Six Pro Social Media Marketing Tools

Like it or not, a solid presence on social media is crucial if you want to stay relevant to the public, but it goes further than just having a company Facebook or Twitter account. You have to stay on top of your content and posts if you want to attract new customers and keep your current customers happy.

This may all feel a little overwhelming if you’re new to the social media marketing world, but luckily, many social media management companies offer tools that can help you out by digging deep into automation and offering data-rich features. We’ve put together a list of six excellent tools to help you kill it on social media.

Tweepi

Tweepi is an exceptional tool that monitors your Twitter account and uses Artificial Intelligence to help you make the most of this social media platform. At its most basic, it spends all of its time crawling the Twitterverse to find people that could help your brand. It can suggest compatible people for you to follow as well as people you should unfollow to help clean up your account.  It lets you set metrics for the kind of people you want to attract by language, location, interest, history, and biography. It can also monitor specific hashtags and competitors so that you can stay at the top of the pack.

Tweepi has a free package that you can try out, but the Silver package ($10+/mo) and Platinum package ($20+/mo) have considerably more features.

Social Media Marketing Tools

(Pixabay / edar)

Audiense

This program breaks apart your target audience into specialized groups that go well beyond age, gender, race, and education level. It prides itself in learning what your target audience is interested in, how they describe and conduct themselves, and how their personalities sway their decision-making.

Many incredibly large and popular companies use this program, and the price tag directly reflects that. Coming in at $1,000/mo+, it may be out of reach for small businesses, but if you’re serious about scaling up your business, you should look into it.

IFTTT

IFTTT’s unusual name is an acronym for “if this, then that,” because their mantra is that all things are interconnected. Their goal is to make your life easier by simplifying the connections between all of your different devices so that things work in tandem with each other. This is important in the social media world because it explicitly connects your various social media accounts so that they are working together instead of against each other. While it isn’t the most intuitive interface, there are a lot of Frequently Asked Questions and troubleshooting answers available on their website. The best part about it, however, might be that it’s completely free.

Agora Pulse

Agora Pulse is a social media management company that strives to make your life a lot easier. It has special inbox filters that automatically sort your messages into predetermined categories such as comments, ad comments, and mentions. Your inbox is also equipped to automatically publish new posts according to the parameters that you set up. Additionally, it monitors your followers and those you follow so that you have a better idea of what is important and relevant to them. This interface is highly collaborative so that all members of your team are on the same page as to what is getting posted, where it is getting posted, and when.

Agora Pulse has a free 28-day trial for each of its four different plans. Medium is $89/month and is best for small businesses. Large rings in at $179/month and is best for agencies. X-Large is recommended for big organizations and costs $269/month, while Enterprise is $459/month and is preferred by large teams with many profiles. If you’re not sure which plan is best for you, there is a live-chat option on their website as well as a Frequently Asked Questions section.

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo’s main draw is that it analyzes content to help you create what people want to read. Expedia, IBM, Buzzfeed, Rolling Stone, and Top Rank Marketing all use BuzzSumo to help them create viral content for their readers. Its analytics help you find influencers and track your competitors while monitoring the internet for topics that fit your niche. Their detailed reports compare how different kinds of media are shared across the various social media platforms, and you can get alerts as soon as people within your field share content within your keyword parameters. Another particularly helpful feature is their competitor analysis so that you can see what is and isn’t working for other companies within your same field.

BuzzSumo has a free seven-day trial, but you can upgrade from there.  Their Pro ($79/mo), Plus ($139/mo), Large ($239/mo), and Custom (starting at $499/mo) offer features that become increasingly sophisticated with each new price point. They also offer discounts for registered charities and non-profits.

Analisa.io

Analisa.io is an analytics program that uses Artificial Intelligence to give you comprehensive information regarding your Instagram account, or any other public profile. That’s right, the basic (and free!) membership lets you analyze any public Instagram account. If you sign up for one of their paid accounts, you can get additional insights such as possible influencers, post time and locations, most liked and commented, historical performance, top captions, and the capability to export reports to PDF. If you head over to their website, you can see an impressive demo of all of the different reports available.

While the free version can get you extensive engagement rate analyses, the Premium ($69/mo), Plus ($149/mo), and Pro ($239/mo) offer significantly more features.

