Social Media Climate: Breaking All the Rules To Adapt to Change

It is pardonable to be defeated, but never to be surprised.

Frederick the Great

Can you change? Of course you can. Everybody changes every day. But how versatile, agile, and quickly can you adapt yourself and your organization to stay relevant in today’s society?

Organizations are always evolving. What’s different now, is that we set a new speed record of change on a daily basis. Technology gives us unprecedented possibilities. And this sea of opportunities is pushing the traditional bureaucratic, controlled and hierarchical organization into an identity crisis.

And pay attention to what Frederick the Great had to say, it is ok to be defeated, just not surprised. So take heed of trends ahead of you.

What’s more, you also need to be in tune with future possibilities, and to be ready to adapt to changes in the digital realm.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, one of the first things he did was develop a marketing campaign to rebrand the ailing enterprise. Leveraging IBM’s long-running “Think” campaign, Apple urged its customers to “Think Different.” The TV spots began, “Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes…”

Here is an excellent story highlighting a trend.

In 1960 two men made a bet. There was only $50 on the line, but millions of people would feel the impact of this little wager. The first man, Bennett Cerf, was the founder of the publishing firm, Random House.

The second man was named Theo Geisel, but you probably know him as Dr. Seuss. Cerf proposed the bet and challenged that Dr. Seuss would not be able to write an entertaining children’s book using only 50 different words. Dr. Seuss took the bet and won. The result was a little book called Green Eggs and Ham.

Since publication, Green Eggs and Ham has sold more than 200 million copies, making it the most popular of Seuss’s works and one of the best-selling children’s books in history. At first glance, you might think this was a lucky fluke. A talented author plays a fun game with 50 words and ends up producing a hit.

But there is actually more to this story and the lessons in it can help us become more creative and stick to better habits over the long-run.

Here are some more ideas we suggest how you should begin to adapt:

Keeping a finger on the pulse of not just what’s appealing, but what large amounts of people are using, will ensure an audience for any future efforts of your own.

uses of social media — **Uses of social media.**

We all know that the internet moves more quickly than any other communication medium, and this presents both unique challenges and opportunities for marketers.

Making sure that you’re not only up to speed with the latest platforms, but innovating and figuring out how to take advantage of them is integral.

After all, you need to be where your audience is–whether that is Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, or newer mobile messaging platforms like Snapchat, Kik, or WhatsApp.

That starts with actively participating yourself. If you don’t understand how a given platform works on a personal level, how can you effectively use it to market your company or brand?

It can have a powerful effect on your search engine rankings.

types of social media — **Types of social media.**

Take note of Yahoo and Bing as well–new deals are making these viable site competitors shortly.

What’s more, users are starting to expect multimedia content on various sites, and that trend will only continue. You can even consider offering services not found on most other sites to attract a new or unexpected user base.

The bottom line

There is a reason why some change leaders succeed while others fail. At some point everybody needs to decide whether they would rather make a point or make a difference and, in the end, those that prevail choose the latter.

That said, you need to make sure they see it, so the location or platform still matters, along with any associated advertising and making sure it all of the above are optimized for mobile.

INTEGRATED_MARKETING_STRATEGY — **Do you have an Integrated Marketing Strategy?**

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

How Social Media Creates a NASA Winning Marketing Solution

Lessons of NASA social media and marketing design have been around for more than a decade now, so it should be easy to figure out how to leverage it, right? And avoid social media marketing mistakes, for sure. But hold on for a minute. How does it create a NASA winning marketing solution?

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

What is the importance of social media in your business? Can you learn from NASA? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help? Marketing? Building relationships? We believe it is all of these things, but the bottom line goal is relationship building.

Related: Instagram Stats … Lots to Learn From Current Data

How many times have you seen companies requesting people to friend them on Facebook? Like farming followers was the name of the game. Sad but true. The truth is that social media marketing tactics are really about cultivating relationships with potential customers. Fan ‘skins’, by themselves, are of very little value.

In the ever-changing landscape of social networking, you might be wondering if you are getting the most out of your business’s social media design tactics? Or perhaps little to no value at all.

In part it is true, but things get complicated by all the misinformation circulating about social media. From leveraging tactics to tracking issues, you are bombarded with conflicting messages, including whether social media is worth using at all. And all of this misinformation creates more and more social media design mistakes.

Here are 16 social media design strategy lessons from NASA that we have all lessons at one time or the other. We’ll review them here in hopes to learn them in the future:

NASA social media focused on fans, not relationships

What would you rather take? More fans/followers or an engaged community that’s ten times smaller? I hope you’d pick the engaged community. Social sites look at how much traction your post generates in relation to the number of followers you have. If the ratio is good, they will start showing your content to more people outside of your circle.

That’s how you generate more traffic: focus on getting the right followers who will become your engaged community.

Hold secrets close to the vest

Google is probably the king of holding secrets close to the vest, but they’re big and can afford to. The rest of us need to reach out and give away the farm. And avoiding secrets at all costs.

Don’t be afraid to email companies and potential customers that you think you can help. What’s the worst thing that they can do… ignore your email?

NASA social media meant more focus on traffic compared to conversion

If social media traffic didn’t convert, do you think Facebook would be worth over 100 billion dollars? And it’s not just Facebook; it’s all the good social media sites. These companies are worth a lot of money because their user base spends money. The users spend enough money to make advertising on these sites profitable.

I’m not saying you need to start spending money on paid social ads, but you should leverage these sites because their visitors do convert.

It starts with traffic, of course, but that is the means and not the ends. The ends are the conversions.

Not only does social media traffic convert, but you can also measure that conversion. By setting up goals within your Google Analytics, you can see how much each of these social sites is generating for you.

Critical Success Factors: 5 Most Strategic Ways To Accelerate Them

NASA social media was showing your fans the fun

It’s always appropriate for a brand to show its personality and some fun. If it’s a personality that wants to be a little weird occasionally, go ahead and get a little weird.

KLM is a great example of this tactic. Yes, most of their posts are about making customers have some fun, and it’s working very well.

Whether you’re a product-based or serviced based company, ask your users to send photos of them using your product or service in exchange for a shot at a prize, or for the honor of being featured on the page.

Happy customers?

NASA social media meant happy customers

Too many companies create happy customers and then fail to leverage their happiness. That is truly missing an awesome opportunity to turn those customers into advocates.

Contact a few of your happy customers and ask them if you can do a case study for them. This is essentially how MarketingSherpa built their business.

When a successful campaign occurred, they would then flip them into a case study. As they generated interest in their company more and more companies started signing up. Eventually, big companies came calling after seeing all the success they were having.

But you don’t have to do a formal case study to leverage happy customers. Testimonials are also powerful tools. Satisfied customers are eager to share their excitement about your company, so make sure you capture and promote that excitement.

NASA social media … many choices

Ever heard of Hick’s law? This law states that the time required for a customer to make a decision is a direct function of the number of available choices. Too many choices are not a good design as they make decisions more difficult. And that is not a good idea, is it?

NASA social media was the best design

Don’t use every inch of white space because you can. Leave some “breathing room” so people can digest your message. We believe the more the better.

Remember people will take away only one or two things from what they see. The clutter of design keeps them from spotting the takeaways you desire.

NASA social media … a call to action

The whole point of the story in social media design is to effectively deliver the desired call to action. If the audience does not clearly understand the desired call to action after seeing the ad, then you are missing the real opportunity.

Social media was too ambiguous

Marketing or advertising, you need to create information that your customers find interesting and worth talking about and remembering. If the information is ambiguous it certainly won’t be remembered.

Take advantage of a visual design

First and foremost, prioritize visual design in your efforts. Presenting your content in a visual format has a number of benefits. First, humans recognize and process images much faster than text; this is why visual content has much greater appeal.

A study by 3M showed that 90% of the information sent to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text.

Second, using a diversity of image types makes your content continuously fresh, which encourages readers to explore more. In visual design, the combination of photography, illustration, videos and data visualization keeps the eyes interested and moving around the page.

More time on site means more engagement with your brand.

Lessons for visual distractions

Abstract or conceptual visuals tend to distract viewers. People prefer symbolic language and images that relate to the senses. People are far less receptive and responsive to language and images that relate to concepts.

Life is experienced through the senses and using symbolic language and images that express what people feel, see, hear, smell or taste are easier for people to understand

The more you publish, the better off you are

If you have great information to share on a daily basis, that’s awesome. You should use the social web on a daily basis.

But if you don’t, then consider using it less frequently. Don’t publish average or repeat material. It can actually harm your efforts.

Focus on creating high-quality updates and interactions instead of being on these social sites because you have to.

B2B strategies are different than B2C strategies

Every time I write about social media marketing, someone will comment:

“Those tactics look great for companies who target other businesses, but what should I do if I have a consumer-based company?”

Whether you have a consumer-based or business-facing company, you use the same tactics. From sharing great information to respond to people who have questions to promoting your own products and services, the tactics are identical.

What works for one usually works for the other.

