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The magic of social media. A {growtoon}.

May 17th

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conman

 

Join the growtoonists each Friday for a humorous take on marketing, social media, and current business events.

Joey Strawn is a social media strategist who loves enjoying a good book and then drawing in it. Check him out on Twitter: @joey_strawn

joey strawn, social media cartoon, social media humor

The changes to Google+ are great. But they don’t matter

May 16th

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google plus logoWhat an exciting week of announcements from Google!

Of course many of us in the social media space were focused on the interface improvements on Google+, but the company also announced:

  • It is re-charging the crucial Maps effort, including graphics, animations, and local landmarks
  • Partnership with NASA on a new quantum computer laboratory to study artificial intelligence
  • A host of specialized apps for Google Glass called Glassware, including alliances with Evernote, CNN, and Elle
  • A new free photo storage system that gives you an option to let Google select, tag, and improve your photos for you
  • A Spotify-like streaming music feature called All Access.
  • Significant enhancements to Google Now, a competitor to Siri.

I wanted to stand up and cheer. In fact, I did stand up and cheer. What amazing stuff!

So you might be surprised when a reporter asked me how this will help Google+ win customers away from Facebook and I answered “It won’t.”

Arguably Google+ already had a better interface than Facebook. So why would an even spiffier interface make a difference? It’s not about the interface. It’s about psychology.

In life, we enjoy having choice most of the time. We like picking out a car or a breakfast cereal from a long aisle of choices. But on the web, we don’t want choice. We only have the psychological bandwidth for one Twitter, one LinkedIn, one YouTube. And yes, One Facebook.

Moving from Facebook is not like switching to another website or even another wireless carrier. It’s switching a lifestyle — and that is very, very difficult to get people to do.

According to research from the Social Habit, 80 percent of Americans between 12 and 24 have a Facebook account and are active at least every other day. That is incredible market penetration. Facebook is the largest media entity in history. And their user interface is terrible. Their record on privacy is terrible. Their ads are annoying. None of that seems to matter, right?

What Google does not seem to realize is that they do not have an interface problem. They have a marketing problem. They need to be spending tons of money to connect to “the cool kids” creating influence and lifestyle choices in junior high and high schools. They need to make Google+ teen-fashionable, not more like Pinterest.

I absolutely love what this company is accomplishing. To a large extent, they are creating our future. I’m just not sure if or when Google+ is going to be part of it on a mass scale.

Now I know there are a lot of passionate Plussers out there ready to skewer me in the comment section. That’s OK. All I ask is that instead of focusing on how much you love G+, let’s focus on the concept of platform adoption. Are these changes enough to get Google+ to “tip?

google +, google glass, google now, google plus, google+ adoption

Five tools to help with your social media makeover

May 16th

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By Ian Cleary, {grow} Contributing Columnist

social media toolsPart of my daily routine is going to the gym. The gym is a chance for me to think about what I’ve delivered that morning, plan out my day and dream about potential ideas for my business.

In the world of social media it’s important to step back and review what you have done and implement changes on a regular basis. And maybe, just maybe, it’s time for a makeover.  Here are five cool tools you can use that just might deliver some new “oomph” to your social media efforts:

 1.  Ignite Facebook Fans

ian sm 1

On average only 16 percent of your fans see your Facebook updates.  Suck!  This is a well-known number but something you should completely ignore because there’s no reason why you should be average!

But even if 50 percent of your fans see your Facebook updates there’s still the other 50 percent that don’t see them at all. And on top of this are they actually reading them? How often do you read all the updates on your Facebook page?

One strategy for ensuring more of your fans see your updates is converting your fans to eMail Subscribers.  This means you can communicate with them over both channels and have a better chance of reaching them.

You can add a customized application to your Facebook page with a provider such as Heyo, Tabsite or a run a competition using Shortstack and start building those email subscribers.

2. Measure Conversion from Social Media Traffic

Social media is not necessarily all about sales but I’m sure you’d like to see some action from the updates you make.  This may be visits to your website where you get people spending time there, subscribing to your email list or buying your products or services.

If you set up goals within Google Analytics, Google will start tracking social media activity for these goals.  If you go to the traffic sources section of Google Analytics, select all traffic and then select the relevant goal you can view the conversion rate across any channel.

ian sm 2

The goal set up in this report is related to getting email subscribers.  From the image above you see that there is a 2.50% conversion rates from LinkedIn and 1.90% from Facebook.  This gives you a goal to achieve higher on both channels.

