Thursday, August 31, 2017

Twitter Tools You Can Use in Your Marketing Strategy



When you’re packing for a hiking trip, you know the contents in your pack can make or break the experience. If you’re prepared, you can weather any storm that comes your way. But if you’re ill prepared, you won’t fare so well. You’ll end up wet, cold, and wishing you had never left the house to begin with.

Having a good Twitter toolkit is no different. In order to make sure that your marketing strategy is as effective and efficient as possible, it’s important to have the right tools for your business. They will save you a lot of headaches.

Here are 33 tools, broken down by function, that will make your Twitter marketing strategy run smoother.



Bonus: Download the free strategy guide that reveals how Hootsuite grew our Twitter following to over 7 million users and learn how you can put the tactics to work for your business.


Twitter tools for analytics
Twitter Analytics Dashboard

Every Twitter account has free access to Twitter’s Analytics Dashboard. It’s a quick and easy way to get basic stats on your Twitter activity. You can find out what Tweets are the most successful, get the demographic information of your followers, and track the performance of your Twitter cards.
Twitter Engage

Twitter Engage is a companion app for Twitter that provides real time data and insights to help you understand, engage with, and grow your audience. Twitter Engage tells you who your most important followers are and highlights important mentions, such as those from influencers or advocates. It also outlines account performance and audience (through key stats like Retweets) and tracks post-by-post performance.
Tweetreach

If you’re wondering how far your Tweets have traveled, then Tweetreach is the right tool for you. You can input any Twitter hashtag, account, or keyword and Tweetreach will run a report. With a paid subscription, you can monitor Twitter reach, performance, and engagement in real time.Image via Tweetreach.
Hootsuite Analytics

With Hootsuite Analytics, you can measure the effectiveness of your social media outreach and easily share the results. You can gain new insights, identify social influencers, and see what content resonates best with your audience.
Twitter tools for competitive analysis
Twitonomy

Twitonomy gives you detailed analytics on anyone’s Tweets, Retweets, replies, mentions, or hashtags. You’ll also get valuable insights on your followers and accounts that you follow.
Foller.me

Foller.me is a quick and easy way to scope out information on a competitor. All you need to do is enter the Twitter handle of your competitor, and you’ll get analytics on their Tweets, along with other information like timezone and follower ratio.
Twitter tools for identifying leads
Audiense

Audiense allows you to find and build segmented audiences so that you can deliver more targeted, impactful campaigns. You can monitor your campaigns and measure their success in Hootsuite. Audiense is available in Hootsuite. Download it from the App Directory and you can use it to monitor Twitter campaigns and measure success.
Mentionmapp

If you’re looking for people, places, events, or conversations happening around your customers, then mentionmapp is a great tool. Mentionmapp makes customer discovery on Twitter easier. You can drill down who your customers are talking to (and who their customers are talking to), allowing you to target your messages and content accordingly.Image via Mentionmapp.
Demographics Pro

Demographics Pro lets you do a deep dive on your customer. It offers instant access to Twitter profiles, giving you important information on gender, age, income, location, occupation, interests, brand affiliations, and audience correlations. The Demographics Pro app is free with a Hootsuite account.
LeadSift

LeadSift is a super useful tool that identifies leads from Twitter and classifies their intent. In Hootsuite, LeadSift automatically organizes direct and indirect leads by scanning millions of conversations, letting you know who potential customers are. You can quickly scan results and find the conversations you’re looking for. The LeadSift app is free with a Hootsuite Enterprise account.
Resonance

Resonance allows you to discover potential customers on Twitter. It tells you who is engaging with your brand and why they’re sharing your content. You can tailor your content to your audience, turning leads into customers and customers into advocates. Resonance is free with Pro, Business, and Enterprise Hootsuite accounts.
Twitter tools for mentions and monitoring
Mention.net

Mention has the ability to monitor billions of sources in over 40 languages, so you won’t miss another brand mention or customer conversation. This tool gives you information in real-time, so you can quickly reply and engage with customers.
Keyhole

Keyhole lets you track conversations in real time. Your dashboard shows how many posted hashtags, Retweets, likes and impressions your content generates. Their downloadable data reports show the success of your social strategy or campaign over a period of time.Image via Keyhole.
Twitter Dashboard

Twitter Dashboard is a free tool that lets you create custom feeds to find out what’s being said about your business, beyond the Tweets that actually mention your brand.
Twitter tools for social listening
Hootsuite Insights

Hootsuite Insights helps you understand the conversations happening around your brand. It allows you to gauge social sentiment, respond to comments in real time, and follow key trends. You can set up automatic reporting that will save you time and allow you to share results across your entire organization.
Brandwatch