Ignoring negative feedback

The worst thing you can do is ignore negative feedback. If someone isn’t happy with you or your company, you shouldn’t ignore that person. Instead, you should embrace criticism and try to improve.

Just look at Comcast. They even have a Twitter channel dedicated to supporting. Every time anyone tweets something negative about them, they apologize and try to help. It doesn’t matter if it is their fault or not, they are continually trying to improve.

As a business owner, you should embrace negative feedback. Respond to it, and try to solve the problem without getting emotional. It will help your business get better.

Not focused on building trust

The world has a trust problem, and according to Nielsen, we marketers are a big part of it. Only 40% of consumers trust marketing content, but 90% trust content from their social networks.

Compounding the problem, there are troublemakers among us, who have flocked to social media to expand their marketing reach, promoting the same alienating content they use in other media. And then they wonder why they don’t see a return on their investment.

It’s time to enlighten our brethren and teach them how we can collectively participate in social media in a way that puts us in a more trustworthy light.

Not keeping promises

This sin is closely related to the one on lack of trust. When you make a promise to a potential customer in an ad, and then don’t deliver, you most often lose the customer for good. Not a desirable outcome is it?

The bottom line

There are a lot of misconceptions about social media marketing. Just because you read something in a blog post or hear something from a credible source doesn’t mean it is true.

Always do your own research, and try to improve. Social media marketing is here to stay, and it can drive a lot of business for you, assuming you are leveraging it correctly.

There is more opportunity to fail in social media than to succeed if we treat it like any other design process. Social media requires us to get away from being promotional and sensational and instead treat our customers with special attention to including their thoughts in our offerings.

It means being truly interested in what they have to say in the real world and communicating about the things they care about — with a vocabulary that illustrates they can trust us.

So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of social media design. And put it to good use.

It’s up to you to keep improving your social media design efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Subway Response Mistakes to Avoid on Your Social Media

If you buy a 12-inch sub, are you likely to measure it if it seems a little short? We all don’t appreciate being short, but where is the line drawn when we are called to action? And to what degree will these Subway response mistakes to a social comment go?

Subway restaurants received some inputs on these questions, though they did not explicitly ask the questions.

Before we continue, let me ask you a question.

What works best for your negative, viral social media response design in your business? We would love to hear what it was.

Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? Be the one who starts a conversation.

With the advent of the Internet, the number of marketing options available to both budding and experienced entrepreneurs has become staggering.

Their customers are applying their measuring tapes after an Internet posting that claimed a short-shifting of the worldwide chain’s famous footlong sub.

The controversy began Tuesday in Australia when a customer bought a footlong sub and then pulled out a tape measure and found the sub measured only 11 inches long.

His action was to take his dissatisfaction with Facebook, where he posted a photo of his sub alongside the tape measure on the company’s page with the caption, “subway pls respond.”

Screengrabs taken of his image and reposted online show the photo quickly received more than 131,000 likes and thousands of comments.

So what should have Subway done for an early response to this viral social media by its customers?

Here is what we would recommend to Subway executives:

It just is logical that you occasionally deal with negative customers, no matter how good you are. How well you deal with these customers will determine whether you are dealing with a crisis or a non-issue.

Response time in these situations is critical also. Here is a short video on social media response times.

So it is wise to have a response plan defining how you would respond before you receive any such comments. Note that part of the response plan requires action prior to receiving negative comments from customers.

Here is the response plan we recommend:

Listen and accept

But don’t censor. Listen carefully and try to understand your customers’ viewpoints.

Respond directly

Early response time really matters. Time is critical and you have very little.

Always be transparent

Explain without offering excuses. Remain calm under fire at all costs.

Fix the problem

If there is one. Acknowledge the issue and communicate your solution.

Look for and create opportunity

Can you turn the problem into an opportunity?

Don’t neglect to spend time finding the opportunity from your adversity … it often will not jump out at you.

Funnel comments/concerns

Keep your staff informed and engaged. Keep everyone in the loop and up to speed.

Build a community

A community of passionate defenders. Let them defend you with their views.

Humanize your brand

Create a brand personality through laughter and having fun in the workplace. Always wear your enthusiasm and your passion.

Know when to walk away

Be prepared to walk away if it is a lose-lose situation and you see you are not making headway. When is the issue over? Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes not … but monitor closely for a while.

Remember … your customers are not always right, but they always have the right to choose. And they do, they will tell their friends about their experiences and their choices.

The bottom line

With companies today, contending with new dimensions of competition– shaping malleable situations, adapting to uncertain ones, and surviving harsh ones – all require new approaches.

Team coaching is one of the new collaborative cultural norms in creating high-performing and faster-moving teams, and within collaborative communities, to lead in the imagination age, in today’s fast-changing world.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Improve Telling Stories by Employing These Remarkable Examples

Find your Content Marketing Creative Ideas

Creative Ideas Can Add to Publix Social Media Marketing

Social Media Campaigns to Stimulate Learning

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on, and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Want to Modify Social Media Platforms to Skyrocket Your Audience?

Frustrating, isn’t it? You work tirelessly on your content – but no one reads it. It’s like giving a presentation to an empty room. No matter how much insight you have to share, nobody’s there even to notice. You are looking to modify social media platforms, aren’t you?

My theory is that if you gave the customer a choice between a coupon for 20% off their next purchase or a fast and easy resolution to their problem, they’ll choose the latter. Even if you surprise them with the gesture of a discount, it won’t make up for the hassle they endured to get their problem resolved.

In other words, customers don’t want surprise and delight. They just want delight.

You feel certain that if you could get this magic social media platform to work effectively, the content delight would flow.

More to learn Pinterest Marketing … Rich Pin Tips for Discovery Shopping

But even when you promote the heck out of your latest post, the following days you have to start the process all over again.

It’s exhausting.

modify Social media platforms — **Modify social media platforms.**

But what if there was a magic social media platform? What if by using that platform you’d be rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names on the web?

Wouldn’t you want to know what that magic social media platform is?

Have you heard of Quora?

It’s the Q&A platform where anyone can post a question and get answers from experts in the community.

Even though Quora was launched way back in 2009, you might not have encountered it.

But make no mistake, these days Quora is a big deal. Everyone from Ashton Kutcher to professors at MIT and even Barack Obama has taken their turn answering questions.

Right now, Quora is the number-two traffic driver for my blog. I have been consistently answering questions for 16 months now.

Along the way, my answers on the platform have hit over 1,500,000 views, and I’ve been featured four times in the Quora Daily Digest that goes out to up to 2,000,000 people.

Quora benefits

Most of us blog to help our readers with the problems they wrestle with, and a Q&A format is the purest expression of helping people with their problems.

As a blogger, not only will you find Quora a natural community in which to participate, but you’ll get several benefits from doing so.

Here is a short video on Quora platform tips.

Long term traffic referrals

After a few months of posting, check your stats and you’ll find answers posted on the platform can continue to drive traffic months after being created.

For example, I still receive significant traffic from one post I wrote back seven months ago. When someone “upvotes” it (the Quora community’s way of giving support for an answer), my answer appears in their feed and is visible to all of their followers.

The result? More traffic comes back to my blog as well as a ton of new opt-ins for my email list.

Quora’s Stats page shows how my answer has received thousands of views from the community.

In practice, the traffic generation effect can last much longer than just two or three months.

You must establish expertise

Quora also gives topic badges to top writers in most categories. These appear next to your name for everyone to see. I have been selected as one of the most viewed writers in over ten categories.

Note that I select many categories to answer in and don’t focus too narrowly. I decided early not to try and the single most viewed writer. Being one of the top 5 is just as valuable in my opinion.

When you appear in the most viewed writer’s list and start to earn badges, you’ll find that people begin to ask you questions (called Ask to Answer – A2A) on the topic of which you are featured.

And that’s the true sign of expertise, isn’t it? When people approach you for your expertise completely unprompted.

Quora profile.

Setting up account

At this point, you must be asking how can you tap into all this Quora goodness.

Fortunately, there’s a simple process you follow to succeed with Quora in your topic and start driving traffic to your website.

Traffic optimized profile

New writers on Quora often don’t take the time to fill out their profile in its entirety. But that’s a big mistake because you’ll fail to stand out from the thousands of other profiles on Quora.

The perfect Quora profile starts with the perfect profile bio. Your profile bio is the “headline” that appears immediately beneath your name in your Quora profile.

When completing this, you need to decide what topic you want to be known for and consider the type of questions you’ll be answering.

Your bio should signal to your audience that you’re qualified to answer those questions.

Choose your words wisely because space is limited – you only have 80 characters to express yourself.

Here is my bio:

Mike Schoultz

New age social marketer, and small business consultant helping with growth.

Author | Marketing Strategist | Consultant

Read my blog at www.digitalsparkmarketing.com

Your profile bio is important because it appears next to your name in any context where your profile appears, e.g., above any answers that you create.

Note that any links you put in your bio will not be rendered as clickable links, so you might want to reserve those for your profile summary.

Add detail using the profile summary

Under your profile bio is your profile summary, where you can provide more information about yourself.

