Tag: Effective

January 7, 2021

How Can Social Media Be Effective?


Successful social media experts know what it takes to make social media work for you. Aside from including regular updates, relevant posts, and stand-out content, make sure that you stay involved in each social network in a personal way.

Make Your Social Media Profiles Stand Out

Fill out your profiles in full, and learn what constitutes best practices for profiles on that particular network. Each network has its own personality that you should mind, but let your personality shine through too.

Make the Right Connections

If you can connect with experts and movers and shakers, you’ll be able to get more traction because if you can have a conversation with them, all their followers will see it.

Make Your Business Pages Interactive and Informative

Don’t skimp on making your pages represent your business appropriately. On each social network you can create pages that look awesome and get results.

Share Relevant Industry Topics

If you want to quickly become a go-to expert, find relevant industry news and share it with your followers. Don’t worry, giving it away works.

Join the Conversation

Don’t just be a robot by posting things without ever commenting and entering into discussions with others. You want to jump right in and talk to others just like you would if you were at a live social gathering.

Learn to Use Hashtags Correctly

Hashtags help you organize and search for relevant content on social media. Always use the # before the word, use no punctuation, keep it as short as possible and use letters and numbers.

Advertise Strategically

Running advertisements on social media is a great way to get the word out about a new product or service. However, be strategic when running an advertisement so that you know exactly what you expect to achieve with it.

Use Sponsored Ads and Posts

When you have something important to get across to your audience, it’s important to use sponsored ads where many eyes are on the post. Mind your budget.

Be Yourself When You Post

When you are in a discussion on social media, outside of representing your business you are also representing yourself. Be who you are so that your social media presence has a personality.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when you get involved with social media marketing. Follow the experts and do what they are doing. Focus on differentiating yourself and being a real person with a unique voice that represents your business.


January 5, 2021

5 Essential Tips for Effective Online Advertising


There is no doubt about the fact that online advertising helps to boost sales while costing a lot less than traditional methods such as TV ads. The big question is whether your strategy is effective enough to produce the best possible results. Discover the main techniques which are guaranteed to help you succeed.

1. Always promise something.

This is one of the fundamentals of online advertising and of advertising in general. Just placing the name of your product on the ad or describing your service briefly is highly unlikely to make any person take action. What you need is a keyword that people will be attracted to. The list includes “free”, “discount”, “special deals” and “low prices” and so on. Of course, you have to fulfil what you promise. The more creative you are the better.

2. Create target ads.

There is no such thing as an internet marketing strategy targeting absolutely all web users. You have to define your target market group or groups and create ads which will appeal to them. Similarly, you need to advertise on websites which your target audience likes and visits frequently.

3. Adopt social media advertising.

This type of online advertising has taken ads to a whole new level. Instead of appearing in the bar on the right-hand side of the screen, now ads are directly placed in the content which the user receives via friends and contacts. For instance, the so called social ads on Facebook now appear in the News Feeds. In this way, they have a 65% higher click rate. It is definitely worth investing in innovative strategies which produce excellent results.

4. Use retargeting.

This is another one of the trendiest strategies at present. With the use of cookies, you can track the visitors to your website who did not take any action. Then you can have your ads appear on the websites which these internet users visit. In this way, they are more likely to return and get converted into customers. This strategy can be used with various ad networks including Google AdWords. It produces excellent results.

5. Invest in content ads.

The popularity of this form of advertising has grown immensely in recent years thanks to its effectiveness. It is all about creating attractive, interesting and informative content and integrating the ad. You can create articles, videos and even slideshows. They work to grab the attention of internet users and to turn them into leads. They are great for branding as well.

Use these tips to create the foundation of your online advertising strategy.


