Keeping a solid social media presence can be an excruciating task. With other important tasks for the business, like attending phones, making sales, finding new clients, and many others, it seems impossible to have the time to also post original content on several different platforms and accounts.

The solution to this problem? Social media automation, the perfect tool to have social media presence without spending all your time sitting on a computer.

What is Social Media Automation?

In today’s world, businesses need to have an online presence to get in touch with clients and potential customers, and to remain on people’s mind.

Having a website, an email and even a mailing list are great ideas to enhance your business and keep connected with leads and clients, but something that is vital — whether you like it or not — is social media network presence.

Why Should Your Business Have Social Media Presence?

According to statista.com, by 2017 the total number of social network users was more than 2 billion worldwide, and this number could increase to over 3 billion by 2021. This represents at least one-third of the entire world’s population, and businesses know it.

For that reason, they create business social media accounts, to keep in touch with customers and leads in a more relaxed, informal way. Through pictures, short stories, quizzes, and other entertaining and informative content, they keep people engaged with their brands.

On these platforms, companies can also inform about sales, promotions, events and more, thus increasing their clients, sales, and of course, profit.

As a matter of fact, according to entrepreneur.com, 95% of adults follow a company through social media networks, which means visibility can be achieved through these channels.

And if you are not sure about why it is important to be on social media networks, we mention some reasons given by an entrepreneur:

• Increase your search engine presence in a natural way
• Make people talk about you and pass the information around
• Help you build trust because customers prefer brands with social media profiles
• Increase your ability to compete in your niche
• Allow you to connect and bond with customers and leads
• Help you generate leads
• Help you drive sales

So now that you know the importance it has for your business to have a social media network presence, you may be thinking about how to do it. How can you be able to post engaging, informative, and entertaining content every day on all your platforms?

Companies who already knew the importance of social media networks faced the same problem as you are right now. Thankfully, the task is not as daunting as you might think.

Social Media Automation – A Solution For Social Media Marketing

When you hear or read the term “Social Media Automation”, people are referring to a group or software, apps, or websites that help you to automate some of your social media marketing activity. This is what articulate marketing tells us in their article, where they also state that there are two groups when it comes to social media automation.

There are people in favor and against these kinds of tools. People against it call it unnatural, while people in favor say it makes you gain efficiency. But whether you think it is good or bad, the truth is that social media automation has gained more and more users among people who need to increase their productivity.

So, social media automation is a tool that allows you to post content, send messages and more, at any scheduled times or circumstances.

How to Use Social Media Automation?

Using social media automation is very simple. With online apps such as Buffer, Hoot Suite, Co Schedule, Hub Spot, or IFTTT, you can configure your personal or business social media accounts within minutes to schedule posts, send messages, and more.

It will all depend on what you wish to automatize in your social media networks. Always keep in mind that you will still need to manually enter and interact on your social networks to avoid being seen as a bot.

Some of the things that you can do when you automate your social media marketing are:

1. Schedule Posts

When you have a brand and you want to stay current on social media networks, it is very important to constantly post content that engages your audience and keeps you on their mind. With social media marketing automation, all you have to do is upload all your posts for a week, schedule them for a time and date, and wait for the magic to happen.

There are several options to do this, whether you are posting original texts or photos, sharing your blog’s content or even sharing other people’s content.

The best advantage of this is that you can make sure to always post on times and dates your target market actually check their social media profiles, so it gives you a higher chance to be seen by your audience.

2. Share Content

An important part of social media marketing is to keep consistency. This means that it is important to constantly post new content on your social media networks. A strategy lots of companies use is to share engaging, interesting content from other websites.

Jeff Bullas.com mentions the importance of posting on a regular basis to keep the audience engaged and aware of your existence.

You can target content to share from other websites such as articles, photos, infographics and more, and save it to have easy access to all of it when you want to share content.

Obviously, you can share your content from your website. Blog posts, photos and articles can be on queue and ready to deliver whenever you schedule it.

3. Make Users Take Action

With the use of social media marketing automation tools, you will have the chance to make your website and social media networks more visible by adding a call to action button to every shared content you post.

This means that whenever you share a link when the person opens it to see the website, they will also see a call to action button linking back to your website. In this way, you will have a higher chance of people visiting your site, increasing your ability to make sales.

4. Create Custom Responses

If you are getting more followers and connections on your social networks, you may want to show your appreciation to your new subscribers by sending them a welcome and thank you message.

But doing this task manually can be long and difficult to do, especially when as an entrepreneur you have a lot on your plate.

When you automate custom responses for your contacts, you will be able to automatically send a note every time a person likes, subscribes, shares, or interacts in any way with you. This way they will feel welcomed when they interact with you.

There are many benefits of using auto-responders on your social media networks, like turning visitors into subscribers, following up on visitors at a faster pace, and saving money on the price it would cost to hire a person for this job.

