Fans bridge blog

Facebook promoted posts: A complete guide

Faissal Alhaithami — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 22:29:15 +0000

As you know everyday, facebook news feed delivers the stories you post to your friends and subscribers and ofcourse updates from pages you are connected to. As a page admin it is impossible for your update to reach all your fans! So facebook provides promoted posts solution as they appear higher in news feed, so there’s a better chance your audience will see them.

Facebook promoted posts help your posts to reach more of your fans and their friends which will case more people to see and interact with your updates and of course more people to like your page.

below is an example of an update I have promoted:

How do you promote a post?

1- Click on the “Promote” button down below the facebook update.
2- Choose your targeted audience.
3- Select your Maximum budget.
4- Click on “promote post” button.

What kinds of posts can I promote?

You can promote any kind of post you can create in the sharing tool including status updates, photos, offers, videos and questions.

If I don’t promote my post, will people still see it?

Yes. Posting works the same way it did before. When you share a post it gets delivered to the audience you specify.

If someone you shared with didn’t notice your post it’s likely because they:

Didn’t check Facebook the day you posted
Didn’t scroll down to where your post appeared in their news feed
Applied their news feed controls

Promoting a post simply bumps it higher than it would otherwise appear in your audience’s news feeds.

Where do my promoted posts show on Facebook? What do they look like?

Promoted posts appear in news feed and are labeled Sponsored. Promoted posts are not shown in the right column of Facebook.

Example promoted post:

You are now ready to try and test this type of promotions! In fact this is by far my best way to promote things through Facebook.

Facebook promoted posts: A complete guide is a post from: Fans bridge blog

25 Tips for better facebook advertising results

Faissal Alhaithami — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 19:45:25 +0000

Are you wondering how to get the best results for your Facebook advertising campaign? Have you tried so many different ways but you still get undesirable results? Do you know that if you don’t do your advertisements the right way you won’t only lose FANS but also a lot of MONEY.

Below I have gathered 25 tips that will blow your Facebook advertising campaign and increase your results by having high CTR (Click Through Rate- The higher CTR you get the less you pay for each click then the more likes/Fans you will get.)

Ad costs and impressions are heavily influenced by Click Through Rate

Click through rate (CTR) is an incredibly important measurement for Facebook advertising. Even if your singular goal is to grow fans, regardless of how many people click through, you’ll still need to keep a close eye on CTR. Essentially, Facebook judges the success of your ad on the ad’s ability to get a relatively high percentage of people to click. Facebook rewards successful ads with a lower cost per click or cost per impression and more visibility.

Unfortunately, if your ad drops below a certain CTR threshold it will be nearly impossible to bring it back up. In that case, it’s better to start a new ad than to tweak the one you have. From my experience, having below a 0.1 CTR will almost always result in an underperforming ad. But the criteria for establishing a threshold will depend on the goals you establish.

Daily budget and daily spend limit are not the same

Daily budget is the maximum you would spend in a given day for a single campaign. Daily spend limit is the cap set on your account by Facebook. Your daily ad spend limit is automatically set to $300 per day. So, if you have a daily budget of $500 for campaign ‘A’, and you continuously max out your spend at $300, this is the reason. Facebook will increase your daily spend limit when they feel that you are a trusted ads user.

Below is a copy of the email for the last increment of my daily limit. You must contact Facebook directly if you want to increase your daily limit now.

You are not the only person who can access and edit your Facebook ad dashboard

Facebook advertising takes a lot of time and resources. Depending on your organizational structure, it may be beneficial to have multiple people working on Facebook advertising. Under Settings, there is a Permissions section that will let you add other users to your ad account. If multiple people are working on ads at your company, it’s beneficial to have them all tied to one account for a number of reasons.

First, it helps overall measurement and analysis because data between accounts cannot be automatically combined. Second, the more money you spend on Facebook ads, the better access you will have to Facebook Ad staff, which comes in rather handy when you’re looking to get answers and run official promotions on your page.

1- Click on “Settings”.
2- Click on “ add a user”.
3- Type the name of the user into the field.
4- Click on “add” to add the user to get access to the advertising dashboard.

Targeting friends of connections increases the relevance of your ad

Have you ever seen an ad pop up on Facebook that shows that one of your friends is already connected to that page? Did you feel more drawn to the ad than you would have been if no connections were shown? Fact is, Facebook is really great at peer pressure, and when users see that one of their friends is connected to a page, it increases the chance that they too might want to check it out.

Targeting users whose friends are already connected to your fan page can be a powerful tool for increasing the relevance of an ad.

The downside of the Friends of Connections targeting selection is that it narrows the field of potential ad impressions down by a significant percentage. But, because the cost of the ad is a result of the CTR, having a narrow field of relevant individuals may in fact be more important than having a large field of irrelevant individuals.