The summary field is only shown when people click to view your profile in full, but on the plus side, it is far less restricted in length and format than your profile bio.

Rich formatting like bold, italic and underline are supported, together with lists and blockquotes. Web addresses will also be correctly rendered as clickable links, so this is the perfect place to link to your blog.

So those are the building blocks of a perfect Quora profile.

Remember, your Quora profile is key to gaining credibility with your audience and must not be overlooked, even if you’re keen to start answering questions.

If your profile fails to persuade people you’re qualified to answer the questions that interest them, you’ll struggle to get views and upvotes.

Select expertise areas

Quora allows you to add specific topics to your profile and provide bios for each one. (These bios override your main bio when answering questions on these topics.)

To add a topic, simply click on this panel in the sidebar of your profile:

Then search for relevant topics to add to your profile. Creating a custom bio for each of your main topics allows you to highlight the most relevant aspects of your experience for each topic.

Once you’ve added some topics that you know about, they’ll appear in your public profile.

Find high-interest topics

This is the step that 95% of Quora writers miss and it’s the difference between getting 50 versus 1,000 views on your answers.

Are you ready?

Before you write a single answer, you need to find the answers that are attracting the most views and upvotes within your topic of interest.

So start by looking for a relevant topic. You can use this list of the most followed topics on Quora for 2015 to find the ones getting the most traffic and views from the community.

As an example, we’ll use the Self-Improvement topic.

As you can see, this topic is very popular, with over 400K followers. So you know that it will attract more traffic and will lead to more views than a less popular topic like, say, Customer service.

Now, look for the Topic FAQ – this will show the top questions being asked at the moment.

You’ll notice in this example that >2000 people have answered the question, “What can I learn/know right now in 10 minutes that will be useful for the rest of my life?”

So if you were in the personal development space, this would be a great topic for you to target.

Answer this question in detail, and you have a good chance of getting 1,000 views on your first attempt. (We’ll look at specific tips for writing popular answers shortly.)

But where do those views come from?

Click through to the question’s answer page, and you’ll find out.

Use stories

It’s been scientifically proven that when we hear a story, our brain activates the same areas it would if we were experiencing the events of the story ourselves.

For instance, if I told you a story about a delicious, rich, velvety piece of chocolate cake that I devoured last night, your sensory cortex lights up – you partially live that experience!

This is why personal stories of tragedy, struggle, and personal perseverance do exceptionally well on Quora.

Employ visuals

According to a Buzzsumo study of two million articles, those that showed an image once every 75–100 words got double the amount of shares of articles with fewer images.

You only need to look at the success of apps like Instagram to realize just how visually driven we humans are.

On Quora, using images is the best way I’ve found to stand out from all the other answers quickly. The majority of writers do not bother looking for images. Their answers end up looking like a sea of bland text and are easily skipped over by readers.

Point to the website for more details

When answering questions, make sure you provide enough value to get upvotes and views but not so much that you give away all the details.

This tactic is the key to driving traffic to your blog.

It’s also given me a good uptick in my email sign-ups.

This piques the reader’s interest. Then, in Step 2 of my process, I link to a post on my website giving further details.

I also usually list one other link to a blog that complements the question and answer.

Best tactics to use

When you approach a question, you should set out to create the best answer for that question.

There is no point in creating a quick 200-300–word answer on a top question because you will just get lost among all the other answers.

You need to spend time writing a long, thoughtful answer. One that hopefully incorporates a story from your life.

If you want your answer to withstand the test of time, make sure it is memorable and can hold its own as other writers continue adding answers. Here are a few additional tips to consider:

Be unique

One tactic many top writers recommend is going against the herd when answering a question. Try and be as unique as you can.

Most answers tend to be repetitive, causing readers to think, “Been there, done that.” So when someone comes along and says something truly different, everyone listens.

Be that someone.

If you can, make your first few lines controversial. When readers who are following the question get notified, they will receive a preview of your answer, and if the intro is intriguing, they are more likely to click through to find out more.

Use trending topics

Another way top writers have grown their view counts in a short amount of time is to target topics appearing in Quora’s trending topics section.

Similar to Twitter’s Trends, these are hot topics that are getting a lot of views right now.

Consistent posting

Almost every top writer I know has made a regular commitment to writing on Quora.

Many recommend that you write every day. That is what I do … Three answers every day. That’s right. Every single day.

Not only will your writing improve significantly but each answer acts as a form of promotion for your previous ones – the reader will view one answer, and if they like it, they’ll check out others you’ve written.

The effect is a snowball of views.

And that’s the real secret to success on Quora.

When to post

If you are living in North America, consider posting early in the day or late at night.

Since a large portion of Quora’s user base is from the Indian subcontinent (38.5% according to Alexa), you can get a lot of views when they are just waking up or going to bed. (When it’s 8:00 a.m. in New York City, it’s 6:30 p.m. in Mumbai; 10:00 p.m. in NYC is 8:30 a.m. in Mumbai.)

For me, early morning answers work much better than afternoon ones, for instance.

Learn some more: How to Get Small Business Press Coverage

The bottom line

Let’s face it; every blogger is hungry for more traffic. But few of them are looking for it on Quora. And that’s a huge reservoir of opportunity just waiting to be tapped.

The good news? You’re perfectly positioned to take advantage. The skills you’ve learned as a blogger are the same skills you need to make your answers stand out on the platform.

Social media gives us a great opportunity to listen in on what people are saying. We’ve long known that word of mouth is incredibly powerful, now we can actually track it. Social listening tools are still somewhat primitive, but they are improving quickly and are already being deployed to help monitor conventional marketing efforts in real-time.

To create an account, craft your profile and start hunting for those “big game” questions on which you’ll build your Quora reputation.

**Customer engagement improvements are worth the effort.**

Lots of ideas here that can be easily replicated … which ones do you feel could benefit your business?

How could you improve the Starbucks Coffee Social Media campaign concept for your business?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

17 Mistakes to Avoid in a Social Media Response

Do you have a strategy for a negative customer social media response strategy? It just is logical that you occasionally deal with negative customers, no matter how good you are.

Social media response strategy.

How well you deal with these customers will determine whether you are dealing with a crisis or a non-issue. So it is essential that you avoid cardinal sins in a social media response strategy, in this regard.

It is pardonable to be defeated, but never to be surprised.

-Frederick the Great

Social media has been around for a decade now, so it should be easy to figure out how to leverage it, right? Not so fast. New ideas? Definitely not that new, but a good refresher.

In 1865, Gregor Mendel published the paper that established him as the father of genetics. However, it went largely unnoticed until it was rediscovered decades later and became widely recognized as one of the great discoveries in the history of science.

Why do some ideas quickly spread far and wide while others go nowhere at all?

There are recommendations on how to beef up social media marketing everywhere you turn. But which ones will make the grass grow the best?

The ultimate goal of all the points I list below is this: eliminate the fluff from your marketing strategy and focus only on the things that work.

How 3M Disruptive Innovation is So Successful

Social response … keep this in mind

How many times have you seen companies requesting people to friend them on Facebook? Like farming, followers were the name of the game. Sad but true.

The truth is that social media marketing tactics are really about cultivating relationships with potential customers. Fan ‘skins’, by themselves, are of very little value.

In part it is true, but things get complicated by all the misinformation circulating about social media. From leveraging tactics to tracking issues, you are bombarded with conflicting messages, including whether social media marketing is worth using at all.

Here is the bottom line:

These are 17 cardinal sins we use most often for training our clients. We believe they are the ones most critical to the success of your social media marketing and community engagement.

They will destroy much of your social media marketing gains if they occur:

Limited to no brand personality

Always create a personality through laughter and having fun in the workplace. Be able to laugh at yourself.

Wear your enthusiasm and your passion at all times.

Being a poor listener

Avoid censoring at all costs. Listen carefully and try to understand your customers’ viewpoints.

Not responding quickly and directly

Respond directly and early response time matters. Time is critical and you have very little.

Social response … offering excuses

Always explain without offering excuses. Remain calm under fire at all costs.

Ignoring the solution?

Ignoring the solution

Fix problems if they exist. Acknowledge the issues and communicate your solutions.

Not keeping staff informed

Provide all the information to your staff. Keep everyone in the loop and up to speed.

Not utilizing your community

Build followers of passionate defenders. Let them defend you with their views.

Ignoring the opportunity

Try to turn the problem into an opportunity. Don’t neglect to spend time finding the opportunity from your adversity … it often will not jump out at you, will it?

Forgetting the walkaway option

If it is a lose-lose situation and you see you are not making headway, be prepared to walk away. When is the issue over? Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes not … but monitor closely for a while.

Social media response strategy … not being yourself

Readers can easily see through marketing speak. Be passionate about what you do and let that show through your personality. Ensure people see you as a real person and not a mouthpiece.

When you are communicating in the world of social media, say who you are and who you work for. Don’t be sneaky with your comments.

Avoid ghostwriting. Be genuine and real.

Are you paying attention to value add?

Limited value add

Try to add value to everything you post. Be useful or entertaining or you will be ignored. Share tips, tricks, and insights.