January 5, 2021

Book Trailers: Compiling & Arranging Elements for Effective Results


In book marketing, there are numerous promotional avenues. There’s Facebook, media interviews, book signings, book tours, news releases, and speaking engagements. These approaches are straight forward and rely on communication skills found in most writers. Book trailer is an animal of a different sort. It demands an assortment of skills and resources, mainly condensing the story to its most tantalizing elements and embellishing it with photos, videos, text, voice over, sound effects and music. It’s complicated, time consuming task, and if you hire someone, very expensive. Yet with some simple strategies, guidelines, and resources you can produce an effective video with little or no money. That is, if you have a video camera/smart phone and an editing program, things you likely have already and don’t know it.

Defining Goals

First, let’s look at what you want to accomplish with at book trailer. In general, you want to promote book sales. However, being more specific you want to hook the viewer with unique and enticing information so they will watch the entire video. If you lose them before you’ve completed your pitch, there’s little chance of a book sale. As such, you require new and fascinating information throughout the video, information that not only holds their interest, but moves them toward buying your book.

Another goal is to make your trailer shareable, that it moves on from your initial viewers to their friends and followers. If your video resonates, it’s possible it will spread beyond your contacts. It could have an afterlife that spreads exponentially through social media. If you ask, you get. So, it makes sense to make this request, please share, toward the end of your video.

Compiling Elements

What types of things go into a book trailer. Normally, trailers answer potential readers” questions such as: what’s the book about, what’s the genre, is it any good, plus something about the author. Such things are usually found on the inner flaps of the book or on the back cover. If not, the following template used by producer Nat Mundel to create loglines that land movie and TV deals will help in that regard.

TITLE OF BOOK is a GENRE about NAME OF PROTAGONIST, AGE, ONE OR TWO VIVID WORDS DESCRIBING THE CHARACTER who wants HIS/HER IMMEDIATE GOAL. When THE INCITING INCIDENT happens and ONE MAJOR PLOT POINT, he/she goes on a journey to ACCOMPLISH GOAL and discover/realize/find THEME.

The above template is a great starting point to help you distill your book down to two sentences. It clarifies the genre, offers a mesmerizing shiny object that grabs their attention, and provides enough to leave the reader wanting more, all in a few brief sentences.

A logline is a one or two sentence description of your story that boils down its basic premise in a way that’s concise yet evokes emotion in your reader. It highlights what is most unique about your book. Specifically, the logline provides the author with a way to focus on the three main anchors of their writing.

Who is the protagonist?

What do they want?

What is at stake?

Once you have the logline sketched out, look for some escalation in the book that ups the stakes. It could be a confrontation or complication that takes the story in a different direction. The outcome should be unclear. It could also be the discovery of a new evidence, a red-herring, or a revelation that gives hope to reaching the goal. This section presents an emotional argument for buying the book and sets the hook before the prospect is reeled in. Most importantly, it sets up a question in the viewer’s mind about how this story continues.

The next section is more specific. It could be a brief discussion about the character traits of one of the main characters and how this reflects on the story. This might include character faults, misplace dreams, or foibles of the heart. It answers the question why. It could also be about the location or period of the story and what effect it has on the characters. Another consideration is the social or morale setting and how this affects the direction of the story. This section pulls the viewer deeper into the story, both emotionally and literally, asking the question, “Why did this happen?” It can also facilitate a love-hate polarity that further draws the viewer into your story.

The last section is closing the sale. By using adjectives commonly found in reviews it could imply the benefits of reading your book. It could present some additional arguments such as testimonials, reviews or awards. Being on any best seller list likewise deserves mention here. Acknowledgements for use of photos, videos and music are also shown in the section. You should also make a request to share this video. The most important part of this section is stating prominently where the book can be purchased. Various images of the book should be used in this section to imprint cover art and book’s title.

You will note that each section provides new and revealing information. It pulls the viewer in, creating an investment in different aspects of the book. Primarily, it creates that pressing question, “How does this story continue?” And that’s the bait that hooks your viewer and causes them to buy your book.

While there are other templates, the above format serves fiction books well. It answers the questions book readers ask and provides the information in a straight forward memorable fashion.

Writing your script will be a major task in that it demands a different style of writing, one that is denser and more compressed. Your script should contain both the narration and the card or graphics displayed on the screen. You should know that narration spoken over images is processed easier and quicker than the graphics competing with it. Thus, words on the screen tend to be brief, short phrases or individual words designed to be memorable, imperative and engaging.

