BRB. x

Digital marketing and social media news, tips and guides Tumblr.

[mysocialagencyuk]

Content Strategy: How to Be Edgy Without Going Overboard

The internet. What started as a data storage project has turned into mass content production. It seems like every business needs a website and every website needs a blog or some other way of updating regularly. And they do, in order to stay relevant. Unfortunately, this results in a lot of people saying a lot of the same things.

Any article or tutorial on creating content is going to encourage you to be “edgy.” Write about something “different.” Express controversial opinions. Get people talking.

And while those are not terrible suggestions, they are vague and leave a lot of room for misinterpretation. People are attracted to drama, but you don’t want your website and/or business to be seen as derogatory, bullying, or close-minded. You want to foster an environment where people can express their opinions, debate, and yes, even argue with others. But you want the arguing to be constructive, not damaging.

So here are some clever ways to present controversial topics without having them blow up in your face.

Read more: Content Strategy: How to Be Edgy Without Going Overboard

[mysocialagencyuk]

Facebook Home: The Future of Mobile or Marketing Ploy?

New Android wrapper designed to bring social to the forefront of mobile

The ongoing speculation concerning Facebook and mobile looks like it’s finally coming to fruition, with the launch of Facebook home, a software ‘wrapper’ for the Android platform which has social as the focal point.

With rumours circulating on the net for a couple of years now about Facebook developing its own smartphone, dubbed Project Buffy, you have to wonder if it has actually been all about this.

Read more: Facebook Home: The Future of Mobile or Marketing Ploy?

[mysocialagencyuk]

5 Important Google Plus Tips and Tricks

Google+ dominates search engine results as you most likely know already. Search for your own name on Google and the search giant’s own pages will show well above those of more utilised social media sites. And, that’s not just it, there are numerous ways to make the most of Google+

Google Plus Tips – Profile

Google+ bios allow you to embed dofollow links and the value of these is the same as it is for any other page on the search engine. Bio pages metrics can be added to and visibility can be raised in the same way as any other page – with links, post shares and the number of people who engage with you.

Continue Reading: 5 Important Google Plus Tips and Tricks

[mysocialagencyuk]

Social Media and the Law

By now, many businesses use social media as one of their primary marketing channels, as well as for vetting and monitoring employees. However, the casual nature of the medium may cause some to act in a manner that would be considered unlawful in a number of ways.

The most obvious of these would of course be intellectual property law, images for one are sharing profusely around social media and a company may inadvertently be using an image that is protected. This means that it’s always worthwhile checking the source of an image and giving credit where it’s due before posting.

However, it’s not the only pitfall when it comes to the law and social media, there are a few other areas in which a firm has to exercise caution before taking steps.

Read More: Social Media and the Law

[mysocialagencyuk]

Why using Niche Social Networks is Good for Business

By now, most people will agree that social marketing is a powerful form of advertising and a large majority of businesses have a social presence on the largest and most popular sites. These of course, include Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and so on.

However, what about those social media sites that you’ve not heard of? Niche social networks that deal with just one subject, such as fishing or basket weaving?

Read more: Why using Niche Social Networks is Good for Business

[mysocialagencyuk]

The Long-term Pain of the Interflora SEO Penalty

Building links is still the most popular and powerful way to help your site get up the Google Rankings for those keywords. However, things are getting harder and Google’s getting wiser to the dubious ways of some SEO agencies.

Read More: The Long-term Pain of the Interflora SEO Penalty

[mysocialagencyuk]

Organise your Inbox: 5 tips to organised Emails

Email inboxes can be chaotic places and many of ours tend to look like the digital version of that Channel 4 programme on extreme hoarders. And this is only one half of the battle, aside from the innumerable saved emails; there are also issues with archiving, attachments and storage to consider. So, let’s take a look to see how we can make our inboxes a more organised, less cluttered place.

Read More: Organise your Inbox: 5 tips to organised Emails

[mysocialagencyuk]

How to Recover from a Social Media Fail

Apologise, and quickly

Social media management is a tricky affair. Most of the time, things go along swimmingly as you happily connect with fans, answer their questions, give out freebies and watch your following increase incrementally.

However, sometimes, one post is all it takes for a brand to risk completely trashing its reputation, usually because of something that’s gone wrong during the order process, or worse, an employee posting an ill thought out comment.

Read more: How to Recover from a Social Media Fail

[mysocialagencyuk]

A Beginner’s Guide to Guest Blogging

As surely everyone knows by now, SEO has become that little bit more difficult since Google decided to change the goalposts with the Penguin and Panda updates. Whilst keywords and meta information still have their place, content and link building are all the more important than they ever were.

Guest blogging, as a form of link building, remains a vital part of SEO if it’s done properly and isn’t just rushed content, written badly in order to place a link. One of the most important aspects to guest blogging is to find quality sites in specific niche areas which want you to post, rather than article directories.

