5 Tips for Building a Social Content Calendar

Image Source: Pixabay.com

Efficiency is key when producing social content for your business. Con 78% of U.S. Americans having a social media profile in 2016 (and this number growing), your brand identity is reliant on the platforms you post on. What you post on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc… is a representation of what your company is about.

Don’t you want to look good in the eyes of the public?

The best way to manage your efforts is to have an organized social content calendar. They are proven to not only be helpful in delivering content on time, but also in increasing your overall marketing productivity. Let’s look at 5 of the top industry tips any business can use to add to the development of their social content calendar.

1. BE CONSISTENT WITH HOW MUCH YOU POST

One of the biggest issues with organizing social media has to do with companies not knowing how much or even at what times to post. Posting too little or even too much can both have negative effects on the rate of engagement you receive. Finding that middle ground is key when trying to communicate with your users. A few guidelines to get you headed in the right direction:

• Know your industry and get an idea of how frequently other competitor companies post on Facebook, Cinguettio, Instagram etc…
• Know the days on which you get the highest engagement from your target audience.

Posting at a steady pace throughout the week lets the audience see the structure within your company. Your social media platforms are a portrayal of your brand identity to your consumers. Consistency is crucial in establishing yourself as an industry leader with professional business standards.

2. WHICH CHANNELS WORK BEST?

With so many different social media outlets available on the internet, companies need to understand which ones get them the best consumer outreach. It’s different for each industry. Instagram might work really well if you’re a fashion brand selling design clothes, but may not work so well if you’re a law firm. Knowing your consumer, where they hang out, and associating them with a social channel is vital. Looking at the statistics or analytics of your different pages can provide information that’s necessary to help you prioritize channels and know where you should be for the highest return on your investment.

3. CONTENT WILL ALWAYS BE KING

Having engaging posts that keep users intrigued and entertained will make them stick around and absorb what your brand has to offer. Which types of posts perform the best? Secondo Sprout Social, figuring out the post types that perform well with your audience is essential to any campaign. Links, foto, video, social statuses, hashtags, citazioni, offers etc… could all be potentially beneficial for your brand. Try some A/B testing to see what your audience is interested in, and adjust your efforts accordingly based on what you learn & observe.

4. PLAN IT OUT!

The number one rule when making a calendar is to schedule your content in order to be sure you’re meeting your goals for each period. This relieves some of the day-to-day pressure when it comes to rolling actions out in a timely manner. This same notion can be applied to creating a social media calendar. Your team is already worrying about many other things. When it comes to social media, things can get hectic. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have an “Oh Shoot!” moment and forget to make a Facebook post before leaving the office. Having a monthly outline for your social output will allow you and your team to have a determined guide of tasks to complete on a day-to-day basis.

Providing your team with a simple daily routine to follow will allow your everyone to focus on other ways to create consumer retention. Instead of having to devote so much time and effort struggling for content to post across your various active social channels, having a plan in place will help keep people organized so they can focus on other ways to optimize your productivity.

Image Source: Pixabay.com

5. KEEP YOUR CALENDAR FULL

Running out of content is a common problem that businesses can face. Writing content is always great, but sharing posts from other reputable sources can be beneficial as well. What kind of work should you post?

• Content that is relevant to both your industry as well as what you know about your audience’s interests.
• Infographics relating to current business statistics.
• Make your content fun; incorporate national holidays, current trends, etc…

Productivity is defined by how efficient you can make your business processes flow. As Walt Disney said, “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing”. Don’t just say you’re going to post daily updates for your company’s social media platforms. Go out, make a calendar, e get it done.

A Helpful Holiday Promotion Checklist from the Heyo Team

Getting ready for (and making the most of) the Holiday season can be a daunting task for any brand. There’s so much ‘noise’ out there when it comes to Holiday messaging, and figuring out a way to stand out from the clutter can be overwhelming.

La buona notizia è, one of the easiest and most reliable ways to engage your audience during this busy timeframe is to run an online promotion like a contest or sweepstakes. The even better news is that the team here at Heyo has put together a simple checklist to help you plan and launch your holiday promotion in no time.

