Social Media

The Final Countdown To Photo Editing Freebies

August 15, 2016 Beth Devine

Social media is like a giant block party where anyone can drop in to meet people, have conversations, and make connections. When you share content on social media that lacks images, it’s like showing up to the party wearing a starship cloaking device.

No one notices you because it’s as if you’re invisible.

Without images on social media, you’re doomed to travel at warp speed into oblivion. You might as well hang up your Starfleet combadge now, because effective communication requires more than plain text.

You need images, and you need the tools to make your images pop. This is your third and final post in a series of free photo editing sites. The final countdown before takeoff, where you’ll hit intergalactic space with a full cohort of spectacularly edited images to post. Or something like that.

Pho.to

Looks like Pho.to reworked it’s site, although if you find yourself at the old site, you can easily navigate to the new version by clicking on the upper left corner in pho.to. The new site is chock-full of features, whether you’re a business, a designer, or a photo-editing fan.

Depending on which feature you select, you’ll go back and forth between the old and new site versions. But don’t let that slow you down. They all have easy to navigate menus, with the features clearly identified. The only feature that is slightly complicated is the boost your business with branded photo effects.

The pho.to editor will give you the options you’re most accustomed to, such as cropping, resizing, image brightness and contrast, and color enhancement. You can create funny photo montages, turn a photo into a greeting ecard, and make a magazine cover or a money portrait with more than 600 effects. Make a point of testing out the make-up effects for enhancing your portrait.

LunaPic

Despite its first impression of being slightly clunky – it doesn’t appear to have been updated recently – the vast number of effects make up for any lack of modern appeal. Be prepared for some surprising fun on LunaPic with a full menu of interesting editing options.

For example, where else can you find instant lightening? Or give your images an old movie effect, complete with a black and white color change and scratchy moving vertical lines, all in one click? The animation alone has plenty of hidden gems for your adventures into retro looping imagery. Hey, wait, isn’t that what’s called a GIF nowadays?

Speaking of which, you can instantly create GIFs using LunaPic, whether it’s with a video or a live photo. And if that’s not addicting enough, you can mess around with your video frame-by-frame to change the order or create a Polaroid pile.

Plus, it’s so easy to navigate, you can try out effects and undo them in a snap. Just click on any previous version of your photo displayed above the central image that you’re working on in a thumbnail history format. Or, click on edit and then undo last action in the drop down menu.

Photomania

Photomania has more than 500 photo editing effects that include camera, sketch, painting, magical, vintage, textures, cartoon, and pop art filters. Show your artistic flair with the click of a button and create pieces of art, or simply embellish your images with some fun add-ons.

Choose from a wide range of fun features ranging from the offbeat to the uniquely useful. If you want to make an ecard for a special occasion in a matter of seconds, this is the site for you. While some features indicate a preoccupation with certain teen celebrities, there’s enough variety here to outweigh this, presented in a very user-friendly format. One of the site’s more surprising perks is its Photomania blog. Get photography tips, inspiration for ecards, and a few editing tutorials.

What’s missing is a way to make multiple edits on the same image. As it stands, you have to save and upload that image again for each additional edit. There’s a mobile app for iOS and Android which supposedly allows for this, so why the tedious application for the web version? If you’re a true photomaniac, this is an essential feature.

Pixlr and Pixlr Express

All your basic edits are found in Pixlr, giving you the full experience of an online editor comparable to Photoshop, but totally free. A pro version is available for a fee if you want to get all the fancy upgrades.

However, you can find enough in the free version to keep you busy. The main toolbar has more features than a novice might feel comfortable with. No worries, check out their handy support page. You can begin with the Pixlr toolbar editor explained, and then move on to tutorials, such as how to create a nostalgic appeal with retro skies.

You know those fun editing tricks of erasing the background or cutting out images to add to another image? Pixlr has you covered. With simple how-to’s, you can quickly master the art of “fakery and creativity,” or using the magic wand to create some eye-goggling photos for your audience.

For a fast touch-up, Pixlr Express is your no-frills option to Pixlr Editor with six simple tabs for all your basic editing needs, including text, pre-fab layers, and several effects. No prior experience required here.

Instant Fun Effects

When you just want to get silly with your photos, take a look at 10 Superb Online Tools For Fun Photo Effects. Forget Yearbook Yourself and Gooifier, which no longer work, but Photo505 has many crazy effects to try, such as the old face or the avatar face. Funphotobox has similar options, with the added GIF appeal to a selection of effects. And Photofunia gives you some unique options for adding text to various backgrounds, including movie marquee, foggy window, and Einstein writing on a chalkboard.

Whatever your image needs, your mission is clear: to boldly go where no photo has gone before.

