Each social platform has a personality unique to itself and understanding the differences can differentiate you from being an everyday social media user to an expert. Below we showcase two of the most popular social networks – Facebook and Twitter, but to find out benefits to Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest download our Unique Benefits Guide so that you can become an expert!

Facebook

With over 1B active users, it’s a no-brainer that businesses should have a Facebook presence, but keep in mind that Facebook is more than just the number of likes a business has. Facebook is a great way to build brand persona and awareness through updates, contests, and sharing videos or pictures. It’s a place to showcase a company’s culture and vision so be cognizant of the content posted on a business page. Businesses should also take advantage of the location information users provide in their profiles – it allows for targeted advertising based on city and the option to offer deals through Facebook Places when users “check in” to a particular business or location.

Twitter

Twitter began as a way to quickly share “what’s happening.” Now with roughly 170M active users, the microsite has evolved to be a successful marketing tool when used strategically. Twitter is a free way to monitor conversations happening about your brand as they are happening. This allows for businesses to extend their customer service efforts as they can detect problems early and act timely, rectifying brewing situations before they spill over. Twitter is also a great place to find hot leads as people constantly tweet about things they are in need of or want. Reach out to those who are at the point of decision-making and introduce them to use your product or service. And because many users follow their favorite brands an businesses, Twitter is a great platform to share deals and discounts or announce sales and new products.

The post Understanding the Unique Benefits of Each Social Platform appeared first on Viralheat Social Media Strategy Blog.

Here’s a mental checklist for your social media efforts:

1.) What are all these networks and what do they do again? If you’re in the field, this is priority number one. You should always be studying the networks, how they’re changing, evolving, and how they can best be used. If you manage or run social media for a brand, it’s your job to make sure you’re paying attention to how to best utilize them and to communicate any changes to a supervisor or to figure out how you can use the latest change to your advantage.

2.) Are you managing all your channels effectively? Over time, we get lazy with our social media efforts. Admit it. You’ve built out an editorial calendar, you put up a tweet or two, etc. Are your strategies effective? Are they getting you results? Did you check to see how many likes that Facebook post got? Could it have been improved? Are you checking to see what are the optimal times to post content? Wow. Seems like a lot. However, if you’re simply posting content and not watching how well it does, you’re not really doing you’re job. You’re just sort of scratching the surface – if that.

3.) How good is your content? Do you just tweet because it’s there? Post an update on Facebook half heartedly? Do you know what your audience wants? Are you gearing your content toward them? All important questions. Often times, we get so caught up in our day that we forget about our social media responsibilities and then we scramble around trying to save the day or we put up a message without thinking about how our audience will respond. Always ask yourself if it’s relevant and if you had been doing your homework on your consumers, this should be a no brainer.

4.) Do you still love what you do? Be honest with yourself. Are you overwhelmed with the space? Do you need a break? It’s ok to take a step back. An ever evolving space can be daunting and hard to keep up with. It’s not for the faint of heart. Being a part of social media isn’t just about composing a few tweets and being on Facebook all day long, it’s a whole new wondrous world of content strategy, marketing, ROI, SEO, and other fun stuff and acronyms. In the end, it can take a toll on you but that’s why they also call most of us “addicts.” Those of us that live and breathe the space don’t mind the changes, instead we embrace them and move on.

5.) Don’t forget why you’re here and what your job is. You wouldn’t still be working if you didn’t love it, right? Think back to #4. Is this still what you want to do? If you think social media is only about posting on networks, you’ve got it all wrong and need to reconsider but if you understand the nuances involved, are willing to study each and every thing you put out there, and be wary of any changes in your field then this is the right job for you.

What do you do to stay to top of social media and keep yourself current? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Are you getting lazy with your social media? appeared first on Viralheat Social Media Strategy Blog.

If you sell anything online, from raincoats to rice cookers, the latest movement in improving on the customer experience is social shopping.

Most of us know (and some of us are) that person who needs at least one more opinion before making a purchase. Whether it’s an ice cream maker or a new pair of pants, knowing what someone thinks before you buy can make all the difference. Even if you don’t think you’re an opinion shopper, consider the last time you looked for a product online. While perusing your options, did you click the button that let you see only products that were highly rated by other users?

The user opinion feature is quickly becoming a standard in online shops. There are even websites dedicated solely to collecting product opinions. Just as Yelp, Google reviews, and Urbanspoon guide many of our retail and restaurant purchases, positive reinforcement is poised to change retail, as well.  If you’re committed to staying on top of trends in online shopping, going social will need to take on an entirely new meaning. Fortunately there are a lot of options available already, and more than enough room for innovative improvements.