Image Sliders: to Use or Not to Use?

You might have had the experience where (scrolling image) you were trying to read something (image rotate) on a website but (image flip) something kept distracting (wha’sdat!) your attention (eh?) on the page.

  • Is it a picture?
  • Is it an ad?

But more importantly,

  • Is it really more important than the reason you went to that website in the first place?

If you’re building a new website you have probably seen other sites insert image sliders (also known as carousels or slide shows), so you might feel like they add significant value to your website. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case.

Image Sliders

(Pixabay / StockSnap)

Don’t get me wrong, image sliders can be great for a limited number of fields – namely, real estate and artwork – but even these types of businesses should be careful as they incorporate an image slider.

If you use a carousel correctly, it can give website visitors an opportunity to see several different aspects of your company in a short amount of time. On the other hand, most people don’t stick around for that “short amount of time.”

Due to the nature of an image slider, the type and number of images you use could slow down your site, which might also frustrate your customers. Your customers have so many options at their fingertips that they won’t even pause to mourn your page once they decide to leave it for a website with a faster load time.

Image sliders for distracting your customers to the point that they abandon your website without becoming a lead or making a purchase, and are notorious for getting stuck and not being mobile-friendly. And with half of online traffic coming from mobile users, you can’t afford to lose any customers due to trying to over-impress them.

Like I said earlier, there are still some good aspects of using an image slider, so if you feel like one would benefit your site, there are some well-tested tricks for using one effectively.

Image Slider Tips

Limit to three images

Having more images than this can be overwhelming to your customers, so stick to your top three. Make sure that they mesh in such a way that they tell a story or stick to a central theme; otherwise, your site runs the risk of feeling disjointed and sporadic.

Do not auto-rotate

Remember that first paragraph? The auto-rotate capability seems like it would be a great way to share your products without your customer having to do any work, but more often than not, it’s just distracting. When something is moving on its own, your customers can get sidetracked from the reason they came to your site in the first place, which can lead to lower conversion rates. It’s also extremely annoying (and presumptive) to think that you know how quickly your customers read.  Unless you get really lucky, the auto-rotate option is bound to go too fast or too slow for most customers.  If you get it right for some, it’ll still be wrong for others.

Insert links to the images

People have gotten used to the idea that clicking on an image will take them to more information about the image, so make sure that you don’t disappoint. Be purposeful in your link placement to get the most out of your slider.

Keep the sliders consistent with your web design

Image carousels should stay within your website’s theme; otherwise, you run the risk of looking cluttered and disorganized. Keep the fonts and color palettes consistent with the rest of your design elements.

Monitor your slider

For SEO purposes, it’s in your best interest to monitor the number of click-throughs and conversions that come as a result of your slider. If you see a drop in customer activity after you add a slider, you should reconsider if it’s really worth it.

Keep it below the fold

An image carousel should be a supplementary aspect of your website – not the main event. When customers head to your site and see a slider taking up the top third of their screen, they can either get overwhelmed by the images, distracted by them to the point that they forget their original purpose, ruin your website’s page speed, or annoy customers that they have to scroll down to get the information they came for. The vast majority of the time, customers go to your site with a goal in mind, and they expect to complete their task in a relatively short amount of time so that they can get on with their lives.

While there isn’t necessarily a hard-and-fast rule as to whether you should use an image slider or not, generally it’s best to stay away from them. If you would like to include one, make sure that you take the time to think through your purpose and design it well following the tips above. This will help you keep your focus so that your customers can keep theirs.

5 Tips to Improve Your Website’s Design

If you are trying to improve your website, you might be at a loss for where to start. Lucky for you, here is a list of five sure-fire places to start.

Less is More

It should come as no surprise to you that people won’t stick around on a website that is cluttered and busy. There are just too many other sites in competition with yours for your customers to linger on a website that makes them feel overwhelmed. Simply put, white space is your friend.

Website's Design

(Pixabay / StartupStockPhotos)

Design your site so that your purpose is clear and easy to see from anywhere on the screen. You should literally take a step back to double-check that your font is legible from a few feet away and that your customers can easily read your mission statement, even if they’re not right next to the screen.