Strut Your Human Stuff On Social Media

June 15, 2016 Beth Devine

social media marketing — Wall-E photo by Morgan, used under CC BY / Modified from original

Does it seem like technology creates more challenges than your small business can keep up with? As the digital landscape keeps changing, businesses must continue to strategically approach new online opportunities — or risk obscurity.

For marketers, social media is a problem that won’t go away. Your efforts to grow your community are met with dire assertions about organic reach requiring paid ads, while the advertisement costs keep going up.

You’re told that there’s limited exposure to your individual feed and content alone doesn’t cut it any longer. Do you have to pay to reach your audience? Will your social metrics go up if you invest in the high costs of paid ads?

You can stop worrying and start focusing on the one critical element that hasn’t changed. There are people on the other end of that post. People who may or may not believe a thing you say.

Without a solid plan to humanize your brand, social media can be the pervasive thorn in your side. How do you find your voice in a world cluttered with algorithmic noise and reach an audience already overloaded with content? How do you make those valuable customer connections?

By being a human, not a robot.

For social media to work, businesses need to humanize their brand and build three things: engagement, relationships, and trust.

Engagement

Engagement isn’t measured using a balance sheet of your Facebook likes. It’s not a popularity contest where customer relationships develop based on clicks of the “Like” button.

Your involvement in the conversation, sharing content, and making and responding to mentions is the criteria for engagement. Sharing real stories, real conversations, and real communication makes for engagement with real people.

Relationship

Customer relationships aren’t made by posting great content. Not even authentic content will lead to human relationships. Relationships involve the proverbial two-way street.

Human relationships involve several stages. You meet, you get to know each other, and you eventually begin to pay more attention to the people who also give you the time of day. Your business also receives more attention in return.

Post great content to get them hooked, and then invest in your followers and customers by spending time with them online.

Trust

It’s no secret that word-of-mouth gets people’s attention. When someone you know gives you a recommendation, you’re influenced by their suggestion. Sometimes it’s just easier to go with what your peers suggest.

Reviews by people you don’t know also carry power to sway your decision. 79% of customers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. There are more places than Google and Yelp for potential reviews. Discover five more, including a little-known way to review on Facebook.

Reviews show us how important it is to build trust. Stay in continuous engagement by responding to any negative reviews or comments in a timely manner. Get input from your customers, give them feedback, and grow your social word-of-mouth.

Which Social Media Platform Is Best?

Each social media platform holds unique potential, but only one shows growth in engagement with brands. According to a new infographic from Morrison Foerster, Facebook is the one exception to the decline in levels of user engagement.

Technology keeps changing, yet the one constant remains the same. There are always going to be people on the other end of your posts and shares. Your social media marketing is ultimately human to human, not B2B (business-to-business) or B2C (business-to-consumer).

Unless, of course, you’re a true believer in so-called progress and more interested in talking to machines.

7 Deadly Sins and Heavenly Virtues of Social Media Marketing

March 11, 2016 Beth Devine

Unless you’ve hired a divine saint to sit before the keyboard, your brand is not immune to the seven deadly sins. Like the temptations in our daily lives, social media marketing falls prey to the same vices.

The concept of seven deadly sins and their contrasting virtues are centuries old, handed down to us from the middle ages from an epic poem, Psychomachia, or Battle of Souls, written by Prudentius. It’s an allegory that describes defeating the seven sins through the opposite seven heavenly, or contrary, virtues.

To overcome the vices that can bog down your brand, you can use the seven virtues of generosity, temperance, kindness, patience, humility, diligence, and chastity. Breaking the bonds of the vices of greed, gluttony, envy, anger, pride, sloth, and lust means working the seven virtues as they apply to social media marketing.

So grab your halos and get some divine inspiration to see how you can battle these social media evils. And don’t forget to bring your sense of humor along.

Practice Kindness, Not Envy: Don’t Bore People

There is no greater sin in social media than boring your audience. When you defeat boredom, you are prevented from falling prey to all sorts of other lesser vices, such as ineffectiveness and irrelevance.

In turn, you will stir up the envy you want your competition to experience when they visit your social media pages. Put an end to boredom and spread around the best of your brand with helpful social media posts.

Keep your articles and images not only interesting and informative, but surprise your audience with some tasteful humor. Sometimes people just want to be entertained.

Be Generous: It’s Not All About You and Your Brand

The opposite of generosity is greed, and being greedy on social media is when you make it all about you. Your audience might want to learn more about you, but only in ways that are going to give them something in return.

For example, when posting about a new product, service, or recent work, find a way to relate it to your audience. Always ask, what’s in it for them? When it’s about you, it’s still got to be about them, your audience.

Have you been to the center of the universe? I guarantee your brand’s not there.

Practice Patience: Don’t Annoy Your Followers

It’s easy to be patient when everything is going well. When things get ugly, however, how well do you react? Do you stay calm or do you give the troublemakers something to be sorry for?