Sharing the shopping experience

The “wish list” has been around since the advent of retail stores, but the way in which these lists are shared has taken a whole new direction. Most shops offer a standard registry, but some companies are stepping it up and letting shoppers not only create a list, but share that list with others — and get their opinion on select items through social media. For example, eBay’s “Help Me Shop” feature invites users to create a wish list of items and share them on Facebook with a shopping poll in order to gauge friends’ collective opinion.

Other sites, such as Svpply, are composed entirely of member submissions and include features such as the ability to follow other shoppers with similar interests and view how many people either want or own listed items.

Bazaar-style browsing

Other sites have taken a cue from Pinterest and opened their doors to hundreds, if not thousands, of retailers via the use of bold, clickable imagery. This type of shopping approach is good for small business owners looking to get their product noticed by more shoppers.

Instead of hosting just your own website, you can list your products for sale on sites such as Etsy, Buzzmart and Storenvy. Depending on what you sell there might be some restrictions as to what you can post. Etsy, for example, only sells vintage and homemade items, but most of these sites allow shop owners to post items for sale so that others will find them while browsing. Most feature a company performance rating, consumer product rating and the ability for shoppers to post items on Facebook or Tweet about them.

Feeding the coupon giant

Online couponing is probably the biggest and most well-known of all the social shopping options. Starting with Groupon’s original concept of purchasing items for less than retail through group quantity discounts, online coupons have grown far beyond the single items deal. According to a recent report presented by InternetRetailer.com, 67% of shoppers have used coupons they downloaded and printed from the web.

That means they’re not only utilizing sites that offer coupons from several different companies daily, but shoppers are also downloading coupons from retailers’ websites before making a purchase at a brick and mortar store. If you have a smaller business, the broad reach of coupon giants such as Groupon,  LivingSocial.com and Coupon.com might be a good approach for getting your name out there, but even offering a coupon on your own website and posting that deal on Facebook is a great way to drive customer traffic. If the deal you offer is truly great, users will share it and the word will spread.

Exploring your options

If you’re interested in seeing some of the innovative and alternative approaches to online shopping that are currently available, check out the app store on the website Shopify.com. Even if you aren’t using the company for your storefront, the list of apps at least gives you an idea of what’s available on the market and an idea of how to approach your own sales from a different angle. From “Flusher,” an app that automatically clears all products with zero inventory from your store, to Abandon App, which allows your shop to recover lost sales, the Shopify app selection is a great place to get started when considering how to improve on your online retail website.

Do you have an opinion on any of the sites mentioned here at the forefront of online sales? Are there any others that you find useful for your company?

Want to know what is being said about your company and how you can capture more sales through social media, then give Viralheat a shot. Click to request a demo and learn how Viralheat can surface sales leads.

Author bio: Christopher Wallace is Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Amsterdam Printing, a leading provider of custom stylus pens and other promotional products such as imprinted clothing, mugs and customized calendars. Christopher regularly contributes to Promo & Marketing Wall blog.

The post Social Media Shopping: Keeping Retail Up-to-Date with the Latest Shopping Trends appeared first on Viralheat Social Media Strategy Blog.

The infographic below looks at pizza parlors, fast food chains, and the popular casual dining spots and their share of voice on popular social media platforms.

The post Social Media Super-Sized appeared first on Viralheat Social Media Strategy Blog.

1. Stick To A Few Niche Themes

Decide on a handful of topics that matter to you, and really own them. Passion carries through and your readers will pick up on that. Saying you will post about food can be hard when it comes to brainstorming time. The broad topic idea can often leave you searching, so instead pick a few specific themes. Popsicles, creative chocolate ideas, and cupcakes are much more specific than generic food. Picking a handful of topics helps you become a leader in these areas, and it will also help keep you focused and your posting relevant. If you are feeling the dreaded tinge of writers block you can simply return to the start. “I haven’t done a popsicle post in awhile” You can always branch out from these themes, but committing to a few ideas is a good place to start on handling the time investment required in content creation.

2. Bookmark Brainstorming Folder

When you are browsing the web and come across a neat idea, image or concept, save it to a  special bookmark folder in your browser. Bookmark any type of inspirational stories or themes you are interested in. Think of this as your “brainstorming folder”. When you are not sure what to write about you can come back here, scan through the list and it will help to get you quickly writing a post on one of these topics. Its also a good idea to go through the list every month and clean out any stories you didn’t use that are no longer valid.

3. Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts

Set up google alerts for your niche areas. This free service from Google sends you an email when there is a new report, story or web post on Google that includes your keywords. This is a powerful tool for finding content that is still fresh and relevant to your niche market and is not simply about promoting yourself. Set up a few and browse the alerts when they come in at some point during your day. Use the bookmark feature mentioned above to keep track of stories you like. You will soon have an overflow of content creation ideas available.

4. Use If This Then That – http://www.ifttt.com

This free tool allows you to set up “recipes” that make it easy for you to cross post across networks. I do not recommend everything you post to twitter automatically post to Facebook and Instagram. You don’t want to bore your audience. The really great part about IFTT though is that you can set this up based on keywords. Only Instagram photos tagged with #bacon will appear on your Facebook feed. Only Pinterest pins with the word zombie make their way to twitter. This helps you to control the auto posting and you can create very complicated system that make your life easier. Spend some time on them and don’t just autopost, your audience will thank you for it.

5. Set A Timer

It’s very easy to get caught in hours of endless tweeting, +1’ing and “liking” so I suggested you limit the amount of time you spend on social media sites. I honestly use an old fashion kitchen timer, but there are many apps that you can find only to help you out with this.  Depending on which social network helps your market more, you would spend more time on those specific networks and less on the others. (Not sure which? Have a look at my article on the Top 7 social media sites for business ). If you have committed an hour a day to social sites, breaking up the time you spend on them throughout your day may work better for you than back to back site interaction. Whichever works for you, try to spend a little time on your social sites every day to stay on top of what’s going on.

It can seem overwhelming when starting out to come up with new topics every day to engage your audience. Setting up a system that works for you and sticking with it during the week is important to growing your social media presence.  What is the best tips you have for a content creation systems?

Amanda Blain is CEO of Girlfriend Social (a friendship social network for women), Geek Girl, Zombie Fan, Speaker, and Consultant to companies looking for assistance with their social media presence. http://www.amandablain.com

Keep in mind that Viralheat supports Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and blogs! We also have Flint, a tool that lets you post content from across the web and schedule it for a future date.

The post 5 Tips for Content Creation and Staying on Top of your Social Media appeared first on Viralheat Social Media Strategy Blog.

Users can engage with their various social media accounts directly from their iPhone. With a simple swipe of the screen, Viralheat users can reply, retweet, favorite, comment, like, share, and email content found within their streams.

Similar to the Viralheat web experience, new streams can be created directly from the app and will be visible across the web and mobile version of the tool.

These great features can be found in Viralheat’s new mobile app:

• Access Viralheat Stream from anywhere at anytime;
• Conduct cross channel publishing across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn;
• Schedule posts in advance;
• Review analytics at a glance;
• Engage with community in real time;
• Create and save custom streams.

The new Viralheat mobile app makes it easy to stay on top of your social media efforts anytime, anywhere. The iPhone all is now available for download in the Apple App Store, find it here. Hear what our users are saying:

“I’ve used many social media suites, but Viralheat is my favorite. The new mobile app is a great addition to the web version of the tool. I love minute-by-minute scheduling!” - J. Dakar, writer, editor and content strategist.

Learn more about Viralheat’s social media marketing suite here. And download the brand new iPhone App through the Apple App Store, available now!

The post Viralheat Comes to Mobile appeared first on Viralheat Social Media Strategy Blog.

After a few years of being in business, I believe Klout has finally figured how brands and consumers can work together by introducing Klout Experts. This new tool allows you to answers questions about your supposed expertise and show your influencers and brands that you actually know something and all those +K’s you’re getting hold some value.

Klout Experts is similar to Quora, Yahoo! Answers, and LinkedIn questions. However, be careful answering those questions and make sure you know what you’re talking about because those results will soon rank on Bing and Google where anyone searching for you will find them.  This could be good or bad depending on how seriously you take it considering most companies look at your Klout score before hiring you – it’s almost like the new background check.

As a consumer or influencer, Klout Experts is a great way to showcase your expertise and make yourself marketable to brands. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Klout Perks program decided to factor in your Klout expertise before awarding you a perk. As a brand or company studying Klout Experts, you could look to see how influential a certain group of people are based on a certain topic. Klout Experts could be good for crowd sourcing, awarding specific perks, and might open the door for more companies to join the program, create more awareness for Klout, and keep users engaged longer on the site as they work to build their expertise in various subjects.

