15 New Social Media Templates to Save You Even More Time Imagine having a quick and fast way to get up to speed with social media or to get your work done in less time (and with more confidence). When I’m in a pinch or into something new, one of the first places I turn is toward a template. I’ve built a stash of headline formulas, social media updates, and more to help organize my mind when it comes to working fast and learning something new. Templates can be a lifesaver and a time-saver. I have my favorite go-to templates, and I was also able to dig up a huge number of others, created by some really amazing folks who are generous to help us all work smarter. I’ve collected them here below. 15 Time-Saving Social Media Templates The list below is full of a variety of different templates, some helpful in a high-level way of organizing your marketing efforts and others in a specific area of social media marketing and sharing. 1. We built this social media report to be easy to fill with just a simple Buffer data export. Instructions: 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
16 Ways to Use Social Media to Promote Your Event Does your business conduct events? Are you wondering how to use social media to promote those events? Social media is a powerful tool to gain exposure, whether you’re hosting a physical conference or an online event. In this article I’ll show you 16 creative ways to increase awareness, engagement and sales for your event. Discover 16 ways to promote an event. Listen to this article: Listen now: Play in new window | Download | Embed Subscribe: iTunes | Android | #1: Use Facebook Ads to Remarket to Prospects Facebook custom audiences allow you to show ads to people who have already visited your website. Remarketing can be a very effective strategy because people rarely buy the first time they hear of an event or see an offer. If your event features well-known experts, include their likeness on your advertising assets. Pro Tip: When you advertise to prior website visitors, be sure to EXCLUDE Facebook users who have already purchased a ticket. #2: Create a Highlight Reel From Prior Events Other tips:
How to Create a Social Media Marketing Plan From Scratch This post originally published on July 16, 2014. We’ve updated it here with new research and stats and a cool new infographic. When I went rock climbing for the first time, I had no idea what I was doing. My friends and I were complete newbies about ropes and rappelling and every other bit of jargon and technique that goes with climbing. I’d imagine that a social media marketing strategy could feel the same way. If you’re starting from square one, it might feel equal parts thrilling and overwhelming. It’d help to have a plan. We’ve shared before about different parts of a social media strategy—the data and research and personal experience behind what works on social media. Update: we have a 25-day long (free!) Now we’re pleased to put it all into a cohesive, step-by-step blueprint that you can use to get started. Oh, and our friends at online infographic maker Venngage were kind enough to wrap all that follows into a comprehensive infographic that’s easy to keep, share and reference: Bingo!
10 Tactics for Launching a Product Using Social Media I’ve witnessed a seismic shift in the way new products are launched over the past decade. As the founder of a firm that helps launch products, services, businesses, and communities, I’ve watched the days of an embargoed launch date and a single exclusive media story disappear. The Internet has changed the launch process—now companies seed products with influencers, leak information to reporters, bloggers, and consumers, live-stream launch events globally, and reward brand advocates with exclusives. The insatiable 24/7 news cycle and the dominance of social media makes launching a new product far easier in some ways—and more difficult in others. The new launch landscape levels the playing field for brands of all sizes and industries when reaching consumers–yet the ability for consumers to share their opinions freely on social media can provide huge hurdles for brand messaging. When it comes to choosing media to support a new product launch, consider the target market. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Ebook: 25 Actionable Social Media Strategies to Try Today We’re incredibly grateful to have the chance to learn from others and experiment for ourselves with what works best on social media. And we’re so very happy to share our best strategies with you! To collect all these favorite tips in one place, we’ve compiled our top 25 social media strategies into a free ebook that you can download below. We’ve included strategies for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and more—all of which you can implement today, in just a few minutes and just a few clicks. Get your free copy of the Social Media Strategies ebook! Read further for a full list of the strategies that are included as well as a sample page from the book. 25 Actionable Social Media Strategies You Can Implement Today The full ebook includes 25 social media strategies that we’ve pulled from some of the most popular Buffer blog posts. A sample chapter from the book This is the first chapter from the book: Tip #1 – Share the same content multiple times. What to do with all these strategies
Keeping It Professionally Real on Social Media As a working professional, social media can present an internal challenge: we want to get out there and have fun and talk about our personal interests, but we also want to play it cool for that ‘professional’ side of us. The good news is, you can do both. Keeping it professional on social media doesn’t mean you have to compromise who you are and what you like. Below I included a few of the core tips I’ve learned over the past few years – both personally and via the very public mistakes we see in the headlines. Bear with me as I proceed to sound like your social media mom. Assume everyone can see everything. The delete button is a lie. Recommended for YouWebcast: Growth at a Scale Up: How to Grow When You're No Longer a Startup Be an expert on your privacy options. That said, I would caution about being too closed off. Don’t be afraid to show personality. Be searchable. Get involved. Disclose or pay. What other tips do you have? Author: Amanda Grinavich
How'd They Do That? 7 Techniques of Successful Social Media Sharers People are brilliant and amazing. I’ll often run across an incredibly cool social media strategy or format or tool or link and think to myself, “Whoa, how’d they do that?” There are things like shortened custom URLs, evergreen queues, personalized recommendations, and more. So I’ve gone about trying to figure them all out. Check out my DIY tips below for putting together each of these strategies. 1. Notice the shortened URL in the above tweet from Moz? They’re using a custom short URL: mz.cm. Cool! This can be a really great opportunity to extend some branding into the shortened links you share on social media. I put together this quick video on how to set up a custom short domain. Step 1: Choose a custom short URL One of the most fun parts! Some tips for shortening include removing the vowels from the name (e.g., bffr for Buffer), focusing on a stressed syllable in the name (e.g., buff for Buffer), or using an acronym (e.g., sbn for SB Nation). I ended up choosing kev.uno. Nice! 2. 3. 4. Yes!
