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

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)

Respond In A Timely Fashion

This may seem obvious, but its a best practice ignored more often than you’d think. If a client or potential customer reaches out to you with a specific inquiry or comment, they’re expecting a timely reply: Don’t leave messages sitting in your inbox, particularly if your page is public and is seen to be regularly posting. Its also important not to ignore comment threads on individual posts, which can be easy to lose track of as they’re replaced with new ones. Even if you don’t have an immediate answer to a question you’re posed, its always advisable to let the person know that you’re in the process of following up. Punctual response is always appreciated, and is simple as a few keystrokes.

Remain Calm

One arguable drawback of social media’s personal nature is that things can get publicly (and easily) combative in the event of an upset customer. When put on the spot by someone unreasonable , it’s important to keep your cool and remember that your entire base of followers are watching. Show your audience that you’re able to deal with conflict in a collected manner, and they’ll respect you for it. If all else fails and the person is antagonistic, you can always block or report them to the platform administrators. The key is to always be aware of your audience and never risk presenting yourself as unhelpful or rude.

Speak Succinctly

The reason platforms like Twitter are designed around brief messages is because they operate on the assumption that web users have short attention spans. If you can transcend your point in fewer words without losing key details, you’re in a better position for your audience to stay engaged throughout a given post. Its fine to expand on customer queries during a private message exchange, but it’s best to write your public exchanges in an uncomplicated manner, under the assumption that your answer will be useful to many people watching.

Inconsistency

Consistency is key when it comes to social media. If you’ve fallen into a rut of posting at off-times, forgetting to schedule content in advance and cycling between periods of high activity and falling off the face of the Twitter-planet, you’re going to appear unreliable and undedicated. Find your footing by crafting a plan for posting and sticking to it. You can even use one of those nifty publishing platforms, like HootSuite or Sprout Social, to make it even easier.

Cookie-Cutter Content

Standing out on social media requires innovation. Customers are much less likely to like and follow businesses that think within the box instead of outside of it. However well written and researched, blog posts, infographics and other content must offer something unique and tailored to the audience in question. Before you post, ask yourself: is this different than everything else that’s out there?

Too Much Horn Tooting

Twitter and Facebook are not simply channels for self-promotion. While the occasional tweet describing your services, advertising a sale, boasting about a completed project or linking to your website is welcome, users don’t follow companies that post only about themselves. Follow the golden “80/20 Rule” – 80% of your posts should be about generating and maintaining interest (think industry news, product releases and insightful, useful blog posts) while the remaining 20% can be used to, you guessed it, toot your own horn.

Too Little Personality

While it’s (sometimes) okay for big box brands to post generic, bland updates, start-ups and smaller businesses don’t get anywhere if they don’t let their personality shine. Instead of sticking to strictly a professional voice, which can come off as stuffy and boring, humanize your brand to generate interest and build loyalty, which in turn boosts website traffic and more. Make a goal to connect with your audience in a personal way; create an authentic voice your audience can connect with.

Lack of Conversation

Social media is one of the best ways to interact with your audience. Genuine interaction generates likes and follows and fosters a positive environment; potential and current customers feel like you’re listening, which builds trust and credibility. If you’re posting great content regularly but not conversing with others, boost your presence by replying, tweeting, sharing and commenting.

Image Credit: AdBuzz

Upload a Photo

Choose a profile picture that represents you. Similarly to LinkedIn, a professional headshot is the way to go, complete with a smile. Avoid using a group photograph or an action shot, such as one including a friend or significant other. While a surprising amount of “tweeters” don’t upload an image, Hubspot states that profiles with photos are 10 times more likely to be followed. Improve consistency among your social media profiles by using the same profile picture throughout.

Location, Location, Location

Often overlooked, accurately filling in the location field on your profile is an important step. Choose the largest, and closest, area or city to you, and if you already reside in a big city, that’s even better. Highly searchable, listing your location makes it easy for other users to find and follow you.

Build Your Bio

Including an interesting biography is a great way to shine on this network – make the most of the 160 characters you’re given! Describe yourself in an upbeat, succinct way – let fellow users know there’s a human being behind that handle. Avoid excessive hashtags and abbreviations and remember that work-safe humour can go a long way. Include relevant keywords to boost your profile’s SEO value.

When In Doubt, Link to LinkedIn

A great way to advertise your small business, personal website or blog is through a link on your Twitter profile. However, some users don’t have any of the above and are stumped as to what to include there. Linking to your LinkedIn profile is a great way to provide users with more information about you, personally and professionally, and avoid a blank space.