Narration, on the other hand, relies on the human voice-to emote, phrase, emphasize and resonate- to develop deeper meanings. Its task is to tell a complicated story briefly and compellingly; or to highlight characters, situations and conflicts. Writing has to quickly and powerfully present the “saleable” qualities of your story, such as the characters and conflict(s) while hinting at likely outcomes. It might also convey the tone, style, and quality of your book.

Narration should use a recognizable vocabulary, figures of speech, and accepted language. Also, avoid long sentences and complex ideas, as the viewer’s attention is split between images, graphics and narration. If there is dialogue that explains a crucial story point, allow the narrator to take on that character and for greater impact, post the dialogue on a white screen.

Avoid wall to wall narration as this will soon dim the viewers’ interest. To take its place and vary the content, mix in moments of sound effects, graphics and/or music. Likewise, consider the use of live video with sound as this will too enliven your presentation. In the closing section, some narration can be used to punctuate key selling points even with same information shown on the screen.

How you end your trailer is indicative of its success. Final impressions like the initial ones are of greater importance and more memorable. So, with what impression do you want your prospect to leave? What indication of finality would work? It could be a musical ending over the image of your book cover and its tagline. It could also be a sound effect used earlier that congers up a certain feeling. Another choice is the sudden, startling glimpse of the killer’s silhouette, knife raised ready to strike accompanied by a woman’s scream. Whatever your choice, you want the viewer to go away literally and emotionally wanting more.

Now that you have scripted your book trailer, you need to come up with visuals and sounds that embellish them. Visually, these could be text, photos, videos and visual effects. Sound wise, they could be dialogue, voice over, sound effects or music. These embellishments should tease the viewer’s imagination to where the trailer plays out in the viewer’s head more so than on the screen.

Before you start searching for images, define what specific embellishment you want and approximately where they will be placed. Such a predetermination will reduce your search time and help maintain the focus of your video. In doing this process, compile some sort of record keeping so the inserts are labelled as to location within your script and where they can be found. Some embellishments may have alternates, ideas that might work provided the right image, sound or music can be found. I would designate these alternative with suffix a, b, c, etc.

In a normal 60-90 second book trailer, who might have the following number of embellishment inserts.

Voiceover: 60 seconds, 100 words max; 90 seconds, 150 words max

Text, titles, captions & listings: 85 words

Photos: 12 photos + various photos of book cover used 4 times

Videos: 2 Videos; 1 stock, 1 live action (About 5 seconds each)

Sound Effects: 3 sound effects + transitions as required

Music: 3 tracks (could be from same selection)

Visual Effects: 2 for moving text; 8 for photo & video transitions

Many of these media inserts can be found online. Sites like unsplash.com, librestock.com, and gratisography.com offer high resolution images that you can download for free. Another site for free music and sound effects is YouTube.com/audiolibrary/. You can find free public domain video clips at archive.org. For music go to freestockmusic.com. You will need to create a free account and can download various types of music for free with no royalty restrictions. Other media resources can be found on Google by searching for royalty free photos/videos/sounds. Do not use copyrighted materials.

If you feel uncomfortable about using your own voice, you can use a professional voiceover artist as found online. There are numerous voices from which to choose and demos are available on each artist. For voiceover narration on the 150-word example previously mentioned, costs would be about $25 on sites like fiverr.com music & studio/voiceover services. A special script should be compiled for the outside narrator, which indicates how you want the narration and dialogue to be read or expressed. These directions should be placed in parentheses prior to the words spoken.

There are some media inserts you may want to produce yourself. Your book cover, for instance, may be shot straight on, from the spine angle, and upright/slanted. Closer angles on the book cover’s artwork may also be relevant to your script. Background for these book photos should be on neutral or white poster board with some shots allowing room for text.