Overall, I’m excited about Klout Experts. I think this is exactly what Klout needed to get back into the game and for users to show some value for having a high Klout score. Over time, this will prevent people from gaming the system and brands can award perks to those who really know their area of expertise. However, there’s a small caveat – it’s only available to a small number of users and there’s a wait list to become an expert and be part of the fun.

What are your thoughts on Klout Experts? Will this make you love Klout more or bring you back? Let us know in the comments below.

Viralheat can help you manage your social media and identify brand influencers. Register for a brief demo to see how Viralheat can work for you.

The post Klout Experts: Has Klout Found the Winning Formula? appeared first on Viralheat Social Media Strategy Blog.

When social media first emerged as a marketing tool, businesses had fairly crude ways of measuring success: the number of fans on a Facebook page was considered a valid metric, for example. Now, it’s widely accepted that there’s a lot more to learn.

So how can we prove that our social media campaigns are working?

1. The Social Media Dashboard

If you want to measure the success of your social interactions, the best way to do that is delve into your analytics package. Google’s Analytics toolkit is one of the most popular ways to do this; there are other methods like Viralheat a tool that harvests all kinds of social data.

In order to harness data about social media engagement, you’ll need to install a free third-party Social Media Dashboard. In this case we are looking at Google Analytics but Viralheat also offers an in depth social media dashboard to help you manag your social media presence.  The new Dashboard gives you an alternate view of your metrics and showcases the use of social features on your site. Discover the networks you’re acquiring social traffic from, measure the bounce rate from those networks and find out what people are sharing. You can also see the value of a social user, per visit.

2. The Conversions Report

Again, we’re looking at Google Analytics data in this section, and that’s because Google has a custom-made tool for measuring ROI. It’s called the Conversions Report, and it’s a powerful part of any online marketing campaign.

Using the Conversion Report, you can see the conversions that originated from social networks and the income derived from that traffic. It helps you to evaluate the content you’re producing so that you can decide whether it’s having a positive effect on this figure. If it isn’t, you then have a golden opportunity to refine your strategy.

You can also scan referral data to figure out where the bulk of your users are coming from. Being popular on Facebook is great, but maybe you need to focus on bringing in more visitors from other sites to complete the social picture.

3. Facebook Insights

If you’re working with a variety of social channels, your business probably has a presence on Facebook. Although Insights can only demonstrate a one-dimensional view of your social value, it can help your stakeholders to understand how social triggers waves of sharing and viral marketing.

Insights gives you a visual indication of your business page’s progress, its interactions and the type of people it’s attracting. Of course, it would be unrealistic to expect every single Facebook post to go viral, but Insights helps you to understand what has the best chance of going viral. Perhaps most importantly, the graphs and stats will prove that the investment you’re putting into Facebook is paying off.

4. Complimentary Marketing

Social media marketing works very well when it’s tied into a holistic marketing strategy. By harnessing traffic from social media, we can turn those anonymous visitors into leads, but we have to combine different tactics to achieve that goal.

You may want to try funneling social media visitors to an email marketing list, for example, so that you can build a database of potentially lucrative future clients. You may want to reach out and offer to solve problems, or offer free and informative content in return for the visitor’s contact information. Use different landing pages for different social channels and compare the traffic you get for an accurate measurement of the value of each network and each piece of content you produce.

5. Positive Feedback

When we talk about ROI, we’re usually talking about the money you earn from a marketing spend. But take a step back. Remember: we’re talking about social media, where individuals interact, discuss brands and react to each others’ comments. Normally, money never changes hands on social networks.

Positive social commentary may not be easy to correlate with cold, hard cash, yet it’s an incredibly valuable, economical marketing tool for your business. If your company is presenting itself well on social media, solving problems and making consumers feel good, the ripples will quickly spread and create good feeling about the brand. Remembering the human value of social is perhaps one of the most powerful ways to realise its impact on us all.

In Conclusion

Social media is no magic formula. Getting the ROI you’re looking for will take work. But if you’re prepared to invest time and money into social media, the potential is there, and the returns can be enormous.

Even if other people in your business aren’t convinced about the value of social media yet, you now have the tools to prove that it adds value and has the potential to grow your business.

Author Bio: Claire is an independent creative writer for WhoIsHostingThis.  WhoIsHostingThis.com reviews many different hosting companies, providing unbiased reviews from customers.