Tip: Try testing ads with and without the Friends of Connections option selected. You may find that some ads work so well that having that narrowed field may actually hurt the full potential of a given ad.

Ask users to like you in the ad

When you have a high click-through rate, Facebook rewards you by decreasing your CPC. As you test out hundreds of ad variations, you’ll inevitably find a couple of winners. For instance, (Katara- the foundation that I work for) is having an event every day. We tried capitalizing the word “LIKE” in our ads by writing short versus long copy, testing dozens of images, and trying out different interest targets. Don’t make it complex keep the language casual, as if a friend was telling you about something cool.

Give them a reason why. For example, “Like us to get the latest news”, “Like us for more information about our events” or “Click the like button for more information”.

Create a creative reveal tab

Facebook allows you to show one thing to people who are fans and something else to those who aren’t. So you can say “click like to reveal the exclusive video”. This is a scratch off card, essentially – so use your imagination on what you can do here. What are your fans going to get by hitting the like button?

A case study shows that pages got 200-300% higher click to fan conversion rates than regular landing tabs.

Better to send users to your Facebook page

Sending users to your website will remove the ability to get a like from the ad. If you send them to your website, the like button will not be shown in your ads. It’s true that when you send traffic to your page that you no longer have control over the ad headline – it becomes the page name. However, the ability to get fans from the ad is well worth the loss of being able to choose a headline, since the choice of image and targeting are far more important in determining ad effectiveness. So choose your page title carefully, since it will be your headline from now on.

One more thing, sending users to your website or anywhere outside of Facebook will double the cost of your ad.

Do NOT send users to your wall

The Wall is the last dozen or so random things that you and your fans have said, it’s just not going to convert. Instead, change your default landing tab to be your incentivized like page. Most users will click “like” to see the special content and then head over to the wall anyway to see what others are saying and how many fans you have. For better or worse, Facebook users judge how trustworthy you are by how many fans you have and how many of their friends are also fans. So jack up your fan count.

Keep Your Ad Fresh

Do you have that annoying friend in real life who likes to talk only about his or her favorite subject? You know, the one who no matter what the subject of the conversation is– somehow it goes back to that particular topic? If you don’t keep your ads fresh on Facebook, you’re that very person.

I’ve found CTR to often fall by 50% within 24 hours. The smaller your target, the faster your ads burn out. Remember that Facebook doesn’t have frequency capping or the ability to placement target. So the burden is on you to watch your CTR, even if you’re bidding on a CPC. Just because you might be bidding on a CPC basis, don’t think that you can just ignore your CTR.

Split Test Your Ads

One of the most important things for any advertiser is to ensure that the advertisements you are running are the best that they can be. Too often advertisers/marketers will launch a Facebook ad campaign and see that they just spend $100 and got little results and generalize that this must be the case for all campaigns on Facebook. The reality is that your ad campaign probably wasn’t performing well because your ad wasn’t great. The best marketers know that performance comes from testing things out.

In the image below there are two sample ads. In this case we are testing against two interest groups: those that like tuna fish and those who enjoy base jumping. I would guess that base jumpers tend to be more passionate and as such they are more likely to respond to an advertisement. I haven’t actually run these ads so I don’t know. However you should test numerous variations. Switch one component of your advertisement at a time and then compare it to another and see which works better.

There are a limited number of variables that you can change, but here are the four primary groups that you should be testing ads against:

Ad copy – What does the text of your advertisement say? Asking the user to click “Like” below tends to work relatively well.
Ad image – Test different images to see which ones perform the best. You can get extremely granular and test images within various demographic groups. You may find things such as that pink images work better for females.
Interest groups – Another thing you should be testing is which interest groups are more passionate (and hence more likely to click). It’s frequently too expensive to target less passionate and less responsive markets as they click on ads much less frequently.
Demographics within interest groups – Once you find a passionate group, try splitting the ads by gender or age group. You may find that some groups perform better than others. Narrowing this down will help you increase your ads performance and reduce the effective cost per click and cost per action.

Use CPM To Test Your Ads

The bottom line is this: CPC (cost per click) is for lazy marketers. Cost per click drives you to perform all of your tests on the landing page (or landing tab of your Facebook Page). This is not the way to do things. Test your ads on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis and find those which drive the lowest CPC. You may end up finding that you’ll get lower CPCs than you would have had you used a CPC bidding model. Using a CPM model will enable you to find which ads perform the best and potentially provide you with the greatest opportunity to minimize the cost of your campaign.

While Facebook previously stated that they were going to position CPC ads in those spots which get the most clicks, I’ve run a number of CPM-based campaigns which perform insanely well. Using CPM you can determine what the real CPC rate should be (based on performance) and you can test which ads perform the best. If you want to let your ad campaigns run on their own without monitoring then, you can switch to CPC, but at least you’ll have discovered which advertisements perform the best.