6 STEPS FOR RUNNING A SUCCESSFUL HOLIDAY PROMOTION

1. Determine Your Objective
   • Do you want to grow your email marketing list? Educate your customers on a new product or service offering? Or curate user generated content? Whatever your goal is, our team can help you decide which kind of promotion is the right fit for you.
2. Outline the Details
   • Decide when the campaign should begin and end, whether your winner will be chosen at random or by popular vote, etc. You’ll also want to decide what information you’d like to collect during registration.
3. Choose a Relevant Prize
   • Your prize should make sense for the industry that you are in and be compelling enough to incentivize people to participate in your promotion. Make it worth their while to spend the time doing what you’re asking of them!
4. Promote Your Promotion
   • Once your promotion is live, you’ll need to TELL people about it and drive traffic to the entry page. Make sure that you use all of your typical communication channels to drive awareness of the promotion: Social Media, Email Newsletters, etc…
5. Moderate and Manage
   • While your promotion is running, you’ll need to keep an eye on it to make sure it’s all going smoothly. This will depend a lot on the kind of campaign format you choose but for example: If you’re running a Photo Contest, you’ll want to pre-screen all the entries before they appear in your gallery for viewing and voting. You’ll also want to make sure entries are coming in steadily, and adjust your promotional efforts accordingly to make sure you get the most engagement possible.
6. Use the Results
   • Running a promotion is a great way to get leads and quality user-generated content, so make sure you use your results. Nurture your new leads with an email campaign, or thank your existing audience for participating by rewarding them with an exclusive Holiday discount code. Make sure you capitalize on the momentum created by the campaign and use it to your advantage as you start planning your next promotion!

Even though it feels like the Holidays are right around the corner, it’s not too late to add a Holiday contest or sweepstakes to your Marketing plan. Heyo has all the tools you need to plan, creare, launch and manage a successful promotion in no time. If you’re ready to get started, clic qui to schedule a live demo with an Account Representative.

Come: Use Facebook Live to Shape Your Brand

Facebook is always seeking to be on the forefront of social media outlets, often with great success. One of their more recent efforts to expand their means of communication is Facebook Live. It allows anyone to use Facebook to instantly stream live video to others, so they can share some of the more noteworthy events in their lives with others who can’t be there in person.

It is very much like being able to broadcast live events, and there is something very special about that. Live events, perhaps because of the possibility of failure (or unexpected great success), tend to draw the attention far more readily than scripted or rehearsed events. This applies to your brand as much as to personal events. Infatti, with the rollout of Facebook Groups and Facebook Events, you can just as easily go live with only a certain predetermined group, including those invited to a given planned event.

As is typical of Facebook offerings, Facebook Live also gives those viewing your material the opportunity to respond, this time in the form of Live Reactions. It’s not possible to hear cheers or expressions of amazement over the internet, which is why Facebook has created the ability for viewers to express themselves. The viewer’s profile pic will appear with a starburst, and then their reaction – Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, or Angry – will appear in a brief animation. Once you end the video, it is posted directly to your timeline, reactions intact.

What Does This Mean for My Brand?

Secondo Facebook’s own statistics, Facebook Live streams receive 10 times more comments than usual videos. This gives you an opportunity to show people a side of your brand they would never see otherwise. Non solo, but you can also see what aspects get the most audience response. You’ll know instantly the parts they really like, and what needs a little work, because their reactions are visible to you in real time.

There’s a reason why sites like YouTube are popular – people love to watch videos. Combining this with the ability to react to it as it happens is an almost irresistible draw. And all you need for this great marketing tool is a Facebook account, a camera, and an internet connection.

How Is It Done?

There’s no one way to use Facebook Live. Your brand is a unique thing, which requires your unique spin on how things are done. Ancora, there are some general steps you can take to shine a light on what makes your brand stand out from the pack.

Go Live

One of the most obvious things you can do is stream any events or conferences you might be involved in, as they happen. When conventions or similar events are being held, most of the people who want to attend are not able to, for a variety of reasons. With Facebook Live, they can not only have a window into what’s happening as it happens, but cheer you on, laugh at your jokes, or express their amazement, just as if they were right there.

