social media conversation](https://socialfresh.com/apple-watch-social-media-monitoring/) - The smart folks over at Synthesio (a Social Fresh Conference partner) helped us out with some stats about what the world thinks of the new Apple Watch. Synthesio monitors across social media platforms, review sites, forums, blogs and the comment sections of newspapers, in 50 languages and 200 countries. So everything basically. Before the official keynote
- [Tip: The live appearance lead magnet](https://socialfresh.com/live-appearance-lead-magnet/) - Any time you make a public appearance you should TRY to get email leads out of it. No matter how small or large the event, have a couple resources you can point people to that allow you to start a longer conversation with folks beyond that initial first encounter. These resources are called lead magnets.
- [The Ultimate Guide To Social Media Contests, 15 Steps](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-contest-how-to/) - It’s sometimes tricky, with social marketing, to separate your efforts from the “noise” of every other piece of content, news, and nonsense out there on the web. It is a challenge to establish and build meaningful relationships with your followers, with so much competing for their attention. That’s where social media contests come in. Contests
- [Tip: What image types actually help your blog post get shared?](https://socialfresh.com/blog-post-image-types/) - Quick Sprout recently gathered some data for image use in blog posts, which suggests, among other things, that using royalty-free images are no longer beneficial to a blog post’s success. Neil Patel and his team did a quality job using 41 blogs from varying industries as the sample. You can also do this same study
- [Tip: You won't believe what Facebook just did to improve the newsfeed...](https://socialfresh.com/click-bait-facebook-links/) - Yesterday Facebook announced a few improvements to the newsfeed. They are trying to reduce click-bait posts like those popularized by Upworthy and similar sites that create a lot of curiosity, but tell you very little about what you are actually going to see, content wise, after you click. Facebook also noticed that users prefer to
- [10 Lessons Marketers Can Learn From the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge](https://socialfresh.com/10-lessons-marketers-can-learn-from-the-als-ice-bucket-challenge/) - If you haven't been digitally detoxing, you have probably seen your friends (and some celebrities) dumping ice over their heads, challenging others to do the same, and in some cases donating money to ALS. It seems everyone has a point of view on the challenge itself, but whether or not you're a fan, it's hard
- [Tip: Are you using too many social media tools?](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-tool-audit/) - The number of tools, services and software that we use for marketing these days has increased exponentially. From publishing to analytics to creating images and lead generation and plenty of other categories. Really quickly there starts to be some overlap and we start accumulating logins and monthly fees for tools that we don't necessarily need
- [8 Simple Tips That Can Help You Stand Out on Social Networks](https://socialfresh.com/8-simple-tips-that-can-help-you-stand-out-on-social-networks/) - It's not easy to stand out among a million posts and messages on Twitter and Facebook these days. And it actually gets harder each day as these and other social networks continue to grow. Luckily, I had the honor of interviewing some of the top industry leaders, and asked them to share their secrets for
- [Tip: How to Create a Trending Topic on Twitter](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-create-a-trending-topic-on-twitter/) - Cision pulled together a great blog post on this topic. And recently at Social Fresh EAST we pulled together a little data of our own. Cision looked at three different trending topics and the Twitter activity that lead to them being featured. Of those Cision reviewed, the number of tweets per hour leading up to
- [4 Ways to Build Community On Your Blog](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-build-community-on-a-blog/) - In the early days of social media, everyone talked about community. Build your community. Talk to your community. Community is the bee’s knees. Everyone should have a community. Speaking from the perspective of having one of the most active communities in the PR and marketing world, that is hooey. Yes, community is important, but if
- [The Secret To JetBlue's Awesome Social Engagement](https://socialfresh.com/the-secret-to-jetblues-awesome-social-engagement/) - Laurie Meacham (@LaurieAMeacham) is the Leader of JetBlue's Social Media and Customer Commitment Team. She was a featured presenter at the most recent Social Fresh social media conference, in Orlando. Her session focused on how JetBlue views social media engagement and gets such an amazing response from their fans. How JetBlue Generates Social Media Engagement That
- [Blogs Are Not the Only Type of Owned Content, Meet the Microcontent Hub](https://socialfresh.com/owning-social-content-microcontent-hub/) - Carrie Kerpen (@carriekerpen) is the CEO and co-founder of Likeable Media. She was our opening presenter at the most recent Social Fresh social media conference, in Orlando July 16-18, 2014. Her session focused on owned media, and the value of bringing your social content back to an owned channel. To Truly Own Your Content Is
- [10 Tips to Break Your Productivity Slump ](https://socialfresh.com/10-tips-to-break-your-productivity-slump/) - There’s a debilitating disease affecting nearly one in three creatives on the planet. They call it a slump, and if you’re one of the millions of suffering each year, you know that it’s a feeling that completely alters your state of being, with side effects including, but not limited to broken pencils, keyboards, and increased
- [These 3 brands actually get employee advocacy](https://socialfresh.com/employee-advocacy-social/) - For many moons they only called employees promoting the brand the Sales Team. Today, any employee can influence their personal network during the purchase process. Employee advocacy is a measurable approach to growing word of mouth sales while keeping your brand in tact. Paul Adams discovered people share in small groups. We often only connect
- [8 People You Should Follow on Twitter Right Now](https://socialfresh.com/fresh-feeds-8-people-you-should-follow-on-twitter-right-now/) - With 255 million monthly active users and more than 500 million Tweets sent per day, Twitter is a noisy place. It's not easy to find quality people to find, learn and grow from. While lists do a great job of curating people around a number of topicsnothing quite beats a word of mouth recommendation. As we prep
- [The Volume of #WorldCup Conversation on Twitter - USA vs. Germany](https://socialfresh.com/the-volume-of-worldcup-conversation-on-twitter-usa-vs-germany/) - As the entire world watches over Brazil and the 2014 World Cup, here in the US it feels like there's never been more excitement around the most popular sport in the world. The USA vs.Germany match today offers a perfect storm of social TV opportunity - it started at high noon (on the East coast),
- [10 Tactics for Increasing Online Form Conversion Rates [REPORT]](https://socialfresh.com/form-conversion-report-formstack/) - According to Gartner, by 2020 customers will manage 85% of their purchasing relationships without talking to a human. As more and more customers favor online interaction — forms, social networks and live website engagement are the touch points that will close deals. This week, Formstack, provider of online form-building solutions, released its Form Conversion Report, surveying 250
- [16 Social Media Tools The Experts Swear By](https://socialfresh.com/top-social-media-tools/) - Looking for more insights on the tools top social marketers use? Check out the Social Toolkit Podcast, from Social Fresh Conference, for weekly expert interview and unending digital toolkit recommendations. Keeping up on the freshest social media tools and software is a pretty difficult challenge for the average social marketer. New tools are being released
- [4 Tips for Using Video to Influence Shoppers in Retail](https://socialfresh.com/4-tips-for-using-video-to-influence-shoppers-in-retail/) - Last week, I attended IRCE 2014 which is the world’s largest annual retail and e-commerce event. Through various breakout sessions and workshops, the multi-day event brought together senior level executives from brands such as: eBay, Staples, FedEx, Macy’s, Sephora and other retailers to weigh in on the role digital and social media continues to play
- [The Volume of #WorldCup Conversation on Twitter - USA vs. Ghana](https://socialfresh.com/the-volume-of-worldcup-conversation-on-twitter-usa-vs-ghana/) - As the final whistle blows of the USA vs. Ghana opening matchup, all Americans are breathing a sigh of relief as John Anthony Brooks puts away a crucial game winning header to take the win in their opening match up of the 2014 World Cup 2-1. As expected, the conversation on Twitter was heating up,
- [3 Freakishly Helpful Tips For Making Your Customers Feel Like They Belong](https://socialfresh.com/freaks-how-to/) - Last week I attended the first day of the Vocus Demand Success event just outside of Washington, D.C. at the Gaylord Hotel in National Harbor. One of the sessions this humble correspondent attended was from Chris Brogan, titled “Get Your Freak On For Success.” Chris is one of the OG’s of the social media and
- [How One Driver's Indy 500 Race Will Help Save Lives](https://socialfresh.com/how-one-drivers-indy-500-race-will-help-save-lives/) - Imagine loving football more than anything else in the world. You train hard just to get a chance to play. But, because you couldn't bring enough money to pay for your helmet, uniform, or get access to practice facilities, you have to sit out just about every game. Until, on the day of the Super
- [How Social Interactions Affect Consumption in Social Shopping #sofabcon14](https://socialfresh.com/how-social-interactions-affect-consumption-in-social-shopping-sofabcon14/) - Social shopping is becoming increasingly popular. Online retailers like Gilt, Frank and Oak, and Trunk Club use it as a selling mechanism that revolves around the influence of consumer-generated media on ecommerce outcomes. At Collective Bias' annual blogger conference, SoFabCon, I had an opportunity to listen to Dr. Annibal Sodero, Assistant Professor of Supply Chain
- [How To Talk To Your Community About Moderation Without Sounding Like A Jerk](https://socialfresh.com/community-hony/) - HONY, aka Humans of New York, is an amazing photographer in New York that focuses entirely on very organic portraits of New Yorkers, on the streets of NYC, and their stories. But of course this is the internet, and people love to judge. And when you have a publishing channel commenting is available, moderation is
- [The Ecommerce Brand's Guide To Pinterest](https://socialfresh.com/ecommerce-pinterest/) - Pinterest first launched in March 2010 and while many critics then and now have labeled it a flash in the pan, the site never looked back. Pinterest is now a major business driver for many brands, especially ecommerce brands. Pinterest quickly took notice of how businesses used and got use out of the social network
- [What makes marketing to Millennials different from Baby Boomers?](https://socialfresh.com/what-makes-marketing-to-millennials-different-from-baby-boomers/) - Millennials (born 1980’s to early 2,000’s) are connected human beings who are “always on” and rely on digital mediums such as Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter to make informed buying decisions. Often times based on their friends or peers purchasing habits. On the flip side, Baby Boomers are more passive and less dependent on peer reviews
- [A Handy Design Guide for New Twitter Profiles](https://socialfresh.com/a-handy-design-guide-for-new-twitter-profiles/) - In 2011 I wrote about the "New New Twitter" which placed a larger emphasis on the overall experience from a user's home feed to the profile. That change was focused a lot more on driving more communication and engagement, while also introducing enhanced image cards. This month Twitter rolled out a new design for users around the
- [10 Creative Brands using Twitter's Photo Collage Feature](https://socialfresh.com/10-creative-brands-using-twitters-photo-collage-feature/) - They say a picture is worth a thousand words, which translates to roughly 4500 characters on Twitter. Fortunately for us, Twitter's new photo uploading feature will let you upload up to four photos without so much as losing a character from your original tweet. With a new iPhone and Android App update anyone can create
- [Are Your Facebook Landing Pages Working? 3 Lessons To Help Improve Your Efforts](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-landing-pages/) - A while back my colleague Justin Kistner shared several important statistics from the industry’s first ever Benchmark Survey of Facebook native advertising. I’d like to expand on some of those findings and share with you a bit more detail on our analysis of post-click landing pages and the best practices that these insights imply marketers should implement.
- [How Ford Hijacked The Tonight Show Using Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/how-ford-hijacked-the-tonight-show-using-social-media/) - With more and more advertisers jumping into "real-time marketing," there is significantly more competition by brands for a captive national audience. But in order to take advantage of that captive audience, brands need to move beyond just the social networks feed. Case in point: throughout this month, auto makers have been competing for Jimmy Fallon's
- [Who is the most successful lawyer on Facebook — and how did he do it? (PART 1)](https://socialfresh.com/who-is-the-most-successful-lawyer-on-facebook-and-how-did-he-do-it-part-1/) - Jacob Sapochnick is an immigration attorney in San Diego — and the most popular lawyer on Facebook as far as we can tell. He has 98,400 fans on Facebook and 3,217 ratings. He's got 1,514 check-ins and double that in active users. How did he do this? He has a mix of organic and paid marketing.
- [5 Tangible Steps To Help Inspire More (Positive) Social Reviews](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-get-more-positive-social-reviews-yelp/) - Readership on social review sites is growing at staggering rates. In 2012, the review site Yelp garnered more than 78 million page views compared to 41 million views in 2010. Recent research shows that 81 percent of travelers find user reviews important (some people visit up to 11 review sites before booking hotel rooms), and
- [Pinterest Analytics, The Keys To Making Them Work For Your Business](https://socialfresh.com/pinterest-analytics/) - Visuals are increasingly important bits of content. The social networking consumer thrives on images to share. That makes visual outlets like Pinterest increasingly important platforms in a company’s marketing plan. The key here is to stop the guess work with what images work well. We need to focus more on testing and analytics to get
- [3 Steps to Make Your Blog a Content Marketing Beast](https://socialfresh.com/blog-content-marketing-tips/) - It wasn’t in the business plan for our blog to be a hit. When I launched Post Planner in 2011, my focus was solely on the app. Post Planner’s website had a blog, but content was only posted sporadically. I was of the mindset that many other business owners are: I didn’t have the time
- [How Social Media is Elevating Airline Crisis Communication](https://socialfresh.com/how-social-media-is-elevating-airline-crisis-communication/) - For nearly a week, the world has turned its quizzical gaze toward the Far East skies and surf. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, March 8, with 227 passengers and 12 crew on-board, and the investigation into what happened has yielded many more questions than answers. Malaysia
- [Facebook Brand Updates Take Another Hit, Can You Recover?](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-brand-updates-dip/) - In an effort to serve the most interesting content to users, on January 21st of this year, Facebook made yet another change to its news feed algorithm. In doing so, Facebook created separate categories and news feed rankings for status updates, differentiating between those from people and pages. The change ranks status updates from friends
- [Social Media Giant HootSuite Gets Serious About Enterprise With uberVU Analytics Acquisition](https://socialfresh.com/hootsuite-ubervu-acquisition/) - Social marketing software is a crowded space. With almost 9 million users HootSuite stands out from the crowd. HootSuite made a major move earlier this year when they acquired social media insights company, uberVU. Their acquisition echoes the trend of social marketing software toward one-stop-shop solutions. Describing HootSuite as pervasive is no understatement. The is
- [5 Reasons Why The Ellen Tweet Worked (and 1 Key Question)](https://socialfresh.com/5-reasons-why-the-ellen-tweet-worked-and-1-key-question/) - When Ellen took to a captive live TV audience of millions last night, took a “selfie” with 11 of Hollywood’s hottest celebrities, and put out a call to become the most tweeted tweet ever, not surprisingly, the world listened. The tweet, which at time of writing has more than 2.6 million retweets, (more than 3
- [How keeping it real led to 91% of people watching a pre-roll ad](https://socialfresh.com/how-keeping-it-real-led-to-91-of-people-watching-a-pre-roll-ad/) - Let's be honest, how many of us have ever gone to Youtube thinking "I can't wait to see another Discount Double Check ad?" No offense to Aaron Rodgers but no one. You want to get in there, watch your Doge videos and get out as quickly as possible. As avid internet explorers themselves, the team at online
- [Instagram drives 2.5 Million Brand Interactions During New York Fashion Week](https://socialfresh.com/instagram-drives-2-5mm-brand-interactions-during-new-york-fashion-week/) - New York Fashion Week has taken center stage in recent years as a way to give fashion and luxury brands a chance to shine around hundreds of events throughout New York City in February. This year, Instagram was at the center of the runway with marketers giving their audiences exclusive access to your average Jane
- [Why Graphics Bring Greater Engagement To Fan Pages](https://socialfresh.com/why-graphics-bring-greater-engagement-to-fan-pages/) - Today I’m going to show you just how important creative graphics are within Facebook. Two weeks ago Facebook made an announcement to the community by stating the following: “Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates, but they may see some increases in engagement and distribution for other story
- [#SochiProblems Dominates Early Olympic Social Conversation](https://socialfresh.com/sochiproblems-dominates-early-olympic-social-conversation/) - While the world is waking up this morning, the finest athletes from across the planet are gearing up for one of the most arduous challenges of their sporting careers, the 22nd Olympic Games. And though we haven't reached the Opening Ceremony yet (which is Friday, Feb. 7 at 11 a.m. EST, but NBC will delay
- [Retailers: Use Social Media to Engage Shoppers First, Then Focus on Selling](https://socialfresh.com/retailers-use-social-media-to-engage-shoppers-first-then-focus-on-selling/) - At the recent annual National Retail Federation convention, many marketers were left wrapping their heads around “Showrooming”, its impact on sales at on brick and mortar stores, and how-to compete with the likes of amazon.com and other online retailers. Showrooming is when a customer goes into a store to ‘test’ a product only to purchase it online
- [Understanding Gender Stats on Instagram [Infographic]](https://socialfresh.com/understanding-gender-stats-on-instagram-infographic/) - A new infographic from Instagram analytics company Nitrogram breaks down gender distribution of Instagram users across the globe. They found that while just a few short months ago Instagram (and most visual social networks) skewed heavily female, men are now slightly edging out women, 51% to 49%. You can check out the full infographic below,
- [Bud Light Nails Peyton Manning Moment](https://socialfresh.com/bud-light-nails-peyton-manning-moment/) - "What's weighing on my mind is how soon I can get a Bud Light in my mouth...that's priority number one." - Peyton Manning Sometimes it's all about creating the right piece of content in the right moment. After leading his Denver Broncos to a to a 24-17 win over the San Diego Chargers in the
- [GE and other brands start asking questions on Jelly](https://socialfresh.com/ge-and-other-brands-join-jelly/) - Jelly, the new visual question and answer mobile app from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone launched this week and has gotten a lot of attention lately from a number of tech publications and industry influencers. When I first started using the app, which bounces picture-based questions around your social networks, I pretty much felt like it
- [Growth Hacking: 5 Fundamentals To Get You Started](https://socialfresh.com/growth-hacking-5-fundamentals-to-get-you-started/) - The new trend in the world of startups is something called “growth hacking.” The “hacking” term has been liberally applied to things like life hacking or sandwich hacking (seriously), but growth hacking actually looks at what causes businesses to grow. Growth hackers aim to find that sweet spot and sell businesses on the idea that
- [How To Name Your Brand Pinterest Boards](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-name-your-brand-pinterest-boards/) - It’s no secret that Pinterest is one of the most used social network sites of today. When it started as an elite club, everyone waited for their invitation and acceptance into the new visual site. Once users got started, they hit the ground running and never stopped. Companies should be using Pinterest to connect with
- [3 Cornerstones For Using Facebook Ads To Generate Ecommerce Sales](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-ads-ecommerce-sales/) - Facebook Ads are great for contest promotion and lead generation, but are they worth the investment for ecommerce? Let’s find out. This article will discuss optimizing your Facebook Ad for sales on your ecommerce site. I’ll get into how to change your ad’s creative to encourage a sale over a lead or a simple click-through.
- [The Audience As THE Asset, Is Your Company Missing Out?](https://socialfresh.com/the-audience-as-the-asset/) - The following is an excerpt from Jeffrey Rohr's new book: Audience — Get your copy here. Say it with me. Audiences are assets— valuable business assets . They may not be tangible assets, but with the right message to the right person at the right time, proprietary audiences can quickly turn into paying customers. Of
- [New Data Shows Facebook's Traffic Levels on Thanksgiving and Black Friday](https://socialfresh.com/new-data-shows-facebooks-traffic-levels-on-thanksgiving-and-black-friday/) - Facebook recently unveiled a new metric in the API that enables us to study when a Page's fans are online. We anonymized and aggregated a 1,000 Facebook Pages to take a look at their activity levels during Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Just looking at overall daily activity, we found that Thanksgiving had roughly "normal" traffic,
- [Can you prove that you understand your fans? #JJRH](https://socialfresh.com/jab-jab-jab-right-hook/) - The following is an excerpt from Gary Vaynerchuk's new book Jab, Jab, Right Hook. >> Order your copy now There’s a great scene in the movie This Is Forty where two parents tell their daughters they’re going to eliminate the Wi-Fi so the family can bond better without the distraction of electronics. For entertainment, the mom
- [Grow Your Email List with this Simple Twitter Hack](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-lead-generation-hack/) - Originally published on RyanHoover.me I blog a bit and as a result, people share my writing on Twitter. I use Tweetdeck to surface these mentions, creating custom columns to search for tweets that contain “ryanhoover.me” or URL’s to guest posts I’ve written on PandoDaily, for example. In return, I reply to each and every person,
- [Blue images, duck face and other secrets for getting more Instagram likes](https://socialfresh.com/instagram-secrets/) - Instagram has solidified itself as a serious social network, fully driven by the power of images. As marketers continue to flock to the platform and business features, like new Instagram ads, solidify, the importance of understanding what images work is more important than ever. For brands on Instagram, Likes don't just represent engagement, they represent
- [Pinterest Place Pins bring location marketing and visual storytelling together](https://socialfresh.com/pinterest-place-pins-travel-marketing/) - Pinterest introduced a new type of rich pin called Place Pins Wednesday, giving users the ability to map the locations of items they share on their boards. Commonly used as a destination for aspirational collection, collaboration, and content discovery, people Pin about 1.5 million places daily, amounting to more than 750 million Pins tagged with location. For
- [Why You're Missing Out On LinkedIn Sponsored Updates](https://socialfresh.com/linkedin-sponsored-updates/) - If you’re like most people, you start your day with a cup of coffee and a look at what’s happening in the world and on your favorite social platforms. If you’re like most professionals, you start your work day by logging into LinkedIn to share and read the content that helps you best connect with
- [Real Communities Require These 4 Underlining Factors](https://socialfresh.com/community-building/) - Originally published on TheCommunityManager.com Why do people participate in communities? What is it that makes a community exist? They don't just sprout up for no reason. There must be psychological justifications that explain what it is that brings people together. Looking at research conducted to date, there's one theory that has held up against the test
- [Do Not Skip These 8 Video Marketing Fundamentals](https://socialfresh.com/video-marketing-fundamentals/) - The best thing about viral videos is that they can come from anywhere - even your backyard. And although there are simply too many unknowns to deliver a guaranteed viral video checklist, there are a few fundamentals you can learn to get your videos in front of more people today. It takes a combination of
- [LinkedIn introduces Showcase Pages](https://socialfresh.com/linkedin-introduces-showcase-pages/) - Today, LinkedIn introduces a new feature for content marketers, Showcase pages. Showcase Pages are dedicated content hubs enabling businesses to extend their Company Page presence, effectively segmenting audiences and enabling businesses to deliver the best message to the right audiences. Somewhat similar to LinkedIn's existing company pages, Showcase Pages are designed to give individual brands
- [The Reward of Skipping Facebook and Embracing a Niche Social Network](https://socialfresh.com/niche-social-network-billboard-music-awards-animated-gi/) - One of my favorite quotes about marketing is from Leo Burnett and it reads like a mantra: “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.” I work for Billboard, the international music publisher. Our commitment to this mantra – which is really a methodology – is
- [The 4 Touch LinkedIn Engagement Strategy](https://socialfresh.com/the-4-touch-linkedin-engagement-strategy/) - LinkedIn is a great engagement tool. You hear it time and time again, but maybe you don't believe it. Or maybe you're just not using it for the right purposes. Whenever people mention LinkedIn I think of connecting with like-minded peers. At G3 Communications, I manage several online communities for our brands. One thing I’ve
- [Michael Kors' Instagram ad generated 33K new followers, 370% more likes](https://socialfresh.com/breaking-insta-ads/) - After last month's demonstration of what Instagram ads would look with Levi's, Michael Kors became the first brand to actually post an Instagram ad this week, featuring a luxury watch amidst a table of macarons. Nitrogram, an analytics platform for Instagram, took a closer look at this first sponsored post and analyzed the key metrics
- [Measuring the ROI of Your Facebook Contest Should Be Easy](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-measure-facebook-contest-roi/) - Measuring the ROI of a PPC ad campaign is a relatively easy skill to learn. You can see the real revenue outcome from each each ad and each click. Measuring the ROI of a Facebook Contest is perhaps a little less obvious, but just as easy. You just need to know which Key Performance Indicators
- [71% of the world's largest brands have adopted Instagram](https://socialfresh.com/insta-brand-data-13/) - Instagram has been exponentially growing in popularity and use with brand marketers in the past year. Where just 40 percent of top brands were using the platform a year ago, now 71 percent of the most recognized brands in the world have accounts and are sharing photos and videos. Social analytics platform Simply Measured used their software
- [Deciding what social marketing software to use just got a little easier with TrustRadius](https://socialfresh.com/social-marketing-software-reviews/) - Social marketing software is becoming a big business. TrustRadius, a site for business software users to share real-world insights through in-depth reviews and networking, just announced the release of its first buyers guide for social media management software. Based upon in-depth user reviews of 36 different SMMS products, the research team at TrustRadius has broken down the
- [Uber Gives A Masterclass With Their Human Content Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/uber-human-content-marketing/) - Uber is a company that is aggressively changing the taxi and private driver industry around the country. They are a leader of the new collaborative economy. But something else Uber has done since they were founded is focus on the drivers they partner with and the humanity of their product. Their content marketing has been
- [Content Rocket Fuel: How NASA Thinks About Social](https://socialfresh.com/content-rocket-fuel-how-nasa-thinks-about-social/) - We have been desensitized as Community Managers and Strategists — we easily get into the rhythm of doing the same thing every day. Yes, we need checklists, but we also need to inject diversity into the content of those repeatable checklists. Letting the content get stale is very easy. The structure around the process should
- [5 Twitter Content Ideas For Your Holiday Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-holiday-tips/) - Twitter is sending business accounts emails with the 5 suggestions below. The suggestions are "holiday marketing" suggestions that promote some simple content ideas, promotes Vine, AMEX's Small Business Saturday, and Twitter-exclusive sales. The main call to action in the email is a link to sign in to Twitter Ads. Twitter is definitely eager to get
- [Ads are officially coming to Instagram](https://socialfresh.com/instagram-ads-intro/) - After reports surfaced last month that Instagram would be rolling out advertising on the platform, the company came out today and announced it officially on their blog. While reassuring users that their content is still their own, they detailed the ways in which they plan to roll out sponsored content into users' feeds. Ads will
- [5 things that rock about the new Facebook Page Insights... and 11 that suck!](https://socialfresh.com/5-things-that-rock-about-the-new-facebook-page-insights-and-11-that-suck/) - Here they are! After several weeks of suspense, Facebook has finally rolled out their new page insights for everyone! When they claimed this would be a total revamp from the ground up, they weren’t kidding. The old interface looks totally obsolete right now. It really is a brand new world. Facebook did a great job
- [Google adds hashtags to search results](https://socialfresh.com/google-adds-hashtags-to-search/) - Google+ continues to grow its influence as a major social network for with the addition of hashtags to search results. Now, when you search for a hashtag on Google, results from Google+ will appear next to popular hashtags. In general hashtags have been growing in popularity across all major social networks. In May, Google added
- [Pinterest launches Article Pins to target readers](https://socialfresh.com/pinterest-launches-article-pins-for-readers/) - Five million articles are pinned each and every day, according to Pinterest. This segment of readers has never really been targeted by the site known for its glamour shots of food, fashion and crafts. That changes today with the introduction of Article Pins, as revealed in a blog post published on the company's website. Article
- [Pinterest to start offering ads as promoted pins](https://socialfresh.com/pinterest-ads/) - In a blog post by company CEO Ben Silbermann today, Pinterest announced that they are going to be rolling out advertising with select partners. The announcement comes as no surprise, more of an "it's about time" actually. Pinterest currently has around 70 Million total users, with roughly 80% of those users female. Though they have
- [Top 7 Social Strategy Mistakes According To The Experts](https://socialfresh.com/social-strategy-mistakes/) - When social media campaigns fail, we all lose. And often social marketing efforts could be wildly more successful if a few simple fundamentals were given more attention early on. To help provide a roadmap for those fundamentals, we reached out to some of our favorite social marketing pros to ask them a very simple question.
