by Francois Muscat | Mar 28, 2016 | Facebook, Social Media Marketing
The value in a carefully considered and researched social media marketing strategy has long been established, with businesses around the world embracing social media marketing as a means to take their brand to unparalleled levels of success. As one of the most popular social media tools, Facebook affords the perfect opportunity to engage in fruitful social selling. Yet, often businesses take their brands to Facebook without sufficiently understanding not only how to implement a Facebook campaign, but what to look for once a campaign is launched. Monitoring any campaign is crucial, where Facebook is no exception. Fortunately, Facebook Insights allows for the effective monitoring of a social media campaign. But, the question remains, how does this tool work?
Facebook Insights is a tool developed by Facebook, which permits users to track the interaction which transpires on their Facebook Fan Page. As a business, a Facebook Fan Page is essential, as it provides a social space for customers to discuss and interact with your brand. Access to Facebook Insights is available to anyone who is classified as a member of the admin team on a page, where such users can edit and alter the page content. The tool allows users to monitor their social media campaign, in terms of ascertaining which content is thriving on the page. For instance, Facebook Insights can be used to determine which posts have obtained the most shares, likes and comments. The tool is also valuable in terms of establishing the demographics of the people interacting on your page, where the gender and city of residence can be tracked, providing useful information for future marketing strategies. If you have access to Facebook Insights, play around with the tool, and you will be amazed to discover the insights which you can gain.
In today’s world, businesses simply cannot afford to miss out on the social media revolution, where the opportunity afforded by social selling is unmatched in traditional marketing methods. At WSI OMS, we offer a vast range of digital marketing services, where social selling is just one of the ways in which we steer businesses along the path to success. If you are looking for a digital partner to take on the social media world with you, contact WSI OMS today.
by Francois Muscat | Mar 9, 2016 | Facebook, Instagram, Social Media Marketing, Twitter
Thanks to social media, a lot of new words have been added to the dictionary in the past 20 or so years, with the most widely used and accepted being hashtag. So popular the word, in fact, that a baby was named Hashtag Jameson a few years ago, triggering worldwide trending and spawning a host of new hashtags, like #Foolishparents and #StupidestNameEver. Silliness aside though, hashtags are now used on many social networks, including Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
A hashtag is a simple keyword phrase, spelled without spaces, with a pound sign (#) in front of it. You can put these hashtags anywhere in your social media posts. What they do is tie public conversations from all different users into a single stream, which you can find by searching for a hashtag and clicking on one. What makes them great, is that hashtags are the ideal way for individuals and brands to make their social posts more visible and increase engagement. They can provide useful context and update a group of like-minded individuals on a certain topic in real time. The key is to use them sparingly and only when they add value. Too many can be annoying, confusing or frustrating.
How to use hashtags on Twitter:
A Twitter hashtag ties the conversations of different users into one stream. If Twitter users who aren’t otherwise connected to one another talk about the same topic using a specific hashtag, their tweets will appear in the same stream. Using a hashtag on Twitter is as simple as publishing a tweet from a public account that includes the hashtag. As long as your account is public, anyone who does a search for that hashtag will find your tweet. One to two hashtags per tweet show the best results for engagement. Tweets with hashtags get twice the engagement of tweets without.
How to use hashtags on Facebook:
Like on Twitter, a Facebook hashtag ties the conversations of different users into one stream. But unlike Twitter and Instagram, where many people have public accounts and their posts can be seen by anyone, most people’s Facebook posts and accounts are private. This means that even if individuals are using hashtags, they aren’t searchable. The result? The hashtags you can search for on Facebook tend to be published by influencers, brands and publishers, rather than by individuals. To use a hashtag on Facebook, all you have to do is publish a Facebook post to your Page or timeline that includes the hashtag.
Be sure your post is public if you want people other than your Facebook friends to be able to find it. To make a Facebook post public, click on the button to the right of “Post” and choose “Public” from the dropdown menu. Once you publish the post to your Page or timeline, the hashtag becomes a clickable link, which takes folks to the hashtag page. One to two hashtags per post show the highest engagement.