Patience is the virtue that counters anger, and it comes in handy when followers make rude or untrue comments meant to incite your brand’s wrath or cause you harm.

In other words, no matter what happens, don’t annoy, irritate, or otherwise anger your audience. When it comes to best practices, deviating from this virtue will swiftly turn the tide against you. Whereas it’s expected that followers can be angry and impatient, your social media posts and comments have to reflect the very best behavior.

There are only so many times you can blame your lapses in judgement on autocorrect.

Be Diligent: Share Content Every Day

Being diligent means fulfilling your duties, cultivating a strong work ethic, and developing your talents. Diligence is the virtue that counters the sin of sloth and being lazy instead of having a zealous attitude.

Your social media marketing can reflect either a virtue of diligence or it can be wrapped up in the vice of sloth. Which attitude do you present in your social media campaigns?

When you share content on social media, be sure to include original content as well, such as your own blog posts or other articles. The opposite extreme to posting daily content is overindulging and dominating your followers’ feed, as the next vice, gluttony, describes.

In other words, diligence goes rogue.

Practice Temperance: Don’t Waste Time

With social media, the inverse of efficiency is true. The more time you spend on social media marketing, the less efficient you are. The more you practice temperance instead of its opposite, gluttony, the less you will fall into the trap of overindulgence and lack of moderation.

Being successful means engaging with your audience – but not wasting your valuable time by overdoing it. Social media is a valuable means of communication, giving brands and people a way to spread the word. There is so much more to content marketing, so don’t waste time with hours spent posting when it’s just one crucial component.

This has me wondering. What do Facebook employees do to waste time while at work?

Be Humble: Care About What You Share (and With Whom You Share It)

“Pride and excess bring disaster for man” because the secret to pridefulness is the disregard for everything and everyone else. Before pride causes your brand to crumble, remember that you owe everything to everyone.

Without your customers and followers, you wouldn’t have anyone to engage with in social media. Self-promotion is allowable and even expected as long as your ultimate goal is centered around your followers’ interests.

An over-appreciation for your brand’s self-worth is unattractive, unless you’re a peacock. Then strutting your stuff is expected.

Chastity: Pure in Style and Conduct

Most brands understand the value of a simple and modest presentation. If you know how to use it, sex sells, and has been since its earliest known use in 1871 by Pearl Tobacco.

If, however, you’re content to practice a more restrained approach in your social media marketing, then find a style that has decency, modesty, and is free of embellishment.

Are there safe ways to be chaste and sexy at the same time? Unsexy brands are finding a unique way to be attractive despite their blahness. See “How to turn something as unsexy as car rental into a social media hit“ and decide what works for you.

Good luck practicing the seven heavenly virtues on social media with your brand. Remember, as W. H. Auden said, “We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don’t know.”

One thing’s for sure, they’re here, and so are you, so let’s make it good.

Are You Being a Bore On Social Media?

February 12, 2016 Beth Devine

Social media is a fickle place. There is no room for a boring business. Platforms keep changing features and formats, and you’re competing for the attention of followers who are on multiple social sites, as well as with the 89% of other businesses who are active on social media.

Short attention spans and the growing competition, plus the accelerating demand for optimising your social media presence add up to a frenetic need for un-boring content. It’s crucial for businesses to avoid the stamp of “BORing,” spoken like only the bumbling Homer Simpson can.

Because when you’re a huge bore on social media, the only thing you’ll attract is the unfollow button.

One critical area to focus on is images. Here are some desperately needed image resources for fueling engagement and getting attention on social media. If you’re posting text without image content, then you might as well post computer code and hope a programmer out there is watching.

Give Your Images a Boost With These Free Resources

Free images with simple creative common license information is your solution for finding attractive visuals. No worrying about improper image use coming to haunt you one day with licensing nightmares and legal fines.

I’ve written about great free sources before, and even more free sources, and here are a few additional winners to give your online content a boost.

Albumarium

Don’t think aquarium or aluminum, think album upon album, and you’ve zeroed in on this catchy title and free image site. All the images are organized into albums, so there’s no specific photo search, just a like grouping by theme.

This is a useful tool when you find yourself looking for a group of photos with identical themes or settings, or photos taken by the same photographer for a uniform feel. This free photo site will allow you to share images under the CC 2.0 license, making attribution necessary, but it’s always a gracious gesture even if not required whenever the artist is known.

Free Images

Yes, this is an actual site, with nearly 400,000 free photos and images to use as you wish, with only minor restrictions. See their license agreement for the full scoop.

This charitable phenomenon of stoking creatives with free images probably began long before Free Images got their footing, but I dare say they were one of the first. Enjoy the fruits, and if you’re dabbling in the photo-shooting arean, don’t be stingy. Share your bounty here.

