Constant communication

You’ve probably come across rumblings that the “Social Media Manager” position is dead. In reality, it isn’t that simple. As HootSuite’s CEO Ryan Holmes explains, the position has shifted to become an essential part of a marketing strategy. Furthermore, there are still plenty of people who don’t understand how to properly use social media in the business world. In this case, we still need people to educate and train others on how to effectively use social media. Also consider when it comes to content marketing, many companies are still saying their top priorities are driving sales or leads, engaging customers, and boosting brand awareness. When it comes to challenges, business owners say they struggle with lack of time to create content (51%), producing enough content variety/volume (50%), producing truly engaging content (42%), measuring content effectiveness (38%), and developing consistent content strategy (34%). So, isn’t that enough reason … [Read more...] about Community Manager vs. Social Media Manager

Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are naturally social — people are connecting and engaging about topics they love. So how do you, as a brand, tap into that without paying big bucks for it? With a few simple “tricks” — shared by successful startup founders — you can encourage your community to naturally engage more with your brand on social. Determine when your audience is online and ask them questions. Bump Club and Beyond is a community for expecting and new moms. This audience is on their phones in the middle of the night while they are feeding their babies. Our “3 a.m. Feeding Club” asks these moms questions, which they gladly answer and help each other with. This is often our top post of the day in regards to engagement. – Lindsay Pinchuk, Bump Club and Beyond Hold Contests Our audience loves a good contest where they can win a prize that’s relevant (gift cards are usually great so there are no shipping issues). We post and … [Read more...] about Increase Community Engagement w/ Your Brand

No, you won’t need night vision goggles or an invisibility cloak to monitor your community. What you do need is to pay attention to your surroundings—your referential universe is an endless source of inspiration if you just give it a chance. Working inside of a system often makes us lose what’s most important in succeeding—the holistic view of the industry. Now, let’s suppose I’m Peppercomm. In case you’re not familiar with that company, I’m a serious PR agency, always putting the interest of the clients first, working under the tagline of being a good listener. However, in my ambitious efforts to create compelling campaigns, I don’t seem to have the time to look around me and see if I’m missing something. DISCLOSURE: The example is just a pedagogical approach, randomly chosen, not paid and not on behalf of the Peppercomm agency. But today I just decided to contemplate the state of facts in my industry. I’m starting from … [Read more...] about Monitoring Your Online Community to Increase ROI

A blog is not a place to dump content. Obviously, you know this. At least I assume that everyone with a blog would be aware, and yet so often that is exactly what they seem to be doing. Blog posts are being published on websites and just left there to gather dust. Maybe there’s some traffic. But that doesn’t mean the blog is successful, or that the post has done well. Dan Shure published a great piece on Moz about this titled The Broken Art Of Company Blogging (and the Ignored Metric That Could Save Us All). He explains that he does not use traffic or social sharing as a measurement of success. A blog post could have hundreds of shares, and he would consider it a failure if it did not have one particular metric to judge it: comments. That isn’t quite what I want to talk about here, but it brings up an excellent point: How do you measure the success of a blog? The answer is not necessarily comments, but rather a sense of community. Your blog should be a community of … [Read more...] about 6 Free Ways to Build a Community Around Your Blog