Use contrasting colors for things like calls-to-action, which we’ll talk about next, and keep your overall color scheme consistent with your company goals. Your navigation bar should have no more than seven items in it, and it should follow your customers as they scroll down the page. It’s important to understand that while the space “above the fold” on your website (the content that your visitors can see before having to scroll) is most likely to grab and keep your customer’s attention, cramming too much in that window will drive them away. It’s OK to have things below the fold, but make sure that the golden area above the fold has the crucial information.

Lastly, spend some time on your images. Stock photos have their place and can even add value to your message, but you should not solely rely upon them. Invest in high quality, original images, infographics, and videos to set your site apart. It takes a little more time, money, and effort to use custom graphics, but they are more likely to rank higher on Google image searches than stock photos.

Create Strong Calls-to-Action (and plenty of them)

As you’re optimizing your site, you are probably reading a lot about the importance of having calls-to-action (CTAs), but how do you know if yours are effective? Firstly, every CTA needs to start with a strong verb. Good examples include:

  • subscribe
  • click here for…
  • sign up
  • view
  • go to cart

If you’re in doubt about whether something is a call to action, run it by this test: Insert the phrase, “Would you like to (insert CTA)?” If it makes sense, you have an effective call to action.

People are looking for the thing they need to do next, so if you want them to stick around on your site, you need to tell them what to do. Try directing them to another relevant page on your site to create worthwhile links, or ask them to subscribe to your weekly newsletter. Don’t leave it up to chance – once they’re on your site, you need to keep them there by purposefully directing your own traffic.

Be Mobile-Friendly

Studies have shown that more than half of all website traffic comes from mobile devices, and that number is continuously climbing. Google wants its customers to have a positive experience so the search engine giant rewards mobile-friendly sites by showing up higher ranking results before sending a visitor to them. Frankly, it’s just too inconvenient for customers to zoom in and out of your site in order to get the information they’re after, so if your site isn’t responsive to mobile users, they’re likely to leave, never to return. And Google will take note.

Put the Customer First

This is something anyone who has worked in customer service has heard a thousand times, and that’s because when you think this way, you’ll have happier customers. While you can’t let your customers walk all over you if you want to be successful as a businessperson, there are some simple things that you can do to your website to keep the customer first.

First, keep your load times down. Studies have shown that customers are highly likely to leave your website if it takes more than just a few seconds to load. You might have to invest in some online software and more expensive cloud-based hosting, but the benefits of short load times are worth every penny.

Second, monitor how your page appears to the customer. Pop-ups are sometimes necessary, but they are also irritating if there are too many of them. Similarly, social media sharing is vital to spreading awareness about your product or brand, but make sure that your social media plug-in can be collapsed. Having that little sidebar covering up your content is insanely annoying to your customers. Also, don’t set your banners to auto-rotate because that quick swipe every five seconds is distracting. If you are going to use a banner, limit the content to three options or less, and let the user click to progress to the next slide.

Sprinkle in Testimonials

The last tip for improving your website is to incorporate testimonials in strategic locations throughout your website. Contact local celebrities or social media influencers to see if they would endorse your product or brand. If you can’t find someone that brings their own name recognition, post some of your customer reviews so that prospective customers can see how real people feel about your product.

Incorporating these tips can make a good website great and a great website downright outstanding.  Remember that websites aren’t a one-and-done pursuit.  Once you’ve built your site, take the time to revisit it regularly and make sure that you’re hitting the mark for a visually appealing website that engages customers and leads them to action.

PowerPoint Presentation? Go from Awful to Awesome

Let’s start off with a phrase commonly used to refer to presentations, “Death by PowerPoint.”

You know what I’m talking about. Everyone has sat through at least one of these terrible, horrible, no good, very bad demonstrations.

The great thing about PowerPoint is that it is an incredibly effective tool for sharing a lot of information. Charts, graphs, videos, sound clips, statistics – this application easily handles all different types of media in addition to standard text. The not-so-great thing about PowerPoint is that it often becomes a crutch for the presenter, which then translates to suck-in-that-drool-before-anyone-sees-it boredom for the audience.

Lucky for you, there are some ways that you can spice up your PowerPoint game with relatively little effort. I say “relatively little effort” and not “no effort” on purpose because going from a one-star presentation to a four or five star is going to require a bit of work.