- [Top 8 Marketing Lessons To Teach Your Social Media Intern](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-intern/) - Behold your 20-something social media intern. He or she is smarter than you were at that age, likely using Google for the majority of his or her life, and using social on the net since the age of 14. But even though your intern has 'facebooking' for so long, we all know that doesn't mean
- [Is Your Influencer Marketing Failing Because It Is One Sided?](https://socialfresh.com/influencer-marketing-one-sided/) - At Social Fresh West I spoke on the topic of how to successfully run influencer and advocate programs. It is a topic I know a lot about from years of running them for clients in my agency days and from taking part in them from the other side of the coin quite often. While you
- [Instagram now has 150 million active users](https://socialfresh.com/instagram-150-million-active-users/) - In a blog post published on their company website today Instagram announced that they have reached 150 million active users. Even more noteworthy though is 50 million users have joined in the last six months, with 60% of users coming from outside the US. With the introduction of Instagram Video in June, and the ability
- [I don't text, I only send Instagrams of my faxes [SF Insights]](https://socialfresh.com/instafax/) - Instafax should exist. If it doesn't already. Am I right? For now… it is becoming obvious that Instagram is the future of social media, for better or worse. Folks are taking #petselfiez. If you really want to follow NY Fashion week, Instagram is THE platform to keep up with. And as dark as it is,
- [How To Convert Social Media Fans Into Foot Traffic](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-foot-traffic/) - Len Kendall tweeted a few weeks ago that... Social ads (Facebook in particular) are amplifiers, not replacements. If your content sucks, your ROI will suck. — Len Kendall (@LenKendall) August 14, 2013 Stop and think about it. Your social content across the board should be treated as a type of ad. Witty content with
- [Images of Women Get More Facebook Likes, Men Get More Shares](https://socialfresh.com/women-men-retail-facebook-images/) - Retail brand Facebook followers “like” images of women but “share” men. In a recent study of Facebook images published by nine leading retail brands, we found that Facebook users liked brand images of women 41% more than images of men, but they shared images of men 19% more than images of women. Here’s how we
- [The Community Manager Checklist](https://socialfresh.com/community-manager-checklist/) - Community, by definition, is a unified body of individuals. It's a group of people who all connect with one another ROUND points of common interests. It's where we converse. It's where we exchange ideas. It's where we build relationships. And most importantly it's where we activate relationships. With these aspects in mind, it is important
- [How To Spot The Best and Worst Content Marketing Strategies](https://socialfresh.com/best-worst-content-marketing/) - Asking a marketer to describe their brand’s content strategy is like asking my wife what she wants for dinner. You’ll hear 50 different answers that really only distill down to a handful of choices: FORMAT - “We use video, images and real-time engagement…” MEDIA - “We create paid, owned and earned experiences…” CHANNEL - “We
- [80% Of Companies Say They Deliver Superior Customer Service, Only 8% Do](https://socialfresh.com/customer-service-social/) - On average, a customer will tell 15 people when they've had a good experience with customer service but a whopping 24 when they have a bad experience. Social media, of course, makes those stories a lot easier to tell. Financially it cost companies 5 times as much to acquire a new customer as it does
- [3 Ways to Convert Instagram Followers Into Customers](https://socialfresh.com/convert-instagram-followers/) - Yes, Instagram has been a boon for brands — a self-promotion-safe space to showcase products and connect with consumers. Brands have been investing in adding Instagram followers. But since this digital quasi-catalog is limited to photo and video sharing without click-throughs to ecommerce, Instagram’s ROI isn't as clear as Facebook or Twitter. How can brands
- [Yes, The Community Managers Are Taking Over](https://socialfresh.com/yes-the-community-managers-are-taking-over/) - Originally published on TheCommunityManager.com There’s been a big trend in the community space lately. Name a startup and they probably have a community manager… or they’re desperately looking for one. Not only that, but more and more community managers exist on the executive level…they’re finally getting seats at the table. VC’s are hiring community managers
- [Posting Content From Mobile Shows Higher Facebook Engagement](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-page-mobile-posting-results/) - Facebook users are publishing content via their mobile devices at an ever increasing rate. Facebook has over 800 million monthly active mobile users, with that number continuing to grow. However, there haven't been many new ways to publish content for Facebook Pages via mobile. But still, most page admins do not use the mobile app
- [How To Use Content To Build Your Community](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-use-content-to-build-your-community/) - Originally published on TheCommunityManager.com Companies are increasingly finding that relevant, influential, and engaging content has the power to foster a loyal customer community. By taking a strategic approach to content development, companies can bring people with common interests together in one space to share stories and ideas related to their product and industry. A successful
- [Sharing on Facebook: An Analysis of Boston Globe Posts](https://socialfresh.com/bgfacebook/) - Facebook provides distribution for millions of pieces of content daily and anyone trying to be seen and heard by their communities is looking for ways to better understand why people interact with things in the way they do. Media companies provide a unique look into the way people interact on Facebook, as their updates are
- [Word of Mouth – Your Ultimate Distribution Channel: Spike Jones](https://socialfresh.com/word-of-mouth-your-ultimate-distribution-channel-spike-jones-2/) - Spike Jones (@spikejones) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [How To Leverage The Voice of the Customer - Morgan Johnston](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-leverage-the-voice-of-the-customer-morgan-johnston/) - Morgan Johnston (@MHJohnston) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [How To Develop Your Mobile First Social Strategy - Ian Schafer](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-develop-your-mobile-first-social-strategy-ian-schafer/) - Ian Schafer (@ischafer) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [Breaking Through The Clutter: Content, Analytics And Paid - Chris Tuff](https://socialfresh.com/breaking-through-the-clutter-content-analytics-and-paid-chris-tuff/) - Chris Tuff (@christuff) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [Understanding The Power Of The Earned Media Ecosystem - Christopher Penn](https://socialfresh.com/understanding-the-power-of-the-earned-media-ecosystem-christopher-penn/) - Christopher Penn (@cspenn) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [The Key To Facebook Success: Ads + Social Promotion - Jim Tobin](https://socialfresh.com/the-key-to-facebook-success-ads-social-promotion-jim-tobin/) - Jim Tobin (@jtobin) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [Building An Insights Driven Social Organization - Adam Kmiec](https://socialfresh.com/building-an-insights-driven-social-organization-adam-kmiec/) - Adam Kmiec (@adamkmiec) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [Content Creation Is The Ultimate Fan Advocacy - Ted Rubin](https://socialfresh.com/content-creation-is-the-ultimate-fan-advocacy-ted-rubin/) - Ted Rubin (@TedRubin) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [What Doesn’t My CEO Get About Social Media? - Ryan Cohn](https://socialfresh.com/what-doesnt-my-ceo-get-about-social-media-ryan-cohn/) - Ryan Cohn (@RyanCohn) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [The Impact Equation - Chris Brogan](https://socialfresh.com/the-impact-equation-chris-brogan/) - Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [Youtility: Why Smart Companies Are Helping, Not Selling - Jay Baer](https://socialfresh.com/youtility-why-smart-companies-are-helping-not-selling-jay-baer/) - Jay Baer (@jaybaer) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [The End Of The One-Off:  How To Build Re-Skinnable Content Packages - Katie Richman](https://socialfresh.com/the-end-of-the-one-off-how-to-build-re-skinnable-content-packages-katie-richman/) - Katie Richman (@ESPN_prodgirl) at Social Fresh EAST 2013, the Social Fresh social media conference.
- [Walgreens Offers Discount in First Instagram Video](https://socialfresh.com/wginstavideo/) - We have reached the one month anniversary of Instagram video, and brands are beginning to further refine their short form video strategy through contests, video series, and more. As we have written before, a number of brands came out the first day with a number of videos (some even had early access to the new
- [Refresh Your Social Marketing, 15 Experts, One Stage](https://socialfresh.com/refresh-your-social-marketing-15-experts-one-stage/) - A friend of mine, who does not work in social media, saw one of the taglines we use for Social Fresh conferences "the social media conference you've always hoped for" the other day and asked me what it meant. For those of you that have been to a lackluster conference in the past, you get
- [Getting people to tweet your content is easier than you think](https://socialfresh.com/more-tweets/) - Most people are inherently lazy. No, not you of course... but those “other folks”. Those individuals make up about 90 percent of the digital landscape, at least if you subscribe to the 90/9/1 rule. Though these numbers are highly debatable, the concept at least creates a clearer picture of our responsibility in empowering others to
- [New Twitter Analytics, 10 Quick Metrics You Can Use Today](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-use-twitter-analytics/) - Twitter recently opened up their analytics product to anyone with a Twitter login. Previously it was reserved for Twitter ad customers only. UPDATE: This is still rolling out slowly to all Twitter users. Most have access, but not all. The Twitter Analytics product is actually only accessible through the Twitter ad tool. Not the best user
- [Beautify Your Content: 8 Image Elements that Perform on Pinterest](https://socialfresh.com/beautify-your-content-8-image-elements-that-perform-on-pinterest/) - In order to better understand how brands can drive consumer engagement with images, Curalate's data science team reviewed over a half million images on Pinterest, and examined 30 different visual characteristics — including textures, colors, and presence of faces — to learn how they impact social actions such as Pins, Repins and Likes. As consumers continue
- [Brands Increase Their Focus on Twitter for Customer Service [REPORT]](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-customer-service-report/) - tWith great access comes great opportunity. Social media can do great things for brands; it connects them with their consumer base, allows for two-way communication and spreads news faster than any other platform. The drawback? It puts a lot of power into the hands of the (occasionally disgruntled) consumer. With a lack of customer service,
- [Hitting the "Boost" Button is the Crack of Facebook Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-boost-button/) - Hitting "boost post" is the easy button to drive tons of low cost engagement. It is a cheap high with little value. And I will show you why. Here's an example-- this brand got 5,131 likes, 351 shares, and 94 comments. But expand the comments to see what you really get... How many of these
- [How To Use Content To Drive Traffic To Your Website](https://socialfresh.com/content-drives-traffic/) - This is the final installment in a three-part series on how to build your online presence for truly social selling, inspired by research from Jon Ferrara, founder and CEO of social CRM developer Nimble. Last time, we discussed how to apply the research you conducted in Part I to create unique, sharable content. For the
- [Word Of Mouth, Your Ultimate Distribution Channel - Spike Jones](https://socialfresh.com/word-of-mouth-your-ultimate-distribution-channel-spike-jones/)
- [The Content Is The Ad - Ted Rubin](https://socialfresh.com/the-content-is-the-ad-ted-rubin/)
- [4 Bullet Points For More Social Media Mastery](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-mastery/) - This article was originally published in the Chris Brogan email newsletter. Subscribe here. Are you ready? Because we are going to make YOU a social media master! Yes, right now. Right here. Which tools will we use? What will we do? What's the formula? What's the secret? Ready? READY!!??!?!?!?!???? 1. The Goal Of Social Media
- [The Top 50 Brands on Instagram](https://socialfresh.com/instagram50/) - At the beginning of the year, we wrote about the Top 25 Brands on Instagram and how they were using the site to connect with consumers. Since then, Instagram has grown from 90 Million to now 130 million monthly active users uploading 16 Billion photos in just six short months. With the introduction of Hashtags on
- [Facebook announces Video for Instagram](https://socialfresh.com/instagram-video/) - At a press event today Facebook announced the addition of video to popular photo sharing application Instagram. The move, in an obvious position against Twitter's video sharing app Vine, comes with the introduction of Vine for Android, along with widespread news that Instagram sharing had declined in favor of the six-second videos. Here are the
- [Does Your Content Mean Anything?](https://socialfresh.com/does-your-content-mean-anything/) - Content marketing is the new happy, fuzzy, buzz word for digital marketing. Here is a glimpse at the growth of the term 'content marketing' being searched for on Google over the past few years. It is no where near social or SEO searches, but it is growing at a faster pace. Content is not new
- [Facebook Officially Adds Support for the Hashtag](https://socialfresh.com/hashbook2/) - Welcome to #Hashbook. Today, after a much anticipated holdout, Facebook hashtags are now a real thing. As we have previously written about here on Social Fresh, the hashtag has become a connective thread for users to share their thoughts to a larger audience on social networks. Largely popular on Twitter, Facebook joins a number of
- [Is Schick's Body Grooming Pinterest Contest Risky or Bold?](https://socialfresh.com/pruneforjune/) - You wouldn't normally think that Pinterest and female body grooming go together, but Schick is hoping to stand out and attract the pinning crowd with their unique "Prune for June" campaign launched this month. The contest is centered around five Pinterest boards each dedicated to a different "Trimstyle," or collection of clothes, food, books, hats,
- [Facebook Ad Changes Are Great For Small Business, But What About Large Advertisers?](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-ad-changes-sponsored-stories/) - Facebook announced last week that, in an effort to streamline its ad creation process, the platform will cut the number of ad formats. Retiring ad formats is hardly a new phenomenon, especially with so many new and more effective formats are coming in. But the scale of this change created quite a stir in the
- [This Is When You Should Use Facebook's Promoted Posts](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-promoted-posts/) - The smart folks over at Convince and Convert put together the awesome image below which outlines a clear set of rules for knowing when to use Facebook's promoted post feature. This is a great best practice for any company that is doing business on Facebook. The promoted post feature is a great one on Facebook,
- [Why Facebook's New Verified Pages Matter](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-verified-pages/) - In a move to lend pages greater authenticity, Facebook introduced Verified Pages for high-profile people and businesses. Verification is available to a small number of Facebook pages who are at the greatest risk of impersonation on Facebook. Verified pages will be clearly marked with a small, blue checkmark so that users can tell in Graph
- [How Social Media is Helping to Bring Fans Back to IndyCar](https://socialfresh.com/how-social-media-is-helping-to-bring-fans-back-to-indycar/) - I made a pilgrimage of sorts to see his second Indianapolis 500. I never expected two of my loves - IndyCar Racing and Social Media to combine. So what did I do? I wrote a blog post about it. Enjoy. After winning one of the most popular victories in recent Indianapolis 500 memory, IndyCar driver Tony
- [How To Create Killer Content Using Buyer Personas](https://socialfresh.com/creating-killer-content-buyer-persona/) - This is the second part in a three-part series on how to build your online presence for truly social selling, inspired by research from Jon Ferrara, founder and CEO of social CRM developer Nimble. In my last article, we discussed how you lay the groundwork for a truly socialized-selling strategy by researching and creating a
- [Pinterest Introduces Rich Pins for Businesses to Drive Purchases](https://socialfresh.com/richpins/) - Pinterest just became a whole lot more useful to businesses with the announcement of new "Rich Pins" on the official Pinterest blog today. Instead of just linking back to the pin's origin, each new Rich Pin will provide users additional information about that item aimed to better put them in a position to make a
- [5 Instagram Keys For Marketing Your Business](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-use-instagram-in-your-online-marketing-initiative/) - Since Instagram was launched on Android last year, it has continued to explode in popularity. According to Instagram's official press page, there are 100 million monthly active users, 40 million photos per day, 8500 likes per second, and 1000 comments per second. This flurry of activity shows that not only is Instagram one of the
- [3 Keys to Successful Content Marketing on Wikipedia](https://socialfresh.com/content-marketing-on-wikipedia/) - Offering content to Wikipedia's editorial community is different than traditional content marketing. The content is rule-bound. The editors are thorough. And we must produce neutral content about the company, rather than a thought-leadership subject. Some companies have such strong opinions about themselves and certain controversies they are involved in, it can be an emotional process
- [Instagram gets personal with User Tags](https://socialfresh.com/instagram-gets-personal-with-user-tags/) - New Instagram features were released this week allowing users to tag friends and display photos of themselves on their Instagram profiles. While there are many well developed communities and active users on the platform already without user tagging, the ability to see a group of photos with common topics had previously been limited to locations
- [The Influence Hierarchy](https://socialfresh.com/the-influence-hierarchy/) - Influence is like the Simpsons. Meaning, whether you love it or hate it, influencer marketing is the social media topic that will never die. Why? Because it is a mythical, wonderful, tool that many of us view as a magical shortcut to dollars and cents. Influence marketing is cool. It is fun. It is sexy.
- [Passion Is Key To Finding Your Buyer Personas and The Secret To Selling Online](https://socialfresh.com/buyer-persona/) - This is the first part in a three-part series on how to build your online presence for real social selling, inspired by research from Jon Ferrara, founder and CEO of social CRM developer Nimble. Socialized selling isn't about blasting mass emails on Linkedin, or sending out coupon codes on Twitter – customers are becoming increasingly
- [How a Tweet Toppled the US Stock Market in Seconds](https://socialfresh.com/stockstwopple/) - Yesterday, social media controlled the stock market . A breaking news tweet was posted to @AP, the Associated Press’s main account, reporting two explosions had gone off at the White House and President Barack Obama was injured. The fake tweet, racked up thousands of retweets and instantly sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more
- [Relying Too Heavily on Facebook Ads is a Big Mistake](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-ads-with-organic/) - Facebook ads are a big deal, an important tool, and powerful. But, marketers are relying on them more than we should. We’re Out of Balance This, to me, is a mistake. Not because there is anything inherently wrong with advertising or Facebook advertising as a way to spread your message, but because marketers have thrown
- [Have you noticed social networks are building portals for best practices?](https://socialfresh.com/smbizportals/) - We are no stranger to helping businesses find out more about social media best practices here. Lately there is a new type of competition for resources like Social Fresh, and it is coming from an unlikely source: the social networks themselves. The scale that companies like Facebook and Twitter have to deal with, means they
- [The simple reason your social media icons are doing nothing](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-icons-wiifm/) - Let's bring back an important acronym: WIIFM. It stands for — What's In It For Me? That's the first question I ask every time I see social icons like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Pinterest slapped onto a label, a coffee sleeve, a billboard, the back cover of a magazine, or on a television commercial (nearly
- [The 5 Core Principles Of Any Social Media Plan](https://socialfresh.com/5-key-elements-for-any-social-media-plan/) - Regardless of who I talk to about Social Media, one question that keeps coming up is that "this all sounds great, but where do I begin?" Or from the slightly more developed Social Media practitioner comes the question: "How do I know I'm doing all the right stuff?" Both are simple and valid questions. Wherever
- [Social Fresh Insights, March 27](https://socialfresh.com/social-fresh-insights-march-27/) - You might have heard rumors. You have probably been stockpiling canned goods so you don't have to leave the house. Yes, it is true. A new season of Mad Men is coming. I'm so psyched about it, I decided to explore the idea of what Sterling Cooper would be like as a social media agency.
- [Facebook Changes Cover Image Restrictions (Again)](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-cover-photo-restrictions/) - Facebook revised their cover image policy to be more consistent with the 20% text policy for news feed ad images. They removed language restricting sales/purchase/price information, call-to-actions, or company websites from being on the cover image. The policy now simply says: “All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your Page will be
- [What If Mad Men Was About A Social Media Agency?](https://socialfresh.com/mad-men-social-media-agency/) - Mad Men, one of my favorite TV shows, comes back on April 7th and I am pretty psyched. Mad Men is based in the golden age of Madison Avenue. When creativity and money flowed like bourbon and inappropriate behavior toward women. Sterling Cooper, the fictional agency in the series, is an Ad Agency. They get
- [Facebook Rolls Out Threaded Replies for Page Comments](https://socialfresh.com/threaded-replies-for-facebook-page-comments/) - Facebook rolled out new threaded replies to pages yesterday. This allows page admins to reply to individual comments from fans on a post and create threaded conversations. Additionally, they’ll be pushing out active-thread sifting – a feature that orders the most active conversations on a post to the top of the post. Pages with more
- [Why the Hashtag is a Good Thing for Facebook](https://socialfresh.com/hashbook/) - For years hashtags on Facebook have simply been a nuisance, an unfortunate byproduct of multi-site social sharing apps and even Facebook and Twitter's own mutual sharing features. These misfit hashtags look out of place, aren't clickable and have caused polarizing debates online, but a new report in Wall St. Journal last week states that hashtags
- [6 Ways For PR Firms To Ask For A Correction On Wikipedia](https://socialfresh.com/6-ways-for-pr-firms-to-ask-for-a-correction-on-wikipedia/) - Qorvis recently joined the ranks of PR firms like Bell Pottinger, Portland Communications and Finsbury that stand accused of manipulating Wikipedia entries for their clients. Something that stood out from the summary at The Daily Dot was that Qorvis is defending their actions with a familiar tune - accusing Wikipedia of not providing reasonable processes
- [How to get your coworkers to share company news on social networks](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-get-your-coworkers-to-share-company-news-on-social-networks/) - Ok, picture this... Your company receives fantastic news!!! The press release is crafted, released, and, as the tremendous marketing guru that you are, you forward this great information to all of your company’s employees for them to shout from the rooftops! ... then, crickets. Your exciting news does little to motivate your team into sharing
- [5 Implications Of The New Facebook News Feed For Your Business](https://socialfresh.com/newsfeed-facebook-new/) - This week, Facebook announced a redesign to the News Feed that will impact content and advertising strategies. While the new design is slowly being rolled out, here are some key takeaways and implications for brands: 1. Your Page's Performance Will Not Be Impacted (yet) This is not a delivery change, it’s a redesign. This does
- [Should You Ask For Facebook Likes or Shares?](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-like-vs-share/) - I was recently asked "Is it smarter to ask your fans to Like or Share your Page's content?" The source of the confusion stems from the Weight of the two objects and which object tends to have a larger dent on social lift. The answer resides in a cross section of psychology, marketing, and Facebook's
- [How @AmazingAvocado Increased Their Twitter Followers By 31 Percent](https://socialfresh.com/case-study-avocados-twitter-super-bowl/) - Avocados from Mexico used a very valuable insight in their recent Super Bowl Twitter giveaway that increased their Twitter follower base by 31% in two days. Americans buy a lot of food for the Super Bowl, or as marketers are forced to call it, the #BigGame. In fact, Americans spend more than $50 million annually
- [Poland Spring Missed A Realtime Social Media Splash, And It Doesn't Matter](https://socialfresh.com/poland-spring-missed-a-realtime-social-media-splash-and-it-doesnt-matter/) - Tuesday night US Senator Marco Rubio (@MarcoRubio) delivered the Republican response to United States President Barack Obama's (@BarackObama) State of the Union Address. During his impassioned speech to the American People, Rubio must have gotten a little dry and awkwardly leaned over to get a drink of water. The moment was immediately a trending topic
- [5 Insider Tips For Keeping Your Community Active](https://socialfresh.com/active-community/) - Originally published at TheCommunityManager.com Contributors are the people who actually create content in your community. They may only account for 1-10% of your community, but they’re the most important members since without them, there is no conversation. And so it’s really important for you to know why they come back to your community in the
- [4 Ways To Get Your Business On More Twitter Lists](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-lists/) - Followers, followers, followers! This is the demand of every social brand, individual or organization, in the Twitter-sphere. According to an infographic on CTR (Click Through Rates) there is a law of diminishing returns the larger your follower counts rise. Averaging only 1.64% of tweets clicked, your challenge is to maximize the opportunity for tweets to
- [How TV and Movies Are Getting Hit By The Facebook Edgerank Shift [STUDY]](https://socialfresh.com/how-tv-and-movies-are-getting-hit-by-the-facebook-edgerank-shift-study/) - Late last year, movie studios and television shows began complaining of suddenly losing Facebook traffic, starting at the end of September. To investigate what exactly has been going on, various social analytics players have conducted their own research and drawn dramatically different conclusions – some say something has definitely changed in the way Facebook handles
- [Breaking Down Oreo's Four Million Dollar Instagram Super Bowl](https://socialfresh.com/oreo-instagram-launch/) - Oreo launched their Instagram account yesterday with a Super Bowl commercial. Not such a small endorsement for the bourgeoning social network, from a major social media brand. Facebook and Twitter saw far more mentions as closing calls to action in Super Bowl commercials. Twitter estimated, based on the brands they were working with, that 50%
- [The 3 Most Popular NFL Facebook Posts of the Season](https://socialfresh.com/nfl/) - The big game is this weekend and we have teamed up with Expion to track and analyse the Facebook activity for all the NFL teams this season. Combined, NFL teams have over 50 million Facebook page likes. And a shocking number of those fans are engaged every weekend during the NFL season reacting in very emotional
- [Facebook... Now a Mobile Company?](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-now-a-mobile-company/) - Trade in your hoodie for a suit and a lot changes - as Facebook learned following its controversial IPO this past summer. Wall Street forced the once-quiet company to become more vocal about its product and business development intentions, specifically through the quarterly release of earnings reports. Yesterday evening, shortly after releasing the 4th quarter
- [Does Your Content Play By Facebook's New 20 Percent Rule?](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-content-new-20-percent-rule/) - In late December, Facebook clarified an existing policy on how much text was permitted on cover images and promoted images. Long a source of confusion for content developers, Facebook announced that promoted image content could not contain more than 20% text. Most marketers were quick to say Facebook would have no way to enforce such
- [Pinterest Announces Redesign, Are Sponsored Pins Coming?](https://socialfresh.com/pinterest-announces-redesign-are-sponsored-pins-coming/) - Could you be seeing a sponsored pin in the future? That may just be the case, as today Pinterest announced a new evolution of their design and interface for users, rolling out soon. The site, and its tiled design has become the aesthetic go-to for the social industry today. Tens of thousands of brands use
- [Wikipedia Marketing Requires PR Skills](https://socialfresh.com/wikipedia-marketing-requires-pr-skills/) - Ethical Wikipedia engagement is similar to traditional public relations with journalists. Just as a PR firm would with media, EthicalWiki offers contributed content, resources, discussion and factual corrections to Wikipedians. As it is with media, relationships, reputation and offering something of value to the medium are crucial. The big difference? Journalists expect PR professionals to
- [Addvocate Launches, makes social media support from your coworkers easier](https://socialfresh.com/addvocate-launches/) - Those with social media related office duties can relate to the tedious task of having to send a mass email to colleagues every time an important company tweet is sent out to encourage them to interact with the post. Marcus Nelson (@marcusnelson), former head of social media at Salesforce saw this disconnect and decided to
- [How to Leverage Facebook Nearby for Business - 5 Actions to Take Now](https://socialfresh.com/5-ways-businesses-can-leverage-the-power-of-mobile-marketing/) - With the recent announcements of Facebook’s Nearby and Graph Search, the power of Location-Based Marketing and Social Search has been amplified. Put simply, information about where your friends are coupled with what they like and what they recommend can both influence behaviour and drive consumer actions. Users are demonstrating this. Facebook knows this. Those businesses that get
- [Enter the Harbowl - Social Media Gives Life to the Super Bowl's Greatest Stories](https://socialfresh.com/harbowl/) - Throughout the football season this year I haven't been able to stop thinking about how much better sports is with social media. One of the greatest things about professional sports is the stories created from the intense competition on the field and off. Fans the world over have been clinging to last second field goals
- [Is This The Facebook Search We’ve Been Waiting For?](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-graph-search/) - Finally. Facebook has finally announced the beginning of their search conquest. Although officially in beta, yesterday Facebook unveiled Graph Search. Consider this the “big bang” of the social search. What is Graph Search? Graph Search currently enables users to now search objects that are connected with them via the Graph. You can think of the
- [Facebook Custom Audiences: Get In Front Of Your Customers More Often](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-custom-audiences-get-in-front-of-your-customers-more-often/) - Want a way to get in front of those customers already on your database? Perhaps you have a vast email list of potential customers or better yet buyers, and want another way to connect with them. Even if you only have their mobile number, you can still advertise directly to these prospects and buyers using
- [First Look at the New Facebook Search](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-search-2/) - Facebook is making a ton of announcements about their new Graph Search. Follow that link to join the waiting list and see it first when it comes out. No word yet exactly when that will be, but the new feature looks pretty complete. Check out how crazy fast it is: Some of the features demoed
- [The Biggest Facebook Page in the US is Walmart](https://socialfresh.com/the-biggest-facebook-page-in-the-us-is-walmart/) - The biggest Facebook pages in the world, brand wise, have not changed in the past 2 years. They are Facebook, Youtube, and Coca-Cola. In that order. But that is only if you count their global number of Facebook Likes. Ever wonder how many of those Facebook fans for Starbucks or Coca-cola are in the US?