Brandwatch allows you to strengthen your social media monitoring capabilities with the power of deep listening. You can monitor brand mentions, sentiment, and trends to stay ahead of the competition. With Brandwatch for Hootsuite, you can assign and respond to mentions found within Brandwatch from your Hootsuite dashboard.
Synthesio

Synthesio lets you measure sentiment and reputation to know how consumers perceive your brand. You can use those insights to better engage with customers and make smarter business decisions. Synthesio is available in our App Directory.
Twitter lists

Twitter lists are a feature built right into Twitter that allow you to segment your timeline and create mini-news feeds. Lists can be public or private and you can add any Twitter account to a list, whether you follow that account or not. Twitter lists are a great tool for monitoring influencers, industry trends, or even competitors.


Twitter tools for timing
Tweriod

Tweriod tells you the best times to Tweet. It analyzes both your Tweets and your followers’ Tweets, so you can send messages when it will have the biggest impact.
Twitter tools for Twitter chats
Commun.it

Commun.it is a useful tool that organizes your conversations on Twitter and builds you a priority list of what you should respond to. It groups your followers according to various categories to help you better engage with your audience.

TweetChat

TweetChat lets you follow the chats of a specific hashtag. When you reply to the conversation, the hashtag automatically gets added to your Tweet.
Chat Salad

Chat Salad offers a handy calendar list of upcoming Twitter chats organized by hashtag. When you log in you will get chat times converted to your timezone and receive SMS reminders about your favourite chats.
Twitter tools for Images
Twitshot

Twitshot is a simple tool that helps you extract images from links and attach them to your Tweets. To get started, insert your link with your message and select the image you want to use for your Tweet.
Canva

Canva makes it easy to add visuals to your social media posts. Whether you want to work within pre-made templates or upload your own photos, Canva has tons of different options to suit your content or campaign.Image via Canva.
PicMonkey

PicMonkey is a photo editing tool that helps you create beautiful photos for social media. You can upload your own photos or use the sample photos provided.
Social Image Resizer Tool

This tool helps you quickly resize your images for social media. If you’re constantly wasting time resizing images manually, give this tool a try.
Twitter tools to find influencers
Klear

Klear has one of the most sophisticated search engines for finding influencers. It boasts over 500 million profiles, 60,000 categories, and five years of historical data. It will give you all the right information to make sure you’re focusing on the right people.
FollowerWonk

This app by Moz lets you search influencers by keywords in their social media bios, making it easier to find and connect with influencers. This tool will also give you useful demographic info on who your followers are, along with helpful data visualizations of your social activity that you can compare to other accounts.
Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo shows you the most popular content being shared in your industry and identifies influential people who will be able to share it. You can filter influencers according to different categories (blogger, journalist, etc.) that will help you find the most relevant influencers to chat with.
Twitter tools for trending topics
Trendspottr

The Trendspottr app for Hootsuite allows you to search for topics by content, hashtags, and sources. It allows you to engage with, and share, trending stories with your Twitter network. The Trendspottr app is free with a Hootsuite account.
Nexalogy

Nexalogy helps you identify key conversations happening on Twitter by analyzing the people you follow, hashtags, and search terms. It displays concepts people are talking about, the most shared links, and key influencers. The Nexalogy app is free with a Hootsuite account.
Twitter tools for following/unfollowing
ManageFlitter

ManageFlitter is a great Twitter tool for managing who you follow. It will let you quickly sort through your accounts and find people you might like to unfollow, whether they’re inactive accounts, people that have unfollowed you, or spammy accounts.
DoesFollow

Find out who follows whom on Twitter. Does Warren Buffett follow Ralph Lauren? This is also a great tool if you’re building a network of contacts or customers.
Refollow

Refollow lets you automatically follow people that are relevant to your brand. It helps you manage your followers and filter unwanted users.
Get the right tools for your business

Now that you have all these tools to step up your Twitter game, save even more time by using Hootsuite to manage Twitter alongside all your other social networks.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Social Media Advertising: The Complete Guide


It’s no secret that digital advertising has become a key part of most marketing campaigns. Internet advertising spend overtook newspaper ad spending way back in 2013, and eMarketer predicts that it will overtake TV ad spending for the first time by the end of this year. The numbers are huge: an anticipated $72.09 billion spent on digital ads in the United States alone in 2016, a number expected to rise to more than $82 billion next year and more than $113 billion by 2020.

