Andrew Macarthy's Blog, page 27
March 13, 2014
Social Media Calender Template Excel 2014 | Editorial Planner for Social Media
Looking for a social media content calendar template to download for Excel? I first offered on last year, but it was, admittedly, a little basic - certainly usable, but perhaps not as robust as many businesses require. So now, here's my new and improved social media editorial calender template for Excel. Check it out after the break...
Here it is, my latest social media content calendar template:
For each of the main social networks, there is space for you to plan:Time of post.Content type (text, image, video, etc.) Any accompanying copy.Any accompaning hashtags.The post's author.If the post is approved for submission (if applicable).The basic template is still there too, on its own separate tab.
Here's how I put the calendar to use:Open up the calendar and enter the date. Add/Remove the social media channels you use. Fill in the planned social media content for each day.Highlight all the cells of each day to mark them as the activity being completed. Duplicate the calendar into a new worksheet to plan out a new day.
Download the social media content calendar:
Download now
The benefits of a social media content calendar
An editorial calendar will allow you to plan for weeks - or even months - in advance, the content you will be posting to social media. This foresight will prevent you from posting randomly and inconsistently, and also allow you to build themes into the updates you post, by week, month, and season.
Of course, spontaneous posting to social media still has a place, but for the real meat and potatoes of your marketing strategy, a content calendar is very much advised.
Andrew Macarthy is a social media consultant and the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips.
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March 9, 2014
How Ben & Jerry's Uses Images to Delight on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Google+
Ben and Jerry's has millions of passionate followers on social media, and it keeps them engaged by tailoring specific content to the networks that it posts on - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google+.
The ice-cream maker's use of different images for each site ensures that it hits the right spot, wherever its audience is.
Let's take a look at how Ben and Jerry's capitalised on Valentine's Day...
On Facebook, Ben & Jerry's focuses on light-hearted posts that encourage likes, comments, and shares.
Post by Ben & Jerry's.
On Twitter, it sizes its images to be seen fully in the news feed (no expanding necessary) to get the most exposure possible.
Fall in love? We'd rather fall in chocolate! We'll be here for you all day! Happy Valentine's Day! #LoveBenAndJerrys pic.twitter.com/aKU2HcOyIg
— Ben & Jerry's (@benandjerrys) February 14, 2014
On Instagram, the ice-cream brand plays into the arty, creative culture of the app with a carefully-composed shot aimed at a more affluent audience.
On Pinterest, Ben and Jerry's prioritised their "Love" board, which contains lots of "quotes" posts, which are very re-pinnable.
And it even catered to its fans on Google+, re-purposing its Twitter post, but cropping the image into a square to fit best on the platform
Do you have a similar strategy for the social networks you use? Let me know in the comments below!
Andrew Macarthy is a social media consultant and the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips.
Buy 500 Social Media Marketing Tips
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007L50HE6
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007L50HE6
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March 5, 2014
5 Top Snapchat Marketing Strategy Examples (March 2014)
Want to see some new examples of Snapchat marketing for the month of February? You've come to the right place! The past four weeks has included glimpses of Miley Cyrus, the University of Michicgan, and Mcdonald's. Take a look after the jump...
1. Live Nation shows a behind-the-scenes peek at Mley Cyrus' Bangerz tour:2. Vita-Coco promotes its "invite a friend to try us" campaign on Snapchat, showing the process in action...
3. The University of Michigan wishes its students good luck for their exams....
4. Dominos Australia shows its charitable side with work in the community...
5. McDonald's joins Snapchat and posts its first story, including a promo for its newest menu item...
Source: adage
Have you seen any awesome examples of Snapchat marketing? Maybe you're making your own! Let me know in the comments below :)
March 2, 2014
How to Repost Instagram Photos and Videos | Regram Photos and Video
Have you ever seen people re-posting photos and videos on Instagram and wondered how they did it?
For brands, educating and encouraging your fans to repost your Instagram photos and videos can be a very powerful method to use as a requirement for entering a contest, or simply as an option for passionate customers to share your great content with their friends. At the time of writing, there is no official way to repost content on Instagram, but there are several pretty good workarounds, so let's take a look...
Screen grabbingThe simplest way to get your fans to repost your content is by asking them to screen grab an Instagram post to re-publish on their own accounts. For iOS devices, pressing the Power and Home buttons together will perform a screen grab (the screen will flash and the camera shutter noise will sound if you've done it right), whereas the instructions for Android devices differ depending on the handset.
InstaRepost (iOS and Android)
This free app for iOS for Android is super simple to use. Just open it up and sign in with your Instagram credentials and you'll be presented with your ordinary feed, and also be able to search by username or hashtag. Once you select the image or video you want to re-post, you'll be asked to choose the position of the watermark (or remove it with the Pro version). Tapping "Repost" will open up the official Instagram app, where you can edit the image further or publish it right away.