As general advice, automated responses should be used for messages such as a welcoming, showing gratitude for subscribing or a weekly newsletter. Make sure you still schedule some time to manually and personally interact with others on social media as well.

5. Articulate your Social Media Accounts

This is something you already can do with some social media networks such as Facebook or Instagram.

By automating your social networks with tools such as IFTTT, you can interconnect 2 or more social media accounts to inform one when you post something to the other one.

This is great for information such as promotions, discounts, contests and quizzes that are meant to be socialized through all possible sources. This can lead to concrete actions from leads and clients because you will have to post the information on only one social media network to have the information posted on all your profiles.

Some useful advice on this aspect is to use this function only to post information like the mentioned above. It is important to remember that each social media platform was created with a purpose; therefore, make sure to post content especially designed for each platform.

6. Get Statistics and Important Info

This is one great feature you can get when you automate because all these apps and websites can collect important info for your brand, such as whenever your brand is mentioned on social media, or when the keyword you are tracking is mentioned on any post.

Always be aware of the state of your competitor’s demographics in order to get more leads or even capitalize on unhappy customers.

Conclusion

When you start a business you do not know how much time you will have to invest in branding your company. With today’s technology and the importance of the Internet, there are plenty of fields open for you to market your brand, get new followers and increase your sales.

But having entrepreneurship is not an easy task all the time and the effort you can save is monumental. With this in mind, social media marketing automation can help you complete tasks that would take hours and with just a few moments you will have most of your next week’s content ready to be instantly posted at times and dates you need.

Some people say automation makes social network marketing lose its social nature. But if you make sure to automate only the content that is uniform for all your platforms, and if you make sure to keep interacting manually and personally on social media networks, you will be able to make your time more efficient and grow your business.

Networking is defined as connecting and communicating with others to exchange information and develop professional or social contacts. In business, networking is one of the most essential keys to increasing the awareness of a newly developed establishment. It is important to know how to network, where to network, and how to plan out your course of action. Here are 10 tips any busy owner can easily use to become better at networking their business to new clients.

1. Figure out where to network.

Understanding your target market is important in order to find out where you need to network. Whether you do business locally or outside of your immediate area, you can find out who they are, what they like, and more importantly, the best way to give them information about your business. A business owner could figure out what industries are aligned or work directly with his industry, and start from there. Figuring out what other industries your product or business works with and going to their events is a quick and easy way you can begin networking with others.

2. Contact the Chamber of Commerce

Joining the Chamber of Commerce in your local community will put you in environments where you can meet potential clients. The Chamber of Commerce was tailormade specifically for local business owners so they can communicate with each other and establish business relationships. You may want to e-mail your local chamber and be asked to be put on their mailing list. This way you can receive regular notifications on where the next event is going to occur.

3. Join a Leads Group

A lead group is a business association in which members regularly communicate with each other for the purpose of giving and getting potential clients. There are many lead groups, and some do charge a fee, so it is important to do research on all lead groups before joining. You are more likely to get leads if you give leads to the group because they will likely feel the need to reciprocate.

4. Plan Your Work And Work Your Plan

One of my mentors once said, “Plan your work, and work your plan.” You are more likely to achieve your desired goal if you have a game plan. Why are you there? Who do you want to meet? What do you hope to accomplish? These are questions a business owner should be asking themselves before going to any networking event. Creating a clear and concise plan within your mind helps you understand what your goals are. Find some of the other attendees and try to establish a relationship with them prior to the event. This way you can begin to pre-plan any other questions you may have prior to professional interactions.

5. Sum yourself up in 30 seconds or less.

Do you have an elevator pitch? The difficulty of networking is figuring out the best way to sell yourself within a limited amount of time. If your introduction is too short, you may leave out vital information. If it is too long, you may initially grab their interest but lose potential clients when your message is too long. The key to communicating when trying to create business relationships is to create a concise monologue that gives a clear answer to who you are, what you do and who you do it for. Remember to practice, practice, and practice some more until it becomes second nature.

6. The Only Thing To Fear is Fear Itself

You won’t create any new leads or potential clients by not communicating. Remember this is a gathering specifically for business. It is important to introduce yourself and try to find people to talk to. Get to know the person you are talking to. Ask questions and let them lead the conversation. Not every conversation is going to turn into a business opportunity, but it does allow you to explain who you are and what you do to another business owner. Become genuinely interested in other people’s business and you’ll be surprised how the floodgates of information open up. After hearing them talk about themselves and their business, then they will want to reciprocate and talk about your business.

7. Bring Business Cards and Magnets

With social media websites and emails, we sometimes forget that being able to hand someone something physically still draws attention. Business cards are still a classic way to give potential clients all of your information. It is still a virtually inexpensive way to make it easy for clients to contact you. Include your name, website, email and phone number. However, if you want to take your networking up a notch, invest in some business card magnets. People are more likely to keep your magnet and put it on their refrigerator, than a business card.

