Erik Qualman's Blog, page 519

Reasons Why Your Followers Aren’t Engaging with Your Tweets

Twitter can be one of the most important platforms that you can use to promote yourself, whether you want to get more traffic to your business website or blog, or just have a good means of connecting with people for your own views, thoughts and jokes! Of course, Twitter is not just about broadcasting things, you really want to get some dialog going and to know people are reacting to what you post. It can therefore be very frustrating when you aren’t getting the level of replies or retweets you’d hope for proportional to the number of followers you have. So what are some of the reasons why your followers may not be engaging?

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People Aren’t Seeing Your Tweets

Twitter is extremely fast moving, and people’s feeds end up with thousands of tweets in them every day. It is virtually impossible for anyone who follows a reasonable number of accounts to see everything, and not everyone is checking Twitter constantly. This means your links to your posts or cleverly crafted Tweets are only seen by a proportion of your followers.

Do some research into what time of day your followers are most active. Are they mainly in your time zone? Are they people who seem to go on Twitter at lunchtime? Schedule your tweets rather than posting them when you feel like it, especially if you work at hours when you wouldn’t expect your main audience to be online. Also, if you have something you are very keen to have seen, like a link to your latest article or a special offer, don’t be afraid to keep tweeting it throughout the day and then tweet some links to it later in the week too.

Your Tweets Don’t Draw Attention

Your tweets may not be catching the eye of the people who see them – possibly because you are still doing things the way you used to when Twitter was new. While you are still limited to 140 characters, a lot more tweets have images these days, and these not only take up more screen real estate for your followers, they also draw the eye. Using a good image in your tweets will get them noticed, and inspire more engagement.

You Aren’t Engaging Either

Don’t expect your followers to make the first move. Many Twitter accounts just broadcast things, and don’t really ‘talk’ to other users. If your account appears to be one of them, people will be less likely to engage with you as they won’t be expecting a response. Reply to other people’s tweets, or as specific users what they think in your posts. The more you are tweeting at others, the more they will engage.

Getting engagement from your Twitter users is something that requires you to actively chase it. Ask for retweets, start conversations, and make your tweets stand out, as well as making sure the largest possible audience sees your most important tweets by timing them right and repeating links to your best content.

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Today’s Biz and Buzz – What Would Steve Jobs Say About Apple Pencil?

THE STORY – APPLE PENCIL

One of the most talked about points from the Apple event was the Apple Pencil. The Apple Pencil is a stylus that can only be used with the new iPad Pro (Source: Business Insider). Apple showed the pencil being used to draw and create graphics, which is a good idea in theory.

“Who wants a stylus?”

Criticism hit the web saying that Steve Jobs would hate the Apple Pencil. One of Jobs’ famous rants was one about how much he hates styluses (Source: CNN).

DA SKIM

For $99, you can have an Apple Pencil but also need to purchase the $800 iPad Pro to be able to put the Pencil to use (Source: Business Insider).

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Let the countdown begin.”

The new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus are available to preorder on September 12th and will ship on Friday, September 23rd (Source: Wired). This sounds like a much better option than camping outside the Apple store for weeks.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…

Ah, viral videos. The most recent video to have the internet freaking out about happened on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Wednesday night. Former boybander, Justin Timberlake, was the judge of a lip sync battle between Ellen DeGeneres and Jimmy Fallon…and yes, it was as amazing as it sounds. Check out the video here.

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The Clickbait Debate: Does It Work for a Social Media Strategy?

This is a post that may not have the answer you want to hear. If you look at the best social media hooks of the past year, the content that truly went viral—the ASL ice bucket challenge, Emma Watson speaking in front of the UN, Alex the Target eye candy—you would think there is something to be said for being bold, a bit crazy and out there, and gaining clicks on social media. But is it worth it in your brand’s social media strategy?

What is the Clickbait Debate?

For those who are unfamiliar, social media marketers and SEO specialists have been debating whether or not using clickbait is a positive strategy in getting online users to your site. The idea behind this strategy is to get as many clicks as possible. Period. Relevance and quality is only important if it’s going to lead to clicks. More often then not, however, it’s the headlines that get the clicks for a clickbait article, which is why they are so commonly found on social media.

