Ever since I started writing for Swipely two years ago, a company who is super-dedicated to helping Main Street businesses succeed, I’ve been extra-sensitive to what ails the locals. And heck, I’m a small business too! I can’t imagine having a storefront to maintain and inventory to stock.

Today I saw this open letter on Facebook from Rob Babigian, Owner of Wharf Clothing in Wares to some of his, er, thrifty customers, I thought it was worth sharing and thinking deeply about if you’ve chosen to shop locally.

A very simple open letter, from owner Rob Babigian to our customers…

We get requests occasionally to price match sale prices from big box retailers and department stores like Barneys who are able to offer products at a significant loss, making our jobs a little harder in the process. It is a challenge we dutifully accept, and having recently received one of these email requests, we felt it pertinent to remind our customers what we are about.

Firstly, thanks for your interest in our store and products. While we strive to offer our products at competitive prices, we cannot (and will not) compete with big box and department stores who carry items from the same brands that we sell. We are a local, independent boutique, and it is impossible to provide our products at a loss as Barneys and other big retailers do to attract business and point you toward the more profitable items in their stores. We do have items (that bigger stores have) on sale, and in fact we will give you a heads up when we are reducing our sale items further in the future. However, items will never be reduced to the prices you find from big retailers. 

We completely understand your position if you choose to find and buy an item cheaper elsewhere. The items we offer are not your ordinary generic pieces, and to find good deals on great brands and products is warranted by savvy customers such as yourself. But as a business owner, I have a responsibility to my store, my customers and the brands I sell to offer these premium goods at acceptable prices that quite literally make or break keeping our doors open. Our buys are tight, selected in small quantities per item, and painstakingly considered; We rely on each and every piece from each and every brand to perform in the store and our online shop. 

Combined with our product knowledge, personal interaction and customer service you cannot find in larger stores, our offerings and pricing are how we can continue to do our very best to bring you the varied and best selection you come to expect season after season, and make our store a little bit more special than your typical department store.

I feel it is also my responsibility to keep an open dialogue with our customers, so you know you are being heard and that we consider your comments and requests very sincerely. Thanks again, for your interest. Please continue to let us know how we can provide you with a better experience with us.

Best,
Rob Babigian
Owner

I’m not going to lie, I’ve bargained $100 off an item at Best Buy because Amazon had it cheaper, but I don’t feel sorry for Best Buy. I do feel bad for small businesses that get bullied by their customers who don’t understand the cost of being in business, and that every sale matters.

Shop local y’all, and leave your coupons at home!

The one thing most social media professionals won’t confess to a potential client on a first date is that the #1 return on their investment will be loyalty.

Nobody wants to hear that.

I know, because as a business selling social media services, I have to “sell” the concept of loyalty more often than I should. Loyalty? BAH! Show me the green! Let’s just say our all-organic-all-the-time foundation keeps us very selective about who we work with. BuzzFarmers, remember?

And are their opportunities for e-commerce? Sure, especially if you’re an e-commerce driven company. But the reason why most companies aren’t seeing an immediate return on their investment for social media, and the reason why social media is moving towards a branding function, where companies buy followers, more than a marketing function where companies earn them, is because the return on your social media investment takes time.

For example…

Google Analytics can’t tell you that I saw a friend snap a photo of their Wondermade marshmallows on Instagram six months ago, which triggered me to follow them on Twitter and Instagram, and finally triggered my first purchase a few months later by typing in their URL, and not by visiting a link they posted in social media.

When I decided to “like” them on Facebook after receiving my delicious marshmallows, they’d never know that the “like” was six months in the making. In fact, by looking at their analytics, I’m a speck in their direct traffic.

Social media is screwy like that. It puts bug in the head of your future customers. What analytics program can track when a chef’s delicious Instagram photo triggers me to head in for dinner? Or a photo that someone posts at Crompton Collective gets me itching to visit the next weekend?

Social media is hardly trackable. I’d love to see the research study that tells you what percentage of social media purchases actually come from social media – the REAL return on investment. It could be HUGE.

The only thing we can really count on is loyalty, another unmeasurable return on investment (although Swipely‘s doing the best job I’ve seen). Following certain brands, chefs, and businesses in social media have made me more loyal and enthusiastic about some businesses than you could begin to imagine. Some I’ve sent friends to in other cities, businesses that I’ve never even visited, simply based on their social media personas and the loyalty that can be felt by their real customers.

Loyalty, the long tail of social media, is more valuable than a one-shot purchase. I could have bought a single pack of marshmallows from Wondermade from a single link they sent out right away. They’d be able to track it. Super.

Instead, I bought myself a few boxes a couple months later. Then a month later, I sent out a few boxes more as gifts. For Christmas, I’m thinking about sending them out to clients. All based on a single Instagram photo that they can’t track.

Social media… totally worthless, huh? Wrong, just drastically under measured.