Naturalmente, there will still be those who will be unable to watch the livestream. Fortunately for them, it will be posted to your timeline, complete with all the audience reactions.

A Peek Behind the Curtain

When people love or enjoy something, they have an interest on its inner workings, on how that product they enjoy comes into being. You can give them that with a livestream of whatever process you undergo to bring your product to your customers – minus any trade secrets you don’t want to give to competitors, naturalmente. Ancora, even any secret parts can be made fun, with a little forethought and a sense of humor.

Keep Them in the Loop

Running a business can be a very ‘interesting’ experience at times. With Facebook Live, you can share that experience with your customers. The popularity of a reality shows can be yours, if you’re willing to stream a live video on a daily or weekly basis on how things are going in the day-to-day life of your brand. A more measured version if this is to share any insights about your brand that you or your partners or employees might have about some aspect of your work at the moment. This combines well with giving your customers the occasional peek behind the scenes.

Make Your Event an Event

If you’re going to start a livestream, whether a regular occurrence or a major one-off, you have to let your fans know in advance. You can’t hope for them to stumble upon it because they’re compulsively checking Facebook. Invece, make anything you plan to stream a big deal. Announce it on your Facebook page, more than once. If this is a new thing, or something rare, you could even announce it in countdown style until the big moment you go live.

Putting Life into Live

Though you can’t control any unexpected happenings during a livestream, you are still in control as much as possible, so take advantage of it. Give your video a great title and description, something that not only attracts attention, but tells everyone who tunes in what they’re about to see.

If you feel up to it, you can even shape the course of the video as it goes on. You’ll be able to see how many people are watching, and how they feel about it, and can respond accordingly. After a few of these, you’ll feel more and more comfortable about going “off script”.

Don’t forget to invite viewers to subscribe, so they will be informed automatically of future videos you choose to stream. Subscribed viewers will automatically be informed whenever you stream, which is good for those times you want to go live spontaneously.

Imagine having your own television station – that’s a little like the power of what Facebook Live can do for your brand, if you’re prepared to build up your audience and use it to its fullest potential.

Our Latest and Greatest Guide to Facebook Contests & Lotterie

Facebook promotions are a great way to grow your fan base and engage them in the conversation of your brand. With millions of people logging in each and every day, a Facebook contest or sweepstakes is a great way to capture people’s attention and get them to engage with your brand page on a repeated basis.

And the great news is, you don’t have to be a big-budget brand in order to run a successful promotion on Facebook! Heyo has all the tools you need in order to go live with a promotion in no time, no matter what size your business is!

The sky is really the limit when it comes to the variety of ways you can run a promotion on Facebook, so we thought it could be helpful to share a few examples with you to help you brainstorm.

Conair #DiamondBrilliance Facebook Sweepstakes

Simple enter-to-win Facebook Sweepstakes like the one Conair is running are great ways to generate leads and create brand buzz. Since people only have to fill out a simple registration form in order to enter, the barrier to entry is low, which means registration numbers are likely to be high. The brand also added in a few custom questions to their registration flow in order to get a bit more marketing insights from their audience. The sweepstakes was built using Heyo’s self-serve platform and features mobile responsive design and email database opt-in functionality.

Blue Buffalo CoverPet Facebook Photo Contest

In this campaign, Blue Buffalo is inviting their fans to submit photos of their pets for a chance to be featured on the brand’s Facebook cover photo. The brand knows that people sempre seem to have pictures of their pets on hand, so they’re capitalizing on that low barrier to entry and collecting a ton of great brand-relevant content while they’re at it! This promotion was also built using Heyo’s self-serve platform and features direct upload, photo submission moderation and mobile responsive design.

Want to learn more about our products and services, or brainstorm with a member of our team on your next promotion? Fare clic qui to schedule a live demo with an Account Representative.

The Complete Social Guide to Millennial Marketing

It’s worth your time to develop a strategy for winning the business of millennials (18 to 34-year-olds) because they bring big bucks to the table — an estimated $200 billion annually. Catch their attention, win their trust, and your business stands to gain — big time.