People’s time is very valuable and they are looking to learn and enjoy new things from you.

Make listening to you worth their time.

Light on engagement

Answer questions readers ask, ask questions of others and thank people even if it is just a few words.

Communications is a two-way activity, isn’t it?

No preparation

If you are going to participate in social media, be prepared and know generally what to expect. Be engaged with people.

That really is the only way to understand the online culture, tone, best practices, and protocol. And remember, things are constantly changing, so be prepared to learn consistently as you go.

Weak on consistency

Social media is a time-consuming effort. You must spend time in a consistent way. You cannot post and then depart for a week or more. And, oh, by the way, it takes persistence to achieve success.

Readers expect responses quickly and new content regularly and if they don’t see it, they won’t be back.

Not listening carefully

Pay attention to feedback from your audience. Appreciate suggestions; it will make what you do even better.

Always acknowledge inputs.

Learn from experiences

Be real and honest. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes or change your opinion on things. Be quick to make changes when you do.

Showing you are not having fun

People are easy to read, aren’t they? If you are not enjoying what you are doing, others will notice and won’t interact.

So why participate in that losing mode?

The bottom line

There are a lot of misconceptions about social media marketing. Just because you read something in a blog post or hear something from a credible source doesn’t mean it is true or true for you and your business.

Always do your research, and continually try to improve. Social media marketing is here to stay, and it can drive a lot of business for you, assuming you are leveraging it correctly.

There is more opportunity to fail in social media than to succeed if we treat it like any other marketing vehicle.

Social media requires us to get away from being promotional and sensational and instead treat our customers with special attention. Special attention to being social, building relationships, and creating trust.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

How To Use Being Social as Growth Marketing

We receive many questions on whether social marketing is a ‘new age’ type of marketing. In our opinion, it clearly is not. Why may you be wondering? Well, in our opinion good business has had an element of the use being social since the beginning.

The only thing new in social marketing is the expanded reach that a business has in our new age of the internet, digital happenings.

Most breakthrough organizations aren’t built on a bundle of wonderment, novelty and new ideas. In fact, they usually involve just one big idea. The rest is execution, patience, tactics, and people. The ability to see what’s happening and to act on it.

The rest is doing the stuff we already know how to do, the stuff we’ve seen before, but doing it beautifully. You probably don’t need yet another new idea. Better to figure out what to do with the ones you’ve got.

use being social — **Use being social.**

I love finding brilliant social advertising creative that makes me wish I thought of it. And I especially love it, when it’s for a client that’s trying to make the world a better place.

That’s what social marketing is all about. And because it’s only “sell” is to try to get us to change our behaviors or attitudes about something, it can be powerful when done well.

Being social … what is social marketing?

Social marketing seeks to develop and integrate marketing concepts with other approaches to influence behaviors that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good.

Although “social marketing” is sometimes seen only as using standard commercial marketing practices to achieve non-commercial goals, this is an oversimplification.

The primary aim of social marketing is “social good”, while in “commercial marketing” the aim is primarily “financial”.

This does not mean that commercial marketers cannot contribute to the achievement of social good.

Increasingly, social marketing is being described as having “two parents”—a “social parent”, including social science and social policy approaches, and a “marketing parent”, including commercial and public sector marketing approaches.

So what, exactly, is social marketing?

In Social Marketing Report, it’s defined as, “the application of commercial marketing techniques to social problems.”

It means to take the same principles used in selling goods–such as shoes, television shows, or pizza–to convince people to change their behavior.

So then, what is the difference between social marketing and commercial marketing?

It’s really summed up in one key point: commercial marketing tries to change people’s behavior for the benefit of the marketer; social marketing tries to change people’s behavior for the benefit of the consumer, or of society as a whole.

Why social marketing?

So what makes the concept of social marketing particularly important? Perhaps you’ve been doing your work quite effectively for years without ever even hearing the phrase.

That’s actually pretty likely; the phrase was only coined about 25 years ago, though the concept is ageless.

Every entrepreneur dreams of having that single moment of epiphany where everything falls into place. Many search for their entire careers for that one big idea that will make the difference between incredible success and frustrating mediocrity. Few ever find it and many that do end up crashing and burning along the way.

However, there are three major advantages which suggest that social marketing is worthy of your consideration:

It helps you reach the target audiences you want to reach.

It helps you customize your message to those targeted audiences, and by doing so,

It helps you create greater and longer-lasting behavior change in those audiences.

What then is the bottom line? Social marketing is a good idea because it is effective.

Being social … it’s all about building relationships

Like making new friends? It is becoming the most important element of social commerce.

Creating positive experiences for building customer relationships often will take some serious thinking. But hopefully not at the expense of the little things you can do to build customer relationships. Such as what you may ask?

Simple ideas on consumer engagement start with a foundation of little things that, when not done well, can make the more complex customer experience design actions a moot point.

11 Ways the Facebook Business Page Will Improve Social Marketing

Let’s examine a simple list of items for the best ways of being social that Digital Spark Marketing recommends to its clients:

Being social is important … acknowledge that I am there

You should do this as soon as you possibly can. Don’t make your customers frustrated by making them wait. If you are busy with another customer, inform them you will be with them shortly.

Be friendly

Smile and introduce yourself. Wear a nametag and personalize it to help create a meaningful conversation.

Be knowledgeable

Know all about your products and services. Always assume they have done their own homework and product research.

If you don’t know, DON’T BLUFF, but do offer to do some research.

If you don’t have a product or service that can solve their problem, recommend someone else’s product if you can. You should always be looking to solve their problems.

Advantages of being social … don’t sell

Use your knowledge and experience to help customers decide. Help them in their search. Pushy sales pitches turn customers off.

But personally relevant and interactive conversations switch them on.

Help them save time

Time is the customer’s most valued passion. Help them save it. Avoid seeking other help, or ‘handing them off’.

Be easy to work with

Exceed expectations whenever you can. If your business doesn’t have what the customer wants, offer alternatives, including other businesses.

Be honest

If you don’t know say so. But use that question to research so as to be prepared next time. You don’t want to be saying you don’t know often.

Being social … always do what you say**

Do what you say and keep your promises. It is not an option to ignore follow up.

Follow through promptly

Keep them informed until you can close. Remember time is of the essence.

These are not things that we do not already know, of course.

Yet these little things list simply reminds us of what we already know but may have forgotten.

Then it is up to us to put these lessons of building customer relationships into daily use through persistence and practice.

These days more and more companies are turning their attention to the social commerce business.

Meaning? The simple meaning is they believe that they need more attention to building customer relationships and trust.

From customer relationships comes to trust, the most important factor in a customer selecting a company with whom to do business.

The secret to building customer relationships is customer engagement and there are many ways you’ll need to engage customers.

being social — **Execute being a social campaign starting with a nice smile.**

Stages of social campaigns

What is involved in the stages of social marketing?

In a nutshell, when conducting a social marketing campaign, consider the following:

Identify your customers

Whose behavior do you want to change?

It may be that you want to change the behavior of several different groups; in that case, you may want to influence them in different ways to bring them closer to the desired behavior.

Such groups are often separated, or segmented, by age, gender, level of education, or race.

Identify what behavior you want to change

For example, increase prenatal counseling among expectant mothers.

Identify the barriers

This is done through interviews, surveys, focus groups or other methods, you’ll want to find out what makes it difficult or unattractive for people to make these changes.

Do pregnant women feel uncomfortable at the area clinic, or are they made to feel stupid when they talk to the doctor? Is the clinic too far away?

Can they not take the time away from their jobs?

Chip away at these barriers

Define ways to make dealing with customers easier, more accessible, and more attractive. Can the clinic stay open longer hours?

Can physicians and nurses be better trained to discuss problems with women? This step might even be taken a step farther.

Your organization might provide incentives for making (and sustaining) changes. Mothers who come to the clinic regularly through their pregnancy might receive coupons for free baby food, for example.

Pretest ideas

You then need to apply what you have learned according to your results.

Show the benefits of change

You have to show customers what you have changed and why. This will help customers see the benefits in a way that will draw them to take advantage of your efforts.

Let people know what you’re doing to help them–the best program in the world won’t be used if people don’t know about it.

And of course, people need to understand the benefits of behavior change. A pregnant woman will probably want to do what’s best for her child, but may not know that she needs extra iron during her pregnancy.

It’s up to your organization to tell her.

And, although it’s not technically a part of social marketing, you’ll probably want to…

How are these beliefs shaped and decisions made? Well, generally speaking, the following activities need to occur:

Create awareness and interest

Change attitudes and conditions

Motivate people to want to change their behavior

Empower people to act

Prevent backsliding

Improving the social in social marketing

In truth, social marketing has been around for a very long time now, so it should be easy to figure out how to leverage it, right? Not so fast. New ideas?

Definitely not that new, but good refreshers. There are recommendations on how to beef up social marketing everywhere you turn.

How many times have you seen companies requesting people to friend them on Facebook? Like farming followers were the name of the game. Sad but true.