Monitor Your Campaigns Closely

One thing that you’ll notice when you first begin running advertising campaigns on Facebook is that the performance will degrade over time. That’s because the cost of reaching each subsequent user on Facebook increases incrementally. In other words, the first people who click on an ad tend to be the most responsive to advertisements in general. Once you get through this first wave of people, the cost of reaching the next group will increase.

As such, you need to monitor your daily CTR. Watch how your click through rate performs over time. If you begin to see decreases, you may want to consider either targeting a different target group or switching your advertisement. At a certain point, all advertisements lose their effectiveness. Not monitoring your ad campaigns on a regular basis is for lazy people and those who want to spend more on their ad campaigns.

Test Performance At Different Times

Often times you’ll find that an advertisement will perform better at a different time of day. While Facebook doesn’t let advertisers/marketers select which time of day their ads run, you can turn your ads on and off manually and see which times perform the best. However, This requires extremely close monitoring.

Use your data

Facebook provides an abundance of information to help you achieve the best results possible. You have access to:

- Standard metrics like Impressions (the number of times your ad is shown) and Clicks (the number of times your ad is clicked).

- Demographic metrics about the people who are clicking on your ad like age, gender and location.

- Profile metrics about the people who are clicking on your ad like interests, favorite movies and books.

- Conversion metrics.

Use the call to action

You need to encourage your target to actually Click on your ad. That’s what the call to action is for. You should tell people what they should do next and what is the next step after seeing your ad? For Example, “Click the Like button now” or “Get Access right now”. The call to action will most likely boost your click CTR.

Choose your images Carefully

Each element of your advertisement is important and that includes your graphic or image. Make sure the image is relevant to your business and your advertisement. Consider choosing images that help strengthen your brand. Above all else, test and track your images to see which ones perform best. Many marketers find that their click through rates will plateau and a change in their graphic will help renew interest and boost CTR.

- Using a funny image.
- Use an arrow facing your ad body.
- If you want to use a picture of your self make sure that you are smiling . – Use a picture of a famous person in your field.
- Use a bright colors picture.

Design specific ad copy

For instance, if you are advertising clothes, what you need to do is to design 2 copies, one for males showing men’s clothes and one for females showing women’s clothes. This tip will absolutely increase your CTR.

Read the guidelines first

When you create an advertisement on Facebook it isn’t immediately approved. Facebook needs to review it to make sure it fits their guidelines. You can find and review the guidelines here.

You can also find a list of common mistakes, as they relate to the published guidelines, here. Common mistakes include publishing your ad in ALL CAPS.

Use keywords in your ad copy

What keywords are you targeting? Make sure you use them in your copy, too. Keywords attract the attention of your target audience. They motivate click through and ensure your prospect has positive connection to your ad.

Creating Your Own Destination & Your Title

When creating your ad you need to choose your destination, whether you want the destination to be your fan page landing tab or your website. However, there is one thing to remember when you choose your custom tab as your destination, you will be stuck with your fan page name as your ad title! Many marketers want to have a different title than their Facebook page title. So, what you need to do is to copy your Tab URL as it is shown in the picture on the right and paste it in the destination URL. With this tip you are going to have the ability to write your own Title and your fan page landing tab as your destination.

Use the double lead strategy

With the double lead strategy you can generate two leads at the same time! After you create a Facebook ad you will have the ability to set a landing tab/ destination tab. In addition, the landing tab is where people or the visitors go when they click on your ads. You can design those landing tabs as you like, so you can design those landing tabs to truly capture leads. Moreover, when people land on this page, you can ask them to take 2 actions. Firstly, to like your page. Secondly, to give you their name and email in order to receive your gift or whatever you have promised them in your ads. So, with the double lead strategy you can generate 2 leads for 1 price.

Picture #1 is what visitors see when they land on my page and after they click on the “Like” button. What you can see in Picture #2 will be shown to my fans. Go to my page to check it out.

Building Relationships

Social media has largely effected the way we perform internet marketing due to it’s ability to help us build a relationship between us and the prospects. Furthermore, this task is really easy when your page visitor clicks on the like button, because you will have the ability to send updates to their Facebook news feed. This helps Facebook advertisers to build a strong relationship with the prospects very easily, and building relationships will increase your traffic and sales.

Facebook advertising needs patience

If you intend to get great results from your Facebook advertising, this requires a lot of trials and errors. Every brand, product and company will have a different message and a different audience, and knowing how a given audience will respond is impossible before getting in there and actually trying it. If you don’t make it the first time, you will in the second or the third time, you just need time and of course patience.

Passion Factor is quite important

Don’t forget that there are people who are more passionate than others. The main thing is this: passionate fans click on ads more often. Our job as advertisers is to discover who is more passionate and target them. Find which interest groups are the most passionate. The more passion, the cheaper your advertising cost. Being passionate yourself is important too, as I have seen lots of boring advertising and you don’t want to be one of those individuals who creates boring ads! Figure out what will generate an emotional response.