The watermark will show who originally posted the photo, and that user (as well as the app) will be automatically credited in the caption below the item.
Statigr.am and Webstagram
Statigr.am reposting
Webstagram reposting.
If you or your users browse their Instagram feeds online, then the third party sites Statigr.am and Webstagram both have reposting options underneath items in the feed, but the repost option only works for photos. When "repost" is clicked, the image can be emailed to the user who must then save the photo from their phone's mailbox and then re-post to Instagram.
ConclusionAlthough none of these solutions are ideal, both in terms of ease of execution and guaranteeing that your work is credited, they are the best methods available until Instagram offers up an official avenue for reposting content.
If your fans are new to reposting, why not link to this article on your website or contest terms and conditions as a way for them to see how they can get started?
Want to use Instagram for business success?
Join my Udemy video course, How to Use Instagram For Business, the #1-rated Instagram course on Udemy and already enjoyed by over 600 people just like you.
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Andrew Macarthy is the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips, available for Kindle and in paperback.
Buy 500 Social Media Marketing Tips
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007L50HE6
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007L50HE6
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February 27, 2014
How K-Mart Used Snapchat Marketing to Target its Teen Audience
Since joining Snapchat, K-Mart's Stylesip (the branded destination that represents Kmart's junior brands) has used its activity on the app to cleverly target and engage with its teenage audience. In the latest example of effective Snapchat strategy, it used a series of five separate images - sent a few hours apart - to tease the reveal of the celebrity who had been chosen to represent its BONGO clothes line. It then encouraged fans to guess who the person was. Let's take a closer look...
Spreading the word...Stylesip let nearly 600,000 Facebook fans, 40,000 Twitter followers, and 4,000 Instagram fans know about its Snapchat promotion.
So excited about today's BIG NEWS! Add @Stylesip on @Snapchat to be the first to know > pic.twitter.com/o3my4Mk8eI
— Stylesip (@Stylesip) January 7, 2014
Post by Stylesip.
The Snapchat campaign...
And here was the series of snaps sent out via Snapchat. They featured clues to the identity of the new face of BONGO and the hashtag #bongosnaps.
Judging success...
It's difficult to investigate how successful K-mart/Stylesip's Snapchat marketing strategy was without knowing how big their Snapchat audience is. However, there were no mentions of the hashtag #bongosnaps on Twitter other than by the brand itself.
Conclusion
As one of the first big brands to adopt a solid Snapchat strategy, K-Mart should be commended for identifying the trend of teens predominantly using the app, and for planning and executing a substantial campaign. It will be interesting to see if they follow it up with any more, or whether they revert to more tried and tested methods of promotion via social media.
Want to use Snapchat for marketing your business?
Join over 400 others on my Udemy course, How to Use Snapchat for Business. Through narrated video, images, step-by-step instructions and many real-life examples, you will learn how to use and master the Snapchat mobile app, create content that your audience will love, attract and maintain a strong Snapchat following, and drive engagement and interest in your brand.
February 23, 2014
Instagram Video Contest Ideas: Airbnb's video shorts competition success
2014 has been dubbed "the year of video," and one of the best platforms to test this theory is on Instagram, whose 15-second video limit provides ample opportunity for brands to market themselves and launch promotions. Video contests on Instagram may never match the popularity of photos, but when they're done right, the results can be very lucrative. Here's one case study to show you how:
In January 2014, travel accommodation site airbnb launched an Instagram video contest to promote its brand, the Sundance Film Festival, and the places its customers invite people to stay on their vacations.This image was followed by a video to promote the contest, too:The prize of a trip to London, a place at a Sundance workshop, and a video camera, meant that the entries soon came flooding in. A search via statigr.am shows nearly 950 videos tagged with the hashtag #airbnbshorts; this from an Instagram account with around 25,000 followers.
The contest was open for under two weeks and, in a savvy move, the contest winner was posted onto airbnb's Facebook Page, a method that funnelled entrants to another of their social networks - one with significantly more (440,000 fans) and, therefore, exposure.
Post by Airbnb.
In another clever move, the contest's dedicated micro site at airbnbshorts.com remained live, with the following message and a link through to airbnb's main website.
Conclusion
Airbnb's "shorts" Instagram video contest demonstrates that passionate Instagram followers are enthusiastic about entering not just photo, but also video contests. A prize that matches the effort involved to enter is certainly recommended, as are the staples of a unique hashtag in order to track entries, and publicly reposting the winning entry to satisfy the curiosity of others and to show that everything is above board.
Have you experimented with Instagram video contests? Let me know how you got on in the comments below!
