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Retweet After Me: Week of Mar. 17

YouTube’s reportedly planning a subscription service for on-demand video by Abhimanyu Ghoshal

YouTube may soon offer viewers a subscription-based video-on-demand (SVOD) service. A content creation studio’s comment to Variety reveals that the video platform is “exploring the prospect of launching its own subscription VOD service.” [Read More]

22 Instagram Stats That Might Make Your Brain POP Out! by Aaron Lee

Do you realize how fast Instagram is growing? The app launched on October 6, 2010. By December 21 (a month and a half later) it reached 1 million users! WOW! Fast forward to today — in less than 5 years, the photo sharing app has added video sharing and now has over 300 million monthly active users. [Read More]

How to Create Shareworthy Twitter Images: 10 Ways to Maximize Engagement on Your Tweets by Kevan Lee

For gaining more engagement, clicks, retweets, and replies, Twitter images work. It’s why we created Pablo—a simple way to create social media images in under 30 seconds—and it’s why we love sharing all the tips we can about creating great visuals for social media. Our own research has helped us see the value of Twitter images as being eminently click-worthy and shareworthy. There are a whole host of different ways to add these engaging images to your tweets. I’d love to round up a list of 10 favorite ways that we’ve tried with Twitter visuals (plus hear any ideas you’ve got as well!) [Read More]

Friendsy Is Tinder For College Students Only, Created By Two Princeton Students by Cat Zakrzewski

During his freshman year at Princeton, Michael Pinsky went to the student lounge to watch a Yankees game. Knowing there were plenty of other fans on campus, he was certain it would be packed. But the lounge was empty except for Vaidhy Murti, another fan, sitting on an adjacent couch. The two began to talk, becoming fast friends. But the pair realized it doesn’t always work that way. [Read More]

Who Are The Most (and Least) Engaged Brands on Twitter? by Kimberlee Morrison

Engagement is an increasingly important metric for determining the value of social marketing. Pageviews, user signups, and other vague metrics don’t provide enough insight into how a brand, service, or network is doing. SocialRank has compiled a list, the Global Brands Index, ranking brands on Twitter by their level of engagement. [Read More]

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Retweet After Me: Week of Mar. 4

In Communications, Privacy And Security Are Illusions by Bob Ackerman

President Obama has tried for three years to persuade Congress to pass a cybersecurity bill. The president went so far as to highlight his cybersecurity proposals to a prime-time audience during his recent State of the Union address. And in the wake of the massive Sony hack, the political climate may finally have shifted in his favor. [Read More]

8 Amaze-Balls Things You Can Learn From Twitter’s FREE Analytics Tool by Aaron Lee

If you want to manage your success on Twitter, you need to measure what’s working & not working. You can do that for free with Twitter’s built-in analytics tool. [Read More]

‘U.S. News & World Report’ Backs Best Colleges Rankings with Facebook’s Interest Targeting by David Cohen

U.S. News & World Report used Facebook’s interest targeting tool for publishers to help promote its annual Best Colleges rankings to the appropriate Facebook users. Facebook strategic partner manager, news Meghan Peters said in a Facebook Media blog post that U.S. News & World Report social media editor Lauren Boyer used interest targeting to focus on Facebook users who had expressed interest in the top five schools on each ranking list. [Read More]

The 7 Steps to a ‘Good-to-Great’ Content Marketing Strategy by Justin McGill

If it’s starting to feel to you like every visit you make to Facebook these days is full of videos, you are not alone. Facebook today reported in a strong set of Q4 earnings that there are 3 billion videos viewed on its site each day. With the company also reporting daily active users of 890 million, this works out to more than 3 videos per day. [Read More]

An Inside Look at Facebook’s New Ads Manager iOS App by Tim Peterson

Sorry Android friends, Facebook’s Ads Manager is not ready for you yet. Power Editor geeks, this is not a replacement, but a handy app to manage stats and boost posts. But everyone else who is trying to grow their business on Facebook, you’re in luck! No need to lug your laptop around to manage your Facebook ads, except for set-up tasks and deep reporting, when you really don’t want to be using your phone. [Read More]