Bid high to get your ad approved faster

I’m not sure that this is a trick that Facebook wants to be made public, however all frequent Facebook advertisers including me know that by bidding more, Facebook will respond to your ad submission faster. You can easily change your bid rate after your advertisement has been approved. Moreover, if it’s taking a long time for your ads to get approved, you are losing time that could have been used testing ads. Just keep in mind that this trick doesn’t work forever, but it’s helpful for new advertisers.

Do you have any other tips? Please share them through the comment section down below

25 Tips for better facebook advertising results is a post from: Fans bridge blog

5 Different Ways to Use LinkedIn Answers

Obaidul Haque — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:58:58 +0000

Do you regularly visit the Q&A forum that LinkedIn features? Though many of us may have heard about the LinkedIn Anwers section, we actually continue to ignore its potential and use the same to our business marketing benefits. Regardless of the industry you belong to, you can participate at this LinkedIn Q&A forum, post business related questions (to collect expert answers) and answer questions that others put up.

If you are not using the LinkedIn Answers platform yet, it’s time to gear up and leverage the opportunities that it brings. On the face of it, the Q&A forum looks just a platform to post questions and get answers.

But LinkedIn Answers is a lot more.

Given below are five different ways in which you can use this extremely useful LinkedIn feature and take your online marketing efforts to the next level.

#1. Conduct Market Research

One of the most beneficial uses of the LinkedIn Q&A section is conducting market research. If you want to get some in-depth information or knowledge around a specific subject, this platform can do a great job. The data that you gather through the research can be effectively used to develop or fine-tune an online marketing strategy for better results.

#2. Get Ideas to Create Value-Added Content

The Q&A forum on LinkedIn doesn’t cater to just one industry or topic. There are tons of topics that people discuss via this platform. If you are short of business content ideas, you can keep a close watch on the conversations of your target audience. If you listen attentively, you’ll be able to identify those issues that your customers are struggling with. You’ll know about things that attract the attention of a specific audience the most. Then, you can use those ideas to produce highly valuable content for your target customers or audience.

#3. Collect Answers from Experts

Learning is a process that must always go on. If you want to broaden your knowledge base or want to know more about a specific subject, LinkedIn Answers is just the place to be. There are thousands of industry experts and influencers that are active on this platform.

You are free to ask questions that matter and gather in-depth answers from experts.

#4. Become an Expert

To connect with a target audience and engage them really well, you need to prove your skills. As soon as your customers start looking at you as an expert, they will love to pay heed to every piece of advice you offer them. No wonder, the LinkedIn Q&A section provides you with a platform that you can use to display your most valuable skills and get recognized as an expert.

#5. Build Relationship with Industry Influencers

No matter what type of business you deal in, connecting with the influencers in your industry can bring you some of the best opportunities. The biggest secret behind getting success with a startup is building genuine relationships with industry leaders who possess the power to influence.

Are you an active participant at the Q&A forum on LinkedIn? If you have some more tips or know more ways in which one can use this online platform, please feel free to share them.

5 Different Ways to Use LinkedIn Answers is a post from: Fans bridge blog

10 Do’s and Don’ts for Social Media Users

Obaidul Haque — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:15:24 +0000

Social media is good when you utilize it appropriately. If approached wrongly, however, it can do serious damage to the reputation of your small business or brand. If you plan to influence your target market by using different social media platforms in an effective manner, you should always remember to adhere to some key do’s and don’ts.

Given below are 10 of the most important ones.

#1. Interact Effectively

Social media is all about getting social, as much as you can be. Interaction is the very essence that keeps social media thrive. Though it can take time to know how to interact in an effective manner, you can learn it from other industry influencers and with more practice. What’s really important is that you know how to strike the correct balance between promoting your own products (or services) and providing content that offers real value.

#2. Don’t Hesitate to Follow the Competition

Most of the online marketers are averse to following their competitors. This is not the right attitude. While using social media, you should be open to following even your competitors and having a closer look at their strategy. In any case, always treat your competitors with respect.

#3. Share a Variety of Content

If your shared content on social media is really share-worthy, it can go viral in minutes. In order to increase the viral potential of your content, you should focus on the quality as well as the type. For example, images, videos and infographics carry more viral potential as compared to other content types.

#4. Don’t Respond Late

Successful social media users are some of the most active online marketers. While using different social media platforms, you will receive comments, likes, feedback, questions etc. You should always remember to pay attention to your audience’s responses in a timely manner. Show the audience that you are right there behind your products.

#5. Promote Others’ Good Stuff

No matter which social media platform you participate at, it’s all about sharing content that provides real value to the user. Promoting your own stuff blatantly can easily ruin your business reputation or get you banned. It’s, therefore, advisable to share the good content that others post.