This month we cooked up a bunch of Twitter lingo, I’m putting together a glossary of terms because Twitter is a beehive of jargon that scares people away before they ever really get into it.

Twitter has done a great job at turning some of the former jargon into site features (the retweet button, linked hashtags) but there’s still plenty to learn. Even I only just learned what a MT was. Apparently now when you shorten or edit a retweet, you’ve gotta mark it as Modified Tweet (MT). That’s of course, not patrolled by the Twitter police or anything, but another implied community rule.

The new Twitter glossary isn’t complete, but then again, is any glossary ever complete?

In any case, there are a ton of glossary terms in the post. Some things worth noting:

Did you know:

• Micah Baldwin (@micah) started Follow Fridays back in 2009 using the hashtag #FollowFriday. On that note, nobody used to shorten it to #FF back in the day because at the time, #FF meant FriendFeed (.com).
• Twitter favorites used to be used as public bookmarks, not how they are used now as “likes”
• In the past year, Twitter has made it really easy to Discover new people and trends without using Twitter Search
• When you block someone on Twitter it only keeps you from appearing on their timeline, they can still see your Twitter bio, avatar and your feed by typing in your URL unless you make your account private.
• Direct messages are private, Tweets are public.
• Looking at your Connections will tell you how many apps are connecting to your Twitter account. You can deny access to Twitter apps using the Twitter API that you no longer want connected.
• The Twitter Connect tab has gotten so cool lately. You used to have a single feed of replies, now it’s like your Twitter inbox and alert center. No way to track unfollows via Twitter yet, but who wants to know that anyway??
• Twitter makes it super easy for you to get followers with a simple form that creates Twitter buttons.
• Twitter’s version of a customer service call is when you submit bugs to @support.
• Your Twitter background is ridiculously customizable, all you need is Photoshop!
• You have 30 days to change your mind after deactivating your account, then it’s gone!
• Unlike the RT, a MT or HT used in your Tweet is completely optional. Technically, using RT in your Tweets are optional too!
• Whenever you’re mentioned on Twitter, you’ll know about it!

Also this month, I put together some Twitter quotes that marketers can use in their feeds. We all know that quotes get shared frequently, so if you’re trying to fill up some space in your timeline, check them out.

Examples:

“Dance like the photo’s not being tagged, Love like you’ve never been unfriended, Tweet like nobody’s following .” - @PostSecret

“If Paul Revere had been a modern day citizen, he wouldn’t have ridden down Main Street. He would have tweeted.” - @AlecJRoss

“We are the generation of Social Media, Our biggest Revolution is a Tweet of 141 Characters.” -@sandrachami

“I’ve had to learn when not to tweet. Like, you learn how to keep your mouth shut? Learn to keep your tweet shut.” @thatdanstevens

“If you are tweeting how busy you are…you’re not busy.” – @KristinCav

“…don’t tell me I should only talk to people with a high influence score, or I’ll Klout you…” ― @JohnJGeddes

“I tweet, therefore my entire life has shrunk to 140 character chunks of instant event & predigested gnomic wisdom. & swearing.” @NeilGaiman

“Don’t ever tell people on Twitter that you’re tweeting while you’re driving … it’s worse than saying you’re cutting up kittens” @robgokee

If you’re not following me over on @About_Twitter, you most definitely should. Not only am I sharing all of these new articles, but I’m also spitting out Twitter news like a firehose.

For example, did you know:

• Justin Bieber fans unleashed Twitter fury on an NFL legend?
• Twitter’s Mobile Crash Reporting Tool Crashlytics arrived on Android
• Curt Buthman proposed to girlfriend Marsha Collier on Twitter
• A man was jailed after threatening President Obama on Twitter
• Cambridge University linguists used Twitter to study how Welsh language use is changing
• Lena Dunham’s Memorial Day Tweet about peeing really angered conservatives
• Twitter Lead Generation Cards now let advertisers collect email addresses
• Hillary Clinton will soon be joining Twitter and tweeting as @HillaryClinton
• Meghan McCain said she found out on Twitter that her dad was in Syria
• Amanda Bynes just can’t keep her hands off Twitter
• A Zoo Chief’s first Tweet starred a 650-pound tortoise 
• After all the hijackings, Twitter added a two-step security feature 
• Twitter introduced a new feature for advertisers, adding the ability to target keywords in timelines 
• Facebook was accused of hurting brands that use Instagram on Twitter
• Yahoo and Twitter partnered up to personalize the homepage newsfeed

And that’s just a little bit of news. I’ve been cooking up as many definitions as I can for the glossary, but will soon be adding a lot for how-to’s and whatnots. Hope you guys have been enjoying so far!

NOTE:

Did you know that I’m now managing Twitter.About.com too?

From now on I’ll be sharing a bunch of quick-tip articles here that link back to all the new tips,
strategies, apps and tactics I’m posting over there that will help you sharpen your Twitter chops.

