Are you wondering what marketers should plan for in 2016? Do you want to know where social media pros are focusing their attention? In 2015, new platforms made a big splash and several popular networks monetized. To get you ready for what’s coming next, we asked 14 social media marketing experts what to watch for [...]
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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
Have you heard of Snapchat? Want to use it to connect with your customers? Snapchat is a mobile app that lets you send public or private snaps of images and video to people from your smartphone. In this article, you’ll discover how to use Snapchat‘s features to connect with your customers. The Snapchat Demographic Before [...]
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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
Posted by Dr-Pete
Earlier this year, Google rolled out the Related Questions feature (AKA "People Also Ask"). If you haven't seen them yet, related questions appear in an expandable box, mixed in with organic results. Here's an example from a search for "Samsung Galaxy S6":
If you click on any question, it expands into something that looks like a Featured Snippet:
Currently, Related Questions can occur in packs of between 1–4 questions and answers. Here's an example of a box with only one question, on a search for "lederhosen":
Once expanded, a typical answer contains a machine-generated snippet, a link to the source website, and a link to the Google search for the question.
We started tracking Related Questions in late July on the MozCast 10K, where they originally appeared on roughly 1.3% of queries. Keep in mind that the MozCast set tends toward commercial queries, and the absolute percentage may not represent the entire web. What's interesting, though, is what happened after that. Here's a graph of Related Questions prevalence since the end of July:
You can clearly see two spikes in the graph — one measured on October 27th, and one on December 1st. As of this writing (December 10th), Related Questions appeared on about 8.1% of the queries we track. In less than 5 months, Related Questions have increased 501%. This is a much faster adoption rate than other Knowledge Graph features.
When you expand a question, the answer looks a lot like another recent Knowledge Graph addition — Featured Snippets. Digging deeper, though, it appears that the connection is indirect at best. For example, here's an expanded question on a search for "monopoly":
If you click on that search, though, you get a SERP with the following Featured Snippet:
It's interesting to note that both answers come from Investopedia, but Google is taking completely different text from two different URLs on the same site. With Featured Snippets, we know that the answer currently has to come from a site already ranking on page one, but with Related Questions, there's no clear connection to organic results. These answers don't seem tied to their respective SERPs.
It's clear that both the answers in Related Questions and the snippets in Featured Snippets are machine-generated. Google is expanding the capabilities of the Knowledge Graph by extracting answers directly from the index. What may not be as clear, at first glance, is that machines are also generating the questions themselves. Look at the following example, from a search for "grammar check":
Out of context, the question doesn't even make sense. Expanded, you can see that it relates to a very specific grammar question posted on Quora. While the topic is relevant, no human would attach this question, as worded, to this search. Consider another example, for "cover letter examples":
The first and last question are obviously, to a human, redundant. To a machine, though, they would look unique. To be fair, Google has come a long way in a short time — even a couple of months ago, some of these questions were riddled with grammar and spelling errors. As of this writing, I can't find a single example of either.
Finally, there are the questions that no human would ever ask:
No rational human would ever want to know what kind of meat is in a gyro. It's better that way.
It's clear that Google is rapidly expanding their capability to generate questions and answers from the index. Both Featured Snippets and Related Questions have evolved considerably since their respective launches, and Google's ability to understand natural language queries and semantic data is growing daily. It may be months before we fully understand if and how these results cannibalize organic clicks, but it seems very clear that Google no longer considers these features to be experimental and will be aggressively pushing forward question-and-answer style SERPs in the near future.
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Are your customers leaving negative comments on social media? Do you need a plan to handle customer complaints? Responding quickly and appropriately to negative social comments can help you increase customer loyalty and retention. In this article you’ll find out how to deal with negative comments on social media. #1: Respond Quickly It’s important to [...]
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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
Are your headlines performing as well as you’d like? Do you want to write more effective headlines? Using a few simple techniques, you can craft headlines that capture attention and convince people to click through to your content. In this article you’ll discover six tips for writing effective headlines that drive traffic. #1: Begin With Numbers [...]
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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
Posted by ryanwashere
Over the last 2 months, I've driven well over 6,000 organic Facebook visits to my site.
It's not coming from a Facebook Page; it's coming from a Facebook Group.
Several months ago I started my own Group, Digital Marketing Questions — this week we hit 3,000 active, engaged, spam-free members.
In this post, I'm going to retrace my steps and tell you exactly how to build your own Facebook Group.
Before I tell you how to build one, I quickly need to talk about why you should build one.
All the kids left Facebook years ago for Instagram (now Snapchat) and a number of businesses gave up on Facebook marketing efforts when "organic reach" plummeted.
Despite this, there are still hundreds of millions of users still on Facebook.
In fact, Mark Zuckerberg posted a status a couple of months ago stating that for the first time in the network's history, Facebook had over 1 billion active users in a single day.
Let that marinate for a second.
Facebook is a powerhouse that isn't going anywhere anytime soon — it's time to re-invest back into the network.
Facebook pages and personal posts rely completely on the Newsfeed algorithm for organic exposure. Facebook Groups send users a notification whenever someone posts to the Group, thus driving traffic to each post.