Find out how Viralheat can help you get the most out of your social media efforts by requesting a demo!

The post 5 Ways to Show the Value of Social appeared first on Viralheat Social Media Strategy Blog.

Explore allows users to search Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ based on keywords in real-time. This includes hashtags and Twitter handles too. The information that is surfaced is what would be found in-browser on the native site. This information is perfect for learning what people are talking about in that instant. These search results allow you to engage with social conversation in a timely fashion. It’s a perfect option for those looking to engage with people talking about certain topics, industries, products, and more. For example, if you are a photography company looking to spread your knowledge and promote yourself, a simple Explore search of the word “camera” would surface all mentions of this word on either Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. You could then share your expertise and answer questions that are being surfaced from these results. The data from Explore searches is not saved but rather refreshed in real-time.

The Viralheat Monitor option is also based on keywords, hashtags, Twitter handles, phrases, slogans, etc. The information also comes from different sources over-time. The platforms that Monitor supports are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, and blogs. One substantial difference between Explore and Monitor is that information pulled from Monitor searches is saved and analyzed. The information that is analyzed is the available for review and download in the analytics section of the tool. Metrics like the number of mentions across platforms, influencers identification, most shared hashtags, and links. Monitor is perfect for companies looking to monitor conversations over-time about their brand, products, or industry. The data collected can help to identify areas of success and places for improvement.

Explore is available for all users of Viralheat across plans while Monitor is available for users with Premier and Enterprise plans. Sign up for a demo of Viralheat to learn how it can help you reach your social media goals.

The post Understanding Viralheat’s Explore and Monitor appeared first on Viralheat Social Media Strategy Blog.

Next time you’re tempted to look to your lucky stars for help, we have a better solution: social data.

As more and more users engage with social networks, they leave data points behind–tidbits of personal information such as interests, educational background, and location. These data points, known collectively as social data, are readily available to businesses and incredibly beneficial to marketers that understand how to responsibly and effectively leverage them.

In fact, social data is the key to unlocking your consumers’ hearts. Because in order to truly engage with your users, you need to understand them first.

To boil it down, we’ve outlined three mantras that businesses should follow to get the most from their social data:

1. Social login is the gatekeeper to a wealth of data.

Social data starts with social login, which is a dialog that allows users to log in to a website with an existing social network account. Social login not only enables your business to begin capturing social data, it also provides benefits to users by letting them bypass traditional registration forms and making it quicker and easy to create new accounts with third-party websites.

2. Take only the essentials.

With so much user data available on social networks, it can be tempting to ask for more than you need. Just as we instruct businesses to communicate their terms of use on the permissions dialog before users register socially on their sites, we also recommend asking only for a few essential data points upfront. The key here is to establish trust with your audiences by adhering to data privacy best practices, which include being transparent about what you do with users’ data and not asking for so much of it that it feels intrusive.

3. Data left unused is data wasted.

To put it bluntly, your data collection efforts are only as effective as your ability to actually use the information you’ve gathered to personalize web experiences and marketing efforts. Leveraging your data starts with understanding it. Who are your top influencers? What site content are users sharing the most? What is the overall demographic makeup of your audience? Answering such questions requires access to a social database that can query, segment, and export the data points you need to customize your next social marketing campaign or user experience interface.

After you understand your data, you are ready to start taking measurable action on it. Below are just a few ways social data can be used to provide direct value to your business:

● Data can be segmented and integrated with email marketing software to create custom email campaigns.
● Recommendation engines can use social data to provide unique content and product recommendations.
● Advertising servers can leverage social data to display relevant ads to site viewers.
● Web analytics can provide a comprehensive view of users’ site activity and engagement.

Putting all the above recommendations into action can be overwhelming when the task is left to to a single individual or team within your company. To streamline this process, Gigya offers a complete solution for capturing, storing, and using social data to engage users and create value for your business.

By equipping your business to connect with your online audiences according to their interests, backgrounds, and habits, you ensure that your organization remains relevant to your users even as their preferences and needs evolve. And as social continues increasing in importance and scope, knowing how to connect with users will become the differentiating factor between thriving and dying brands.

Author bio: Emma Tzeng (@emmatzeng) is the Content Marketing Manager at Gigya, where she runs content strategy and production. She can be reached at emma@gigya.com.

The post 3 Mantras for Handling and Using Social Data appeared first on Viralheat Social Media Strategy Blog.