The truth is that social marketing tactics are really about cultivating relationships with potential customers. Fan ‘skins’, by themselves, are of very little value.

What is the importance of social marketing in your business? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering?

Appreciating your help? Building relationships? We believe it is all of these things, but the bottom line end state is relationship building.

In the ever-changing landscape of social networking, you might be wondering if you are getting the most out of your business’s social marketing tactics.

Here we define social community engagement as the process of gaining website customer traffic, attention, interaction, and ultimately relationships through any and all internet sites.

In part it is true, but things get complicated by all the misinformation circulating about social marketing.

From leveraging tactics to tracking issues, you are bombarded with conflicting messages, including whether social marketing is worth using at all.

Here are 10 ideas we use most often to help improve social marketing with our clients. We believe they are the ones most critical to its success:

Listening to and observing customers

It all starts with knowing who your customers are and knowing as much about what makes them tick as you can. Without this step, most of the other steps become just a shot in the dark.

So spent a lot of your time on this action. Keep in mind that you can’t be everything to everybody and certainly remember not all customers are alike.

Choose the best channels

Once you understand who your target customers are, you’ll need to study which social media sites they use most frequently and to what end.

Social media takes a lot of time and energy, so you need to know where your time will be best spent.

Share unique, helpful content

Your content goal is simple, be as helpful as you can be and/or be entertaining, or else be ignored. If you are going to put in the time and energy, you don’t want to be ignored.

Listen and engage

Listening comes first and foremost to understand what customers are saying about their needs and perhaps about you.

Once you have heard, then engage in as near real-time as you can.

Your personality and voice

This one is pretty simple, but takes lots of practice in the beginning. Be YOU and be consistent.

Remember customers deal with people and not businesses.

Don’t be a robot

As we said previously, social marketing takes a lot of time and energy. There many good tools in existence that will help in the workload.

But keep this in mind, customers take note when it seems they are dealing with a robot. Don’t be that robot.

Be part of the community

Remember you are dealing with consumers that are part of a community not part of the audience.

Pay special attention to adding value in that vein.

Being social … commit to a plan

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there, as the saying goes. Know your objectives and establish the best plan to get them accomplished.

Remember this plan needs constant attention, iteration, and adaptation.

Emphasize friendly

One of your key business objectives is to build relationships with customers. That end game results in customer advocates and trust.

This process takes constant attention to being friendly on a very consistent basis.

Measure results

This entire social marketing process is a constant iteration.

Establish a few key measurements and pay attention to how well you are doing.

Analyze, correct, iterate and learn

Analyze your measurement results, and continuously make corrections, iterate, learn, and most importantly, adapt.

There are a lot of misconceptions about social marketing. Just because you read something in a blog post or hear something from a credible source doesn’t mean it is true or true for you and your business.

Always do your research, and continually try to improve.

Social marketing is here to stay, and it can drive a lot of business for you, assuming you are leveraging it correctly.

The bottom line

In this article, we’ve explored a multitude of creative ways to use social marketing to increase engagement and build customer relationships.

The key takeaway is to know your audience and what they’re most likely to respond to. Give them more of that.

It’s OK to promote your company and products, but do it in a way that capitalizes on your audience’s deepest interests and connects with them on a personal level. Avoid selling.

Here’s the thing, social isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s really a new way of running a business. Social companies certainly have figured this out and are using social marketing to rapidly grow their business.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on T witter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

14 Social Proof Insights to Supercharge your Influence

Social proof is a concept that is as old as time. It has just begun to gain traction amongst online marketers as it explains a lot about the success of some online ventures and the failure of others. Look for social proof insights to succeed.

To put it simply:

“Social proof in a social media context is the theory that accounts that have high follower numbers are trusted and followed more often”

It can be used to build trust in a social media environment for your business.

Social proof marketing is not new but often forgotten.

Here is a story to expound on the concept.

When engineers from Xerox PARC showed off their revolutionary new personal computer, the Alto, at the company’s global conference in 1977, senior executives weren’t particularly impressed. It just didn’t seem to be relevant to their jobs or their business.

Their wives, however, were transfixed. The reason for the disparity was that the executives saw a tool to automate secretarial work, which they considered to be a low-value activity.

The wives — many of whom had been secretaries — saw an entirely new world of possibility and, when Steve Jobs built the Macintosh-based on the Alto, everyone else saw it too. It’s easy to shake our heads and laugh at those shortsighted executives of the past, but we’d do ourselves a much greater service by realizing that we are not that different.

The truth is that the next big thing always starts out looking like nothing at all, so it’s hard to grasp its implications early on. That’s essentially where we are today with the shift from bits to atoms.

Peer pressure

One of the earliest influences on human development is something we have all experienced…” peer pressure”. When one person within your group of peers pressures you into doing something, you’re not so likely to do it.

When many people within your peer group are pressuring you to do something, you’re much more likely to do it. This will escalate as more people join in.

The world of social media is, as you’d guess, much like the real world. In a social media context, social proof comes into play when web users see that a large number of people already follow, liked, shared, or commented on a piece of content. The increased activity is seen as something desirable to join in on.

Let’s take a look at a more practical setting that we’re all familiar with… television. TV shows have been using social proof for decades.

Watch a sitcom with canned laughter, or laugh tracks, in the background. When you hear those people laughing you’re more prone to laugh as well, increasing your enjoyment of the show and the chance that you’ll watch it more often.

Examples of social proof

There are a number of excellent examples of social proof. I’ll summarize them in point form so you can quickly expand your knowledge here.:

Facebook Sponsored stories rapidly increase exposure which leads to more likes, and even crossovers with other social platforms due to their recognition – even algorithms recognize social proof.
A key guest blog on a relevant website can increase sales better than an article in the New York Times, or a spot on CNN.
Yelp’s entire designs are centered around social proof – higher star ratings and better comments are a result of customer reviews. You’re more likely to go when more people have given it a high rating – just like peer pressure.

These are all more advanced forms of social proof. That most immediate one, and the one that people will see the most often and make the highest number of judgments on, is quite simply your follower numbers.

A low number of Twitter followers leads to few people taking you seriously. Few subscribers on YouTube leads to people thinking that your videos aren’t any good.

Here are some points to consider:

Use pictures to make your social proof real

Social media is the perfect platform for building social proof as it gives you a nearly limitless number of ways to attached pictures to your social proof. You can post photos with calls to action that breed comments that lead to social trust.

You can make comments, with the author’s permission, and post them to your website along with their photo.

Your blog posts can be filled with images of success enjoyed by your products or services.

Positive social proof is better than negative

Negative social proof is the type of bullying behavior that we all resent. To look at the most basic examples in the Twitter images below, which are you more likely to click on?

You’ll never truly win people’s trust with negative social proof, just like those schoolyard bullies.

Money is less persuasive than social proof

A study in the Wall Street Journal showed that consumers were more likely to make decisions based on social proof than the potential of saving money.

In the study, “Your neighbors are already doing it,” was more persuasive than “you’ll save $54/month” when it came to influencing consumer behavior!

Your best social proof may be the stories you tell

Statistics are great for bored, sorry, board meetings, but they are hardly ever going to truly interest people on social media. A compelling story, from a customer with a positive experience, could be a positive social proof that increases engagement more than any other thing you do.

People understand stories, people relate to stories, people are entertained by stories – statistics are work and are often ignored.

Influencers: The friendly online bullies

As discussed in the point form notes above, nothing quite equals the positivity of having a respected leader say something positive about your products or services.

Their behavior is able to “bully” their users with their positive influence. They’re much more likely to trust your product when someone they trust speaks of it positively.

Social media is an absolute dream for this type of social proof – no more paying celebrities for an expensive commercial, just cut right to the key influencers in your industry!

Social proof is more than an ego

Social proof is something as old as the human race itself, but social signals and social media have made it something tangible for modern marketers to use.

Remember the next time you make a push to increase your followers that you’re not stroking your own ego, you’re trying to show the next person that finds your account that you are worth their time and trust.

Spend lots of time listening

Even if you already know what people are going to say, and even if there’s no way you can do what they want, start by listening. Being listened to is one of the things they want–that’s true of just about everyone.

That was one mistake I made on my first project: I had listened to people who wanted to volunteer but not to those who had volunteer jobs to offer. I assumed they’d be happy to have new volunteers, but I was wrong.

Ask lots of questions

Not only because everyone wants to be listened to. Careful questioning will help you determine what people really want, which is often different from what they say they want. It will also tell you what they have to offer.

Make a human-to-human connection

Look for ways to connect that have nothing to do with the work at hand. Maybe they have children the same age as yours, or they live somewhere you’ve vacationed, or you share the same hobby.

Even if none of that’s true, you can still make a bit of a connection on the basis of universal experiences. For instance, right now a large portion of the United States is suffering through extreme winter weather.

Never miss a chance to say thank you

Think hard about who’s helped you or put him- or herself out, and make sure to thank him or her. That makes it much likelier he or she will put him- or herself out again for you next time.