Plan Ahead

One of the best ways that you can create an engaging PowerPoint presentation is to think of the whole thing as if you were telling a story. Before you even choose your template, color scheme, or font, write out an outline of your presentation on a piece of *gasp* actual paper. Develop a hook to capture your audience’s attention and plan out a clear beginning, middle, and end for your information. If you’re the kind of person who needs to write out everything you’re going to say, go for it! The better prepared you are, the better you can practice, and the better you can perform when the time comes.

Which brings me to my next point… you have to practice! Even if you’re the best public speaker in the world, you should take a little bit of time to work through any bugs in your presentation. Practice speaking with enthusiasm and at least a little bit of bravado. If your presentation is long and covers a lot of material, this is an especially crucial step before you get up in front of a crowd.

PowerPoint Presentation

(Pixabay / janjf93)

People tend to read whatever is up on the screen, so if you want them to pay attention to you, keep the on-screen words to a minimum or wait to put up an abbreviated bullet point until the moment you are ready to talk about it.

And never – NEVER – write up full paragraphs of material and then read it word-for-word off of the screen. Even having to write that made me die a little on the inside.

Consider the audience

Depending on the type of material that you are presenting, you can go about this a few different ways. One thing that all presenters should do is maintain eye contact with their audience members. You should have practiced enough before the big day that even if you don’t have every single word written out on a notecard in front of you, you know what you should be talking about on each slide.

Keep your audience intrigued by asking good questions – either rhetorical or for actual audience participation – and create meaningful pauses so that the audience can chew on your information. Set a good pace – not too slow and not too fast – and if you notice that the audience is getting restless, modify your approach. One good way to keep interest through a long presentation is to include quality graphics, appropriate quotations, and interesting statistics relating to the subject matter.

Things to Avoid

Most likely, those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad demonstrations we spoke of earlier had one or more of these flaws.

Clipart

So 1990s.

Too many images

Whether they are stock photos or high-quality graphics, an overabundance of images can be boring and distracting. Only include images or videos that enhance your message. In other words, be selective.

Light fonts on dark backgrounds

This may make your information seem mysterious, but it’s also harder to read. As much as possible, you should use light backgrounds with dark fonts.  If you are bound to a standard company template that is the opposite, just increase your font size by a few points.

Fancy fonts

Selecting fonts is arguably the most fun part of designing a PowerPoint, but you should stick with basic sans-serif fonts (fonts with out swirlies) if you want your audience to stay engaged. Fancy fonts are best left to invitations and Christmas cards, not PowerPoint presentations.

Blocks of text

I mentioned this earlier, but it’s worth repeating. Don’t include large paragraphs in your PowerPoint – they’re distracting and hard to read. Your audience will no doubt read faster in their heads than you can read aloud, which creates a disjointed experience.

Transition effects/sound effects

Transitions and effects may be fun to create, but they can be distracting to your viewers. Keep to a standard transition, and leave out the sound effects altogether.

 

Alternatives to PowerPoint

 

If you’re tired of using PowerPoint but still need a presentation platform, there are some really fun alternatives online. Prezi, Glisser, Canva, and Visme are all engaging and exciting options, though they do take a little bit of time to beat the learning curve.

Whatever presentation platform you choose, the above suggestions can help you take your presentation game to the next level so that your audience stays alert, attentive, and drool-free.

Five Tips for Getting Guest Posting Gigs

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a writer who has felt the swift slap of rejection one too many times, or you’re new to the guest blogging game, and you want to start off on the right foot.

Guest blogging is a fantastic way to show that you’re an expert in your field, make a little bit of moolah, gain exposure, and direct traffic to your own website. It’s been a growing trend over the last few years, but there is a right and wrong way to go about it.  Well, maybe not wrong, per se, but extremely time-consuming and inefficient – not to mention soul-crushing when you get yet another rejection letter.

Here are a few tips to help you succeed in the arena of guest blogging:

Approach guest posting like a job interview

In other words, do your research. Take the time to read through a website’s About Me page and jot down notes about how their goals and yours align. Blog owners want to see that you’ve made the effort to get to know them, their brand, and their ideals. Don’t ask them questions that you could find the answer to if you poked around for a bit. When you reach out to a website, use an editor’s or owner’s name, and be specific. Your introduction letter should demonstrate that you mean business.