It probably comes as no surprise that Facebook is one of the biggest players in digital advertising, indicating that social media advertising is front and center in the digital ad world. In fact, Facebook blows all other digital properties out of the water when it comes to display ad spending, capturing 35.4 percent of total display advertising spending in the U.S.—a whopping $11.93 billion (second-place Google, by comparison, will take in just $4.79 billion).

And that’s just display ads. Facebook’s total social ads revenue was more than $6.8 billion in Q3 2016 alone. But the other social networks are nothing to sneeze at, with Twitter bringing in $545 million in social media advertising revenue in the same period. Snapchat will sell $367 million in social ads in 2016, after launching its ad platform just over a year ago. Total social ad spending in 2016 is expected to reach $32.97 billion. By 2018, Facebook alone will top that number.

Based on the social media advertising statistics, it’s clear your competitors are investing in social advertising platforms. In terms of ROI, more than 95 percent of social media managers say Facebook offers the best return, followed by Twitter and Instagram.Image via eMarketer

With so many choices, it can be a challenge to develop a social media advertising strategy that works for your unique business. In this beginner’s social media advertising guide, we dig into everything you need to know about launching a social ad campaign, then give you the nitty-gritty details on how (and why) to create ads on six of the most popular social networks.



Bonus: Download a free guide that teaches you how to turn Facebook traffic into sales in four simple steps using Hootsuite.


Table of contents
What is social media advertising?
Social media advertising tips
Facebook advertising
Twitter advertising
Instagram advertising
Pinterest advertising
LinkedIn advertising
Snapchat advertising
Social media advertising with Hootsuite


What is social media advertising?

Before you start developing your social media advertising strategy, it’s important to understand exactly what social media ads are. Quite simply, a social media ad is any kind of paid content on a social media network. The options run from a one-off promoted Tweet or Facebook post to a full-scale campaign with major budgets attached. Each social network offers different options, and we’ll explore them in detail below.
Social media advertising tips

Hootsuite has been using social ads since 2012—a lifetime in the digital world. While the social ads tools and networks available are constantly evolving, the key principles of effective social media advertising are much more stable. After a couple of years of refining Hootsuite’s own social ad strategy, CEO Ryan Holmes laid out six ways to use social media ads to grow your business in an article that stands the test of time. Here are his tips.
1. Use free social media to beta-test your paid social ads

You’re likely already posting content on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram every day—and maybe LinkedIn and SnapChat, too. Some of these posts will resonate with followers; others won’t. Track which ones are being clicked, liked, shared, and commented on. These high-performing messages make the best candidates for social ads.
2. Take advantage of targeting features

Traditional ads are inefficient. One of many social media advertising benefits is that social platforms offer very effective targeting capabilities to address that problem. From targeting social media managers on LinkedIn to Stranger Things fans on Facebook, take advantage of this very useful targeting for more efficiency in advertising.
3. Rotate ads frequently

Though it’s annoying to see the same TV ad in every commercial break, repetition is an effective way of hammering home the message using one-way communication. But on advertising channels where engagement is key, and ads appear directly in users’ feeds, fresh content is the name of the game. Overly repetitive messaging may end up losing you more business than you gain. Hootsuite has found the best practice is to rotate ads every three to five days.
4. Use small samples to test the text and images used in your ads

One of the great virtues of social ads is instant feedback. You can gauge the effectiveness of a sponsored post in minutes and follow up with advanced analytics reports. The best practice is to test several ads with small audiences to determine what works best, then use the winning ad in the primary campaign.
5. Understand how ads are sold on different networks

You’ll learn the details below, but keep in mind that keeping your social media advertising budget under control means thinking about whether you’re designing an ad campaign based on impressions or engagements. If you’re paying every time someone sees your ad (impressions), your message can cast a wide net. But if you’re paying for engagement, you only want people who are really interested in doing business with you to engage. The wording of your ad should help people self-qualify.
6. Design ads with mobile in mind

More than 80 percent of social network users are accessing social media on a mobile device in 2016. This means most social media ads are being viewed on mobile devices as well. Your mobile ads should be specifically designed for the small screen, incorporating images that are easy to view on a pocket-sized device. You can also take advantage of “geofencing” to target mobile users when they are in a specific zip code, so they only see your ads when they are close enough to walk in your front door.

