Create Your Page, Profile Photo and Cover Photo

Let our knowledgeable social media team create your Facebook page. Designed with the needs and goals of your business in mind, the copy will reflect who you are and the design, including the profile and cover photos, will be unique and reflect your branding. This is a great way to begin developing a following.

Increase Your “Likes”

We’ll expertly promote your page to individuals within your target demographic. Your page “likes” will steadily grow as we engage those who are most likely to employ your services and purchase your products.

Engage Your Audience

Yabsta’s experts will post a wide range of interesting content that is related to your business on a regular schedule. This consistency keeps fans coming back for more.

Report Back

We track your Facebook analytics so you don’t have to. Real data lets you know it’s working and a full report is always available. You’ll know exactly how your page is performing.

To learn more about our social media management services, contact us today. Download a free Facebook marketing eBook here for additional information.

Image Credit: I Like Facebook by Charis Tsevis, via Flickr, no changes made, CC License

It’s Ad-Free

The most notable aspect of Ello is that it’s entirely free of advertisements. It does not sell or show ads and users’ personal data is not bought or sold. Ello is also a USA Public Benefit Corporation, which means that it’s highly unlikely they will ever be able to sell ads or user information. Different from the services offered by networks like Facebook, Twitter and the like, you can check out their policy here.

It’s Free-Free

Ello is free to use and users will never have to pay anything. However, the creative team frequently offers special features and, if you like them, it costs a small amount to have the feature added to your account. This money goes to support the continued improvement of the network.

How Do I Join?

At this point in time, Ello is invitation-only. If you know someone who is currently using the social media network, you can ask them to invite you. You can also request an invitation code via the site’s home page. Once you’ve received the code, you can enter it here.

Design

The layout and style of Ello is simple, clean and minimalist. Though the site is relatively stark in comparison to much social media, it is easy to use and uncluttered. Individual profiles feature a header and profile photo, username, short bio and links.

How It Works

Similar to many other networks, Ello users can follow and mention one another, and also comment on one another’s posts. The homepage is divided into two panels – one displays the Control Panel (which gives users access to the site’s many features) as well as users being followed. Followed users are divided into two groups – “Friends” and “Noise.” The second panel displays a timeline of posts from the users in the selected group that can be scrolled through and interacted with. To learn more about the nitty-gritty, check out this user manual.

Now that you know what Ello’s all about, it’s time to take the plunge! Sleek, stylish and secure, it’s the new “it” thing for individuals looking for an ad-free experience. Try it out and let us know what you think on Facebook or Twitter.

Keep Up On LinkedIn

Despite your best intentions, it’s possible you haven’t been keeping up with your company’s LinkedIn profile. This year, dedicate yourself to regular maintenance – following others, posting status updates, interacting with other users and more.

Try Something New

Get off on the right foot by trying a brand new network! If you’re already on Facebook and Twitter, check out newcomers Yo or the ad-free Ello or launch an account on a popular photo sharing site such as Instagram, SnapChat or Pinterest. Stay tuned for more in-depth posts on these new networks.

Change Your Passwords

Keep your accounts secure by changing your passwords frequently (if you don’t already, commit to changing them at least a couple of times a year – more is even better!). Opt for a combination of letters, numbers and symbols and record it somewhere safe just in case you forget. Having a different, secure password for each network is often recommended.

Engage More

Engaging and interacting with others puts the social in social media. Get on there and get active ASAP – you’ll be surprised by what you learn about yourself, your business and your potential and current customers.

Use Twitter’s Mute Function

Twitter added the ability to mute users in 2014. This means that you can follow as many users as you like, including courtesy followbacks, without having to scroll through their tweets in your feed. Win-win.

If you make one of these 5 social media New Year’s resolutions, you’re guaranteed to boost your business’s online presence in 2015. From keeping your accounts secure to trying out new functions and networks, engaging with users and keeping up on LinkedIn, you’ll want to follow through.

Image Credit: Resolving to Write More – A Worthy Thought by Carol VanHook, via Flickr, CC License, no changes made

Add a Jolly Touch to Your Imagery

Boost your profile, cover and header photos with a touch of cheer! Add a Santa hat to your company logo, or create a red and green banner that reflects your branding. You also can’t go wrong with a simple “Happy Holidays.” The image above is an example of a potential holiday-themed cover photo for a local university.

Assess The Competition

Check out what your competition is doing to celebrate Christmas and how effective it is. Many niche businesses find great ways to go all out for the holidays, from grocery stores posting yummy seasonal recipes to restaurants offering special menus and mechanics offering tips for safe travel. Get inspired!

