Pinterest Idea: Transform Blog Posts Into Images

Your blog should be feeding your social media content pipeline, including Pinterest.
I know it seems counterintuitive that a largely text-based medium, your blog, could feed your content pipeline for Pinterest, which is such a visually based platform, but it’s certainly not impossible.
Following are a few ideas for how you can reimagine your blog content as highly visual content for Pinterest:
Visualize key points
Every quality blog post typically has several key points that support the main theme. Sometimes these individual points can make great bite-size content, so take advantage of this and reimagine them for Pinterest.
Try isolating the key points from your latest post and re-write them as short snippets of text – think something along the lines of a tweet. Then create or find a compelling, attention grabbing visual that illustrates each individual key point, and spend some time nicely laying out the associated text on the image.
Depending on the length of your article, and number of points or support points made, you could create a nice series of pins from a single blog post.
Graphically demonstrate stats, numbers, or anything you’ve quantified
If your blog post features statistics, or if you’ve quantified virtually anything, try to think of interesting ways to visually demonstrate those numbers and give them richer meaning to your audience.
Consider finding interesting or entertaining points of comparison, re-think how you create graphs and charts to make them more visually stimulating, or lay out your numbers on top of an image to give added context.
Create pin-worthy header images
This is a bit of a no-brainer, but try spending a bit of time on a key visual or header image for each of your articles.
The bit of added time you spend creating a stunning key visual will serve the dual purpose of also being interesting content for Pinterest.
Infographics for added information
Finally, think about how you can create a supplemental infographic to the content of you blog post. You could include a breakdown of key points with added context, give a more detailed analysis of any stats or numbers provided in your post, provide a detailed back story or ‘behind the scenes’ for interested audience members, or more.
There are a number of ways that you can create supplemental value for interested readers through the crafting of an infographic, or infographic-esque image. Get creative and give it a shot.
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Have you ever converted blog content into valuable Pinterest pins?
Do you have any unorthodox sources of content for your Pinterest boards?

Keywords: Best Practices, Social Media Marketing, Content, Pinterest, ROI, Community Management, Blogging, Engagement, Infographics, Marketing, Social Media, Social Networks 

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8 Instagram Marketing Tips

When it comes to social media, most business owners tend to have a fairly firm grasp on how to handle Facebook and Twitter, but Instagram still appears to challenge many small businesses. With Instagram gaining one new user every second it is no doubt that it can be advantageous for your business to be on this social networking platform. Here are  8 things you should do to effectively promote your brand on Instagram:
1. Complete your profile: This is the best place to leave a first impression – the place to showcase who you are and what you do. Make sure you fill in all the sections on your profile. Also, leave a link to your facebook page, twitter page or website. Your prospects want to check out your various profiles to find out more about your services/products . Don’t give them a dead end. It may lead to more followers on your other platforms too.
2. Find your customers: Search for people already talking about your business or your field. Find people in your city (#NewYork) or people that share your interest (#shoes). These are your potential customers. Find them, follow them and engage with them.
3. Be engaging: Tag others, talk to others, check in to other businesses, use your location. Adding layers to your posts gives people a better feel for who you are and spreads a little Instagram love!
4. Be consistent but not spammy: post frequently, but do not bombard your followers with thousands of pictures! Consistency keeps your followers engaged. Depending on the type of business you run, 2-3 posts a day is a good limit! If you have quality material, share it…just spread it out!
5. Show off your products: Everyone loves to browse products, so let your followers do some window-shopping! Show off a collection of the products you offer, share a photo of a new or lesser-known product or zoom in on a product and engage your Instagram followers by asking them to guess what it is.
6. Introduce your employees: Humanize your brand by using Instagram to introduce your fans to the people who make your company what it is. It’s a great way to show your brand personality.
7. Take them with you: Going to a trade-show or sponsoring an event? Use that as an opportunity to take your Instagram followers with you wherever you’re going.
8. Be unique: Be fun and show off your personality ! Document YOUR work, show off YOUR quirky moments, and tell YOUR filter-filled story.
Have any tips that have worked well for you? Why not share them?!

Keywords: Social Media Marketing, Content, Instagram, Marketing, Social Media 

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7 Classic Facebook Concepts For Your Page

Facebook is an important window into your organisation. But it can be daunting to come up with ideas and concepts on what to publish. Recognise this?

Here are a couple of classic Facebook concepts using the Facebook Page of our new agency Mad Science Digital as sandbox to do some experiments in. Some can be seen as a bit cheesy for sure, but maybe you can find your own fresh takes on these?