Give praise every chance you get

Most of us never get enough praise for the things we work hard to do. So if you want to influence someone, make sure to call out what he or she has done well and how he or she has contributed to your organization or your well-being. Do it in public if you can.

Always apologize

If you hate apologizing, get over it. An apology is one of the most powerful tools you have for winning people to your side. If a decision you made caused someone inconvenience or upset, an apology lets him or her know that you care.

That’s true even if you don’t regret the decision itself but only the harm it caused him or her.

Strive to give people what they want

Obviously, this isn’t always an option. But if you can figure out what people really want or need and make sure they get it, they’ll be that much more likely to give you what you need from them.

Let people save face

Sometimes you know that someone would be disastrously bad at a job he or she wants. Should you say so? Unless you’re giving him or her feedback with a view to his or her being qualified, later on, don’t.

You’re better off giving that person a more palatable out. For instance, you’ve already promised the job to someone else.

The bottom line

These are interesting facts many of which we already know, of course. They are not rocket science and shouldn’t be. This list of little things simply reminds us of what we have forgotten.

Then it is up to us to put these lessons (or reminders) into daily use through persistence and practice. Remember … Your learning trumps all!

The Guaranteed Method to Compete in Social Media Marketing Wars

Are you interested in learning how to compete in social media marketing wars? Looking for the latest social media marketing tactics? Perhaps you want to know what social media marketing pros are doing today.

It is not hard to accomplish these objectives. We’ll share with you how the most successful small businesses use social media to grow brand loyalty.

How many times have you seen companies requesting people to friend them on Facebook?

Like farming followers were the name of the game. Sad but true. The truth is that social media marketing campaigns are really about cultivating relationships with potential customers. Fan ‘skins’, by themselves, are of very little value.

What is the importance of social media in your small business? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help? Marketing? Building relationships? We believe it is all of these things, but the bottom line goal is relationship building.

Marketing for small to mid-sized businesses is a different animal than it is for big brands. For the former, the cost is always a factor, they insist on measurable results (even if their metric is as vague as “Do we think it worked?”), and creativity usually takes a second place to cost-effective, day-to-day manageability.

And yet, whether you are Millefiore Skin Care, Black Tulip Restaurant, or Coca-Cola, the challenges are much the same: To grab prospects’ attention; re-explain quickly and memorably how you make life better, and give them good reasons to buy now.

No matter how many zeroes appear on your marketing invoices, there is never enough money to reach the market the way you’d like to, so small businesses need to experiment with new ways to reach their target markets.

Why social media campaigns are so important

Social word-of-mouth

Social media enables consumers to generate and tap into the opinions of an exponentially larger universe.

While word-of-mouth has always been important, its scope was previously limited to the people you knew and interacted with on a daily basis. Social media has removed that limitation and given new power to engage a much wider set of consumers.

Hyper-informed consumers

Social media is transforming the way that consumers across the globe make purchase decisions.

Consumers around the world are using social media to learn about other consumers’ experiences, find more information about brands, products and services, and to find deals and purchase incentives.

Here’s how to win the social media marketing wars

Here are 19 action considerations for winning social media marketing. These are the ones we use most often with our clients. We believe they are the ones most critical to the success of your social media marketing:

Define target customers

It all starts with knowing who your customers are and knowing as much about what makes them tick as you can. Without this step, most of the other steps become just a shot in the dark.

So spent a lot of your time on this action. Keep in mind that you can’t be everything to everybody. Remember that not all customers are alike.

Choose the best channels

Once you understand who your target customers are, you’ll need to study which social media sites they use most frequently and to what end. Social media takes a lot of time and energy, so you need to know where your time will be best spent.

Share unique content

Your content goal is simple … be as helpful as you can and be entertaining, or else be ignored. If you are going to put in the time and energy, you don’t want to be ignored.

Capture customer hearts in the first 30 seconds

What are you doing to make their first 30 seconds on your platform extraordinary? If you can’t answer this question, you need to start here. First impressions are everything.

Strike an emotional chord

Make consumers feel something. If you want to grab my attention on social media, make me laugh. Make me cry. Make me feel something, anything.

When I have a super busy day, and I am replying to tweets on Twitter, I have no choice due to the amount of them and time constraints but choosing where and when I am going to respond. It is an easy choice for me. I respond to the people who grab my attention.

These are the people who are nice, who make me feel good. The people who are genuine. The people who make me laugh. Pull an emotional chord.

Don’t send snarky tweets trying to get attention. Most people can see right through the snark and won’t respond. I ignore the trolls and the folks looking only for attention. Be genuine and offer something of emotional value.

Listen and engage

Listening comes first and foremost to understand what customers are saying about their needs and perhaps about you. Once you have heard, then engage in as near real-time as you can.

Be YOU and be consistent. Remember customers deal with people and not businesses.

As we said previously, social media marketing takes a lot of time and energy. There many good tools in existence that will help in the workload. But keep this in mind … customers take note when it seems they are dealing with a robot. Don’t be that robot.

Emphasize social

One of your key business objectives is to build relationships with customers. That end game results in customer advocates and trust. This process takes constant attention to being social on a very consistent basis.

Tell short stories and educate

Not sure what content your fans want? Prototype and test your ideas. Try posting different types of status updates, related and not related to your product and company. Also, use your social media insights to see what your readers are engaging with the most, and then deliver more of it.

Many brands build ads and then share them with fans on their social media sites. A great example is with the Guinness ad we discussed in our article on Guinness marketing using storytelling. This technique used subtle messaging with a great story to appeal to fans. The story’s light touch made sharing the story seem less like an advertisement

Doing a great job of creating campaigns that tell short stories and have subtle messaging is an effective campaign tactic.

If you’re inexperienced in video marketing, that’s okay. There is a very large variety of articles on the topic, and a good place to learn. But remember the best way to learn is by doing and practicing. Start your video creations with free tools like Vine and Instagram.

Consumers always enjoy good stories and helpful information that educates.

Partner with complementary small businesses

Contests and giveaways are standard tactics on social media campaigns. You can overcome this challenge with some creative thinking. Find complementary small businesses that fit with your objectives … say for contests.

You can also retweet content on Twitter and likes Instagram photos of complementary brands that promote something related to your products and services.

Capitalize on local events

During the Sochi Olympics, Coca-Cola hosted a contest/series called #CokeGames. The gist of it was that they created simple Olympics-inspired games like Bottle Cap Hockey, Coke Curling, Ice Cube Ski Jump.

Then, they asked their followers to play along by filming and uploading short videos of the Coke fan playing the game. The incentive was an opportunity to win a $100 gift card.

Your small business could adopt this idea, using any local event as inspiration. It might be a local seafood festival or perhaps a local hockey team championship game. These local events happen all the time and offer great opportunities for the attention of your brand and therefore your relationship building.

Stimulate conversation

How do you create fan conversation? One great way we have found is through asking fans a thought-provoking question. Use questions that relate to your brand.

For example, Internet Explorer asked how people imagine the web in 5 years. Remember that you need to be part of the community and give your answer.

When asked to share their vision of the future, fans had fun sharing their thoughts, and others used the Q&A as a way to voice their opinions on IE’s products.

Show your fans the fun

It’s always appropriate for any business, large or small, to show its personality. If it’s a personality that wants to be a little weird occasionally, go ahead and get a little weird.

Skittles is a great example of this tactic. Yes, most of their posts are silly, but it’s working for Skittles.

A typical day’s posts can include observations such as “Really boring pirates carry pigeons on their shoulders” and shots from the page’s ongoing BFF series, in which it posts photos from users posing with their beloved Skittles.

If you’re a product-based company, ask your users to send photos of themselves using your product or service in exchange for a shot at a prize, or for the honor of being featured on the page.

Post fun facts

Not all of your company’s posts should be brand-centric, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be branded. Kit Kat posts fun facts and takes advantage of popular topics, but also includes their tagline, “Break Time. Anytime.” on the images they share.

You should always look to tap into a trending local topic, particularly if it relates to your products and services. Find useful creative visual designs to reinforce the message.

Crowdsource ideas

Always use any and all ways to gain customer insights that you can employ. One way to accomplish this is to crowdsource ideas from customers. We have written about two companies that have used this technique very successfully. (See our two crowdsourcing articles … one on Starbucks and one on Legos.)

My Starbucks Idea website is at once a crowdsourcing tool, a market research method that brings customer priorities to light, an online community, and an effective internet marketing tool.

Encourage customers to give their opinions and reward the best ideas. It’s a great example of how a business can use social media as a mini–focus group and learn what customers want.

Social media as a customer service/ experience gateway

There are many ways a business can use social media to help manage customer service and experience. Start small, just collecting all inputs, good and bad. And then grow from there.

For example, the Olive Garden showcases their food with “Yum!”- Inducing photos to draw attention to their social media as a way to solicit customer service insights. That’s to be expected of a restaurant.

What’s more impressive, though, is that Olive Garden uses their platforms as a gateway to customer service. They encourage customers to chat with their guest relations team about experiences at their restaurant.

Don’t you think you can follow this model? You certainly don’t have to be a restaurant. How serious are you about customer service and customer insight engagement?