Come prepared to guest post

Before you submit anything to, or even make contact with, the blog owner, read through their archives. Take note of whether they have had guest bloggers, and only write article proposals for topics that are relevant and novel. Your chances of getting a guest post approved on a dog care blog are slim if you’re writing about different breeds of cats. Writing about how muscle tone in young dogs can prevent arthritis in old dogs might get you a little farther in your quest to become a guest blogger. Better yet, a blog about daily exercises you can do to help alleviate discomfort in arthritic dogs might get you more points. Throw in some details about safe, natural supplements, and you could be sitting pretty.

Guest Posting Gigs

(Pixabay / kaboompics)

The point is, if you want a blog owner to take you seriously, you need to come to them as prepared as possible. Try to think of an answer to every question before they can ask it, and don’t leave anything to chance as you write your article. Keep the tone light and conversational throughout your article, and touch on every aspect of the topic. If you think that a fluffy piece that has been written a hundred other times is going to see the light of day, you are sorely mistaken.

Don’t get offended and don’t offend

Writing is a very personal journey for many people, so it’s easy to get offended when someone suggests revisions to your article – especially if you genuinely believe that you know better. That said, remember, they are doing something for you, so it’s in your best interest to play nice.

For the most part, blog owners won’t make any significant changes to your article without at least talking with you first, but if they do, don’t explode. If you genuinely feel that you need to pick that fight, take a moment to cool off first, and then approach the blog owner professionally and calmly. Getting offended or offending someone else is a really good way to shoot yourself in the foot and ruin your chances of getting other guest post gigs in the future.

Blog owners really like it when you work with them toward a common goal. Don’t bail right after they post your piece – instead, stick around, answer questions and reply to comments in the comments section, and build a rapport with your readers. The benefits here are two-fold: you keep the blog owner happy, and you build a relationship with viewers that can translate to more traffic on your site.

Remember, SEO is important for guest posting

Before you move forward with guest blogging, make sure that you understand your objective. Are you trying to get exposure using the clout of a larger company? Is your goal to get more traffic and backlinks to your website? Do you want the traffic to buy a product from you, or do you have another result in mind? The answer to each of these questions should drive how you write and why, so if you don’t have a clear goal in mind, you could be spending a lot of time writing quality content that gets you nowhere. Furthermore, understand the objectives of the outlet that you’re writing for so you can help them help you help them.

You may be tempted during the guest-blog-pitching-process to send out as many article proposals as possible, which will most likely result in poor quality. You need to take your time and write these articles well. Not only does it give you a better shot at getting your article published, but it also improves the SEO of the content you write, which increases your exposure when you’re published because Google values quality over quantity. Including well-structured content and backlinks to supporting data with proper anchor text, shows website editors that you’re a serious writer, and it also puts you in a good spot for SEO purposes.

Edit, for heaven’s sake!

This is a no-brainer, but for heaven’s sake, don’t submit anything unless you have taken the time to proofread and edit. Subpar work – or even spectacular work – with silly mistakes is most likely bound for the trash bin. If you need to run it by another set of eyes, by all means, do it. Don’t waste your and the blog owner’s time by sending in shoddy work.

The Take-Away

Guest posting on a reputable blog can be a great way to direct traffic to your website and make more conversions. If you go about things the right way, you will have greater success in scoring those guest gigs.

Why Website Colors Matter

Whether you’re creating a website for the first time, or you feel like your current website needs a facelift, choosing the right colors to use is a good place to start. The problem with beginning there, however, is that the sheer volume of available color schemes can be overwhelming, which can lead to a lot of wasted time – or worse – colors that distract from your company message.

Why website colors are important

Studies show that a website’s color scheme makes quite an impact right from the start.

Creates first impressions

You might have heard that love is the universal language, but you might counter that color is. Color influences people and their decision-making processes within a few milliseconds of seeing it. Think about it, playgrounds are bursting with color, but you don’t usually see that kind of visual excitement in a hospital because hospitals need to show cleanliness, calmness, and compassion. Schools tend to lean toward light blues, greys, and beiges to encourage focus while the Apple Store is a stark white that conveys practical excellence without customers even needing to step foot inside.