1. Daily Questions

It might not be the most creative status update in the world to just ask an arbitrary question not really related to your business. But it’s a way to hear from your fanbase on a personal level. And surely you can tweak it to make it your own, right?

2. Quirky Lifestyle Statements

Think about Pinterest. People love wise and quirky statements. People like them because they can tell their friends something about themselves by sharing them. You should share statements emphasising your brand, otherwise you’ll only end up attracting fans that will be impossible to convert your fans’ engagement into anything useful down the line.

3. Quirky Milestones

Milestones are there — and you probably use them. But most use them for the most obvious of reasons. But why not use them for other stuff also? “First ever …” is a fun concept that can be used forever.

4. Epic Meme Updates

You can post a meme — or you can use a handful of different web services to generate your own. Mostly fun, but they could be used to make your point as well. But beware, if you go crazy with all types of funny memes on your business page, you will attract mostly “Memeheads” to your page and they will want to have more and better memes constantly rather than being interested in your business.

5. Say Thank You

Now, this is a classic — saying thank you to your fans, often when you reach an even number of fans. But you could also rework this classic concept and try to find a voice and a fresh take on it.

6. One Word Answer Updates

Now, this is gone-fishing-for-comments on steroids so handle this one with extreme caution. And you won’t get any bonus points for coming up with this idea either, because it’s been done · and then done some more. However, if used rarely, it can be extremely fun. And useful, if your fans can teach you something about them.
Or by the very least unleash their hashtag creativity.

7. Yay Or Nay Posts

This is often more fun than those mostly boring Facebook polls. It’s a variation on the One Word Answer Posts, but with only two opposite alternatives. To make it less standardised, you can always use other words than “yes” or “no”.

Now It’s Your Turn

So there you have them. Not groundbreaking, but still useful. Now it’s your turn: Do you know any similar Facebook techniques that you could recommend trying out?

• Original article

Keywords: Best Practices, Facebook, Social Media Marketing, Content, Engagement, Social Media 

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7 Ways Your English Teacher Lied to You About Content Marketing

From kindergarten through our last class in college, our teachers slave over the proper way to write any kind of content possible. Whether it’s a research paper or an essay, grammatical skills, stylistic lessons, and individual voice are all part of our education. However, these traits don’t necessarily translate into effective content. In fact, effective content would likely result in a bad grade on a school paper, but at least it grows your business!

School’s Out

Good content marketing throws away all the conventional wisdom that’s taught in an English class and embraces the culture that the internet has developed. Grammar lessons that you should ignore (tastefully!) in content marketing include:

1. Never beginning a sentence with a conjunction. In school, we’re taught that a conjunction may never be used to begin a sentence. But in content marketing, we do it all the time. And it’s completely natural and acceptable.
2. Always use complete sentences. There are many cases when you want to emphasize something. Like a lot. If this is the case, feel free to use fragments and ignore the rule of writing in complete sentences.
3. End strong. Okay, well, your English teacher isn’t completely wrong about this – you do want your content to end strong, because hopefully all of your content is strong. But if anything is important in content marketing, it’s beginning strong. The first few words – or sentences (if you’re lucky) – will determine whether or not the reader even takes the time to read the rest.
4. Never exaggerate. In today’s digital world, we live in a time when everything (including the news) is hyper sensationalized. While you don’t want to lie about anything in your content, it’s okay to tactfully exaggerate through compelling copy and marketing language.
5. Avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. What did teachers ever teach us this rule for? Everyone does it – and it’s completely fine, dude!
6. Don’t use slang, man. Actually, ignore that, bro. Based on the tone of your content, you may or may not use slang effectively.
7. Proper grammar is everything. While there’s nothing wrong with being grammatically correct, it shouldn’t be the only thing you worry about. We’re focused on style, voice, authority, and a compelling narrative. Is your content marketing too cool for school?

What conventional rules do you overlook when writing content for your blog

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Keywords: Best Practices, Social Media Marketing, Content, Marketing 

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No Budget? Forget About Easy Facebook Success

A dramatic headline? Perhaps. However, as Facebook strives to make even more money, it's making it harder for brands (businesses/orgs etc) to make any impact. In this post, I look at lack of reach without payment, exceptions to the rule and give advice on assessing if Facebook is actually a worthwhile endeavour for your business.