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Retweet After Me: Week of Jan. 28

Facebook Says It Will Weed Out Fake News — But Leave the Onion Alone by Peter Kafka

Use Facebook to show off pictures of your dogs — or, better yet, videos of your dogs — or whatever. But don’t use it to spread bogus stories about Betty White’s death. That’s the newest edict from Facebook, which says it is cracking down on hoaxes, scams “or deliberately false or misleading news stories.” [Read More]

Why Snapchat’s Latest Update Will Change the Way You Get News by Sean Griffis

Hold your phone (and maybe take a video) because Snapchat just had a stormageddon all its own. The photo + video messaging app just got attacked with a news blizzard courtesy of its brand spankin’ new features and we are totally all about it. [Read More]

Best Twitter Ad Practices Include Narrow Targets, Videos and Brevity by Andra Mircioiu

More than four years after introducing advertising on its platform, Twitter has changed the way businesses create ads. And as with any game in which the rules have shifted, players adapt by developing new strategies. [Read More]

Facebook Now Has 3B Video Views Per Day by Ingrid Lunden

If it’s starting to feel to you like every visit you make to Facebook these days is full of videos, you are not alone. Facebook today reported in a strong set of Q4 earnings that there are 3 billion videos viewed on its site each day. With the company also reporting daily active users of 890 million, this works out to more than 3 videos per day. [Read More]

Facebook Is for You, Facebook at Work Is for Your Job by Tim Peterson

Some people still aren’t allowed to use Facebook at work. But the social network wants people to use Facebook *for* work. Facebook has begun testing a work-only version of the social network called Facebook at Work so that companies can use Facebook as an internal communications tool without employees boring their families or oversharing with their bosses. [Read More]

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Retweet After Me: Week of Dec. 11, 2014

4 Instagram Tools for Scheduling Instagram Updates by Christian Karasiewicz

Is Instagram a part of your social media marketing? Want to make posting to Instagram more convenient? Whether you’re in the middle of an event or on the road, there are scheduling tools to help you. In this article I’ll share four tools to schedule Instagram updates. [Read More]

Facebook Adds Groups App by Richard Procter

Facebook released a new app, Facebook Groups, on Tuesday designed to make it easier for users to interact with groups they’re already a part of on Facebook. [Read More]

How Your Business Can Build Brand Love by Shannon Miller

A recent Harvard Business study found that increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profits by 95%. Statistics like this show the value of not only reaching new customers, but building on the relationships you’ve already developed with your current customers. [Read More]

5 Terrible Things That Happen If Brands Don’t Respond to Comments on Social by Social Control

The stakes for responding to your audience on social media channels has never been higher. One in six consumers on Facebook expects to be responded to within 30 minutes. However, 70% of consumer complaints made on Twitter are ignored and 80% of social media responses from brands are reported to take an average of 12 hours. [Read More]

Instagram tops 300 million active users, likely bigger than Twitter by Seth Fiegerman

Facebook’s billion-dollar Instagram acquisition is looking better and better. Instagram announced Wednesday that it now has more than 300 million monthly active users, up from 200 million in March. At that level, Instagram likely has about as many or more users than Twitter, which announced in October that it had 284 million active users in the third quarter. Either way, what’s clear is that Instagram’s user growth is far outpacing that of Twitter. [Read More]

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EduWeb14: I Am A Red Raider: A Marketing Campaign Designed with Engagement in Mind

This week I attended and presented at EduWeb 14, an annual conference for the higher education community, attracting those who are involved in their integrated digital marketing presence. It was another great year (my fourth!), and I was honored to be selected to present on Texas Tech’s most recent marketing campaign, I Am A Red Raider.