Consider it cross-pollination! 

I’ve been working with Mequoda, a marketing, training and web development company for magazine publishers, for over seven years.

One of the things I love about them, and one of the reasons why we’ve gotten to work with the likes of publishers like Men’s Health and Time Inc. is because they are so incredibly research, testing and numbers driven. The number of reports that Mequoda pulls together on a daily and monthly basis would make your head spin. Everything they design, and every piece of content they/we write is so expertly thought out and measured, that it’s no wonder their clients sing them from the rooftops. Mequoda events are filled with the most passionate business leaders I’ve ever had the pleasure of surrounding myself with. And those people attend year after year because Mequoda makes publishers rich on a regular basis. Seriously.

One of my favorite reports from Norann Oleson, their Analytics Program Manager, tells the story of every keyword Mequoda gets ranked for, which article is ranking mostly highly for that keyword, and how high it’s ranking.

This report allows me to also see the increase and decrease of those rankings, and Norann always includes a nice little drop out of the firehose that gives a simple overview of which ten articles rose in rank the most that month, and which ones lost the most rank.

Most of the articles that lose rank have been sitting on the first page of Google for a long time, years in some cases. They’ve been sending hundreds, sometimes thousands of page views per month. Because of this, any drop is definitely noticeable and we don’t want to lose that.

And we do have other strategies that we use to refresh those articles in other ways, for example, updating the articles and actually refreshing them. But, over the past few months I’ve been doing something that’s a little quicker, and possibly even more effective.

I’ve been taking the “bottom ten” list she sends me and recycling that content on Twitter in a fairly strategic and systematic way.

My process for recycling these old articles and bringing back their SEO juice is this:

• Take all of the articles (they were already SEO’d by the way) and write six  new Twitter headlines for each.
• Then, I schedule them all out for six months using Hootsuite.
• I choose to do it on the same day every month, to make it easy.
• I choose to switch up the time for each effort to tap into different time zones.

For example, 5 Reasons to Recycle Content on Twitter becomes:

• April 25th, 9am: 5 Reasons to Recycle Content on Twitter http://ow.ly/kpMMs
• May 25th, 11am: One good reason to recycle your content on Twitter: more visibility http://ow.ly/kpMMs
• June 25th, 1pm: Visibility, SEO, Clicks, Timing & Testing: 5 Reasons to Use Twitter for Recycling: http://ow.ly/kpMMs
• July 25th, 3pm: You’re wasting good content if you’re not doing this: http://ow.ly/kpMMs
• August 25th, 5pm: “As long as the content is evergreen, you have every opportunity to stick it in your future feed”, says @amaaanda http://ow.ly/kpMMs
• September 25th, 7pm: Are you recycling old articles on Twitter? Here’s how to do it right: http://ow.ly/kpMMs

By refreshing this content through social media, Google gets a chance to look at it again. In many cases, you’ll get more re-tweets and shares which can only help those articles climb their way back up onto the first page of Google.

Curious about those five reasons to recycle old content on Twitter?

1. More Visibility: If every single person in your target audience took a vacation today, none of them would see your tweet. Essentially, it would be lost in a sea of tweets, and the people who would see it and click your link wouldn’t be those most likely to complete a sale. If you only post your articles once, they may never be seen again.

2. More SEO Benefit: If you title your posts with brilliant SEO keywords, Google is taking notice. In fact, Google associates the words in your tweets with the URL you are tweeting about, so the more you post it, or people re-tweet it, the better you’ll rank on your targeted keyword.

3. More Opportunity for Clicks: Obviously the more times you post a tweet, the more traffic it’s going to bring in. However, if it’s a holiday, or even holiday season, you probably aren’t going to see the results you’re looking for. Or, if you posted at the wrong times of day, or a natural disaster occurred, you’re obviously going to see a drop. Instead of calling it a loss, you have the next two reasons to consider.

4. Diversity of Timing: Recycling posts means that you can schedule them at different times in the upcoming days and months. Perhaps today you schedule your tweet for 10am and 3pm, and next month you schedule it at 9am and 5pm, and six months from now you might post it at 2am and 11pm for international readers. Then you look back regularly to see which times brought in the most traffic and begin to work on a more calculated schedule.

5. Experimenting with Headlines: Writing Twitter headlines takes practice because what works on a blog and what works as an email subject line doesn’t always work on Twitter. Folks on Twitter appreciate hashtags and call-outs to signify a more “human” feel. The more you post an article, the more opportunities you have to work with these types of elements to see which headlines pull better. Does a question work better? A statement? The title of the post? The email subject line you used? These are all different formulas to try.

Comments? Questions? Demands? Let’s chat down below!

Or, let us do this all for you. 

The main reason people want more Twitter followers is to build credibility. For businesses, it’s a good way to show your reputation. For people, especially those looking for a job in social media, it’s a way to prove influence.