#6. Don’t Lie

Social media users or online marketers should always remember not to lie to project something that’s not the reality. By being unauthentic or hiding or lying can lead to serious consequences. Avoid it at all cost!

#7. Optimize Social Media Pages

You might be aware of the fact that content shared on social media also appears in search engine results. That’s a clear indication of how SEO can be applied to improve the visibility of your social media pages and reach out to a larger number of audience.

#8. Don’t Get Too Wordy

Most of the social media websites have character limits for content you want to post. If you are using social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, it’s important to keep your updates succinct.

#9. Attract Visually

Pinterest, a new social media website, has gained wide popularity in short span of time. It’s because of its visual book-marking features. We are actually visual creatures and are attracted by visual elements too. So, make sure your social media profiles or pages look visually appealing.

#10. Don’t Have One Strategy for All Social Networks

There are different types of social media platforms in terms of geographical reach and audience demographics. If you think the same strategy can be applied to all the social platforms where you participate, you are making a huge mistake. Work out unique strategies based on specific requirements.

Are you an active social media user? If you have some more tips or want to share your own views, please feel free to comment.

10 Do’s and Don’ts for Social Media Users is a post from: Fans bridge blog

7 Tips to Use Pinterest as a Business Marketing Tool

Faissal Alhaithami — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 15:24:25 +0000

The popularity of Pinterest, a newly rolled out visual bookmarking website, is spreading like wildfire. We are visual creatures and Pinterest does a great job by allowing us into a world where it’s a lot of fun to share with one another some of the most beautiful images across the web. But Pinterest is not just about enjoying lovely images from family, friends, colleagues etc.

It’s a lot more. Yes, Pinterest is fast emerging to be one of the best tools to market a business. If you already have a Pinterest account, it’s time to start marketing your business via this social network. Below are some of the most useful tips you can use.

Spruce Up Your Profile

Let’s get started with the profile. Pinterest account holders have an excellent opportunity to use their profile to the fullest advantage. It’s where you can place an attractive profile image. You can link to your other social media accounts from here. In addition, you can craft a good bio that includes important industry-relevant keywords.

Let the Pins Shine

There’s a lot of that you can do with the Pins (Pinterest term for images) to market your business. First and foremost, you should choose Pin titles in a way that instantly attracts attention. Second, you can add keyword-rich descriptions to increase the visibility of your pins. Pinterest also allows you to tag others with the symbol ‘@’. Also remember to include the credit, the source of a specific pin, while pinning.

Play with Pinboards

A pinboard is a collection of pins around a particular theme or topic. Depending on the type of your industry or business, you can create several pinboards with different attractive topics. While creating pinboards, you should always choose attention-grabbing titles and fill out the description with relevant keywords. From business point of view, you can also choose to pin images from your clients. You can also repin other user’s images that you like or are relevant to your target audience.

Also Pin Videos

This is one area of Pinterest where you can quickly set yourself apart. As compared to the number of images shared on this social network, there are too few videos. By sharing YouTube videos, that are related to your business, you can gain a competitive edge over your competitors.

Add ‘Pin It’ Button to Your Site

On your website too, you need to encourage Pinterest sharing. By adding a Pin It button to your website, you provide your visitors with an option of sharing your best work on Pinterest. At the same time, you should optimize the content on your site for more Pinterest sharing. Use top quality and attractive images in each of your posts to get pinned.

Organize Contest

From business marketing point of view, holding contests on Pinterest can really work wonders. There are different types of contests that you can organize on this visual bookmarking website. ‘Best Pinboard’ and ‘Most Repins’ are interesting ideas you can use to attract the attention of other Pinterest users and market your business.

Get Pinterest to iPhone

Interacting with your audience while on the go is an excellent idea. You can do it with the Pinterest for iPhone app. With this app, you can not only browse pins and repin on the go but you can also pin images with your camera while adding a location so pinners can find you.

Have you included Pinterest in your social media marketing strategy? Please feel free to share your views and opinions.

7 Tips to Use Pinterest as a Business Marketing Tool is a post from: Fans bridge blog

5 ways to get more views to your Youtube videos

Obaidul Haque — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 05:16:24 +0000

What’s the point in uploading videos on YouTube if they are not getting the kind of recognition you actually deserve? Well, chances are that you are missing out on some of the best tips and tricks of the trade. Remember, creating or uploading a video through your YouTube channel is only half the battle. The remaining half is how you can get more and more views to those videos so you can fulfill your ultimate goals.

Not to worry, given below are some of the most useful ways that you can use to drive plenty of traffic and get tons of views to your YouTube videos. So, let’s get started!

