Social Media & SEO

Influencer marketing can come in many shapes and sizes. Some companies utilize outside influencers, and some focus on employees. For Tatiana Holifield-Arthur, senior director of social media marketing strategy at BET Networks, influencer marketing means using its on-air talent to achieve a multiplier effect with the network’s huge following.

If you’ve forgotten the power of Twitter, or ever doubted it, we can look at examples from the #Resistance movement this week to find evidence of the platform’s might. In the wake of Charlottesville, here are four things brands should consider when determining how/if they should take a stance.

Similar to a good newspaper or news site, a good content strategy is a combination of structure and spontaneity. We talked with Grubhub’s social media director Mallorie Rosenbluth to find out the brand’s recipe for creating such delicious content that’s both planned and spontaneous.

Did you experience a sudden and sharp sense of FOMO last week? Then you should’ve been in San Francisco with PR News. An all-star lineup of speakers presented on topics ranging from SEO and Google Analytics to influencer marketing and Snapchat at the Big 4 Social Media Conference and Google for Communicators Boot Camp held at the San Francisco Grand Hyatt Aug. 9-10. Here’s a wrap-up of the two-day event, which showcased compelling video, top-notch speakers and networking opportunities galore.

Many brands still struggle with how best to build up a presence on Snapchat. The nature of Snapchat’s short-lived content can trick some communicators into thinking the planning they put into each snap should be just as brief. But a detailed strategy can be the key to making your snaps burn bright before they fade away.

When a crisis breaks, users inevitably Google the brand in question (or, for smaller brands, look them up on Yelp). But the last thing communicators want is negative headlines or reviews topping the list of search results for their brand. Here are five ways to make SEO an integral and immediate strategy when developing a crisis management campaign or handling Yelp customer reviews.

A few years ago, each of Southwest Airline’s departments used social media in their own way, independent of each other. But the firm quickly moved to create “an enterprise-level function with multiple players and dotted lines back to operational units, while still maintaining a master strategy,” according to Linda Rutherford, Southwest’s CCO. To her, the question of who should own social media centers around how an organization approaches customer engagement.

Hershey is embracing employee advocacy programs as a way to pull back the curtain on life at the company, helping to improve recruitment, retention and reputation. The giant chocolatier has devoted an Instagram account (@HersheyCompany) to celebrate its employees, who in turn use the platform to celebrate the company. Here are some examples of successful posts, as well as four tips to keep in mind when crafting your own advocacy program.

This season, you’ll find your Trending tab awash in bizarre holidays like National Watermelon Day (Aug. 3), National Lazy Day (Aug. 10) and National I LOVE My Feet Day! (Aug. 17). We took a look at three brands in different verticals who saw high engagement around their #NationalWatermelonDay posts, and pinpointed how each contender entered the conversation in a relevant way.

Facebook engineers Jiayi Wen and Shengbo Guo explained in a newsroom post Aug. 2 that an update to News Feed will soon show users more stories that will load quicker on mobile. This will take into account not only the speed of the site itself, but also the users’ network connection at the time they are browsing. Here are 10 tips from Facebook to ensure your site is up to speed.