The more followers you have, the more people will be inclined to trust you. The idea of getting more followers might make you feel like you’re in high school: the more followers you have, the more popular you appear.

It’s because of this that some people choose to “cheat” the system by buying followers or using automated programs (more on that later).

But there’s a benefit to more Twitter followers than just the “body count.”

Whenever I follow someone new, I make an effort to reply to something in his or her feed right away. It’s not just a follower-building habit, it’s a relationship-inducing tactic that has served me well in getting jobs, building friendships and even getting free stuff.

Don’t place your bets on getting a response from celebrities on Twitter, but it’s easy to get the attention of regular users, business owners, PR people and customer service tweeters.

A few easy ways to get more Twitter followers:

• Attend tweet-ups
• Follow more people
• Introduce yourself to people you follow
• Add a “follow” button to your website
• Use a flattering profile picture
• Ask for re-tweets
• Join tweet chats and use designated hashtags
• Respond to more people in your feed
• Use Twitter search to answer questions people are asking

I can also think of a few more ways to gain Twitter followers…

Some people use applications like Hootsuite to create custom feeds of anyone who mentions keywords they want to watch, or create mini-feeds of influencers who they want to re-tweet and get in front of.

The wonderful thing about Twitter is that you get back what you put into it. You can spend a single evening seeking out conversations to respond to, and get fifty new followers in a few hours.

Or, there’s the easy road, automated applications and buying followers, which rarely conjures up valuable followers, but certainly makes your profile scream, “I’m popular!” Imagine if high school was that easy!

Whether you choose the organic karma-building method of getting followers, or the dirty not-so-secret secrets of Twitter’s “most fake followed” users, there are strategies for every level of effort.

Keep in mind that Twitter isn’t a popularity contest. If you spend all your time trying to be witty, share what you think people want you to share, and promote your business like everyone else, your followers will get bored.

So I guess the biggest lesson comes from Oscar Wilde: be yourself, everyone else is already taken. Sometimes your username is taken too, and that sucks.

NOTE:

Did you know that I’m now managing Twitter.About.com too?

From now on I’ll be sharing a bunch of quick-tip articles here that link back to all the new tips,
strategies, apps and tactics I’m posting over there that will help you sharpen your Twitter chops.

Consider it cross-pollination!

American playwright David Ives said that lists are anti-democratic, discriminatory and elitist. Well Mr. Ives, I happen to like lists. And as the fourth quarter of 2012 is ending, I’ve come across some really impactful and wonderful lists that I wanted to share. So, here they are, and I’ll keep adding to the list as more pop up.

10 Predictions for Inbound Marketing in 2013 by Rand Fishkin (SEOMoz)

I’m sort of a Rand fangirl cause we have the same SEO brainwaves and work patterns (hello late night blog posts!) except he’s famous and makes bank doing it. This list is Rand’s predictions for 2013 that he hopes you hold him accountable for. He also reviews his predictions from last year and how they held up. Great read.

2012′s Top Lessons for B2B Marketers by MarketingProfs

The lack of explanation behind “automated is better than manual” in lesson one turned me off a bit although I’m sure the social media slackers of the world would love to apply that one-size-fits all strategy to their business. Everything else I enjoyed though, even including the fact that Klout does indeed have a good algorithm for determining who’s influential.

12 Worthwhile Small Business Resolutions for 2013 by Swipely

I think the least obvious item on this list is to plan your holiday promotions in advance…like now. I write almost daily about small business marketing, and I spend a lot of time looking for effective promotions. Most of the time businesses throw up their holiday promotions or event flyers a week before the big day. Gotta plan that thing at least a month in advance! OK so I wrote this one, but what kind of marketer would I be if I didn’t include my own “best of” list here?

Social Media Report 2012 by Nielsen

A pretty-looking presentation, made up of about 15 pages worth of infographics. I was a little shocked that 33% (the majority) of social media users think ads on social media sites are more annoying than elsewhere on the web. Really? More annoying than pop-ups and those full-page stopper ads on newspaper sites? Cripes, I’ll take relevant ads based on my consumer and browsing data any day.

Top Tweets of 2012 aka Golden Tweets from Twitter

I’ll give you a hint: the top two tweets were by Obama and Bieber. I do like the other complimentary add-ons to this list though, like seeing your own year in tweets, and seeing through the eyes of major events on Twitter.

The Most Popular Stories of 2012 from LinkedIn

What I like most about this list is that it’s not some chump putting it together (hey, who you callin’ a chump?!) but it seems to be curated in some way, whether it’s populated from the most popular posts in my network, or just by the most popular posts in LinkedIn, I found the list to be pretty darn good.

Top 20 Conversion Insights of 2012 from Unbounce

I was hoping this list would be more about test results from Unbounce, but still enjoyed this list of brainy quotes from all the internet elite. Loved the quotes from Peep Laja,  Carlos del Rio and Jon Correll. Still working on that one from Steve Krug. Also, does Chris Goward look like Rand Fish or what?

