Internet Marketing

How to Get More Likes on Your Facebook Page – Infographic

Everyone wants to be liked.

This was first felt in the schoolyard. It meant being invited to hang out with the popular gang. It was noticed when you were offered to attend “that” all important birthday party.

When college came around it was being selected to be on the football team, chosen for that all important committee or be part of a fraternity.

It doesn’t change when you start your career. You need to be “liked” to get past first base at that job interview.

Being left off the list is a lonely place.

On the social web that has been transformed into every “brand” wanting to be liked. These likes are now marketing benefits.

What are the benefits of Facebook likes?

So you are chasing the blue upturned thumb. Why should you?

These are some of the benefits:

• Creates social proof that your brand is popular which says “everyone likes us so you should check us out and find out why”. Empty restaurants may have great food but those empty tables scream a different message.
• Those social signals can improve your search engine optimisation
• It helps move your content
• Creates brand awareness
• Find out what your fans like and so create products and services that they want through free crowd sourced research
• Sell more products and services

All of these are important as marketing moves offline to online.

So how do get more Facebook likes?

Dan Zarella likes doing research and loves numbers. Often he lurks around calculators, spreadsheets and data crunching computers. So he has summoned the lists of figures and made the database sing and dance.

This meant he collected 1.3 million posts on 10,000 of the most liked Facebook pages and did some correlation and calculation.

Then he made simple sense of the complex.

Here are some of his results that turned up a revelation or two. Well …it did for me.

You may be surprised

The data showed some results that many of you already know. Photos are helpful for garnering likes but there are some surprises.

• Short posts “and” long posts get a higher “like” percentage. In fact an 800 character post can get as many likes as one with 90 on Facebook! The common knowledge is short always wins. The data says something different.
• Share percentage on Facebook spikes at around 450 characters. So on the topic of Facebook sharing  the data analysis insights show that if you want your Facebook post to be shared rather than just liked, then make it 450 plus characters.
• Self reference works well on Facebook. If you use “me” or “I” then you will gather more of those Facebook likes.

Want some more scientific data then check out the rest of Dan’s infographic.

Infographic source: Dan Zarella

What about you?

What tactics have worked for you in building your Facebook likes? Have short Facebook posts been your habit? Are longer posts something you have tried and have they produced positive results?

Look forward to your insights and stories in the comments below.

Want to learn how to market your blog with Social Media?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

The 10 Commandments of Twitter

When I stumbled upon Twitter 54 months ago I was bemused, flummoxed and even curious. What is this social network that keeps me to 140 characters, sounds like a bird and seemed…well…. pointless?

I tweeted here and there and collected 31 followers in 90 days of meandering. Even followed people with large Twitter tribes on topics as diverse as food, photography and politics. Malcolm Turnbull, the local senator must have thought I was a Twitter groupie.

Luckily he didn’t report me for stalking.

My progress on Twitter was slow, confused but persistent. Despite this I continued to tweet, retweet and play. My curiosity was undiminished.

Obsession on Twitter is not unknown. Some people such as Jennifer Aniston’s boyfriend at the time tweeted so much that she decided that he loved Twitter more than her.

She moved onto boyfriend number twenty seven.

Twitter is more powerful than you think

Twitter’s sometimes chaotic nature does make management of the torrent of tweets seem like herding cats. It is essential that you plug your Twitter account into management tools such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. This will help you manage your stream with lists of people and hashtags that categorise on topics.

The real power of Twitter is that you can build a follower base that allows you to share a focused stream of content that adds value to your followers daily lives.

There are no fancy Facebook “Edgerank” algorithms to throttle your tweets and choke your content distribution.

Its pure and wild. I like that.

So what are some fundamental principles that you should embrace if you want Twitter to work for you?

The 10 Commandments of Twitter

Here are 10 commandments that may guide you to the Twitter promised land of a large and loyal following that engages with you and shares your content with speed and velocity.

Thou shalt

Moses used this term so I thought that I couldn’t go wrong if I borrowed the term “Thou shalt”

1. Write a meaningful “bio” description

If you are using Twitter for purely personal reasons then go crazy and knock yourself out with a crazy and cute bio. If you are serious then make sure that when they read it they know in a heartbeat what you are about.