8. Follow up is the key to real networking.

Around 95 percent of people do not follow up with potential clients after networking. This is why following up with any potential client you meet can immediately set you apart from any of the other business owners they may have met the day of the event. A business owner should follow up with a potential client within 48 hours of the initial meeting. You may want to consider using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management Software). One that comes with a lot of bells and whistles and is free to use is bitrix24.

9. Grow Your LinkedIn Connections

Unlike Twitter, Facebook or Instagram the sole purpose of LinkedIn is to establish professional relationships and to network. There are groups that exist within LinkedIn that make it possible to communicate with other people who specifically deal with businesses within your industry. Take time out to personalize your messages. It lets the potential lead know you are specifically interested in their business as opposed to appearing as if you are sending messages to every profile you encounter. Commenting on their post would also help to personalize your interactions.

10. Be Patient and Think Long Term.

I don’t believe that every relationship you establish will lead to sales or new business. But it is still important to work on each of those relationships individually. We as business owners are eager to sell our product or service as soon as we develop our relationship, but it is important to remember that people will buy when they want to, not when we want them to. You never know when a potential client will be ready to work with you. Even if after several meetings your leads may not be interested in doing business with you, they still have the potential to introduce you to other potential leads. Touch bases with your networking business connections every 30 days as to not lose your influence.

11. Wear A Name Tag

Most people forget a person’s name within the first 30 seconds of an introduction. However, many networking experts agree that you are more likely to be remembered if you wear a name tag to an event. This is why it’s important to invest a few dollars into a professional name tag and wear it to every event.
If you want more business you need to network, communicate, and meet new people. Introduce yourself at any opportunity. As stated before, every interaction you have won’t lead to new business, but creating those relationships will let more people know about your business. Contact your Chamber of Commerce, join a lead group and become an active member on LinkedIn. Harness those communication skills, pass out business cards and your other marketing material. Get ready to introduce yourself (and more importantly your business) to the world!

www.chavezwebdesign.com
Written by Noemi Chavez

Whether you have a brand, a startup, a small, medium or large business or any kind of company, it is most likely that you have a LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn is one of the biggest online work community there is, which is why it is so important to get noticed on this platform.

Created in 2002, LinkedIn is a business, enterprises, and employment-oriented social media network. Millions of people, brands, companies and other businesses share their experience and skills online to get in touch with others.

For this and more, LinkedIn is so much more than just a simple online CV, and if you have not yet seen the importance that LinkedIn can have for your brand, keep reading and learn with us on how you can create a profile that becomes viral and have everyone aware of who you are in this platform.

But first!

Never forget that LinkedIn is more than your regular resume. Your profile must be treated as a professional site for your brand, what you are selling. LinkedIn will work much better with a business that sells to other companies, rather than a brand that sells to the consumers.

But no matter what kind of business you run, create a very professional version of your LinkedIn profile, as if it was an add about your brand. This is the first step into making your profile viral.

20 Tips to get a LinkedIn viral profile

1. Be original

In LinkedIn, most profiles are from professionals in the most varied field. From graphic design to content and digital marketing, any possible professional field will have some company representing it on LinkedIn. So you will have to know that there will be tons of brands and businesses like yours.

Make a stand out profile by being original, showcasing your talents, portfolio, and writing a creative presentation. Be professional but also make sure to stand out.

2. Write a nice profile name and tag line

Your photo and the information right next to it is the first — and only — thing that is visible in search results. This shows your name, a little tag line, and your location. Make sure you come up with an attractive and catchy tagline to put beside your photo, so it gets people’s attention.

Also, find a photo that shows you in a serious way without being too formal. A photograph smiling and with a natural background instead of an identification-like photo will work great in terms of getting noticed.

3. Add all your professional experience

In LinkedIn, it is important to showcase your experience, so do not hesitate to write down every single professional experience and job you have had. Every experience you can show will add when it is time to find the most experienced candidate. It does not matter if your professional experience overlaps one on the other, the only important thing is that the audience is aware of all the things you can do.

4. Let them know the outside of work you

Even LinkedIn is a professional social media network. So make sure to let your personality and uniqueness shine when you share your information.

Make sure to mention the things you like to do when you are not working, the things you are passionate about, books you read, and other particular things about you. It is about building an image of you that goes beyond your professional image.

5. Advertise your skills

Make sure you mention several times on your resume, as well as in your bio, and in any other information you give about yourself, such as job experience, 5 to 10 skills you consider are the skills you want to be recognized for.

Use these skills repeatedly on your profile, bio, and experience. This will help you build your image, amplify your message and make your profile easier to find when potential leads make a keyword search.

6. Link your other websites

LinkedIn gives you the chance of linking up to 3 websites to your profile. Use it to show your website, blog, or the social media networks where you have more followers.

When adding these websites to your profile, make sure to set them as “other”, so you can edit the name and description of your websites. Then, make sure to write an attractive text that calls people to click and visit your other profiles and know more about you. The key is to be creative and friendly.

