Frontline Perspectives

A fellow marketer asked me why we didn’t automatically link our updates to Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts, pushing our content out to all of our social media networks with one click.

My answer was simple. Although this seems like the most efficient process, I’ve found that linking different sites actually stunts your social media growth because it also links your timing. Each social media tool has a different best practice in terms of the numbers of posts, status updates or tweets per hour and should be scheduled accordingly. Posting on your sites at the same time, every time is not in your best interest.

For example, Twitter is more effective the more you use it. The more you tweet, the more followers you gain. The exception to this rule? The average click through rate per hour decreases after 2 links – meaning, if you want someone to click through to your valuable thought leadership, that should be your only tweet for an hour. If you’re syndicating general information that you don’t necessarily own, tweet as often as you like.

Facebook is different. To get your posts liked on Facebook, only post once every other day. Unlike Twitter, which by nature is a constant stream of updates, Facebook users are more easily bombarded by information and less likely to like your information if you send it too frequently.

Each social media tool has a different best practice in terms of the time of day that posts, status updates and tweets are most effective. For Twitter, late in the day and later in the week are the most retweetable times. But for Facebook, weekends are the best time for sharing.

So what’s the best solution? Focus your content.

Start by publishing a blog and post it on Facebook once every other day. Re-purpose that post for Twitter and tweet throughout the day with additional information about the same topic – even repost the same blog with different lead-ins multiple times. Then, mix in other timely stories and post as often as possible. If it helps, make an editorial calendar with the number of posts per day for each social media tool.

If you’re farther a long with your social media following, try an integration solution like Hootsuite. This tool is more than a simple social media tool that sends one post to multiple sites at the same time. It allows the user to send updates to multiple places at various times and also allows for scheduled postings in advance.

What schedule works best for you?

B2B social media marketers know that short URLs are a necessity. You’re constantly limited with how many characters you have for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. But the power of a long URL, with tracking and a targeted destination, is often the reality.

The answer? URL shorteners. These online tools, such as Bitly or Tiny URL, will let you paste your long url into a field on their site and instantly give you a shorter URL (about 8 to 12 characters) to the same destination – hiding your tracking, code or anything else that happens to be there. Read more »

Most marketers know that having a database is important to their organization’s marketing efforts. But creating one, maintaining it and using it effectively are much easier said than done. To ensure you’re getting the most sales from your lead generation efforts, here are seven tactical things every marketer should do right now with their marketing database…followed by one piece of advice on strategy. Read more »

Unlike other content on your website, most of the information in videos cannot be read by Google or other search engines. Although it can index some of your video content, like a title and a description, anything within the video itself cannot be read and therefore won’t help your video rank well in organic search.

However, there are some steps you can take to optimize the information around your videos and maximize their visibility in search. Read more »

On March 30, 2001, Salesforce.com, the leading cloud-based sales and CRM solution, announced it would acquire Radian6, a popular social media monitoring service.  “What’s this mean to me,” you might say. We’ll tell you. But first a little refresher. Read more »

The new rules of social media series.

While on vacation this past week, I had the chance to finish Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and more) that Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business. As a long-time fan of Anne Handley of Marketing Profs, I was looking forward to hearing what she had to say about  maximizing your online presence. Read more »

The Rolling Stones sang this well.  Life is full of unfulfilled dreams, wants and needs. And many of us get pretty darn crabby about it. For the sales and marketing teams:  “If we only had the resources to develop the website more, or the money to develop an SEM campaign, or hire five new sales people to develop the new verticals we’ve danced around.  And then there’s the video and green room that could take our video platform to a whole new planet.  We could be so much better, only if we hand X, Y, Z…” Read more »

Recent research released by HubSpot indicates that Linkedin is more effective for B2B companies. In fact, 61% of B2B users who acquired a customer through a social media channel used LinkedIn, compared to their company blog (55%), Facebook (41%) or Twitter (39%). Read more »

The recent penalties Google has doled out to JCPenney, Forbes and Overstock.com for participation in unacceptable link building and link selling schemes serve as signals that a new era in link building has arrived. Read more »

You know why twitter can be useful to your business. You understand the basics of how to use it. Now how do you really develop a following? Read more »