Top 1 SEO Tips for 2013 by SEOMoz

This was forwarded to me by Raymond Horwitz over at Black Belt Magazine and I thought it was a great summary of SEO in 2013. As always, content rules, but you really need to get your crap together about writing better content and article marketing. People MUST be sharing your content and they MUST be linking to it. Also, you ought to have a backup plan if Google decides you’re not the best search result anymore.

The Best Books of 2012 by GoodReads

I’m really excited that Wild by Cheryl Strayed was on this list, because Gretchen Rubin (author of The Happiness Project) introduced me to this book a month or so ago. I read half the book through Amazon’s preview features and can’t wait to read the paperback. Also, there wasn’t enough time for it to make this list, but I think The 4-Hour Chef is amazing and fun and everyone needs to own it.

Best in Travel 2013 by LonelyPlanet

I like this list because it’s more of a collection. Sure, the usual suspects are on their best-of lists, but they also have other lists like the best places to hunt for buried treasure, the unluckiest places in the world and best places to do something new (my favorite). And when you need to get back to budgeting reality, you can read the best value destinations.

Email Marketing Awards 2013 by MarketingSherpa

I worked for MarketingSherpa several years ago and something I liked about their annual marketing awards was how they judged their entries. The truth is that it didn’t take a lot of work to judge them. Which email got the most conversions? How much money did it make? Great, there’s our winner. There was no design specialist scouring over what shade of blue you used, there’s just data and facts. If you won, it’s because your copy and design syntax worked, and no human can judge that based on instincts, just numbers.

This list will be a work in progress over the month of December. Please suggest any that you’ve loved in the comments!

If you like this list, buckle your britches and head over to our 15 Social Media Gift Ideas for #SocialMedia Lovers post (c’mon, take a chance!)

Remember the days when you could just post a link on Facebook, and optimistically guess how many people saw your link? When a post got not likes or comments, you just assumed you were doing something wrong and iterated. Typically, these iterations resulted in more likes and follows.

I’m not sure if there was ever a time when Facebook Business Pages got the same visibility as profile pages in any one person’s feed, but the one thing that’s for sure is that the one big mystery everyone wants to solve with our new BuzzAudit is where their formerly attentive audience went.

The truth is that if you did truly have an attentive audience, the change in Facebook’s algorithm wouldn’t have given you a huge dent. The new algorithm is based on how engaged Facebook users are with your page. So, in theory, if they’d been visiting your page often and leaving comments, your page would still be showing up in their feed.

I think that’s where the “oopsie” happened. One of our clients has more than 500,000 very active and engaged users who comment and like their little hearts out of each post. But still, when Facebook dropped the sledgehammer, their once loyal fans disappeared out of nowhere.

After some time, fans started commenting on their page, asking why they didn’t see posts anymore. And then suddenly, the posts started showing up again, like magic.

That’s because every re-visit results in increased Facebook visibility.

And that’s where the frustration lies. What was once a very free marketing platform has, in essence, become a paid platform. Companies are used to paying for ads in newspapers, through AdSense, and to bulk-send their email addresses. However, they’re not accustomed to paying to deliver a message through Facebook.

The good news is that Facebook advertising is pretty cheap. The better news is that you don’t need to buy ads in order to increase visibility. Before you start creating an ad budget for Facebook, try these simple steps first. We’ve tried them with all of our clients and Facebook visibility has increased on an average post by 20% or more.

Start posting more photographs and illustrations

We’ve found that photographs get more automatic visibility than any other type of post. When comparing a photo, text and video post that all have no likes or comments, the photo post gets almost double visibility automatically.

In one test we ran with a client, their link posts had a typical Facebook reach of 10-20,000 fans while photo posts with a similar number of likes and comments got closer to 45,000 and sometimes reaching 68,000 if the photo had a quote in it. This test ran with a client that has an extremely dedicated fan base of more than 500,000 fans.

After our initial BuzzAudit with them, they stopped posting traditional links and started posting more eye-catching photos. The captions for the photos became the typical teaser copy plus the URL to the article. These posts continue to be their most liked and shared posts.

For many of our clients who we’ve tested with, their “most popular post” is a photo with a quote on it. And I’ve been straight-up shocked to see that photos with faces in them get less likes than ones of projects, or ones that make you laugh.

Also, if you plan on replacing link posts with photo posts, start using trackable URLs (you can do this through Google Analytics or bit.ly) because Facebook won’t track those links.

Tag other businesses in your posts

One way we’ve found that clients are able to increase their Facebook reach dramatically is by tagging other businesses in their posts.

A great way to do this is to become more dedicated to supporting your fellow like-minded businesses. For example, at BuzzFarmers, we like to write posts about our local businesses and give them virtual-high fives when they do something neat. Sometimes we’ll write a case study about them, or include them in a list of businesses who are doing something cool. By tagging them in the post, we get in front of them and their fans, and we also give them some love for their hard work and marketing smarts.

