What's a Hashtag?

I discuss my experiences while exploring a career in Digital Marketing, as well as anything else that catches my attention. I'm a Mainer, turned Seattleite, who then ventured into NYC. After 6 years of exploring I’ve finally come home to Maine. You can learn more about me, Jennifer MacDonald, here: http://bit.ly/rkurJT

[jennifermacdonald]

I am extremely honored to announce that I have joined the Vets First Choice team, which is the leading provider of veterinary pharmacy, prescription management and compliance marketing services. 

I started at Vets First Choice back in January as a digital marketing specialist on the B2C marketing team, and I am now focused on our ecommerce initiatives. As well as, helping our veterinary partners market to pet owners. I am surrounded by dogs everyday in the office, and I couldn’t be happier. You can learn more about Vets First Choice here: www.vetsfirstchoice.com

Thanks for following, and please stay tuned to this blog for new posts in the future. 

[jennifermacdonald]

I turn 34 tomorrow and it's an amazing feeling to be 100% comfortable and happy in your current life path. I wouldn't be here without the support of all of you. Your messages when I lived away, sharing my content, and most importantly checking in on my family for me when I couldn't. More importantly I wouldnt have been able to travel and later come home without the love of my family. My four parents who inspire me everyday, their strength and perseverance leaves me speechless. My sister Marcy, God only knows who I would've become if you hadn't been there every step of the way. Erin, my guardian angel, I literally wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for you; thank you for always helping me get my Chi back! ....and Justin, my best friend who loves me 110% for who I am, who I strive to be & who I've been. You are my birthday present today, next year, and every year until the end. Thank you to all of you for the last 34 years, especially those who I didn't mention in this post. I could never have asked for anything more than what I currently have today. xoxo A special thank you to all of our veterans because without them I wouldn't have access to Facebook and I wouldn't be able write this post, which represents my freedom.

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: Facebook attempts eCommerce, Instagram ads and Google says No 

I’m back, and your weekly Social Media Recap is here! I apologize for my long absence but school is back in session and so is this blog.

I’ve got three updates for you this week, lets start with Facebook’s update for business pages on a mobile device. With this update your business page can now feature new call to action buttons, as well as sections. What do I mean by that? The call to action buttons that you have seen when viewing pages on a desktop has come to mobile. For example, Call Now or Contact Us, these are positioned on top of the cover photo in the lower right corner. 

The new sections for your business page on a mobile device run below your cover photo and these new call to action buttons. 

“The new Shop section helps retail businesses bring their products to the forefront of their Page, while the new Services section enables professional services businesses to showcase a list of their offerings at the top of their Page. So now, for example, a spa can add their services menu to their Page or highlight the line of products they sell, helping people get to know their business faster.”

I think these are great additions to business pages on Facebook, however we need to remember that people on average visit your page once when they click the follow button. If you want people to continually visit these new sections you will need to drive them there by publishing a status update with a link to the section.

Our next update comes from Instagram; you can now run 30 second video ads for your business. I mention in the video that I think this is a great addition for marketers but I also mention that brands need to make sure that their ads or sponsored posts on Instagram are more intimate and personable. I’ve seen many sponsored posts on Instagram lately that do not resonate with me, which is surprising because I follow those brands on other social networks. Instagram ads will require you as a marketer to create another piece of content; you will not be able to use the same ad you have published on Facebook or Google.

Lastly, Google isn’t only penalizing websites that aren’t mobile friendly; they’re also penalizing sites that do not provide a good experience for users.

Google will now start penalizing the search rankings of websites that use pop-up mobile ads asking users to install an app. For example, have you ever clicked on a post or an ad to read more and when you land on the website the content you were expecting to read is blocked asking you to install an app in order to view the content?

“Our analysis shows that it is not a good search experience and can be frustrating for users because they are expecting to see the content of the web page,”

I know that none of you would ever do that but I wanted to share this update with you just in case you have a buddy who runs a website that is doing this.

That’s all I’ve got this week, what has been challenging you with your online marketing efforts lately?