Want to use Instagram for business success?
Join my Udemy video course, How to Use Instagram For Business, the #1-rated Instagram course on Udemy and already enjoyed by over 600 people just like you.
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February 19, 2014
How to Use Snapchat Stories "Reveals" to Captivate Fans
One of the great benefits of Snapchat's "blink and you'll miss it" marketing is the dedicated time viewers must give to the content you send out. While this limit is 10 seconds per ordinary snap, by combining multiple snaps in a Snapchat story, you can extend your message length much further, and encourage more watch-time, as demonstrated by the example from GrubHub below:
The story starts with two clear messages to encourage viewers to keep watching...
2. And then a pizza appears. One slice at a time is lifted away at a time to reveal the discount code...
After a mid-message teaser, the reveal continues...
Until finally, after nearly a whole minute, the code is revealed. One final snap shows the promo's end date and a link to further T&Cs.
And here's the whole Snapchat story playing in full:
GrubHub's content here is extremely simple to put together, but the way it is constructed ensures that fans are engaged for longer, and have more of a chance to digest the message given that Snapchat stories exist up to 24 hours and can be viewed as many times as desired within that time. Whether a whole minute of marketing is too much for Snapchatters to bear is, I'm sure, something GrubHub will learn as a result of this promotion, allowing them to tweak and optimise their approach in future.
Enter a URL to resolve.February 15, 2014
See How Doritos and Taco Bell Won Valentine's Day on Snapchat (And how DirecTV and Intel failed)
Love was in the air on Valentine's Day for both Doritos and Taco bell, who in my opinion, "won" with their promotions for the mini-holiday on Snapchat. Their approaches were very different, but equally as powerful. Let's take a look at their Stories:
Doritos UK used Valentine's Day as a way to promote its product with a series of pun-ny one-liners:
Taco Bell, on the other hand, pulled at its followers' heartstrings with a pure love story...
I thought both of these campaigns were funny and effective. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for DirecTV and Intel, whose own Valentine's Day snaps were embarrassingly poor.
I know they're not really "luvvy-duvvy" brands...
... but really?
Did you use Snapchat for a Valentine's Day promotion? Show it off to me in the comments below!
Andrew Macarthy is a social media consultant and the author of the #1 Amazon Web Marketing Bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips.
Buy 500 Social Media Marketing Tips
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007L50HE6
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007L50HE6
Follow Me:
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February 11, 2014
Social Media For Hotels: 5 Effective Strategies for Marketing
With a high turnover of customers and a pressure to fill rooms, social media gives hotel owners a precious opportunity to attract new customers and encourage previous ones to return. Here are 5 ways that hotels can use social media. These examples are all lifted from London-based hotels, but can apply pretty much anywhere.
When Londons commuters were hit with a strike on the subway, Hoxton Hotel used it as a way to draw people into their warm, comfortable working environment.
Lesson: Use topical events to draw people to your business.
Post by The Hoxton Hotel.
The Eccleston Square Hotel used this sleek YouTube video to introduce customers to the hotel.
Lesson: Use video on various platforms to show guests around and encourage them to book.
The Blakemoore Hotel retweets positive feedback from customers on its Twitter account.
Lesson: Share customer testimonials as powerful social proof of your awesomeness.
@BlakemoreHotel had such an amazing week in your hotel! Thank you so much for your hard work ??
— book worm. (@apottersmiler) January 19, 2014
The Abode hotel chain uses Valentine's Day to promote its offerings.
Lesson: Use popular "mini" holidays throughout the year to punctuate your marketing on social media.
Post by ABode Hotels Home to Michael Caines Restaurants.
The Savoy hotel remembers a Thanksgiving Celebration of yesteryear.
Lesson: Give people a glimpse into the story and history of your hotel, and invite them to become a part of it.
Post by The Savoy.
Conclusion
Word of mouth marketing is huge in the hotel industry - both good and bad news about an establishment can spread extremely fast online - so it is imperative that you take every advantage that social media gives you. Don't simply use social networks as a way to blindly promote your business; mix things up as a way to build strong and long-lasting relationships with new and old customers alike.
Buy 500 Social Media Marketing Tips
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007L50HE6
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007L50HE6
Follow Me:
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February 7, 2014
5 Awesome Snapchat Marketing Examples (February 2014)
January and February 2014 saw more big brands joining Snapchat to experiment with marketing on the platform. Newcomers include MTV and Intel in the following 5 examples...
K-mart sends clues to its fans to guess the identity of its Bongo Jeans cover star...
Intel shows behind-the-scenes at CES 2014...
HBO promotes the television programme, Girls...
MTV shows us its behind-the-scenes reporting of the Golden Globes...
The New York Jets football team poses a trivia question to its fans...