It used to be fairly simple

You would set up a Facebook Page, have a plan around what you wanted to communicate and who with, assemble the required content and start beavering away. Likes, comments and shares were forthcoming. The volume of those depended on the quality of your updates and the relevancy of your business and your offering to the Facebook crowd. What decided if your updates appeared in a users newsfeed? Edgerank. I don't want to waste pixels explaining Edgerank in this post, but you can find out more here. Infact, Edgerank may well now be dead, but more about that later.
As time inevitably passed, it has become tougher to ensure Facebook activity is worthwhile. The reach of the posts you publish has shrunk. The average Page post reaches 23.5% of a Page's 'likers' (source). 23.5% of the people that you have shed sweat, blood and most likely tears to attract are seeing your posts. Is that effective? I doubt it. This figure varies, and actually, Pages with more 'likers' (I'm going to call them fans from now on) can often see lower levels of around 9% reach. What can you do to ensure more fans see your posts? Well, Facebook will tell you that you need to publish posts that are interesting and relevant, which of course is important as without that, nobody will ever act on your posts, but that isn't enough (August saw changes to the newsfeed algorithm that are likely to confuse and indeed bewilder, and really saw the demise of Edgerank).
The only way to guarantee a strong reach (and at least some chance of people taking an action on your posts), it to part with some cash. One option is to 'boost' a post, which means your posts will be at least served to the newsfeeds of all of your fans. A boost has extended options that allow further serving, which are explained here. There are a wide-ranging plethora of other Facebook advertising options, but in all honesty I don't have the will to try and explain them here.
Creative commons image via http://www.flickr.com/photos/epsos/

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5 Tweet Styles to Embrace

Does your brand Tweet? We're approaching the latter part of 2013, so I'm hoping so. If you answered "no" to this question, please contact me. Perhaps it's just that you don't have time or don't know where to get started. Don't worry, I can help and I'm sure this post will help as well.
Now, for the rest of you, whether you've been Tweeting for years, months, weeks, days or even just hours, you need a Twitter style and strategy. What your brand is all about, and who your audience is, will determine which style works best for you.
And, most likely, it's a combination of these five styles below that will resonate most with your audience. Remember, expressing yourself in 140 characters is an art.

5 Types Of Tweet Styles

1. Humorous

Humor goes a long way in the social media world.  And it makes sense. Everyone likes to laugh. There are two ways to go about this. You can either be humorous in your response to someone, like Taco Bell has done here.

@OldSpice Is your deodorant made with really old spices?
— Taco Bell (@TacoBell) July 9, 2012

You could also incorporate humor into your initial Tweet, like Charmin has done.

If you flush a toilet in the woods, does it make a noise? #Tweetfromtheseat — Charmin (@Charmin) July 26, 2013

2. Educational

An educational approach might be better suited for your brand. If you have a lot of knowledge, you should share it. People want to make informed choices. You have the opportunity to help your current customers and potential customers do that. Whole Foods does a nice job educating while engaging.

DID YOU KNOW? When children skip breakfast, they do not typically make up lost nutrients at other meals of the day. http://t.co/wruEBuLkRr — Whole Foods Market (@WholeFoods) August 19, 2013

3. Semi-Promotional

Let's be honest, a major goal for most brands is to increase sales. Twitter is a great tool for promoting yourself, but beware!—if you do it too much, you risk a lot! I'd say 80/20 is a good rule of thumb. Promote yourself 20% of the time. The rest of the time, the leftover 80%, add to the conversation.

4. Conversational

Brands that respond to others are always going to be the most engaging. Fans like to be heard and when you respond, they're more likely to keep mentioning your brand. Word of mouth Finger marketing at its best. Being conversational is being social. Barry's Bootcamp does a great job in this category. As you can see, they respond by Retweeting, which allows everyone to see the original Tweet and see that you're an active brand. Double Win! PS - I go to Barry's and it's amazing. You should try it sometime.

Go endorphins! RT @lbenaissa91: Nothing better then @BarrysBootcamp workout to get you in a good mood for the day #fitness #workout #health
— Barry's Bootcamp (@BarrysBootcamp) August 20, 2013

5. Opinionated

You don't want to be overly opinionated here, but if you're a non-profit or are associated with a cause, this strategy might work well for you. You could also align yourself with certain people and Influencers here. But keep in mind that no one likes an overly opinionated person and that goes for a brand too.
Which style do you think will work best for your brand?
If you'd like to get started with Twitter but don't know how, we have many different packages that will fit your needs. Email us at support@convertwithcontent.com

• Original article

Keywords: Best Practices, Social Media Marketing, Content, Strategy, Twitter

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