How to be awesome at everything

(Tip 1: always set expectations correctly – under-promise, over-deliver – whoops!)

(Tip 2: sometimes it’s OK to ignore advice and do things a bit differently.)

Anyway. It’s my last day. I’m so excited about my new role, but I’m really going to miss all of you. I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about all the things I’ve learnt over the last three years. When I came to Enhance Media, it was my first proper job out of uni and to be honest, I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing. But with a lot of support from a lot of people, I’ve managed to develop into someone who can just about pass as a competent professional (most of the time!). I just wanted to share some of the things I’ve learnt along the way with you guys.

1. Really, really immerse yourself in social media.

My own personal usage of social media has fluctuated over time. Sometimes, when you’ve been on it all day for work, it’s really tempting just to turn off when you get home. But I think it’s really important to make sure you are active on as many different social media networks as possible and find out what works on each. People are quite used to seeing weird things on my personal social networks now, as I often use them to experiment and try out new things – if I’m going to screw up, I would much rather do it on my own personal account than a client channel!

In all the time I’ve been here, I feel the time I was best at my job was during the Klout challenge we ran last summer. I found it really valuable as it really did encourage me to log in every day and try to share valuable knowledge with my network to get engagement. It really got me in the right mindset for seeing what works and what doesn’t.

I would really recommend you follow as many client channels, competitor channels, market-leading channels and industry channels as you can as it’s all great for seeing what works and what doesn’t. Always think about how this can be applied to your own work.

It can also help to remind you why social media is such a fantastic and exciting area to work in – I still feel so lucky that I’ve managed to fall into something I love.

2. *Always* think about your audience

It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a one line email, a content plan or a 58 page strategy document. Whatever you’re writing, it will be wasted if it’s not presented in a way that will engage the reader. Make sure you think about how to present it as clearly as possible:

• What do you want to achieve? How can you make sure you do this? What is the best tone to use?
• If you are writing to someone who is really busy and important, keep it as short as possible. Make sure every word on the page is necessary. Break things up to make them easy to read and use lots of bullet points. Spell everything out and make it as clear as possible.
• If you’re writing to someone who doesn’t really understand social media, make sure to spell things out to them. Why should they care their channel has grown 2% this month? What is the value of a like? How is this going to help their business?
• Do as much research as you can into your audience. Look at similar channels. What has been successful on there? How can we replicate/improve on this without plagiarising? What can we learn from other people’s successes and failures?
• Always ask “so what?”. Why are you telling the reader this? Why should they care?

3. Google really, really is your friend

So recently I’ve ruined the mystery. I’m not a genius who knows absolutely everything. I’m just really good at Googling stuff very quickly. I love learning stuff, researching and figuring stuff out and Google is brilliant for all of this. If your first Google search doesn’t succeed, mix up the keywords a bit. Particularly on social media, someone has written something about almost everything. If Google doesn’t know the answer, it’s probably OK if you don’t either.

If you need an answer immediately (and can’t Google it – e.g. on a client call), it’s OK to say you’re not sure and you’ll look into it and get back to them later (as long as you follow through!). Social media does change all the time and people understand this.

I think that’s probably about it from me. Good luck guys and stay in touch!

My new favourite Twitter tool

Yes, I love Twitter. And I write about Twitter tools a lot. But that’s only because there are so many awesome and clever things out there. And RiteTag is my new favourite (sorry Buffer, I still love you too…)

RiteTag is a seriously clever tool for figuring out which hashtags to use. I have tried hundreds of hashtag tools, and generally been unimpressed. This one is much sleeker and much more impressive.

So when you log in, the first thing it will do is analyse your own Twitter feed. You can run 10 of these audits a month for free or go pro to get more. Here is a sample from my own personal feed (note most of these aren’t very good because I’m often quite lazy with hashtags on my personal account…)

You can look through all the recent hashtags you have used and see what similar tags you could have used. For example, #NowPlaying is ridiculously overused (not a surprise, as Spotify adds it automatically when you share a playlist). If I actually wanted people to see the tweet, the drop down box informs me that #Spotify would have been a better choice. It’s not perfect, because it also suggests #ValentinesDay as a suitable alternative, but this can easily be resolved with a little common sense.

As well as reviewing this for my own posts, I can also run searches from any Twitter users, from tweets I have favourited and by uploading planned tweets in bulk (up to 100). Again, you get a certain amount for free each month and can then go pro to get more.