- [Facebook Looks Committed To Single-Column Timeline Changes](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-single-column-timeline-pag/) - We know Facebook is testing a new personal profile Timeline with more of a single column look. This design appears to be somewhat of a hybrid between the old “tabbed” profile format and the new “timeline’ format. More details about this new Timeline design continue to surface. The new format lists all content posts in
- [First Brand Snapchat Campaign Launched by 16 Handles](https://socialfresh.com/first-snapchat-promotion-16-handles/) - New York-based frozen yogurt chain 16 Handles may be the first brand to host a promotion on Snapchat, the picture based messaging service that has been taking the social world by storm. While primarily considered a messaging platform because of its ties to cell numbers, one of the key features of the app is its limited
- [What Facebook's New Messaging Products Mean for Brands](https://socialfresh.com/what-facebooks-new-messaging-products-mean-for-brands/) - Facebook has made several changes to its messaging system including both a filtering system and a paid service for contacting Facebook users outside of your friend network. The filtering system allows users to restrict messages in their inbox to be only from friends or “people they may know” (friends of friends). All other messages will
- [New Facebook Timeline Design Being Tested](https://socialfresh.com/new-facebook-timeline/) - Facebook is still testing a new Timeline design, reports ABC. The Timeline of personal profiles that is, not pages, at least as far as we know yet. We saw a very similar new profile Timeline preview back in October, as reported by InsideFacebook.com. “This is a new design Facebook is testing with a small percentage
- [How Public Relations Impacts SEO](https://socialfresh.com/how-public-relations-impacts-seo/) - Shift Communications made a very smart hire a couple weeks ago when they picked up Christopher S. Penn. Chris is the author of White Belt Marketing, lead contributor to the Marketing Over Coffee podcast, a Social Fresh Conference speaker and SocialFresh.com contributor. Among many other things, he is also one of the smarter analytical minds
- [Why You Should Care About Facebook's New App Permissions](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-new-app-permissions/) - Yesterday, Facebook announced changes to their app permission process. This is related to the pop-up you get from an app (i.e. Spotify or Groupon or Fab) that asks for your permission for an app to access your information and post on your behalf. Previously, this was a one-click process - you would select "okay" and
- [7 Reasons Why People Use Pinterest](https://socialfresh.com/7-reasons-why-people-use-pinterest/) - Shauna Causey (@ShaunaCausey), formerly of Nordstrom, joined us in Tampa earlier this year for Social Fresh EAST 2012. She spoke about Pinterest, how she approached the new social network while at Nordstrom, and insights for marketers looking to use Pinterest. The below clip is Shauna's breakdown of why consumers are using Pinterest. The full presentation
- [Finally, Someone Explains The Awesomeness of Instagram In Song](https://socialfresh.com/look-at-this-instagram/) - College Humor put together a pretty awesome Nickleback parody of their song "Look at this photograph" celebrating instead the types of photos more and more people are sharing on Instagram with "Look at this Instagram." If watching at work, use headphones. A little bit of NSFW language here and there. Oh yeah, and it is
- [5 ways to convince clients to be ethical on Wikipedia](https://socialfresh.com/ethical-wikipedia/) - PR and marketing firms are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Edit Wikipedia on behalf of your client and risk breaking the law or joining a long history of publicly humiliated organizations. Tell the client there is nothing that can be done, and you ignore arguably the world's most important website, while inviting
- [The Simple Secret of Why People Share Your Content (or don't share it)](https://socialfresh.com/sharing-content/) - I don’t remember having to look for which social stream button to click the first time I saw Charlie Bit My Finger. I just shared the link instinctively. Yet brands, desperate to make a connection, strategically research and place these icons where they deem most effective. Exactly how many places on my website landscape are there
- [Facebook Unveils "Pages" Feed – Does it actually help brands?](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-pages-feed/) - A few interesting things have taken place in the past few days. Here's is a quick news cycle update: Oct 26th: Mark Cuban Tweets disdain regarding Facebook Nov 12th: Josh Constine at TechCrunch reports discovery of "Unfiltered Feed" Nov 12th: Facebook pulls down the Unfiltered Feed (as Josh notes in his article) Nov 12th: Mark Cuban
- [Facebook Is Testing Threaded and Ranked Comments on Pages](https://socialfresh.com/threaded-facebook-comments/) - Facebook is testing threaded comments with some pages. This would allow users to reply to specific comments on a page post and break those comments off as a separate discussion on the page. These threads would appear on the news feed as well. This is currently being tested on a few pages, not personal profiles.
- [Is Facebook Now Pay To Play?](https://socialfresh.com/is-facebook-now-pay-to-play/) - As Facebook continues to grow as both a marketing platform and a business, marketers increasingly begin to look at Facebook as a Pay to Play model. However, as with many things in this world, it’s not that simplistic. Facebook has evolved past being just a social network with a massive audience that was a wide-open
- [Facebook Allows Users To Sign Up for Page Notifications](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-allows-users-to-sign-up-for-page-notifications/) - It looks like Facebook has begun rolling out a new notifications option for pages. This will allow fans to select whether or not they’d like to receive updates from the page and whether or not they’d like to see them in their news feed. This feature has been available on personal pages for some time but
- [Is There A Right Way To Respond On Social Media After A Hurricane?](https://socialfresh.com/hurricane-sandy-social-media/) - As social marketers, we're accustomed to creating content that is the product of our environment. Generally this is an easy task to maintain, responding to sublte pop culture fads or the general ebb and flow of the human condition, but what happens when a natural crisis affects millions of people across the country at the
- [Pinterest New Verification Process Is Good For Brands](https://socialfresh.com/pinterest-verification/) - Yesterday Pinterest added a long-requested feature, verification for website owners. When users verify their profile, people will see a checkmark next to the user’s domain in search results, as well as a full website URL and checkmark on your profile (See below). Will this Better Connect Brands and Fans? For many brands, Pinterest has been
- [Facebook Simplifies Global Brand Pages](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-simplifies-global-brand-pages/) - Last week Facebook began rolling out Global Pages for businesses. For large brands with an international following, this makes what had been a pretty laborious process a lot easier to manage. Global pages will combine Likes and “People Talking About This” counts across countries, but the profile image, language, cover photo, posts and application tabs
- [How to find Twitter Chats and Live-Tweeting Events](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-find-twitter-chats-and-live-tweeting-events/) - Twitter has always been a platform anchored in communication and live-tweeting has become the backbone for extended network participation by users. From industry-specific Twitter chats to TV shows, sporting events, and most recently, the debates, the hashtag explosion has enabled real-time conversation from a much larger audience. This week’s presidential debate alone had 7.2 Million
- [Who Is Winning The Presidential Election On Facebook? Obama or Romney?](https://socialfresh.com/obama-vs-romney-facebook-strategy/) - It’s less than a month until Election Day and I’m a citizen of the great state of Florida. That means I’m inundated by political messaging nearly every minute of every day. I also work for the top public affairs communication firm in the state, which means that I can’t get away from politics, whether at
- [Facebook Want Button brings Window Shopping to the Newsfeed](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-want-button/) - Facebook Collections were introduced last week as another layer to Facebook commerce. This is the big "want" button that every retailer has been hoping and waiting for. More specifically, this new feature gives brands the ability to add “Want” or “Collect” buttons to newsfeed posts about products, users can now build personalized collections of products
- [How to Diagnose and Survive the Current Facebook Reach Drought](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-diagnose-and-survive-the-current-facebook-reach-drought/) - Over the past few week or so there have been a lot of rumors about Facebook decreasing Pages' Reach. My team at EdgeRank Checker released a quick study looking at how Pages have been impacted by this suspected change if you want to read more about the shift. In summary, we found that organic reach is down 25 percent, viral
- [4 Examples of How to Target Facebook Content to Unique Fan Demographics](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-post-targeting-demographics/) - Written by Jim Lupkin and Donna Newman of Summa Social Regardless of your job description, none of us are immune to the influences of a changing – and often challenging – marketplace. And, Facebook Marketing Success, however you define it, can be somewhat elusive. Business owners have difficulty seeing the value of Facebook as it
- [3 Lessons Your Social Strategy Can Borrow From Bravo](https://socialfresh.com/three-things-your-company-can-learn-from-bravo/) - Hi, my name is Amy and I’m a Bravo TV addict. My love affair with Bravo’s television line up began years ago. I can name each and every Real Housewife and I’ve started incorporating Andy Cohen’s signature phrase “Mazel” into everyday speech. But aside from the viewing pleasure Bravo provides for me, I’ve also realized
- [7 ways to successfully promote your Facebook contest](https://socialfresh.com/promote-facebook-contest/) - Running a contest on Facebook is a powerful and effective approach in building buzz, awareness, and engagement as well as generating more fans. As beneficial as it may seem, Facebook contests can only be effective if it is properly promoted. Just as managing a Facebook page is not as simple as people think, running a
- [Wikipedia, astroturfing, and why it matters to your business](https://socialfresh.com/the-last-word-astroturfing-wikipedia/) - This blog post does not constitute legal advice Wikipedia's openly editable model and a history of misbehavior on the site creates radical attitudes from marketing professionals and the legal departments that support them. As a Wikipedia consultant, companies routinely ask me if they can just remove negative information, with a straight face and no realization
- [4 Reasons Why Your Marketing Will Die Without Integration](https://socialfresh.com/integrated-marketing-now/) - One word: Convergence. Social media marketers need to harness media convergence and integrate direct and advertising to maximize the impact of their various communications, on and offline. Convergence has been brought about by the widespread adoption of mobile and social media. The combination has empowered customers to access the Internet anywhere and discuss it. The
- [9 tips for being seen and heard through the noise of Facebook](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-tips/) - Facebook is constantly iterating so it can be tough to stay on top of trends. That’s why resources like Social Fresh are essential to anyone in a social marketing role. Between nuances like, and knowing when they combine recent and top news, it can be overwhelming. At least one thing remains the same, bad content
- [3 Reasons why marketers should be excited by Twitter's new brand tools](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-adds-to-ads/) - In case you missed it, Twitter recently announced a number of long-awaited improvements to its advertising platform for marketers using the site’s promoted services, including the ability to choose which tweet you promote and reporting of follower growth. Manually selecting a Promoted Tweet is just what it says, now you can pick exactly which Tweets
- [The difference between content that hits and misses is...](https://socialfresh.com/the-difference-between-content-that-hits-and-misses-is/) - “Content is king, marketing is Queen, and your blog is their castle”. It was former Salesforce Social Media Director and now startup of Addvocate, Marcus Nelson, who stated this. And though I agree, I would add an element that sustains it all... Context. Context is the “story” told: "how will your widget help me?"; "why
- [Everything You Need To Know About the New Twitter Profiles](https://socialfresh.com/new-twitter-profiles/) - A new Twitter profile design launched this morning on the Today Show. Twitter has added a nice "header" image for all profiles in the right hand column. This header image also serves as a background image for the Twitter profile image, bio, location, and link. How To Get It The new profile design has rolled
- [Four lessons from Wikipedia on writing with credibility](https://socialfresh.com/what-wikipedia-can-teach-us-about-credible-writing/) - Many Wikipedians have strong opinions about language. We strive to use neutral language, but are choked by the impossibility of the task. "Claimed" implies doubt, "stated" implies officiousness, "said" implies the message was spoken. Neutrality is an impossible objective, when even the most basic statement is filled with innuendo. Wikipedia and its choice of words
- [What the future of Facebook psychographics could mean](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-psychographics/) - If you don't know who Marty Weintraub is, you need to. Start with this fantastic post today on SEOmoz. You'll quickly see why he's one of the leading thinkers in online marketing. Personally, I've enjoyed his presentations immensely both at PubCon and through the Facebook Ads conference recently held by Social Fresh. Why? Marty's agency
- [Make your calls to action smarter with HubSpot 3](https://socialfresh.com/smart-cta-hubspot/) - At the Inbound Conference in Boston last week Hubspot introduced the newest version of the Hubspot platform, HubSpot 3 designed to further integrate the science of inbound marketing. If you have never used HubSpot software, it is a digital marketing easy button in effect. The service provides lead gen forms, blogging software, analytics, SEO tracking
- [How this Facebook fan got 68,000 likes of her own](https://socialfresh.com/publix-facebook/) - Britney Jones is a mom and shops at Publix. I know this because she shared this publicly on the Publix Facebook page, along with a pretty great customer service experience in her local grocery store. Pretty nice to see, but what was so special about this? Well, if you look at the likes on her
- [Surprisingly, 57% of Facebook users are active on mobile](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-mobile-growth/) - It may not be surprising to those of you out there who wake up, roll over, and check Facebook on your iPhone, but the number of Facebook users who regularly check their newsfeed on their cell phone is quite high. In May we saw 488 million active mobile Facebook users. Out of their 955 million
- [4 Quick, Powerful Metrics For Your Facebook page](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-analyticspagelever-minilytics/) - As an introduction into the world of social analytics, social software company Pagelever recently introduced Minilytics for Facebook. Posting content to various social networks can be overwhelming. There is a general demand for content. Combine that with increasing popularity of third-party platforms being used to post content on social sites, and brands can lose sight
- [The 5 Step Mobile Marketing Blueprint](https://socialfresh.com/mobile-marketing/) - We all keep hearing how hot mobile is. AllthingsD reported a few months ago that mobile now accounts for 20% of all internet traffic in the US. Yup, you read that right, 1 in 5. The simple fact is, if you are doing business on the internet, and you do not have a plan to
- [This is how you stop social media shiny object syndrome](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-shiny-object-syndrome/) - Social media is fast. We're talking what's hot this week might be old news next week fast. New social networks, tools, software, and strategies pop up in our inbox, newsfeed, and Twitter stream constantly. Sometimes I seriously just stand up and walk away from the computer to take a breath, you know? Working in social
- [6 ways Facebook sponsored stories can drive more than just page likes](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-sponsored-stories-tips/) - Originally published at Communications Conversations In my consulting work, there are always a number of “ah-ha” moments for clients. That point at which they really start to “get” blogging, for example. As consultants, these moments are special little pieces of joy for us. Yes, these companies are paying me for advice and counsel. But, to
- [3 Steps for great content marketing](https://socialfresh.com/great-content-marketing/) - Content marketing is an absolutely immense topic. It can span everything from social media to traditional print and mass media and even event marketing. Great content marketing is a grind. Doing it well requires patience, persistence & productivity. To me and my BloomThink customers, content marketing means giving away high quality information, insight & tools
- [How to build your community like a startup, and avoid wasting valuable time](https://socialfresh.com/lean-community/) - Originally published at The Community Manager The Lean Startup model created by Eric Ries has been applied to a lot of different industries. Turns out, it’s the most efficient way to approach community building as well. I’ve been taking a lean approach to building community after 4 years of learning from things that worked and,
- [Cash Mobbing: New Social Commerce Trend](https://socialfresh.com/cash-mobbing-new-social-commerce-trend/) - Originally published on Social Commerce Today Have you done any “cash mobbing” lately? It sounds criminal, but it’s precisely the opposite. A cash mob is an event where people support a local retailer by gathering en masse to purchase the store’s products. —cash mob n. Spotted in the Boston Globe and Pheonix Business Journal this month (and earlier in the Wall Street Journal)
- [Embed your Facebook apps anywhere](https://socialfresh.com/shortstack-facebook-apps/) - Since their introduction, Facebook applications have been a great way for social media marketers to create unique interactive experiences for their communities and convert fans to leads through contact forms, sweepstakes and giveaways. Shortstack Labs, a company whose platform allows you to build your own custom Facebook applications, has released a new feature making their
- [Brands lift off with Mars Rover Facebook content](https://socialfresh.com/brands-mars-rover-facebook/) - Staying topical on Facebook is one of the best ways to gain engagement from your page's fans. Some brands are known for it and have multiple people assigned to fill their Facebook content calendars with original brand content. We have seen this with the social media Olympics. And now that the United States has landed
- [The Mobile Content War Continues: Apps edging out mobile browser](https://socialfresh.com/mobile-apps-vs-browser/) - Yesterday, Comscore released their their quarterly report on mobile subscriber market share. The report focuses on what phones US mobile subscribers are using. Some of the basic numbers: There are now 234 million US residents using mobile devices 110 million use smart phones Google's Android is still very strong, leading the US smartphone market with
- [When online at work, one survey finds 40% of us are being social with peers](https://socialfresh.com/peer-communities/) - Originally published at SocialBusinessNews.com For many organizations, the issue of social media usage at work often seems to revolve around whether employees waste time mucking about on Facebook. If you need more ammunition to convince the higher ups not to block social media sites, check out The Social Mind report, a new piece of research by the Society for
- [Can you choose who is in your online community?](https://socialfresh.com/community-members/) - Originally published on TheCommunityManager.com What makes a good online community member? The concept of choosing your community members may not have occurred to you before. We (community managers) usually focus on changing the platforms, the questions we ask, the events we host, the community manager and other methods to improve our communities. But remember, a community is
- [Facebook testing tons of new targeting options for organic page content](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-post-targeting/) - Facebook has been consistently improving their post publisher. This year alone they have added promoted posts and scheduled posts as options for organic Facebook content. Now Facebook is testing a few more bells and whistles. Facebook page admins can currently target posts according to geography and language. These tools are especially useful for pages maintaining unique content calendars in
- [The simple secret to building community](https://socialfresh.com/community-access/) - Originally published in the Human Business Works Newsletter. Subscribe here. Earlier this month, I wrote a post about Audience, Access, and Advertising on my blog. I pointed out that the first two, Audience and Access, were two dials on the new machine of building your business, and that advertising was no longer the first and primary effective
- [Google Buys Wildfire for $350m – Google Checkout on Facebook?](https://socialfresh.com/google-buys-wildfire-for-350m-google-checkout-on-facebook/) - Originally published on SocialCommerceToday.com Two years ago, a Facebook-centric marketing app for running social media promotions, Wildfire, launched Groupon-style group deals for Facebook, allowing retailers to offer group-discounts on Facebook when fans club together and buy together. W hotels was one of the first users of group-buy promotions on Facebook. Two years later, this week, Google snaps
- [The Social Olympics Are Here: Is Your Favorite Brand Competing or Just Showing Up?](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-olympics/) - There are not many institutions, much less sporting events, that rival the global reach and passion of the Olympic games. And where there are big giant events, that gather more attention than Martha Stewart at a craft fair, brands will surely follow. In the four years since the last summer Olympics, social media has done
- [Chick-fil-a says fake Facebook profiles are not from them [EXCLUSIVE]](https://socialfresh.com/chick-fil-a-fake-facebook-profiles/) - Chick-fil-a has become a social media lighting rod this past week after several public anti-gay marriage statements have emerged from their President and other company representatives. The conservative brand places a lot of value on their Christian beliefs. The company is opposed to gay marriage and these recently publicized comments have erupted into several online
- [Another 54 Warning Signs That You Might Work In Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-professional/) - A little over 6 months ago, I had to deliver some fairly bad social media news to our readers. It was a personal struggle I needed to come clean with. Only because I knew it could help so many of you as well. But it did not work, I fear many of you have actually
- [Keep Calm and Stay Social: Shell's PR Nightmare](https://socialfresh.com/keep-calm-and-stay-social-shells-pr-nightmare/) - The internet is a double-edged sword. Just as corporations are free to use social media to create communities around their brand, consumers are free to create communities to bring those brands down. This past week, Canadian oil company Shell learned the hard way. A new Arctic Ready website has been circulating around the internet since
- [How to be prepared for the Paid, Owned, and Earned media disruption [REPORT]](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-be-prepared-for-the-paid-owned-and-earned-media-disruption-report/) - Social media marketing is increasingly becoming a choreographed dance. Where elements of paid media, earned media, and owned media all play important roles, supporting the others and amplifying the results for all. The world is changing. "Media" and "Marketing" are colliding faster than ever before, which is why we no longer can ignore the importance
- [5 Tips For Deciding Which Facebook Posts To Promote](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-promoted-posts-tips/) - Originally published at Simply Measured Facebook promoted posts are a new marketing tool for amplifying the reach of specific content. Before you start reallocating ad dollars, you need to determine what content is worth promoting. In this post, we break down five ways you can analyze the data from your Facebook page to guide your
- [A Marketer's Take on the Death of Facebook Tabs](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-tabs-traffic/) - Original thoughts published on Facebook, edited and appended by author and Social Fresh Ryan Holmes published a great article on CNN Money yesterday morning on the disappearance of Facebook tabs as an industry. In the article he speaks to Facebook's "permanent beta" approach and how this has impacted the service, both for end users and the companies that
- [5 ways to explain to your boss why Wikipedia matters](https://socialfresh.com/wikipedia-for-your-boss/) - The biggest reason marketing and Wikipedia's editorial community often find the relationship contentious is because companies haven't invested the intellectual capital in meeting Wikipedia's content needs. We've made a science out of the most viral tweet, the optimal Facebook post, most compelling blog and optimized landing page, but haven't invested in ethical Wikipedia engagement. We're
- [How To Change Your Facebook Page Vanity URL](https://socialfresh.com/change-your-facebook-page-vanity-url/) - Last week Facebook finally made it easy to change your customer Facebook page URL. This feature has been requested for some time. Trademark issues and brand name squatters will still cause some brands a few issues, but this should go a long way to helping most businesses adjust their Facebook strategy. Business names change occasionally.
- [Wake Up And Start Using Google Analytics To Measure Your Social Media ROI](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-roi/) - Social media ROI isn’t always easy to track, but establishing, measuring and tracking metrics in this industry is crucial to ensuring that you aren’t wasting your time and energy. Social media ROI If you’ve never measured social media ROI before, this article will give you several concrete strategies that can be applied to your own
- [7 Steps For Getting More Instagram Followers](https://socialfresh.com/instagram-followers/) - As Instagram continues it’s march to being the most popular mobile social network and most popular photo-sharing community in the world, marketers continue to try and figure out the popular app. Brands that are new to Instagram usually ask the same question: How do we get more Instagram followers? After over a year managing one
- [8 awesome social brands that should get more credit](https://socialfresh.com/social-brand-examples/) - Originally published at ArikHanson.com Last week, the PRSA Puget Sound Chapter asked me to lead a small group discussion around social content strategies that make sense. That got me thinking–which brands are really doing a great job with social content? Which ones really get it–but aren’t the Dells, Coca-Colas and Burberry’s of the world that we always
- [10 Tips From @RandFish On Upping Your Organic Traffic Game](https://socialfresh.com/inbound-traffic/) - When we think marketing, often we think "spend" or "budget" or "where can we put our ads next?" Digital ads are important, and social media advertising is increasingly proving results. But to depend on paid digital advertising as your main marketing channel is short sighted. It is often a small piece of the pie. Rand
- [The World's OTHER Social Networks](https://socialfresh.com/the-worlds-other-social-networks/) - Facebook is one of the most talked about, discussed, and dissected social networks in the world. Ok, the most. They are the king of the hill and recently went public, so it makes sense. They have also been very open about many of the stats relevant to their user base over the year. Given, we
- [85 percent of brand pages on Wikipedia need improvement](https://socialfresh.com/85-percent-of-brand-pages-on-wikipedia-need-improvement/) - Wikipedia articles define our company's brand, heritage, leadership and culture for the internet. They're important. But Wikipedia has thousands of them and about four million articles in all. According to a new study published today, 90 percent of brand pages on Wikipedia are marked as low or medium priority by the Wikipedia community. The study
- [Content Marketing Is Not As Simple As Writing A Ton of Blog Posts Every Day](https://socialfresh.com/content-marketing-is-not-as-simple-as-writing-a-ton-of-blog-posts-every-day/) - The classic sales funnel has long been used to describe website development strategy. However, the deployment of content marketing in a sales funnel with a campaign focus is a relatively new concept to many. It’s not as simple as writing lots of blog posts every day and distributing them on social channels. In fact, the
- [Puppy Photos Win For Non-Profits on Facebook](https://socialfresh.com/wildlife-animal-welfare-facebook-success/) - A new study released today measuring Facebook trends among various nonprofits – including the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, AARP, US Fund for UNICEF, and the Humane Society of the United States – revealed that animals are at the top of the food chain among Facebook’s nonprofit fan pages. Overall, Facebook audience growth among nonprofits
- [Being Responsive Gains Twitter Followers: And Other Lessons from @GaryVee's Twitter Data](https://socialfresh.com/garyvee-twitter-lessons/) - Originally published on the Simply Measured blog by Libby Snead Rising above the noise and building an influential presence on Twitter is no small feat. Using our Twitter Analytics, we’re starting a new series to share data from Twitter’s leading voices. Our goal is to understand how these top individuals have built and sustained their profiles.