The added value of finding ways to appeal to this generation and gain their trust is that they have an unprecedented level of engagement with their peers. Win them over and they’ll tell all their friends. It’s definitely worth your time to understand and engage with millennials.

Ma, your marketing messaging needs just the right touch to be successful. Millennials resist traditional advertising. You’ll need a game plan.

Millennials live in a digital world, which means your website and other aspects of your online marketing need to be in tune with them. It also means you can learn about them through digital engagement. Understanding customers and prospects is of critical importance to your marketing plan. Fortunatamente, if you pay attention, millennials will teach you to appeal to them!

Così, let’s get started with five strategies guaranteed to head you in the right direction.

Elevate Mobile

Take a look around and you can easily see that millennials are practically hard-wired to their smartphones. Your marketing strategy needs to keep this in mind.

Do you use landing pages? If they’re not already, you need to optimize them for mobile. They need to load quickly and your call-to-action (CTA) needs to be bold and mobile-friendly.

Beyond that, you need to elevate your mobile engagement. Look for ways to be involved in their digital lives. Come esempio, a “mobile rewards network” called Kiip gives you a way to connect with millennials while they’re playing online games. Games reward players when they achieve a new level, per esempio, and Kiip allows brands to sponsor the in-game reward.

It’s an example of a way to connect with millennials while they’re doing something they like to do, but it’s subtle and a better way to approach them than bombarding them with web ads that intrude on their activity.

Connect With The Connected

With a world of options for information and entertainment literally at their fingertips, millennials have learned to tune out traditional advertising. They’re online to meet their own needs and they don’t want interruptions.

Understand this and you will gain a great marketing opportunity.

Forget old-style outreach advertising. Invece, discover the people with online influence who millennials have come to trust. This will include YouTube personalities, podcaster, Instagrammers and bloggers. Most likely they are also millennials who have jumped onto the digital wave to amuse their peers or share their thoughts.

Given their huge audience, can you imagine how many millennials you can reach with just one mention of your product or service in these venues?

As affirmed in a recent study, and as no surprise to anyone, younger consumers are very much influenced by the opinions of their peers. Find ways to connect with those who have the attention of millennials and can get the buzz going about your business very quickly.

Social Sincerity

It’s not too difficult for a business to develop a social presence. But to reach millennials it’s important to properly engage. Ricordare, they’re a savvy bunch and resistant to being sold to. This is why it’s critical that they perceive your social involvement to be in their interest.

Make sure your YouTube, Cinguettio, Instagram and Facebook channels make those who engage with you there feel special. It could be said that millennials are the “me” generation, but really it’s basic psychology; no matter their age, you’re always going to do better if you can find ways to have your customers believe they’re special.

Here are some ideas that have been proven to work:

• Concorsi
• Loyalty programs
• Featuring content from users
• Sincere engagement with comments

Come esempio, many businesses have had great success with Instagram campaigns featuring photos taken by followers. An example is Apt2B, a Los Angeles-based furniture retailer. Their customers are encouraged to take pictures of the sofas and accessories they’ve purchased in their own apartment. Customers like it because they get to see how the product will look in an actual apartment instead of the showroom. And the customers who provide photos feel valued by the company that is sharing their contribution.

Be Authentic

Millennials may have tuned out traditional advertising, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want information. They value any information they deem to be authentic. Ricordare, they’re very tuned-in and don’t want to be conned.

Don’t bother trying for a hard sell, non funzionerà. Invece, develop believable content. Be trustworthy. They’re actively looking for information that will entertain or inform them.

With a soft sell, you’re looking for opportunities to get your message to them in the context of experiences they already value and appreciate.

In today’s digital world, and especially when targeting millennials, you need to adapt your game to reach them where they are, through content they trust. If they perceive that your business understands and respects their core values, you’ll have them hooked.

Chipotle’s “Farmed and Dangerous” online video series did a great job with this. An entertaining satire, the series featured a millennial sustainable farmer fighting a battle with big corporations. Other than including the company’s mission statement, “food with integrity,” there was hardly any reference to the restaurant chain in the videos. Invece, Chipotle counted on consumers seeing the company as a healthy dining choice. Did millennials share the video through their social channels? Scommetti!