7. Choosing your LinkedIn image

Taking in count that LinkedIn is a professional social media network; it is logical to guess that the photo you chose cannot be just any pic you had in a barbecue. Find a photo that looks professional without being too serious.

Make sure your LinkedIn photo is the same or at least similar to your other social media and website pages to keep the professional line in all your spaces.

8. Keep the same name

Do not assume that people will know when you change your name. Whether it is a letter or the whole thing, changing your name can make people lose you on their radar, so better chose a name and stick to it.

9. Contact with people

Once you have created your LinkedIn profile and let all your experience shine, do not leave it there. Start contacting people and searching for connections. Getting at least 500 contacts should be your goal, it will look much better on your profile having 500+ contacts than having just 10.

Do this by browsing on LinkedIn for contacts that are in the same field as you, people who work with companies related to your niche, or people who show in their interests something similar to your brand. Also, do not hesitate to add people who you may find interesting. Normally, people you follow will follow you back; like in most social media networks tend to happen.

Get them interested in you by sending an interested, well designed and very professional image of your brand: your products, a small brochure, something that gets their attention to you, as well as a personally written note. In business, personal relationships are always better than digital ones.

10. Join groups

In LinkedIn, there are groups where you can participate to exchange information, give and get tips, etc. Do not hesitate becoming part of groups and add yourself to groups with similar niches or related to the same industry.

LinkedIn gives you a widget called sharing. With it, you can message all the group members once a week. This gives you a great opportunity to send important information, special promotions and more to keep your followers interested in your brand.

You can also create your own group and target for people who have similar interests than yours and you could turn into potential clients.

11. Consider your headlines and posts

As in any other social media network, content is the main thing. Create attractive and engaging headlines, which will capture viewers’ eyes.

Then, make sure that your content is at least as interesting as the headline you created. Make good content, interesting and pertinent to your niche, whether it is interesting data about your field, or straight promotions or sales you want to advertise.

Do not be afraid to including images and links in your posts to make them more complete. The goal is to make people interested in your content, and also in your brand.

12. Create a company profile

As in any other social media network, the best advice is to create a personal profile linked to a professional profile. This makes you look more professional and make your brand seem bigger.

So, create a LinkedIn professional profile and link it to your personal profile to build more presence of your brand and to redirect people to your website.

This will also work to get connected with other companies and possibly create alliances to make your business grow.

Make sure that your name and photo are of the brand and not of yourself. For the description and bio, make sure to mention the services you provide, the amount of money you have raised or produced, and any other interesting data that talks about your company and its success.

13. Share your profile

Make sure you share your LinkedIn profile (as well as any other social media network) in any of your other social media network profiles, as well as in your website.

Using external websites, you can set up a share, follow, add, and other buttons in your posts and other content, so people can easily start to follow you or share your content on their profiles.

Make as simple and as easy as you can for people to follow and reach to you.

14. Create posts with effective content

It is not only to make engaging posts with a nice image. Studies say that the best headlines have from 40 to 49 characters. Short headlines are easier to find, see and read.

You can add videos, preferably one per post.

15. Choose your type of posts

Do not write headlines asking a question. They perform poorly on this platform. As a matter of fact, it is better if not the headline, nor the post, is made to make a question.

“How to” posts, on the other hand, perform very good on LinkedIn. Create posts on how to do, repair, fix or any other information, about something regarding your brand. It will make you look like an expert on the information you are giving.

16. Shape and length of posts

When you create longer posts, break them down into smaller sections with headlines. It will make the content easier to read and more visible in the feed.

Do not make posts that are longer than 2000 words, to keep readers interested in your content. But also, do not create posts that are too short, people on LinkedIn are more willing to read long post than on any other social media platform.

17. Find the tone of your articles

The tone on your articles should be as neutral as possible, and the language used should be easy to understand, to make it more digestible for most types of people. The more people understand your content, the more people will read it, like it and share it.

18. Post on the right day and time.

Try to make your post and upload your content on Thursdays. Studies show this is the most active day on LinkedIn. The best time to do this will be the afternoon, mostly after work hours.

19. Connect your LinkedIn profile with your Twitter profile

Link your LinkedIn account to your Twitter profile so anytime you make a post, share content or any other news on LinkedIn, it gets reflected on your Twitter profile. Studies show is an effective practice, more than with any other social network.

20. Make Smart Ads

If you decide to advertise your brand, startup, business or any other in LinkedIn, follow a few basic steps to create an efficient ad.

For example, make sure you use an image; link your ad back to your LinkedIn profile or your website; use words such as “now” and “today” to get more clicks; target the places (countries) where your brand can actually go to make a more effective ad; make specs such as business activity, age, gender, location, and others to have an ad more efficient; run your campaign for a few days before creating statistics; among others.

In LinkedIn, you can set your ad in the specific content you like, or create a demographic profile so your ad appears on certain pages and to certain people. Decide which one is best for your business and commit to it for a few months to prove how well it works for you.