2. Have a link

I don’t know how many times I have looked for a link to take a deeper dive into a Tweeter to see what they do and where they have come from but get stymied. If you don’t have a blog then take them to your Linked account or Facebook page.

Let them discover the real you. The bio is just the start

3. Be focused

Build a tribe of Twitter followers who are passionate and interested in your topic of interest. That can be done with tools such as Tweepi or Twellow.

4. Automate where appropriate

This may seem evil to some but as you grow your follower base things like following back becomes time consuming and unmanageable. Automate the boring tasks such as content distribution and follow back but not the conversation and engagement

5. Not neglect Twitter

Keep the stream of Tweets rolling out so that followers see activity and content. Keep that activity going. Do this at a level that you are comfortable with.

It is different for everyone. Remember it is a tool not a religion.

6. Use Hashtags

Hashtags allow you to put content into followers accounts that are topic driven and organised. If you are interested in blogging then include a tweet with the hashtag #blogging.

It will lead to increased awareness and sharing of your tweets.

7. Manage with a tool

The Twitter eco-system of tools and apps evolved because Twitter kept its network simple. It has been effective and been part of its charm. To manage and monitor both the tweets and the people you interact with on Twitter and organised like your mum would be proud of then Hootsuite and Tweetdeck should be used.

8. Brand your Twitter account

Ensure that when people trip up on your Twitter account that they recognise your brand that is on Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube. My caricature works for me.

Consistent branding is good.

9. Use Twitter sharing and subscribe buttons on your blog

Make it easy and obvious for people to share your content on your blog with obvious Twitter buttons at the top of your article. Make sure they can follow you on Twitter with buttons that don’t confuse and again are in a position that is prominent..

10. Write the best headline you can

As Twitter has only 140 characters your tweets should be written with the best headlines you can muster. Learn and practice this skill until your fingers hurt and your mind burns.

You only have 2 seconds to capture their attention until they click away.

What about you?

What commandment resonates with you. What have I left out. Maybe we could come up with 20 but I ran out of time.

Look forward to your feedback in the comments below.

 

 

Want to learn how to market your blog with Twitter?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

21 Awesome Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics for 2013

Social media networks were a novelty 5 years ago and today they are no longer debated around the dinner party table.

The conversation has moved on.

Facebook is now part of most people’s web lives, Twitter is where a lot of people are reading the breaking news and if you want to be entertained then just dial into YouTube.

Despite it’s minimal mindshare, media profile and awareness Google+ has woven its way into our consciousness and is now the second largest social network.

As if these social networks aren’t enough to distract us. We also now have Pinterest and Instagram to add to the online temptations.

The social web is the modern version of Alice in Wonderland, where we are following not one but many rabbits down innumerable rabbit holes.

What are 2 key factors driving the social web in 2013?

According to a Global Web Index study it is:

1. Mobile – with the number of people accessing the internet via a mobile phone increasing by 60.3% to 818.4 million in the last 2 years.
2. Older users adoption – On Twitter the 55-64 year age bracket is the fastest growing demographic with 79% growth rate since 2012. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook’s and Google+’s networks are the 45 to 54 year age bracket at 46% and 56% respectively.

These 2 key factors are keeping the social web bubbling along. So maybe the reason your grandparents aren’t turning up to that dinner party is that they have now discovered Facebook and Twitter!

So let’s look at some of the facts, figures and statistics for the major social networks.

Facebook

Facebook continues to grow and work out how to make money from its ads and mobile users.

Here are the latest facts and figures from its earnings call for the first quarter of 2013

• Daily active users have reached 665 million
• Monthly active users have passed 1.1 billion for the first time
• 751 million mobile users access Facebook every month
• Mobile only active users total 189 million
• Mobile now generates 30% of its ad revenue up from 23% at the end of 2012

Twitter

Twitter is the fastest growing social network in the world by active users according to a Global Web Index Study.

So how does that translate into hard numbers?

• 44% growth from  June 2012 to March 2013
• 288 million monthly active users
• That means that 21% of the world’s internet population are using Twitter every month
• Over 500 million registered accounts
• Twitter’s fastest growing age demographic is 55 to 64 year olds, registering an increase in active users of 79%

YouTube

When you wanted to watch a video it used to be VCR, then it became a  DVD player, then we moved onto cable networks and now it is YouTube.