Now that you understand some basic social media advertising guidelines, let’s dive into the specifics of advertising with each of the main social networks.
Facebook advertising


Ad types

Facebook offers several different ad formats.
Photo ads

The technical specifications for photo ads vary depending on the ad objectives, so you should check the details on Facebook Business. For clicks to your website, for example, photo ads offer a headline of 25 characters, 90 characters of test, and a link description of up to 30 characters. Depending on the ad objective, you may also be able to add a call to action button with actions like Shop Now, Learn More, and See Menu.
Video ads

Video ads generally have the same call to action options and character counts as photo ads. The aspect ratio required depends on the campaign objective, but 16:9 or 1:1 will usually work.
Carousel

A carousel ad lets you include up to 10 images and links in one ad. You get 90 characters of text, a 40 character headline, and a 20 character link description. Images should be have a 1:1 image ratio.
Slideshow

A slideshow is an ad that creates a video from several static images. All images should have the same size and aspect ratio.
Canvas

Canvas is a full-screen mobile ad type that combines videos, photos, and call to action buttons. It allows users to tilt and zoom to interact with the imagery.
Audience and targeting

Facebook offers extensive targeting options, and choosing the best target audience will maximize the value of your ad spend.

Start by targeting your ad based on location, age, gender, and language. Then, you can dive into Facebook’s detailed targeting options:
Demographics allows you to filter for nine demographic categories: education, ethnic affinity, generation, household composition, life events, parenting, politics (U.S. only), relationship, and work.
Interests breaks the many interests Facebook users indicate through their social media activity down into nine broad categories: business and industry, entertainment, family and relationships, fitness and wellness, food and drink, hobbies and activities, shopping and fashion, sports and outdoors, and technology. Each of these has multiple subcategories, so you can drill down quite deep in your targeting.
Behaviors allow you to filter users based on their behaviors on Facebook and information Facebook gathers from partners.

You can also choose to target or exclude people who already have a connection with you on Facebook, as well as those people’s friends.

Facebook also lets you create a custom audience by uploading a list of email addresses, phone numbers, Facebook user IDs, or app user IDs. You can then use lookalike audiences to find other people on Facebook that are similar to that audience.

Once you’ve created your target audience, you can narrow your focus even further based on type of device, and even whether the Facebook user is connected via data or Wi-Fi.
Pricing

Facebook ad pricing varies based on quite a few factors, including the time of year, the country you’re targeting, and even the quality of your ad. For link clicks and conversions, on average the cost per click in the United States in Q3 2016 was 27.29 cents, and the CPM was $7.19. But the average CPC in Australia was nearly 80 cents—a huge difference.Image via AdEspresso

The cost per click varies by placement, with ads in the desktop news feed costing $0.29 per click compared to $0.18 for mobile in Q3 2016.
How to buy

Before you buy your first Facebook ad, you’ll need to set up a Facebook business page. Once your page is ready to go, you can head over to the Facebook Ads managerto create your first ad.
Step 1: Choose your campaign objective

Facebook offers 15 different campaign objectives, broken down into the three broad categories of awareness (boost posts, increase brand awareness), consideration (app installs, lead collection), and conversion (website conversions, visits to your offline store).



Choose the objective that best aligns with your goals for this particular Facebook ad. For some help narrowing down the best goal for your ad, check out our guide to Facebook advertising strategies.
Step 2: Choose your target audience and placement

Keep an eye on the meter on the right side of the page that indicates the breadth of your audience selection, along with the estimated daily reach chart on the bottom right. Notice that Instagram is among the placement options. (We’ll delve further into advertising on Instagram below.)


Step 3: Set your budget and schedule

You can choose a daily or lifetime budget, then set start and end dates for your ad or set it to start running right away.



The advanced budget options allow you to really control what you spend by choosing whether to optimize your ad delivery for engagement, impressions, or unique daily reach, and whether you pay by impression or engagement (for engagement ads only).


Step 4: Create your ad

You can choose to create a new ad or use an existing post. If creating a new ad, you first choose whether to use a single image, a single video, or a slideshow, then enter the text of your ad. On the right side of the page, you can preview what the ad will look like in various formats.



Once you’re happy with how your ad looks, click the Place Order button, then wait to get an email from Facebook telling you that your ad has been approved. To learn more about Facebook ad best practices, check out our complete guide to advertising on Facebook.
Twitter advertising


Ad types

There are three different kinds of Twitter Ads: Promoted Accounts, Promoted Trends, and Promoted Tweets.
Promoted Tweets are messages that will appear directly in the timelines of the Twitter users you target at a specific time.
A Promoted Account is an ad that invites targeted Twitter users to follow your brand.
Trending topics on Twitter are the most talked about subjects on the social network, appearing on the left side of the page. Promoted Trends allow you to put your story at the top of that list.