If you don’t have goals set up in Google Analytics or an equivalent analytics program, then consider doing so as soon as possible!

3. Easily Optimize Your Content for Google 

If you have a well-established blog with a large amount of traffic, you may not be too concerned about optimizing your content for Google.  But if you want to get additional traffic and you want to ensure that it is relevant, then it’s important to help Google index your content correctly.

When writing blog posts there is a very useful free plugin called WordPress SEO which gives some guidelines that you can  follow to optimize the content.

Using this plugin you specify the focus keywords you want Google to rank you on and then it then gives an indicator where these keywords are mentioned in the post in areas that are relevant for Google.

ian sm 3

If you don’t have WordPress you can still identify focus keywords and make sure they are included in relevant areas as indicated in the image above.

4. Capture the Attention of your Website Visitors

What are you doing to capture the attention of your visitors when they come to your website?

Do you use popup’s, clear calls to action, a bar that appear across the top of the screen?

By getting your visitors attention you can get them to take action. Lead Converter is a useful tool for capturing attention.  You can test out a banner that appears across the top of the screen, popup’s, boxes that slide out at the bottom the page and more.

If you had a free guide you could show a banner across the top of your screen after a visitor is on the page for a certain time.  This captures the visitor’s attention like this:

ian sm 4

The conversion chart will show what conversion you get from this and in this example it’s 2.11 percent. A conversion in this case is someone that clicks the “Yes, please” button and signs up as an e-mail subscriber.

ian sm 5

2.11 percent is OK but not what I want so more testing is required.  Think about how you can attract attention of visitors on your website to achieve your goals.

5. Start Using Slideshare

Slideshare was initially developed as a tool for sharing presentations but has since expanded out to videos, documents and much more.  When you create your blog post it’s useful to consider where else you could promote this post.  By changing your blog post into a presentation you could share it on Slideshare.  This is very much a B2B platform so if you are targeting the business community Slideshare is ideal.

When you share out a presentation on Slideshare it’s indexed almost immediately so straight away you can start getting visitors.  Just make sure you consider what your ‘focus keywords’ are when sharing out content to help Google index it correctly.

If you are interested in Slideshare a good starting point is Todd Wheatland’s book on SlideShare.

These are just five improvements you could make today for an almost instant social media makeover.  Let us know your thoughts and please share any improvements that you would suggest.

Ian Cleary is founder of Razorsocial, a website that provides sharp insight on on social media management tools.  Follow Ian on twitter @iancleary

google analytics, heyo, slideshare, social media for small business, social media management, social media tools

We create content and content also creates us

May 15th

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ITS ALIVE

Recently I was interviewed by my friend Elizabeth Sosnow and she asked me about an observation in Return On Influence: “We create content … but in a way, content is also creating us.”

It had been a long time since I thought about this and I thought it was timely to reflect on this powerful concept. I think my friend Jason Falls put it very well when he stated in the book:

“Before the social web, there was always a ceiling or a velvet rope – a limit to where you could go with your influence unless you were somebody famous. Now anybody can be heard. Social media and the Internet makes it possible for every person to be published, find an audience, and become influential.”

Let’s face it, most of the people making an impact on the social web today would not have been heard from even a few years ago, including me. Yes, I create content. But as you see, content is also creating me.

A few months ago, I was cornered at a conference by a lady who kept telling me, “You’re a rockstar! You’re a rockstar!” I realize that “celebrity” is something that exists in a person’s head and there is nothing I can do about it, but this kind of stuff makes me very uncomfortable. I’m no rockstar, trust me. This is a perception … a creation … manufactured entirely by what I publish.

And while I am occasionally unnerved by both the positive and negative extremes of fandom, I realize how very fortunate I am to live in a time when my voice can be heard and I can truly have an impact on a global audience.

And you know what? You can have an impact, too.

If you’re not using this amazing, historic opportunity to publish, you’re missing out on one of the greatest technological gifts of our generation. Free publishing tools. Access to the world. The ability to connect with people nearly anywhere.

If you’re not a decent writer, try video blogs. If you don’t like video, start a podcast. If you don’t want to commit to podcasts, how about slide presentations on Slideshare, or even photographs on Instagram?

This is Jason’s time because he found blogging and committed to it. This is my time because I have the courage to create conversational content.

If you haven’t become a content creator, what are you waiting for? This is your time too! What are you going to do about it?

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content marketing, Elizabeth Sosnow, jason falls, power on the web, return on influence
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