According to Wordstream, clickbait typically offers an eye-catching or compelling headline and is easily read. Clickbait is often funny or offers memorable content, such as images and video. If it does not necessarily have a humorous tone, it typically appeals strongly to a specific emotion, and it is then meant to be shared on social media by the people who view it. Check out some great examples here.

The Upside of Clickbait

There is always a positive side to strategies like clickbait. People wouldn’t be debating it if it didn’t work for some, right? Plus, clickbait is also fun for social marketers to develop and it can be fun to develop really tempting and sensational headlines. Some of these benefits include more page views, a greater potential for social shares and increased content sharing, and increased brand awareness.

If you have all of these things, then your website will have higher metrics in certain areas which could help your advertising and help you earn more opportunities. If you get more clicks you also have a better chance that someone will click around and navigate to other pages of your site, so hopefully at this point all of your metrics will improve (conversions, downloads and signups, etc.).

The Reasons Clickbait Shouldn’t be Your Primary Goal for Social Sharing

While there do seem to be some positives to clickbait, in my opinion it is ultimately created for the wrong reasons. The intention is to get users to click and visit your site, but it doesn’t necessarily capture your intended target audience. So while you may be getting more visits, you are not necessarily capturing those who are genuinely interested in your brand.

Ultimately, the bad outweighs the good in this scenario. Here are some reasons why clickbait should not be the first thing you think of when you want to increase social media sharing. There are really three reasons I see that clickbait is a negative focus for your social media strategy.

Sensationalism does not have the attractiveness it used to in the past.

When something works well at first, it doesn’t mean that it works forever. There was definitely a phase where being as bold and eyes catching as possible, regardless of who you appealed to, generally worked. However, as we discussed earlier, your primary goal should be to address your target audience, and really capture the attention of those who are going to maintain an interest in your brand and not just those who are drawn in by your headline.

Clickbait that is misleading can damage reputation and kill trust.

Again, while clickbait has advantages for gaining attention and getting more visits to your page, your primary goal is the audience who will want to be returning customers. If those who really care about your brand observe that you are just trying to gain attention from anyone, you could lose your integrity and overall trust with those who should ultimately matter the most. Not everything has to be exciting and eye-catching—sometimes being honest and sincere can be the most attractive to existing and potential clients.

Pageviews really aren’t everything.

There is no doubt that clickbait boosts pageviews. In fact, this is one of the primary arguments for why clickbait works. However, the point that should be clear by now is that page views mean nothing if people aren’t taking a genuine interest in your brand. Sure, your ranking or SEO cold be boosted, but in a long term social marketing plan, it is far more important to gain a true and loyal brand following from those who really believe in what you have to offer. Many companies want high CTR so that their conversions can improve. If that doesn’t happen, then the CTR isn’t overly important.

The Solution to the Debate

So what is the solution and how do we resolve the clickbait debate, once and for all? There are some awesome opinions and solutions that I feel are important to draw on in this article, and there are a lot of wonderful studies on how to create interesting headlines. Below are a few tips that may make your social media strategy more appealing, while maintaining a sincere tie to your business model and goals.

Create the Best Content Possible

Your primary goal in social marketing should be to develop the best content possible. There is no sense increasing your clicks if you do not stand by the content that you are producing and associating with your brand. Do your best to create the best content possible, because once you do get that click, you want to be sure the content people land on is worthwhile.

Choose Topics Wisely

Before you set out to create content, do the proper research and spend time in making sure that what you are creating and associating with your brand is the best that it can be. One thing to consider is to search for trends that will help promote your ideas, and build a schedule that you can stick to day in and day out. Many find this to be the hardest part of social media marketing, so I recommend checking out this article to learn more.

Your Headlines Mean A Lot

One thing that can be learned from the clickbait debate is that headlines do make a difference. One thing that can help is using a tool like Headline Analyzer to help determine the overall appeal of your headline. This will help to insure that you are sticking to your guns, and overall idea of your brand, while also taking topics of interest in the social media realm into consideration.