Good Free Photos

This is exactly what you will find on this site. Good free photos to enhance your social media posts and give you new stunning landscape photos, most of which are located in the United States album.

Be sure to check out the textures album for some great background ideas for your images, all free to use on the public domain. It’s going to be a party on your platform with these freebies.

Kaboompics

Don’t blame me when your image euphoria reaches its zenith. Blame Kaboompics and its brainchild creator and photographer Karolina Grabowska. She’s responsible for all the downloading photo-fun and creating you’ll have, because there’s nothing that screams free and beautiful all at the same time like this photo site.

So have at it, and don’t hesitate to report the lack of cats. It’s the one sad affair this site is having and it must end now.

Upicm

“Free pics, no tricks” on this site, and you won’t be disappointed in the vast array of offerings. While there isn’t a search option, there are many categories to choose from, including some unusual delights, such as graffiti, doors, memes, and icons, logos and buttons.

They say you can use their pictures on anything, from books and posters to album covers and products, and even your toenails are open for business. But don’t stop there. I’m sure you can outdo them with application ideas. Just don’t let on that I encouraged you.

Re:splashed

At 963 images and counting, Re:splash is a fabulous collection of free, high-def images from Crew, the same marketing team who does Unsplash, another free photo source. Apparently they’ve got a lot of free photos on their hands.

The search function is based on photo tags, and the growing collection features some of the most fascinating photography you’ll lay eyes on this side of the web. Get in the mood for something brilliant with their high-reaching, moody shots, and give your content something to shout about.

Google Advanced Image Search

Generally speaking, you do not want to find your images with a Google image search. However, most people aren’t aware of a custom image search feature on Google. The trick is to follow your Google search with a couple more clicks.

Once you enter your search words, click on the “search tools” drop down, followed by “usage rights.” Then click on “labelled for reuse with modification” so your image search will only include those that you can use for free, commercial use. For each image, check for any other usage restrictions, such as attribution requirements.

There you go. You’ve just uncovered Google’s little free image secret.

Public Domain Images

Get to the search function by clicking on weekly images, then peruse the archives of images hand-picked by a husband and wife team. They wanted to see a public domain collection of high quality images on a site that is clean and image-focused, so they built this resource just for you.

See what’s for offer here and find some unexpected entertainment in the stories posted with some of the images, such as their surprise encounter with terrorists in Chicago that turned out to be the Transformer filmmaking shoot. You definitely won’t find boring here.

Stay tuned and get more ways to avoid boring on social media in the next post. I hope you’re up for it, because no one aspires to boring, not even politicians.

Are You Making These 5 Social Media Mistakes?

December 15, 2015 Beth Devine

Social media feels like a gift from the internet gods whether you’re on a tight budget or not. As a small company, you want to maximize creative and low-cost (or free) methods for promoting your business, but social media has you feeling overwhelmed.

Using social media to build your brand involves many options, and in order to optimize the various platforms, you have to dig deeper to discover what will work for you. Here are a few social media mistakes I found when digging that reflect small business needs.

1. Not using Google Analytics to measure and track your efforts

If you want data on your website’s visitors, Google Analytics gives you a ton of information. It also gives you eight reports created specifically for measuring your social media activity.

Here’s the basics for keeping track of your social media ROI, but check out Hootsuite’s article for the in-depth how-to.

Overview report at a glance for conversion value.
Network referral report for traffic from various social networks.
Data Hub activity report for details on your site’s engagement, what URLs are shared and how, and what was said.
Landing pages report shows you the engagement metrics for each URL.
Trackbacks tell you which sites are linking to you.
Conversions reports the number of conversions and their monetary value from your referrals.
Plugins is a report for your site’s social share buttons, telling you which have been clicked on and for what content.
Users Flow shows you what paths your social media visitors took on your site.

2. Not removing the URL from a Facebook post

How many times have you seen this done? When you want to post an update with a link in Facebook, you have to paste the link to share it and to create a clickable image. Leaving the URL at the top of your post just looks like you don’t know what you’re doing.

It’s a tiny mistake that carries a glaring message. Make sure you delete that extra bit of unnecessary information and keep your newsfeed looking professional.

3. Posting without images

Guy Kawasaki, one-time chief evangelist for Apple who now works for Canva, an online graphic design and editing tool, figured out a way to double his engagement on Twitter. For his tweets, Kawasaki says, “There’s no doubt in my mind that every post needs a graphic—and not a tiny thumbnail, but one that’s optimized for each service.”

Canva is his go-to graphic tool, allowing him to create images quick and easy. Try it, it’s free, and it’s designed to work with your social media posts.

Tweets with images take up more space in the twitter feed, grab more attention, and drive engagement up 200 percent. What’s not to like about that?