The example to the right is by Style Me Pretty, who’s posting a centerpiece featured on their blog.

They’re using the above technique by featuring the photograph, and in the description they’re tagging all of the businesses who helped create it.

This strategy gets the post in front of all the businesses tagged, and increases the chances of it getting shared by those businesses and increasing visability.

Come up with a dozen new ways to get more comments

While Facebook clearly has a bias towards post type, in our tests, comments did increase each post’s visibility. In a comparison of two link posts with a difference of just ten likes between them, the one with eleven comments had 20% more visibility.

Most businesses get more comments by asking questions, or making controversial statements. Passion for your niche and trade transfers well to your fans on Facebook and posts that reflect your passion typically elicit more feedback. Negative posts tended to get more comments, although I’d be careful here.

One of our clients hosts a weekly caption contest, asking fans to add a caption to their photo. So far, this has been their most successful attempt at getting comments, and the double-combo of photo and comments has made these their most popular posts.

When asking a question on a link post, some users are inclined to leave their comment on the post itself. When asked on a photo post, they leave the comment on the photo. Since your end-goal is probably driving traffic back to your website, you might want to switch it up so that you’re sending traffic to your site, but also increasing visibility through Facebook comments too. One hand feeds the other.

This example on Car Talk’s Facebook page got 224 comments. Not only are they using the photo method we talked about, but they’re also linking to their blog, AND asking a witty question that garnered serious feedback and visibility (look at all those shares!). Check, check and check!

Cross-promote from other networks

2 days only – free shipping online and 20% off in stores! Visit on.fb.me/VuGtCm for more details.

— MoMA Design Store (@MoMAstore) December 10, 2012

Cross-posting is a bad habit. If you double-post on two different networks, eventually you’ll tire your followers/fans and they’ll unsubscribe from one or the other. You need to interact differently on Facebook and Twitter to maintain subscribers to both.

Cross-promotion is different. In order to get your posts back in front of your fans, they need to re-visit your page. Drive this traffic from your Twitter account, or other social networks. Create an email campaign out of it too. Try getting them back to your home page, and also directly to certain posts.

You can create short teaser copy, like “Do you like us?”, add a link and BOOM. The point is to get them to click the link, that’s it, so don’t be a marketing jerk about it, but get creative.

Don’t count on video

Well, not unless you’re crazy excited about it and have an arsenal of winning ideas. As video producers, we should be telling you to go crazy with the videos. But, in our research we found that videos don’t get a lot of likes or shares on Facebook (or, not as compared to links or photos) so they didn’t get a lot of visibility, either.

Even promoted video posts don’t appear to break any significant visibility barriers, and their engagement numbers are minimal. Posts with embedded videos and ones that linked to video archives had the worst visibility in our tests.

The trouble with video on Facebook is combination of two things.

First, video requires audio, and so many people view Facebook in a place where they can’t necessarily turn their volume up. Second, it’s a time commitment. If you want people to watch your video, add a more detailed description to your post and tell them how long they’re committing to.

But remember, this post is about visibility. If you create an amazing video that isn’t seen by everyone, but gets some of those people to buy/try your product/service then you’ve still done all right!

Adams County Winery makes a lot of fun videos that they post to their Facebook page. They always add something to their description,  like “watch until the end!” or “it’ll make you laugh!” which makes their fans want to watch the video. That, plus their contagious enthusiasm is the reason why their videos get more response than those of other small businesses we’ve analyzed.

Start conversations and Q&A chats

One of our clients hosts a weekly “chat” on Facebook. I double-checked with a couple other companies I know that do chats and their results were the same – big-time visibility. Hundreds to thousands of comments amount to some serious reach.

The trouble with this, which Lush discovered, is keeping up when you have hundreds of thousands of fans. So it’s not exactly a scalable, but worth testing. Many end up moving the chat over to Twitter to organize the conversation a little more easily. Facebook is a wonderful community to jump-start this effort, though, and an even better way to increase visibility because every comment leads to more exposure.

Ask for people to “like” posts, create contests around “liking” posts

If I haven’t made this obvious yet, “likes” will increase your visibility almost as much as comments. The more likes you get, the more Facebook reach your post will have.

When comparing a very similar photo post, both were advertisements and marked as “featured”, the post that had 45 likes only got 2,300 people to see it, while the one with 243 likes had more than 10,000 views.

As mentioned, different post types require more likes to get increased visibility. For example, a photo post might only need ten likes to increase visibility by 20%, but a link posr would require twenty.

GrubHub has a habit of posting mouth-watering treats that anyone would “like”. They’re actually a great example of a businesses who uses creative images to their advantage, so check out their Facebook page when you’re done with this post (almost there!)