The Takeaway

Ultimately, gaining clicks and page views is not nearly as important is the integrity of your brand, and specifically the content you are associated with your business. Gaining attention will mean noting if it is from the wrong audience. While you want to create interesting and captivating headlines, you also want to build the most successful social marketing strategy possible.

Do you have thoughts on the clickbait debate? How have you created alluring headlines while maintaining brand constancy and integrity? Let us know in the comments section below, we would love to hear from you.

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Social Media, Confidence & a Whole Lot More

Social Media, Confidence, & Pakistan …

A new movement has emerged in which Pakistani women are using social media to change the norm. So how and what are they doing to challenge the status quo? It all started when a female student decided to start a blog posting pictures of herself, and other women in male dominated public spaces. Just a reminder, for Pakistani women it is not commonplace for them to walk around tea shops, stores, and streets by themselves. However this social media  movement is changing that. Collaboratively women are gaining the confidence to explore the public spaces they once feared. It’s even started to reach sports. Women have been posting videos and pictures of themselves playing cricket and cycling. Can you say, you go girl.

Da Skimm

Verizon is showing some serious love to millennials. We think they’re getting pretty serious too. Recently Verizon announced they’re launching a mobile video service for tablets and phones aimed at their new bffs, millennials. The platform will be called Go90 and will be perfect for watching live events like NFL games. Go90 will be fully accessible by the end of the month and includes conglomerates like Discovery, Scipps, and Viacom. We wonder how this will help the millennial stereotype. ( Source Fox news)

Fun Facts

Google launched Fun Facts a perfect way to kill any productivity you may have. We dare you to type in Fun Facts into Google and press enter. A small box will appear with a random question and answer. The new feature allows you to ask any burning question you may have which may be the perfect way to kill productivity.  (Source Forbes)

 

Millennials I’m talking to you, check out the campus need-to-know.

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Taking Your Corporate Events Social to Achieve Higher ROI

If you are hosting a corporate event, chances are you have put a decent amount of money into it. You need to pay for things like a location, equipment, staffing, food, and many other things, and the final bill is unlikely to be cheap. However, you are doing all of this in the hopes that it will yield you a decent ROI, so that you can generate more business for your company. One way of making your corporate event even more profitable is to incorporate social media into it. By taking your corporate event social, you are likely to increase your return, while keeping your investment small.

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There are several reasons why you should incorporate a social element into your corporate events. First and foremost, is that it will allow you to reach a wider audience. Not everyone is going to be able to travel to your event, so by using social media, you can reach people who were unable to attend. Now instead of only getting a few local businesses to show up, your event can be shared with hundreds of companies all over the world. The second reason is that utilizing social media is simple to do. Using just the bare minimum would require a few of your staff members to be on social media accounts talking about the event, and even doing just this will have a large impact.

Social media apps on your phone make sharing events like these easier than ever before, so you don’t need to be an expert to add a social media element to your event. Lastly, there is the cost. Having your staff use apps on their phones is probably not going to cost you much, and yet the return could be great.

If you want to do more than that, MIG.CC is a leader in corporate event production.  They are the type of firm that will handle everything for you. This will obviously raise the cost a little bit more, but it will also increase the return.

Once you’ve decided that you want to add a social media element to your event, there are a few ways to get started. First, we suggest signing up for Twitter if you haven’t already, and using it to promote your event. Create Hashtags MONTHS prior to the event to get your event trending as it nears. Possibly advertise a tad on Twitter / FB as well. Post up signs around the event informing your guests of the hashtag so that they can also use it to discuss your event on Twitter.

After that, we recommend looking into the Twitter companion app Periscope. This app is used for live streaming, and is very easy to use. All you need is for someone to walk around the event using the app, showing anyone who would like to watch what is going on. If there are presentations or speeches being given, have this person broadcast it live through the app. Encourage other people at the event to use this app as well to increase your exposure.