Twitter ads are also categorized by your campaign objective:
For website clicks or conversions campaigns, you promote Tweets to people who you want to visit and take action on your website. You’re charged per click.
For Tweet engagements campaigns, you promote Tweets with the goal of starting conversations about your brand. You pay for the initial engagement.
For followers campaigns, you promote your Twitter account and pay per follower gained.
For awareness campaigns, you promote your Tweets to a broad audience and pay for impressions (CPM).
For video views campaigns, you promote your videos to a targeted audience and pay per video view.
For app installs or re-engagement campaigns, you promote your Tweets and pay per app install.
For lead generation campaigns, you promote Tweets and pay per lead collected.
Audience and targeting

Twitter allows high-level targeting based on location (country, state, region, metro area, or postal code), gender, languages, device, platform, and even carrier.

More detailed targeting options allow you to target your audience by the keywords they Tweet, their interests (by category or based on usernames of Twitter users who embody the interests of your desired audience), the specific TV shows they Tweet about, behaviors, and their interest in specific events.

You can also upload specific lists of people (your email list, for example) to target with ads, or target people who are similar to your follower base.
Pricing

The cost of Twitter ads depends on the ad type. Promoted Tweets and accounts might cost you anywhere from 50 cents to $10 or more per engagement (video view, link click, follow, etc.) based on how targeted your ad is. Promoted Trends, on the other hand, have been reported to cost $200,000 a day.

The key here is testing your ads. Run a few short campaigns with a small budget to find out which objective is right for your audience and your budget. For engagement campaigns, Twitter only charges you when a user completes the action set out in your campaign objective, so all of these campaigns will provide some value. It’s always a good idea to look at what other advertisers are bidding for similar ads, which is information Twitter provides.
How to buy

Once you sign into the Twitter ads platform (and add your payment information), buying Twitter ads is a simple four-step process.
Step 1: Set up your campaign

Choose your objective and click Create Campaign to reach the ad campaign screen. Once there, name your campaign, choose whether to start the campaign right away or schedule start and end dates, and decide whether to add third-party tracking with DoubleClick.


Step 2: Choose your audience

Choose from among Twitter’s targeting options. They provide an estimated audience size to help guide you.


Step 3: Set your budget

You can set daily maximum and total campaign budgets. Twitter stops showing your ads once your budget has been reached, so you don’t have to manually end campaigns to avoid being charged.


Step 4: Choose your creative

Twitter will show you an existing list of eligible Tweets to promote, or you can create new ones. You’ll see a preview on the right side of the page.



Click Publish Tweet to launch your ad.

Learn more about managing your Twitter ads on Hootsuite.
Instagram advertisingImage via Instagram.
Ad types

Since Facebook owns Instagram, it’s not surprising that Instagram ad types mirror three of the Facebook ads types: photo, video, and carousel. Also like Facebook, the ads support a number of different objectives.

For Instagram, the available objectives are: website clicks, website conversions, mobile app installs, mobile app engagement, video views, reach and frequency, page post engagement, mass awareness, and local awareness.
Audience and targeting

Instagram ads offer the same audience targeting option as Facebook ads, described earlier in this post. Keep in mind, though, that the demographics of Instagram users in general differ from those of Facebook users. The largest demographic of Instagram users is young urban women (aged 18 to 29).
Pricing

Like Facebook ads, Instagram ads offer options to pay per engagement or by impression (CPM). The average cost per click for an Instagram ad in Q3 2016 was $0.72.
How to buy

Follow the steps outlined in the Facebook section above. In step 2, make sure to choose Instagram as your placement of choice.



Learn more about managing your Instagram ads on Hootsuite.
Pinterest advertisingImage via Pinterest.
Ad types

Ads on Pinterest are called Promoted Pins. They are essentially the same as regular Pins, except that you pay to promote them to a wider audience. There are three main types of campaigns:
Awareness campaigns aim to get your Pins in front of people who have not heard of your business before or are not already interacting with your brand.
Engagement campaigns encourage Pinners to engage with your content by repining or clicking your Promoted Pins.
Traffic campaigns funnel visitors from your Promoted Pins directly to your website.
Audience and targeting

Pinterest allows you to target your audience in a few different ways:
Interest targeting allows you to target Pinners based on 420 different interestsincluding, for example, street style and sustainable architecture.
Keyword targeting targets Pinners based on search terms.
Business data targeting lets you target existing customers, Pinners who have visited your site, or a “lookalike” audience that looks and acts similar to your existing audience.

You can also target by location, language, type of device, and gender.
Pricing

How you’re charged for Pinterest ads depends on the type of campaign you run. Awareness campaigns are charged by CPM, engagement campaigns by engagement, and traffic campaigns by click.