- [The Latest Info on Facebook Advertising](https://socialfresh.com/the-latest-info-on-facebook-advertising/) - Watching and learning the latest information on Facebook (the business) seems to be what everyone is doing online these days. We just can't help but want to learn more about the IPO. We all are drawn like drones toward reading all the different thoughts on what the future of both the company and their hoodie-wearing
- [Hubspot and Hootsuite aim to Close the Loop of Social Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/hubspot-and-hootsuite-aim-to-close-the-loop-of-social-marketing/) - Today Hootsuite and Hubspot announced a new strategic partnership and app integration with aims to “close the loop” in social media marketing. Hubspot has long been known for their innovations in inbound marketing and social media. By developing a system to easily create and spread marketing content, they have given thousands of companies the ability
- [16 Top Twitter Chats for Social Media and PR Professionals](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-chats/) - Originally published on Simply Measured There are many great Twitters chats happening each week, driving conversations and facilitating collaboration between a wide spectrum of social media professionals. Simply Measured used started with Robert Swanwick's list of over 620 Twitter chats. They selected thirteen popular marketing chats and tracked their activity for the week of 5/6/2012
- [Stop Ignoring Your Most Useful Influencers: Your Customers](https://socialfresh.com/brand-advocates/) - Originally published at SocialBusinessNews.com, written by Michelle Kostya This post is not about influence; what it is or who influences who. That topic has been discussed by people with far more knowledge than I have on the subject. Instead I want to show the distinction between advocate and influencer and the importance of building a customer
- [Should Your Brand Create A Power User Program?](https://socialfresh.com/should-your-brand-create-a-power-user-program/) - Originally published on TheCommunityManager.com When you hear about a “power user program” what comes to mind first, community or product? There’s often confusion about exactly how a power user program looks, and who’s responsible for it. Is it the product team’s responsibility? Is it the community team? The answer is it’s both…to some extent. There
- [Why People Share Things Online: Dopamine](https://socialfresh.com/we-share-online-because-of-dopamine/) - Originally published on SocialCommerceToday.com, written by Paul Marsden Understanding why people share stuff in social media is key to unlocking sales in social commerce; social media communicates social influence and social influence creates social sales. Research Helps And a new study by Harvard psychologists Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell has just found out why we share –
- [Lessons from Microsoft's Wikipedia Participation](https://socialfresh.com/microsoft-paid-wikipedia-editing/) - I bumped into Rick Jellifire on Wikipedia. The one that made headlines in 2007 for accepting an offer to get paid by Microsoft to contribute to Wikipedia. He was upset about the media's depiction of his Wikipedia participation as a secretive attempt to corrupt Wikipedia's neutrality. The media said his plans were "revealed" even though they
- [10 Lessons As We Use Images More and More for Engagement](https://socialfresh.com/image-content-marketing-lessons/) - With the $1 billion acquisition of Instagram and the meteoric rise of Pinterest, it's become clear that marketers are paying more attention to images and how they are shared online. But how might a brand use images to encourage follower feedback, promote social sharing, and drive Web traffic? These ten tips are a solid place
- [5 Easy Fixes to Make Your Blog More Shareable](https://socialfresh.com/make-your-blog-more-shareable/) - It happens every morning. I skim an article, find a shareable quote, like the content and post it with my social media management tool of choice. I’d prefer to cite both the author and the source, but alas! The author’s name is a hyperlink to posts written by him or her, and I’d prefer not
- [Facebook Ads, You're Holding It Wrong](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-ad-tips-2/) - A powerful sports car is a very sexy thing. It is a very capable machine, capable of some pretty impressive feats. A performance machine they say. Facebook ads are very similar. Perhaps not as sexy, but still quite capable of doing some pretty amazing things. Now take a second with me and picture a car.
- [The Facebook Mobile Frenzy](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-phone/) - I remember when Zuckerberg was espousing HTML5 exclusively and the thought of a Facebook iOS app was against the Facebook vision. When the Facebook iPhone app launched, with hundreds of millions of global users, it quickly became the most popular app of all time. So, perhaps, Facebook has been an app company since that day.
- [Facebook Launches Promoted Posts, Pay As Little As $5 For More Fans To See Page Content](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-promoted-posts-go-live/) - Facebook's Promoted posts are live for some pages in the US, as of yesterday. And are rolling out to many more. Some are reporting that pages with fewer than 500 fans may not yet see the feature. This means pages can now pay to "promote" a post from their Timeline so that it will reach
- [Oh great, Facebook has fallen in love with gradients on photos](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-black-gradients-on-photos/) - Facebook is 8 years old. And often acts like it. As a child wants to be something new everyday or to paint their room a new color every new month — Facebook does it a little differently, and instead enjoys making significant changes to profiles and pages. Every month changes roll out. And every month
- [5 Ways Small Businesses Can Flip The Script with Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/small-business-social-media/) - We’ve all heard that social media can help grow your business and brand, financially. But say you are a Mom and Pop coffee shop in a small town. Why would you want to use Facebook? Why NOT?! Small town businesses can use social media to grow their customer base. I work with these types of
- [It's ok, Facebook is not sinking, put down the lifejacket](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-is-not-sinking/) - I suppose when the biggest tech IPO ever comes along, haters gonna hate. I didn't get a ticket into the secret room where everyone get's to buy golden shares of Facebook either. But throwing stones at Facebook feels a bit premature. It seems like everyone and their mother, and by that I mainly mean the
- [8 tips on moderating a panel without killing the content](https://socialfresh.com/moderate-a-panel/) - Originally published on JeffHilimire.com If you find yourself moderating a panel, and I hope you do because it can be a lot of fun, here are some tips that I’ve found useful along the way. 1. Always be checking with the conference organizer in case they are trying to alert you to something (like if the
- [Facebook Testing New Activity Feed Layout](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-testing-new-activity-feed-layout/) - Originally posted on the On Ideas Blog With Facebook set to begin trading publicly on the stock market this week at somewhere between $34-38 per share, a lot of talk has been going around about if they'll be able to sustain the traffic and momentum necessary to support such a large public offering. Followed up
- [7 Quick Thoughts About GM Pulling All Their Facebook Ads](https://socialfresh.com/7-quick-thoughts-about-gm-pulling-all-their-facebook-ads/) - Originally published on Facebook Editor's note: According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, General Motors is stopping all of their Facebook advertising. Their Facebook ad budget was $10 million a year, a big bankroll to say the least. There is little in the way of facts about why GM is pulling their ads,
- [5 Website Design Mistakes That Are Killing Your Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/web-design-mistakes-killing-your-social-media/) - We spend all this time and capital on social media. Creating wonderful content. Producing engaging campaigns. Responding to our communities and creating a groundswell of support. But what happens after sometimes can ruin it all. You might have an amazing social media presence, and then the customer sees your website, and all that momentum is
- [9 Things Wikipedia Can Teach You About Content Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/wikipedia-content-marketing/) - Think about it. Wikipedia articles on a company get more views, shares and syndication than the company fact sheet. The Wikipedia article on your executive get more eyeballs than the company-written bio. Even the Wikipedia articles on your products probably see more monitors than the product brochures. I spend a lot of time telling clients
- [5 reasons that Twitter's new email matters for marketers](https://socialfresh.com/twitters-stories-for-marketers/) - Twitter announced a new email delivery service called “Stories” where you can receive a weekly email digest delivered to your email inbox. The weekly summary will feature “the most relevant Tweets and stories shared by the people you’re connected to on Twitter,” according to Othman Laraki, Director, Growth and International at Twitter. The email will
- [Omaha Steaks Go All In With Facebook Store](https://socialfresh.com/omaha-steaks-facebook-store/) - Originally published at SocialCommerceToday.com Omaha Steaks is bucking the trend toward Facebook store abandonment and has opened a store to offer fans access to exclusive merchandise, a move that is considered a no-brainer by company senior vice-president Todd Simon. “I think not having a Facebook store would be kind of like saying we don’t have to have a retail store,”
- [If more events used text messaging, we would all be happier](https://socialfresh.com/text-message-marketing-for-events/) - This isn’t a bunch of reasons how you can be more “green” at your next event. This is three ways you can eliminate paper using text messaging. These ideas will save you hassle, create better event, and make your attendees, or the people your brand meets at that next event, happier at the same time.
- [Bring Insight To Your Social Media Data With Ratios](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-data-ratios/) - Originally published at TheCommunityManager.com Being a data analyst, I sometimes talk with organizations that struggle to use data. I see good research sit on a shelf because it's either overwhelming and businesses can't translate the numbers into action, or they're looking at the wrong numbers. One of the quickest ways to really understand your data
- [Audio is easier than video, Three ways your brand can make sound social](https://socialfresh.com/making-sound-social/) - Sound is magnificent, universal, and takes a variety of forms in our everyday lives. But when it comes to the social web, we tend to forget the wide spectrum of audio that exists outside of the context of music. Alexander Ljung, CEO of the popular music sharing service Soundcloud, spoke at Mashable Connect about the
- [Sports news site sees a 997% higher than average CTR on Facebook Ads](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-ad-casestudy-sports-news/) - According to Social Fresh’s recent 2012 Facebook advertising report, Facebook advertisers see an average CPC of $0.80 and average clickthrough rates of 0.041%. For a number of factors, we have experienced considerably better results at FanFeedr, results that are worth discussing here. The examples and outcomes that follow are for Facebook ads placed for several
- [Buffer supercharges the ability to schedule social media content](https://socialfresh.com/buffer-app/) - The Buffer App, a social media content scheduler, has released a new feature while allows you to add tweets from any website, retweets, Facebook statuses, photos from Facebook and more straight to the Buffer App for scheduling or posting. The Buffer extensions for Chrome, Safari and Firefox allow you to share any page you come
- [How Controversy Can Help You Attract Inbound Links](https://socialfresh.com/how-controversy-can-help-you-attract-inbound-links/) - Written by Maggie Georgieva SEO is one of the key ways to get visibility for your website and brand. According to a study by The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 92% of online adults use search engines to find information on the Web. So how do you get your business to rank in search
- [Guess what? Branded online entertainment does not have to suck.](https://socialfresh.com/branded-online-entertainment/) - Yes we are an insurance company. Yes we created an awesome TV show about silicon valley. Beginning in 2010, Hiscox Insurance has used custom branded entertainment to extend their direct advertising and create a true conversation with Leap Year, a web series about the ups and downs of a tech start-up. The first season recently
- [Beginner Tips For Your Corporate Twitter Publishing Schedule](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-publishing-schedule/) - Twitter provides an opportunity to mix structure and spontaneity in your business communication. Smart social marketers use both approaches, because they appeal to two very different types of Twitter users: information seekers and engagers. Information seekers are primarily interested in finding useful content. Engagers want to interact and participate in business and/or personal conversations. Scheduling
- [Please Don’t Abandon Your Company Blog](https://socialfresh.com/corporate-blogging-benefits/) - Fewer companies are blogging these days, according to a new survey from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Only 37% of Inc. Magazine’s 500 fast-growing companies maintained a blog in 2011, down from 50% in 2010. Among Fortune 500 companies, the 2011 rate was the same as 2010: just 23%. Why the low numbers? Once the Wild
- [Your Product Does Not Have A Community, Your Community Is Part of Your Product](https://socialfresh.com/community-is-product/) - Originally published at TheCommunityManager.com Community is not marketing. Community is part of your product. It's part of the User Engagement Cycle. In the cycle, marketing drives users into the cycle. Users connect with your product, then with your brand, and then a community is formed when they connect with each other which will then improve
- [5 LinkedIn Features with Major B2B Marketing Potential that You Might Be Missing](https://socialfresh.com/5-linkedin-features-with-major-b2b-marketing-potential-that-you-might-be-missing/) - In a recent study of 5,000 B2B and B2C businesses, HubSpot found that LinkedIn was 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook and Twitter, with a whopping conversion rate of 2.74%. And yet, many businesses ignore LinkedIn as an option at all. This under-utilized tool is offering businesses the opportunity to generate real results,
- [42% of US Adults See Twitter Messages Daily](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-reach/) - Twitter is continuing to grow and increase its impact beyond Justin Bieber fans and social media marketers. We have known for a while now the the impact of Twitter reaches far beyond the social network itself. Last year Edison research reported that Twitter and Facebook had near equal awareness among US adults, despite a huge
- [Hertz Creates Their Own Groupon Style Deals on Facebook](https://socialfresh.com/hertz-groupon-style-facebook-deals/) - Originally published at Social Commerce Today (edited by Social Fresh) So we know that the principle reason that people interact with businesses and brands on Facebook is to get offers (PDF link). Hertz is hoping Facebook users share their deals with a new group offer for car rentals with a ‘social coupon’ using the Share it Up app from PeopleString. The more
- [Does Your Executive Team Need To Tweet?](https://socialfresh.com/executive-team-twitter/) - Originally published at Social Business News Do you think you need to be an expert at something to inspire others? The methods of motivation and leadership are many and varied, but undoubtedly leading by doing is one of the more successful. This especially seems to be the case in the technical world where we require
- [Open letter PR Professionals: Reassess our role on Wikipedia](https://socialfresh.com/prsa-wikipedia/) - It is with the utmost civility and an assumption that both parties are making a good faith effort to serve the public good that I'm writing this open letter asking the Institute of Public Relations and the PRSA to reconsider their position on the role of public relations professionals on Wikipedia. Both organizations have advocated
- [5 Community Types Brands Must Choose From](https://socialfresh.com/brand-community-types/) - Originally published on The Community Manager "We need a community! Go o' mystical community manager, and build us a thriving community!" Shut up you. Blindly saying "We need a community!" won't get you very far. There are many different community programs which are built for entirely different purposes. You have many different kinds of users.
- [Word of Mouth Still Kills All Other Advertising Forms](https://socialfresh.com/word-of-mouth-still-kills-all-other-advertising-forms/) - Originally published on Social Commerce Today With its emphasis on friend-to-friend sharing, this bodes well for social commerce. For example, when we are uncertain about what to buy, it’s common for us to depend on the influence of friends. Therefore, integrating elements such as rating and recommendation systems, social sharing buttons and shop together tools
- [Facebook Activates Realtime Insights](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-realtime-insights/) - Facebook Insights have long been a source of frustration for developers and marketers alike. Often days would go by that Facebook Insights would not update. Complaints were heard, websites were built, all in frustration with an unreliable Insights platform. Josh Constine (of TechCrunch) released the scoop regarding the improvement of the reliability of Insights along
- [Marketing Will You Dance With Me? Love, Customer Service](https://socialfresh.com/marketing-will-you-dance-with-me-love-customer-service/) - It's like the 8th grade dance all over again. I can remember it like yesterday. I wanted to dance with her, she didn't even know I was alive. I'll write her a note "Will You Dance With Me? Circle One --> YES or YES" She'll laugh and think I'm funny. Def Leppard "Pour Some Sugar
- [5 Ways Pinterest Success Comes From Great Writing](https://socialfresh.com/writing-on-pinterest/) - Pinterest is all about images, right? Wrong. Words play an integral part in gaining followers and being re-pinned. This article looks at using words effectively to get the most out of pins. In Pinterest users build boards around interesting categories. Keywords play a prominent part in the structure of the site. Each board has its
- [9 Social Media Crisis Questions Dole Food Company Failed To Answer](https://socialfresh.com/dole-social-media-crisis-preperation/) - Driving into work today (April 16, 2012), I was flipping through the radio dial and caught a story on NPR about how Dole Food Company had issued a recall. Apparently, it was a fairly small matter involving about 750 cases of a particular Dole bagged salad product that may pose a threat from Salmonella. The
- [Wrap Your Head Around Social Media Event Chatter](https://socialfresh.com/event-tracking-social-media-benefits/) - Originally published at Simply Measured Do you remember what conferences were like before Twitter? It seems that events are now defined by live streams, hashtags, Tweeting, and check-ins. This constant stream of public sharing amplifies events far beyond the people wearing badges and sitting in conference centers. Great news for data lovers: the byproduct of
- [How I Used Social Media To Land Major Press Coverage](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-pr/) - Years ago, you would of had to cross your fingers at the chance of major press publications finding out about something you were doing. There was no good chance that the local newspaper, or your state wide business journal would write a piece about your event or business venture. Today, all of that has changed.
- [Why Bias Makes Wikipedia Neutral](https://socialfresh.com/why-bias-makes-wikipedia-neutral/) - We should all take a moment to marvel at Wikipedia. People of every age, gender, ethnicity, social-economic class and political affiliation are stripped down to anonymous usernames - the ultimate level playing field. Behavior, compliance with the rules and quality of contributions are all that define your character. Retirees collaborate with college students, republicans with
- [Lead Generation with LinkedIn: Even Your Grandmother Can Do It](https://socialfresh.com/linkedin-lead-generation/) - Every time someone says to me LinkedIn is too confusing or too hard to learn, I think about an eighty year old grandmother in New Jersey who I recently coached who is having success on LinkedIn. And she can barely send an email. This began when a childhood friend of mine called me and told
- [How to Harness the Marketing Power of the Meme](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-harness-the-marketing-power-of-the-meme/) - If you visit the “Humor” section of Pinterest or just browse Facebook for a while, you’re likely to stumble across fist-pumping babies, grammatically incorrect cats or a poorly-sketched angry stick figure. Believe it or not, there’s actually a great deal of marketing potential behind these silly viral memes. A “meme” is a categorization of a
- [Coca-Cola Spain To Launch An Instagram App on Android, Before Instagram](https://socialfresh.com/coca-cola-spain-instagram-app-on-android/) - Coca-Cola is known for being one of the first and more innovative social media brands out there. And while they are not on Instagram yet, Coca-Cola Spain looks like it might launch an Instagram inspired app called SmileWorld (says @philgonzalez on Instagramers.com). These screenshots show the app's menu is very close to the current Instagram layout,
- [Is Social Commerce Fact Or Fiction?](https://socialfresh.com/social-commerce-fact-fiction/) - Social Fresh partner, Argyle Social, spoke at Social Fresh EAST about the merge of social media and ecommerce. They have put in a great amount of research, on how the top ecommerce websites are using social media -successfully and otherwise. Some simple initial methods of social commerce, like placing storefronts on Facebook tabs, have seen
- [The User Engagement Cycle Explained](https://socialfresh.com/community-engagement/) - Originally published on TheCommunityManager.com A lot of business experts will tell your company to "engage" people and "build community", but what does that actually mean? It's important, when hearing advice like this to ask "why?" and "to what end?". The why, for me, has always been to create a positive emotional connection with users, resulting
- [Stop Using Excel To Manage Your Social Media Contacts, BuzzStream Review](https://socialfresh.com/stop-using-excel-to-manage-your-social-media-contacts-buzzstream-review/) - Call them champions, customers, partners, influencers. Social media generates an ever-growing lists of contacts. A long list of contacts is both a gift and a burden, that any good communicator possesses. These lists have to be organized, if we want to get the most out of our relationships. On one hand, a large network opens
- [Google+: Destroying SEO and Why That’s a Good Thing](https://socialfresh.com/google-plus-killing-seo/) - Now anyone who knows a little about SEO, knows the importance of keywords, Meta tags, inbound links, and AdWord campaigns. You may know to notify Google about crawling new sites/landing pages you produce or you may constantly worry about your current page rank on the top search sites. You may have calls-to-action embedded in YouTube
- [How To Build A Community From Scratch](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-build-a-community-from-scratch/) - Originally published at The Community Manager How do you first get started building a community? It’s probably the most common question I hear. Communities are awesome, right? Every company wants one! But where do you start? Having built a number of communities over the past few years, I’ve learned a lot about what a healthy
- [How To Use Neuroscience For Insight Into The Social Customer](https://socialfresh.com/social-customers-brain/) - Written by Kevin Dean, originally published at Social Business News According to Dr. A.K Pradeep, our senses take in 11 million bits of information every second. A great deal of that information comes from the eyes, but our other senses transmit a large amount of information to our brains as well. Consciously, our brains can -at
- [5 Steps For Increasing Sales With Pinterest](https://socialfresh.com/pinterest-increase-sales/) - It’s all a buzz. Millions are flocking to Pinterest (over 12 million monthly actives for that matter). Most are women (82%) pinning to boards for weddinginspiration, new fashion styles, and decor ideas for their homes and nurseries. But men are also quickly jumping on board (pun intended), mostly from the UK, Japan and France. More
- [Using Facebook Interests Lists To Improve EdgeRank](https://socialfresh.com/using-facebook-interests-lists-to-improve-edgerank/) - Facebook Interests Lists were launched last week, allowing users to subscribe to their favorite interests. "Interest lists can help you turn Facebook into your own personalized newspaper... Find traditional news sections like Business, Sports, Style or get much more personalized—like Tech News, NBA Players & Art Critics." (via Facebook) Any user is able to create
- [A Primer on Facebook Ads](https://socialfresh.com/a-primer-on-facebook-ads/) - Originally published at MindComet Types of Facebook Ads Facebook Ads are set to change at the end of this month, which means it's a great time to review the current and future ad opportunities on the social network. Most of the changes apply to bigger budget advertisers - typically those spending at least $2,000 per
- [Facebook Launches Brand Lists Then Hides Them](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-interest-lists/) - One of the many features that launched with new Facebook brand timelines yesterday, there was a small but prominent option for fans to add a brand to an "interest list." Directly beneath the new timeline cover images there is a key feature dropdown button at the top right that allows users to "report page, share, unlike,
- [19 Examples of Sucky PR Edits on Wikipedia](https://socialfresh.com/bad-wikipedia-edits/) - I recently reported on a new initiative called Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement (CREWE), a group of PR professionals trying to sort out a better arrangement with Wikipedia. And I've been trying to figure out how to cover the group's development. The potential symbiotic relationship between PR professionals and Wikipedia is obvious. PR is
- [The Fragmentation of Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/5-reasons-smaller-social-networks-are-winning-the-fragmentation-war/) - One constant through the many evolutions of Internet platforms is the fickleness of human beings. Especially when asked to make quick decisions. Successful products have been driven by the combination of: The “right” feature set Clarity in purpose And most importantly, the vibrant nature of communities and how accessible they are to the user. Indeed,
- [Facebook's brand new Premium Ads are really just Souped Up Sponsored Stories](https://socialfresh.com/facebooks-new-premium-ads-are-really-just-souped-up-sponsored-stories/) - There are two main types of ads on Facebook, premium and marketplace. Marketplace ads are the self service ads that most businesses create on the site. Premium ads are a product that Facebook has to run for you and requires a large budget, some say $10,000 a month minimum. These ads have a lot of
- [3 Strategies For Saving Yourself From The Time Suck That Is Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/time-saving-social-media-tips/) - Creating, updating and monitoring a professional online presence has become a full-time job. And not just for social media professionals, like myself, but for anyone who engages with the business community. Unfortunately, most of us have less and less time to devote to our online social channels. Business owners, executives, marketers and just about everyone
- [How Pinterest Changed My Mom's Purchasing Decisions](https://socialfresh.com/pinterest-changed-my-moms-purchasing-decisions/) - Sunday afternoon I was whipping up a batch of the famous Cicero family sausage bread when I called my mom to get some last minute baking advice. The conversation quickly turned to Pinterest. My mom was so excited to tell me about how she was in the middle of redecorating her and my dad’s bedroom
- [The 12 Keys To Successful Gamification (Part 2)](https://socialfresh.com/gamification-success-12-keys2/) - If you are building out a loyalty solution for your business gamification is already a part of your marketing in at least a small way. Take some time to go through these 12 keys and the results will follow. You may have caught my previous post where I talked about the first 6 keys to successful gamification:
- [4 Core Tools In The Social Publishing Toolbox](https://socialfresh.com/social-publishing-toolbox/) - To do a job well, you have to use the right tool. Bob Ross knows exactly which brush makes his trees the happiest. Emily Post would never dream of using the outside fork on her cornish hen. And Bob Vila knows when to turn on the hammer option of his industrial- strength drill. Similarly, social
- [Elevate: Launching and Leading A Social Media Practice](https://socialfresh.com/elevate-launching-and-leading-a-social-media-practice/) - On June 7, 2010 the late Steve Jobs took the stage at the World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco to announce Apple’s latest break through release, the iPhone 4. The tag line read “This changes everything. Again.” He wasn’t lying. I was 6 months into my newly minted role managing social media for RadioShack, their first foray into
- [Everything CNN got Wrong about Newt Gingrich's Wikipedia Polishing](https://socialfresh.com/everything-cnn-got-wrong-about-newt-gingrichs-wikipedia-polishing/) - If you haven't read about the CNN story on Newt Gringrich's communications director Joe DeSantis polishing Wikipedia entries, go take a look (but don't believe anything you read). As one user on Wikipedia stated "CNN's understanding of how Wikipedia works is not very good." Through a series of errors and construed representations, CNN turned one
- [Making Listening Data Work for the Entire Organization](https://socialfresh.com/making-listening-data-work-for-the-entire-organization/) - Raise your hand if you are listening to conversations online about your brand, competitors or industry? Over the course of the last several years the number of people who would raise their hand after getting such a question has gone up considerably. Whether it’s using free alerts setup through Google, or a paid solution like
- [Sounds Like A Shazam-For-More Super Bowl](https://socialfresh.com/shazam-super-bowl/) - I am a big fan of Shazam. I use it all them time to catch new songs off of the TV or when out at a restaurant. Shazam sent out an email yesterday letting me know that the Super Bowl will be a big day for them. Shazam-for-more ads like those they launched with Old Navy
- [Start With A Recipe](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-recipe/) - Next week I'll be sharing some ideas from the martial arts as they relate to building and improving your social media capabilities at Social Fresh East, but for today I want to share one specific idea: recipes aren't bad. Let's talk about scrambled eggs as an example. In the very beginning, if you don't know
- [6 Ways To Get More B2B Leads From Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/6-ways-to-get-more-b2b-leads-from-social-media/) - Kipp Bodnar is Inbound Marketing Strategist at HubSpot, the inbound marketing software leader in lead generation and lead management applications. He is co-author of The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More — the definitive guide for B2B marketers who want to master
- [New Data: Pinterest Referring More Traffic Than LinkedIn, Reddit, Google+](https://socialfresh.com/pinterest-referral-traffic/) - Data and some editorial content provided by Janet Aronica of Shareaholic Pinterest is the pretty new girl in school, getting all the attention, but it turns out this new face means business as well. According to Shareaholic's findings (based on aggregated data from more than 200,000 publishers that reach more than 260 million unique monthly
- [Are Social Ads A Game Changer?](https://socialfresh.com/social-network-advertising/) - Real estate agent Jim Olenbush awoke one morning in 2010, opened his local newspaper, the Austin Statesman, and read a story about the drug violence in Mexico. The story indicated that affluent Mexican families were migrating to the U.S. in record numbers to flee the uncertainty of safety thanks to the drug cartels. As if
- [Why Internal Social Networks Usually Fail](https://socialfresh.com/internal-social-networks/) - Originally published at Social Business News by Adi Gaskell Despite internal social networks gaining in popularity, few of them can be regarded as successes. That is at least the finding of a new report by Information Week. The report, called Rebooting the Antisocial Network found that just 13% of IT professionals believe their internal social
- [It's Time To Stop Ignoring LinkedIn Company Pages](https://socialfresh.com/linkedin-company-pages/) - By Harry Hoover of My Creative Team LinkedIn Marketing seems to be an afterthought among the other high profile social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. But there are some good reasons that your company should set up – and keep current – your own free LinkedIn Company Pages. LinkedIn calls the Company Page a company’s profile
- [The 12 Keys To Successful Gamification (Part 1)](https://socialfresh.com/gamification-success-12-keys1/) - By now you’ve probably heard of gamification and seen a few gamification examples of it around. You may even be considering gamification for your own website or app. While there are many ways to go about gamification, some ways are better than others. Here are some key ideas to think about before trying it out
- [Play Geek Movie Trivia: Free Social Fresh EAST Tickets](https://socialfresh.com/geek-movie-trivia/) - On Wednesday at 2pm EST, we are going to kick off another trivia challenge on Twitter. We will be giving away 10 free tickets to our next social media conference, Social Fresh EAST. Do you know your Ecto-mobiles from your Batmobiles? Your flux capacitor wattage? Your weird science from your science fiction? If you think
- [Facebook Users Spend 27% Of Their Time In The Newsfeed](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-newsfeed-time-spent/) - Buddy Media released some great data today focused on how social media can influence consumer behavior. The research was put together in concert with Comscore and focuses on Facebook. There were some great insights in the report and I highly recommend you check it out in full here. One of the big standouts for me
- [Taste Wine On Facebook With New Actions](https://socialfresh.com/snooth-taste-wine-facebook-actions/) - Facebook announced this week that they are now approving their open graph actions. There are currently 78 actions listed by Facebook. Just as you can see in the ticker when someone Likes a page or Reads an article or Listens to a song, new actions will start to get approved this month and move more
- [What Is Gamification and How Does It Support Marketing?](https://socialfresh.com/what-is-gamification/) - The Gamification wiki gives us a pretty good starter definition, "Gamification is the use of game design thinking for non-gaming applications" or for our purposes, using game design thinking for marketing your business. The Oxford English Dictionary even added the term gamification to its short list for word of the year in 2011. If we take a
- [How To Use Ego For The Good Of Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/ego-marketing/) - It is that time again freshmakers. Sit your children down around the fire, serve up some hot cider, some smores, and turn the phonograph on low. Your next Get Real with Spike video just landed (@spikejones). In honor of the recent film out about Sigmund Freud, Spike is focusing on Ego today, and everything E.