Run a Contest

Generate follower engagement and interest with a contest. For example, have users submit their best holiday photos for the chance to win a gift card every week leading up to Christmas. The last week’s winner gets the grand prize. Add a recognizable hashtag on Twitter, such as #BettesBakeryHolidays.You can also create special offers for current and prospective customers, such as a video marketing run-down geared towards the season.

Start Conversations

Now is a better time than ever to start conversations and interact with your followers. Try asking them what they hope is waiting underneath the tree, or what their favourite holiday tradition is. Reply, retweet and be social.

Advent Calendar

In a clever play on the Advent Calendar tradition, offer an exciting new promotion or discount every day throughout the month of December. From 15% off of services to buy-one-get-one-free, this is a great way to boost followers and “likes.”

Get festive on Facebook and Twitter with themed imagery, special promotions and contests, starting conversations and assessing the competition. A great time for online marketing, you won’t regret getting social this Christmas!

Images via Flickr, social media corporate christmas ornament by Bill Selak, a very warwick Christmas 2011 by rosefirerising, Video Marketing 101 with Jen Chicago by Jen Knoedl, CC License

As anyone who’s spent time on YouTube knows, most videos are preceded by short video advertisements that typically make you watch for 5 seconds, then give you the option to skip the rest. Though potentially annoying to some, this type of in-your-face functionality allows the service to stay free, and eventually becomes the inoffensive “norm” to most users. SnapChat would have to do things a bit differently, though: since their videos are personalized between friends and can be no longer than ten seconds, it’d make sense that the preceding ads would have to be even shorter than five seconds. This could prove creatively difficult, but if the SnapChat developers have proven anything about their platform so far, it’s that they’re up to the challenge.

Self-Destructing Promotional Codes

One cool thing about SnapChat is that unless you specify otherwise, all photos and videos sent to your friends will disappear forever after a maximum of ten seconds. This dynamic raises some interesting possibilities in terms of exclusive promotions. It could be something simple as a business sending a photo from their official account to their followers along the lines of “Quickly! Write down this code and enter it on our website for a discount.”, so that the users have to really be paying attention in order to catch it in time. This type of client interaction would be unprecedented of sheer speed, and wouldn’t be difficult or expensive for businesses, even small ones, to adopt.

Photo/Video Contests

Businesses, particularly ones that sell physical/tangible products or services, would be wise to encourage their users to advertise their wares for them by offering some form of incentive. For example, if, say, a fashion label is releasing a new seasonal line, they could offer their customers the opportunity to model their clothing in a public SnapChat forum in exchange for some form of discount or stipend if the photo happens to be selected. This would create an atmosphere of competition and visual flare that would benefit both the business and the end user.

1. Optimize Your Post

If you’ve been here before, you will already know the importance of using keywords in your blog posts. A recent study by blogger.com from August 2014, shows that although 60% of businesses have blogs, 65% of those spaces haven’t been updated in the past year. So whether you’re old or new to us, we suggest that there’s nothing wrong with giving all of your posts an SEO review.

It’s important to keep your content fresh and modestly packed with keywords that are relevant to what people are searching for today. Not to mention, adding SEO to your images which are just another opportunity to be found on the web.

2. Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

If you don’t have time for anything else, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are your main channels through which to send your posts out to the sphere. If you didn’t catch it, our latest piece taught you how you can create Social Media Posts on the Fly using our Professional Online Marketing Toolkit. Sending your post through these channels will be the first place to go and will continue to get you the same amount of attention—so far this is probably getting you likes, but we can do better.

3. StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon was founded in 2002 and is a discovery engine that finds and recommends web content to its users—being you. After you sign up for an account you are able to “stumble” and rate different blogs and webpages, and others will be doing the same for you. This means that you will be getting more views that can translate to more likes and shares of your content.

4. Google +

Many people have created an account, but aren’t really sure how to maximize its use. In their Complete Guide, Mashable asks users why someone should use Google+. They received over 500 positive responses advocating for the platform including: “a cleaner way to selectively share data with others,” “a lack of distracting elements,” the ability to “share based on mutual interests and get exposure to interesting people and ideas”. Google+, at the end of 2013, was receiving 1.2 million page views per month.

5. Delicious

Similar to StumbleUpon, Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for discovering new web pages according to interests. They make it very simple to add web pages.