Create Content You Audience Likes to Watch

If you know who your target audience is, you should also be cognizant of their specific requirements. Once you know what they want, you can start to create videos that are compelling and interesting to them.

Here are some ideas that will be of interest to your audience –

Product reviews and demonstrations
Customer stories and testimonials
Case studies
Business/ industry reports
How-to guides
Insightful analysis

Unless your video topics are really useful, interesting and attention-grabbing, it will be tough to get tons of views.

Update Your YouTube Channel Regularly

In one of my last posts, I walked you through the basic steps to start a YouTube channel of your own. But don’t let your video channel go stale after you’ve created it. If you want to get the maximum out of your YouTube marketing efforts, you should always keep your channel updated. Frequent updation (i.e. more video uploads) will increase your channel’s visibility and bring more views for your videos.

Optimize (Both the YouTube Channel & Videos)

Search optimization is one of the basic things that you need to do to get more YouTube videos. Appropriate optimization is a vital requirement both for your YouTube channel and the videos that you upload.

Make sure you give a short and easy-to-remember username to your channel. Use some of your most important keywords when you add tags. The title of the channel should also be descriptive. Your channel profile should be informative as well as keyword-rich. Likewise, you should optimize the videos that you upload. Title, tag and description sections of your videos give you an excellent opportunity to optimize and increase search visibility.

Sort Your Videos into Playlists

When it comes to getting more views to your YouTube videos, creating playlists can work wonders. A playlist is actually a collection of videos that will play in a series, one after another.

The biggest benefit of creating playlists is that it allows you to organize all of your YouTube videos according to specific themes or subjects. This is a good practice to follow from the user’s point of view. The second benefit is that your playlists are indexed separately by Google. That increases search visibility as well!

Join the YouTube Community Actively

After all, YouTube is a social networking platform. Around 100 million people perform some kind of social activity on this network every week. These activities may include ‘liking’ videos, ‘sharing’ them with others and ‘commenting’ on videos that catch your attention. To achieve success with your YouTube channel, one of the most important recommendations is to become an active member of this community.

If you want to make the most of your YouTube video marketing, you should always remember to comment on other users’ videos. You should subscribe to those video channels that you like. You should follow other YouTube channel owners. Such activities will help you attract the attention of more YouTubers, connect with more video makers (in the form of subscribers and fans) leverage better opportunities for collaborations in the near future.

Do you have more tips in mind? Please go ahead, and share them in the comment section below.

5 ways to get more views to your Youtube videos is a post from: Fans bridge blog

How to Increase Your Social Media Fan Engagement With Web Forms

Faissal Alhaithami — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 14:22:56 +0000

So you are working hard to feed your Facebook page with fresh content and photos, you tweet on a regular basis, but people fail to interact with your updates. If you feel your voice gets lost in the crowd, it’s time to bring in some calls-to-action. A simple and smart web form or survey can turn into a brilliant engagement stirrer. Read on and see how!

It’s a well-known fact that forms and surveys bring very good payoff in gathering feedback and converting visitors to leads on regular webpages. They work wonderful on social media pages too, provided you employ the right tools to get them running. Fortunately, there are some useful web services that can build forms from scratch and, moreover, help boost fan engagement.

“All good, but I can do it myself”, you may say. Well, you can try coding forms on your own, but think twice, as it’s a really pains taking job. For publishing forms on your Facebook fan pages, the simple way to it is to use a web form builder that can add HTML and JavaScript content to the framework, thus importing the functionalities of your web form to the Facebook estate. You can create a separate tab that contains your form or survey. On your personal Facebook profile you can simply post the link to your form that goes remotely hosted and have people access it that way.

On Twitter, things are shorter and simpler. Just spread the word around about your form by tweeting the link. For a greater engagement, you can synchronize the form with your account to trigger a tweet with every new submission. Of course, the content should be highly viral, to keep people following your updates.

123ContactForm helps you create custom web forms and post them on social networks in just a few clicks. To put the cream on the cake, this service helps you integrate your forms and surveys with 3^rd party services to assemble mailing lists, track form users into ticketing systems or display the input right on your website. Sky is the limit!

Here are some examples on how you can spice up your social media pages using web forms.

Everyone around loves discount coupons

Here’s a foolproof receipt of success: give away discounts of products on sale and direct your loyal fans to cash them by filling in a form with their contact details and the coupon number. For you, it’s two birds with one stone: you stimulate sales and gather leads to advertise to in the future. For your friends, it’s the sweet taste of bargain. Result? A great deal of buzz around your page!

Picnic surveys and polls – wanna join?

Perhaps the simplest way to stir fan engagement is a nice and simple poll that everyone can answer with no effort. The secret lays in the question you ask and the possible responses – they should be fun, even hilarious. Try something like: “Would you rather roast hot dogs or marshmallows?” and leave a blank field for other ideas. There’s no limit to the ideas you can use – just put your own imagination at work.