Finally, you can create and schedule tweets within the tool. Obviously there are several other tools that do this very well, and this may not be the best option for our clients. However, if you have a chance, I would recommend having a play with it – it is extremely well set-up for split testing and might be a good option for, say, outreach campaigns where we are posting a lot of very similar tweets. If you do create and schedule through RiteTag, you can also build up an idea of what hashtags perform well, which could be really useful on an ongoing basis. Obviously I’ve only just started playing, but you can see below what analytics I currently have available:

I know there are a billion Twitter tools out there, but I really, really recommend you give this one at least a cursory glance. Even if you only log in once a month to see what hashtags are worth using for each of your clients. It could be a great way to build up a bank of effective hashtags.

Just remember, it is still in beta, so things are likely to change a bit and it is a bit slow sometimes… But it really is worth persevering with!

Guy Kawasaki’s 10 tips for building a social media following

On Friday afternoon, I listened to a webinar by Guy Kawasaki on how to build a social media following.

He started by explaining why a large social media following is important. For him, social media is always a means to an end and just another way to do business. This means that he can never have too many followers. While quality engagement is key, he believes that the best way to get that is to build quantity first (I would argue that this isn’t quite true, but that the methods he suggests using are generally likely to increase both quantity of following and quality of engagement).

He then provided the following 10 tips on building a following:

1. Start yesterday – you need to be building a social following as soon as possible.

2. Segment the services – be aware of how each channel is used. He divides them as follows:

• Facebook – people you already know
• Twitter – broadcast to the world
• Google+ – share passions with other people (who you may not already know)
• Pinterest – find cool stuff to share, aesthetically pleasing
• LinkedIn – show yourself as an influencer

3. Make a great profile – he used Peg Fitzpatrick as an example. Key tips include:

• Banner should tell a story.
• Profile image should show you as likeable and trustworthy – nothing else. Some people use profile image to try to tell the full story, which gets complicated. Banners should tell the full story, profile images should have a simple message. Ideally the profile image will be a high quality image that is 90% your face. Guy likes that Peg’s image is slightly off-centre.
• Fill in all the information that you can.

4. Be a great curator and linker:

• Every post should have a link to the original source.
• There are a number of good tools for curation, including Alltop and StumbleUpon (both of which I have used and would recommend).
• Find great stuff and share it to tell your story.

5. “Cheat” – use quick wins, such as:

• Get people to share your content, so that they are showing your expertise – social proof.
• Use your knowledge of your audience to give them what they want.
• See what’s already popular – use tools such as most read/most commented on news stories.
• Share hot stories – what’s working for other people will probably work for you.
• Give credit to good curators and develop good relationships with them – they may start to curate your content.

6. Restrain yourself – Guy recommends that 19/20 content pieces should be informational and 1/20 should be promotional.

7. Add “bling”:

• Guy shares a relevant picture that he has sourced to accompany every single post to draw people in and make the posts stand out. These are about 4-500 pixels wide. He will always credit the source.
• Wikimedia is a great source of stock images.
• Embedding videos is a good alternative.

   

(Click on images to enlarge)

8. Respond – don’t just push out content, make sure you are engaging too.

9. Stay positive or stay silent – there is no benefit to posting negative content or comments.

10. Repeat posts:

• Post in large quantities and post often.
• Guy repeats all his tweets 4 times as 8 hour intervals.
• Most people will miss the post first time – you may upset a couple of followers by repeating, but you are likely to gain more than you lose.
• Most companies do not post enough.
• Nothing in social media is gospel – there are no set rules on how often it is OK for brands to post.
• Guy repeats all posts on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Q&A session

Q1: How do you deal with complains?

A1: 1. Fix the issue. 2. Send a message saying, “Sorry about this, let’s resolve it offline.”

Q2: What images is it OK to use?

A2: Using images that aren’t yours is a grey area, but Guy feels it is OK as long as they are clearly credited. Stock images from sites such as Wikimedia are a great resource.

Q3: Do you post the same content on different channels or tailor to each channel?

A3: It depends. Generally the content is the same for Facebook and Google+, and as similar as possible for Twitter considering the character limits. This content will be around 70% information and 30% bling. He will vary timings and formats across each network as appropriate.

Instagram and Pinterest are both for eye candy, so he will post about 70% bling and 30% information. On Instagram he will post things “just for the hell of it”, but on Pinterest he is more selective and will only share great images.

Q4: Are there any companies that shouldn’t be using social media:

A4: It’s fast, free and ubiquitous – why shouldn’t they use it? Anything can be made interesting. Even for B2B, every transaction is between two people, so the same principles are relevant. He spent a little while trying to think of any type of company that shouldn’t be on social media and couldn’t find any strong examples (except potentially plutonium salesperson…)

Q5: Should business avatars use a person or a company logo?