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: Facebook video updates and Snapchat helps you find friends 

It’s your favorite time of the week, and I do apologize that it’s been so long since my last recap video. In the future you can tweet me, or post on my profile, to remind me that I’m being a slacker and you would like a new Social Media Recap ASAP. But I’m making up for my absence this week with two great updates.

Facebook is updating its algorithm to determine which videos to display in your timeline based on the actions users take when viewing videos. In the past, Facebook has only considered likes, comments and shares for determining whether a video should be bumped up in the newsfeed. Now, Facebook is going to consider whether people have turned on the sound, clicked to view the video in full screen or turned up the volume while watching the video. So keep posting your videos, even if you haven’t been getting much engagement from your followers. Remember, Facebook just added a new video column to insights, which will help you to more easily determine the overall performance of your videos.

Snapchat is making life easier for your thumbs; they have removed the press and hold feature to view a Snap or Story, and have replaced it with a single tap. Snapchat has also made connecting with people nearby easier with their new Add Nearby feature. It’s a quick way to add a group of friends when you’re all hanging out together, although all of your friends will have to turn the feature on before you can connect. 

What have you been experimenting with lately in digital marketing? Has it been successful for you? I’d love for you to share!

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: Facebook at Work, Twitter for Small Business, Social Profiles in Google & LinkedIn stalking 

This week’s Social Media Recap has four big updates for you, and they are all going to make your marketing job much easier, actually this will help any professional in the USA. 

Facebook unveiled Facebook at Work, which is a private social network for your company. As of today Facebook at Work is free and Facebook has said that they will not be showing ads on this network, we know both of those statement are likely to change. This is a great tool to help keep all of your employees or co-workers engaged with each other, and it will help strengthen the levels of communication at your organization. I think the biggest benefit to using this tool is employee engagement, allowing your employees to get to know their co-workers in a more personal and transparent setting.

Twitter has launched the Twitter Small Business Planner app, and it’s FREE. This app was built to help you with your marketing strategy by providing success stories, Tweet suggestions, relevant topics and tools. Not only can you download the free app but If you search the hashtag #SmallGoesBig Twitter says you will learn about their new initiatives for small business owners first, before it is published on the web.

Google is now including your social profile in search results. What does this mean? You will now see the social icons of any company or person next to their listing in Google search; it is positioned to the right of the results directly above their Google+ listing. This feature is also free but you will need your website designer to do some formatting in order for your social profile to show up, this is one more way to help you get found!

LinkedIn has “beefed” up their search capabilities, you will no longer see 0 results found when you type in someone’s name that you may have misspelled. LinkedIn is now showing you search results based off of your connections and they will recommend people that fit your search criteria even if you do misspell their name. Additionally, you will be able to see their full name and profile picture even if you are not a Premium user. [cue sales professionals to start doing backflips]

Do you use a private social network, such as Yammer at your company or organization? If not, would you like to?

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: Shuffling Pins, Facebook looks like YouTube, CTAs, and Twitter now hosts videos natively  

Here is your first Social Media Recap of 2015! I’ve got some great Social Media News for you this week so lets get started. Pinterest is providing a new way for you to edit your pins; you can now move groups of Pins to new or different boards easily by selecting up to 50 pins at once to move to a new board. Don't forget to go back and look at your old pins to make sure you still sell those products or the links to your blog posts still work.

Twitter is making their users very happy by providing free analytics for iPhone users. If you are using the Twitter app on your iPhone you will be able to see how many retweets and favorites your tweets received. If you click view details directly below your tweet you will be able to see impressions, engagement and a few other great metrics. The best part is that you DO NOT have to be an advertiser on Twitter to see these analytics. If you are not yet using Twitter to market your business now is the time to start as you will immediately be able to see the return on the investment of your time.

Facebook is enticing Page owners to upload more videos by introducing new video centric features to their platform. These features have not rolled out for all business page owners yet but when you see the new design you will be happy. The design mirrors YouTube by allowing you to feature a video and create video playlists, and just like YouTube you will also see the number of likes for your video. Don’t forget that videos uploaded directly to Facebook perform very well for page owners. Additionally, make sure that your videos are mobile friendly, 65% of videos views on Facebook are happening on smartphones and tablets.