Go The Extra Mile

Instead of picking a pre-made theme, customize your profile with specially-designed background and header photos. This gives your Twitter account that little extra oomph and allows you to stand out from the crowd. Choose images that represent and complement your goals. A small business owner, for example, may use their company logo as a header and a background that aligns with the design of their website.

When it comes to polishing your Twitter profile, getting the best results means getting involved. Take the time to draft and edit an engaging bio and opt for a photo that showcases you at your best, without distractions. Add keywords to your bio and an accurate location to increase your chances of getting found via search engines. Include a link to a relevant website, blog or networking profile and gussy it up with custom-designed header and background images.

Image Credits: MyCorpSocial & UpCity

1. Consider Your Visual Collateral

Images and video drive the web. If your business is image-oriented (eg. a wedding photographer, a fancy cake shop), you’ll want to choose web platforms that accentuate your visual collateral to sell products or services. Your website should act as a central hub, while your various social media and blog posts should be strategically peppered with bold imagery that draws people back to the site. If you’re in a more traditionally “boring” non-visual field (eg. oil refinement, stock trading), this won’t be as big as an issue. Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram are 3 examples of social platforms that heavily accentuate the visual, whereas others like Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ tend to play it down in favour of putting the focus on written content.

2. Choose Your Social Media Accounts Wisely

Some businesses who embrace social media, particularly smaller ones, make the mistake of starting too many different accounts across multiple platforms without properly maintaining them. Sure, it’s great to have active, regularly-updated presences on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest, but if you aren’t in a position to put the time and effort into maintaining them on a scheduled basis, they’ll remain stagnant and give the impression that your business is lazy and inconsistent. Unless you have a dedicated full-time social media manager, stick to the one or two social platforms (in addition to your website) that you’re most comfortable with and commit to a few posts per week on each.

3. Cross-Post Strategically

Once you’ve settled on the web environments that suit your business best, develop a plan for how best to spread your message across all of them without sounding appearing overly repetitive or self-promotional. For example, if you’re working with Facebook, Twitter and a Blog, segment your content accordingly to appear constantly fresh: maybe a blog post one day, a Facebook post the next day and a series of Tweets linking to your blog post and websit the next. Keep the messaging consistent so that there’s no confusion, and ensure that your branding/logo is uniform. You can even promote your Facebook posts on Twitter and vice versa.

If you feel that all this is over your head, there’s no shame in hiring a professional to manage your web presence, but ensure that you enlist the services of a reputable organization. There are thousands of supposed “web marketing professionals” out there who are quick take your money, yet will offer very little support once they’ve closed the sale. A successful online marketing campaign plan requires consistent, ongoing support to come to fruition, and at the end of the day, your business deserves the best online representation it can afford.

Image Credit: Daily Mobile

This is understandably a big decision: outsourcing your social efforts is tantamount to handing over the keys to your brand messaging, since you’re essentially agreeing to let someone else speak under your company voice. The case for doing so, however, is sound: according to Forbes, over 60% of small business owners who tried managing their social accounts by themselves saw virtually zero return on investment in the first quarter or 2013 because they weren’t doing it correctly. If you’re willing to take that step and let the experts handle it, choosing the right online marketing team is essential, as the closer a relationship you have with your marketers, the more personal and sincere their Tweets, Facebook posts and all other interactions will come across as. In a nutshell, personalization of messaging combined with adherence to social media fundamentals is the key to success, which is why businesses that use social channels the right way end up with nearly double the leads of businesses that don’t.

Go Boutique For Communication’s Sake

Sometimes less is more. Small boutique design agencies typically have hyper-focused, close-knit teams that cover all core areas of web marketing (design & build, SEO, social, blogging, development) while offering the crucial element of close client communication. Choosing an agency that allows you to have regular Skypes or conference calls with the actual person who will be posting under your company’s name makes an enormous difference. For all their experience and wide client bases, large agencies usually don’t offer that personal touch unless their internal communications are extremely streamlined (which, trust us, is rare).

Brand copywriting for social media is a sensitive beast: the exact words used in your individual posts and tweets can mean the difference between leads generated and going completely unnoticed. Without knowing the fundamentals and best practices behind how to engage your social audience, it’s difficult to get value out of your time commitment if you’re managing your profiles yourself. In other words, setting aside a budget for boutique-style social media management services may be one of the best marketing decisions you ever make.

Image Credit: Angel Investment Network