LinkedIn is a professional network that most people see only as a CV profile space. But the truth is that LinkedIn is a huge platform that can help greatly to build a business. There are hundreds of cases where a small company has grown thanks to its strong presence on the LinkedIn community.

Do you need help with your social media marketing? Reach out to us at 559-553-5000 and let us get you a proposal on how to get more quality leads and sales.

www.chavezwebdesign.com
Written by Noemi Chavez

Undoubtedly, Twitter is one of the most important social networks there is. The amount of Twitter accounts well pass the whole population of several small countries.

This means that Twitter is a network you cannot forget to work on when you want to build up your business, gain new followers and customers and, of course, increase your sales.

Everybody is on Twitter now. From personal accounts to celebrities and of course, passing for businesses of all sizes, to be noticed it is important to be on Twitter. But since Twitter only offers the opportunity to post 140 characters, how can this have a positive impact on your brand?

On this article, we want to show you how something as tiny as 140 characters can have a massive impact on your sales and the way you are perceived by the digital audience. We will give you a series of tips on how you can create content that is attractive, pertinent and that will be massively shared online.

Keep reading to find out how to create viral content for Twitter.

But first!

Remember to separate your personal profile from your company or brand’s profile. Nevertheless, do not forget to mention on your personal profile your company and your position, so you can lead your personal followers into your brand, achieving more organic followers that will surely improve your visibility on the network.

Mention both twitter profiles and website to get more views on both platforms.

And also!

Do not forget to include your Twitter profile on all your social media networks, your marketing materials, your e-mails, and any other material you give to current and potential clients. This will help you to build up your audience and get to more potential and current customers.

16 Tricks for Twitter content that goes viral

1. Use hashtags on your profile and/or bio

Add a few hashtags into your profile information or your bio to help people find you easier on Twitter. Use words that can be related to your niche or directly your brand’s name. This will make that when people are looking for certain words, your profile appears on the first results.

2. Use Twitter buttons on your websites

If you have configured a Twitter business account, you will have the chance to use buttons on your website or other social media networks, like a blog, to allow people to share your content, use a hashtag, follow you, and more. Make sure to use these buttons in all your web spaces to create the most possible buzz about your contents.

You can even set a button, especially using WordPress, so people can log in from your website. In that way, sharing or liking will be a lot easier.

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3. Create a call to action on your bio

Another great way to get more followers, retweets and ultimately, more clients, is adding a call to action on your Twitter bio. Sending you a private message or an email, twitting to you, visiting your website, and other options are possible to create faster feedback from the people who visit your profile.

4. Search and get more followers by following

Building an audience can be difficult, especially if you are new to the Twitter platform. The best way to create an organic community, or audience, is reaching to the people you know have similar interest to you or to your brand.

So, the first step is to invite your friends and followers, from your personal profile, to follow your brand. Send invitations, tag them and more to invite them to follow your business profile.

Another way to increase your followers is by following people who you do not know but who have the same kind of interests or are already following brands and businesses similar to yours.

In Twitter it’s normal that after you follow someone, that someone follows you back, so take advantage of it and find people with similar interests. To increase your chances of being followed, make sure to like, retweet, or comment on other people’s post, this normally leads to getting new followers.

5. Use help from external websites

There are a few places online that can help you find the right kind of people on Twitter, so you do not have to spend hours searching for possible followers.

Followerwonk is a website that helps you find people who could be relevant for your Twitter account, so you can be sure you are reaching to possible organic followers that could translate into bigger sales.

Twitonomy is another website for this kind of work and it is completely free.

Unfollowers is a website that lets you know the people who have stopped following you.

Linkplugapp is a website that allows you to create an ad about your website or any social media network for people to see before they see the content you linked. It is a great way to advertise your site.

6. Segment your contacts in lists

In Twitter, you can create lists to segment all your contacts. In this way, you can create personalized content to send only to certain contact and receive just some content on your news feed.

This will also allow you to see the type of content your contacts are posting and sharing, so you will be able to design strategies to increase your audience.

7. Mention influencers on your posts

Create content where you counter or agree with something some influencer said by mentioning them into your post. You will get a chance that these people reply to your posts, giving you their audience automatically.

8. Automatize your tweets

We all agree that Twitter is important, but who has the time to be constantly tweeting? Help yourself by automatizing your Tweeter content by using some app or website of your choice.

Some you can find are Tweriod and Buffer, and they help you set a time and date to post content on your Twitter so you can think in advance all the tweets to post during the week.

9. Post at the right time and days

Make sure to post your content on the most ideal times to do so. In some pages, they will do a study on your audience to give you the times they connect the most, so the analysis is very personalized.

But in general terms, people are connected on Twitter is between 8:00 to 9:00 AM, 2:00 to 4:00 PM and then from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. These are the times when people retweet, answer and interact more in Twitter. So it is the best time to post content.