Facebook is another image-loving platform. Since 40 percent of users respond better to visuals than plain text, according to Zabisco, this is a no-brainer. While you’re busy uploading images onto Facebook, be sure you’re using the right sizes. Follow what Facebook recommends for pixels to give your photos their best quality.

4. Not taking advantage of hashtags

Both Twitter and Instagram are hashtag-loving social media platforms, making it a great way for your business to get involved in the conversation. There are many to choose from that are widely used and recognized.

To find popular hashtags, check out your Twitter home page under trends in the left column, or try a free version of Trendsmap to see localized trends and get ideas. You can search on Twitter using topic keywords and hashtags on anything relevant to your company, or use current events that you’re interested in.

On Instagram, hashtags are unlimited and therefore prone to overuse. Twitter doesn’t suffer from this issue due to its 140 character limit, but Instagram knows no such restrictions.

Just be sure to use hashtags that directly apply to your business when you attempt to get involved in the conversation. Spam is not something users want to see when they filter through their posts.

5. Talking too much and listening too little

Social media is all about giving your followers a forum for feedback and sharing. It’s a place where users can benefit from social relationships — both individuals and companies. But instead what we are seeing is the same thing that happens in real-time interactions.

Ted Rubin, social marketing strategist and keynote speaker, has had enough. In his new book How To Look People In the Eye Digitally, Rubin discusses how we can fix this problem by applying people skills to the digital world. In an interview for his book, he says the first and foremost skill is to be “‘present’ when you’re talking to someone.”

In face-to-face situations, this isn’t happening when you’re constantly distracted with checking your phone or other people in the room. Online it involves different signals, but the same disconnect happens when you don’t treat your social media followers with the gift of being present.

Social media works best for building your brand, not for directly making new customers. But done right, you can build relationships that can develop into new clients.

3 Secrets To Getting Your Customers To Trust You

October 20, 2015 Beth Devine

Trust is a hard-won commodity. Gaining your customer’s trust is a process that takes a business at least two years, according to a global study by SDL. Strengthening your relationships with your customers is an investment that requires good communication, but just how else do you build trust over time?

With these three secrets, help your business grow as you practice building trust.

Be Imperfect

Today’s social media makes your business far more visual and public. Your business communications on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and other social media platforms reflect your ability to be accessible and transparent.

The key to conveying accessibility and authenticity to your audience is by sharing content that reveals you’re imperfect. Authentic storytelling involves a willingness to admit your faults and mistakes, as well as your accomplishments and successes. The more you engage with your followers in a familiar and realistic manner, the more effective you’ll be in persuading them to accept and trust you.

Gone is the perfect brand image with impeccable stock photos to tell your brand’s story. The trend in images on social media echoes the user-generated content taken by the smartphone in your back pocket. The natural technical errors and the added filters help create imagery that’s familiar and relatable.

There’s a right balance between professional, polished content and authentic storytelling that depends on your audience and business. Just remember, the more transparent and realistic you are, the more your audience will gravitate to you.

The Law of Diminishing Returns

The law of diminishing returns is the theory that the more you do something, the less value and effect it has. It applies to things you enjoy doing, like eating your favorite food or riding your favorite amusement park ride, and to performance-based efforts, like studying for an exam or practicing for a competition. The more you experience it or work at it, the more you grow tired of it or feel burned out from it.

This theory is similar to a diminishing law of credibility. The bigger your claims are, the less likely anyone will believe you. The rule here is to “never tell them more than you think they’ll believe.”

You might have the most powerful vacuum cleaner ever made, thanks to its high-tech filter. So how do you get your audience to believe you? Instead of rattling on about how and why it’s the best, start by telling the disadvantages first. Tell them the filter is the most expensive on the market. Then eventually get to that’s why it’s also the most effective.

This doesn’t mean you don’t get to sound excited about your product or service. It means you aren’t afraid to be upfront about some of the limitations in order to establish credibility and trust. This is a tool you probably use in your everyday life without realizing it.

For example, when talking to a friend about your exercise regime, you are more likely to tell another avid runner all about your struggle with 12-mile daily runs than you would discuss it with someone who never runs. You would be more effective in encouraging this friend by talking about the hard-won benefits of walking.

Telling people the truth, but only as much as they can accept and want to believe, will not only resonate with your audience, it will make you easier to trust.

Start With the Why of the Golden Circle

Why should people choose your product or service over your competitor’s? Is it better quality? Less expensive? Will it last longer? Most businesses sell themselves with similar claims, offering no unique point of reference.

According to Simon Sinek, the way to stand out from the competition is to use what he calls “The Golden Circle.” The circle consists of a bull’s-eye in the center of the circle and two concentric layers. In the center is the why, in the middle is the how, and in the outermost circle is the what.

To communicate with your customers, Sinek says to begin in the center with the why. He says that few organizations can explain the why to their existence, so to be unique and meaningful, you must start from the inside of the circle and work outwards. The why of your business is how you will build trust and loyalty, Sinek says.