Pinterest uses a “second-price auction model” for ad bids. That means you set a maximum bid you’re willing to pay, but you are only charged the amount needed to top the next-highest bidder. You might be charged your maximum bid, but you could pay less. Pinterest’s ad interface provides bid guidance that will let you know if your bid is too low. The minimum CPM bid is $5.
How to buy

Before you can create a Pinterest ad, you’ll need to set up a Pinterest business account. And since you can only promote Pins you’ve already posted, you’ll actually need to post the Pin you want to promote before you start the process of buying your ad. Confused? You can get more details in our Complete Pinterest Ads Guide for Business.

Once you have a business account with some Pins posted, you’re ready to buy your first ad.
Step 1: Choose your goal

From your Pinterest profile, click on the + button and select Create ad—or just go straight to ads.pinterest.com. Select what type of campaign you want to create: awareness, engagement, or traffic, then name your campaign, select the start and (optional) end dates, and set your daily budget.Image via Pinterest.
Step 2: Pick your Promoted Pin

Choose the Pin you want to promote. If you’re not sure, you can use the filters on the Pick a Pin screen to find out which of your Pins have had the most engagement in the last 30 days.Image via Pinterest.
Step 3: Choose your audience

You’ll next find yourself on the Add more details screen. Here, you’ll use the targeting options to choose exactly who will see your Promoted Pin.Image via Pinterest.
Step 4: Set your budget

Still on the Add more details screen, you’ll enter your maximum bid and daily budget.



Review all the information on the right side of your screen, then click Next. This submits your Promoted Pin for review. It may take up to 24 hours for your Promoted Pin to be approved. In the meantime, set up your billing details.

Learn more about managing your Pinterest ads on Hootsuite.
LinkedIn advertisingImage via LinkedIn.
Ad types

There are five main types of LinkedIn ads:
Display ads: Share content with a targeted audience.
Sponsored InMail: Deliver sponsored content directly to LinkedIn user inboxes.
Sponsored content: Your content will appear in the LinkedIn timelines of your target audience.
Text ads: These are text-based ads that appear in the right column of the desktop.
Dynamic ads: These ads also appear in the right column, but incorporate display ad unit formats.
Audience and targeting

LinkedIn targeting, not unlike the social network itself, is very good for employee- and company-specific targeting. You can specify who you want to see the ad based on the industry they work in, their position and seniority (maybe you’re sharing a white paper for managers?), where they work, how big their employer is (think of a post targeting enterprises, not SMBs), and beyond. As a result, LinkedIn is extremely effective for B2B marketing and job-related advertising.

If the audience you choose is too big or too small it might not perform well, so test audience targeting with several ads to hone in on the right one for you.
Pricing

Like Facebook, LinkedIn lets you choose whether to pay based on the cost-per-click (CPC) model, or pay by every 1,000 impressions (CPM). However, LinkedIn has set a minimum budget of $10 per day per campaign. There are also minimum bids for CPC text ads ($2 per click) and CPM text ads ($2 per 1,000 impressions). Sponsored Content minimum bids will vary based on the audience you choose.

With these minimum bids, it’s important that you seriously consider your objective when building out LinkedIn ads. These ads should be very business-focused, as Facebook and Twitter provide much cheaper alternatives for content marketing. Test a few LinkedIn ads and see whether the price is worth it for your business.
How to buy

The process will vary a bit depending on the type of ad you want to run. Since text ads are the simplest (and least expensive) way to get started, that’s what we’ll focus on here.
Step 1: Create a new campaign

On your LinkedIn homepage, hover over the Business Services tab at the top right and choose advertise, then scroll down to the bottom and click Create Ad. Then, choose what type of ad to create. If you don’t yet have a Company or Showcase page (and you should), you’ll be limited to Text ads.


Step 2: Build your ad

Choose where to link your ad to, then add a small image along with your headline and copy. You can preview the ad in various formats on the right side of the page.


Step 3: Choose your target audience

Choose your target audience by industry, company size, job title, and so on.


Step 4: Budgeting

Set your daily budget and your bid, which will be a choice between paying for clicks or impressions.



If you’ve never built an ad before, finish by entering your payment information. Then review your order and launch your campaign.
Snapchat advertisingImage via Snapchat.
Ad types

Snapchat offers three types of advertising:
Snap ads are video ads that appear between Stories. Users can swipe up to reveal extended content such as longer video, an article, an app install ad, or a website.
Sponsored Geofilters (for larger companies) or on-demand Geofilters (for smaller brands) are overlay graphics users can select and add to their Snaps.
Sponsored lenses are custom Snapchat lenses that work just like any of the usual suspects—like the infamous rainbow barf.