The last method we suggest for going social is to set up a YouTube live event. For this you will most likely need a bit of equipment to ensure that the quality of the broadcast is good. The benefit of using YouTube is that it will allow for potentially millions of people to watch the broadcast at the same time, right from their smartphone or computer. It also allows for a better quality than apps like Periscope. If your event is going to have a lot of speakers and presentations, and you think there will be a wide audience interested in hearing them, then setting up a YouTube event may be the way to go.

Adding a social element to your event is one of the best ways that you can promote it. Social media has a way of reaching an unprecedented amount of people, and by tapping into its potential, you are increasing the exposure that your event receives. Best of all is that you don’t have to spend a fortune to have a good social presence, so you can really increase your ROI. So the next time you are planning an event, look for ways to increase your social outreach if you really want it to be a success.

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Why you should pay to translate your social media

The global market is now far easier to access due to advances in technology. With this has come the need to translate businesses into the various popular languages of the internet. Social media is important here as one of the largest devices companies use to keep a dialogue with customers.

However a quick go on Google translate won’t cut it when translating a tweet or post into your target language. Localization (something google translate cannot provide) is key to any social media campaign – but especially when it comes to translating.

 

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Do not alienate your audience with bad translation

This is simple and perhaps obvious, but you’d be surprised how often companies mistranslate on social media. By using free translation services errors slip through the cracks.

If potential customers see posts with disconnected wording or terrible grammar they will be instantly alienated and turned off by your social media presence. It looks unprofessional.

It is always better to use a professional translation service for any kind of business translation. A good translation company will use translators whose first language is the target language and thus they will have the best grasp on how to translate.

 

The little things DO matter

From popular acronyms to emojis, it is important to make sure you have them just right. Professional business translation services like  London Translations show how things like emojis can get lost in translation. In one culture an emoji may mean something entirely different to another culture.

It is also important to get things just so. Using popular acronyms and slang can make the difference in making your social media presence feel authentic in another language.

 

Know your demographic

Leading on from the last point, localization cannot be stressed enough in business translations, especially when it comes to marketing. The only real way to get things entirely right is to know your demographic incredibly well. Research is key.

Social media presence in translation does not just rely on your target language but also on your target audience. What may be the correct language to use for a Spanish translation aimed at middle aged SMB owners will likely be very different to something aimed at young professionals in the tech industry.

The best way to integrate your social media presence effortlessly is to work with a translator that knows your industry and your target audiences, as well as being from the country of your target language.

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United Airlines CEO Steps Down

THE STORY UNITED AIRLINES CEO STEPS DOWN

Six months ago, United Airlines disclosed that it was under a federal investigation for what was thought to be political favors (Source: TheSkimm). The believed political favor was the airline added a direct flight from Newark Airport to an airport in Columbia, SC which just so happened to be near the former chairman of New York Port Authority, David Samson, summer home (Source: The Huffington Post). The flight was not a profitable one and it turns out that four days after Samson resigned from Port Authority, United cancelled the Newark to Columbia flight…which doesn’t seem to be a coincidence (Source: Bloomberg).

Bye, bye, bye…

Tuesday afternoon, United announced that Jeff Smisek would resign immediately (Source: Forbes). Smisek wasn’t the only one to resign because of the investigation, so did United’s executive vice president of communications and government affairs and its senior vice president of corporate and government affairs (Source: Forbes). If Smisek had read What Happens in Vegas Stays on YouTube, he wouldn’t be in this hot mess.

DA SKIM

On Tuesday, United said that the investigation was “ongoing and the company continues to cooperate with the government” but nothing else (Source: Forbes). Oscar Munoz, who is part of United’s board of directors, will take over as CEO and President (Source: Forbes). Let’s wish him luck.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “I’m sorry.”

The media had a field day a couple months back when it was discovered that Hilary Clinton was using a private email server. After months of news headlines, Clinton apologized in an interview with ABC News’ “World News Tonight with David Muir” (Source: CNN). Clinton said, “I’m sorry about that, I take responsibility and I am trying to be as transparent as I possibly can.” Later in the interview she said she was sorry for all the questions it had raised. In order to try and do some damage control, Clinton also took to Facebook to apologize (Source: CNN). Clinton should have known that privacy is dead.