Involve Them

Lay’s “Do Us a Flavor” campaign is a great example of reaching millennials’ by involving them in the creation of products you want to sell to them.

Da 2012 in the U.S., annual campaigns have offered a $1 million prize and encouraged the public to suggest new flavors for potato chips. Outreach through various channels including Facebook and Twitter resulted in millions of submissions, each representing engagement with Frito-Lay.

Most companies can’t manage a promotion on that scale, but the take-away is that it helps to have a direct relationship with your audience and make business decisions based on input.

The Wrap-Up

What does it take to market to millennials? It’s pretty simple, really — the human touch. Authentic engagement will score high here. Engage with them to learn more about their wants, needs and desires — then keep these in mind when developing your products or services and you’ll be ahead in today’s new marketing game.

About The Author: Therese is a web consultant specializing in internet and social marketing. In addition to working with clients to build their brands online, she enjoys learning and sharing all the latest tips in the fields of web design, online marketing and usability.

New Promotions From Live Nation, Gore-Tex and Fujifilm

We know you love to see live examples of campaigns that are using Heyo’s technology, since they are the easiest way to understand how our platform works. They’re also great for inspiration as you start planning YOUR next campaign! Quindi, senza ulteriori indugi, here are some new campaigns from Live Nation, Gore-Tex and Fujifilm that are using Heyo’s platform technology.

Live Nation’s House of Blues Ticket Giveaway Sweepstakes

Sweepstakes are a great way to grow your marketing database and drive awareness for your brand. Since they usually only require users to complete a quick registration form in order to enter, their barrier to entry is low, which means your chances of engagement are high. In this campaign, Live Nation is promoting the Grand Opening of a new House of Blues property by inviting people to enter for a chance to win 2 VIP tickets to the event. By promoting it across a variety of social channels, they’re driving campaign awareness while collecting email addresses at the same time! This sweepstakes was built on Heyo’s Self-Serve Platform and features mobile responsive design and social sharing.

Gore-Tex’s “Bad Weather, Good Day” #Hashtag Photo Contest

We’re seeing a lot of campaigns making use of #hashtag entry methods these days. They’re a great way to engage fans that are hanging out on Instagram or Twitter, and with Heyo’s Platform, you can build a campaign hub to serve as a home for all the content that is submitted for entry. In this promotion, Gore-Tex is inviting their fans to share photos using the hashtag #goretexday in order to be entered to win some Gore-Tex gear. No matter which way someone enters, their entry will appear in the gallery that lives on the brand’s Facebook page. Also built using Heyo’s Self-Serve Platform, this campaign features both direct and hashtag entry, responsive design mobili, and photo content moderation.

Fujifilm’s “Greatest American Roadtrip” Essay Contest

Essay contests are a great way to gather valuable insights from your audience that you can use in future marketing efforts. They’re also a great way to bring your fans into the conversation for your brand. In this campaign, Fujifilm is inviting their fans to share what they love about our country’s National Parks, for a chance to win a brand new camera! The entries give Fujifilm great information about their audience, which is always useful from a marketing standpoint. This campaign was also built using Heyo’s Self-Serve Platform and features mobile responsive design, essay content moderation and viral referral functionality.

Want to learn more about our products and services, or brainstorm with a member of our team on your next promotion? Fare clic qui to schedule a live demo with an Account Representative.

Heyo’s Parent Company Votigo & Sprout Social Team Up in Exciting New Webinar :: Save Your Spot Today!

Save your spot today for this (gratis) webinar on October 13th!

Social media contests and sweepstakes are a great way to grow your email list and social followers while engaging and activating the followers you already have. They’re easy to launch and with the right call-to-action, are a super easy way to get your audience to participate in your brand’s conversation.

That’s why Votigo & Sprout Social have teamed up to present this webinar, to help you plan your next Social Media Contest or Sweepstakes. You’ll learn:

• How contests and sweepstakes benefit both your brand and your consumer
• Which kinds of promotions are best for different campaign objectives (da: drive leads or curate content)
• How to launch a new social media campaign
• Best practices for promoting your contest or sweepstakes

We’re looking forward to ‘seeing’ you there!

-The Votigo Team