Other images that create the essence of the scene can also be produced with photos or video. Such inserts should be ambiguous allowing the viewer to fill in the blanks. Examples might be: a fearful eye wondering what’s behind her, a sound of footsteps approaching, two hands lovingly overlapping. Other inserts might be the scream from an open mouth, a hand clutching a knife, two lovers moving away through a park, a freeway clogged with traffic, a back lit image of the menace, a shadow of a hand holding a gun.

These images and sounds can prod the viewer to use his imagination and the results are more persuasive than using realistic images. Most video cameras have excellent sound recording ability, especially when using an external mic. Therefore, consider using your camera as a sound recorder and capturing just the sound by hooking up only the audio connections.

You might also want to consider a behind the scenes video section relating to research, character creation, establishing a story location, or target audience. Images with voiceover might be author at computer: medium side shot, fingers typing, author’s face looking at screen.

Now that you have compiled and downloaded or captured your trailer elements, how do you put them together. Before you start the editing process, let’s look at the setup of editing programs. The main feature will be the time lines. This is where video/audio clips are laid in and cut to the desire length. There are additional time lines below used for narration, sound effects and music. In the more expensive editing systems there are additional time lines to layer in and sync up additional media materials.

Source materials can be downloaded from the web or capture off your camera. These items are stored in a project file and would include video clips, photos, sound effects, narration, and music. These items are placed into the time line in their proper location where text and titles can be superimposed on the visual elements. Additional adjustments such balancing audio levels, transition effects, and color balance smooth out the cuts and give it a professional look. When combined together these elements make up your book trailer.

There are numerous video systems available with vary capabilities and range from free on up. PC users can edit using Movie Maker which comes installed with Windows while Mac users can edit with iMovie. If not installed, they can be download for free from Microsoft and Apple respectively. The Movavi 14 is also available free from movavi.com or the Movavi 14 plus version goes for $39.95. The Pinnacle 21 editing system is available from pinnaclesys.com for $49.95. More elaborate Pinnacle systems are available at higher prices. Corel® PaintShop® Pro 2018 and VideoStudio® combination which edits photos, designs graphics and makes movies is available through paintshoppro.com for $150.00.

These editing systems come with tutorials schooling you as to their capabilities and operation. While the free systems come with basic editing features, spending a bit extra can offer more creativity plus more imbedded effects and media resources. It all depends on the complexity of your trailer and the quality you want.

Arranging Elements

Now that you have all your script and media elements at hand, you can begin the editing process, pasting them into your time line. But where do you begin. I would start with the element that is the most consistent, be it narration, visuals or music. In the example I proposed, narration would be the element that is least likely to change much. So, you would lay that in first. Be aware that you may have to add pauses or even quicken the pace. This can be done by either adding room ambiance or cutting out pauses between sentences. When you record your narration, record a minute or so of room ambiance without talking and use this to extend pauses.

Next, start adding your visuals that support or embellish your narration. The length of these visuals will depend on their complexity and the time it takes to read superimposed text. If the text complements the narration, then the visual time can be reduced. Avoid overwhelming the viewer with too much information. For emphasis, space the narration to allow the viewer time to concentrate on a lengthy or important text.

A device often used in infomercials is duplicating narration and text on a plain background. This ups the comprehension and makes the information more memorable. This also varies the flow and increases the viewer’s concentration. This device works especially well when text rolls out on the screen one word at a time, an effect possible on more elaborate editing systems.

There will be a tendency to overplay the images and text. Too much information muddies the waters. Remember that you want the viewer to imagine a great deal of the story. By hinting what the book is about, you let the story develop in the viewer’s mind. Utilize the idea that book readers have imaginative minds and enjoy filling in the blanks. It’s a good idea to slow the pace to allow time for important images and ideas to form in the viewers mind.

Try to have a couple of video clips in your trailer. These are usually without sound, yet the screen motion stirs up thoughts and emotions not possible with still photographs. They likewise increase the attention span and make subsequent information more interesting.

