Content is still king in 2015, but how do you generate meaningful social media that provides VALUE? By focusing on creating content that will be: Visual Amuse             and by making sure you Listen Unify Engage with your audience.   VISUAL A picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes a thousand clicks. When you scroll through your news feed on your smart phone, what catches your eye? Photo posts account for 93% of the most engaging posts on Facebook. Photos on Facebook generate 53% more likes than the average text only post (Hubspot 2012). Use pictures and video to your advantage by creating compelling images that share the story of your brand and its impact, your brand’s history, and celebrate your customers. AMUSE Even the most conservative brands and organizations can have fun. Show your wittier side and your fans will love you. Think about the unpredictable humor behind…

Content is still king in 2014, but how do you generate meaningful social media that provides VALUE? By focusing on creating content that will be: Visual Amusing       and by making sure you Listen Unify Engage with your audience. VISUAL A picture is worth a thousand words, and sometimes a thousand clicks. When you scroll through your news feed on your smart phone, what catches your eye? Photo posts account for 93% of the most engaging posts on Facebook. Photos on Facebook generate 53% more likes than the average text only post (Hubspot 2012). Use pictures and video to your advantage by creating compelling images that share the story of your brand and its impact, your brand’s history, and celebrate your customers. AMUSE Even the most conservative brands and organizations can have fun. Show your wittier side and your fans will love you. Think about the unpredictable humor behind such…

Facebook is late to the hashtag game, but with 1.15 billion users, it really doesn’t matter. Use the hashtag effectively and you can harness its power to grow your brand or further connect your message with your target audience. This infographic from PiJnz Tips for using hastags Don’t overdo hastags – use them sparingly and not in every post. Hashtags must be all one word (no spaces). Capitalization doesn’t matter. Before you use a hashtag, do research and ensure that it will work. Encourage users to make their posts public to increase reach. What has been your experience with hashtags?

“We are afraid of wasting money on social media. What’s our ROI (return on investment?)” said a potential client recently. I understand the hesitance, especially from organizations that have successfully fundraised, or sold goods, for decades through more traditional means such as events and direct mail. I understand their concern. It’s a legitimate one. What should they do? Here’s my answer: Continue doing what’s working. If you are finding success through direct mail, it would be foolish to stop pursuing it. But also look at trends and costs. Most likely you are seeing a diminishing return on your investments in these campaigns. With good strategy and planning you can incorporate social media tools inside your traditional advertisement or appeals. Reach a new audience while you can. There are great groups of people that do not respond to letters of appeal or glossy brochures. If you don’t engage them now, you…

I love the instant and concise nature of Twitter as well as the quick feedback and the community I’ve enjoyed being a part of it. However, I have seen a lot of people misuse and even abuse Twitter. So here are my top 5 Tweeves (Twitter Peeves): Twittarrhea: An unstoppable string of running Tweets for no reason. If you have 12 tweets within an hour, something very important, dangerous, or extremely cool should be happening. Otherwise, don’t punish us for your boredom. Twitteralogue: A long Twitter dialogue between two people. If you want to text your best friend, then great…text him, but please don’t have a long private conversation on Twitter. I really don’t want to know that you use Yukon Gold potatoes for mashing. Remember, you can use the direct tweet option for your personal, confidential, and or boring conversation. Twittertising: Uncontrolled self promotion of goods and/or services. Ok,…

“Every good idea must have a similar, but yet inferior Christian version.”  Unfortunately, I think that’s a sad reality these days. I have lost count of the times I was asked if my company, The A Group, could help a church or ministry to create a Christian version of Facebook. Seriously.  Should every church have its own alternative to Facebook? For some un-Biblical reason, we Christians find the need to abandon our culture and gather together in what I call the  “Christian Ghetto.” The Christian Ghetto is a place where you go to hang out with your Christian friends, fill up a website with Christian pictures and Christian videos of lots of happy people, bad preaching and youth camp promos. There’s not much witnessing and shedding of light in the ghetto since everyone is already convinced and the place is way too bright as is. I understand the need for…

I have been puzzled about Google’s inability to do well in the social media space. I have watched them take over Blogger and instead of making it better and more relevant, they managed to lose market share. There were another string of failures like Dogeball, Jaiku, Lively, Buzz and Wave. Even Orkut, the largest social network in Brazil, is now losing the Brazilians to Facebook. I have seen several of my friends migrate from Orkut recently. It wasn’t until a recent article in FastCompany profiling Larry Page, Google’s CEO, that I got a clue into the search giant’s ineptitude at social media. As it turns out, Larry does not use social media. Now it all makes perfect sense. Organizational culture is driven from the top. It makes sense that what the leadership values, their passion and interests get researched, funded and developed. It’s interesting to me that such a large…

Social media has changed my life. That’s a bold statement but I really mean it. The latest impact has been on how I travel. It has created an entire new dynamic experiencing that has enhanced the joys of discovering new places, meeting new people and eating well. Recently I was planning a trip to eastern Europe which I’m currently on, and tweeted that I was going to visit Prague. One of my tweeter followers Jennifer Lyn King, saw the post and reached out to me. She’s a Texan living in Prague with her family. Since she has followed me for a while she knows my love of good food and recommended several great local restaurants most tourists would never find, and where reservations a week ahead are a must. She also took time to meet us face-to-face and give us a tour of the city. What a great way to…

I was recently reminded of a failed social media campaign that started with a lot of promise but went nowhere. For all practical purposes the campaign is still going because there are “posts” being created everyday. As I reflect what went wrong, here’s my assessment: Blog content is never fresh. It is re purposed from old material. It’s edited, sanitized and packaged but it lacks soul and relevance. There are no personal posts in the blog, twitter or Facebook. And the reason why there are no personal posts is because the author delegated his entire campaign to someone else. The few people who began following early on quickly figured that the author was not the one posting and stopped following. Readers were ignored. Early on when people commented on posts, they were ignored. So they stop commenting, and eventually reading it. Posts are monologues. There are no questions, no interactivity,…

“I’m too busy to keep up with my friends. I just don’t have time to engage people like I want to.” I hear these words quite often these days. We are busy and some of us have families, jobs, and even school to deal with on a daily basis. Who has time to pursue or maintain any more relationships? While I’m sympathetic to such a reality, I also know that the best life has to offer, including business, is usually found in the context of relationships. I have found that using 3 simple tools has given me the chance to keep up with key relationships, some even in different continents. Text messaging. Text messages are the fastest, most dynamic way to reach someone. It’s instant and designed to be succinct. Most smart phones will accept pictures and video as well. I even use text to communicate with a group of…