Facebook call-to-action buttons have arrived, for some and they will arrive for all business page owners soon. The button will appear on your cover photo and you can select from seven different options: book now, shop now, contact us, etc. Not only will you be able to use these call-to-action buttons for free but you will also receive analytics for people who click these buttons for free, #winning! Although, you need to remember that the majority of Facebook users only visit your business page once when they click like, you’ll need to drive them back to your page in order to really take advantage of this new feature. It is my opinion that you would see better results by running a Facebook Offer instead of promoting this button. Do you agree?

Videos are indeed taking over the web and since everyone wants to have their own hosting platform Twitter has announced that they are now joining the club. "Twitter has become the latest Internet giant to launch its own native video platform, allowing users to upload and share footage of under 10 minutes." Only certified Twitter accounts have access to this new platform but you can check it out by visiting video.twitter.com.  

In conclusion I present you with this question, how many videos have you uploaded to Facebook?

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: Analytics are everywhere, Yelp comes to your pocket and Facebook wants to be Photoshop

I can't believe it but this week's Social Media Recap is the last one of 2014, but don't worry we're going out with a bang!

Pinterest is taking Instagram's lead by removing fake accounts from their app. You may start to see a decline in your number of followers on Pinterest but don't worry they weren't real people anyway, and no one likes robots.

SlideShare, which is one of the best social networks for your career, has released analytics for each user's profile. Yes that's right you can now see a full realm of data for the presentations you upload for free. 

Call-To-Actions aren't just for ads, Facebook has launched CTAs for business pages. This is a great new feature but don't forget that the majority of Facebook users only visit your business page once when they click like, so you will need to find a good way to drive them back there. I'm not sure if Facebook will be providing any data to supplement this new feature but hopefully you will see a lift in referral traffic from Facebook in your Google Analytics.

Yelp is making users and business owners happy. They have launched the Yelp for Business Owners app. Business owners can now receive push notifications when their business receives a new review, as well as reply and message users who have interacted with their business on yelp. 

Auto-enhancing photos is no longer only in Google's domain, Facebook is also automatically enhancing photos that are uploaded to their platform via a mobile device. I'm curious to see how well this auto feature works, I wonder if they'll be using Instagram filter functionality?

Speaking of Instagram, which I forgot to mention in the video, they have released five new filters. The most exciting part for me is being able to reorganize your favorite filters. Also, the photo filter thumbnails will now show a preview of what your photo will look like if you choose that filter. This should save lots of time when uploading photos to Instagram. If they could only hyperlink URLs, I'll add that to my Christmas list.

That's it for 2014, what was your favorite update of the year? 

Happy Holidays to YOU, and thank you for another year of watching my blog posts.

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: Twitter photo filters, Geo-Snapchats, and Instagram says bye-bye

Did you miss me? I’m back and this week’s Social Media Recap has all kinds of cool things to add to your Christmas list! 

You may start to notice that your Instagram follower numbers are decreasing but don’t worry it’s not your marketing skills that are making them unfollow you. Instagram is cracking down on spam accounts and will start removing them from their app.

Facebook now lets you search for old posts. Remember your friend who made that big announcement last month and you forgot to say congrats, what was her announcement again? Now you can easily go back in time, and don’t worry privacy settings still apply. You will only be able to search for older posts that were previously shared with you.

Google has made franchises very happy, they now allow you to do a bulk upload for Google+ Local pages. Hurray, you no longer have to create those pages one-by-one for your 200 locations.

Twitter is following in Instagram’s footsteps by adding filters to their mobile app, now you can give your photos on Twitter a little extra pop. Remember tweets that include an image get more engagement; you can increase your number of retweets by 150%.

Twitter offers are here, and they sound amazing! Not only can you buy a product/service right in your twitter feed but also the payment options are streamlined requiring only a few clicks. This is a great feature for brands during the holiday season.

Snapchat rolled out geofilters in their app. I’m not 100% clear on what this means exactly but it seems that brands will now be able to target their snapchats to people living in certain locations. 

