Digital Marketing Digest

There are plenty of opportunities that come from the ability to schedule tweets on Twitter, most of which are covered here. 

That said, I'm not sure if this will be as big of a deal as it's made out, because this has been a feature on so many third party tools for quite some time now. Tweet scheduling isn't a new concept at all, thanks to Buffer, Tweetdeck, Sprout Social, TweetDeck, etc.

Speaking for myself, I rarely even use Twitter.com to send or consume tweets. There's a reason why social media managers use third party apps, like Leo states - there are other features like analytics, being able to post from multiple accounts in one place, etc. In my opinion, this won't change much.

As easy as it is to "Boost" your posts on Facebook, taking the few extra steps to create your ad in the Power Editor and properly target the audience you would like to reach is well worth it.

As someone who's consistently struggling to identify the best ways to measure success on Facebook, I found this post by Jon Loomer extremely helpful.

Jon is a super expert on Facebook and provides some great explanations into the mysterious land of PTAT, Insights, and reach - metrics that aren't exactly what most people think they are.

So, how long before "Vine Artist" becomes an actual job?

Love this post.

"Because if you’re not prepared to put a face (an actual face) and name (an actual name) alongside your brand in social media, perhaps you shouldn’t be there at all."

From the ability to edit posts to auto-play for videos, lots of new changes to Facebook's News Feed are coming. They're mostly important to people using it in strategic ways, but could also be of interest to those wondering how FB decides what you see in your feed.

This is an AWESOME list by Ian Cleary of tons of tools for accomplishing the little tasks associated with online and social media marketing.

Pictured is one of my favorites, Click to Tweet. I'm all about "Tweetable Tidbits" as part of a Lean Content strategy!

Now that it's so much easier to hold contests on Facebook Pages, here is a breakdown of what's good and what's a no-go.

I'm stil in the learning phases of SEO, but this post is full of super detailed tips on how to optimize the Yoast SEO plugin for wordpress and bring more traffic to your site from social and search.

While I definitely wouldn't say Tumblr is for everyone, there is an increase in businesses using the platform.

Uniquely, over 60% of the userbase of Tumblr is under 35, so as this post states, if your target market consists of 15-30 year olds, this is where you belong.

Here, find a Tumblr vocabulary lesson and some basic tips to optimizing the platform for your business.

Here's another great infographic from the social marketers over at Wishpond. 

Key stats:

-Facebook has 699 million active users as of 08/13

-Over 150 billion friend connections exist in the network

-350 million photos are uploaded daily

-Over $5 in revenue in 2012

Brian Solis always has great information and stats to share when it comes to building a social busines strategy. What stuck out to me from this post is the importance of ensuring that your social strategy actually is a social business strategy, and not just an add-on to your business.

Social strategy will produce significant, tangible results if - and only if - it is fully integrated across all departments and developed with specific goals in mind.

From the article:

"Remember, social business isn’t about technology; it’s about attaining goals and objectives by improving relationships, driving transactions, and enhancing experiences through channels of relevance. Technology and channels will always evolve and as such, they become enablers for a higher purpose. This is about the ongoing pursuit of relevance."

I don't know about you, but I'm always afraid to run contests on Facebook for fear of breaking one of the (many) rules and being chased by the Facebook Police.

Fortunately, the rules have changed in our favor and here's a great post laying out the CANs and CANNOTs very clearly!

Could this be the demise of third party apps built solely for hosting contests on Facebook because this was formerly the only way allowed?

I always love sharing posts from the Buffer blog because they do an amazing job pulling and applying stats that can actually help you in the long run. These posts aren't just another list of how to better reach your audience with social media, but provide real, valuable information and help break it down in ways that are easy to understand and to apply.

Some noteable figures from this post:

The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55-64 year age bracket.

Every second, two new members join LinkedIn.

A quarter of smartphone owners between 18-44 years old can't recall the last time their smartphone wasn't next to them!

1 million websites are integrated with Facebook. Talk about a HUB!

This is so cool: The Conversation Prism is "an evolving infographic that captures the state of social media, organized by how important social networks are used by professional and everyday consumers."

This is the fourth edition of The Conversation Prism, released this week by Brian Solis. 

According to Solis, the goals of the Conversation Prism include:

1. Acring as a form of validation to show executives that social media is not a fad and that it's bigger than Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Pinterest.

2. Motivating teams to find new ways to think about social media and explore new ways to improve experiences and relationships.

3. Providing a top-level view to help strategists study the landscape as they plan their next social media strategy.

When getting started on social media, namely Twitter, identifying influencers in your target audience (or influencers of your target audience) is one of the first steps.

Here are some useful tips on what types of stats and numbers to look at to find the best influencers. My tip? Build a list of 50 or so, create an actual Twitter list (private), and engage with a select number of them each day.

Your website is your first impression. No questions asked.

How do you turn casual browsers into loyal customers who rave about you to their social circles?

-Keep it simple (there's one I bet you've never heard before ;)). What is the four word story that you want your viewers to see, process, and remember? Integrate this into your site in any way you possibly can, and make sure it's consistent across the board.

- Down with the "royal we!" If you have a team, introduce them. If you don't, introduce yourself. And by introduce, I don't mean a zombie bio. I mean a photo, a little bit about what you do, and a few things about yourself as a person as well. Getting to know you and what you're about helps current and potential customers feel that much more connected to you and, in turn, your brand.