Get Started Using Twitter!
Read our quick start guide to Twitter. 
A tweet chat is the coordinated use of a hashtag at a pre-arranged time about a specific topic. They are usually on a set schedule. It can be a terrific way to connect with experts in your field or offer your own expertise to others. All you have to do to participate in the conversations is follow and use the associated hashtag for the chat.
For instance, Harvard Business Review offers #HBRchat every Thursday. It’s an organized discussion, usually with 3 discussion questions related to a recent article or blog post. #Blogchat is one of the most popular Twitter chats, drawing social media enthusiasts and bloggers from all over the world at 8pm Central Time on Sundays. #Journchat is a weekly conversation (7-10PM Central) among journalists, bloggers, and public relations professionals. Continue reading
Good news! Facebook has lifted many of the restrictions it placed on the the cover images for pages. As we’ve said over and over in trainings recently, as soon as you learn how to do something, they’ll change the rules!
Gone are the restrictions against calls to action, contact info, etc. (Yes, now you can put your url in your cover photo without fear of removal.) According to the new Facebook Page Terms, the only thing you have to worry about now are copyright and the percentage of text in the image. It’s down to this:
”All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your Page will be able to see your cover. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines. Covers may not include images with more than 20% text.”
So, all that stuff we said about what not to do before…. nevermind!
Beware, though. Beginning April 1, Facebook intends to get serious about monitoring these newer streamlined rules. We suspect that they are deploying electronic scanning that can detect text, eliminating the need for a human being to eyeball each image for compliance.
“The price of mistakes is getting higher, and Google is getting more punitive.”
All the old cautionary tales are true when it comes to search engine optimization on your website. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t (true, that is). As this post from SEOMoz, Black Hat or White Hat SEO? It’s Time to Ask Better Questions, points out, the quick fix and fast gain will likely leave your site blowing in the wind, at best, or completely removed from Google’s index, at worst.
At Above the Fold, we encourage clients to focus on strong, relevant content. That will never go out of style.
From the user side, every social medium is different, but have you thought about the different audiences each one attracts? When you’re planning your business’s marketing you have to start with identifying your target markets. From there, you develop a strategy that will find those people where they are.
This interactive infographic: Social Media Landscape from CMO.com provides a great overview for determining where your social media efforts are best expended. It’s different for every business and every market within each business. Remember, when it comes to marketing, one size does not fit all.
Saturday, March 23, in the Shelburne Town Offices Building, Route 7, Shelburne, VT
Barb spoke with Molly Smith of WCAX about working with the League of Vermont Writers this Saturday teaching a workshop on Facebook and Twitter use and management for writers.
Whether you’re looking to build your platform, hoping that Facebook and Twitter are a good place to connect with other writers, or thinking that they’re great places to market your written work, this workshop will help you leave with a new level of comfort.
Register on the League of Vermont Writers website.
Our first session was a big hit, but never fear, there’s more fun to come. While each workshop builds on the one before, they are free-standing as well.
Session 2: Social Media 101 – Wed. Febrary 27.
Register now. Space is limited.
Social media marketing can be a wonderful tool for small business, but one size does not fit all. We will take you from basic marketing plan to implementation. And we’ll feed you well, too! While each session builds on the one before, they will be free-standing, as well.
Session 1: Marketing Plan – Wed. January 23.
You need a plan and goals in order to know if you’re succeeding with your marketing. We’ll work through a basic process to help you make the right decisions to reach the customers you seek. You will leave with an actionable marketing plan for your business.
Register now. Space is limited.
Barb joined WCAX’s Kristin Carlson this week to chat about why small businesses need to care about social media and what they need to consider. The link to the full segment video is below.
[Video] Barb talking about social media for small businesses on WCAX.
First things first: What is Klout?
Simply put, a Klout score is a numerical representation (1-100) of an individual’s or a brand’s overall influence on social media. Klout has been the subject of fascination and ridicule, and a source of competition for the numbers-motivated, since it was founded in 2008. Recently, however, Klout has enhanced its data collection to include more “signals” (over 400, they say) from more networks: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Wikipedia, and Klout, itself.
There is a science to the perfect tweet. Nobody has figured out exactly what it is yet, but researchers are honing in.
A new study of some 40,000 tweets allowed a group of experts to define four main characteristics of popular tweets. The scientists behind “The Pulse of News in Social Media: Forecasting Popularity” say they can predict 84% of the time which tweet will be most popular. Continue reading