These numbers from YouTube’s own blog put some perspective on it penetration into our culture and time.

• 1 billion unique monthly visitors
• 6 billion hours of videos are watched every month
• This means that 50% more hours of video are watched in March 2013 compared to last August when it was 4 billion hours a month and last May when it was 3 billion.
• YouTube reaches more U.S. adults ages 18-34 than any cable network

Google+

Google+ is making an impact on the social media universe and is now the second largest social network.

What are some of the numbers on Google’s social network built to protect it from Facebook’s growth and data capture to ensure it remains relevant?

It is Google’s social layer that enhances it’s other online assets.

• 359 million monthly active users according to a Global Web Index study
• Its active users base grew by 33% from June 2012 through to March 2013

LinkedIn

The largest professional business network on the planet continues to grow but not at the pace of Twitter or Google+

Here are some numbers from Visual.ly.

• Over 200 million users
• 2 new users join it every second
• 64% of users are outside the USA

So what numbers surprise you?

You have glanced over the numbers. What has surprised you or is it all a big yawn?

Was it the mobile stats, the increasing use of social networks by 55 year olds or was it YouTube’s relentless rise.

Look forward to your feedback in the comments below.

 

 

 

Want to learn how to market your blog with social media?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

 

The Perfect Facebook Post?

Perfection. What is that?

In the world of cars ….is it a Ferrari? If it is art… could it be the Mona Lisa? With the profession of architecture, is it personified in the Sydney Opera House?

A rose?

Big claims… but you have to admit their all damm good. Memorable even…and maybe even the term excellent could be rolled out and we could even stretch it to “awesome”. 

When you see something that is splendid you know it. The visual impact can be visceral , emotional and inspiring.

Whatever the phrase it is always good to strive for perfection. But keep in mind that if you are always “waiting” for your creation to be sublime and faultless then that post will never be published or that book will never be written.

At some stage the finger needs to hit that “publish” button or that “enter” key.

7 Tips for the Perfect Facebook Post

Images on Facebook are the most shared of any media. As humans we do like a good picture. Facebook just makes it easy to acknowledge that with a “like” or if we get really get excited we can even share it with our 500 “best” friends.

Creating a perfect Facebook post for images is maybe not possible, but here are 7 tips to help you move along the spectrum of excellence towards a “God like” Facebook post.

1. Post copy

Keep it short and sharp and less than 90 characters or make sure that you if you have a URL include it near the top of that text. Oh yes…asking a question about the image is sublime because it increases engagement.

2. Call to action

You need to include a URL in your post copy that drives your audience either deeper into Facebook, your blog or website. Also make that ugly long link more attractive by shortening it with bit.ly

A bit like putting lipstick on a pig.

3. Target your Post

If you are targeting a country, language or audience then make the post relevant and specific for them.  

4. Timely promotion

Want to reach a bigger audience?… then run it as a “sponsored story” on Facebook within 24 hours of posting. To ensure it works as an ad unit make sure the image is square.

5. Image Upload

Make it at least 300×300 pixels and use an image that has high impact. This includes close-ups of people (don’t use a company logo) and colors like red and orange are good.

6. Mobile first

Facebook is very often viewed on a mobile (some figures show that as being 70%) so use simple images, short copy and yes/no questions are ideal.

7. Engage

Publishing that image post to Facebook is just the start. Engage with your audience with comments and even questions.

Infographic Source: Salesforce.com blog 

What about you?

What has been the best Facebook post you have ever published. Was it an image, a video or something else?

What techniques and tactics have worked for you?

Look forward to hearing your stories in the comments below.

 

 

Want to learn how to create and market a “sublime” blog with social media?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

 

The Top 10 Most Infuriating Things about WordPress and How to Fix Them

Using WordPress is an experience that is very much like using another CMS, but it is also an experience that is completely unlike using any other CMS.

Maybe it is the “duct tape,” DIY nature of PHP coding, maybe it is the first-to-market nature of any product that explodes into worldwide recognition, or maybe it is something entirely undefinable.  Whatever the reason(s), many web developers hold that teaching yourself WordPress it a rite of passage—some sort of a vision quest into the heart of the digital forest. Some are after their professional content creation spirit guide, whereas others are just looking for the most direct route to casual blogging. Regardless of what you ultimately intend using WordPress is a process will bring you to the edge of sanity and back with its maddening logistics and mind-bending reasoning for nearly every part of its design.