Here are my slides for those who are interested! I appreciate everyone who came to my presentation, and if you’re interested in knowing more, or have any other questions, just let me know!

And since Slideshare doesn’t allow for the playing of the two videos in the slides, here are those:

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Turn Marketing Negatives into Positives

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Stuff happens. We can’t control it, and even when everything has been planned out, things will still go wrong at times. And we can use these situations to our advantage.

Negative Comments

People will have negative things to say from time to time, whether it be because a student got a parking ticket, or a student wanted to give feedback about programs at the university, you will hear opinions. Turn these negative comments into positive ones by helping your audience members understand things and fix situations.

A student who feels they’re not represented well on campus provides the chance to set that student up with a meeting with the president to make sure he’s heard. By helping each individual person who tweets or posts, you are changing their relationship with the university, and once you do that, they’ll feel more connected. The bigger the brand advocate, the more they’ll sing your praises.

Mistakes

We’re all human, and we make mistakes, so when they happen, own up to it. Apologize, and make the situation right. As the social media or community manager, a lot of times these mistakes may have nothing to do with you, but your audience member doesn’t care if it was your department or another one. They just want a solution, and to know that someone cares about making it right. So do just that. Make it your problem, find the solution and make it right, even though you didn’t have anything to do with the original issue.

Negatives Turn Into Positives

It’s amazing how the smallest things can make negatives turn into positives. Fixing situations, understanding and listening to your audience members can have just that effect.

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Growing and Nurturing an Audience

social media flowers

Recently, I’ve experienced a recurring theme of people asking about how they can use social media to inform people, to promote their event, or because they just need a Facebook or Twitter page. And yes, social media can be used to inform people and promote events and programs, but that’s is not what they are about. They are about conversations and relationships. And don’t even get me started on having social media channels just for the sake of having them. But your audience members take some nurturing to grow, so give them a little water and sunlight and they’ll grow into thriving, engaging members of your community.

Take the Time

Just like an taking the time to pick up the phone and call an old friend, you need to take the time to find out how your audience is doing! This can be accomplished by asking them, monitoring relevant hashtags, or by listening to what they’re flat out telling you. You can then gauge their feelings and talk to them appropriately. Talking to students during the summer is different than during finals week.

Truly Listen

I’ve talked about truly listening to your audience before, but I’m going for it again. Sometimes you think you know what a problem is, or what an audience member is referencing, but if you jump to conclusions you could miss someone’s point quite easily, especially if you’re on Twitter and have a 140-character post to work with. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, or take the conversation to email if you need more information to understand what your audience member is trying to tell you.

Engage

Your audience wants to know you care. In higher education, that can be as simple as congratulating newly admitted students, answering questions about when food locations are open during spring break, or offering to answer questions of prospective students. Tell your audience you’re there for them in whatever capacity they need.

Story Time

I heard University of Cincinnati’s @PrezOno speak at EduWeb last year, and he told a story about a student who was upset that the vending machine was out of Cheez its. He listened to the complaint, and said he would find out why the vending machine was empty. And he followed through. His audience understands that he’s there for them, and reaches out regularly. He provides a perfect example of how to listen and engage with your audience. You can see this and more of Santa Ono’s presentation in the SlideShare below:

 

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Retweet After Me: Week of Mar. 4, 2014

What If Twitter Got a Lot More Useful? by Simon Dumenco

The U.K. division of Twitter is trying to draw attention to the platform’s potential as a customer-service provider with a blog post this morning announcing just such an effort from the telecom giant O2. For Twitter, making noise about O2’s #TweetServe is a way to signal that it is serious about broadening its mass appeal. Twitter needs to demonstrate that it has utility beyond serving as, well, a news feed, a source of celebrity musings and a place to talk about TV. That whole social TV phenomenon, for one thing, isn’t necessarily as white-hot as it used to be, as my colleague Cotton Delo recently reported. [Read More]