Don’t let these three secrets stay a secret. Share this post with your colleagues and help to spread valuable trust in your corner of the world.

Social Helping Enters the Social Selling Scene

October 7, 2015 Beth Devine

There is a new buzzword in social media marketing: “social helping.” Its definition appears to be no different than the original “social selling.” So why the need for new jargon?

Maybe it’s because the term “selling” couldn’t absolve itself of pushy, used-car salesman undertones. Maybe it’s because salespeople simply can’t resist hard-core selling. Or maybe it’s because we’re hard-headed minions who refuse to listen. Whatever the cause, social helping has arrived to differentiate itself from old-school social selling.

Are You Misusing Your Social Media?

Your online social media presence is a great tool for connecting with customers. There are successful salespeople who are developing relationships that generate leads and convert into sales. But they didn’t do it with an aggressive sales approach.

The social selling agenda didn’t develop so you could use hard-selling tactics. I found this misguided advice online to describe social selling: “Ultimately, you need to obtain sales any way you can.”

Social helping has morphed out of social selling from necessity. Internet users have grown apathetic to sales messages and the constant bombardment of banner ads, click-through buttons, and sponsored content. The social aspect was lost, and social selling isn’t doing what it’s intended.

The Keys to Social Helping

Be a listener.

As a business, you’re on social media for one reason, to become familiar with your followers. All your communication is driven with the intent to understand how you can help them. What problems do they have? How can you assist with solving them?

Ask questions.

All followers are potential customers, but instead of forcing them to learn about your company, you’re concerned with learning more about them by asking the right questions. Find out what motivates them, what concerns they’re struggling with, and what their preferences are. Leave your “about me” self-indulgent pitches at the door.

Share great content.

Keep your followers educated and entertained. Give them targeted content that helps them make informed decisions, such as how-to and DIY videos, blog posts, and relevant content from other valuable sources. Be the company they look for who shares interesting and fun posts. Don’t be the brand who’s always sharing promotional gimmicks.

Be an expert.

When your followers have a question, be the authority they turn to for answers. Keep your social media profile filled with a steady stream of useful information. Based on their questions and needs, contribute relevant content that solves their problems and builds your credibility.

Meet your followers where they are. Social media is the place to go to reach your audience and be a social helper. Almost two-thirds of social media users use social media sites at least once a day on their computers and almost half of smartphone owners visit social networks every day on their phones, according to Neilsen’s “The Digital Consumer” 2014 report.

Make it easy to connect by adding links to your website on your social media profiles. You can also incorporate links to a landing page or other pages with sales information. When your follower is ready to be a customer, they can easily find out more about you.

Are You Keeping Up With Facebook’s Latest Features?

October 1, 2015 Beth Devine

Facebook is continually adding new features to enhance the experience of all users, including businesses. Using Facebook’s latest features for your marketing will help you gain more visibility. Learn how to promote your business, increase your post’s views from fans, and boost communication with your fans.

See First

With See First, users can give priority to the pages and friends they want to make sure they “see first.” Help your fans to manage their news feed and explain how this works.

Ask them, “Want to stay tuned to the latest at (insert your business name)? Let us show you how!”

It’s easy. All you need to do is have them go to your Facebook page and click the Like button. The drop down will give a See First option to choose. That’s it!

The other more customized way involves several steps. For desktop users, go to your personal News Feed and select the down arrow in the top far right to access News Feed Preferences. From there, click Prioritize and select the pages and friends you want to See First.

Keep giving your fans outstandig content so they will want to select your business to see first in their news feed.

Facebook Beacon

As a local business, you can choose to place a Facebook Beacon on your page. Just like a physical beacon, the Facebook Beacon sends information out to people who are nearby. If your fans have their bluetooth turned on and they are near your place of business, you can send messages to them.

Send your fans a photo with a welcome message, alerting them to your location, share a recommendation from friends, or request a check-in. All you need to do is request this free feature from Facebook and you’re on your way to getting more attention and airtime from your fans who are in your location.

Messenger for Business

Want a new way to connect with your customers? Now it’s easier than ever with Facebook’s Messenger app. Through Messenger, you can send private messages to not only friends, but also with your customers who respond to your ad.

Thanks to Facebook, selling your services and products just got more customer-friendly. When your customers go through checkout in response to your ad, they can choose to sign up for this feature and get information sent to them such as order confirmation and shipping updates. They can click on “Send Message” button with your ad, and the Messenger window will open for them. Once a customer sends you a message, you are then able to respond.

Facebook says businesses will soon be able to respond to not only customer’s private messages, but to their comments as well. Instead of email, you can use Messenger to quickly help customers with their questions and problems. You can use images in your communication, unlike texting. This is an excellent way to give your customers the support they want in a more personalized way. If you want to jump on the Messenger for businesses bandwagon, just sign up with Facebook.

