Social Media & SEO

Most Fortune 500 brands are working hard to cultivate a network of loyal customers online. Mostly, this community-building happens on social media when brands build pages and platforms to attract and retain those loyal customers. However, many brands develop myopic views around their categorized and quantified loyalty group, which limits the ability to reach a larger group of customers. Here are three tips to keep in mind to make sure that doesn’t happen to you.

When brands communicate on social media, there’s a built-in trust and understanding gap between professional communicators and a skeptical public. Finding a way to bridge that gap is crucial. Nation Hahn, digital director at Blueprint for Athletes and chief growth officer at EdNC.org, has found that for the right brand and the right campaign, a great way to make the connection is by working with third-party ambassadors to intertwine the brand’s story with the stories of real people.

Before she measures the success of any campaign, January Williams begins with the question, “What am I asking the audience to do?” Williams, the director of online communications and outreach for the nonprofit Children’s Defense Fund (CDF), doesn’t try to be all things on all platforms. While some initiatives, like increasing the CDF’s number of followers, are easy to measure, most of what the organization does—when issuing legislative calls to action or fundraising, for example—is all about engagement. Here are three ways she uses analytics to drive action.

The social media giant has launched Stories, a Snapchat clone that gives Facebook users access to the two most unique aspects of the Snapchat interface: content that disappears after 24 hours and augmented reality lenses. This is the first Snapchat-pioneered feature to make its way into the central panel of Facebook’s marquee app.

Social media exposes many ironies, including the possibility that we are less social because of social media. Remember the days when we used our phone for talking, not typing? And when a friend was someone… Continued

Pinterest is no longer just for brides. Recent data indicate its audience is rapidly diversifying, as men join the network at a growth rate of 70% year over year, although women remain its dominant followers. The site’s audience growth and diversification further underscore the idea that Pinterest is an untapped opportunity for B2B communication pros. Here’s how to take advantage of this platform.

It’s a truism that brands must be on social media. The important question, though, is what platforms are best for your brand? In terms of Twitter, it depends on whether or not you are a B2C or B2B brand, according to data from Shareablee provided exclusively to PR News Pro.

The competition for attention on Facebook is intense, and seems to grow more heated every day. Just because somebody is following your brand on the site doesn’t mean they’ll automatically engage with your content. Yet, one of the most common mistakes content marketers make on Facebook is in focusing too much on lead generation and not enough on building a community and offering content of real value, says Chad Berndtson, director of content marketing and social media at B2B cyber security firm Palo Alto Networks.

Many brands, agencies and nonprofits, no matter what their budget, have seen great results when incorporating On-Demand Geofilters into their marketing strategies for our clients. In the PR News Social Media Guidebook, Christine Wilson of MtoM Consulting provides readers a wealth of information about growing a Snapchat strategy and audience from tabula rasa. Here are her top tips to help you design effective Geofilters while maximizing your budget.

Video features, even live video, are ubiquitous now on social media. “Just press this button and post a video!” we’re urged. This may lull PR practitioners into the false sense that creating a good video for social is as easy as creating a video. But not so. Thoughtful video production is important, and it’s attainable even for those of us who didn’t go to film school and don’t have large budgets.