Questions about badges in higher ed by Sheryl Grant

Amy McQuigge’s prompt How can colleges and universities use badges? is a lot more slope of enlightenment and a little less peak of inflated expectations when it comes to badges in higher ed (Looking at you, major media sources.) The disruptive potential of badges in higher ed makes for compelling headlines, but the real nuts-and-bolts innovation is happening at ground level. I thought I would contribute something to Amy’s question by taking a look at the variety of badge systems being designed for colleges and universities. I started with HASTAC’s higher ed tag in the Badges for Lifelong Learning topic on Scoop.it, but please add others I may have missed in the comments section below. [Read More]

Reconsidering the Social Media Hub by Georgy Cohen

One of my favorite projects when working at Tufts University was leading the creation of our social media hub, a custom-built page which hosted feeds from all of our social media accounts and served as an at-a-glance destination for campus social chatter. I was (and still am) extremely proud of what we built. [Read More]

Top 7 things successful brands do on Twitter by Katerina Petropoulou

Twitter is a powerful tool of engagement and brands are well aware of that, as more and more are now using the network for customer support and marketing. There’ve even been brands that did not hesitate to “fight” over a customer on Twitter! So there’s definitely a lot to learn from brands’ best Twitter practices. Let’s take a look at 7 things successful brands do on Twitter and you can do too, starting today. [Read More]

Beyond tweeting: Demystifying the social media editor by Ricardo Bilton

While the popular perception of the social media editor is a fresh-out-of-college intern sitting on Twitter all day, the now-ubiquitous role is more complicated than that — and more important. “Twitter and Facebook have become far more powerful tools for getting traffic, so the shift has become more focused on how to take advantage of social media to improve the site’s traffic and readership,” said Jeremy Stahl, Slate’s social media editor since 2010. [Read More]

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Retweet After Me: Week of Feb. 25, 2014

Top 2014 #highered Web and Social Conferences & Events by Karine Joly

Every year I publish a post with my selection of top higher ed conferences and events. Since 2006 I’ve spent a lot time thinking, reviewing, attending and some time presenting at higher ed conferences. When you run a professional school like Higher Ed Experts, it’s important to stay on top of what happened in the conference world. As many of you only get to go to one conference per year due to limited budgets, many often ask me for recommendations about the best fit for their specific professional development needs. [Read More]

How to Do Holidays on Social Media Right by Elizabeth Harper

Every time a holiday or big event rolls around, we see companies trying to make holiday social-media tie-ins that can range from successful to strange. While it’s easy to make social blunders by trying to appropriate a holiday into a promotion, this doesn’t mean you need to stay quiet during any holiday season. As long as you know the holiday and your customer base, you can jump into the holiday chatter without making a mess — whether it’s Valentine’s Day this week or something else. [Read More]

14 Tools To Help You Add Images For Your Social Media Posts by Belle Beth Cooper

It wasn’t long ago that Twitter added inline image previews to its official apps, including the web view. Now, Twitter is including more image focus in the latest redesign, as you can see above. On the left-hand side of Twitter’s new web view, your profile and header images are now visible. [Read More]

Why and how to get access to Twitter Analytics for your #highered account by Karine Joly

Last week in the online course I teach about social media marketing for higher ed we discussed social media analytics strategy and practices with our class composed of professionals working in universities and colleges in the US, Canada and France. I’ve had updated the course module materials – as I always do before a session – to include the latest news and features my students should know about. And, I had decided to add, at the last minute, a link to Twitter Analytics. [Read More]

Good News for Creepers: LinkedIn Upgrades “Who Viewed Your Profile” Feature by Corey Eridon

I mean creepers in the most loving way. Some of my best friends are creepers. (Ask her, she won’t deny it.) We all know the “Who Viewed Your Profile” LinkedIn feature. It’s part of a little ego-exercise we take part in each week where we validate just how important we already know we are, and bask in the glory of being stalked by higher-ups that are definitely messaging us right now to offer us the job of a lifetime. [Read More]