Think more about strategic timing

Not surprisingly, the average workday, according to Eastern Standard Time, reflects the time with most engagement, especially between 5am and 9am, lunch hours and the few hours after work. After 9pm, engagement starts to trickle. Weekends seem to work good too, especially for likes.

This is possibly because people, especially businesses, post less on the weekends, making it your time to stand out in a less saturated feed.

The TL;DR version

Post more photographs and use trackable links when you do so. Use every way possible to get people to re-visit your Facebook page through other social networks and through email. Get as many comments as possible, through chats and provocative posts. Tag others in your posts to increase visibility on their page too.

If you’re a self-loathing blogger, then you probably don’t want anyone to read your work. It’s awful, terrible, the worst thing anyone has ever read! Because of this, you don’t SEO your blog posts (nobody’s looking for them anyway!) and if anyone does in fact find your blog posts, you want to send them away as soon as possible.

If your goal in blogging is not to make money, not to get shared, not to drive web traffic, and to drive web visitors away, then a great way to stay out of the spotlight is to send visitors in the opposite direction from your blog as soon as possible. We’ve seen lots of bloggers do this, usually not on purpose, and we’ve also been misguided to do this by clients too.

If you really want to send traffic away from your blog instead of keeping it on your site, here are five great ways to do it:

- Link to someone else in your first paragraph. Don’t give readers a chance to digest your point of view, just send them away quickly! Shoo!

- Constantly refer and link to “the experts”. You wouldn’t want anyone to consider YOU an expert, right? So much pressure!

- Don’t define your jargon. Talk like a suit so they need to leave and Google all your fancy words. Swot analysis. Go!

- Don’t tell links to open in a new window. Pretend your blog post never happened, like a regretful one-night stand. Send them away and don’t give them your phone number!

- Don’t interlink any of your other articles. Cause when they’re done, they’re done right? GET OFF MY LAWN!

Congratulations, you’ve just completed the first course in sending traffic away from your blog!

How to turn that frown upside down

Now if you’ve ever made any of these mistakes on accident, here are five more ways to keep people on your blog instead of sending them away:

- Build your case before linking away. Your first couple of paragraphs should build a relationship with the reader, not send them away. Sending them away too quickly tells the reader that the real source of information is most certainly, not you.

- Establish yourself as the expert. Link to other sources only when they have data you can’t provide, not to “qualify” information you already know and are teaching.

- Create a glossary. If your business requires the use of jargon, create a glossary so that you’re not sending readers away when they need a definition.

- Tell external links to open in a new window. That way when they click away, your post is still there for them to continue reading.

- Interlink blog posts. When you reference a topic that you’ve already written about, link to that blog post. That way you’re sending them on a journey, keeping them on your site longer, and building loyalty with the reader.

Seems simple enough, right? If you’re confident enough to write blog posts, do your best to portray that confidence by being the resource they’re looking for, not just a gateway drug to the “real” source.

]]> http://buzzfarmers.com/blog-tips-for-beginners/5-sign-of-an-unconfident-blogger/feed/ 0 http://buzzfarmers.com/social-media-marketing-ideas/buzzfarmers-2012-holiday-gift-guide-for-social-media-lovers/ http://buzzfarmers.com/social-media-marketing-ideas/buzzfarmers-2012-holiday-gift-guide-for-social-media-lovers/#comments Sat, 08 Dec 2012 19:24:50 +0000 Amanda MacArthur | @amaaanda http://buzzfarmers.com/?p=1110

The 2012 BuzzFarmers Holiday Gift Guide

“Damn girl, you can eat”. Those words were the first sweet nothings that Patrick ever tweeted to me.

We met on Twitter. I was in the midst of a day-long food road trip with some friends for my birthday, and Patrick was in utter shock when he stumbled upon my feed full of buffalo wings, double-stuffed french toast, and juicy burgers. Long story short, we’re both foodies and I was new to Providence, so we started making a weekly date of trying every out restaurant in Providence. And the rest is history, right? Yay Twitter!

So naturally, we heart social media more than the average bears. And I know plenty of you out there that do, too! So for this holiday season, we decided to put together a little list of social media gift ideas to warm the hearts of your social media-loving family and friends. …Because those other so-called “social media gift guides” are shameful. For the record, nobody wants a #YOLO shirt or an audible subscription. Actually, yes we do want an audible subscription, but doesn’t everyone?

Anyway, let’s get down to the list.

Quarterly Co.

Quarterly is our new favorite subscription. We love mail and trying out new things, so we subscribe to a lot of monthly boxes. What’s neat about Quarterly is that it’s quarterly, and you can choose who you want to put your box together. For example, if Patrick were to marry a man, it would be Tim Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour series, most recently the 4-Hour Chef (which is a MUST BUY).

Tim Ferriss is Quarterly’s newest box author. You can also get ones from Alexis Ohanian of reddit, Mike Monteiro, better known as @Mike_FTW, and Mark Frauenfelder, founder of BoingBoing.