10. Post a contest

Crating a contest will always make good advertising and visibility for your profile. Make sure to use the right words, though. Words like “win”, “winner”, “winning”, “events” and others are friendly and call to action. Words like “contest”, “promotion” or “coupon” are aggressive and people tend not to get involved in these kinds of contests. Remember to use hashtags for any words used.

11. Take care of your headlines

Given the fact that Twitter gives you only 140 characters to create content, it is crucial to know the right words to use whenever creating a headline for your posts.

At Aminstitute you can find a tool named the “Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer”, which makes a study on the words of your headline to let you know about its emotional value, meaning how it is going to make people feel.

A really interesting option to create accurate headlines.

12. Ask questions

Twitter tends to be a very passive way of communication. Maybe you will not get from it the number of followers and shares that you can get on any other social media, but something that you can sure use Twitter for is to get information.

Ask your audience questions to give you tips on content, products, services, or any other thing that they wish you offered; and then make it happen. This is a great and very organic source of material to improve your brand and make your business grow.

13. Choose the right image size

To be able to get the maximum benefit from every post you make on Twitter, even the size matters. Studies say that the profile image should have a size of 400 x 400 pixels.

Regarding to the header, the optimal size for the image should be 1500 x 500. And to post images, the ideal size is 440 x 220.

The most retweeted kind of material are posts with photos, followed by videos and quotes.

14. Use all your length

According to some studies, tweets with 120 to 140 characters have more reactions and retweets than the ones that only use from 50 to 80 characters.

15. Ask people to “please retweet”

It may seem like something obvious, but most people do not use this. Including the actual words: “please Retweet”, or “Please RT” get more retweets than a post that do not use these words. Being gentle pays off.

16. Post and post again

You can post the same content 2 or even 3 times, because people are not always online, and time zones change. Share the same content changing the image and the title and see your retweets increase.

So, here you have it, a compilation of 16 good tips you can use to take your Twitter profile to the next level. Even though Twitter’s fast pace makes it a hard tool to use for marketing, it is still very possible to enhance the power of your profile to increase the visibility of your brand.

Do not forget that, like any other social network, Twitter is not a hit on its own. You will need to develop quality and engaging content that keeps people wondering and wanting more.

Create good quality products or services, and see your business grow.

In the digital marketing world, it is important to be on every possible place where your brand can get people’s responses. No matter if it is a well known or famous social media network like Facebook, or a less known one, whatever social media network you are on; make sure you have the best impact.

In this article today, we want to talk about a not so known social media network, Quora, a questions and answers website where people can ask and answer other user’s questions.

This is an interesting kind of website because the audience is more specialized in the topics chosen, so you will be showcasing your brand to a more specific audience, people who are more likely to get in touch with your brand if it really is what they are interested in.

Quora it is a great idea if you want to market your brand, because it ranks great on Google, and this is because it is a source of quality and reliable material. It has a great reputation among people who are looking for information and answers to some questions.

In this website, you will find quality on the most varied kinds of content, so it is a perfect opportunity for you to advertise your brand and reach a new audience. let us take you in research about how you can use this website to make your business grow and catch more viewers and possibly clients.

But first!

It is easy to confuse Quora with other sites like, Yahoo Questions, for example, but here are a few tips on how you can distinguish Quora from other similar websites:

• Quora demands your real name when you create an account, which gives it more credibility.
• Quora is a formal and serious website. It is intended to share and socialize knowledge.
• There are constant revisions, moderations and filters to assure the place remains serious and a source of real and useful data.

So, as you can see, Quora is not just a questions and answers website. It is a place to exchange, learn and teach. It is a place designed to socialize knowledge and it intends to be a source of qualified knowledge.

14 Tricks to create viral content for Quora

1. Name yourself

When creating your profile at Quora, make sure you create your user by using your name, followed by your position and your company. This is important because every time you submit an answer the users will see not only your name, but your business name as well.

2. Become an expert on several topics

Make sure you participate in more than one topic if it possible for you. If your niche is cars, you can participate in cars designs questions, engineering, mechanics, electricity and more. The more spaces you participate in answering questions, the more visibility your brand will have.

3. Create different accounts

If you are planning on participating answering more than one topic of questions, create a profile for each niche you are planning on answering questions. This will not only make easier for you to navigate on the website, but will also make you look more professional in several topics, which will give you more relevance.

4. Take your time to answer questions

If you are going to start an account at Quora, make sure you take at least once a week to answer as many questions as you can to people on the platform. The only way to get noticed is by answering questions, and for that, make sure your answers make sense and are correct.

Make sure you only answer questions you know a lot about. Do not copy and paste answers from other websites, there is a hard review process constantly and you will be penalized if you are caught copying.

Try to answer questions in the most polite language as possible and let people know you are there to help, and they can reach you not only there, but at your website as well. This will increase traffic to your website.