Donations that go ten times more engaging

When you fight for a cause, the more people you get to impress and enroll, the better. Use social media to popularize your mission and don’t be afraid to even ask for donations right on your page. What can be more direct than a donation form linked to PayPal (for example) and placed on your Facebook page that friends can share over? You can even keep them updated with the status of the donations in real time, to make them all feel part of your endeavor.

Event seat booking goes social

If you are throwing a party or maybe organizing a business event, you need to register attendants in an easy way. Since everyone has a Facebook account nowadays, why not cut down steps in registration and publish the form right on your page? People can enter their details, while the form records their entry and books a seat. When the total number of seats is taken, the form shuts down. Simple, ain’t it?

Feedback forms give users the feeling their opinion is respected

Usually people enjoy expressing their thoughts and emotions upon a topic that influences their day to day life. When you request feedback over your own activity, you basically show you care about what they have to say, and this is flattering. Moreover, people who have written a line in answer are likely to follow the topic to see if their action had any response, so the level of fan engagement rises. Go ahead and ask some feedback questions in the shape of a form or survey. The result will surprise you.

Contests, oh contests! Where do I sign up?

Last but not least, the competitions popularized through social media are highly viral means of promotion for you. It’s the sense of urge, the adrenaline rush or simply the interactivity of a contest that drives people to enter. Facebook has certain guidelines for contests so make sure you read them first. Put up a form where users can register and state the timeframe when the competition is live. Sit back and enjoy as people are commenting, sharing your content and hanging around to see the outcome.

How to Increase Your Social Media Fan Engagement With Web Forms is a post from: Fans bridge blog

6 Twitter Tools to Help You Manage Your Followers

Faissal Alhaithami — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 15:23:27 +0000

Twitter marketing success depends on what kind of data you’re actually tracking. It’s not just about the traffic that you get from Twitter. There are so many other things that you’ve got to keep your eye on. You should be aware of who retweets your links, who follows you and who unfollows you. You need to find out which of your Twitter followers are most active. It’s only when you have all these data into your arsenal that you can be able to fine-tune your Twitter strategy.

Finding the right tools to manage your Twitter followers is not quite easy, as there are several out there. To make it convenient for you, I hand-picked 6 Twitter tools that you can use to your benefits.

Manage Flitter

When it comes to managing your followers on Twitter, Manage Flitter is one of the best I can recommend. This tool does a great job by scanning all the accounts of your followers. It helps you track who among your followers are most talkative or inactive. It also lists those accounts that have no photos. There are many other filtering options that this tool offers.

Tweepi

It’s good to follow those users that you think are relevant to your niche. But you can’t just follow people without having them follow you back. Tweepi lets you know who don’t follow you back of unfollow you. In addition, it tells you more about your followers including who they follow or filter their followers according to your specific requirements. A very useful tool indeed!

TweetEffect

As the name suggests, it lets you know the impact of your tweets. It’s important to make sure your tweets are exactly in tune with your followers (read target audience) are looking for so that you don’t disappoint or lose them. That’s exactly what TweetEffect does for you.

Followerwonk

This is what I call a complete Twitter management tool. With Followerwonk, you can accomplish tasks like searching Twitter bios, comparing users, analyzing followers and sorting them among others. What’s more, you can even filter followers on the basis of age, message, volume etc.

Contaxio

Managing your Twitter followers is fun with Contaxio. With this management tool in your arsenal, you can easily save additional information about Twitter users. The tool also offers contacts management for other social networks including Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.

TweetStats

A powerful tool for gaining a deep insight into Twitter users! By using TweetStats, you can create detailed reports about the tweeting density, style and trend of a user. The generated report include key statistics like tweets per hour, tweets per month, tweets timeline, reply statistics etc.

Are you using any of these Twitter management tools? Please feel free to talk back in comments.

6 Twitter Tools to Help You Manage Your Followers is a post from: Fans bridge blog

First 5 Steps to Start Your Own YouTube Channel

Obaidul Haque — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 19:00:45 +0000

Social media platforms play a major role in promoting a cause, product or service. And every social network has something unique to offer. Google’s video sharing site, YouTube also does a great job by giving you an excellent opportunity for sharing your stories (videos) with the world.

Let’s first have a look at these vital YouTube statistics.

More than 800 million unique visitors each month Available in 43 countries and 60 languages Over 10% of all views come from mobile devices More than 3 billion hours of video are viewed every month Around 100 million people socially interact each week

If you want to market your services or products via videos online, YouTube is just the perfect option to go for. All you need to do is start your own YouTube channel and begin interacting with your audience!

Given below are the first steps to get started –

Sign In or Sign Up – step 1

YouTube is operated by Google. So, you’ll first need a Google account to sign in and register yourself on this video channel. In case you don’t have a Gmail account already, you can click sign up and create an account first. You’ll need to complete a registration form which requires you to provide a Google username, a password, your gender, an alternate email ID etc. Finally, you’ll be sent a confirmation email for account verification.