You don’t have to make the social network your main source for support, but you should respond and interact with your fans to answer their questions. You’ll not only boost engagement but also show that you’re human and you care about their opinions and questions.

Create new customer experiences

At the core of Ford’s social media marketing strategy is an effort to give the company’s potential customers a chance to experience the brand and the product in ways they never expected.

Before the unveiling of the 2011 Explorer, Ford created a Facebook page that gave its fans sneak peeks at features and video interviews with the design team and chief engineer. And in both campaigns, it’s the customers themselves that are selecting and talking about the new experiences.

Scott Monty’s advice on whether Social Media Marketing is right for your company,

If your customers are there, you need to be there too … he also went on to say ‘You need to listen.’ Observe how they behave and act similarly.

Respond to everyone

No matter what you do, if you want to build engagement, you have to be engaging with all customers and potential customers. What does this mean? Do a great job of responding to most comments.

Tag people in a comment stream to let them know that you’ve responded to their inquiry and appreciate their comment.

Analyze, correct, iterate, and learn

Analyze your measurement results, and continuously make corrections, iterate, and most importantly, learn.

Follow the 70/20/10 Rule

Here is an important guideline to keep in mind for all of your social media sites. Follow the 70/20/10 guideline … not a rule, but a guideline. Let us break that down for you.

The majority (70%) of content that a social media site page puts up should be brand- and business-building, meaning it’s information that is valuable to your followers. Content shared from other sources makes up 20% and the remaining 10% or less (NEVER more) is self-promotional.

Apply the 70/20/10 rule to your content mix and generate more interest in your social media and increase your customer engagement.

The bottom line

There are a lot of misconceptions about social media marketing. Just because you read something in a blog post or hear something from a credible source doesn’t mean it is true or true for you and your business.

Always do your research, and continually try to improve. Social media marketing is here to stay, and it can drive a lot of business for you, assuming you are leveraging it correctly.

There is more opportunity to fail in social media than to succeed if we treat it like any other marketing vehicle. Social media requires us to get away from being promotional and sensational and instead treat our customers with special attention. Special attention means being social, building relationships, and creating trust.

The bottom line, listen more than you talk. You’ll be amazed at how much you can learn about your audience when you shut up and listen. Try it!

Do you have a lesson about making your customer experience better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add to the section below?

BUSINESS COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION — **Business collaborative innovation.**

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add to the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Facebook Statistics … Lots to Learn From Current Data

11 Updates to Starbuck’s Creativity and Innovation

6 Fantastic Facts about the Changing Social Media Landscape

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Quick Tips on Optimizing Crawl Budgets for SEO

For those, who are unfamiliar with the concept, a crawl budget is a frequency with which the crawlers of the search engine go over the contents of your website to enable them to be indexed and ranked. Optimizing crawl budgets refers to the process by which, you can boost the frequency of crawler visits to your website so that the page indexing is done more quickly and you start deriving the benefits of your SEO efforts.

Even though it is a vital aspect of SEO, the crawl budget often gets neglected because the SEO practitioner has too many things on his plate. While it is natural to think that a higher frequency is advisable, the process also slows down the site, which may not be what the business managers would want.

Reasons Why the Crawl Budget Is Often Ignored

Perhaps the biggest reason why the crawl budget is one of the most neglected SEO activities is that crawling is not a direct ranking factor as Google itself has clarified. With this being made clear, it is generally enough for most SEO professionals to stop thinking about it.

However, the fact is that the crawl budget makes sense for very large websites that have millions of pages; however, it is not something to concern yourself if you have a mid-size website. The fact that you have millions of pages on your website is also a good indicator that you should trim it down to a more manageable size.

However, as people who are familiar with SEO know that you cannot get the results you want just by changing one factor. Effective SEO involves looking at dozens of metrics, which may need incremental changes, and it is the job of the SEO manager to ensure that all these changes are optimized to the extent possible.

In this context, the observation by Google’s John Mueller should be kept in mind that while the crawl index may not be a significant factor by itself, it does lend itself to superior conversions and better health of the website.

Important Aspects of Optimizing the Crawl Budget

Permit robots.txt to crawl the most important website pages

This is perhaps the most fundamental step in optimizing the crawl budget. The management of robots.txt can be done manually, or you could use a website auditing tool. Normally, using the auditing tool is more convenient, simple, and effective.

All you need to do is to select the auditing tool of your choice and add the robots.txt file to it so permit or even block the crawling of your web pages. Thereafter, all you need to do is to upload the edited document and you are good to go.

It is evident that this also can be done manually; however, when you are handling really large websites where repeated corrections may be needed, a tool represents the easier way out.

Spot the redirect chains

Under ideal circumstances, you should take care to avoid the occurrence of even a single redirect chain on your domain, however, when the website has a large number of pages, it is inescapable, and you are bound to have a situation where there are – 301 and 302 redirects.

The problem is that if there are a large number of these redirects bunched together it can hurt the ability of the search engines to crawl your website. This may be even to the extent that the crawl may just be completely stalled, as the crawlers may not be able to cut through the maze of redirects and reach the pages that need to be indexed.

While a few redirects will not cause too much damage, it is always a good policy to eliminate them for improved SEO, observes an Atomic Design SEO consultant.

Use HTML as much as possible

The reason why it is better to use HTML is that even though Google’s crawlers can now crawl JavaScript and have gotten better at handling Flash and XML, other search engines have yet to catch up.

To ensure that you do not spoil your chances with any search engine crawler, it is better to stick to HTML that is universally accepted.

Do not allow HTTP errors hurt your crawl budget: It is an accepted fact that 404 and 410 pages have a negative impact on your crawl budget and on top of that, they also spoil the UX.

This is the reason why you must take care to set right all 4xx and 5xx status codes. While it is possible to undertake a manual process, using a website audit tool is far more convenient.

Pay attention to your URL parameters

SEO practitioners always need to remember that individual URLs are considered as separate pages by search engine crawlers and the larger the number of URLs, the more the wastage of your crawl budget.

The best way of preserving your crawl budget is to inform Google regarding the URL parameters. The bonus is that this step will also avoid concerns about duplicate content.

According to https://www.searchenginejournal.com, the crawl budget is not affected by disallowed URLs.

Make the sitemap current

By taking care to ensure that the XML sitemap is updated with the latest information, you will facilitate the task of the search engine bots as they endeavor to understand where the internal links point.

It is a good practice to use only canonical URLs for your sitemap and also make sure that it matches the latest robots.txt version uploaded to the web.

Analyze your localized pages with hreflang tags

Search engine crawlers use hreflang tags to analyze pages with localized information. Effective SEO comprises keeping Google informed about the localized versions of your web pages as explicitly as possible.

The best way of doing this is to use the <link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”lang_code” href=”url_of_page” /> in the header section of the web page, where the supported languages are represented by the “lang_code”. To be able to point to the localized page versions, you should always use the <loc> element for the specified URL.

The bottom line

All SEO practitioners who have so far ignored the optimization crawl budget will now know the different reasons why it is important. They will also know the various tactics by which the optimization can be achieved helping the search engine crawlers to crawl the web pages without interruption and index them for best rankings.

Social Advertising: Instagram Tips and Tricks for Business Marketing

With over a billion active users each month, you need to be on Instagram to get attention for your business. These Instagram tips and tricks will help.

While you might already be on Instagram with your personal account, if you’re not using it to promote your business, you’re missing out on leads and sales.

If you’re not sure how to use Instagram for business, we have Instagram tips and tricks that we are going to share with you, so you can become a pro. Continue reading this article to learn about using Instagram for your business.

Use Hashtags to Build a Community

Hashtags are a great way to bring likeminded people together. You can create a campaign around a hashtag and have people post their photos for the hashtag.

You’ll see that your customers and fans are interacting with each other, and this will build a community and make people have another reason to continue doing business with you.

Relate to Your Target Audience

When you’re creating your Instagram content, think about your target audience and why they are on Instagram. If you’re posting content that they don’t want to see and pushing your brand, it’s not going to go well for your brand.

Look at your buyer persons, figure out why they are on Instagram, and create content they want to see. When you’re creating this content, you need to keep in mind that it still needs to be relevant to your business. You don’t want to just post things they want to see and not get your message across.

Don’t Go Crazy With Posts

If you’re new to Instagram, you might want to build your Instagram profile up very quickly.

If you already have people following you, calm down on the posting. You don’t want people to unfollow you because you’re posting too many images throughout the day.

It’s better to add a couple a day to get your profile established slowly and then start sharing consistently than to try to get everything on your profile at once and look like you’re spamming the feed.

Promote Your Instagram on Other Platforms

When you’re growing your Instagram profile, you need to promote it on your other platforms. Let people on Facebook know you’re now on Instagram. Send an email blast to your subscribers and let them know they can find you on Instagram now.

Don’t announce that you joined Instagram and leave it at that. When you post new content, you can share it to Facebook and other platforms so people will naturally click on it and follow you to see more similar content.