6. Friends and Colleagues

Don’t be shy about asking friends and colleagues to share your content. As long as it’s quality (which we already know that it is), your associates won’t mind giving it a little push. The more people in your circles you get to pass it on means more exposure to their circles and so on.

 7. Link to Your Own Past Blog Posts

Wherever possible, link to your past blog posts. Just because it was written last month, doesn’t mean that it isn’t still relevant to your reader. Presenting them with a link lets them know that it’s there. By doing this, you’re still adding to the virality of your past posts while simultaneously enhancing the information on your most recent—creating more reason for people to share.

 8. Reference Other People’s Blog Posts

Referencing content from other people or businesses with the same interests helps you to get noticed. Directing people to other experts in your field shows that you are familiar with the leaders in your industry, the literature that they write and you aren’t afraid to share the wealth. These people will come to you for their next question.

9. Add it to Your Newsletter

If you are writing for a business blog, they may send out a monthly newsletter to keep your potential customers updated on the latest news in your company. You’ll want to secure a spot to include a summary of your posts for the month—these readers are actually interested in receiving your content.

10. Add it to Your Signature

Adding your URL to the bottom of your email signature is simple, but effective. Add the name of your blog plus a path to click and you’ve instantly increased the potential eyes on your space. You’ll be promoting your content without even thinking about it.

Optimizing your post, shameless social media posting, subscribing to social bookmarking sites, sharing within your own circles, back-linking, using your company newsletter and adding to your email signature are all ways to make your blog posts go viral. Add these steps to your marketing mix when promoting your blogs and watch your numbers immediately increase.

Let us know the results with any comments or questions on Facebook.

Use Google News

Let’s say, for example, that you manage the Facebook page for a real estate agency in the Cayman Islands. Since you typically want the posts on a given page to be a mix of direct self-promotions and indirect industry-related information, it makes sense to search for recent, relevant news articles that speak to the theme of your page. This in mind, it makes sense to type in “Cayman real estate” (or related keywords) into the Google News search bar and pore through the articles that come up to find the one that best suits the tone of your business’s “voice” on Facebook.

Speak Casually

When under a time constraint, it’s easier and more effective to write under a casual posting “voice” than to confine yourself to rigidity. The nature of Social is somewhat relaxed compared to traditional media, and you can get away with making posts that are more freestyle in nature. This is not to say that you should ignore the tenets of good grammar and punctuation for the sake of appearing casual, but when you can find the magic sweet spot between “professional” and “laid back”, your posts are likely to attract more engagement.

Keep An Emergency List Of Post Ideas

Let’s be honest: some days you’re just not as sharp as others (lack of coffee etc.). For times like these, it’s a good idea to have a backup list of pre-prepared post ideas to keep your business page fresh and relevant. Though these planned posts are more likely to be non-topical, it’s better to post something useful, even if old, than nothing at all. It’s very noticeable to the public when a business page loses momentum, and looks very unprofessional when someone comes to your page and sees that you haven’t posted in months. With a little bit of research and forward planning, you can avoid the need to deal with this, and always have an extra one in the chamber.

Image Credit:  Massimo Barbieri (Flickr)

1. LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, with over 313 million members across the globe.

2. Over 39 million students and recent graduates use the network.

3. LinkedIn company pages have grown to include more than 3 million businesses.

4. LinkedIn is responsible for nearly 4 times the amount of website homepage visits than Facebook and Twitter.

5. Google is a fan of LinkedIn company pages, generally ranking them in the first two pages of search results.

6. The network represents over 148 different industries…why not get yours in the mix?

7. 43% of all marketers have found a customer via LinkedIn.

8. 64% of all visits to corporate websites from social media networks are made through LinkedIn.

9. Companies like Google, IBM and Hewlett Packard have over 1.7, 1.5 and 1.4 million followers.

10. LinkedIn is mobile-friendly! Over 38% of visits to the site are made via these popular devices.

Today’s “we mean business” social media network, LinkedIn boasts many benefits for both professional individuals and companies. A great venue for connecting with current and potential customers, building a business-savvy audience, job hunting, employee seeking and more, we’ll let these stats speak for themselves. Click here to sign up.

Sources: LinkedIn, The Next Web, Forbes, Social Media Examiner, Web Dam, CMO

Image Credit: linkedin logo by Esther Vargas, CC License

Since different platforms require different ways of thinking—Facebook posts are longer than those for Twitter, which have a different voice than LinkedIn status updates —there’s no real cut and paste. We have, however, put together this toolkit to help you create better content, faster. Bookmark this Online Marketing Toolkit for templates, tips and tools that you can use over and over again to enrich your social media accounts, your business blog and even your company website.