The whole ritual generally includes, but is not limited to the following ten things.

1. Plugins

The Problem:

The WordPress plugins repository is a labyrinth of discontinued versions and half-patched improvements.

For every solid plugin author (for example, Yoast) there is going to be dozens of knockoffs floating up from the murky depths of the PHP world all trying to piggyback on the popularity of highly generic web terms (like ‘SEO plugin’).

Then, you have to go through the ordeal of trying to figure out which add-ons are either incompatible with your theme, or incompatible with other add-ons.

Finally, even if you manage to fill all of the holes in the functionality you are after, eventually you realize that the more plugins you add, the more you site is going to slow to a disgusting crawl.

The Solution:

Using WordPress plugins is like playing one big game of electronic Jenga with a drunken partner, and if you update WordPress itself, another plugin, a theme, a widget, or any number of other things, it’s probably going to bring those wooden rectangles crashing down. The advice here is to find that combination that works—then pray.

2. WYSIWYG Editing

The Problem:

At no point in (proper) web development should you think to yourself, “I am really scared to press this button right now.”

Yet for many people that are writing media and stylistically rich content, switching back and forth between the WordPress ‘Visual’ and ‘Code’ tabs is in the same emotional ballpark as walking across an old WWII landmine field. You are scared—possibly for your professional life.

Just to give you a little bit of background on the WordPress editor:

• It’s missing basic/expected features: tables, a form builder, and CSS class imports
• It’s riddled with known flaws: no HTML in full screen, removes all code except <div>, and the <div> that are left destroy paragraph spacing.
• Has been like this since day one.

Literally—I mean since the very first day of WordPress. Take a look at a screenshot from its debut in 2003:

 

The talk on Twitter is that the WordPress team does have plans to change the editor’s capabilities, but unfortunately it will not be until sometime around 2032.

The Solution:

If you are looking for a couple high quality alternatives, check out the Advanced, and Ultimate Tiny MCE editor plugins for a feel familiar to the native WordPress editor. Or try something completely new with the CKEditor.

3. Five (or more) Different Areas just to make an Edit

The Problem:

Developing an efficient workflow in WordPress is next to impossible.

Sorry if I have angered you, but it is. No, no, don’t fight it; just accept it. No matter how efficient you think you are, you’re still left with the sinking feeling that WordPress will never be used as a case study for highly efficient workflow.  After all, if you want to make a change on a page, chances are you will have to navigate to any number of, or all of the following areas:

1.  The page itself
2. One or more widgets
3. The style sheet
4. The settings for relevant plugins
5. Finally, the settings for your theme

The Solution:

There is really no solution to this problem because it’s just inherent to the software.  So long as you’re (power) using the WordPress user interface you will invariably sound like you are playing Starcraft 2 in the Master League. You will find no helpful suggestion here.

 4. The Search Bar my Fourteen-year-old Cousin Coded

The Problem:

The default search bar is doesn’t really search.

The WordPress search bar is one of the first things to be replaced on any real website, at least by any real developer. Whatever algorithm that search box uses seems to have the code complexity of a weekly computer science course assignment. The search bar is so bad that even WordPress.org—the official website of the platform—doesn’t use it. Talk about a ringing endorsement.

The search bar is yet another instance of a glaring lack of functionality in WordPress that has been ignored in favor of things like Bootstrapping the UI, or ensuring that lyrics from some song I don’t care about flash across my screen.  WordPress claims that “Code is Poetry” but you have to admit, some of their efforts on par with a William McGonagall poem.

The Solution:

Get literally any other search bar.

5. User Permission Insanity

The Problem:

The actual role of the ‘user roles’ functionality.

All and all there are five different user roles: Super Admin, Admin, Editor, Author, Contributor, and Subscriber. Now, let’s take a look at something from the WordPress.org documentation regarding users and their roles (as of 2013):

 

In other words, if you can’t edit posts, you cannot moderate comments. Which user’s roles can edit posts you ask? The (super) admins and the editors…and that’s it. Only the three most executive roles can perform one of the most mundane features? Why? That makes absolutely no sense.