Use the Tools Instagram Provides

Instagram is constantly upgrading its platform and giving creators new tools to make great content.

There are editing tools, filters, and special effects. Learning how to use these will help you get attention in the feed. If your posts are too boring, people are not going to click on your content, and you won’t get any leads or sales for your business.

Spy On Your Competition and Fans

Do you feel like you’re running low on ideas and you need something to freshen up your feed? Spying on the competition is the perfect way to get ideas for your feed.

You can change the ideas up a little bit and make them unique for your company, but spying on the competition is a great way to get ideas that you know work.

There are so many brands that are sharing on Instagram, and you should be following all of the ones that are having great success. There is no use in recreating the wheel when you have proof of what is working and how you should go after the attention of Instagram’s users.

Not only should you be looking at your competition though, but also look at your fans. What are they posting and raving about?

You can learn a lot from your fans and how you can give them the content they want. You may even want to share a screenshot of something that one of your fans shared on their feed.

Interact With Important Accounts

When you want to get attention from a certain account try interacting with their content. Heart and comment on their photos frequently, and if it is appropriate, send them a DM.

If you don’t want to be on your phone watching Instagram all of the time, you can learn how to DM on Instagram on Mac so you can get your message to them easily.

You can DM people to ask them about influencer partnerships, discounts, and other important things, but make sure to use this sparingly.

Go Behind the Scenes With Instagram Stories

Instagram stories are a great place to go behind the scenes of your Instagram. You can’t really post too much on Instagram stories. If people don’t want to see all of your stories, they can easily swipe away.

Let people get to know you better and understand what you’re all about, and you’ll see your Instagram success soar.

You’re a Pro With These Instagram Tips and Tricks

Now that you know more about Instagram, you can use these Instagram tips and tricks to get to the next level in your business. Instagram is where people like to hang out and look at cool photos, but it’s also where they gather inspiration for what to buy next.

What else would you like to learn about Instagram or other important topics? Continue reading our blog today to become informed on other topics you care about.

What changes in the social media climate have you seen in the last couple of years? Does your business depend on social media for marketing or any other function? Are you noticing any impacts do these changes?

It is pardonable to be defeated, but never to be surprised.

Frederick the Great

Can you change? Of course you can. Everybody changes every day. But how versatile, agile, and quickly can you adapt yourself and your organization to stay relevant in today’s society?

And pay attention to what Frederick the Great had to say, it is ok to be defeated, just not surprised. So take heed of trends ahead of you.

If you own a company or are responsible for marketing or advertising in any way, shape, or form, you need to understand the way that today’s social media world works.

What’s more, you also need to be in tune with future possibilities, and to be ready to adapt to changes in the digital realm.

This year is expected to be, and already has been to a certain extent, a volatile year for social media.

And as someone responsible for anything to do with social media, learning new trends should always be at the top of your agenda.

Here is an excellent story highlighting a trend.

In 1960 two men made a bet. There was only $50 on the line, but millions of people would feel the impact of this little wager. The first man, Bennett Cerf, was the founder of the publishing firm, Random House.

But there is actually more to this story and the lessons in it can help us become more creative and stick to better habits over the long-run.

Here are some more ideas we suggest how you should begin to adapt:

Social media climate: be flexible or else

While plenty of talented marketing professionals have made predictions for how the social media marketing world will look in the coming year and the future in general, no one knows which new sites will spring up and become the next Facebook or Twitter.

However, it is always wise to be constantly checking the current social media predictions as well as being aware of new trends, sites, and applications and anything and everything else that is constantly arising on the web.

Keeping a finger on the pulse of not just what’s appealing, but what large amounts of people are using, will ensure an audience for any future efforts of your own.

Keeping pace with the social and mobile web

We all know that the internet moves more quickly than any other communication medium, and this presents both unique challenges and opportunities for marketers.

Making sure that you’re not only up to speed with the latest platforms, but innovating and figuring out how to take advantage of them is integral.

After all, you need to be where your audience is–whether that is Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, or newer mobile messaging platforms like Snapchat, Kik, or WhatsApp.

That starts with actively participating yourself. If you don’t understand how a given platform works on a personal level, how can you effectively use it to market your company or brand?

Content marketing, social signals, and search engine optimization

The value of social media marketing extends beyond the actual social media sites that you have a presence on. Having a popular and positive presence on social media means much more than the size of your immediate fan base and how they connect with your content.

It can have a powerful effect on your search engine rankings.

Google, Yahoo, and Bing all use social media posts, reviews, and general sentiment as a ranking factor, so having a strong presence can help improve your position in the search engine results pages for relevant keywords.

Therefore, it is important to keep in mind the fact that today’s social media climate is all-encompassing in the sense that people can not only view your content at any time or anywhere.

Take note of Yahoo and Bing as well–new deals are making these viable site competitors shortly.

Social media climate … going beyond the basics

Content marketing and social media, in general, isn’t really about just written text anymore. Images, video, Vines, and other assorted .gifs might be the most interesting options for brands this year and going forward.

What’s more, users are starting to expect multimedia content on various sites, and that trend will only continue. You can even consider offering services not found on most other sites to attract a new or unexpected user base.

The bottom line

To succeed in social media of the future, you need to think of your brand or company as a content curator or even as a publisher. You’re creating content that your customers will enjoy and share, regardless of where you post it.

There is a reason why some change leaders succeed while others fail. At some point everybody needs to decide whether they would rather make a point or make a difference and, in the end, those that prevail choose the latter.

That said, you need to make sure they see it, so the location or platform still matters, along with any associated advertising and making sure it all of the above are optimized for mobile.

We’d love to hear how you are planning on updating and improving your company or brand’s social media in the coming year in the comment section below.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?

Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add to the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Lessons of NASA social media and marketing design have been around for more than a decade now, so it should be easy to figure out how to leverage it, right? And avoid social media marketing mistakes, for sure. But hold on for a minute. How does it create a NASA winning marketing solution?

Check out our thoughts on creative marketing.

Related: Instagram Stats … Lots to Learn From Current Data

In the ever-changing landscape of social networking, you might be wondering if you are getting the most out of your business’s social media design tactics? Or perhaps little to no value at all.

Here are 16 social media design strategy lessons from NASA that we have all lessons at one time or the other. We’ll review them here in hopes to learn them in the future:

NASA social media focused on fans, not relationships

That’s how you generate more traffic: focus on getting the right followers who will become your engaged community.

Hold secrets close to the vest

Google is probably the king of holding secrets close to the vest, but they’re big and can afford to. The rest of us need to reach out and give away the farm. And avoiding secrets at all costs.

Don’t be afraid to email companies and potential customers that you think you can help. What’s the worst thing that they can do… ignore your email?

NASA social media meant more focus on traffic compared to conversion

I’m not saying you need to start spending money on paid social ads, but you should leverage these sites because their visitors do convert.

It starts with traffic, of course, but that is the means and not the ends. The ends are the conversions.

Not only does social media traffic convert, but you can also measure that conversion. By setting up goals within your Google Analytics, you can see how much each of these social sites is generating for you.

NASA social media was showing your fans the fun

It’s always appropriate for a brand to show its personality and some fun. If it’s a personality that wants to be a little weird occasionally, go ahead and get a little weird.

KLM is a great example of this tactic. Yes, most of their posts are about making customers have some fun, and it’s working very well.

Whether you’re a product-based or serviced based company, ask your users to send photos of them using your product or service in exchange for a shot at a prize, or for the honor of being featured on the page.

Happy customers?

NASA social media meant happy customers

Too many companies create happy customers and then fail to leverage their happiness. That is truly missing an awesome opportunity to turn those customers into advocates.

Contact a few of your happy customers and ask them if you can do a case study for them. This is essentially how MarketingSherpa built their business.

When a successful campaign occurred, they would then flip them into a case study. As they generated interest in their company more and more companies started signing up. Eventually, big companies came calling after seeing all the success they were having.

But you don’t have to do a formal case study to leverage happy customers. Testimonials are also powerful tools. Satisfied customers are eager to share their excitement about your company, so make sure you capture and promote that excitement.

NASA social media … many choices

Ever heard of Hick’s law? This law states that the time required for a customer to make a decision is a direct function of the number of available choices. Too many choices are not a good design as they make decisions more difficult. And that is not a good idea, is it?

NASA social media was the best design

Don’t use every inch of white space because you can. Leave some “breathing room” so people can digest your message. We believe the more the better.

Remember people will take away only one or two things from what they see. The clutter of design keeps them from spotting the takeaways you desire.

NASA social media … a call to action

The whole point of the story in social media design is to effectively deliver the desired call to action. If the audience does not clearly understand the desired call to action after seeing the ad, then you are missing the real opportunity.

Social media was too ambiguous

Marketing or advertising, you need to create information that your customers find interesting and worth talking about and remembering. If the information is ambiguous it certainly won’t be remembered.

Take advantage of a visual design

First and foremost, prioritize visual design in your efforts. Presenting your content in a visual format has a number of benefits. First, humans recognize and process images much faster than text; this is why visual content has much greater appeal.