29 Social Media Rules You May Not Know Of How did you end up learning the unwritten rules for social media etiquette? For me, it was a lot of watching and waiting, a bit of experimenting, and tons of trial and error. When I first started out on social media, I had just the most basic rules and intuitions. Even now, I feel like I learn a new quirk or quibble on a near-daily basis. It’s hard to know which rules exist, which ones are real, and which ones are okay to break or follow. I’d love to help shed some light here so that you can go forth and share confidently. The 29 most common social media rules After digging into a bunch of research from thought leaders and influencers, I found there seemed to be a set of social media rules that most could agree on. (Thanks to HubSpot, TollFreeForwarding and Gryffin, Rebekah Radice [1] [2], Chris Brogan, and Outbound Engine for their great resources and inspiration on these social media rules.) For all social networks 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. For Twitter 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. For Facebook 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
How To Create A Social Media Marketing Plan In 6 Steps So now you need to create a social media marketing plan. No easy task, right? Many of us struggle to iron out exactly what that is, let alone how to build one from scratch. Put simply, every action you take on social networks should be a part of a larger social media marketing strategy. That means every Tweet, reply, like and comment should all be guided by a plan and driving towards pre-determined goals. Learn what a social media marketing plan should include, and follow our 6-step plan for creating your own: What is a social media marketing plan? A social media marketing plan is the summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve for your business using social networks. In general, the more specific you can get with your plan, the more effective you’ll be in its implementation. Step 1: Create social media objectives and goals The first step to any social media marketing strategy is to establish objectives and goals that you hope to achieve. For example:
Confused by Hashtags. 5 Expert Tips for Marketing with Hashtags When hashtags first emerged they were seen as only for geeks. The rumblings and rumours suggested that they would never catch on. But they did. Twitter was the first social network that adopted this strange habit in 2007. Today the hashtag is used almost everywhere. But identifying the right hashtag is complex when it comes to social engagement and monitoring. Facebook was a slow adopter It took some time for the social media giant Facebook to give in to the hashtag trend and it was dragged kicking and screaming into the hashtag fray in June 2013. Here is the figure displaying the name of the social media networks that allows the use of hashtags for improving conversations with the target audiences: The caption represented using the hashtag might contain any number of descriptive words, but words with hashtags specifically refer to the overall theme of the post. “#Me on my #bicycle in #CP, New Delhi” Important tactics for using hashtags in content 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 514inShare
5 Under-the-Radar Social Media Studies to Make You A Smarter Marketer We are very grateful for all the research that has been done on social media. Social media studies have given us great ideas to improve our social media marketing, helped us understand the psychology behind social media behaviors, and made us better marketers. To help you better understand the ever-changing social media landscape, we jumped into the latest social media research papers, hoping to discover someunder-the-radar insights to help supercharge your social media marketing strategy as we head into 2017. In this post, I’d love share what we discovered and bring you some insightful and surprising social media studies of 2016, sharing the key findings and actionable takeaways you can try today. If any of these studies inspired you with more ideas to experiment with, I’d love to hear from you! 1. 79% of U.S. adults are on Facebook, more than twice the percentage of adults on Instagram (32 percent) Instagram, coming in second, has 51 percent of its users using it daily. 2. 4. 5. 1. 2. 3.
Taylor & Francis Libsite - Use of social media by the library Skip to navigation Social media has the potential to facilitate much closer relationships between libraries and their patrons, wherever they are based, and however they choose to access library services and resources. This white paper has been researched and compiled by Taylor & Francis to provide an overview of current practices relating to the use by libraries of social media, from a world-wide perspective, against which individual institutions can benchmark their own activities and be inspired to try new approaches. Read the Taylor & Francis white paper on social media use in libraries Learn more about the key findings from the white paper: Watch the presentations from the UK launch event | Read the transcript Visualisation of key findings from the white paper on social media use in the library: Discover Best Practice: listen to our webinar on social media in the library Do you want to get more out of your library’s social media accounts? Listen to the webinar | Read the transcript