Fail Whale Necklace

This cute little fail whale necklace is made by Mary Beth Heishman on Etsy. It’s a two-inch, brass, hand-stamped necklace on a gold-plated chain. She’s @MaryBethsArt on Twitter.

Social Media Pillows

Personally, we want every single one of these for our office couch. There are lots of social media pillow makers on Etsy, and we like the ones from Adrene Sews, IconPillows, CraftSquatch and GeekyGiraffe.

Fitbit

Hear me out. For the fitness nuts on your list that also happen to be social media lovers, this device rocks. Not only does it track your activity and sleep levels automatically, you can also sync it to Facebook and Twitter to post about how active you were during the day. For over-sharers, this is pretty cool.

My fitbit #fitstats for 12/07/2012: 3,132 steps and 1.2 miles traveled. fitbit.com/user/226HHS

— Chris Abraham (@chrisabraham) December 8, 2012

@ Name and Hashtag Necklaces

Patrick bought me one of these back in 2009, and I wear it to every tweetup I go to. Way cooler than a nametag, right? These ones can be made in silver and gold, and variety of styles. They’re handmade in New York by Survival of the Hippest.

Twitter Handle Burlap Pillow

This cool, modern and primitive pillow by Elisa Petty on Etsy is pretty darn neat. She suggests using them as take-home gifts for clients. They’re hand-painted on natural burlap or white oyster burlap.

Really Good Social Media / Human Marketing Books

Every social media lover needs some key books in their arsenal, and we think these ones are really important for becoming the type of business that people want to work with, and even hang out with: The Thank You Economy, The Impact Equation, Tell to Win, Enchantment, and Engagement from Scratch.

Stitchagram

So neat. All you need to do is log in (or get their password) and you can turn photos into tote bags, pillows, clutches and purses.

Social Media Timing Clock

This would be a fun gift to get/give. As us social media users know, time can get a’wastin’ in no time. This clock won’t necessarily track your time, but it’s fun to look at.

The clock is 7.9 inches x 7.9 inches and made with high-quality acrylic. Instead of numbers, you’ll get icons for Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, WordPress and RSS and more. Fun!

Pinterest Ring

This Pinterest ring is no longer available by the seller on Etsy, and they don’t appear to be making anymore. But how hard can it be to make? A ring, a bottlecap, cork paper, pen and a pin. Cute idea for the DIY-er, and a magnet would be cool too!

Social Media Monthly Magazine

We’re subscribers to this monthly magazine and were some of the initial supporters on Kickstarter. It gets better each month, and is a nice treat to read about social media on a real-life printed page!

Hashtag Chalkboard

This hashtag chalkboard would look awesome in any social media office, or on the walls of an event. There are also all kinds of other cool hashtag gifts on Etsy.

Social Media Notes

As mentioned, paper is a nice vacation from the digital screen. So if you know someone who’s constantly glued, here are some “nostalgic” paper items from KnockKnock to help them fuse their two worlds together at the office.

Custom Flip Flops

Oh yeah. These are happening.

 Twitter Bird Change Purse

I want the pig-version of this to go with our BuzzFarmers theme badly, but these cute little birds are adorable too. Every blue bird is a Twitter bird….right?

So there you have it. And feel free to buy any/all of these gifts for us too (heh). Except for the books, because Patrick and I can’t share, so we have at least two of each. Don’t even ask us how many copies of Crush It we have.

Also, I’m not going to lie, this post was inspired by the Seamless Holiday Gift Guide for Delivery Lovers!

If you have any more gift ideas, leave them in the comments!

Well how about being the beacon of light that encourages those good deeds in a creative way?

Next week we’re going to be in Jackson, New Hampshire for half of the week for a special occasion. So naturally, I’ve been looking around for neat things to do while we’re there. It’s in the White Mountains, so there’s plenty of snow-shoeing and hiking to do. After talking with Chris Sturk over at Mequoda, he convinced me that we need to try ski boarding too.

So Pinterest has become something of a pretty reliable travel guide lately, and I used it as part of my research arsenal for this trip. One of the pins that popped up when I searched for Jackson NH was this “Good Karma Gift Board” at Backcountry Bakery and Cafe in Jackson.

What an awesome idea! And it’s hard to put the words “karma” and “marketing” in the same sentence in good conscience, but is this a great bakery marketing strategy or what? There’s no better marketing than making people feel good. And who says this needs to be a holiday thing, anyway?

A big thanks to Espresso Dave’s, a Boston-area coffee catering company that’s kicking butt over on Pinterest and shared this photo. Their combo of party / decorating ideas + coffee pins are also a great example of how a small business can creatively use Pinterest.

Now, commence listening to Jackson, featuring Florence + the Machine and Josh Homme until we get back!

(Thanks for the nudge, Steff!)