Is all of your holiday shopping done? Is your payment information safe online? Check out my 3 tips for staying safe online this holiday.

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: Facebook gives you control of your Newsfeed, YouTube Music Key and a new Google feature 

This week's Social Media Recap is all about giving the power back to the users! Facebook is not only making it easier for you to control what is in your newsfeed but they are also allowing users to control what ads use their data. Their new Privacy Basics tool shows you three main categories: what others see about you, how others interact with you and what you see.

The new Facebook settings allow you to control what appears in yours newsfeed, and they are now available on desktop and mobile. With the new settings you can quickly unfollow people, pages and groups, as well as reduce the number of posts you see from your friends. For all of us marketers, here is one more reason (#9,999) to make sure the content you post on your business page is relevant, engaging and tailored to your target audience.

Google+ has made it easier for Online Community Managers to monitor their employer's brand on Google+ and their own personal brand. There is now a Mentions Tab on your Google+ page, which should make it a little easier for you to remember to engage with your followers. 

YouTube has launched their long-awaited music subscription service called Music Key. "Music Key will offer ad-free music and music videos that can be listened to and watched offline, as well as a subscription to Google Play Music." I'm anxious for Music Key to be available to everyone.

That's all I've got this week, will you be editing your privacy settings to control the ads you see on Facebook?

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: Online Business Reviews, Map your Career with SlideShare, Instagram videos ads and more 

This week’s Social Media Recap has several updates that will impact your marketing strategy, and some cool new apps for you to try. 

Facebook is placing business reviews more front and center. Now when you visit the reviews tab on a Facebook Business Page you will see all of the reviews for that business, as well as reviews written by your friends. 

SlideShare has made your professional career look more visually appealing, you can now map your professional journey on SlideShare. The new feature uses the information in your LinkedIn profile to create a presentation showing your education, experience and reviews. This is one more reason for you to fully complete your LinkedIn profile.

Instagram is rolling out video ads and you will now start seeing the sponsored 15-second ads in your newsfeed on Instagram. I think Instagram has done a good job so far with their sponsored posts, the sponsored content that has shown up in my newsfeed has actually been content I am interested about and did not mine seeing. 

Twitter has launched the Small Business Planner App, which is aimed to help SMB's with social marketing during the holiday season. This planner app shows Small Business Owners success stories, blog articles and e-books on Twitter marketing. The best thing about this app is that it’s free! 

LinkedIn has revamped their publishing tool, now you can add a large scale photo to make your blog post more visually attractive.  If you’re looking to grow your online network and show that you are an expert in your industry I highly recommend posting your content on LinkedIn. Their publishing tool will show your post to LinkedIn members who are interested in the topic you write about, there is no charge, this is a great way to increase your visibility online.

There are a few other updates this week that I wanted you to know about:

Twitter has redesigned their “compose a tweet” functionality to mirror Facebook

About.Me has launched a new app called Intro that serves as a digital business card for their users

Facebook has launched Rooms, which is an app that allows anonymous sharing of interests.

Facebook’s update to their iOS and Android apps makes it easier to upload multiple photos on mobile 

What does your professional journey look like? Here's mine, please send me a link to yours.

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: Online Business Listings, New Tweets, and Facebook Save button 

This week's Social Media Recap will make marketing your business online easier, in many ways.

Google is testing a non-mobile friendly icon, which means this new icon will soon be displayed next to websites that are non-mobile friendly in search results. If your website is not mobile friendly this is one more reason why it needs to be. We all know how hard it is to get found online, don't make it harder on yourself. 

Apple has launched Maps Connect, which was designed to get local business data directly into Apple Maps. Maps Connect allows business owners to add or edit their business listing, and it will function similar to Google Maps. You should add your business to Map Connect today!

Google has launched polls on Google+. This is one more way for you to interact with your followers and gain insight from customers and prospects about your products/services. Facebook removed polls a while ago and if you have used them previously this should be a great surprise for you.

Twitter will now be showing you tweets from people you do not follow on Twitter. Wait a minute; this could be a good thing. Twitter says they will only show you tweets that match your interests on Twitter, similar to sponsored posts on Facebook. I'm excited for this; it makes networking online much easier by automatically showing you people to follow who share similar interests. 