How to use hashtags on Instagram:
An Instagram hashtag works just the same as on Twitter and Facebook. If Instagram users who aren’t otherwise connected to one another talk about the same topic using a specific hashtag, their posts will appear in the same stream. The user interface on Instagram’s hashtag stream is much simpler than those on Twitter and Facebook. Using a hashtag on Instagram is as simple as publishing an Instagram post from a public account that includes the hashtag. As long as your account is public, anyone who does a search for that hashtag may find your Instagram post. When you write a new post and start typing in a hashtag using the # symbol, Instagram will actually suggest hashtags to you based on their popularity. Interactions are highest on Instagram posts with 11+ hashtags.
Although hashtags were born and work best online, they can be seen in other places, like on billboards, print ads or menus. They really just encourage people to check them out. Using hashtags in all your social media posts can effectively increase the reach of your messages, which can boost a brand’s engagement and following overnight. For more on social media and digital marketing, get in touch with us. We’ll see what we can do together to increase your following.
by Francois Muscat | Dec 23, 2015 | Facebook, Social Media Marketing
Those who aren’t in the know with social media, will probably not know that Facebook was set to introduce a “dislike” button a while ago. The idea seems to have been scrapped, though and Facebook is working on something new: “reactions.” Here we cover what reactions is all about and what they mean for the social network.
What are “reactions”?
When browsing your Facebook feed, you will certainly have noticed there are three options under each post: Like, Share and Comment. It has always worked well in the past, but Facebook wants to take things to the next level. Instead of just being able to “Like” a post, a person can instantly “react” to the post, using “Like,” “Love,” “Haha,” “Yay,” “Wow,” “Sad” and “Angry.” The reactions will be accompanied by relevant emoticons expressing their sentiments. This allows people to engage with posts in a number of ways, without having to pause for too long to type a comment.
When will reactions be launched?
Facebook is currently in the testing phase of reactions, rolling them out in Ireland and Spain on their iOS and Android apps. No exact date for launch has been announced.
How does this help brands?
With their instant nature, reactions will do wonders for helping brands better understand their audience and how they feel about their content. A lot of people don’t necessarily want to get involved in comment wars with written out comments. If they don’t exactly “Like” the content, they can either comment or just ignore it. That doesn’t really help brands learn anything.
Social media is constantly changing and evolving and brands need to be diligent in order to take advantage of it as an online marketing tool. Take the stress out of it and get in touch with us at WSI OMS, where we have extensive experience with social media marketing. Not only that, but we can also assist you with content creation and even mobile marketing. Contact us to see how we can help you.
by Francois Muscat | Dec 9, 2015 | Facebook, Online Marketing
When putting together your online marketing strategy, using social media channels such as Facebook is absolutely crucial. Using social media in digital marketing isn’t an exact science, but there are tricks of the trade which have proven to be successful time and time again. One of these tricks is the use of Facebook custom audiences. Here is everything you need to know.
What is a Facebook custom audience?
A custom audience on Facebook is a new phenomenon which will soon become a very important arrow in the digital market’s quiver. By using your existing email list, you can create a list on Facebook that is a very specific audience, targeting them with relevant information. This tool has a lot of potential to be very powerful in online marketing.
How to set up a custom audience
By using Facebook’s ad manager, you can quickly and easily start creating custom audiences. There are three types of audiences you can set up, namely:
- List-based audiences
These are created by using email addresses, Facebook user IDs, or phone numbers.
- App-activity audiences
These are especially nifty, generating a list of people based on the activity they have done within a Facebook app. This could be something such as a list of people who have reached a certain level in a game.
- Web traffic-based audiences
This matches website visitors to Facebook IDs and then generates a list of those people.
When in the ads manager, the first thing you need to do is create an objective, for example, Boost your posts. Click “Create custom audience,” then a window will pop up with the options listed above. By using Customer List as your option, you can upload your list of email addresses as a .csv file or even .txt. This is easy to do from Excel.
Tips and tricks
- Always make sure your list of addresses or phone numbers is from people actually opting-in to receive communication from you and not scraped from other sites.