Article directories tend to be of a low quality and whilst some sites which have ‘want to write for us’ splattered across the front page are genuine, plenty more are of such low quality that you would be wasting time and effort writing for them, with little in the way of return.

Read More: A Beginner’s Guide to Guest Blogging

[mysocialagencyuk]

Maximise your Company’s Potential with LinkedIn

Professional networking site LinkedIn reached the 200 million member mark on Friday, with more and more signing up to the site all the time, making it one of the fastest growing social media sites in the world.

Bearing this in mind, I thought I’d share a few tips on how to get the most out of LinkedIn, for companies and individuals alike.

Firstly, it’s important to remember that LinkedIn is a network for professionals and so the tone you use on your profile should be relatively formal, rather than the kind of updates you would post to Facebook. Secondly, LinkedIn is great for getting found in search, so it’s important to ensure that you have optimised your profile for SEO.

A company should not only create a company page on LinkedIn, it should also create groups and ensure that all of its employees are involved and on the network. This will allow your message to be spread much more effectively than a page/group alone.

Read More: Maximise your Company’s Potential with LinkedIn

[mysocialagencyuk]

How to Create a More Interactive Blog

Even though social media interaction is so important we often get lost in it and focus on it alone. This may mean we overlook the amazing power of our own blog and it as a powerful tool to create discussion.

Essentially, a good blog makes people feel welcomed and encourages them to leave comments. By facilitating expression, we encourage feedback and this benefits you and your brand as a whole – so, let’s look at how to do it.

Read More: How to Create a More Interactive Blog

[mysocialagencyuk]

A Guide to Pinterest Marketing

Make the most out of the image-based social media site

Pinterest has enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top of the social networking pile over the course of the past twelve months, and presents a fantastic opportunity for businesses marketing their products and services online.

Despite this, many companies don’t bother with Pinterest, either viewing it still as a site that caters for wedding planners above all else, or just completely ignoring the legend ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’.

If you’re in business, there’s a use for Pinterest and it really should be a part of your social media campaign. This is due to the format of the site, it’s a simple matter to visually present anything from infographics on your services to events which your company has recently held. Many people respond better to images than to words and it’s for this reason that companies should seriously consider using the site.

  Continue Reading: A Guide to Pinterest Marketing

[mysocialagencyuk]

The 2013 Digital Landscape Infographic

via MySocialAgency.com

[mysocialagencyuk]

Essential Tools for a Successful Social Media Campaign

Less time juggling tabs, more engagement

There are so many options available now for social media marketing that it can become a difficult task keeping on top of the various accounts. With this in mind, we've put together a list of essential tools to make your social campaign a little less painful to manage.

If previous campaigns have been successful and you enjoy a high level of engagement already, then even better, but you’re still going to need some help with all of those comments.

Read more: Essential Tools for a Successful Social Media Campaign

[mysocialagencyuk]

Preparing your Business Page for Facebook Graph Search

Facebook’s Graph Search has been released and of course we’re extremely interested. It seems Graph Search is more of a recommendation engine than a search engine, giving you results based on your friends, colleagues and acquaintances interaction with Facebook pages related to a specific query.

For searcher’s it’s somewhat of a new take on the traditional search and for businesses it’s something that has to be prepared for. Graph Search is currently in Beta test version, the roll out is imminent in the next few weeks or months as Facebook indexes more and more of its past Likes, check-ins and other interaction information. So, how do you get on the right foot for its coming?

Read More: Preparing your Business Page for Facebook Graph Search

[mysocialagencyuk]

Facebook Status Updates More Memorable than Books

Social network users more likely to remember what you had for breakfast than what you look like too!

A recent study published in academic journal Memory and Cognition has found that users are more likely to remember a Facebook status update than lines from a book. Last year, researchers stumbled across the idea when investigating the effects of emotion on memory.

University of California cognitive psychologist Laura Mickes and her colleagues began by looking into how various statuses were used to invoke emotional responses. However, what they found was completely different to what they had expected when beginning the study.

“It was a bit of a surprise for us,” Mickes said. “It wasn’t our original question.”

Read More: Facebook Status Updates More Memorable than Books

[mysocialagencyuk]

Can Facebook Graph Search Compete with Google?

The rumours were all true – kind of

It’s some time ago now that we first heard the news that Facebook had taken on a number of developers to work on a search function for Mark Zuckerberg’s baby. Since then, speculation has been rife on how Facebook intended to use search and whether it was likely to be a long-awaited rival to search emperor Google.

However, Facebook Graph Search was announced on Wednesday 16th January and for the moment, doesn’t appear to be a contender to knock Google off their perch any time soon. This is because Facebook’s answer to the search question only allows people to search content contained within the social network’s own database, rather than the entirety of the web.

Continue Reading: Can Facebook Graph Search Compete with Google?