Facebook is now allowing business page admins to save posts as drafts and backdate posts. This will allow you as a Facebook page admin to have a plethora of creative posts in your back pocket that you can publish at your leisure.

Is your business address listed correctly on Google? 

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: LinkedIn's two new apps plus Facebook launches people-based marketing

LinkedIn owns this week’s Social Media Recap and there is one big feature announcement from Facebook. LinkedIn has three updates this week; they launched two apps, Connected and SlideShare for iOS. LinkedIn’s new Connected app was built to help you never miss an update from one of your connections. This is a great new tool for sales professionals who are trying to build relationships with executives to help get their product/service in the door at a company. 

LinkedIn has developed an iOS app for SlideShare. For those of you who use SlideShare you know how valuable the network is for showing your expertise and experience in your industry. Now it will be easy to update your profile, network with other SlideShare users, or find important information on the go.

Universities now have a bigger reason to educate their students about how you can use social media to grow your career. LinkedIn University Rankings has launched showing “which schools are launching graduates into desirable jobs.” Of course LinkedIn is looking at user profiles to determine their current positions and to find the university they graduated from. If you are a marketer for a college or university this gives you one more reason to offer online branding/marketing classes in your current curriculum for students.

Google now has competition for their advertising platform; Facebook has launched Atlas to extending its ad serving reach across the web.

   “Atlas delivers people-based marketing, helping marketers reach real people across devices, platforms and publishers. By doing this, marketers can easily solve the cross-device problem through targeting, serving and measuring across devices. And, Atlas can now connect online campaigns to actual offline sales, ultimately proving the real impact that digital campaigns have in driving incremental reach and new sales.”

If Facebook can deliver on their promise above this will be a huge benefit to online marketers.

Are you a current SlideShare user? I am, and I’d love to follow you, please post a link to your profile below.  

[jennifermacdonald]

Use LinkedIn to grow your career by unveiling your Personal interests and likes

This week’s Social Media Recap is short and sweet. I mention in the video that I’m probably your 2nd favorite video blogger; I also mention that I assume @Nik_Nik is your favorite video blogger. Although, that does raise the question, who do you think publishes the best video blogs in the blogging community? 

LinkedIn redesigned personal profile pages a while ago, and with this redesign all users were able to add a cover photo to their personal profile. However, I just received access to add a cover photo to my personal LinkedIn profile this week, go check your LinkedIn profile page to see if you have the option as well. I’m not a Premium LinkedIn user; this was slowly being rolled out to all users.

Since this new feature is available I wanted to remind you marketers to make sure and add your personal side to your professional side. In other words, give your followers a sense of who you are in your tweets, posts, videos, etc. No one wants to follow or connect with a robot so make sure to talk about your favorite city, vacation spot, and even what your two-year-old said that made you start rolling on the floor laughing. These are the things that help you build relationships with your clients, prospects, and co-workers; these are the things that will build those connections and help grow your career/business. 

Do you think I talk about my personal interests enough online?

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: Facebook Newsfeed changes, Pinterest for iOS8 and a new platform to help your family. 

This week’s Social Media Recap has a few updates, cool extensions and one free beta product. Facebook has a big presence this week; they have launched Facebook Media, which is similar to Facebook for Business. Facebook Media is a resource for media outlets looking for more efficient ways to utilize Facebook. Check it out if you’re looking for some creative ideas for marketing your business on Facebook.

Additionally, Facebook has made changes to the newsfeed again “showing more timely stories from friends and pages.” Now Facebook’s News Feed ranking will look at two new factors to determine if a story is important; Trending Topics and the time and length of engagement on posts.

With all of the new tech updates announced by Apple recently, and iOS8 being released this week, there are a lot of cool new features to help you share your favorite content easier. Pinterest is now integrated into iOS8, and you can now share photos to Pinterest the same way you share photos to Twitter and Facebook from your camera roll. This is great for community managers who are always plugged in, and might want to share some content while they’re on the go. 