On mobile as well:
Facebook gives users the option to silence these notifications. However, if your Group consistently adds value, they won't.
A while back I ran a test:
Let's piggyback off the previous point for a second.
With the ability to drive quality traffic with a single post, you've got a powerful value proposition. I do a ton of link outreach for clients — including the Group in my pitch has skyrocketed success rate.
I mean, which outreach email would you respond to?
Outreach email 1:
Hey [Editor's name],
I came across your post [insert URL] and really enjoyed it. I noticed you're linking out to some posts about [insert topic] and wanted to pitch you on my latest guide that fits in perfectly.
If interested, let me know and I can send you the URL to check out for yourself.
Outreach email 2:
Hey [Editor's name],
I came across your post [insert URL] and really enjoyed it. I noticed you're linking out to some posts about [insert topic] and wanted to pitch you on my latest guide that fits in perfectly.
If included, I'd be happy to share it with my active Facebook Group [insert link] that regularly drives over 600 visits every time I post.
Link building (and marketing, really) is about the exchange of value. When you've got a solid value proposition in exchange for the link, your acceptance rate goes through the roof.
Despite the lack of organic reach, Facebook Pages are still a tremendous marketing resource. However, you need invest time into creating content to be successful. This is a full-time job in itself which requires you (or someone else) to spend time managing it.
When properly managed, Facebook Groups run themselves because the content is crowd sourced from members.
All you need to do is stay active on threads and make sure you're keeping a close eye on spam.
Hopefully I've convinced you about the benefits of building a quality Group. Now, let's talk about the how...
I'm not going to go into detail on how to create your Group because it's easier than setting up a Facebook Page.
I do want to talk about creating the context of your Group. In other words, what should your Group be about?
Unless you're a brand, don't make it about you.
Shopify has a number of helpful Groups geared towards customer support, marketing, general tips, etc. They're able to build communities based on their brand.
For those of us who aren't brands, we don't have that luxury.
In the grand scheme of things, I'm a nobody. If I would've made my Group "Ryan Stewart's Digital Mastermind", I wouldn't be writing this article right now because nobody would've joined.
Focus the context of your Group on the value it provides to members. I like to approach it like I would content strategy:
Facebook Groups shouldn't be approached with a conversion or direct marketing mindset. They work best when approached as a branding tool.
If you can create a valuable resource, your brand will grow with the Group by association.
Remember, Groups are communities—they need to be focused on what engages members. That means hold off on promoting yourself, your business, and links until you've earned the Group's trust.
How do you build trust? By delivering value.
Some Facebook groups are just a feed of links to the admin's blog articles.
Don't do that.
Instead, create native content specifically for the group. Keep ALL the content and engagement within the Group, instead of trying to drive them to your latest post.
In fact, I went a full month without posting a link directly to my site.
Things to try:
Make it obvious you're there to help them.
Do this well and when you do post a link to blog/promotion, people will trust you enough to click it.
A Facebook Group can grow much faster than a Facebook Page (my Group grows 20x times faster than my Page). However, they don't grow on autopilot. They need a significant investment of time, energy, and resources to drive members.
The key to growing a Group (or anything, really) is making it a priority. If you foresee value in owning a Group, take it seriously by investing the necessary resources into growth.
First, let me say this...
DO NOT add people to the Group without their permission.
2 reasons:
Instead, target influencers in their space and share their content.
Tag them in the post so they know you shared it.
They'll most likely join the Group on their own. This is a huge bonus for Group members and incentive for more to join.
You've got your Facebook Page on your website, right? Why not add (or replace) this with a link to your Facebook Group?
If your website does significant traffic, this is a great way to grow your Group.
Data shows the standard logos in the header attract little to no attention. Instead, I added a link to my Group in the bottom right-hand corner of my footer and tagged the link with a tracking CID.
Over 3 months, it drove 346 clicks. Not a massive amount, but every little bit helps.
It's not uncommon to create a great piece of content to entice email opt ins (aka "gated content"). Instead of asking for emails, you can drive people to your Facebook group.
For example, I wrote a post about how to create an SEO proposal. I also took the time to create a free proposal template for visitors to download for their own use.
I hosted the proposal template within the "Files" section of the Group.
To download it, they had to join the Group. Of course, just creating content isn't enough, we've got to promote it as well.
I chose to use organic channels like Inbound.org, GrowthHackers, Warrior Forum, and a few others.
This was by far the most effective method I used, not only to gain members, but quality ones as well. Try and focus your promotion efforts in places where your target users are spending their time.
We want to focus more on building a quality, engaged member base as opposed to a massive, inactive one.
It took me some tinkering to figure out how to promote the Group with Facebook Ads.
You can't promote a Facebook Group the way you can with a Page.
Here's how to get around it:
I started by targeting by remarketing list and then expanding to lookalike audiences after that was exhausted.
In honor of full transparency, exact results from the ads are difficult to track.
"Results" are calculated by post engagements, i.e. Page likes, comments, shares, etc. Not included in "results" are people who clicked through and joined the Group.