Saved Replies

Save time with saved replies by reusing a standard message that you send over and over. You can tweak each one to be more personalized before you hit send, but the bulk of the message is the same and easy to save for reuse.

First navigate to Messages. Click on a particular message to see Saved Replies. The message shows up in a pop-up box with the Saved Replies on the left side. Select Manage Replies to see all your replies or to write a new reply. Write generic replies for all your FAQs for future use. Don’t forget to customize each one before sending out, such as with a personal greeting to the recipient.

360-Degree Video

Give your viewers a totally immersive viewing experience with this latest of video features. Web and Android users (with iOS coming soon) can view a scene from all angles by tilting your device or dragging your cursor.

How do you do this? You need to use cameras that will capture all 360 degrees of your scene at once. Think of the possibilities. GoPro is using it for a motocross ride across the Idaho desert. LeBron James, the basketball legend, is giving his viewers a behind-the-scene look at a his workout. Walt Disney is taking viewers to its fictional planet Jakku for a preview of what’s to come in the next installment of Star Wars.

You can start uploading now, although no ads are allowed at this time.

Send and Receive Money

Now you can send and receive money on Facebook. There’s no service charge for this like there is with Paypal, for example, but it does come with a few caveats. You must be friends with the person, so if you’re friends are clients, they can pay you by using the Messenger app. It is currently only good for the U.S. and when using a debit card.

All you have to do is click on the dollar sign in the Message box to get started. The dollar sign is there for a reason, so be patient while this feature continues to roll out.

Have fun trying these new Facebook features out for your business, and for the ones still in the works, keep an eye out. By then there’ll probably be a few more new features available.

How to Rid Your Blog of Dust Bunnies

March 27, 2015 Beth Devine

repurpose your blog post — “Dust Bunny Large Enough to Have a Name” by Kim Carpenter, used under CC BY / Modified from original

Are your blog posts collecting dust bunnies? Or in extreme cases, is your blog attracting mammoth-sized versions of dinosaur bunnies?

Getting rid of your blog’s dust bunnies is a simple matter. All you need to do is a little spring cleaning, get out your duster ––er, your creative cap, and repurpose your blog content. Take those dust balls and brush them off when you extend the reach of your blog, and create new and relevant content that will add life to your hard work.

Repurposing your blog content can turn it into new media formats. This saves you time, money, and prolongs the life of your online marketing investments. By taking your old content and making it new again, you can offer a new audience an updated format, sending the digital dust bunnies off to distant oblivion.

If you’ve been blogging for awhile, or you have empty warehouse syndrome (aka, you’re out of ideas), and the dust bunnies have moved in for the kill, you’re not alone. Here’s the scoop on how to do some spring cleaning and repurpose your blog content.

Brainstorm: Which blog posts are best for repurposing?

Which posts received the most traffic? Which posts are evergreen (content that continues to be relevant long past its publication)? Which posts could use updating?

Once you’ve determined which content in your stockpile is best for repurposing, you’ll need to decide how you want to reuse it. Different formats appeal to different people and their learning styles.

Hit the Refresh Button

Some of your blog content will have a lot of value, but it just needs a little tweaking to be current. Depending on how things have changed, you will need to modify your content to be relevant with the new information that’s available. This could mean writing a new article, in which case you could add a note at the end with a link to the post’s original content.

If the changes are minor, plugging in a few alterations for a makeover allows you to salvage your original post. When you repurpose in this manner, keep the post’s URL the same so it retains its SEO value, but change the date to a new publishing date if possible.

Make Quote Pictures

Adapt the one-liners that stand out in your blog posts to create images with text. Name the new image with the post’s title, or write a totally new headline and include this as your image text. If you used a clever-sounding title the first time, change it to something more SEO-friendly and searchable.

Think about how you will repost your content with this image, and adapt it for that social media platform. Finding new images to repurpose content is easy with so many different free and legal online photo sources. My most recently discovered resource is Unsplash. Sign up and you’ll get ten free new photos every ten days.

Choosing which online photo editing site can often mean going back to your tried and true favorite, but try something new and see how you like it. Canva is great for social media because it has all the templates prepared for you. Or try an app like Wordswag for on-the-go creating.

This is the best time-saver in repurposing content. You created a new quote picture to share on social media, and you didn’t have to change any content in your blog post. Sweet.

Adapt Your Content for Tweets, Twitter Cards, and Other Social Media

Share your evergreen content by reposting it as part of a social media management strategy. This is a great way to make contact with people by hitting different time zones, using different headlines, and reaching new followers.

Your high-value blog posts will gain new value from their initial publishing date through re-promotion on different social media platforms that highlight different types of content. This Twitter research shows how reposts in the form of retweets can gain 75% of its previous number of retweets.