Pace is an important factor in book trailers. Too slow, you lose your viewer. Too fast and your information get lost. There’s a happy medium and it depends on relating new and interesting materials that engage the viewer. That’s why sketching out your script is so important, as it forces you to see your trailer as an informative and entertaining book talk on video. Your script allows you to see the progression of your story building, pulling the viewer into an imaginary world.

Avoid cheesy effects which distract from your message. Simple transitions like fade-in, fade out or cross-fades keep the focus on the trailer’s purpose, to create an awareness of your book and a desire to buy it. Keeping the clarity of this goal in mind determines the success of your book trailer. Sometimes, people become enamored with a certain phase or image that if lost would make the video stronger. Be conscience of this fault and seek outside consultation to rectify.

Use the same font throughout, but vary the font size. Be aware that your text will be read on computer screens plus mobile devices. As such, font size must be readable and this may limit the length of text placed on the screen. Rather than minimize the font size, extend the text to the next screen using ellipsis (… ). The font size of the text should be indicative of its importance. For instance, in the last section, the acknowledgements for use of images or music would be smaller than places where the book could be purchased.

When superimposing text on an image, delay entry of the text ever so slightly so the viewer’s attention is on the image first, then on the text. Such a delay ups the comprehension as you control where the attention is focused.

Selection of music likewise requires some guidelines. Be aware that your perspective book buyers are already indoctrinate by seeing numerous TV and film productions with music. Your tastes and sensibilities in music may differ from your perspective audience. It’s therefore wise to select music reflective of the genre of your book. If it’s a scary murder mystery, that’s the type of music that would support that type of story. The music has many functions. It can create mood and atmosphere, portray emotions, reference a time or period, or create unreal situations. Music can serve several purposes that are either important on the emotional side of the movie or help/enhance the storytelling.

Using wall to wall music diminishes its impact. Fade out your music at various points and replace it with sound effects. Then at the appropriate moment bring back the music to elicit a new perspective or emotion. In this way, by isolating the music’s entrance, you make it more effective and allow it to support a new idea.

To help smooth out your cuts, allow the sound to slightly precede the visual. This allows the mind to process one element at a time and also creates suspense as to what the sound means. These micro overlaps create that, “What going to happen next?” mentality that subconsciously pulls the viewer in deeper.

Subtle use of sound effects can create the proper atmosphere or instill a menace is present. Wind blowing through the leaves or the footsteps of an approaching mugger help prod the imagination to where the story becomes a fixation. In addition, sound effects help break up the sameness of media elements and create higher expectations about the book and its contents.

As you continue with the assembly process, you will note that adjustments and corrections have to be made. You’ll also find that certain sequences don’t work, they don’t move the viewer toward your goals. This is a normal part of editing. It’s like writing a book, where much of the time is spent rewriting.

Before you make big changes, save your file. Then prior to making changes rename and save the file. In this way, you have a backup should your file become corrupted. In addition, should you find that you prefer your original better and it only needs minor corrections, then you still have that version.

The last section is where you close the sale. You offer in text and/or voice-over more arguments for buying the book and where to obtain it. As I mentioned before, these could be a complementary statement about the benefits of buying this book using adjectives commonly found in reviews along with a listing of testimonials, review quotes and/or awards. Also shown in this section are acknowledgements for use of photos, videos and music. The most important part of this section is stating prominently where the book can be purchased. Various images of the book/cover should also be featured in this section. It also helps to place somewhere in this section a sticker-like graphic reading, “Share this Video.”

Once you have your final version completed, let it sit for a few days then come back to it with fresh eyes. Look on it as a book buyer and judge if it meets your expectations, that it strongly encourages the purchase of your book. If not make corrections. If it does, then pass it on to people who will give you an honest evaluation. Don’t corrupt their judgment with additional information. Simply state you want their response to seeing your video book trailer, whether it’s positive, neutral or negative. Request specifically what they liked or disliked. With this consensus, make adjustments as you see fit.

