Mashable's Social Media Day Celebrated Worldwide

Saturday, June 30^th, is Social Media Day! What is Social Media Day, you ask? It’s a movement started by Mashableas a way of acknowledging the digital revolution in all its glory. This is the 3^rd year in a row that Social Media Day is being promoted as a worldwide Mashable Meetup. It’s also an opportunity for social media enthusiasts connect in their local communities to discuss social media and tech in person.

While some people believe that social media creates more isolation in a disconnected world, these Meetups are a way for people to deepen relationships within their communities. It also helps people form new relationships that may not have happened before sites like LinkedIn and Facebook made online networking possible. 

The Mayor of Tampa, Florida recently declared June 30^th Social Media Day, joining many other cities around the world. To find a Meetup in your area, check out http://www.meetup.com/Mashable/or watch this video for more information about Mashable Meetups. 

There are approximately 408 communities hosting Meetups for Social Media Day with 4,072 members. Will you be attending a Social Media Day Meetup on Saturday?

Popping on Pinterest and Facebook

Want to make your posts pop and get attention from your fans and followers? Do it with an image. Here are some marketing strategies for your images on Facebook and Pinterest.





 Facebook

• post images with motivational or inspirational text on them
• post humorous images and memes relating to your industry
• post brightly colored images that grab attention easily
• post a question with your image to make it more "sticky" and encourage comments
• post multiple images at once in an album to attract more curiosity to the images that can't be seen without clicking

Pinterest

•   post longer images; they get more attention
• use photos that pop, even when they're small
• make captions when you have something interesting and relevant to say about the photo
• infographics get a lot of attention, so consider creating one to get more attention on Pinterest
• link all of your images to a relevant page on your website

What have your most successful shared social media images been thus far? Do you have any top tips for images on Facebook and Pinterest to grab your audience's attention?

Counting on Humor to Create Consumers

Have you ever heard of an "Explainer Video?"

Explainer videos or “explainers” are powerful marketing tools that deftly use humour to engage audiences while communicating a company’s value proposition. - Lumeo Inc press release

That's right - you can easily boost conversions, engage audiences, improve SEO, and kick off a viral marketing campaign with a video like this. 50% of internet users regularly watch humorous videos, and if you get creative with your content, yours could be one. To get some ideas, watch this fantastic commercial by the Dollar Shave Club and read this TechCrunch article for more ideas on how to get started.

InternetMarketingClub.org Presents: Mixing Business with Pleasure in Social Media

Are your social accounts pleasurable for your friends and fans? Are you really giving them something to connect with, or are you just making the necessary updates to stay a relevant business on Facebook, Twitter and Google+? If you're not sure how much pleasure you're using in social business, you may want to visit this webinar for a brief update.

Click here to register (6/27/12):
http://bit.ly/pleasureregister
About Matt Wooddy:

For the last five years, Matt Wooddy has used his social wizardry to completely turn around the presence of over 200 Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts. Understanding that social media is more than just a place to promote your brand, he uses personal interaction and entertaining messages to improve the branding and interest of any given company. 

Click here to register (6/27/12):
http://bit.ly/pleasureregister

Do You Want To Be A Google Power Searcher?

Are you ready to geek-out just a bit?

Did you know that Google Search includes lots of features for search shortcuts? For example, you can type in a calculation in the Google Search box and it will provide you with the answer at the top of the search results page. No additional calculator needed!

If you want to learn more about all of the useful tips and tricks that Google offers, check out their new course called Power Searching with Google. The course’s purpose is to empower its users with specific techniques to find what you need and answer your questions faster.

This new course will begin on July 10, 2012 and I am very pleased to hear that you can take the classes according to your own schedule within the two-week allotted window.

Visit Google’s Power Searching website for more information and to register. Registration is open from June 26, 2012 to July 16, 2012.

Are you interested in this program? I registered as I’m always up for timesavers. Why wouldn’t you want to get what you need out of Google more efficiently?

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Image credit: rdenubila

Crafting a Successful Facebook Campaign

It's more important than ever to keep your fans engaged on Facebook, so here are some hot tips to keep your Facebook marketing campaigns rolling along smoothly:

1. Create a series of Facebook-only specials. Sephora did it, and it might work for you, too.
2. Ask questions with pictures. Statistically, photos attract the most attention from fans, and the question will get them engaged.
3. Plan your posts out before you put them up - then schedule your updates to happen when you want them to with this neat app.
4. Try out new Facebook promoted posts. You may like what you find. They're more affordable than an entire PPC campaign and get your voice heard by fans.
5. When you post photos on Facebook, post more than one. Post an album, in fact. Research shows that this gets you more clicks because people want to see the rest of the photos from the post.
6. Boost your brand by rethinking your Facebook cover photo. Strong visuals tend to boost sales.
7. Read this great article on Facebook engagement. Then get out their and start interacting with your fans online

Insights on Ways to Improve Facebook Page Engagement

Dan Zarrella, The Social Media Scientist at HubSpot, created a useful infographic on how to get more likes, comments, and shares on Facebook. I encourage you to check it out as you will discover insights that are meaningful for testing with your Facebook Page.

Below are a few highlights that I want to bubble up to the surface:

• Day of the Week: Posts published on Saturdays and Sundays receive a higher like percentage than those posted during the business week.

• Self-Relevance: In contrast to other social media platforms, posts with a high number of self-referential words (i.e. “me”) tended to get more likes.

• Hour of Day: Content posted later in the day (Eastern Time) gets more likes and shares. Likes peak around 8pm while shares peak earlier, around 6pm.

Although this infographic was developed based on data from more than 1.3 million posts published on the top 10,000 Facebook Pages – I still recommend you “test” for your specific business. Even though many of the stats may apply across several industries, that doesn’t mean it will also apply to yours. Moreover, it’s critical that you leverage Facebook Insights to really dig into your community’s engagement behaviors.

What useful nugget of information did you draw from this infographic?

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

Image credit: owenwbrown