THAT’LL BE $2.4 BILLION…

Media General Inc. bought Meredith Corp. for the deal of $2.4 billion on Tuesday. This purchase follows a trend of the U.S broadcast industry consolidating stations (Source: The Wall Street Journal). Media General operates around 71 television stations and Meredith Corp. operates 17 local TV stations along with magazines Family Circle and Better Home and Garden.  The two together will reach about 34 million homes with their 88 stations (Source: The Wall Street Journal).

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Myspace Selfies Rise from the Dead: Great Marketing Tactic or Just Creeptastic?

While it seems like Facebook has been around forever, social media sites have come and gone for years now. Remember sites like Friendster? Open Diary? Xanga? Most seem to just fade away into non-existence, while others try to reinvent themselves and focus on a particular audience. That seems like what’s happened with Myspace – it’s become more of a social media site dedicated to music, but it’s trying, a little bit too much, to get its old users, which once numbered over 300 million, back.

Myspace Emails Old Users

Myspace email sent to @anterobot on Twitter

Since 2008, Myspace has largely faded off the radar of most people. To remind its old users that their profiles still exist, along with their “top 8” friends and a plethora of old photos, the social media site emailed many of their old users with the tagline, “Your photos, redelivered.” The Myspace email, naturally, also featured a few old photos, some dating back to 2005. The goal of course was to get users to visit Myspace again, and hopefully keep using their site. But did this marketing tactic work?

Nostalgia Marketing

In terms of nostalgia marketing, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that it got people talking about Myspace again – even if it was to bemoan the fact their old photos are horrible. And therein lies the problem, and why it also didn’t work. Myspace’s email boasted every user’s profile features, “The good, the rad and the what were you thinking…”

But according to most people who took to a different social media site, Twitter, to talk about Myspace’s email, they don’t like what they see, and it’s more like, the good, the bad, and the ugly… and yes, a lot of “what were we thinking.” As such, according to what’s been tweeted, some people simply put the email into trash and never logged into Myspace to take a look at what other “horrible” photos they have on their profile.

While nostalgia is often triggered by a negative emotion, like loneliness, nostalgia marketing typically works best when it makes someone feel good – not embarrassed, as most people seem to be when they see their old photos that Myspace chose to send them. Nostalgia marketing also works best when it’s both meaningful in a personal way and involves people important to your target audience, like significant others, family and friends. While the photos may have featured people and things important to users, it largely failed in getting users to start using the social media site again.

After all, what are embarrassing photos encouraging people to do? Go back and clean up their profiles, or even delete them entirely? Myspace would have been better served by focusing on their current target audience – musicians, bands and lovers of music – and tailoring their marketing to that group.

Reminder: Clean Up Your Online Presence

The biggest lesson in Myspace’s creeptastic faux pas? That it’s time to clean up your online presence. Sure, some of your photos may seem innocent enough, whether it’s you about to ride your motorcycle or a shot of the beach you’re visiting, but others can be downright embarrassing.

While Myspace reportedly – according to Mashable – houses 15 billion photos, a pittance compared to Facebook’s 250 billion photos, that’s still a ton of photos from a whole plethora of users. And in those photos there might be some embarrassing shots that you wouldn’t want a prospective boss, or even a prospective date, to see. So whether you start using Myspace again – or not – it just might be time to revisit that Myspace profile.

Is it a marketing win for the social media site though? Sure, people are talking about Myspace for the first time in years, but it’s still not a win if people start deleting the photos that have brought about this latest buzz – or their profiles entirely.

Images: | @anterobot | @BigLewyB

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Advancement of Mobile Processors & Future of Computing

Mobile processors have come a long way. It’s a tired cliché now, but the device that you carry around in your pocket every day really does have more computing power than the computers that sent Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon. We simply take for granted that computers will become ever more capable as time marches on. And not without reason, as processors become smaller and faster every year.

Of course, this begs the question: what possible developments can the future hold? If our phones and tablets can do the things that they do now, imagine what they’ll be capable of 10 years from now. Consider this: smartphones as we know them are less than a decade old. When PCs were a decade old, the year was 1985. Needless to say, the future is exciting.