- [When Is The Best Time Of The Day To Blog?](https://socialfresh.com/best-time-of-day-to-blog/) - Great content gets shared. Right? But does the time and day that you publish that great content affect how much it gets shared or how many times it gets viewed? We have looked at best times to publish for Twitter as well as the best publish times for Facebook. We have some awesome data from
- [How to Increase EdgeRank and Add Fans in the Facebook Timeline](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-increase-edgerank-in-the-new-facebook-timeline/) - Historically, social marketers have widely accepted that once-per-day posting on Facebook was the right frequency of distribution to use to engage their Facebook fans. A recent study conducted by bit.ly makes us think twice about this assumption, finding that the average shelflife of an update on Facebook is 3.2 hours before it disappears into the timeline and is
- [Jimmy Wales and Public Relations Face Off](https://socialfresh.com/jimmy-wales-and-public-relations-face-off/) - The last few days have been eventful for a niche community of Wikipedia editors. A Wikipedian for hire (like me) removed negative commentary about his client on Wikipedia under the guise of enforcing policy, rallied friendly editors to support him and made quite a show - enough for Jimmy Wales to condemn him personally. That's
- [5 Tips to Avoid Shiny Object Syndrome](https://socialfresh.com/tips-to-avoid-shiny-object-syndrome/) - If you know me, you know I love Disney-Pixar's "UP". It's a story of an old man and young boy that bond over an expedition they'll never forget. (Insert obligatory "I work for Disney..." message here.) Accompanying the two on their travels is a dog, named Dug, that can speak. Thanks to a special collar,
- [11 Steps To Smarter Mobile Content](https://socialfresh.com/mobile-content-how-to/) - Social media conferences like Social Fresh leave your engines revving—you’re full of ideas, just waiting to press down on the gas pedal and shoot ahead of the competition. This was especially true on Day 1 of the recent Social Fresh Baltimore, which covered mobile marketing—still somewhat of an open road for marketers. However, as C.C.
- [How Google's ''Search Plus Your World'' Affects Your Business](https://socialfresh.com/google-search-plus-your-world/) - Google's new "Search Plus Your World" is now rolling out to signed-in users in English. As usual, there will be a lot of talk about the big picture of what Google is doing and ho w it will affect life on this planet. But let's take a look at exactly what this means, especially for
- [3 Big Brands That Don't Ignore YouTube](https://socialfresh.com/3-big-brands-that-dont-ignore-youtube/) - Back when advertising and media executives wore power suits and indulged in two martini lunches, the idea of pitching the television pilot you spent years writing was far-fetched, to say the least. Now imagine that television series you hoped to write was about an annoying talking orange and his group of fruity friends. I don’t
- [Creating Facebook Timelines As Marketing Campaigns](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-timelines-marketing-campaigns/) - UPDATE: (8:00 am Jan. 10) It looks like Facebook has taken this page down as of today. Perhaps because it violates their TOS as it is not a real person. We reached out to the agency with no comment so far. Sometimes doing something simple and creative for the first time can become a big
- [Getting Started With An Editorial Calendar](https://socialfresh.com/editorial-calendar-how-to/) - Originally published on Blaisegv.com (edited by socialfresh.com) Last week we covered the many benefits in working with an Editorial Calendar when managing an online community. In this article I will explain how to actually develop this calendar, provide examples of what you could add to it and offer a special bonus – your very own print-and-keep sample editorial
- [5 Benefits Of An Editorial Calendar](https://socialfresh.com/editorial-calendar-benefit/) - Originally published on Blaisegv.com (edited by socialfresh.com) In the intense world of managing an online community, it’s easy to make grandiose plans but far harder to stick to them. Exciting events and milestones come and go, but it’s the steady forward thrust that really matters to ensure the continued growth of your community. But of course
- [Oreo Features Facebook Fans Daily](https://socialfresh.com/oreo-facebook-fan-of-the-day/) - Oreo, with over 24 million Facebook fans, has been doing their Fan of the Week campaign for some time. As long as I can remember. They ask fans to post a photo to the wall to be considered as fan of the week, where they feature a photo of the fan and the country they are
- [4 Pillars Of LinkedIn Marketing For Businesses](https://socialfresh.com/linkedin-marketing-tips/) - With more than 134 million members, LinkedIn has changed the way employees and employers connect – and how professionals and businesses find partners. Anyone building a business (online or offline) should take a close look at how this powerful network can work for their business. LinkedIn is a very simple platform. People, in large majority,
- [Simple and Easy Facebook Tabs with Shortstack Labs [REVIEW]](https://socialfresh.com/simple-and-easy-facebook-tabs-with-shortstack-labs-review/) - Since Facebook opened up pages to development, a multimillion dollar industry based around custom tabs and application creation has emerged. Ranging the gamut from individual developers you can hire to drag and drop tab platforms, your options are all over the place. The coding and design skills (and cost) needed to operate these solutions can also really
- [Google Plus vs. Facebook – Where things stand](https://socialfresh.com/google-plus-vs-facebook/) - Following the launch of Google+, many social media marketers have started to compare and contrast the benefits of the new social media platform for brand marketing activity with the benefits of Facebook. Facebook has long been the social network of choice for the vast majority of brands operating within social media, but Google+ is continuing
- [Start Integrating Your SEO and Social, A Blueprint](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-and-seo/) - It wasn't long ago that my focus was aimed entirely on search engine optimization, but in the last few years that view has shifted to include social media and how it works in combination with your SEO efforts. SEO and social media continue to work together more and more. Can social media improve SEO, and
- [4 Cornerstones For Long Term Social Media Success (In Cincinnati)](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-long-term/) - Long term success in any business endeavor, social media or otherwise, requires a good foundation. We can talk tactics like listening, post frequency & timing, and tools all day long, but first let's look at what makes for a solid base. Most businesses want to start using social media for business. The ones that have started
- [Gain 20,000 Facebook Fans In 3 Months](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-ad-tips/) - Last summer, I had the pleasure of working on a social media campaign for Shasta Soda with a sister agency, MIO, that used Facebook Ads to help grow brand fans by 20,000 in just three months. While this was far from easy, a major part of our success involved following these five tips for Facebook
- [Wow, I had no clue SOPA was such a bad idea...](https://socialfresh.com/sopa-bad-idea/) - Editor's Note: Thank you Aaron Swartz Working in the digital world, it's hard to miss seeing the SOPA drama. Tweets, blog posts, news articles, petitions... It's everywhere. But the articles about SOPA are pretty jargon-heavy, even for geeks. And for those outside of the digital/technology industry? I've spoken to several people who haven't heard of
- [The Importance of Being Awesome](https://socialfresh.com/the-importance-of-being-awesome/) - Did you know awesome used to mean the same thing as terrible? In the etymological history of the words, both were used interchangeably to describe the presence of God - something that inspired awe or terror. It is in this archaic sense that awesomeness is important for brands, media and people because of a fundamental
- [6 Golden Rules Of Location Based Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/an-introduction-to-location-based-marketing/) - Editor’s Note: Schneider Mike wrote the book on Location (with Aaron Strout). Check it out here, Location Based Marketing For Dummies. I don't need to tell you that location has been one of the hottest topics in social media for the past 2 years. The last year alone has seen a great deal of chaos with
- [The New, New Twitter Wants the World to be more Social](https://socialfresh.com/the-new-new-twitter-wants-the-world-to-be-more-social/) - Originally published on the On Ideas blog. Boasting a smoother user experience and design, welcome the New, New Twitter. Twitter has been relatively unchanged since it’s been around, and by relatively I compare it only to the way it rolls our features. Whereas Facebook shoots first and asks questions later, Twitter seems to put together
- [54 Warning Signs That You Work In Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/you-might-work-in-social-media-if/) - I really hate when I have to deliver bad news to our readers, but the fact is, I know many of you are in danger of this illness. I personally have been battling against it fairly publicly, and yet I have noticed many of you might even have it worse. Those of you at standing
- [Livestreaming Video Is A Powerful Tool, 10 Lessons To Help You Get It Right](https://socialfresh.com/livestreaming-video-lessons/) - One of the greatest opportunities brands have today is to not just wait on the media to help tell your story but instead BE THE MEDIA and tell your own story. The social web has created an opportunity for brands to produce a storytelling platform on their own. A tactic that my agency uses often
- [5 Social Marketing Lessons from Social Fresh Baltimore](https://socialfresh.com/5-social-marketing-lessons-from-social-fresh-baltimore/) - Originally published on MarketingTrenches.com Last week I joined social media marketers from around the country at Social Fresh Baltimore. I’m posting this blog post halfway through the second day, so if the afternoon talks are left out, my apologies. Here’s the top five things that stood out for me from this event: 1. Measure the impact of
- [Why Facebook Bought Gowalla and 4 Other Location Marketing Updates](https://socialfresh.com/why-facebook-bought-gowalla-and-4-other-location-marketing-updates/) - Editor's Note: Schneider Mike wrote the book on Location (with Aaron Strout). Check it out here, Location Based Marketing For Dummies. There's a lot happening that you should consider if you are talking about location-based (or local) marketing. The last year has seen a great deal of chaos with apps popping up all over the place
- [Augmented Reality - amazing but so what!](https://socialfresh.com/augmented-reality-amazing-but-so-what/) - You have read about it before. Maybe you came across a video demo online or saw a special news report on it. It is mainly used in advertising and can be quite mind blowing. It is meant to be used by you - the average consumer - but chances are: you have never used one.
- [Why Wikipedia Needs Marketers](https://socialfresh.com/why-wikipedia-needs-marketers/) - Wikipedia's About page says articles are written by anonymous internet volunteers "without pay". Yet salaried marketers with the right policies, guidance and expertise can fill a crucial content gap for Wikipedia. Consider some data about Wikipedia Wikipedia is attracting fewer new contributors. The number of active contributors is dropping. But the number of articles is
- [8 Wonderfully Snarky Things To Be Thankful For This Thanksgiving](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-thanks/) - We work in an industry that is quite unique. From our ridiculous vernacular, where Like and Retweet are just understood, to the incredible access we have to people and technology around the world. Nevertheless, we would rather give a little thanks to the silliness that keeps us all laughing along the way. Here are our
- [5 Reasons Your Business Should Love Hashtags](https://socialfresh.com/5-reasons-your-business-should-love-hashtags/) - My wife and I do a lot of traveling, if you follow us on Twitter or Facebook you’ve probably seen that. And if you do follow us in those spaces, you’ve seen that we hashtag all our trips. You might see us tweet things like #Floridacation, #InTheHills, #InTheYahd, or most recently #74andSunny. Yes, we are
- [The Future of E-Commerce](https://socialfresh.com/the-future-of-e-commerce/) - This philosophy is what food delivery services and Netflix thrive on. Consumers are more interested in commerce coming to them than actually getting in the car and going to commerce. This is what has paved the way for the e-commerce boom. It should come as no surprise that e-commerce is growing rapidly and changing the
- [Your Business, Is There An App For That?](https://socialfresh.com/your-business-is-there-an-app-for-that/) - Apps rule the mobile world. Now before you start screaming at me about HTML5 or QR codes, take a look at one single stat that might quiet you for a moment. 73% of mobile app users make a purchase from within an app*. That’s almost 3/4 of all app users. They are prepared to and
- [5 Distribution Channels For Serious Content Creators](https://socialfresh.com/content-distribution-channels/) - This article is part of a series that will be covered in more detail at Social Fresh Baltimore, our next social media conference, Nov 29-30. The “old” days of the Internet were quite simple for publishers. Build a website and allow users to visit it when they were interested in consuming that specific content. Today
- [The Number 1 Facebook Strategy? Post Photos](https://socialfresh.com/the-number-1-facebook-strategy-post-photos/) - When the data backs up our marketing assumptions, it is always something we like to share. A couple eMarketer graphs came out this month from a study done by digital marketing agency Web Liquid. Amongst the findings we saw more support of photos reigning supreme when it comes to Facebook engagement. Video followed close behind,
- [Why Traditional Media Needs Text Messaging](https://socialfresh.com/why-traditional-media-needs-text-messaging/) - This article is part of a series that will be covered in more detail at Social Fresh Baltimore, our next social media conference, Nov 29-30. You’re listening to the radio while you’re getting ready for work when an ad comes on talking about an upcoming concert. You’re sitting on your couch watching TV when a
- [7 steps to build your online reputation worldwide](https://socialfresh.com/7-steps-to-build-your-online-reputation-worldwide/) - Social media, in the 21st century, presents the perfect platform for anyone who wants to build an international online reputation for business reasons. E-marketers understand the importance of global conversation to connect culturally and linguistically across continents, but also realize that the key to success is to leverage the tools that social media provides to
- [The Facebook Share, It Might Make You Forget The Like](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-share-button/) - Since Facebook implemented the “Share” option beneath a post in the news feed, there have been many viral images flying through users’ newsfeeds. This additional exposure is a direct result of users actively “Sharing” posts with their friends. The Share button is ultimately Facebook’s manual implementation of the viral effect. When a user Shares a
- [Social Media Conferences, 5 Tips to Maximize Your Experience](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-conferences-5-tips-to-maximize-your-experience/) - Social Media conferences are still exciting and new in the grand scheme of things. They create an exhilarating atmosphere. And they create a lot of conversation online because of all the different ways social media enthusiasts communicate online. That said, most conferences carry a hefty price tag and it is important that you understand how
- [The Ultimate Guide To Rewarding Community Members](https://socialfresh.com/reward-community-members/) - Originally published at FeverBee What’s the purpose of the reward? What will be different after you issue the reward? A good reward scheme identifies a desired outcome and creates a reward, based upon human motivation, which changes an individual’s behavior over the long-term. A bad reward scheme will do neither. A bad reward scheme will
- [How To Use Siri for Social Media Management](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-use-siri-for-social-media-management/) - In case you haven’t heard, Siri is the next big thing from the Apple team. This voice interaction system turns your iPhone into a virtual personal assistant, and with a wicked voice to boot. The technology behind it is revolutionary, so it’s no surprise that it’s making waves – even in social media management. Siri
- [5 Tips for Getting Bloggers to Attend and Write About Your Event](https://socialfresh.com/5-tips-for-getting-bloggers-to-attend-and-write-about-your-event/) - Originally published at Sakita Holley When it comes to event coverage, bloggers and traditional journalists should be treated differently, because they aren’t bound by the same set of content requirements. Where bloggers get to conceptualize and write about the things they love, journalists usually have to stick to a strict set of criteria for their
- [3 Reasons To Start Your Mobile Marketing With Text Messaging](https://socialfresh.com/3-reasons-to-start-your-mobile-marketing-with-text-messaging/) - This article is part of a series that will be covered in more detail at Social Fresh Baltimore, our next social media conference, Nov 29-30. What do you think of when someone says “mobile marketing”? Smartphone apps? A mobile website? QR codes? While these may be the first thoughts that pop into your head, they
- [How To Create a New Google+ Page and Connect It to Google Search](https://socialfresh.com/google-plus-pages-how-to/) - Yesterday Google+ finally launched their Pages feature, allowing users to create branded pages for businesses, bands, fictional characters or just about anything else you can think of. Google allowed select brands to create pages prior to the official rollout. The Muppets, Toyota and Macy's have all jumped on board, quickly planning 'Hangouts' for their followers.
- [7 Tips To Help You LAUNCH Business Growth Using Content And Generosity](https://socialfresh.com/launch-book-review-michael-stelzner/) - In Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition, Michael Stelzner dismisses traditional marketing messages and pushes the concept of success through giving the gift of great content. Stelzner believes people want valuable insight, access to great people and recognition – before they want products and services. Therefore, building trust with your potential
- [32% More Engagement On Facebook During The Weekend](https://socialfresh.com/argyle-info-graphic/) - You should send tweets out at 3pm every Wednesday. Also, chicken nuggets are best consumed in a Nissan Stanza, in the shade, on Thursday afternoons. According to my extensive testing. There have been a few "research" reports that talk about optimal times to post on social networks. Publishing and tracking dashboard Argyle Social (partner) decided to
- [Can Rewarding Fans Ruin Your Relationships With Them?](https://socialfresh.com/can-rewarding-fans-ruin-your-relationships-with-them/) - Originally published at TheCommunityManager.com When users are awesome, you should reward them right? Ehhhh.... maybe. Rewarding your users can end up being a bad thing. Why Bad? We'll start with an example. Say you have a message board, and there's one user who loves your company so much that they visit every day, constantly helping
- [Facebook Actions Can Turn Life Into A Game](https://socialfresh.com/facebooks-new-actions-turns-your-customers-life-into-a-game/) - By now you’ve noticed major changes to user profiles and apps on Facebook — and some new terms: timelines auto-published actions But what hasn’t been discussed is the implications to your business and why Facebook tied these two together the way they did. While the new profile timeline, scheduled to be rolled out gradually over
- [15 Ways to Use Twitter for Business](https://socialfresh.com/15-ways-to-use-twitter-for-business/) - Author: Kipp Bodnar is Inbound Marketing Strategist at HubSpot, the inbound marketing software leader that helps businesses with lead generation and lead management and co-author of The B2B Social Media Book. When Twitter started in 2006 it was a platform for technologists to communicate with each other in a quick and easy method. Five years
- [3 Ways for Marketers to Handle Disputes on Wikipedia](https://socialfresh.com/3-ways-for-marketers-to-handle-disputes-on-wikipedia/) - If you've read the prior posts on Wikipedia for marketing, you may be getting a pretty good idea on how to make positive contributions to Wikipedia that will benefit the brand, readers and the editorial community on Wikipedia. But for many, it's too late. When the community protests a marketer's content, it's shocking how fast
- [The New Trend of Bloggers Pitching Bloggers](https://socialfresh.com/the-new-trend-of-bloggers-pitching-bloggers/) - Every time I write a blog post, I post it on Twitter and Facebook. Most of us do this with our content because we want our news and opinions to be shared with all of our communities and extended circles; it gives our brands a better chance of getting noticed. But should it just end
- [3 Ideas For Using Social Media to Make Sales](https://socialfresh.com/3-ideas-for-using-social-media-to-make-sales/) - Often when appropriating funds for social media asks itself "Are we spending money on Social because everyone else is, or do we stand a chance at making a return on our investment here?" This is the age old question with social media, can you make real money directly from your effort in this arena. Of
- [Will Facebook Rollout Timelines For Businesses?](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-timeline-for-business-2/) - The Facebook timeline marks the biggest change to personal profiles that I can remember. It is a large shift. The obvious question that arises from this change is "will Facebook rollout timelines to business pages as well?" We simply do not know, but is where things could get pretty interesting (and disruptive) for businesses. Learning
- [Facebook Analytics: How Blogs Reacted to Steve Jobs' Passing](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-analytics-how-the-blogs-reacted-to-steve-jobs-passing/) - Steve Jobs' passing caused an outpouring of news, response, and emotion in the tech community and around the world. Social media became an outlet for consumers to react and reflect, as is often the case when important people leave us in this day and age. The real-time and social nature of these mediums seems to
- [Facebook Timeline, What Does It Mean For Your Business?](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-timeline-for-business/) - What is the new Facebook timeline? Timeline is the next evolution of the Facebook personal profile page. Todays Facebook profile is focused on a very brief list of past status updates and a slightly organized photo album. It works, but it doesn't go far enough for what Facebook wants. The new timeline tells a story. It
- [10 Reasons Why Your Blog Is Not Converting](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-engineer-your-blog-for-revenue/) - I met Derek Halpern (@derekhalpern) over 2 years ago, right before I held my first Social Fresh conference. I was telling him about this company I was launching called Social Fresh. It existed already, but mainly just in my head. We stayed in touch and last month I invited Derek to speak at our 10th
- [9 Ways Crowdbooster Will Read Your Community's Mind](https://socialfresh.com/9-ways-crowdbooster-will-read-your-communitys-mind/) - One key to running a successful online community is knowing what the community wants, when they will want it, and then delivering that to them before they even realize they wanted it in the first place. Tricky? Yes. Impossible? No. Crowdbooster is still in beta, but so far it has shown signs to assist community
- [5 Simple Social Crisis Steps For Blackberry](https://socialfresh.com/blackberry-digital-media-can-help-with-crisis-public-relations/) - Last week we were in the midst of a lesson in Crisis Public Relations at its worst from Blackberry. For a number of days there were outages worldwide and users unable to connect. And Blackberry spokespersons were communicating with messages like "Message delays were caused by a core switch failure in RIM's infrastructure." That’s not
- [8 Books For Your Community Managment Reading List](https://socialfresh.com/8-books-for-your-community-managment-reading-list/) - Earlier this year a #cmgrchat took place where community managers from across the country discussed the reading they do for work and for fun. More than a few community managers talked about the professional and personal inspiration they gain from a good book. There are a number of titles out there that are written about social
- [4 Community Management Keys From Disney](https://socialfresh.com/4-community-management-keys-from-disney/) - Joshua Paul had a great writeup last month over at Business2Community.com about a recent visit he had to Disney. I think we can all agree that when it comes to a brand experience or surprising and delighting customers, Paul is dead on that Disney gets top marks. "Disney has long used their understanding of community
- [FAQ: Creating Wikipedia Policies For Your Company](https://socialfresh.com/faq-creating-wikipedia-policies-for-your-company/) - This post is part of our series on Wikipedia for Marketing My biz-dev counterpart in California has discovered quite a few companies in the last few weeks that have established policies set by corporate legal, governance or communications teams against making edits to articles on Wikipedia for which the company has a Conflict of Interest.