Distribution of Book Trailer

When your book trailer is ready for distribution, you still need to prepare copy to go along with it. For YouTube you should have a description of your trailer that includes the title of your book, author’s name, and what’s it about. To make your video stand out, write a unique description with a catchy, enticing headline. Likewise, add tags. These allow users to find your video by linking common words associated with your video. If done properly, such copy greatly increases the likelihood of finding your video on a Google or YouTube search and having your link opened. This description and information can likewise be used on other video hosting services such as Facebook and Vimeo. Check Wikipedia.org for complete list of video hosting services.

To upload your video to YouTube, follow the instruction found at wikihow.com/Upload-a-Video-to-YouTube. Similar instruction for other hosting sites can be found online. Some editing systems have programs that simplify this uploading.

There are also video syndication services, however their fees are beyond most authors’ budgets and when term payments run out, your video is removed. While posting them yourself is time consuming, it negates this problem and they remain on the Internet forever.

There are numerous other ways of getting your video seen. Facebook and Twitter postings with links to video with a brief description is one way. Also use LinkedIn updates with reference to your trailer and its location. Another place is reader forums pertaining to your genre or audience market.

Your own website is another place to not only post your video, it should likewise serve as a depository displaying more information about the book and a bio of the author. Also consider email distributions to followers, friends, acquaintances, and of course family members.

If you have an author’s page on Amazon, this is another place you can post your video. However, there are numerous restrictions which are posted at https://authorcentral.amazon.com/gp/help?ie=UTF8&topicID=200649570. On your author page, you can also share video interviews, book signing videos, and other videos with readers. Your videos should focus on specific features of your books or your experience as an author.

Also consider news releases, either email or letter, to journalist, book critics and book bloggers. Another good source is free or low-priced newswire services. It just a matter of filling out the form with the proper entries. Such postings can up your web presence as well as improve your Google ranking.

Most authors expect the trailer to pull in a lot of interest when actually, it’s all the efforts promoting it that do the heavy lifting. If nobody knows about your trailer, you can’t expect much. However, if a whole lot of people see your trailer, a percentage of them will end up buying your book. It’s a numbers game. Likewise, if you strategically place your trailer in all online/offline places where your prospective book readers hangout, good things happen. The desired goal is to get the viewer interested, either in making the purchase or in finding out more.

While this article covers the basic considerations in creating a book trailer, there is a great deal more to be learned. One way of increasing your knowledge is to look at book trailers available on the internet. You will discover there are numerous ways to create video trailers, whether it be through emotional implications, character driven, or story plotting. You might also consider a more impressionistic approach that strongly communicates the aesthetic of the book while only hinting at elements of the plot. Likewise, in using photographic/video-graphic images, avoid showing people, or at least not showing their faces in a clear way. You want your viewer’s imagination to build the characters as they would when reading your book.

By looking at numerous trailers, you will find editing techniques that will make your video stronger, like the slow zoom-in or the use of title cards. In particular, watch how the juxtaposition of images and/or music provides a feeling or thought different from what they emit by themselves. Also, be aware how pace, the unveiling of new and unique information, affects the degree of engagement.

While book trailers get few lifetime views and have notorious low conversion rates, they are superior on sales landing pages increasing conversions up to 80 percent. That might be the place where a book trailer best contributes to your sales. In addition, book trailers can make a lasting impression, they’re easy to consume, easy to share, and they stay on the internet forever. A book trailer can be a valuable addition to your marketing campaign, especially if your target audience, your potential readers view it. Homing in on that fact could reap huge benefits and increase your ROI.

In closing, it is better that your book trailer to be super simple, ultra-clear, and thoughtfully aligned with the imagery. The intent of the trailer is to illicit a sale, to get the viewer interested, either in making the purchase or in finding out more about your book. To do that, you must allow the viewer to imagine and collaborate in the making of your book trailer.


January 5, 2021

Effective Internet Marketing – Proven Strategies To Increase Your Income


Effective Internet marketing is a process of using any number of traffic generation methods for gaining visitors to your website. This often includes free methods such as article marketing, social media, forums or video – as well as paid advertising solutions such as Google’s AdWords. Your time and budget will initially determine which choice you make – although there are also benefits to using various methods of generating traffic from a combination of sources. This article will outline some of the key points to keep in mind when it comes to effective Internet marketing.