From my own calculations, the Group grew 300 members during the 1 week we were boosting the post — that's three times the organic growth rate.
Even though you can't directly track new members with analytics, Facebook ads are no doubt a valuable promotion tool.
I write a lot of guest posts. Within my posts I often link to my personal website.
That site has a big ol' call to action to join the Facebook Group:
This helps to strategically reach new audiences without directly promoting the group within the post.
You can also use guest posts to drive traffic to your post with "gated" content. Both tactics work well, but this one is slightly more direct.
If you're consistently adding new members, you can pitch other Group admins to exchange cross promotion posts. I've had good success using Facebook's internal search to find similar groups.
It takes a while to find spam-free Groups, but once you do it's just a matter of tracking down admins, adding them as friends, and sending them a quick pitch.
If you've got a different audience base, you can add tremendous value to each other by exposing your Groups to new audiences.
The biggest knock against Facebook Groups is spam. A Group can turn into a discount Ray Ban marketplace overnight if not carefully watched by the admins.
It's your job to set and enforce the rules.
Leave no room for guessing. If someone joins the Group and immediately promotes a link, they're banned, no questions asked. It's entirely too much work to give individual warnings to people.
Encourage Group members to flag spam if they see it — stand firm on your no spam rule.
Some people are in a lot of Facebook groups. They don't always remember what they can or can't do in each group.
If you get an uptick in spam in your group, post a reminder about the rules. This has the added benefit of pulling the group together, since the members genuinely want a spam-free place for questions and discussion.
I got tired of repeatedly posted warnings so I created a video and pinned it to the top of the Group. Since doing that, we've seen a significant drop in spam posts.
Even established members of the group will occasionally break the rules. Usually it's because they forgot or weren't sure if something was okay to promote.
In those cases, delete the post, but also PM the offending member and let them know what happened.
Often the person will apologize and that's all you'll need to do. If they argue with you, just remember it's your group, not theirs. You get to decide who stays and who goes.
When you ban someone from the Group, it's an opportunity to reinforce the pride people feel at being part of the "inner circle."
They get to stay, because they followed the rules. The other people broke the rules, so they got banned.
This also reminds people to report spam or rules infractions when they see them.
Sometimes a passionate discussion devolves into an ugly argument. When that happens, PM to the parties involved and let them know it's not okay to have a big public fight in the Group.
Usually that will calm things down. If things got really nasty, you also have the option to just delete the entire thread.
Finally, when your group gets big and active, you might not have time to properly moderate it.
That's the time to hire a moderator. Often you can find someone who's already active in the group, knows the rules and is willing to do it for free.
Bottom line — a Facebook Group can turn to spam quickly. Make sure you're prepared to invest some resources to make sure it stays clean over time.
The numbers don't lie — my Facebook Group is the strongest brand asset I have.
If you're looking to build an active, engaged community around the problems your business solves, I strongly suggest you look into creating one of your own.
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It may be my age or the craziness going on around the world (or both), but I’ve seen so much hatred on social media lately that it’s almost scary.
People jump into argument with so much passion that it’s almost impossible to keep sanity.
Yet, we have to: It’s essential to maintain dignity. In many cases, it mostly comes down to stopping the discussion before it’s too late.
Here are a few tips for those who agree with me on this:
Some of your friends tend to share something you don’t agree with? It doesn’t make him/her a bad person… nor justifies a spoiled relationship.
If you unfriend that person, he’ll notice sooner or later.
If you stop following what he/she posts, that will always remain your secret prerogative. There’s no way to tell if your Facebook friend is also following your updates.
You can also unfollow a separate thread to stop notifications on new replies and ignore the follow-ups. This is better done earlier than sorry:
The simplest way to explain the difference:
Muting a user on Twitter means their Tweets and Retweets will no longer be visible in your home timeline, and you will no longer receive push or SMS notifications from that user (though they can still send you DMs).
Blocking a user on Twitter means everything what muting does + The blocked user cannot see your tweets when going to your Twitter profile.
That basically means that the user can easily tell when you are blocking them but there’s no way for them to tell if you are muting them.
Muting is like silent blocking which you can use to stop seeing annoying tweets without ruining that relationship completely.
Social media discussing is a weird beast: You basically talk to total strangers you know little about. You have no idea about their background; you can’t even tell what they feel.
This is why keeping sanity and trying your best not to offend anyone is so essential. It’s ok if you cannot accept an opposite point of view… or the way your opponents express it in words: You don’t have to change yourself.
What you can do is to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings or saying something you won’t be proud of by shutting down that conversation before it’s too late and without offending your opponent.
Read further: Social Media Etiquette: If There’s an Option, It Doesn’t Mean It’s a Good Idea
The post Social Media Discussions: How to Keep Sanity When Someone Disagrees with You appeared first on Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog.
Have you tried out the new LinkedIn app? Do you want to make the most of its features? The new LinkedIn app makes it easy for marketers on the go to do nearly everything they’d do on a desktop from a mobile device. In this article, I’ll share 10 ways to use the new LinkedIn [...]
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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