Do you have multiple tabs open in your browser during the workday? Wouldn’t it be awesome to see a gorgeous image every time you open a new tab? Pinterest tab for Chrome is your solution; if you install this extension in Chrome you will see a new beautiful image every time you open a new tab in your Chrome browser. My challenge is to actually wait 10 seconds and look at the image before typing in a URL. 

I’ve recently learned about a new software platform, and I haven’t seen anything like it on the market before, its call Red Folder. This platform is "web-based application, which allows users to place their life’s information in a highly secure environment for use whenever and wherever." Red Folder enables you to leave your footprint to those you love after you’re gone, as well as the need-to-know information for your family right now. Red Folder is in beta, and it’s free to signup until Monday so go sign up TODAY and let me know what you think. 

Will you starting Pining more images from your iPhone with iOS8?

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: ecommerce is taking over Twitter & Pinterest, plus organic Video counts for Facebook

This week's Social Media Recap has some big news for retailers, and any business that sells their products or services online. Twitter is slowly rolling out their new "buy" button, which is embedded in a tweet that features a product or service. Twitter stated "part of the motivation just has to be to make the whole advertising process easier, to prove the returns and the conversion rates." That sounds great to me, although Twitter advertising has never been affordable for small businesses and I'm anxious to see how much this new button will cost brands.

Pinterest has released new notifications with their recently launched News section. Now, Pinterest will function almost like the Facebook newsfeed; Pinterest users will get notifications about the people and brands they follow. This is one more way for you to get your products and services in front of a new audience, now when someone who follows you interacts with your brand's pin that person's Pinterest friends will receive a notification mentioning your brand. 

As you know I've been preaching video since 2010 and now there's one more reason for you to start using video in your marketing efforts. Facebook will now show everyone view counts on publicly posted videos from users, Pages, and public figures; for FREE. This is great news, especially for me since I do not share this video on a Facebook business page but my personal profile page. This is also one more way you can show your C-suite the ROI of video marketing. Don't forget to include a call-to-action in your video so you can easily track the conversion rates for that video.

What type of items will you purchase on Twitter?

[jennifermacdonald]

Analytics are here for Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter; Facebook changes the newsfeed again

This week's Social Media Recap is going to make all of you marketers very happy, especially those of you who do not have a large marketing budget in your organization.

Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter have all released Analytic dashboards for businesses. The best part is that you do not need to be an advertiser in order to see your analytics. All of these updates are rolling out slowly so you might not have access today but be patient because all of this amazing data is on its way!

I forgot to mention in the video that Facebook has also released some new analytics/insights, which will be rolled out over the next couple of weeks. Now when you create a Facebook Event you will see insights about that event on your event page, such as the number of people who have seen the event not just those who RSVP. Also, you will have more options to promote that event to attract more attendees. 

Due to analytics, Facebook is changing the newsfeed again. They are now penalizing pages for Click-Baiting, what does that mean? Watch my video to find out! 

Are you currently using an #SMMS, or a tool that allows you to report on the success of your social media efforts?

[jennifermacdonald]

Social Media News: Pinterest is the new customer loyalty app & Foursquare is the new Yelp

This week's Social Media Recap has two big, FUN, updates. On another note, I wont be here with you next Friday as I will be on vacation and will not have access to the internet. I am not following best practices for blogging, if you know you are going on vacation find someone to guest blog for you while you're away or schedule a post to publish while you're on vacation. Remember, always keep your followers satisfied and they'll keep coming back. 

Pinterest has made sharing pins easier. Now, when someone shoots you a Pin, you’ll be able to reply with a message or send a Pin back! This is a new great feature but what I think is the biggest update for brands is being able to send Pins to more than one follower. Building a loyalty campaign on Pinterest is now super easy.

Foursquare has unveiled its redesigned app. As I mentioned previously, the check-in feature on Foursquare was removed and is now available in the Swarm app. Foursquare itself will now recommend venues based on your interests and past check-in history. Make sure you're constantly monitoring reviews that your customers leave about your business on Foursquare.

Are you excited to share your favorite Pins with multiple friends?