Building an Editorial Calendar

Where are you in your business blogging journey? Whether you’ve just started or have been blogging for years, it’s helpful to create and refer to a well-thought out editorial calendar. However, there’s no need to re-invent the wheel – check out the Blog Content Planning Guides and Editorial Calendar Templates by B2BInbound to get you started.

Creating the Title for Your Blog

Need help filling that calendar with ideas? While the content is up to you, there are many scientifically proven ways in which to effectively present your ideas. Are you going to be doing a case study this week or just covering the basics? This list, brought to you by Freelance Writing Solutions gives you great templates for possible blog titles that will catch a reader’s eye. No muss, no fuss.

Writing a Blog Post

As important as your business blog is, the more time you can save while still creating quality content, the better. B2Binbound suggests using their blog template that takes you through a checklist for creating valuable but concise articles, consistently. Creating your own template can be a great way to maintain your voice when inviting informed colleagues or guest bloggers to write a piece.

Downloading Images Quickly and Legally

We’ve talked in the past about the importance of images in breaking up wordy text and visually representing ideas. There are tons of places online such as Free Images and Google Image Search that allow you to search a single keyword and receive great quality images for free. Google Image Search now has the option to search images by usage rights and is a leading site to find free stock photos for your blog.

Resizing Images Without Photoshop

In order to maximize space, it’s important to be familiar with the image sizing guidelines pertaining to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and other platforms. Socially Stacked’s The Ultimate Social Media Template Guide offers interesting tips and tricks and lays out the recommended dimensions for a wide range of social networks.

Now that you know the right sizes, upload your image into iPiccy and either resize or crop the photo. You can also apply beautiful photo effects and filters, all within seconds and completely free.

Sending Your Content to Different Channels

Now that your blog post is done, marketing it through your different channels will be a breeze with these helpful social media templates that offer effective options for building your statuses faster.

The Next Web’s templates will help grow your Facebook Page, while HubSpot is ever helpful on Twitter and all other social media sites.

Recycling Old Content

You don’t need a skilled graphic designer to recycle existing content into something exciting and new. When the time comes, Simple Booklet lets you turn your existing marketing collateral into web-based booklets that you can then post across social networks, email and embed on your website.

Checking for Spelling and Grammar

Even the work of the best copywriters and content creators requires a second look. Save time by slipping your content—whether it be a lengthy blog post or a short Facebook status—into Online-Spellcheck.com to ensure it is polished and typo-free.

Voilà!

Instead of re-inventing the wheel, visit these resources for help creating an editorial calendar outline, writing blog and social media posts, downloading and resizing images, breathing new life into old content and proofreading. Save time and enrich your content with this Professional Online Marketing Toolkit and send it to your friends!

What are your favourite tools to use? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook.

Determine Legitimacy

Determining the legitimacy of the complaint being directed at you is important to proceeding in asituation involving an upset customer. With anonymous commenters, trolling and fake reviews becoming more and more prevalent online, you must use your best judgment to figure out whether the user in question has a genuine reason to complain or is simply trying to stir things up. Always be polite and patient, even if the user becomes rude: So long as you’re offering calm, reasoned responses to the complaints, onlookers and other customers will be able to see that you’re doing everything you can to alleviate the situation. If a particularly pointed complaint is directed to your business in a public forum (eg. your Facebook wall), it’s best to reach out to the user privately and give them the name of someone they can speak to directly: As personal as social media is, nothing beats one-on-one dialogue with a real person.

Respond Quickly

In a scenario where your business makes a mistake and the upset customer deserves some form of vindication or compensation, mediums like social media make it easy to respond to the wronged party swiftly. Letting a customer know that you’re conscious of your error and are working to fix it offers peace of mind, even in situations where you can’t right the situation immediately. If the dialogue happens to take place in a comments thread (eg. on a Facebook post or someone’s Twitter feed), other users witnessing the conversation can “Like” or “Favorite” your business’s individual responses to indicate that they agree with your approach, too.

Never Lose Your Cool

While this is a fundamental rule of customer service in general, it’s doubly important for online. Internet users love a good flame war, and if you ever respond to someone in an irate manner, you lose the advantage/responsibility of professionalism that comes with speaking under your business’s name. Whether you’re in the right or not, using condescending or inciteful language in any form is likely to make onlookers side with the person making the complaint, so it’s just not worth it.

Photo Credit: The Nunez’s Group (Flickr)