For now, the only self-serve advertising option is on-demand Geofilters, so that’s what we’ll focus on here. For all other advertising options, you’ll need to contact Snapchat.
Audience and targeting

When it comes to on-demand Geofilters, your only targeting options are the dates on which to run your ad and the geographic area to cover. But you can get the geotargeting down to the hyper-local: the area in which your Geofilter is available can range from a minimum of 20,000 to a maximum of 5 million square feet.

You should keep the overall Snapchat audience in mind when thinking about advertising on this social platform: 60 percent of users are under 25.
Pricing

There’s a reason why most advertising options aren’t available on demand: Sponsored lenses run from $450,000 to $700,000 per day. On-demand Geofilters are much more affordable—but watch your catchment area. We found that a two-day Geofilter in the immediate area of our office would cost about $13, but expanding the territory of the Geofilter to the maximum 5 million square feet (about 70 square city blocks) upped the cost to nearly $3,000. One city block was about $45.
How to buy
Step 1: Create your Geofilter

Go to the Snapchat Geofilters page and log in to your Snapchat account. Decide whether you want to upload a Geofilter you create using design tools like Photoshop or Illustrator or select the online design tool. Uploading a custom Geofilter gives you greater customization in order to match your company branding. To explore the tools available, we’ll use the online design tool for the rest of this example.


Step 2: Choose an occasion and design

Celebrations offers the most options, and will likely be the most applicable for brands. Use the design tools to create a Geofilter appropriate to your brand.


Step 3: Choose your dates

Choose the dates on which your Geofilter will be available. You can also choose to keep your Geofilter available for the long term and pay yearly.


Step 4: Choose your area

You’ll draw a virtual fence on a map to set the target area for your Geofilter. Remember that the larger the area you choose, the more you’ll pay.



Then enter your payment details and your Geofilter is good to go!


Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Writing Tools for Crafting the Perfect Social Media Post


Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
Okay. As a social media marketer, there’s a good chance you aren’t penning from a typewriter. We also hope that wherever you do pen from, it’s blood free.
Even so, you get the point. Writing is hard.
Writing is also a skill that social marketers need to have. Social media posts, after all, have a pesky habit of not writing themselves.
The good news? There is now a whole army of online writing tools out there to make your life easier. We’ve compiled eight of our favorites below.

1. Hemingway App

Good for: Strengthening prose by eliminating unnecessary language.
Cost: $19.99 for desktop; free online
The Hemingway Editor strengthens your writing by highlighting sentences that will likely lose your readers. The tool also highlights complex words, adverbs, and instances of passive voice and give hints for alternatives.
To use it, simply paste your text into the online editor. It’ll review your writing and generate recommendations for improvement.

2. Writefull

Good for: Comparing words and phrases to see which option is more common (and likely accurate)
Cost: Free
writing tools for social media
The Writefull extension draws from large language databases (like Google Books and Google Web) to search for the frequency of phrases of text. Writefull can be activated in any writing tools (like Word or Outlook) and is super easy to use.
After downloading the plug-in, highlight the chunk of text you want to check (from whatever writing tool you’re using) and activate the Writefull pop-up by clicking CTRL + SPACE and pick the database you want to pull your results from.
Writefull is handy for:
  • Checking how often a portion of text appears in a database—the higher the number the better the odds are that it’s written correctly.
  • Comparing two chunks of writing to see which is more common in the database.
  • Seeing words in context—quickly see the most appropriate adjectives or prepositions to use in a phrase of text.
  • Getting synonyms in context—helpful if you find yourself using the same words repeatedly.

3. Captiona

Good for: Generating caption ideas for Instagram and Snapchat
Cost: $0.99 per download from the App Store.
Coming up with clever Snapchat and Instagram captions can be tough, especially when you’re posting a lot of photos and generally pressed for time. Enter Captiona, an app that generates captions for Instagram and Snapchat posts.
Optimized for iPhones and iPads, The app is essentially a search engine for social media captions that produces ideas based on keywords associated with your photo or video content.
After entering in those keywords, Captiona comes up with a bank of captions that you can pick and choose from. While some are quite generic, many are surprisingly clever.

4. ZenPen

Good for: Distraction-free writing.
Cost: Free
writing tools for social media
Staying focused on writing while at work can be a challenge. Especially with all the team chat pings and chatting colleagues buzzing around to distract you at any moment.
ZenPen helps you block out all those distractions with a minimalist writing zone. The full-screen enabled site offers a handy word count feature and drafts can even be downloaded for safe-keeping.

5. Power Thesaurus

Good for: Sourcing alternative words to add more variety to your writing
Cost: Free online
writing tools for social media
Stuck for a new way to say the same thing? Power Thesaurus could be your best word-hunting friend yet.
Not your average thesaurus, Power Thesaurus is a crowdfunded tool that generates synonyms from a large community of writers. All suggestions are based on the actual work of the community and are rated and ranked by members.