- [Facebook Dwarfs All Other Social Activity Combined](https://socialfresh.com/facebooks-dwarfs-all-other-social-activity-combined/) - I came across two graphs in the past couple weeks that show just how badly Facebook is dominating social networking and the web as a whole. We know Facebook is winning, but just how badly? The first graph below illustrates not only the downfall of Myspace and the rise of Facebook. But it also shows
- [How Facebook Giveaways Can Enhance Wall Engagement](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-giveaways-engagement/) - If you’re the average Facebook user, you have 130 friends, are connected with 80 groups, events, and fan pages and most importantly spend 27% of your Facebook time browsing the newsfeed. That 27% represents the largest share of time spent on Facebook by the average user, making the Newsfeed the most popular single content section
- [What Does B2B Social Media Actually Mean?](https://socialfresh.com/what-b2b-social-media-actually-means/) - I've been to a lot of social media conferences, expecting to hear some tactics on how to do B2B social media, and all the presenter does is replace “consumers” with “businesses”. Chances are, I am not the only one this has happened to. Consumers and consumers acting on behalf of businesses interact inherently different on
- [4 Steps to Writing a Corporate Wiki](https://socialfresh.com/4-steps-to-writing-a-corporate-wiki/) - This post is part of our series on Wikipedia for Marketing In this post I'd like to give marketers a few tips on how to write or improve an article on their company, while following Wikipedia's guidelines for neutrality, verification and biographical tone. If you haven't read the first post on whether Wikipedia is right
- [A Few Simple Tricks For Engagement: Photos, Questions, Quotations](https://socialfresh.com/a-few-simple-tricks-for-engagement-photos-questions-quotations/) - A few cool stats came across my desk this morning, from social media management platform Roost, that I thought were worth sharing. If you are trying to up your engagement on Twitter and Facebook, here are a few tips and stats to help the cause. These are not magic steps but they are still worth
- [How To Fix Your Social Woes With A Content Strategy](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-fix-your-social-woes-with-a-content-strategy/) - I unfollowed someone on Twitter the other day for one tweet. It was from someone I like, but the post was from one of those automated daily link summary websites -- you know, the ones that send out a link to a page of top stories shared by you and your friends. My problem was
- [5 New Small Business Tools From TechCrunch Disrupt](https://socialfresh.com/5-new-small-business-tools/) - TechCrunch Disrupt, where dozens of new startups go to demo their product to investors and media, came to a close with a melting pot of some amazing new tools and services. If you had the chance to watch any of the live pitches on the Disrupt stream, you would have seen some of them. I
- [6 Steps to Success When Entering Your Brand Into An Online Contest](https://socialfresh.com/6-steps-to-success-brand-contests/) - Compassion International recently attempted to takeover the Twitter account of Water.org. We were unsuccessful in our bid, coming in second by 190 votes, after three weeks of campaigning. However, we still view the outcome as a success because … well, more on that later. For now, before committing your brand and its supporters to an
- [How To Win Over An Anti-Social Legal Team](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-win-over-an-anti-social-legal-team/) - Legal teams exist to protect companies. To close dangerous doors. To build up protective walls. To keep important information in. (Note: If you are on the legal team, please feel free to correct me here, I am no lawyer) It is true however that the openness and transparency of social media naturally causes a bit
- [22 Social Media Alerts Your Business Should Be Using](https://socialfresh.com/22-social-media-alerts-your-business-should-be-using/) - One of the easiest ways businesses can take advantage of social media is by establishing alerts that cover a wide range of topics. By doing so businesses can quickly monitor any social media activity about their company, industry or competition. By using free alert tools like Social Mention and Google Alerts (or by using the
- [Top 5 Ways Social Media is Used by the Travel Industry](https://socialfresh.com/top-5-ways-social-media-is-used-by-the-travel-industry/) - Because social media is such an organic form of promotion, its uses are as expansive as the imaginations of those using it. Another key element of social media as a marketing tool is that very often it’s the users themselves who create the content - lending it a community aspect that no other form of
- [HTML5 vs Apps, Who Will Win The Mobile Screen War?](https://socialfresh.com/html5-vs-apps/) - If you're reading this, chances are you're holding and/or reading this on an iPhone, Android, or Blackberry. Ok, if you have a Blackberry you're probably not reading this on your mobile device. Let's be serious. What you may not realize is the battle unfolding within the palm of your hand. While you're waging war on
- [Where Did All The Google Places Reviews Go?](https://socialfresh.com/where-did-all-the-google-places-reviews-go/) - There is nothing quite like spending time researching, organizing, and preparing a presentation for a client just to have the information become obsolete. To add injury to insult, I had just finished the final touches for my clients online reviews presentation a few days before Google Places dropped all third party review content. A large
- [Wikipedia for Marketing, Should Your Business Use It?](https://socialfresh.com/wikipedia-marketing/) - This post is part of our series on Wikipedia for Marketing How can I use Wikipedia to market my small business? A common question in Wikipedia webinars and workshops with an unpopular answer. The answer is, you don't. It's my only consolation in a tough conversation on Wikipedia's definition of "worthy of notice" that I
- [8 Simple Social Media Lessons From Pro Sports](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-lessons-sports/) - I first learned about the KISS acronym on the baseball field in junior high school. Whether it's “Keep it Simple, Stupid” or “Keep It Short And Simple,” the most important word is always simple. This was important on the baseball field because swinging a bat required smooth intuition rather than disjointed steps. Today, when I look
- [5 Challenges For Managing Customer Service On Facebook](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-customer-service/) - Whenever I come across a Facebook brand Page with dozens of unanswered fan questions on the wall, I cringe. It's the digital equivalent of walking into a retail store and not finding a single employee to help you return a previous purchase or to tell you more about a product you're thinking of buying. That's
- [11 Places To Find Content Your Community Will +1](https://socialfresh.com/find-good-content-sources/) - I talk to clients everyday about content. Where is it coming from? Who will write it? Where should we post it? I used to think that public speaking was the average person's greatest fear. I am now convinced that they fear content! What's to fear? It's just words right? Well, yes and no. Content, especially
- [7 Steps For International Social Media Success](https://socialfresh.com/international-social-media/) - Since the birth of social networking phenomena such as Facebook, Twitter and the currently booming Google+, even the most antiquated or small fry businesses can implement social networking strategies to get their messages out there with few barriers. International PR and marketing via social media can be extremely beneficial, not only for promoting of your
- [Is Your Social Media Strategy Sailing In Circles?](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-objectives-strategy-tactics/) - Are you confused about what your social media mission, goals, objectives, strategies and tactics are? If so, you're not alone. For years, many marketers have gnashed their teeth over the definitions and priorities of the various pieces of the puzzle. Personally, I have worked with companies and clients for whom strategy was paramount before any
- [You Are Not Marketing Unless You Are Testing](https://socialfresh.com/a-b-testing/) - Ahhhh, metrics and analytics. For those of us that aren't deeply involved in conversion (cough cough making money), we resort to labels for the "numbers people." Some call them analysts, technical folks or SEO / analytics gurus and tend to think that this isn't our job as marketers. Friends, you are mistaken. Marketing without data
- [Is Pagelever Better Than Facebook's Own Insights?](https://socialfresh.com/pagelever-data-facebook-insights/) - They've got a great selling point: Facebook insights doesn't do the job for gaining actionable data. But can Pagelever deliver the goods? We're about to find out. Getting Started I was really excited to check-out this new tool and eagerly signed-up for my free trial. Unfortunately, I was denied immediate gratification as I was notified
- [How Do You Determine The Engagement Of Your Twitter Audience?](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-audience-engagement/) - This quality video from Socialflow talks about a study they did to measure audience engagements of 6 major media Twitter accounts. Should you be more concerned about followers, retweets, or clicks on links to your content? Smart questions from a very interesting study. Who do you think would have a more engaged audience: Fox News,
- [How To Increase Content Readership](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-increase-content-readership/) - Marketers are publishers. We are producers of content strategically created to attract our different buyers and to meet our company goals and objectives. We’ve started investing in content for our blog, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and other online entities in order to attract our different buyer personas and get them to take action. We’ve done
- [Looking Past The Checkin For Location Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/location-based-marketing-breakdown/) - A year ago the conversation on Location based services focused on check in apps. Foursquare vs Gowalla. And then SCVNGR. And then Facebook Places. And now there are 9,017 check in apps (I think I counted that right). It is nice to see that the ecosystem of that discussion today, is much more mature. Today
- [Why Non-Profit Social Media Is Unique](https://socialfresh.com/non-profit-social-media/) - I attend all the big social media conferences and some of the smaller ones. I’ve heard the who’s who of social media deliver keynote after keynote. I’ve read their books, and I read their blogs. Daily. I’ve learned about engaging and empowering the tribal groundswell as a trust agent of the now revolution via open
- [How To Focus The Social Strategy For Your One Person Business](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-solo-entrepreneur/) - Everyday a sub section entrepreneurs are faced with the challenge and reward of going it alone. No matter how you look at it, solo entrepreneurs are in charge of every aspect of their business. From winning and retaining clients to marketing and planning, the independent go-getter is officially the boss, the intern and everything in
- [7 Marketing Tips To Grow Your Blog's Following](https://socialfresh.com/7-marketing-tips-to-grow-your-blogs-following/) - Now, if you are reading this post. you are probably hoping that I’m about to divulge the “secret sauce” to standing out in the crowded blogging space. Unfortunately, I don’t have that secret sauce or magic formula for getting millions of blog readers with the click of a mouse. If I did, I’d probably be
- [5 Fast Tips For Your First Facebook Ads](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-advertising-tips/) - Creating the ideal converting ad on any platform can be tricky. I know it! Having tried Linkedin, Google, and Facebook advertising platforms I found it tricky to find the right fit. In creating online ads, it's up to you to make them appeal to who you are targeting, but also to keeping an eye on
- [The One Reason Most Business Blogs Fall Flat](https://socialfresh.com/business-blogging-mistake/) - How do you run a marathon? Take a step. Repeat. When I first started blogging for a business I made plenty of mistakes. The biggest of which, I am going to talk about below. But it is important to note that as long as you are writing blog posts for your business, you are moving
- [How To Build And Use An Email List](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-build-and-use-an-email-list/) - Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of social marketing and it is still growing strong. In fact, a recent study found that email marketing commitments increased by 50% in the last four years. The question isn’t whether email marketing has weight in the digital marketing space, but whether you’re using email marketing correctly.
- [6 Secrets That Will Bring Focus To Your Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-focus/) - It was good fortune that got me into social media three and a half years ago. I was in the right meeting at the right time and I raised my hand to say, "I'll do it." I launched and now manage the Compassion International blog and am a student of social media relying heavily on
- [It's About Making The Customer The Center Of Attention](https://socialfresh.com/its-about-making-the-customers-the-center-of-attention/) - I think Spike Jones (@spikejones) said it best on Twitter when he wrote "The problem with fishbowls is that you end up swimming around in your own crap." I've never really liked fish either, so I get exactly what Spike is getting at here. I have always been much more of a dog person. Spike
- [Highlights From The First #SocialFresh Chat](https://socialfresh.com/highlights-from-the-first-socialfresh-chat/) - We tried something new last night. Yes, we hopped on the Twitter chat bandwagon. Yes it was painful [sarcasm]. Why Another Twitter Chat? We did not want to create another Twitter chat that echoed the dozens already out there talking about social media. But we also wanted to capture the community and discussion that Twitter
- [4 Small Businesses Using Social Media Marketing On Facebook](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-pages-small-business-examples/) - Originally published at Women Unlimited by Julie Hall Earlier this week I did a presentation on Facebook for Small Business (I’m going to run a webinar on this in August, so keep an eye out) at the Fresh Business Thinking conference. As part of the presentation, I wanted to include real life small business facebook page examples,
- [How To Recover From a Social Media Blunder](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-recover-from-a-social-media-blunder/) - You don’t have to go far to find some bad decisions companies have made on social media. (Just look here. Or here.Or even here.) You also don’t have to let a slip-up avalanche to a mudslide on the reputation you’ve worked so hard to build. Everyone knows that on the very granular level, every tweet,
- [Why Email List Building Is Your Number One Priority](https://socialfresh.com/why-email-list-building-is-your-number-one-priority/) - Tomorrow I get to spread some email list building knowledge with some very cool people. Join Chris Brogan, DJ Waldow, Peter Shankman and myself as we team up to talk email lists. If you missed it before, we made a pretty badass video trailer for the webinar (see it at the bottom of the post
- [3 Blog Post Blueprints That Build Fans](https://socialfresh.com/blog-post-examples/) - Think of your business as a Starbucks. Ok, besides the fact that you get free coffee. Help me out here a little bit ok? Think of the free wifi as your blog content. You will have a few folks freeload and hide in the corner without buying any venti-soy-etc. But your free wifi (blog content)
- [How To Use Facebook And Blogging Together For Your Business](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-blogging-2/) - Back in the day when you would log into Freindster or Myspace, the vast majority were not doing it to build a business. And when we went onto Geocities or LiveJournal, we were writing, or "blogging," but not so much about our brands. Well, things have changed a bit. Today, over 51% of the U.S.
- [8 Ways Social Media Can Teach You About Your Business](https://socialfresh.com/8-ways-social-media-can-teach-you-about-your-business/) - 30 years ago if you wanted to learn anything, you had a few very limited options. The best of which were maybe the library, a community college, and grandpa. Today, of course, we have the collective knowledge of the world on the internet. And with the rise of social media, it is more accessible than
- [The Founding Of A Social Media Company: Likeable Media](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-company-likeable/) - A Social Story written by: Dave Kerpen, Chief Executive Officer at Likeable Media A Likeable Beginning I was the top salesperson in the country at Radio Disney in 2001-- and had planned to stay that way for a long time to come. Suddenly, a bright and bubbly new employee started at the company. We shared
- [Fan Loop: How To Create Loyalty Without Customers](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-create-loyalty-without-customers/) - Whenever I hear someone talk about a sales funnel, I picture the large coin donation funnels at the mall. I use to beg my parents for a quarter to drop into them. I would be fascinated for a good 3 or 4 minutes watching it spiral down the contraption before it ultimately dived into the
- [Product Launch Marketing Lessons From 3 Smart Startups](https://socialfresh.com/product-launch-marketing-lessons-from-3-smart-startups/) - Have a great idea? Now run with it! Launch that startup now. But more importantly, begin marketing your idea and product (Or lack their of) as soon as you get the chance. Time is of the essence when first rolling out something new. You need to get into the market before anyone else. Spark Boutik
- [Top 25 BlogWorld Expo NY Takeaways](https://socialfresh.com/top-25-blogworld-expo-ny-takeaways/) - This year, BlogWorld & New Media Expo 2011 (@blogworld) was in New York City. Experts and industry gurus from the fields of blogging and new media shared their knowledge, experience, advice, quirks, techniques and more through sessions and various panels. Among some of the top industry leaders in attendance were Jay Baer, Jason Falls, Jason Keath,
- [How To Stop Drowning In Social Share Buttons](https://socialfresh.com/social-buttons/) - In the past week we have seen the announcement of the Google +1 public launch, the Twitter Follow button, and the LinkedIn Job Application button. So if the dozens of other social buttons out there were not enough for you, get ready to get dizzy. Social buttons allow website owners to encourage certain actions and make those
- [Social Media Engagement, Are You Doing It Wrong?](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-engagement/) - We’re talking engagement as it applies to online efforts to create and maintain dialogue with your community. We often call this community management. Would you rather be managed or engaged? Engagement helps to establish and sustain relationships. And by nature it helps to organically grow your community, your customers and your sales. If you want
- [15 Slideshare Marketing Secrets](https://socialfresh.com/slideshare-marketing-how-to/) - In early 2010, Laura Gainor was running her own photography and design business in Charlotte when her husband Brian found out he was being transferred to Milwaukee. They had just three weeks to move. Laura decided to take advantage of the move and pursue a full-time job in social media. She targeted a job opening
- [A Blueprint For Building Your Campaign Case Study](https://socialfresh.com/campaign-casestudy/) - Tracking the success of your campaign is essential for demonstrating the ROI of your marketing efforts. It will also be key when you're pitching new business down the road, and a potential client wants to see your successful campaign history. Whether you're showing your client their money is well spent or you're looking for approval
- [Social Media Best Practices, Do They Exist?](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-best-practices/) - Since becoming the Director of Training for Social Fresh on January 1, 2011, I've greatly enjoyed the challenges it presents. I've worked closely with Jason Keath in creating the new Social Fresh Academy (to be released very soon) and had the pleasure of working with several very smart experts to create the one-day Facebook training
- [The Founding Of A Social Agency: Mullen](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-agency-mullen/) - A Social Story written by: Edward Boches, Chief Innovation Officer at Mullen Over the last three years Mullen has emerged as one of the few advertising agencies to aggressively embrace social media. While many “traditional” ad agencies eschewed the whole concept of social as recently as three years ago (they finally woke up and started
- [How to Make Your Social Media Efforts PR-Friendly](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-public-relations/) - The saying goes that any press is good press. While Facebook might disagree right now, in most cases PR can be an effective and inexpensive way to get the word out about your company. Gone are the days of PR agencies being the only way to get in touch with journalists – these days anyone
- [How To Attend Blogworld NYC And Level Up In Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/blogworld-nyc/) - Blogworld (NYC is May 24-26, 2011) is a can't miss social media conference every year. This is coming from someone who runs a series of social media conferences that does pretty well. Blogworld is traditionally in Las Vegas every Fall. Next week is their first NY event. Combine one of the top social media events
- [3 Reasons Why The Facebook Ad Network Will Grow Bigger Than Google's](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-ad-network-growth-vs-google/) - Did you know that Facebook's ad network is growing faster than Google's did? It's true. If you compare the first four years of ads sales by Facebook and Google, Facebook did better every year. Look at the numbers from SeekingAlpha and compare those to Google's past financials. SeekingAlpha's Projections Current Trend Projections The last
- [How The Wall Street Journal Put Graphs In Their Tweets](https://socialfresh.com/how-the-wall-street-journal-put-graphs-in-their-tweets/) - I love to see innovation and creativity in the use of social media. This new series of tweets from WSJ.com is no exception. Using unicode characters to display the up and down swings of the unemployment rate is genius. They don't have it down to a science, and who knows, it might be a gimmick
- [7 Reasons Your Blog Is Failing](https://socialfresh.com/blogging-mistakes/) - Setting up a blog is not that difficult. In fact, most people can easily use WordPress or Blogger to set one up in a matter of minutes. With the sheer number of blogs today, estimated at 126 million by BlogPulse, only a very small percent of them are actually active and good. The vast majority
- [Timely Updates Features for 15k Users](https://socialfresh.com/timely-updates-15000-users/) - We told you about Timely, a Twitter optimization tool by Flowtown, last month as a tool to help you time your tweets for prime active times of the day for your specific Twitter community. Timely also provided some basic performance data, such as number of retweets, that they have recently expanded. The service now includes
- [Would a Facebook Buy Button Be Successful? I Think So.](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-buy-button/) - Facebook wants to extend its services into every corner of the open web. Since the launch of the like button, they have been doing just that. Their most recent addition was the Send button, which makes it easy to send private messages to individuals or groups of people. There are numerous social plugins they could
- [Slideshare Presentation How To, 5 Tips](https://socialfresh.com/5-tips-for-an-effective-slideshare-presentation/) - When you think of uploading a video, you think of YouTube. When you think of checking-in, it's probably FourSquare. And when you think of sharing a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, you think of Slideshare. Since it was founded in October of 2006, SlideShare has grown rapidly - currently sporting over 50 million monthly visitors. But
- [Top Corporate Blogs, Finalists Announced](https://socialfresh.com/top-corporate-blog/) - Top 10 Corporate Blog Awards: Nominations | Finalists | Top 10 Winners Out of the Fortune 100, more companies are investing in Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube than in a corporate blog. Why? Because blogging for business is hard. It takes ongoing resources and time that are not needed on most social media platforms. Brand blogs
- [5 First Steps For Creating A Call to Action](https://socialfresh.com/call-to-action-how-to/) - You know those websites that are litered with content, font too small to read, and are just too confusing to even be bothered with? The 1990's style put-every-word-imaginable-on-our-site sites? They are long gone. The purpose of a website or landing page today is to get visitors to take action, whether you’re asked to submit your
- [How To Get A Job In Social Media: A Definitive Guide](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-get-a-job-in-social-media-a-definitive-guide/) - So you want a job in social media huh? Well, if you're reading this you're already doing some things right. Social media as an industry is still quite young, but some common job titles have started to emerge. Community Manager Social Media Manager Strategist Account Manager Analyst Social Media Monitoring Manager Digital Communications And many
- [Humanize These 3 Functions To Build A Social Business](https://socialfresh.com/the-social-business-imperative/) - Many organizations today spend a lot of time, resources and financial investment trying to understand the social landscape and engaging externally with customers and prospects. They are hiring community managers, strategists, agencies, and technology vendors. They are joining councils, sharing best practices with other companies and even sending their teams to get certified in social
- [The ABC's of Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/the-abcs-of-social-media/) - Social media has its own dialect, maybe its own language. It doesn't talk the same as television, radio, or print media. Those platforms only communicate in one direction. Have you ever had a conversation with an ad on television? How about a print ad in your favorite magazine? Not likely. Same goes for a 15
- [3 Simple Tools For Merging Social and Search](https://socialfresh.com/integrate-social-media-and-seo/) - With Google’s confirmation that yes, social signals are taken into account in the Google algorithm, lots of new attention is being paid in regard to social search. Marketers are wondering now more than ever what this means for integrating their social media and SEO efforts. Can you really use Twitter to boost your Google rankings?
- [Are you being played for a Facebook fool?](https://socialfresh.com/are-you-being-played-for-a-facebook-fool/) - The Facebook 520 reviews Facebook pages, covers innovative uses of Facebook pages and the tools used to create them. Be sure to send a shout-out with your recommendations for pages, tools, tips and techniques to lisa.peyton@gmail.com. Find any great April Fool's pranks on Facebook today? I'm not having any luck spotting them. I was hoping
- [Are Social Media Agencies Immature?](https://socialfresh.com/are-social-media-agencies-immature/) - Jason Keath, the fearless overlord here at SocialFresh.com sent me a question today asking "What do you think is the biggest mistake social media service providers are currently making?". I didn't have to hesitate when I responded that their biggest mistake was in: "Failing to define (or understand) their place in the Social Media ecosystem.
- [7 Indicators of Twitter Influence](https://socialfresh.com/7-critical-twitter-influence-indicators/) - Originally published as a Quora answer The NY Times recently reported what regular users of Twitter already know. Follower counts are an indicator of influence but not a very good one. And yes, followers can be and are gamed frequently with the assistance of shady web services. Here are a few more critical Twitter influence
- [How To Leverage Today's Consumer Influencers [SLIDESHOW]](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-influence/) - Feel free to skip to the end for the powerpoint. I won't tell anyone. The hardest part about talking about influence is framing the conversation right. Many times people just want to talk about Klout or how to send pitch emails to bloggers. I gave a presentation yesterday to PRSA Charlotte about "A New Influence."
- [Finally, A Social Media Pundit Show Worth Watching](https://socialfresh.com/finally-a-social-media-pundit-show-worth-watching/) - The show is called Tech Interruption (#Techi) and it is awesome. Allen & Gerritsen, a marketing agency based in Boston, launched the show at SXSW on the PepsiCo Plugged-in Stage. Each show kicks off with at least 2 pundits debating 5 social media hot topics, 1 minute each. They then do at least one 4
- [How To Increase Your Empathy And Improve Your Social Media Results](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-empathy/) - A few years ago when I started to explore social media, I assumed that my skills as a "communications professional" were all I'd need to succeed. Good writer? Check. Technically savvy? Got it. Willing to share and engage with others? Certainly. Oddly enough, although I thought I had the bases covered, my initial efforts fell
- [Who's Really Going to SXSW? A Twitter Analysis](https://socialfresh.com/sxsw-twitter-analysis/) - The level of anticipation for SXSW is almost overwhelming. iPhone batteries are quivering at the thought of it. Geeks of all kinds are just hours aways from Austin to kick off the interactive leg of SXSW. At times like this, I go straight to the data. I naturally want to analyze the madness I'm experiencing
- [Facebook iFrames How To](https://socialfresh.com/building-to-branding-all-about-new-iframes-on-facebook/) - As a professional who has been implementing campaigns in Facebook for clients for years, I know one thing to be true: change is coming. Dealing with change well is a prerequisite for marketing on Facebook. On March 10th, all Facebook pages will change over to a new layout. The biggest of these new Facebook changes is
- [5 Simple Tips for Making Shareable Content](https://socialfresh.com/5-simple-tips-to-making-shareable-content/) - If our current social media habits were any indication of our childhood ways, then we never would have had a problem sharing our toys, Fruit Roll-Ups or juice boxes with siblings or friends. We simply love to share online. Whether it’s information about ourselves on Facebook, interesting facts on Twitter, or the latest industry news
- [How To Spend Money On Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-is-an-investment/) - My company recently conducted a survey and there was one stat that really stood out. 94% of businesses surveyed felt that adding social media to the marketing mix would help meet overall business objectives. That was expected since social media has become THE marketing buzz word over the last few years. The shocking part was
- [4 Steps To Finding Better Influencers](https://socialfresh.com/4-steps-to-finding-better-influencers/) - Gaining respect, trust and social capital with digital influencers in your space is fast become the holy grail of online marketing. But how do you identify who is influencing who? Using a variety of web analytics and social metrics can help you map influence across social platforms and identify patterns with the key players in
- [A Marketer's Guide To The Evolving Ecosystem of Social Barcodes](https://socialfresh.com/a-marketers-guide-to-the-evolving-ecosystem-of-social-barcodes/) - As a kid, I was always envious of the grocery store cashiers getting to scan barcodes all day. Those clerks had a cool toy that I could not have, and I always loved the sound of a successful scan. North American retail is essentially a sea of barcodes. Barcodes are the reason why retailers are
- [Free Social Media Monitoring Tools](https://socialfresh.com/5-free-and-underrated-social-media-monitoring-tools/) - It’s no secret there are a massive number of paid social media monitoring services out there. They offer great social media analytics tracking, reputation management, the ability to view top influencers and countless metrics and data sets. But many small businesses, start-ups and non-profits don’t have the luxury of a large social media marketing budget.
- [Learn The Best Time To Tweet with @Flowtown's Timely [REVIEW]](https://socialfresh.com/learn-the-best-time-to-tweet-timely-review/) - Timely, one of our top new social tools of 2010, is opening to the public today. Learning form your most recent 199 messages on Twitter, Timely predicts when you are most likely to get retweeted during the day and schedules tweets for you accordingly. You can schedule up to 3 tweets a day through the
- [5 Twitter Audience Analytics: Beyond Follower Count](https://socialfresh.com/5-twitter-audience-analytics-beyond-follower-count/) - Anyone that manages a brand's Twitter account hears a lot about follower counts. Some managers and clients look at followers as the ultimate success metric and go to great lengths to keep it growing. Certainly, follower count is useful to show reach, but many social media folks are searching for deeper insights about their audience.
- [Al Jazeera's Promoted Twitter Trends See Huge Follower Growth](https://socialfresh.com/al-jazeeras-promoted-twitter-trends-see-huge-follower-growth/) - Twitter shared some stats and behind the scenes story about how Al Jazeera has used Promoted Trends this past week for their coverage of the political unrest in Egypt. Al Jazeera's english language channel has not gotten a lot of love in the US so far, with only 3 American cities currently tuning in. So
- [A Blueprint For Online Super Bowl Ad Success](https://socialfresh.com/a-blueprint-for-online-super-bowl-ad-success/) - Every January marketers get giddy, knowing a bevy of Super Bowl commercials are just around the corner. And every year the dominating questions remain the same: Which commercial will be the funniest? Which commercial will be the biggest online? It may as well be a marketing Super Bowl in addition to the football game they
- [Your Social Media Goals Are Half Way There](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-goals/) - Without a compass, a ship is lost. Social media can suck you into a time wasting spiral if you do not navigate toward a specific destination. It is easy to get sidetracked in the distraction heavy world of Youtube and Twitter and Facebook. Every business knows to set clear goals, and it is no exception.