Do not answer questions condescendingly, rudely, or sarcastically. Do not forget you are representing your brand and people should always feel respected.

5. Link your social media network accounts

Make sure you mention all your other social media networks on your Quora profile. Let people know your Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other social profile where they can reach you.

You can post your comments, questions, and answers within your other social media networks by going to Quora and other networks configuration. This will increase traffic on all your social media networks.

6. Give your best possible answers

Studies say that to have the best answers in Quora you should make longer answers rather than shorter. Try to open with something funny or catchy and of course, make a coherent answer.

As for time, answer as soon as you can, but take your time to create a good response. Answers that come from personal experience can have better scores.

7. Improve other people’s answers

You could say that Quora is a competition on answering questions. After all, people give scores to your answers, which will ultimately put you on people’s radar. So a good way to put your name out there is by creating new answers to people’s questions.

Try to find a question you know a lot about and that someone has already answered. Create a more complete answer and you will automatically get as many viewers as the previous answer had. It will increase your visibility.

8. Link to your other websites

A great way to create an answer and market your brand at the same time at Quora is by creating an answer with a call to action to any of other social media networks, your e-store or your website.

You can answer, and in the middle of your response, mention an article on your blog that refers to the same topic. Or invite people to add themselves to your mailing list for constant answers to any questions they may have.

In this way, you will increase the traffic to your social media networks, increase your audience and improve your sales.

9. Become the go guy or gal

Even though you can create a profile for each niche you want to participate in, try to become a real expert on one topic. Try to be the person who answers lots of questions about one subject, so people can relate you to that topic.

This will make people get interested in you, your profile, and eventually, your brand, so it could increase your customers.

10. Create accounts to ask questions

Quora is a place to make questions, but maybe as an expert in a subject, there are questions you know people would benefit from. But no one is asking those questions.

Easy. Create one or two accounts to make questions you believe are important, and answer them with the profile you have for each niche. It will add expertise and showcase your knowledge.

11. Answer unanswered questions

Quora allows you to follow the questions you want, and see how many people are following such questions.

When a question has too many followers and little or no answers, it is a good time to create an answer. Lots of visibility in a second.

12. Add a picture to your answers

Just as with any other social media network, Quora prefers posts with an image. Answers that include an image within the text have better scores than images that only have text.

13. Ask questions yourself

We have been focusing on answering questions, and of course that this is important because as a business or a brand you want to be an expert on something.

But asking questions, the right kind of questions can be just as important as answering them. Research and ask current, interesting, not so easy to answer questions, and ask them in an attractive way, to get a debate, and a fight of responses to it. This will also increase your visibility.

14. Follow people

Quora works very much like Twitter or Instagram. Normally when you follow someone, that someone follows you back, so it is a great idea to follow some people with similar interests than you on Quora.

You can ask questions directly to them, answer and share their content.

Quora may be a smaller social media network compared with other huge brands such a Facebook or YouTube, but it is still a very respected website for people who are looking for reliable information that is not as easy as searching on Google.

So, if what you want is to improve and increase your traffic, there is no harm to creating a profile on Quora and leading it towards your social media marketing. Would you like to learn more about social media? Call us today at 559-553-5000 or visit our website at www.chavezwebdesign.com and schedule a free no obligation appointment on how we can help you with your social media.

To have a successful business, it is necessary to be everywhere so people can see you. These days, being everywhere means to be on social networks, and one of the most important ones that has grown exponentially is Pinterest. In this article we want to explain to you a few tricks that you can use to improve your traffic on this platform, get more viewers, subscribers and repins, that will translate in the growth of your business.

Pinterest is one of the top social media networks right now. At the moment, it has over 70 million users and every year that amount grows with an increase of visits in over 66% last year, it widely overcomes other social networks such as Linked In, Twitter and Google Plus.

People who use Pinterest are mostly upper middle class women who are looking for inspiration or to buy things as entrepreneurs. Regardless you have a brand focused on women or men, you can take advantage of this, by creating content that will be most likely to be shared on this social network.

But first!

Take into consideration that around 80% of pins are repentances. This means that most of the content shared on Pinterest are repins, because people are mostly looking for inspiration. So, if you are looking to get traffic from Pinterest, consider making original posts.

When you create original pins, they have a link that goes back to your website, which will improve and increase your traffic, which is, ultimately, what you want, because you can also increase your mail list and therefore your sales.

You can create content such as slides, infographics, charts, gifs, memes and any other graphic element that has something to do with your kind of product.

And also!

If you want to use your Pinterest account in a more strategic way, you can get metrics of your visitors, followers, collaborators, repins and other interesting data at Board Deck. There, you will have information about your popularity, purpose and activity. Join by reaching the creator.

18 Pinterest tricks to post viral content

1. Image Size

Try that the images you create are tall instead of wide. Tall images are more appealing than short and wide ones. Just make sure that the images are not so tall that people cannot see the repin button without scrolling the page. Ideally the whole image as well as the pin it button should be visible on the same screen without scrolling down.