Website Colors

(Pixabay / ivanovgood)

If you don’t have an actual storefront, your website’s color scheme is even more critical to your company’s success. It is your first chance to capture your audience’s attention and can lead to some near-instant judgments upon the first click.

Influences feelings toward your product

Let’s start with a hypothetical situation: You’ve recently acquired a professional hockey team, and you’re looking to do a little bit of rebranding. Since the colors peach and cornflower blue are your favorites, you decide to redo the website, and it didn’t take long for your fans to revolt. Peach and cornflower?? What is this? A flower shop from the 1980s?

Chances are good that your team’s fans are used to some pretty vibrant tones because colors are well-known to influence feelings. Here’s a look at the emotions that are commonly associated with certain colors.

Color Example Companies Feeling
Red Coca Cola, Legos, Pinterest Red often elicits feelings of excitement and youthful exuberance.
Orange Fanta, Harley Davidson, Amazon Companies that use orange as a part of their branding often want to convey confidence in their product or that their product is friendly or cheerful.
Yellow Best Buy, McDonald’s, IMDB Yellow is often used as an accent color, but when you see it on the center stage of a company’s brand, they’re often bringing clarity or optimism to a situation.
Green Whole Foods, BP, John Deere These companies usually have a vested interest in health or the environment.
Blue Lowes, Oral-B, Pfizer Blue is easily the most popular color for both men and women, so companies that want to appeal to a wide audience often use it. That said, blue is often a symbol for dependability and trust. Coincidence?
Purple Yahoo!, Hallmark, Cadbury Purple is the color of choice for companies that want to show their creativity and imagination. Think Willy Wonka and his Everlasting Gobstoppers, Pixy Stix, Runts, and Laffy Taffies.
Black, White, Grey New York Times, Apple Monochromatic colors like white, black, and grey often symbolize calm, balance, and no-nonsense information.
Rainbow Google, Windows While many logos have a few colors, companies that expressly use several bold colors as part of their brand are often shooting for diversity.

Draws attention to specific elements

While it’s important to keep to your color scheme, color has a way of directing people toward their next move. Varying up some of your colors can draw attention to specific details on your page. If your main color scheme includes monochromatic blues and greys, a pop of orange for your Call-to-Action (CTA) can help turn views into conversions.

Makes web design just a little bit easier

Let’s face it- if you have a standard color scheme, your job of designing your website gets a little easier. If your CTAs are always one color, you don’t have to think twice when you add a new one. Similarly, if all of your pages are arranged the same, your customers don’t have to think so hard about where to find information. It’s a win-win.

Brand recognition

Chances are pretty good that if you are on Facebook’s website, you know it without reading anything on the page. Their medium blue stripe across the top is a standard, tell-tale aspect of their branding, and you can follow their lead with your own website. Keep your page elements and colors standard across your entire website, so your customers don’t have to wonder if they accidentally left your site.

Types of Color Schemes

There are several different kinds of color schemes out there, but the four most common are monochromatic, analogous, triadic, and complementary.

Monochromatic colors

Monochromatic color schemes are often used to make the viewers feel safe and calm. They are usually comprised of several shades of the same color, so everything blends effortlessly.

Analogous colors

These color palettes are made up of several colors next to each other on the color wheel. The combination of red, orange, and yellow creates an analogous color scheme. These are often vibrant groupings, but they are difficult to do well without seeming overly busy.

Triadic colors

This is a little less well-known than some of the other options, but it’s still a good choice. Basically, you are making an equilateral triangle on the color wheel. Two examples of this palette are lime green, scarlet, and indigo, or blue, red, and yellow.

Complementary colors

Complementary colors are located on opposite sides of the color wheel. Examples of a complementary color scheme are yellow and purple, green and red, and orange and blue. These color pairings are automatically pleasing to the eye, so they’re a solid direction to go.

How to test website colors

If you are looking for feedback on your web design, you can always ask trusted friends, family, and co-workers what they think, but you have another option. Some websites will let you test out color schemes and analyze what parts of your website grab customer attention effectively. These sites create what looks suspiciously like a heat map to help you see where you have emphasis and where you might still need color to help you highlight an important aspect of the page.