Return to YouTube HomePage - step 2

Once you’ve verified your Google account, you can return to the YouTube homepage and sign in (if you aren’t already). As soon as you’re in, you can click on your Google username at the top right of the screen and click ‘My Channel’ under YouTube menu.

Create a Channel - step 3

By clicking on the ‘My Channel’ link, YouTube takes you to a new page where you can start to create your own YouTube channel. When you have a channel of your own, the video sharing website allows you to upload videos, create playlists and comment on videos uploaded by others.

On the new page, you can click the continue button to have a YouTube channel created for you automatically. If you want to use a different username for the channel, you can choose the option given right below.

Customize or Edit – step 4

Yes, YouTube allows you to customize your channel so that you can enhance the appearance and stand out. Click ‘Channel Settings’ to edit your channel.

Now, click the ‘Appearance’ tab to select different colors and upload a background image of your choice. The maximum image size that YouTube allows is 1MB. The ‘Info and Settings’ section allows you to fill out your company description and add tags. From here, you can also customize your channel URL.

Upload Videos (and Publish) – step 5

Now your channel is all set. It’s time to start uploading videos that you want to share with your friends, colleagues and the world. You’ll see the ‘Upload’ link towards the right of the YouTube search box at the top. If you’ve the video files on your computer, you can upload them and publish to your channel immediately. Otherwise, you can ‘Record from Webcam’ right from within your YouTube channel and publish for the world to see.

Do you have a YouTube channel of your own? If not, it’s just the right time to start one and see the difference it can make.

First 5 Steps to Start Your Own YouTube Channel is a post from: Fans bridge blog

What You Need to Know About Pinterest for Business

Faissal Alhaithami — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 15:43:09 +0000

By now, you must be pretty convinced that Pinterest is not just a buzzword. It’s a growing social media platform. Since it’s proved to be a huge traffic referral, businesses are already using this visual bookmarking tool to improve their website traffic, generate more leads and increase sales. There’s little doubt that Pinterest is working wonders for several types and sizes of businesses. If you haven’t been successful with marketing your business on Pinterest, you need to understand how Pinterest works and use the tips that other companies are using successfully to achieve their business goals.

Though there are many different types of businesses that can use Pinterest to their benefits, there are some that this social network suits the best. Key industries that are using this visual pinboard include wedding, art and crafts, fashion, travel, hospitality, apparel, photography, design and real estate among others.

Given below are some of the most important guidelines and tips that you can use to create a solid business presence on Pinterest.

Know How the Platform Works

Before starting to use any social media platform, you must know how it operates so you play by the rules. Pinterest allows you to add pins (image) from across the web to a board (set of pins). You can, therefore, create relevant boards and add as many pins as you want to each board.

Avoid Blatant Promotion

The fact is that Pinterest is a social media platform. Pinterest users are smarter enough to identify boards that are only self-serving. Therefore, it’s always advisable to share anything (from other companies) that might be on interest to your followers or target audience.

Follow the A-Listers

As soon as you join Pinterest, you should start looking for the big Pinterest players. By following the biggies, you can get followed back and attract the attention of more users using the platform. It’s a proven strategy to increase awareness about your brand or service.

Optimize the Pins You Add

While adding a Pin, you can include a description and the source URL. Adding link and including important keywords in the description improves the SEO score of your site. Also remember to keep your description to the point so as to attract attention and get more sharing.

Add a Pinterest Button to Your Site

Like you’ve added other social media buttons to your website or blog, you should also add the Pinterest follow or Pin It button. It allows users to easily add or pin things they find interesting on your site. The ‘goodies’ section of Pinterest provides you with more details in this regard.

Keep Your Account Alive (and Kicking)

You won’t achieve business success with Pinterest if you set up your account and leave it to go stale. Follow a specific schedule to go to Pinterest everyday, pin what you like, follow others and respond to people’s comments. Most importantly, continue to grow the number of your pins (images added) and boards.

Hold a Contest

Organizing a contest on Pinterest can prove to be highly beneficial. You can hold contests like ‘Best Pinboard’ and ‘Most Repins’ for creating buzz around your brand and engaging the audience. In any case, make sure your contest terms are clear to users.

Follow the Pin Etiquette

While you keep pinning and getting repined, don’t forget to abide by the pin etiquette and guidelines. Treat all Pinterest users with respect, be authentic, link back to original sources and stay away from adult or inappropriate content. If you find a piece of content to be objectionable, click “Report Content”.

Hope this post was helpful to start your marketing campaign on Pinterest , are you using Pinterest for your business?

What You Need to Know About Pinterest for Business is a post from: Fans bridge blog