- [Private Community Generates 680% Sales Conversion Increase [CASESTUDY]](https://socialfresh.com/private-community-generates-680-sales-conversion-increase-casestudy/) - Editor's Note: We are working to provide more case studies to its readers based on our social media case study template. Please join us in using this template. CareOne Debt Relief Services has implemented a social media measurement strategy that has allowed them to successfully prove that involvement within their online community has a significant impact
- [How Math Controls Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/how-math-controls-social-media/) - Algorithms are running some of the coolest social media technologies on the web right now. Algorithm is a fancy word for a set of rules to solve a problem. It is a math equation. Everything from what products Amazon.com thinks you will like to the AdAge 150 blog rankings are determined by an algorithm. These
- [Bloggers or Press, Who Should You Pitch?](https://socialfresh.com/pitching-bloggers-mainstream-media-or-both/) - So your product is built, your site is set up, and you're ready to let the world know about it. The next step used to be pretty straightforward. Write a press release, and pump it out to wire services and the journalists you're able to reach. Today, it's not so straightforward. Should you turn to
- [4 Tools To Better Time Your Twitter Updates [HOW TO]](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-target-your-twitter-audience-at-the-right-time/) - Listening and engaging with your current and potential customers on Twitter are the first steps in jumping into the conversation. Creating and sharing content with your audience to teach them more about your industry is the next phase. But how can you take your engagement even further? Timing is the next step. Targeting your audience
- [How To Use Social Media To Stalk And Steal Customers](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-use-social-media-to-stalk-and-steal-customers/) - You might call it stalking or even stealing. I call it using the information publicly and readily available for your organizations benefit. Think customer acquisition and competitive intelligence. As more individuals get involved in social activities online, more and more information is being published about them. The same can be said for companies. Many of
- [How To Better Track Links You Share Through Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-better-track-links-you-share-through-social-media/) - One of the primary benefits of social media is the ability to drive traffic to your website and blog. That’s great, but what about measuring the results of what people actually click on? If you’re like many people—and I was guilty of this for quite awhile myself—you might be doing some “lazy” tracking, using tools
- [An Awesome Comparison Guide for Creating Location-Based Deals](https://socialfresh.com/a-comparison-guide-for-creating-location-based-offers/) - Deals. They are everywhere these days. With our economy in a serious recession, consumers are laser-focused on getting the most for their money and EVERYONE loves a great deal. With the advent of location-based applications like Foursquare and Facebook Places, deals are becoming more relevant than ever before. The ability to geo-target a consumer walking
- [10 Shockingly Simple Steps For Setting Up A Business Youtube Page](https://socialfresh.com/10-shockingly-simple-steps-for-setting-up-a-business-youtube-page/) - Ah YouTube, that website of wonder. It’s changed the way we exchange information, entertain, titillate, distract ourselves from reality i.e. David After Dentist, and of course promote a brand. While it’s simple enough for a ten year-old to use, setting up a YouTube Channel for a brand requires some basic thought and direction. Follow these
- [Can Social Media Help Corporations Innovate?](https://socialfresh.com/can-social-media-help-corporation-innovate/) - Perhaps one of the most effective uses of social media tools is inside organizations where they can facilitate collaborative work and learning. In a global marketplace where disruptive shifts are inevitable, organizations need to leverage the creativity and passion of their employees, partners and customers. These "communities of practice" are frequently untapped engines of value
- [Integrated Social Media Marketing Can Still Fall Short](https://socialfresh.com/email-facebook-integration-falls-short/) - This blog post originally appeared on the Blue Sky Factory blog. The More You "Like" The More You Save. That was the subject line of an email I received from Hydro Flask on November 20th, 2010. (Personal aside, I'm a huge Hydro Flask fan). As an email marketing guy who spends a lot of time
- [Use Brain Power Not Money to Reach More People](https://socialfresh.com/reach-more-people-with-social-media/) - Mike Volpe of Hubspot drops some great perspective here for businesses stuck in the "spend more to reach more people" trap. Advertising can be a valuable tool to reach people, but sometimes brain power can be a much better option. Mike and Hubspot do this kind of thing everyday, using their research and creativity to
- [Social Media Monitoring: Big Brand Bang for Under $100](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-monitoring-big-brand-bang-for-under-100-bucks/) - By Lisa Peyton, VP Bonfire Social Media Let me start off by assuring that none of the platforms mentioned have compensated me in any way or asked me to promote their products. I simply hoped to find a good tool for a reasonable price that would allow me to track metrics associated with campaign goals.
- [Personal Branding And The Growing Trend Of Community Managers](https://socialfresh.com/personal-branding-and-the-growing-trend-of-community-managers/) - Community management has really taken off in the past few years because companies are seeing value in becoming closer to their customers and other stakeholders. Companies are looking for feedback, ideas, and to provide support to their communities in order to increase loyalty and satisfaction, as well as attract new customers. Read Write Web listed
- [2 New Ways To Find Influencers Quickly And Affordably](https://socialfresh.com/2-new-ways-to-find-influencers-quickly-and-affordably/) - Earlier this year, I was charged with helping several clients find the "influencers" in their respective categories. It turned out to be harder than I expected. Searches on Google, Technorati, Twitter and many other sites led to a lot of dead ends and the whole exercise took more time than it should have. Not only
- [Why Consumers Love Q&A Sites](https://socialfresh.com/why-consumers-love-qa-sites/) - Q&A websites have slowly evolved to become a major resource on the web today. I assure you it's no fad, the "answers" trend is here to stay. In fact, it could even be the future of how internet users find information. Google has owned search for some time, but more recently people are more and
- [Stop Putting Off Your Content Plan](https://socialfresh.com/stop-putting-off-your-content-plan/) - With the release of my book Content Rules, I know I'm going to get asked a lot more to come in and consult with companies. They'll want me to help them create marketing campaigns that involve a detailed content strategy for them. I've been doing it for years as part of other agencies and love
- [SEO First Steps, 5 Tips For Boosting Your Blog](https://socialfresh.com/5-first-steps-to-boost-your-blog-seo/) - It's no secret that most companies today should have a blog. It's often the homebase of your social media world. But a blog doesn't guarantee readers. One of the most important factors that will drive people to your blog is Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. You can easily plunk down $5k to $10K on an
- [A Template To Help Start Your Social Media Policy](https://socialfresh.com/a-template-to-help-start-your-social-media-policy/) - Still working on your social media policy? Not sure where to start? What should it include? In previous posts, I helped explain the difference between a social media policy or plan. I also detailed 5 principles to keep in mind regarding a social media policy. But now it's time to actually write one. Below is
- [5 Simple Steps For More YouTube Views](https://socialfresh.com/simple-steps-for-more-youtube-views/) - Given the simplicity of YouTube, increasing video views and engagement sounds like it would be a basic process, i.e., create good content, set it live, and alert consumers. Right? Wrong. Like anything that sounds simple, changing a tire, getting a colonoscopy, spending an afternoon with your mother-in-law, etc, increasing video views and engagement on your
- [Old Spice, How To Replicate The Success](https://socialfresh.com/old-spice-how-to-replicate-the-success/) - It's been a few months and yet advertisers and consumers alike are still talking about how Old Spice took social media by storm. Since the conclusion of the campaign, we've seen parodies and copy cat failures, but there are things we can learn from the campaign to create success in most social media campaigns. 1.
- [7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Envoys](https://socialfresh.com/7-habits-of-highly-effective-social-envoys/) - Not that long ago Seattle Social Media Club was graced by the presence of David Armano, SVP at Edelman Digital. He talked a bit about the different tasks of community management. (Read the full recap of his talk here.) One of these tasks was something we all do a lot of, but quite honestly I
- [Don't Let Fans And Followers Blind You](https://socialfresh.com/tracking-social-media-success-with-non-social-metrics/) - Everyone is always talking about how to define success in social media. Is it getting followers and likes, is it getting retweeted, is it driving traffic, clicks, sales, etc? Is it just building relationships and earning trust? Is it driving awareness of your company and its products/services? Ultimately whatever you use to define success should
- [How To Bring Social Media Lessons To Your Real World Marketing](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-bring-social-media-lessons-to-your-real-world-marketing/) - I attend quite a few events. Even at great ones (take BlogWorld for example), exhibit space is littered with free swag, booth babes and promotional offers used to suck us all in. We wanted to do something a little different at Social Fresh Charlotte... help others. Phonebooth is a phone solution for SMBs with Free
- [Is Your Social Media Agency Faking It?](https://socialfresh.com/is-your-social-media-agency-faking-it/) - As a 20-year vet of the advertising business and someone who successfully built a social media practice within a traditional ad agency, I often get emails, calls and DM’s from client side marketing folks that are trying to answer this question. Given the newness of social media, clients must really be sure their agency understands
- [Social Media Case Study Template](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-case-study-template/) - Social media loves it some case studies. Social Fresh and myself have been just as big of a culprit as anyone. Hell, the Social Fresh conference series has used it in our marketing since day one. The problem is, most case studies out there are little more than a couple descriptive paragraphs about a few
- [SEO and Social Sittin' In A Tree R-A-N-K-I-N-G](https://socialfresh.com/seo-and-social-sittin-in-a-tree-r-a-n-k-i-n-g/) - There are a lot of areas and disciplines that share overlapping interests with social media. That is right, social media is not the only online marketing channel out there. One of the stronger ones is SEO. Social media offers up a wealth of opportunity and benefit for your site(s) to perform at a much higher
- [How To Stop Ignoring Your Social Media Advocates](https://socialfresh.com/finding-advocates-on-the-social-web/) - One of the great things about advocates is that you can completely ignore them and they will still love your brand, buy your products and tell others about it. Imagine what would happen if you spent just a little time getting to know your advocates and showing them that you care. The question you may
- [Your Content Isn't Social](https://socialfresh.com/your-content-isnt-social/) - As social marketers, we’re often asked to share and publish traditional marketing content in our social channels. We all know the drill… that demo from your product team, the animation from retail, those overly composed tweets pointing to your corporate .com product launch, etc. Spoiler It’s not shared, liked, re-tweeted, or viewed. It’s not entirely
- [Podcasting Crosses The Chasm](https://socialfresh.com/podcasting-crosses-the-chasm/) - Last week at Blogworld, I presented some new research on the state of podcasting in the U.S.. While social media adoption has far outstripped podcast usage, podcasting has continued its steady growth relatively unabated, and today 27% of Americans 12+ have ever watched or listened to a podcast. That's roughly 70 million people - not
- [Is It Worth It To Repost Tweets?](https://socialfresh.com/is-it-worth-it-to-repost-tweets/) - The topic of whether or not to repost your tweets on twitter is definitely flame-war fodder. There are people with very strong views in both camps. Those in favor of it argue that it increases traffic by hitting people who may have otherwise missed your previous message. Those against it argue that quality content will
- [14 Tips To Live Tweet Events Effectively](https://socialfresh.com/14-tips-to-live-tweet-events-effectively/) - As Martha Stewart might say, live tweeting is a good thing. During events, it keeps you on your toes and allows you to come across as knowledgeable and connected. Your tweets can also become a helpful resources for yourself and others. Pre-planning is key to the outcome of your live tweeting efforts. While it's possible
- [Lowe's To Launch 90% Off Coupons Through Facebook](https://socialfresh.com/lowes-to-launch-90-off-black-friday-party-on-facebook/) - Talk about making a splash. Lowe's Home Improvement is planning on releasing a massive Facebook campaign early next month that will give their Facebook fans 90% off certain products. They will host this "Black Friday Sneak Peek Party" on the Lowe's Facebook page starting at 12:01 am on November 5th. The campaign will last for
- [Are You Using Social Media Tools To Pretend To Care?](https://socialfresh.com/are-you-using-social-media-tools-to-pretend-to-care/) - Stuart Tracte (@stwo) got some good video today of Brian Simpson (@bsimi) of the Roger Smith Hotel (@rshotel) talking about Community Management. Brian was summarizing a couple thoughts at the Community Managers NYC Meetup. He focused on using social media tools to better your offline interactions rather than just online conversations. "We don't use the
- [Inspire Weirdness And Shun The Boring: An Interview with Groupon](https://socialfresh.com/inspire-weirdness-and-shun-the-boring-an-interview-with-groupon/) - Some time ago I was talking with a friend on Twitter about how awesome Groupon's copy writing was (Seriously, it's worth subscribing to their emails JUST for that. The deals are also epic of course, but the writing - whoa!). That's when I decided I MUST interview them. How does a company who's been lauded
- [Planning Your Owned Media Strategy](https://socialfresh.com/planning-your-owned-media-strategy/) - When a business moves its brick and mortar location they can lose a lot of repeat business. Having a stable location that people get comfortable with builds loyalty and trust in a business. It is the same online. Building community on Facebook and Twitter and forums has value, but if you do not have that
- [3 Simple Ways You're Missing Out On Mobile](https://socialfresh.com/3-intro-tips-for-engaging-customers-on-mobile-devices/) - Did you know that 91% of the US has a cell phone? How many of those cell phone users do you think are reading your emails on their phone? How many are looking at your Facebook page on their phone? And what about your website? Have you tried to navigate your website from a Blackberry or
- [5 Fast Facebook Fixes](https://socialfresh.com/five-fast-facebook-fixes/) - In the consulting I do I see a lot of things. Some good, some that make you want to kick puppies. Some are huge problems and some are little problems. The little problems are easy, fast and fun to fix. They often get overlooked in the hustle and bustle however. Today is the reminder you
- [Turn Social Into Sales In 9 Steps](https://socialfresh.com/turn-social-into-sales-with-these-9-steps/) - Is it possible for social media be a true sales channel for your business? Yes. It absolutely, unequivocally, positively is. Now, before we get wrapped around the axle, allow me to explain. The type of sales I am referring to is the "consultative" or "relationship" sale. I too despise, nay LOATHE the simple broadcast or
- [5 Ways Colleges Can Get Social](https://socialfresh.com/5-ways-colleges-can-get-social/) - Colleges and universities, like any businesses, must be responsive to a wide range of audiences while remaining focused on the quality of their core product - the education of their students. As traditional methods of recruiting new students, developing campus communities and connecting with alumni continue to fall short, the time is right for higher
- [Facebook Pages Need Love Too](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-page-management-plan/) - A good friend of mine recently made a deal with his 6 year old son, he told him if he could keep a plant alive for 3 months, they could get a dog. The son had been begging for a St. Bernard for months. A lesson on care and feeding I can definitely relate to
- [7 Social Tools You Need To Know About](https://socialfresh.com/10-social-tools-you-need-to-know-about/) - Keeping up with the latest and greatest software, tool sets, and social networks that make up social media as an industry is daunting. With every new corner of the industry, 10 competitors seem to pop up. We wanted to sort through and share with you some of the newest tools out there as well as
- [How To Fight The Facebook Spam Monster](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-deal-with-mounting-facebook-page-spam/) - As social media gains in popularity, spammers do of course follow. The latest trend is an army of fake Facebook profiles posting spam links on Facebook pages. Facebook page spam is nothing new, but this latest, large scale effort has been consistently hitting tons of pages. Facebook has not dealt with it and this specific
- [Email Newsletters Are The Thanksgiving Dinner Of Your Marketing Strategy](https://socialfresh.com/email-newsletters-are-the-thanksgiving-dinner-of-your-marketing-strategy/) - Thanksgiving with the family is always an interesting proposition. We all love our families (no seriously). But we don't necessarily always get along or choose to spend ALL our time together. But we always come home for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving becomes a consistent touch point. A reason to reach out, catch up, say hello, and consume
- [JetBlue Guy: Social Media Crisis or Win](https://socialfresh.com/jetblue-guy-social-media-crisis-or-win/) - You never know when it’s going to hit you. Or b*tch slap you right in the face for that matter. You’re cruising along. Monitoring your channels, interacting and engaging with your customers, responding to service issues, running campaigns, drinking coffee and generally kicking some social media butt. Then WHAMO! Some guy jumps out of one
- [4 Tips To Encourage Social Sharing Via Email](https://socialfresh.com/4-tips-to-encourage-social-sharing-via-email/) - I often preach that email marketing and social media are like Batman (email) & Robin (social). They can both "save the city" on their own, yet when they combine their powers, they are unstoppable. Robin is of course the younger and more hip of the two, but Batman has been getting the job done as
- [How Do You Define "Social Media?"](https://socialfresh.com/how-do-you-define-social-media/) - Jason Keath asked an intriguing question a few days ago on the Social Fresh Facebook page: "If you were allowed to go back in time and rename "social media" — What would you call it?" While there were a lot of great suggestions, let me humbly submit that you can't name social media unless you
- [Going Back To School - Your Social Media Coursework](https://socialfresh.com/going-back-to-school-your-social-media-coursework/) - Do you remember this time of the year when you were younger and your pencils were still all new and sharpened? The beginning of a nice cool fall. Your back pack was brand new and full of supplies and shiny new gym shoes. It felt good right? You could conquer anything. It's not such a
- [The Rise of Q&A Social Media Sites](https://socialfresh.com/the-rise-of-qa-social-media-sites/) - There is a quiet trend in social media that has been growing very rapidly lately. And no we are not talking about Justin Bieber. It hasn't stirred up too much buzz; certainly not quite as much as say, location based services or augmented reality. But it has been building in popularity and success for some
- [Coca-Cola Strikes With Another Happiness Machine Viral Video](https://socialfresh.com/coca-cola-happiness-machine-viral-video/) - This time in the UK. And they got red velvet cupcakes instead of pizza. But pretty much the same, smiles and all, as the original video. The machine even got a group hug from the college kids to say thank you. One useful point from the original video (and we suspect is true for the
- [5 Ways Monitoring Can Help Your Business](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-monitoring-for-business-results/) - Deciding to start using social media monitoring, or even just researching it, can easily uncover a large, confusing landscape. It is best to start simple. What can it really do for your business? Let's begin by outlining where you should be looking first. For most companies, the journey starts in the marketing department and then
- [Ping: Apple's Newest Cash Cow](https://socialfresh.com/ping-apples-newest-cash-cow/) - Apple recently unveiled Ping, the computer giant's first official foray into the world of social music networking. Unlike other social networks, Ping plays within the iTunes ecosystem, allowing users to "follow" artists for updates, exclusive content, tour dates, etc. And "follow" friends to see their iTunes activity. That last part, the following friends, keep an
- [The 3 Truths of Good Community Managers](https://socialfresh.com/the-3-truths-of-good-community-managers/) - In July of 2009, I started as the Director of Community at Blue Sky Factory, an email service provider. Over the past 13+ months, I've come to realize that it's not enough to just be there. Of course, it's important to listen, engage, connect, and build relationships. Yes, it's critical that you have a product
- [Social Media is Good For Consumers and Here is Why](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-marketing-is-good-for-consumers-and-here-is-why/) - For the last two years, social media has been the #1 online activity for US online adults and the fastest growing too. Brands have taken notice and have begun to turn their marketing investments toward the space. But, what's in it for the consumer? Let's start by addressing the consumer concerns around social media marketing.
- [Conan O'Brien Hearts Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/conan-obrien-social-media/) - When Conan O'Brien left NBC, the split was well-publicized: Jay Leno suddenly wanted his spot back on The Tonight Show, and Gen-X hero O'Brien was shown the door by NBC brass. Almost immediately, the Social Media echo chamber went into pro-Conan mode, birthing the #TeamCoco hashtag and some great iconic images. For a while, O'Brien
- [Facebook Places for Business – Getting Started](https://socialfresh.com/facebook-places-for-business/) - On August 18th, Facebook launched “Facebook Places: Who. What. When. And now where.” So, now what? Here’s some easy steps on how to set up your company Facebook Place, claim it and what it means for marketing. Claiming Your Business Your business may already be listed on Facebook Places. To search for your "place" use
- [Video Builds Business - A Gary Vaynerchuk Interview](https://socialfresh.com/video-builds-business-a-gary-vaynerchuk-interview/) - Quality interview here with Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) of Wine Libray TV by the Viddler crew. There are 2 cool things happening in this video you should take note of. Vaynerchuk knows how to make video work for a business. And not as an occasional investment in viral videos or internal training videos, but as a
- [7 Can't Miss Resources For Social Professionals](https://socialfresh.com/7-cant-miss-resources-for-social-professionals/) - I get asked a lot about where I go to keep up to date and learn about SEO and social. So I thought I would turn this into a blog post and share with everyone. Keeping up with the flow of information in the online marketing world can be rather daunting. Downright impossible if you
- [6 Steps To A Successful Social Media Survey](https://socialfresh.com/6-steps-to-a-successful-social-media-survey/) - A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how to vet the deluge of social media surveys and studies you encounter every day for accuracy, representativeness and credibility. You now know the difference between saying "35% of Americans" and "35% of respondents to this survey." You also know the latter is almost always what you
- [Twitter 101: The 4 Tenets of Building A Twitter Following](https://socialfresh.com/twitter-101-how-do-you-build-your-following/) - Twitter can be daunting for the uninitiated. Especially for brands jumping into Twitter for the first time. How do you handle jumping into the conversation without seeming like the new kid on the block? How do you even find people to talk to? There's often a lot of factors that go into maintaining an engaging
- [4 First Steps to Socialize Your Wordpress Blog](https://socialfresh.com/4-first-steps-to-socialize-your-wordpress-blog/) - This is all about optimizing your self hosted wordpress blog. If you are still blogging on blogger, tumblr, posterous, wordpress.com or any other blogging platform, you might not have the same customization options and may want to consider getting some wordpress lovin’. You have written an awesome post that you know is going to knock
- [The Turtle Ultimately Wins The Race](https://socialfresh.com/the-turtle-ultimately-wins-the-race/) - This website has been making the social Web rounds lately. If one were to put each randomly created sentence on slides, one could probably charge for consulting services. Hint: refresh the web page to get a new piece of advice. And then a few days ago, my friend @sarahkayhoffman of Nike Human Race social media
- [How To Conduct A Social Media Audit](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-audit/) - The ability to conduct a thorough and meaningful social media audit is an invaluable weapon in a good marketing arsenal. Whether you're a consultant getting started with a new client, or an in-house SMM (Social Media Marketer - so I don't have to type that out every time) looking to improve your current efforts -
- [7 Inbound Marketing Lessons From Hubspot's Website Grader](https://socialfresh.com/hubspot-website-grader-case-study/) - By now most savvy inbound marketers know that high quality content can turn a website into a magnet for potential customers. Blogging, video, webinars -- do these things well, and your future customers will find you. Here’s what many inbound marketers forget: A great free web application can also be a giant magnet for customers.
- [Marketers are NOT spending their money where users are spending their time](https://socialfresh.com/marketers-are-not-spending-their-money-where-users-are-spending-their-time/) - Earlier this week, Nielsen released their latest report on where U.S. Internet users are spending their time online. Social media dominated all other categories at more than twice the time spent on the next closest category. It occurred to me after reading that report that social media is not where marketers spend most of their
- [The Due Diligence of Sharing Social Media Facts](https://socialfresh.com/the-due-diligence-of-sharing-social-media-facts/) - I'm going to make a bet: at some point today, you ran across some new study, survey or research report about social media. If you spent any time browsing your feeds, grazing tweets or even just reading Mashable, you probably couldn't avoid it. To say we are bombarded with research about social media is an
- [Flipping Over Flipboard - But Should We?](https://socialfresh.com/flipping-over-flipboard-but-should-we/) - Last week we saw iPad users everywhere (at least those using social media anyway) go gaga over a new app called Flipboard. For the first time in a very long time I heard myself call something a “game changer”. It was a viral hit from the word go, and I certainly wasn't immune. David Armano
- [Social Management and the new breed of content management tools](https://socialfresh.com/social-management-and-the-new-breed-of-content-management-tools/) - Social media has been a rats nest of publishing tools. If you're an individual, dealing with the problem is a matter of choosing the channels you like and ignoring the rest. If you're a marketer, you have no choice but to fish where the fish are, which means publishing via many different UIs. It's a
- [How Many Security and Privacy Mistakes Are You Making in Social Media?](https://socialfresh.com/how-many-security-and-privacy-mistakes-are-you-making-in-social-media/) - Not all that long ago Seattle's Social Media Club held their June event and invited Christopher Burgess to speak. Christopher is a security expert and is very knowledgeable on its impact to the online world especially in regards to social media. You can read the recap of the social media security event later but now
- [How To Catch an Influencer's Attention](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-catch-an-influencers-attention/) - On day four at my new job at Bizzy I was given a challenge – throw an invite-only influencer launch party in 12 days. Ready. Set. Go! The challenge wasn’t throwing the party, but rather getting the key influencers there. When most people don’t know who you are or don’t know anything about your company,
- [How Do You Train Non-Social Employees?](https://socialfresh.com/how-do-you-train-non-social-employees/) - I think most organizations have identified and trained the employees that show a great ability to "pick up this social media stuff" by now. They've either kept them in their current role but shifted priorities or created an entirely new role for them, capitalizing on the fact that they "get it". Great! But what happens
- [How the Power of Groupon Can Help Your Business](https://socialfresh.com/how-the-power-of-groupon-can-help-your-business/) - How the Groupon Business Model Works Groupon offers daily deals to users for such things as, gym memberships, salon services, tourist activities or products do not become active discounts until a minimum number of groupons are sold. This “collective buying power,” that Groupon created gives customers products or services as extreme discounts and the business
- [Behind the Curtain of Old Spice's Viral Video Mega Hit](https://socialfresh.com/old-spice-viral-videos/) - At 9am EST last Tuesday, July 13th Old Spice kicked off what has easily been the biggest short term social media successes to date. And probably the manliest too. We sat down with Dean McBeth (@evilspinmeister), Digital Strategist at Wieden + Kennedy, to do a video interview and talk about some of the marketing and
- [Congrats to Facebook on Reaching Half a Billion Users](https://socialfresh.com/congrats-to-facebook-on-reaching-half-a-billion-users/) - Facebook just announced that they passed the 500 million user mark this morning. Half a billion is a huge milestone. Sure, it's not the most users for any service in the world. Skype is just ahead of Facebook with over 560 million users. And, yes Facebook doesn't have the most visitors of any website in
- [Is Social Media Really Social?](https://socialfresh.com/is-social-media-really-social/) - It’s a simple question, what makes something “social”? We group a lot of things into the social bucket these days. Yelp, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, FourSquare, you name it. Yet the only thing these services truly have in common is the act of sharing. Sharing of status, sharing of content, sharing of location, sharing of
- [The Building Blocks of 'Making it Go Viral'](https://socialfresh.com/making-it-go-viral/) - It’s official. The world as we know it has accepted video as the most effective means currently available to communicate a message to your audience. But why? What makes Justine Ezarik (known as “ijustine”) able to get 500,000 people watch her in the Apple Store, dancing like a 12 year old boy who drank too
- [6 Ways to Help Your Community Help Themselves](https://socialfresh.com/6-ways-to-help-your-community-help-themselves/) - Most of the projects I work on when I am doing consulting involve rather small teams. And by small "team" I usually mean 1 person. In these mini-teams each player really wears multiple hats. The hats can be anything from community manager, writer, strategist, analyst, etc etc. This can leave the entire "team" stretched rather
- [Planes, Trains, and Free Wi-Fi](https://socialfresh.com/planes-trains-and-free-wi-fi/) - Missing Connections Perhaps the one thing that really stranded Neal Page (Steve Martin) and Del Griffith (John Candy) wasn’t their miserable luck, but a simple lack of technology. If Planes, Trains, and Automobiles were remade today, I have to think the main antagonist would be the absence of internet or cell signal. We live in
- [Starbucks First Consumer Brand with 10 Million Facebook Fans](https://socialfresh.com/starbucks-10-million-facebook-fans/) - From the first national Foursquare special to bringing 1 million people into their stores via social media in one day to being named the most engaged brand on the web, Starbucks has been leading in social media for some time now. It is important to understand that Starbucks, as a brand with over 17,000 locations
- [A Tale of Two Cities: Engaging Citizens and Tourists Through Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/a-tale-of-two-cities-engaging-citizens-and-tourists-through-social-media/) - It is more important than ever that city government gets on board with social media, to grow communities and influence decisions that bring business to their local economy. Two such cities that actively engage, in very different ways, are Boston and Chicago. Boston The Boston Police Department was the first department to develop a blog,
- [Old Spice 'On A Horse' Guy Replies to Tweets On Youtube](https://socialfresh.com/old-spice-youtube-twitter-replies/) - My good friend Wayne Sutton is a massive fan of the new Old Spice commercials. For a good portion of time, he ended every sentence with "on a horse, backwards." I love the commercials too. They are remarkable and very sharable. And of course making sure they are on Youtube was a smart move by
- [Privacy and Location-based Services](https://socialfresh.com/privacy-and-location-based-services/) - Privacy, as Mark Zuckerberg famously quipped, "is dead." Social Fresh blogger Matt Ridings wrote a great piece here - In Defense of Facebook? A Response - that details some of the concerns with the world's most popular social network. But what if it's not the social network, but rather the mobile hardware/software that's allowing you
- [We Must Protect This Brand](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-brand-consistency/) - It's okay to go for variety when you're picking out your outfit. It's okay to go for variety when you're deciding what to make for dinner. It's okay to go for variety in your dating life. In a lot of places variety makes sense, it's smart even. Branding is different. In order to create one
- [Redefining Social Media Influence](https://socialfresh.com/redefining-social-media-influence/) - Who knew my last column on influence would be as timely as it was? The discussion of influence this week has reached a fever pitch on twitter and the blogosphere, predominantly triggered by a project Fast Company kicked off. The details of that project aren’t really critical to understanding this article, suffice it to say
- [Do We Remember How to Talk to Our Customers?](https://socialfresh.com/do-we-remember-how-to-talk-to-our-customers/) - Cycles are natural. We see them everywhere in life, both in business and the world at large. Fashions are updated and recycled as the years roll by, the seasons change as time passes, and business cycles evolve as the months and years continue. What was once new becomes normal, then normal becomes old, and old
- [6 Branded Viral Videos to Love](https://socialfresh.com/branded-viral-video/) - It is indeed possible to love a branded viral video. Music videos are the undeniable king of branded viral videos, and viral videos in general if you check the all time Youtube charts. Something to keep in mind. This list excludes videos that originated as TV commercials. While commercials can also become viral, even for
- [The Power of Alpha Influencers](https://socialfresh.com/the-power-of-alpha-influencers/) - I spend a lot of time thinking about influence and how the internet, particularly the “social internet”, has dramatically changed the way we approach the marketplace of ideas. I’ve been focusing lately on Alpha Influencers, essentially those core influencers that lie at the heart of most influencer pools. These are the influencers who have a
- [3 Levels of Professionalism in Blogger Outreach](https://socialfresh.com/3-levels-of-professionalism-in-blogger-outreach/) - If there’s one thing that is consistent in any successful blogger outreach campaign, it’s this: You have to create a mutually beneficial situation And because of this, it’s always better to help first, ask second. But how do figure how you can help the blogger? What’s beneficial to one, may not be to another. One
- [Why Facebook's "Like" Button Is A Gateway Drug](https://socialfresh.com/why-facebooks-like-button-is-a-gateway-drug/) - Recently I've had a number of my traditional media clients ask me for advice about integrating Facebook's "Like" button into their site. Their most common questions are good ones: What is the difference between "Like" and "Share?" How do I explain this difference to visitors? In the end, which would I rather a visitor to
- [Are Brands Prepared for Social Shopping?](https://socialfresh.com/social-shopping-brands/) - Utility frequently drives initial adoption and ultimate usage of new digital and social tools. Take Facebook for example, my mom started to use Facebook so she could easily see pictures of my daughter. I don’t upload the photos, but also because of utility, I post them automatically as I use the location based service Whrrl.