2. Keep it simple

Make sure your posts are simple instead of complex, without too many elements. Cramped posts will probably not be as appealing as more simple ones, so they will be less likely to be shared.

3. Pin things you are familiar with

Whenever you repin something, make sure it has something you are familiar with. Do this by adding a short sentence about why you think it is interesting or a question to viewers to promote views and repins.

4. Promote participation

Create or share pins to connect with people by asking questions or creating contests. Do this by, for example, posting a close up image to ask people to guess what it is. In this way, your pin will create conversations among users and will make them go back to your feed to see how the contest is going. This will increase your traffic.

5. Niche boards

Create a niche board to categorize your pins and in this way get more viewers. Viewers are most likely to visit your boards if they are grouped by themes. For example, if you have a technology business, it will be better to create different boards, such as: “laptops”, “cellphones”, etc., instead of just dropping everything on your main feed.

When you create niche boards you will get a wider and more dedicated fan base, which will translate into more repins and exposure.

6. Do not overpin

Even though Pinterest mostly works on repins, avoid over pining content. Over pining will cause you to lose followers because they will get annoyed of getting the same kind of content over and over again.

7. Be part of group boards

Consider creating or participating on group boards, which are the ones where other Pinterest users can contribute, by adding content or sharing other pins. These boards are a great way to meet new users, increase your exposure, and get people to visit your board.

8. Follow other users

Follow other Pinterest users to get your profile exposed and noticed among more people. According to the University of Minnesota, this is the number 1 factor in terms of getting new followers. Find people or even other brands that have something to do with your brand, like their publications and repin their content. Your list of followers will grow.

9. Profile picture

Find the right profile picture. If you are a personal brand, a picture with your face is a good option for a profile picture. If you have a corporate company, use your logo instead, it will make your profile more professional. Profiles with pictures get way more exposure and repins than profiles with no picture at all.

10. Profile name

Create a profile name associated with your brand. You can create your Pinterest address with any name you want as long as is not already taken. Think about a name that is easy to remember but also to write.

11. Associate and verify your website

Verify your website on Pinterest so you can build trust among Pinterest users. Accounts of brands with verified websites are more likely to be repined that others with no website. Also, this will make that every content pined or repined has your profile picture next to it, which will give you more exposure.

Another great thing about verifying your account is that you will get data and information for analytics of your profile: the best pins, the kind of content your users prefer, etc.

12. Link your social media networks and email

Link your Pinterest profile to your other social media networks, so everybody knows when you add new content, pin or repin something. Also, this will make you have more exposure among users of all social networks.

You can also link your Pinterest account to your emails so people can easily reach you. You want to give people as many opportunities as possible to be able to connect with your brand.

13. Create a Pinterest business account

Consider creating a Pinterest business account that will allow you to put prices in your products under 6 different categories: app, movie, recipe, article, product or place. Studies show that images with prices have more likes and repins than images with no prices at all.

This is because most people on Pinterest are looking for something, so they are willing to spend money. This means they need to know prices of things instead of having to call, write or visit to get prices and information.

14. Post at right times

Post your content on Pinterest on the most traffic hours, to increase your chances of exposure. Studies say that between 2:00 and 4:00 pm, and between 8:00 pm and 1:00 am, people are more active on Pinterest.

During the afternoon, after a little lunch break, and at nights, after coming from work and lying back, users take the time to check their Pinterest and share stuff.

15. Think about aesthetics

Another thing to take into consideration is the aesthetics of your contents. Images with high contrast color; several dominant colors; rough textures; medium lighting; high or medium saturation; ratio aspect of 2:3 and 4:5; and 10% or less background; get more likes and repins than any other type of images. Create images with these variables and get more repins.

16. Use commonly searched words to name your content

Name your content strategically by using the most repin words on Pinterest. “DIY” is the most searched and repin word. The heart symbol, “idea”, “recipe”, “cute” and “dress”, are the rest on the top of most repin words. Use them when you describe your content or use photo badge to add text on top of your image.

17. Use plugins to pin your content on your other websites

Consider using plugins on the content you have on your other social media networks or your website so people can pin it without having to leave your site. A very popular one is Image Share, that shows social media icons when you hover the cursor over the image. Whenever the user chooses an icon to share, asking you to log in to directly pin or share from your website.

18. Customize your content

Use websites to customize your content. Websites like Quozio will help you make your texts looks better. You can customize quotes to set a nice background, pin addresses, twits, songs and much more.

These are all great ideas and tricks to increase your Pinterest traffic, get exposed, find followers, have your content repined and more.

But this of course will work for nothing if you do not follow the first and most important advice of all: creating quality, interesting, engaging and appealing content.

Make sure that all the content you create is original, aesthetically pleasing, interesting and clear. This will not only make people like your content and repin it, but it will also make them want to keep seeing what you have to show. Create quality content and see your Pinterest bloom.