From Small Beginnings

That mobile devices are as powerful as they are, particularly so early in their development, is no small feat. Though computers like the iMac incorporate a slim design as a point of pride, most of today’s PCs still utilize towers. This construction allows for multiple (large) processors and graphics cards to be installed quickly and easily. Adding computing power to PCs is something of a non-event; they have the luxury of space (and cooling) and the processors don’t need to be shock-resistant. Smartphones and tablets have no such luxury. Mobile processors have a lot more hurdles to overcome than their PC brethren.

Only ongoing technological innovation allows today’s top mobile devices’ processors to perform at the level they do. Thanks to continuous research and development, the number of transistors on a chip doubles roughly every two years. In fact, this has been true since computer transistors were first invented. There’s even a name for the phenomenon: Moore’s Law. Named after the co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore, this principle still holds true for the most part, even while processors become so small that space is literally running out. Technological advancement is simply a natural byproduct of the industry. As a result, today’s smartphones are almost unrecognizable from those available just seven years ago.

The Future’s So Bright…

I’ve gotta wear shades. At least, so said Pat MacDonald of 80s pop band, Timbuk3. When it comes to mobile devices and the computer industry in general, this sentiment isn’t far off. Don’t believe us? Many of the industry’s most recent announcements represent real gains. SanDisk is promising solid-state drives with 10-year warranties, storage space up to 1TB, and read speeds up to 550MBps; wireless charging, docking, and data transfer could soon become commonplace, all but eliminating the need for wires; and mobile processors like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon are set to become faster and more powerful than ever before, which could finally make the promise of voice and gesture control a reality. Voice and gesture-operated smartphones and smartwatches could bring mobile technology one step closer to its ideal form – an on-demand, always-present resource with an intuitive and enjoyable user experience.

Ultimately, this could be the future. Not necessarily faster computing for the sake of shorter load times (after all, as processing speeds become faster, programs become larger), but advancements in the user interface and overall experience. Mobile devices, regardless of how powerful they become, will always be limited by their screen size. An Android phone will never compare to a high-end personal computer with a 4K (or 8K) monitor. However, it’s also true that a computer will never offer the portability that your smartphone does. Recognizing the unique nature of smartphones, smartwatches, and tablets gives the industry an opportunity to imbue them with unique purpose and function. Should they, we could all be in for a bright future that sees devices incorporated into our lives more seamlessly than ever.

Mobile Devices Aren’t Going Anywhere

Though the jury on smartwatches is still out, there can be no doubt that mobile devices represent the future of personal computing. Traditional desktop computers aren’t going anywhere, and will likely remain a staple in office and school environments for some time to come (even as tablets and smartphones encroach from the edges), but when it comes to having a personal relationship with our computers, mobile is the future. We already see it in media consumption and search statistics – we can likely expect the gap to only get larger moving forward.

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Search and Ease with Mobile

We’ve seen the importance of convenience transforming our tech, digital, and social media experiences over the past months and years. Consumers, as we know, want things at their fingertips – when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it. They don’t want disruption from what they choose to view, and don’t want inconveniences such as leaving the mobile app they’re in in order to continue a content experience.
Brands are adapting. Advertisers (brands) are adapting. And they have to.
The upcoming ios9  is going to go even further.
The preview supposedly boasts some of the following:


the ability to block ads;
search within spotlight for finding something within any app or doc on your device versus having to search multiple apps for what you want to

Why does this matter?

Brands will have to work harder. Content needs to work harder. 
Right now it’s hard to tell how this will affect native ad experiences, but as we are seeing with Hulu (letting consumers opt out of ads completely for a higher price point), consumers will have more choices on what they want to view. So your brand’s content needs to be on point. It needs to be valuable and interesting. It needs to entertain or educate. It needs to be something your consumer target deems worth their time as they run from grabbing their latte to their next meeting.
Is this a bad thing for brands?
Not necessarily. It will weed out those who don’t put in as much effort into their content and other will rise.
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