6. Grammarly

Good for: Granular grammar and spelling review
Cost: Free online
Writing tools for social media
Grammatical and spelling errors happen, especially when you’re rushed to get your social posts published. These sorts of errors can be pretty funny when published from personal accounts. For brands, however, errors in social media posts can negatively impact your reputation.
Grammarly promises to keep your social posts on point, flagging everything from contextual spelling errors to poor word choices. And the tool integrates with lots of online platforms including Twitter, Gmail, and Tumblr.

7. Correctica

Good for: Spelling and grammar check
Cost: $29.95/year for unlimited scans (first 10 scans are free)
Correctica is another helpful grammar check tool. While Correctica’s primary function is to scan website content for errors, they also offer personalized content reviews.
To take advantage of the service you need to email your documents to Correctica and they promise the return of proofed copy within minutes.

8. ProWritingAid

Good for: In-depth evaluation of your writing
Cost: Free online; premium desktop contracts ranges from $40 to $140
Writing tools for social media
Like the Hemmingway App, ProWritingAid is another handy writing evaluation tool. Available in desktop and a free online version, the tool flags redundancies, lengthy sentences, and clichés. It also checks for plagiarism.
While the free version is very functional, it is limited to 3,000 words per review. Something to keep in mind if your content team plans to use the tool for more than reviewing short social media posts.

Ways to Get People to (Genuinely) Like You on Social Media

One of Robert Cialdini’s famous six principles of persuasion states that people are more likely to buy from people they like.

It’s one thing to get more likesmore followers, and boost engagement—the question is how do you get people to genuinely like you on social media? Here are four tactics that work.

4 ways to get people to like you on social media

1. Be human (see: genuine)

It’s easier for people to identify with brands when they can put a face to it. According to the International Journal of Research in Marketing, consumer-brand relationships developed on social media are best fueled by being “more human.”
So how do you show off the human side of your brand? Try using the person’s name. “A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language” says Dale Carnegie in his renowned book, ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’
This can be easily translated on social media.
You can also add more personality to your channels by signing social media posts with your name or initials as customer support teams often do.
Besides using names, you should also use conversational language. Authentic brands don’t talk like robots—they laugh, joke, and get frustrated like real people. Ditch the auto-reply, canned messages, and jargon.
Slack does this exceptionally well when they communication bug fixes and platform updates. Instead of making software development sound overly technical, Slack makes updates fun, inviting, and understandable—even to the less technically-inclined.
You might also try offering a behind-the-scenes look at your brand social media. You could take the audience on a tour of your office via Snapchat, for example. This will put human faces to your company. We do something similar at Hootsuite by presenting our company culture with #HootsuiteLife.

2. Be helpful

If you want to win friends and influence people, Carnegie recommends expressing genuine interest in them.
What’s more genuine than being invested in your audience’s needs rather than your own? Be helpful instead of overly self-promotional. Make it about your audience and not just about you and people will take notice.
You can do this by sharing useful content with your audience. Whether it is created in-house or curated from an external source, helpful content will establish your brand as a valuable resource and showcase your expertise in the industry.

3. If you make a mistake, own up to it

Social media moves fast and people expect your business to keep up. In fact, 72 percent of people who complain on Twitter expect a response within an hour.
So before a customer service problem gets out of hand, address it, and move on. If you let it linger there’s a chance the situation will get worse, which is what happened with United Airlines.
Regarding the incident of an overbooked flight, United Airlines’ staggered range of apologies turned into a major PR headache. Social media users deemed the brand’s response as too slow and unapologetic.
The second you mess up, the clock starts ticking. People will post about the mishap, offended users will call you out, and others will share the mistake and unfollow you.
So make sure you respond right away. Even if you’re not yet sure what happened, acknowledge that you’re aware of the issue and are looking into it. For more on this is check out our post, How to Come Back From a Social Media Fail.

4. Make a good first impression

Your profile picture, header image, and bio will be the first thing people see when they look you up on social media.
You want your profile to look like the kind of person a prospective customer would buy from. In the same way you’d meet a client in-person, a friendly and professional-looking social media profile can instill a sense of goodwill and trust towards your brand.
So, make sure your profile is looking spiffy. You can do this by getting rid of any poor quality photos—ensuring that you’ve got an on-brand header image. And don’t forget to include a helpful blurb about your brand.
Being genuinely likable online is important. When people follow you, they’re giving your business the green light to appear amongst posts from their friends and families. That’s a position that you must continually prove you’re worthy of.