A5: It depends on the business. If you are a small business owner, then you are the business so it might be best to use that. The larger the company gets, the less important a face is.

Q6: How should companies measure success?

A6: Some marketers will find variables they can control so that they can justify their fees.

The key question is: are you selling more or not?

Pinterest launches an analytics tool

Pinterest has finally launched an analytics tool, making it easier to collect metrics around the way users interact with pins originating from your website. Pinterest Web Analytics will provide you with information about how many people have pinned from your site, how many people have seen those pins, and how many people visited your site from Pinterest.

With this tool, it’ll be possible to determine if the information and content you’re sharing from your blog or website is resonating with an audience (and if so, which audience) as well as what’s not working.

To access Pinterest Web Analytics you first need to request access to Pinterest’s new look then make sure that the website listed on your profile is verified (this is to prevent spam). Once the verified checkmark appears next to your website, go to the top right menu and click on Analytics.

This is a new tool so it’s bound to have some teething problems. However, once established, perhaps the ability to measure your ROI will convert Pinterest into a more serious channel beyond recipes and interior design?

Facebook’s New News Feed

Facebook revealed last Thursday that their news feed has received a long awaited update. Unlike other components of Facebook, the news feed has been left relatively untouched for a long time with users complaining of clutter.

So what’s it about?

According to Facebook it’s about taking the best from mobile and bringing it to the web. It’s about de-cluttering the news feed and “giving control to the user.”

What are the changes?

Photos will be playing a huge role in this news feed; Facebook says it’s about creating photo stories. This means that for better for worse, high quality photos will be as important as ever for our clients if we want them to stand out on the news feed. This also suggests that as well as posting photos from our clients, it would be a good idea to continue posting about famous bridges and other engaging visual that can inspire candidates.

The cover photo is more important. When a group of friends Like or otherwise interact with a Facebook page, that page may be highlighted in the News Feed with its cover photo on display. Facebook recommends a cover photo that tells an engaging story.

Post a trending story. News stories about a single topic will be highlighted in thumbnail-rich carousels, making it more advantageous to share trending rather than outlier stories on Facebook. This will be a challenge for recruitment where we have to consider the employer branding and a lot of trending stories will not be relevant. However it might highlight the need for a calendar of notable dates such as International Women’s Day as these can trend on social media.

People can be more selective about what appears on their news feed. This allows them to choose news updates from their close friends which could be restrictive for our clients. However by selecting following, they will only see news updates from the pages they follow.

New changes; new challenges but that is the excitement of working in digital!

To find out more about Facebook new news feed or to join the waiting list visit: https://www.facebook.com/about/newsfeed.

UK Digital Future in Focus

ComScore hosted a webinar called UK Digital Future in Focus which presented the key insights from the 2013 UK Digital Future in Focus report.

After listening to the webinar, I’ve noted some of the key findings from the report:

• Europe makes up 27% of the online population.
• Online Engagement is high in Europe at 26.2%
• In the UK there are 39 million unique visitors per year online with a growth of 5%.
• The UK has the highest online engagement in Europe with an average of 37.3 hours per visitor spent online.
• The UK has the largest digital advertising market in Europe.
• 2/3 of users in the UK are below the age of 45 making our online market younger than other European countries.
• Germany has the largest online mobile market.
• 64% of UK mobile owners are smartphone users.
• Online visitors increased in August during the Olympics and continued to grow until December.
• Job search has increased online by 51% and it has seen the 2^nd largest online growth after retail.
• Google is the most popular site, followed by Microsoft and Facebook.
• ¼ of UK Smartphone users are aged between 24 and 34.
• UK Smartphone usage is likely to increase in 2013.
• Google is the leading operating system on smartphones.
• 6 million Brits have a tablet as well as a smartphone.
• Social Media is the 4^th most popular content on smartphones.
• The UK is responsible for 1/3 of pageviews from mobiles and tablets – this is the largest in Europe.
• Internet usage is popular on mobiles during the morning commute, on PCs during the work day, and on tablets during the evening.
• Mobile video viewing has seen a growth of more than 262% over the past year.
• In 2012 there were 9.23 billion display adverts in the UK.
• Social networking adverts are making an impact with mobile advertising; these have a particularly high response rate with 18-24 year old smartphone users.
• Google captures 91% of the Search Engine Market.
• 1 in 5 smartphone users make a purchase on their smartphone.

There is a lot of data and our job is to work out how these insights will benefit our clients.