Twitter is an easy place to post repurposed content by turning snippets of content into tweets, and then linking back to your original post. Just be sure to use less than the 140-character limit to allow for retweets by your followers.

Try adapting content into Twitter cards and add a call to action to your blog post content. Twitter cards come in seven formats, including the Summary Card With Large Image. This is more likely to attract attention in twitter feeds, and a click on your image brings your followers to your blog post.

As a content creator, save yourself time and reap SEO benefits when you repurpose content. Remember to think about adding value to your original piece, and you’re repurposing efforts will grow your audience and extend your content’s life.

Say goodbye to dust bunnies and hello to a fresh start.

Use Images to Speak Louder Than Words

March 6, 2015 Beth Devine

“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera,” said Lewis Hine, a photographer whose work was instrumental in ending child labor in America.

Most of us have been moved by an image at some point. In one of my college journalism classes, each student was handed a book of photography and after a few minutes shared how the images affected them. My book was a selection of post-Civil War photos of freed slaves.

When it my was turn to speak, the “thousand words” that a picture’s worth represents had formed a bottleneck in my throat. No words could come out. After several moments of suffering an inability to speak, my professor saved me from embarrassment. “I don’t think we need to say anything further. This is what images can do.”

Words Aren’t Enough

This powerful ability of images to convey so much emotion, to communicate such a vast amount of information and hidden meaning is why visual platforms are continuing to grow. Visual communication is the growing landscape where regularly occurring bottlenecks form because words aren’t enough.

As communication demands ever shorter ways to convey messages, images are stepping in and being showcased everywhere online. This shift from tell to show, from lengthy, text-only posts to quickly consumable visuals, inevitably leads us to image-based social networks.

Communicating your story or sharing a message the visual way is faster to consume than even the 140 character limit of Twitter. It’s more eye-catching than a block of copy. Images are a vital component to making the connection with your audience.

Find a good balance with your images and text that will compel your reader to stay and keep reading. Images take up more space in news feeds, particularly on mobile applications, which increases your potential for getting views.

Here are some ideas for creating visual images to use in your social media, blog posts, and website.

Free Image Sources

Free images are an invaluable resource for your image-creating efforts. In addition to the ones mentioned in Free Photo and Image Editing Programs and Where to Get Free Photos and Images, here are a few others to hit the internet, all with Creative Commons options.

Pixabay is the source of “stunning public domain pictures” with a free account. They encourage you to get rid of ads on your acccount by uploading ten of your own photos as contribution to its collection.
Compfight gets you both free and inexpensive stock photos fast, with different search filters. Use the Creative Commons filter and check for what permission each photo offers.
Wikimedia commons has images as well as videos and sounds, all free to use with licensing clearly designated.
Freeimages.com has both free and low-cost stock photos from photographers and designers.
Picjumbo has free images in handy categories and is maintained by one man who started the site when stock agencies wouldn’t take his photos. Unless you become a paid premium member, it appears that the most search specific you can be is by selecting a category and seeing what’s available.
Photo Pin has both stock photos and free images pop up when you search. Free photos has attribution licenses ready for easy copy and paste.

Personal Photos

Using your own photos to tell a story is the simplest way to convey a message. An author friend of mine, Kay Bratt, uses hers in a simple collage to share a story on her blog. A search for a lost cat had an ending that words alone couldn’t tell.

Free Online Editing Tools

Canva makes it easy to custom create images for various platforms, including Facebook posts, posters, Instagram posts, general social media, business cards, and even a handy Facebook cover or Twitter header template.

There are short, interactive video tutorials to help you along the way, scroll-through workshops for digging deeper into design, complete with lecture notes. For the small business owner, workshop four “Branding Basics” is essential, and for the teacher, there are numerous lesson plans to select from.

This is a must-try for both the novice and the more savvy visual creator.

Pablo, the new image editing tool from Buffer, boasts a less-than-30-second process for creating social media posts without making an account or logging in. There are less overall options, but if you’re looking for fast and simple, this is the place.

I tried them both and I still love PicMonkey the best. The Monkey is pure shazam.

Make Your Own Infographics

Already a superb image editing tool, Canva is also great for making your own infographics.

Piktochart, Infogr.am, and Easel.ly offer similar infographic resources, with each limited to a small number of free templates and paid subscriptions offering much more.

The possibilities are endless. They include responsive infographics, like How Far Is It to Mars?, interactive infographics such as How Data Travels Around the Globe, and even animated infographics as in 42 ButterFlies of North America.

Take a Screenshot

Screenshots are simple with tools like Snagit, Jing, and Lightshot. Your computer screen is ready material for instant images to embellish your blog and social media.

Using images is a productive and fun way to help your readers stay longer and keep coming back for more. Words alone are no longer enough.

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