- Ensure your emails are in the correct format i.e. someone@something.co.
- Make sure there are no spaces or hyphens in your phone numbers.
With Facebook custom audiences, a whole new world has been opened up in online marketing. If you’re ready to jump right in and take advantage of the amazing potential of the Internet to advertise your brand, get in touch with us at WSI OMS. With services such as content marketing, social media marketing and much more, we know the digital space. Contact us today.
by Marelise da Silva | Nov 5, 2015 | Facebook, Social Media Marketing
Facebook is undoubtedly a top quality social media marketing tool and what makes it so great is that it’s constantly being improved on. Regular updates and changes means that new marketing features are made available almost daily and by ensuring that you stay current with the latest Facebook feature changes you can ensure that your marketing campaign yields the best possible results.
Below are a few Facebook features that you might have overlooked. These can do wonders for your social media marketing campaign:
- Interest lists – these help to ensure that users see the type of content that really interests them. It’s a simple and useful tool. How do you create lists? Simply go to http://www.facebook.com/addlist and follow the prompts.
- Sending and receiving money – bet you didn’t know about this one! You can actually send and receive money right inside the Facebook Messenger app or desktop! Simply add a debit card to your account. Clients can also make use of this feature to make payments to you – it’s a great way to make doing business with you even simpler.
- Facebook video calls – what’s great about this feature is that it’s absolutely FREE via the Messenger mobile app or on your desktop. Want to incorporate a really personal way of running your customer services on Facebook? This is the answer! Your customers or fans can contact you and vice versa. How? Simple open a chat window and click on the video icon in the top right hand corner. Facebook will let you know if the person you are trying to video call is available or not.
- See First – this is a great feature to encourage your customers to activate as part of your online marketing campaign. Of course your customers want to be kept up to date on the latest discounts, specials and promotions. If they want to ensure that they don’t miss out on these, they simply need to activate this feature and voila.
- Pages to Watch – this is a feature that makes it possible to spy on your competitors which is a great way to ensure that you are always ahead of the game. Go to your Facebook business page, click on “Insights” and then scroll down below your actual posts.
WSI provides professional and effective social media marketing services
If you would like to learn about more hidden Facebook features that could help your company’s social media marketing campaign, WSI can assist. We offer professional social media marketing and other digital marketing services to boost your business’ online presence and earn you the sales and conversions that your business deserves.
Take the time to contact us at WSI for more tips, information and advice on running a successful Facebook marketing campaign today.
by Francois Muscat | Oct 21, 2015 | Facebook, Social Media Optimization
No one can deny the reach and power of Facebook – over 1.4 billion people visit Facebook every month and more than 900 million users check Facebook every day. Those are pretty big numbers. Not one to rest on their laurels, Facebook recently announced Pages Messaging, a new feature that is set to take the small business world by storm.
People like to connect with family and friends on a personal level, through social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, the main reason being it’s fast and convenient. The latest offering from Facebook allows people to connect directly with Pages (on Facebook for business), in an equally efficient way.
A new “Send Message” call-to-action button for local awareness ads allows people to have private conversations with business Pages from News Feed ads. When the message is sent to the business via Facebook Messenger, the message will include an attachment to show which ad prompted the query. The business can then reply and follow-up.
Pages that respond to 90% of their messages will get a “Very responsive to messages” badge on their profiles – showing customers which are the best Pages in terms of client interaction.
New tools have also been created, to help businesses manage and respond to their messages. Common questions are noted and responses to those saved.
As with the communication options through LinkedIn, it seems more and more people are responding to the personal touch, the private interactions to conduct business. Building trust equates to successful business. It is becoming more and more important for business owners to stay on top of the social media marketing, in order to succeed in today’s business world.
Get on top of social media marketing with WSI
The team at WSI understand how social selling and social marketing are the new tools for maximising your business reach. Offering a range of services and advice across many subjects, they can help you make sense of the lightning speed development of social media marketing.
To understand how online marketing can benefit your business, contact WSI today.