- [How To Win At Contest Marketing Without Ruining Your Life](https://socialfresh.com/how-to-win-at-contest-marketing-without-ruining-your-life/) - Contests in social media can effectively increase the number of inbound links to your site (and profiles) as well as generate buzz and exposure for your brand. You can increase the size of your email database. You can source content and ideas through contests. Contests can help build excitement around your brand. Contests can increase
- [Could it be time to reconsider LinkedIn?](https://socialfresh.com/could-it-be-time-to-reconsider-linkedin/) - LinkedIn has long been the place where job seekers go to network. People with jobs usually don't go to LinkedIn much. There's not much there to do. So, when people ask me what our strategy is for approaching the "professional" social network, my response has been it's HR's territory. Maybe support cares to follow discussions
- [6 Elements of a Corporate Blogging Policy – Why and How](https://socialfresh.com/corporate-blogging-policy-why-and-how/) - So you've got a blog for your business. That's a great and vital step towards a healthy and integrated social media strategy. If you haven't developed a corporate blogging policy yet you are in danger of unravelling all of the progress you have made thus far. There are many reasons to do this but I've
- [Social Media Policy - 5 Principles to Remember](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-policy-5-principles-to-remember/) - In my last post, we discussed the differences between a social media policy and a social media plan. Now let's move on to 5 important principles to keep in mind regarding creating a social media policy for your business. I hope you will add your thoughts in the comments if there is anything I have
- [10 Viral Video Tips from College Humor](https://socialfresh.com/viral-video-tips/) - I was lucky enough to attend the Mashable Media Summit (@Mashable) today and catch a ton of awesome content. The most actionable of which was from Ricky Van Veen, cofounder of CollegeHumor.com. Ricky is no stranger to the viral video. At the Mashable Media Summit this morning, Ricky opened the event with 10 Branded Content myths.
- [Social Truth - Ethics, Law and You](https://socialfresh.com/social-truth-ethics-law-and-you/) - Being involved in the social media consulting circles I tend to see more than my fair share of what these people post and tweet. One disturbing trend that I have been seeing lately is a complete lack of disclosure taking place. While this used to be a very gray area when it came to blogging,
- [7 Steps for Getting More Mileage Out of Your Blog Content](https://socialfresh.com/7-steps-for-getting-more-mileage-out-of-your-blog-content/) - If you’re a regular, consistent blogger, chances are you’ve developed a lot of content over the course of your blogging career. But once you’ve written a blog article, what happens after you hit “publish”? Hopefully that content is already search engine optimized and you’re promoting it in social media to generate as much initial traffic
- [7 Things To Do NOW If Social Media Falls In Your Lap](https://socialfresh.com/7-things-to-do-now-if-social-media-falls-in-your-lap/) - Do you manage social media for your business? Are you part of a team that manages this? Okay. If you’re already handling your company’s social media then some of this may be duplicative. But you’ll notice I put it in a nice outlined format so you can skip the parts you already know. Smarty pants.
- [4 Companies That Are Testing Products Through Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/social-media-testing-marketing/) - Using volunteers to test your product or service before it hits the market or to help bring it to market is not a groundbreaking idea. We see movie trailers, taste testing, and free samples as consistent part of business and marketing. The difference with social media is the ability to gather your market research on
- [Tweeting the Friendly (And Unfriendly) Skies](https://socialfresh.com/tweeting-friendly-skies/) - It only takes one. One negative interaction with just one customer and you can quickly find your brand or company playing the starring role in the next YouTube sensation. A role you sadly will not enjoy. People are tweeting, blogging, and yes even creating videos documenting their interactions with companies and brands. Airlines are certainly
- [5 Steps You Need to Stop Avoiding in the Content Creation Game](https://socialfresh.com/content-is-king/) - Content creation is digital marketing. It will build your business. It creates exposure. And most importantly, it makes Google like you. Content creation companies can build credibility and trust at a lower cost than ever before. Social media has broken down these walls. It sounds simple right? Create a blog and Youtube channel and you
- [Defining Social Media ROI Once and For All](https://socialfresh.com/defining-social-media-roi-once-and-for-all/) - Social Fresh featured speaker Olivier Blanchard, of BrandBuilder Marketing, breaks down Social Media ROI from its marketing basics to common misconceptions. Extra props for the trailing railroad track framing.

## Pages

- [Social Fresh — Digital Agency + Conference](https://socialfresh.com/) - Social Fresh is a digital marketing agency and the team behind the Social Fresh conference. We deliver strategy, training, and insights that drive growth.
- [About](https://socialfresh.com/about/) - [et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” admin_label=”HERO – HOME” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#f8f8f8″ background_enable_image=”off” background_size=”initial” background_position=”bottom_right” custom_padding=”0px||0px||true|false” custom_padding_tablet=”0px||||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”30px||||false|false” background_last_edited=”on|tablet” background_size_tablet=”contain” border_width_right=”15px” border_color_right=”#FFFFFF” border_width_left=”15px” border_color_left=”#FFFFFF” locked=”off” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”4″ make_equal=”on” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”85%” module_alignment=”center” min_height=”450px” min_height_tablet=”” min_height_phone=”” min_height_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_margin=”0px|0px|0px|0px|false|false” custom_padding=”30px|0px|30px|30px|true|false” custom_padding_tablet=”” custom_padding_phone=”” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” custom_css_main_element=”margin:auto;” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”headline” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_font_size=”38px” width=”90%” width_tablet=”100%” width_phone=”” width_last_edited=”on|tablet” module_alignment=”left”
- [Contact](https://socialfresh.com/contact/) - [et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” background_color=”#0099FF” border_width_right=”15px” border_color_right=”#FFFFFF” border_width_left=”15px” border_color_left=”#FFFFFF” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”HEADER: Get In Touch” _builder_version=”4.27.0″ _module_preset=”default” text_orientation=”center” background_layout=”dark” global_colors_info=”{}”] GET IN TOUCH [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding=”||58px|||” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”auto” min_height=”173.2px” custom_padding=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.20.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text admin_label=”CONTACT FORM COPY: Let’s Talk” _builder_version=”4.27.4″ _module_preset=”default” width=”70%”
- [Social Fresh 2027 - Marketing and Social Media Conference](https://socialfresh.com/conference/social-media-conference-2027/) - Social Fresh 2027 is the social media conference for brand marketers. March 23-25 at the William Vale in Brooklyn, NYC. Case studies, workshops, and tickets.
- [Social Fresh Conference](https://socialfresh.com/conference/) - Social Fresh is the social media conference for leaders in social, content, and creator strategy. Next up: March 23-25, 2027 in New York City. Get tickets.
- [Social Fresh 2026 - social media conference](https://socialfresh.com/conference/social-fresh-conference-2026/) - Leading social media conference in 2026 delivering expert insights, trends, and strategies for marketers. Contact us today!
- [Register](https://socialfresh.com/conference/register/) - [et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.16″ hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.6″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” width=”90%” max_width=”760px” sticky_enabled=”0″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″]Loading checkout… [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
- [Privacy Policy](https://socialfresh.com/privacy-policy/) - Last Updated:January, 2025 Social Fresh is committed to protecting your privacy. This Statement of Privacy applies to all Social Fresh websites and governs data collection and usage of that data. By using the Social Fresh website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement. Your Personal Information Social Fresh collects personally identifiable information
- [Transfer your ticket](https://socialfresh.com/conference/transfer/)
- [Marketing strategy and media services](https://socialfresh.com/services/) - Digital marketing services offering strategic planning, media buying, and data-driven campaigns to grow your brand and reach. Contact us today!
- [Future of Finance Marketing Summit 2025](https://socialfresh.com/future-of-finance-marketing/) - Virtual finance marketing conference featuring case studies, consumer trends, creative performance insights, and the strategies that get results today.
- [Order Completed](https://socialfresh.com/tickets-order/) - [tec_tickets_success]
- [Tickets Checkout](https://socialfresh.com/tickets-checkout/) - [tec_tickets_checkout]
- [Terms of Service](https://socialfresh.com/terms-of-service/) - Terms & Conditions Cancellations & Refunds All sales are final. Cancellations are non-refundable. Promotional codes or discounts cannot be retroactively applied and must be used individually during checkout. There are no partial-refunds or future event credits available. If a conference or event hosted by Social Fresh is delayed or cannot be held, the event will
- [Performance Marketing Blog](https://socialfresh.com/blog/) - [et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” custom_padding_tablet=”0px||||false|false” custom_padding_phone=”20px||20px||true|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.23.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.23.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.23.1″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”] Marketing Insights Blog from Social Fresh [/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row use_custom_gutter=”on” gutter_width=”2″ custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone” _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” width=”90%” custom_padding_tablet=”” custom_padding_phone=”0px||||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_blog posts_number=”1″ include_categories=”8″ use_manual_excerpt=”off” excerpt_length=”160″ show_categories=”off” show_pagination=”off” disabled_on=”on|on|on” _builder_version=”4.23.1″ _module_preset=”default” header_font_size=”26px” body_text_color=”#333333″ meta_text_color=”#0099FF” background_color=”#E4F4FD” custom_padding=”30px|50px|1px|50px|false|true” custom_padding_tablet=”30px|50px|1px|50px|false|true” custom_padding_phone=”30px|20px|1px|20px|false|true” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|phone”
- [Removed](https://socialfresh.com/opt-out/) - Thanks for letting us know! You have been completely removed from these types of emails. Have a great day!

## Categories

- [Uncategorized](https://socialfresh.com/category/uncategorized/)
- [Featured](https://socialfresh.com/category/featured/)
- [Conference News](https://socialfresh.com/category/conference/)
- [How To](https://socialfresh.com/category/howto/)
- [Lists](https://socialfresh.com/category/lists/)
- [Analysis](https://socialfresh.com/category/analysis/)
- [Guest Post](https://socialfresh.com/category/guest-post/)
- [Social Fresh Tips](https://socialfresh.com/category/tips/)
- [Events](https://socialfresh.com/category/events/)

## Tags

- [news](https://socialfresh.com/tag/news-2/)
- [video](https://socialfresh.com/tag/video/)
- [tools](https://socialfresh.com/tag/tools/)
- [facebook](https://socialfresh.com/tag/facebook/)
- [legal](https://socialfresh.com/tag/legal/)
- [twitter](https://socialfresh.com/tag/twitter/)
- [content](https://socialfresh.com/tag/content/)
- [content marketing](https://socialfresh.com/tag/content-marketing/)
- [conferences](https://socialfresh.com/tag/conferences/)
- [contests](https://socialfresh.com/tag/contests/)
- [Instagram](https://socialfresh.com/tag/instagram/)
- [software](https://socialfresh.com/tag/software/)
- [Case Studies](https://socialfresh.com/tag/case-studies/)
- [customer service](https://socialfresh.com/tag/customer-service/)
- [agencies](https://socialfresh.com/tag/agencies/)
- [foursquare](https://socialfresh.com/tag/foursquare/)
- [location](https://socialfresh.com/tag/location/)
- [mobile](https://socialfresh.com/tag/mobile/)
- [blogging](https://socialfresh.com/tag/blogging/)
- [podcasting](https://socialfresh.com/tag/podcasting/)
- [event coverage](https://socialfresh.com/tag/event-coverage/)
- [influence](https://socialfresh.com/tag/influence/)
- [crisis](https://socialfresh.com/tag/crisis/)
- [Research](https://socialfresh.com/tag/research-resources/)
- [community management](https://socialfresh.com/tag/community-management/)
- [linkedin](https://socialfresh.com/tag/linkedin/)
- [search](https://socialfresh.com/tag/search/)
- [mobile applications](https://socialfresh.com/tag/mobile-applications/)
- [outreach](https://socialfresh.com/tag/outreach/)
- [enterprise](https://socialfresh.com/tag/enterprise/)
- [social media management](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-media-management/)
- [advertising](https://socialfresh.com/tag/advertising/)
- [email](https://socialfresh.com/tag/email/)
- [strategy](https://socialfresh.com/tag/strategy/)
- [101](https://socialfresh.com/tag/101/)
- [entertainment](https://socialfresh.com/tag/entertainment/)
- [quora](https://socialfresh.com/tag/quora/)
- [social media monitoring](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-media-monitoring/)
- [public relations](https://socialfresh.com/tag/public-relations/)
- [lead gen](https://socialfresh.com/tag/lead-gen/)
- [analytics](https://socialfresh.com/tag/analytics/)
- [infographic](https://socialfresh.com/tag/infographic/)
- [automation](https://socialfresh.com/tag/automation/)
- [listening](https://socialfresh.com/tag/listening/)
- [Analysis](https://socialfresh.com/tag/analysis/)
- [mental health](https://socialfresh.com/tag/mental-health/)
- [snapchat](https://socialfresh.com/tag/snapchat/)
- [tiktok](https://socialfresh.com/tag/tiktok/)
- [youtube](https://socialfresh.com/tag/youtube/)
- [platform health](https://socialfresh.com/tag/platform-health/)
- [events](https://socialfresh.com/tag/events/)
- [virtual conference](https://socialfresh.com/tag/virtual-conference/)
- [thought leadership](https://socialfresh.com/tag/thought-leadership/)
- [facebook ads](https://socialfresh.com/tag/facebook-ads/)
- [social ads](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-ads/)
- [reddit](https://socialfresh.com/tag/reddit/)
- [facebook stories](https://socialfresh.com/tag/facebook-stories/)
- [stories](https://socialfresh.com/tag/stories/)
- [branding](https://socialfresh.com/tag/branding/)
- [engagement](https://socialfresh.com/tag/engagement/)
- [paid social](https://socialfresh.com/tag/paid-social/)
- [goals](https://socialfresh.com/tag/goals/)
- [PR](https://socialfresh.com/tag/pr/)
- [influencer marketing](https://socialfresh.com/tag/influencer-marketing/)
- [apps](https://socialfresh.com/tag/apps/)
- [nonprofit](https://socialfresh.com/tag/nonprofit/)
- [real time marketing](https://socialfresh.com/tag/real-time-marketing/)
- [Industry](https://socialfresh.com/tag/industry/)
- [community](https://socialfresh.com/tag/community/)
- [ROI](https://socialfresh.com/tag/roi/)
- [google-plus](https://socialfresh.com/tag/google-plus/)
- [pinterest](https://socialfresh.com/tag/pinterest/)
- [Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-media/)
- [networking](https://socialfresh.com/tag/networking/)
- [hp](https://socialfresh.com/tag/hp/)
- [vine](https://socialfresh.com/tag/vine/)
- [community building](https://socialfresh.com/tag/community-building/)
- [video marketing](https://socialfresh.com/tag/video-marketing/)
- [culture](https://socialfresh.com/tag/culture/)
- [marketing](https://socialfresh.com/tag/marketing/)
- [viral video](https://socialfresh.com/tag/viral-video/)
- [business trends](https://socialfresh.com/tag/business-trends/)
- [department store](https://socialfresh.com/tag/department-store/)
- [grocery](https://socialfresh.com/tag/grocery/)
- [retail](https://socialfresh.com/tag/retail/)
- [segmentation](https://socialfresh.com/tag/segmentation/)
- [shopping mall](https://socialfresh.com/tag/shopping-mall/)
- [internal](https://socialfresh.com/tag/internal/)
- [instagram video](https://socialfresh.com/tag/instagram-video/)
- [vine app](https://socialfresh.com/tag/vine-app/)
- [biz stone](https://socialfresh.com/tag/biz-stone/)
- [jelly](https://socialfresh.com/tag/jelly/)
- [photos](https://socialfresh.com/tag/photos/)
- [visual social media](https://socialfresh.com/tag/visual-social-media/)
- [bud light](https://socialfresh.com/tag/bud-light/)
- [demographics](https://socialfresh.com/tag/demographics/)
- [gender](https://socialfresh.com/tag/gender/)
- [instgram](https://socialfresh.com/tag/instgram/)
- [interbrand](https://socialfresh.com/tag/interbrand/)
- [twitter statistics](https://socialfresh.com/tag/twitter-statistics/)
- [law](https://socialfresh.com/tag/law/)
- [social media and the law](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-media-and-the-law/)
- [brand leadership](https://socialfresh.com/tag/brand-leadership/)
- [brand marketing](https://socialfresh.com/tag/brand-marketing/)
- [remy martin](https://socialfresh.com/tag/remy-martin/)
- [social content](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-content/)
- [social context](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-context/)
- [b2b](https://socialfresh.com/tag/b2b/)
- [ppc](https://socialfresh.com/tag/ppc/)
- [statistics](https://socialfresh.com/tag/statistics/)
- [ecommerce](https://socialfresh.com/tag/ecommerce/)
- [pin](https://socialfresh.com/tag/pin/)
- [repin](https://socialfresh.com/tag/repin/)
- [social media marketing](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-media-marketing/)
- [facebook engagement](https://socialfresh.com/tag/facebook-engagement/)
- [graphics](https://socialfresh.com/tag/graphics/)
- [brands](https://socialfresh.com/tag/brands/)
- [selfies](https://socialfresh.com/tag/selfies/)
- [ugc](https://socialfresh.com/tag/ugc/)
- [native ads](https://socialfresh.com/tag/native-ads/)
- [case studies](https://socialfresh.com/tag/case-studies-2/)
- [CTR](https://socialfresh.com/tag/ctr/)
- [eat24](https://socialfresh.com/tag/eat24/)
- [paid media](https://socialfresh.com/tag/paid-media/)
- [youtube ads](https://socialfresh.com/tag/youtube-ads/)
- [youtube trueview](https://socialfresh.com/tag/youtube-trueview/)
- [fashion week](https://socialfresh.com/tag/fashion-week/)
- [instagram followers](https://socialfresh.com/tag/instagram-followers/)
- [nyfw](https://socialfresh.com/tag/nyfw/)
- [tumblr](https://socialfresh.com/tag/tumblr/)
- [yelp](https://socialfresh.com/tag/yelp/)
- [wikipedia](https://socialfresh.com/tag/wikipedia/)
- [sf-insights](https://socialfresh.com/tag/sf-insights/)
- [collage](https://socialfresh.com/tag/collage/)
- [content creation](https://socialfresh.com/tag/content-creation/)
- [creative design](https://socialfresh.com/tag/creative-design/)
- [design](https://socialfresh.com/tag/design/)
- [twitter collage](https://socialfresh.com/tag/twitter-collage/)
- [twitter hack](https://socialfresh.com/tag/twitter-hack/)
- [advocacy](https://socialfresh.com/tag/advocacy/)
- [employee social](https://socialfresh.com/tag/employee-social/)
- [ford](https://socialfresh.com/tag/ford/)
- [jimmy fallon](https://socialfresh.com/tag/jimmy-fallon/)
- [local](https://socialfresh.com/tag/local/)
- [social business](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-business/)
- [social tv](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-tv/)
- [socialtv](https://socialfresh.com/tag/socialtv/)
- [toyota](https://socialfresh.com/tag/toyota/)
- [design resources](https://socialfresh.com/tag/design-resources/)
- [templates](https://socialfresh.com/tag/templates/)
- [twitter design](https://socialfresh.com/tag/twitter-design/)
- [international](https://socialfresh.com/tag/international/)
- [community manager](https://socialfresh.com/tag/community-manager/)
- [internet video](https://socialfresh.com/tag/internet-video/)
- [world cup](https://socialfresh.com/tag/world-cup/)
- [share buttons](https://socialfresh.com/tag/share-buttons/)
- [social sharing](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-sharing/)
- [soccer](https://socialfresh.com/tag/soccer/)
- [social data](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-data/)
- [audio](https://socialfresh.com/tag/audio/)
- [audio branding](https://socialfresh.com/tag/audio-branding/)
- [music business](https://socialfresh.com/tag/music-business/)
- [music marketing](https://socialfresh.com/tag/music-marketing/)
- [social video](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-video/)
- [sonic branding](https://socialfresh.com/tag/sonic-branding/)
- [sound](https://socialfresh.com/tag/sound/)
- [soundcloud](https://socialfresh.com/tag/soundcloud/)
- [the music business](https://socialfresh.com/tag/the-music-business/)
- [creativity](https://socialfresh.com/tag/creativity/)
- [2013-prediction](https://socialfresh.com/tag/2013-prediction/)
- [slideshare](https://socialfresh.com/tag/slideshare/)
- [facebook reach](https://socialfresh.com/tag/facebook-reach/)
- [reach decline](https://socialfresh.com/tag/reach-decline/)
- [Yo](https://socialfresh.com/tag/yo/)
- [twitter ads](https://socialfresh.com/tag/twitter-ads/)
- [TV](https://socialfresh.com/tag/tv/)
- [polyvore](https://socialfresh.com/tag/polyvore/)
- [leadership](https://socialfresh.com/tag/leadership/)
- [hashtags](https://socialfresh.com/tag/hashtags/)
- [best practices](https://socialfresh.com/tag/best-practices/)
- [business resources](https://socialfresh.com/tag/business-resources/)
- [small business](https://socialfresh.com/tag/small-business/)
- [crm](https://socialfresh.com/tag/crm/)
- [dow jones](https://socialfresh.com/tag/dow-jones/)
- [fake accounts](https://socialfresh.com/tag/fake-accounts/)
- [finance](https://socialfresh.com/tag/finance/)
- [stocks](https://socialfresh.com/tag/stocks/)
- [promotions](https://socialfresh.com/tag/promotions/)
- [walgreens](https://socialfresh.com/tag/walgreens/)
- [stats](https://socialfresh.com/tag/stats/)
- [gamification](https://socialfresh.com/tag/gamification/)
- [convert](https://socialfresh.com/tag/convert/)
- [updates](https://socialfresh.com/tag/updates/)
- [ads](https://socialfresh.com/tag/ads/)
- [google](https://socialfresh.com/tag/google-2/)
- [webinar](https://socialfresh.com/tag/webinar/)
- [digital strategy](https://socialfresh.com/tag/digital-strategy/)
- [NASA](https://socialfresh.com/tag/nasa/)
- [NASA Social](https://socialfresh.com/tag/nasa-social/)
- [NASA Social Media](https://socialfresh.com/tag/nasa-social-media/)
- [foursquare ads](https://socialfresh.com/tag/foursquare-ads/)
- [media](https://socialfresh.com/tag/media/)
- [business](https://socialfresh.com/tag/business/)
- [ipo](https://socialfresh.com/tag/ipo/)
- [stock market](https://socialfresh.com/tag/stock-market/)
- [reports](https://socialfresh.com/tag/reports/)
- [simply measured](https://socialfresh.com/tag/simply-measured-2/)
- [adobe](https://socialfresh.com/tag/adobe/)
- [career development](https://socialfresh.com/tag/career-development/)
- [cisco](https://socialfresh.com/tag/cisco/)
- [new product updates](https://socialfresh.com/tag/new-product-updates/)
- [social networking](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-networking/)
- [images](https://socialfresh.com/tag/images/)
- [location marketing](https://socialfresh.com/tag/location-marketing/)
- [lead generation](https://socialfresh.com/tag/lead-generation/)
- [flowchart](https://socialfresh.com/tag/flowchart/)
- [forums](https://socialfresh.com/tag/forums/)
- [social support](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-support/)
- [support](https://socialfresh.com/tag/support/)
- [social media strategy](https://socialfresh.com/tag/social-media-strategy/)
- [calls to action](https://socialfresh.com/tag/calls-to-action/)
- [books](https://socialfresh.com/tag/books/)
- [SEO](https://socialfresh.com/tag/seo/)
- [fresh](https://socialfresh.com/tag/fresh/)
- [industry-news](https://socialfresh.com/tag/industry-news/)
- [Metaverse](https://socialfresh.com/tag/metaverse/)
- [Web3](https://socialfresh.com/tag/web3/)
- [short-form video](https://socialfresh.com/tag/short-form-video/)
- [reels](https://socialfresh.com/tag/reels/)
- [shorts](https://socialfresh.com/tag/shorts/)
- [performance marketing](https://socialfresh.com/tag/performance-marketing/)
- [creative strategy](https://socialfresh.com/tag/creative-strategy/)