Effective Internet marketing through generating traffic from free sources largely revolves around the concept of giving informative or interesting content in return for visitors to your website. Utilising article marketing is perhaps the most commonly used method of generating traffic in this fashion. It also provides the added benefits of quality back-links for your search engine optimisation strategies – which can be provided through other webmasters publishing your article as well as the initial link article directories allow you to have from your article. While not providing the same benefits in terms of back-links and search engine optimisation, marketing by offering similar content through video is growing increasingly popular. The primary goal behind most strategies employing this method is to create a video that will likely inspire viewers to send it to someone else upon viewing it, potentially resulting in a lot of viewers who subsequently visit your website in a short period of time.

Effective Internet marketing is growing less common through paid advertising services such as Google’s AdWords. While it does offer benefits in that you can get a high number of targeted visitors to your website very quickly – it is growing increasingly out of the budget for the average marketer who runs a small business on their own. It is now primarily recommended as a quick way to test how your website performs in terms of converting visitors into buyers, and then make adjustments to increase its effectiveness.

Building a list is an important part of any effective Internet marketing. This commonly involves placing an opt-in form on your site and providing some incentive such as a free guide or sample tutorial video for them to join your subscriber base. Implementing a list is an important method to stay in touch with your website’s visitors and keep them interested in what you have to offer.

Any form of effective Internet marketing should be designed to provide you with a high amount of website visitors that eventually convert into buying customers. Using methods to generate traffic from a wide range of sources will allow you to reach as many potential customers as possible, which will ultimately result in a much higher level of income.


September 24, 2020

Effective Social Media Management and Your Brand


Managing a brand’s social media presence can be a demanding and time-consuming endeavour for companies. Since it has well and truly become an integral part of almost all brands’ digital presence, managing the ever-growing social presence is now a full time job. From managing the daily content marketing to monitoring and mediating interactions between fans and your brand, to actively running advertising on your social network of choice – it is understandable that many brands often report feeling overwhelmed with the hive of activity that is social media today. Luckily, there are tools as well as professionals out there that will be able to help your brand get the most out of your social profile while ensuring that the interactions that happen on this platform all go swimmingly.

Tools and analytics

If your brand has just been inducted into the realm of social media, it is necessary to familiarise yourself with useful tools that will make the daily management of your social responsibilities run smoother. Scheduling tools are one of the top ways many brands choose to stay ahead in the game – allowing brands to work on a coherent and comprehensive social strategy in one sitting which can then be implemented over time. The popularity of scheduling software means that there are hundreds to choose from and each offers different solutions in terms of what can be posted when. The latest scheduling software has looked into planning triggered updates – which are only fired off when the company reaches some kind of milestone. Facebook however has recently launched its own integrated scheduling system which allows page administrators to do a lot of the work straight from their brand fan page.

Scheduling updates means that social media or brand managers have one less thing to actively implement on their pages, but while it does save time and effort on that front – an automated system can never be considered a substitute for active, cognisant social media management.

Social media management: Calling in the professionals

Many companies – especially those with large followings – will need to consider sharing the responsibilities of running their social presence with an agency that specialises in digital marketing. As mentioned above, social media has gone way beyond merely posting on your Facebook page every now and then. In the digital age, social is a dynamic community of active users that need constant attention. Social media is also fast becoming the centre where most consumers head when they are in need of customer service, so turning a blind eye to your brand’s social media pages could not only be ill-advised but potentially disastrous.

Even with constant attention lavished on a brand page, the possibility still remains that controversies and issues may arise – and it is in those times that brands will do well to have experienced, social media-savvy staff to handle and solve the problem at hand.

Loyalty and engagement lies at the heart of any social media strategy, and while tools and analytics may help brands to maintain a grip on the fast pace of their social network it is only through diligent planning, management and constant attention that their social presence will benefit their brand.

Lyfeloop