Say you are a huge news site that has to constantly monitor your comments, you are forced with the decision of either using some other comment system completely (making this yet another core functionality that fails), or you give the interns you hire the the keys to the content castle by making them an editor just so they can delete some hate spam, something that many administrators are going to be loath to do.

The Solution:

What would be better is if contributors, who only have the ability to write and submit content, also have the ability to moderate the comments on their own content. Or, you know, just make a damn user role for moderating comments. Or even better—and I know this is a novel idea—give us the ability to set custom user roles. Something tells me it’s not all that hard, and by something I mean the post(s) on Stack Exchange where people say, “It’s not that hard.”

7.  Enough Warnings Already

The Problem:

The dashboard warnings have been completely out-of-hand for a while now.

You can see the logic in the type of alert pictured above, after all you don’t want to overwrite someone else’s work. That said, the majority of the time you are seeing this message you are checking revisions caused by the auto-save that always end up being identical to the previous one anyway. Consider how much easier it would be if it told you that it was an exact duplicate of the previous version before taking you a few click away from where you want to be, just to show you the (lack of) differences between the two versions. Why isn’t one before the other? There is no real answer.

This is all putting aside the fact that most of the time you see this message the ‘other’ user is … yourself.

The Solution:

Instead of waiting for you to navigate into the post before it tells you what’s going on in there, perhaps in the main backend page could display which users are working on which posts so that you don’t end up running into them without looking.

8. Multisite Admins Get No Love

The Problem:

The reason you make a multisite is to get give yourself options, and you get less.

Presumably you have created a Multisite network (many WordPress websites under a meta-UI) because you are trying to make things easier for yourself. So it seems completely arbitrary that WordPress would restrict the capabilities of the administrator role so that it’s harder to do certain things. However, that is exactly what occurs. It’s not an option for the super administrator to toggle on and off; it just happens.

 

The Solution:

Once again, I am no development expert, but I don’t see this being more than a couple lines of code.

9. Lack of Social Media Sharing

The Problem:

Popular sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and maybe Reddit should all have default ‘share’ buttons by now.

I say kudos to all the companies out there making high quality social media share buttons, and I say shame on all the other options that leak their slimy code juices all over your otherwise pristine website. When it comes to dealing with a bunch of different APIs for the social media sites, it sure would be nice to have some uniformity on the WordPress side.

After all, an essential feature of a content-rich website should be the ability for users to share published information, right? This all seems fairly straightforward. Case in point: social media integration is so commonplace that the “Twitter” plugin tag is a popular tag amongst more general keyword tags such as “Post”, “widget”, “image”, and “sidebar.”

Remember how Tumblr introduced its own share button in 2011 to complement an already robust content distribution system? Remember how 2011 would be the year that Tumblr would overtake WordPress(.com) for the most number of blogs on the internet? WordPress might not remember, but Tumblr sure does.

The Solution:

Standardize social media buttons so that each theme and plugin doesn’t have to do it from scratch.

10. Wow. Just Let Me Use Jetpack Already

The Problem:

The process of getting jetpack is more complicated than the rocket science to build an actual jetpack.

At first glance Jetpack seems like a good idea: bring some of the functionality from WordPress.com accounts to those people using WordPress software with their own web hosting. This includes things like After the Deadline (grammar) and latest tweets.

When you go to get the software, however, you are met with the realization that for some odd reason you need to go through all the trouble of creating a WordPress.com account just to get these features. But if you have a blog outside of WordPress.com, it is probably because you don’t want to use WordPress.com, right? So that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

What’s worse, for web developers creating a website that will be used for a given client, the confusion (and possible anger) is compounded more when you have to explain to the person paying for your supposed web efficiency why you are signing them up for a WordPress.com account, which they don’t need, won’t use, or even understand.

The Solution:

Remove the requirement to have a WordPress.com account.

 What about you?

What have you found infuriating about WordPress? What would you like to change?

Look forward to hearing your stories and feedback in the comments below.

Guest Author: Jamil is a freelancer writer who loves to write about anything and everything. A graduate from Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC, Jamil has written stories for several publications and has interviewed everyone from Hollywood celebrities to local musicians. When he’s not putting pen to paper, you can catch him watching episodes of Game of Thrones or tinkering endlessly with his Fantasy Football lineup. You can find a recent example of his work here.

Want to learn how to create and market your WordPress blog with social media?

My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.

 

 

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