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As I’ve been working to collect all the #TRGrules, I have become even more observant as to what people, businesses, organizations, and nonprofits are doing to hurt their success stories on social media.

In recent days, we have seen several recurring errors which may seem innocent the first time but frustrate audiences as accounts make the same mistakes over and over. Here are just three frequent violations:

Posting Facebook links to other platforms: It’s totally cool to want to drive your audiences on social media to your main marketing hub. Unfortunately, if that hub is Facebook then tweeting or Instagramming links to your Facebook page and posts will only lead to frustration. Both Twitter and Instagram, and increasingly Facebook itself, are mostly used by audiences on their mobile devices. If you hit a Facebook link on Twitter, it takes you to the mobile website, not the mobile app. People are logged into the mobile app but, most likely, not the mobile website. When they are taken to the mobile site they aren’t logged into they can see your content but cannot interact with it. This is frustrating.

And something I am guilty of myself when there is no other recourse.

Apologies for Facebook link but if you are an #Entrepreneur here in our #JCMO stop by @CoffeeZone at 9 AM http://t.co/6SvKNVNT67

n— Gus Wagner (@RocketGroup) October 16, 2015

No biographies: I am seeing this happen more and more on Instagram but still see it on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms. Poorly constructed accounts either provide sketchy details or no details at all in their biographies. I had recent interactions on Instagram with something called the “Tri-City Classic” but their bio and content gave me no idea where these Tri-Cities are located. The Comerica Theatre recently followed me on Instagram, but I have no idea where they are located. I am guessing Detroit, but it’s only a guess. 

If you don’t fill out your bios, using all the space and prompts provided to you by the platforms, you are decreasing the chance people who can actually do business with you will actually do business with you. You will also increase your chances of looking like a spammer.

Bad group photos: Everyone is the media these days because we all carry cameras for photos and videos within an arm’s reach (Quick, how far away is your phone from you right now?). We can also share the media we create with hundreds or thousands of our followers a minute later. Life has been like this for a couple of years now so we should all be used to the spur of the moment group photo. There is no need for the subjects in the front row to bend at the knees or waist to allow others to be seen, the photographer should move the group subjects around. Especially if that group photo is being taken in a stadium. 

nPhotographers you need to post the best of your photos to social media, not all of your photos to social media. There is never a need to see a dozen photos in a row of the STP (Same Ten People) doing the same thing. Here are some tips about uploading multiple photos to Facebook you should check out.n

A Bonus Thing You Shouldn’t Be Doing on Social Media!

Automating gratitude: There are a lot of great tools out there like this and this to help you manage your social media content and audiences. One of the drawbacks to these tools is the option to express THANKS! to new followers or active listeners. It automatically fills in three or four account handles with a branded link for the company you are working with.

This all seems like a great thing, but everyone involved knows it’s a robot-tweet advertising for the management company. If you see something cool on social media, no matter the platform, take a real moment and leave a real comment or response of appreciation. It may seem like it will take you forever but it won’t and the audience returns will be much greater.

My best RTs this week came from: @semrush @jchapstk @RocketGroup #thankSAll Who were yours? http://t.co/NpSQtBs8Uc pic.twitter.com/x00XssqBIN

n— Janil Jean (@JanilJean) October 16, 2015

With that, thanks (for reals) for reading this far. If you have any questions, comments, or even disagreements with what I have posted here, feel free to comment below or contact me at any time!

PS: Here are some positive pieces to leave you on a high note with:

Dogs and Beer and Social Media

Get Found on Facebook: A Strategy

Twitter Success Story: Tweet with a Smile

Profile photos on social media profiles are critical to your online success as a business, organization, nonprofit, or individual. Let’s talk about the reasons why.

Because of (sporting) world events, I recently had to change the cover image on The Rocket Group’s Facebook page. It got me to thinking about how we all use our other profile photos. Many of us online are doing ok professionally with our images, some of us are doing great, and some of us doing really, really bad jobs.

What is the purpose of a social media profile image?

There are a lot of reasons why your profile photo is so critical. To put this in terms some of us may understand, the image is basically your online dating profile for your professional efforts.

• It represents your business, organization, nonprofit, or yourself: Another way to think of modern social media images is as business cards. The days of raised letters on off-white cards are gone. Now your card needs to be dynamic and stand out from the stack it’s going to piled in on someone’s desk.
• It needs to be recognizable: The image should not just look like you and yours but it should remind me of you and yours when I see it. For mine images, I use tools I use in my speaking and training presentations to drive another connection with the viewer. What can you use in yours to drive that business connection?
• It needs to create a positive first impression: Just like in the online dating example, many folks who encounter you online will first see you through your profile photo. If it’s a silly or bad photo, they will think you are silly or bad. Think about how you form opinions on the people and brands you encounter online based on their profiles. People are doing the same with you. In fact, this is one of our #TRGrules.
• It needs to stand out in crowded timelines and newsfeeds: The average person sees some 250-300 posts each time they scroll through Facebook and Twitter and the other social media platforms. Making your profile image one that stands out from the crowd in all that thumb scrolling will lead you to greater success. Use colors, use props, use your products to get noticed in the timelines!

Don’t Do These Things with Your Social Media Profile Image

• Don’t hide behind a logo: Unless you are in or around the Fortune 500 you should probably use images of happy, smiley faces versus your logo for a social media image. People connect with people not logos online. This is especially critical for small- and medium-sized operations. If you do need to use a logo, make it a photo of your door or sign or something human they can relate to instead of a vector image. If you can get a pic of you doing your job, well, all the better.
• Don’t use too- or non-professional images: Scroll through your LinkedIn and see all the profile photos shot in a studio with a drab background. Now scroll through your Facebook and see how many friends are using party pics as their profile photos. Avoid this trap, get a high end camera (everyone has one these days) and go outside, go to your shop floor, go to a local landmark and take your new amazing photo. When it comes to possibly using non-professional images, make sure your clothing is appropriate, your alcohol level is non-existent, and your face is pleasant.
• Don’t fall for hacktivism: It’s cool to support the many worthy causes out there but adding ribbons to your image or making your image a superhero is only helping to blend your profile into a mass of unrecognizability or political discussion you don’t want to be in. Want to be an activist through your pro channels? Write a blog and post it to social media.

Where Can You Find Inspiration for Your Profile Images?

• Look to accounts you admire: I just did a quick scroll through my Twitter feed (as I admire everyone I follow) and found three cool profile photos in less than a minute. I also saw a couple hundred photos that all looked the same. Author James Altucher is known for his “unique” appearance and his great ideas, his profile photo reflects that. Broadcaster Mark Reardon has a cool image of him at work in the studio. Brash T-Mobile CEO John Legure has an image which is brand-loyal and shows him passionately at work.
• Look for great photos of you and yours: Content that shows behind the scenes of any operation is always a great driver of interaction. There are probably hundreds of photos (everyone has a camera these days) of you and your efforts at work. Look to one of them that will stand out and put it to work.
• Look to unusual sources like album covers: Just like all good marketers we have swipe files for graphic design, web design, content ideas, and even profile photos. Look to magazines, news images, and other sources to inspire you to create your perfect image. The profile image on my own personal Instagram and Facebook accounts was inspired by the Hayes Carll album cover to Trouble in Mind. I am fun like that sometimes.

A couple of other tips for your professional social media images

• No family photos. LinkedIn is not a place for your wedding photo.
• No pixelated images. Make sure your image is the proper size. Use Canva if you need to make sure.
• Smile if you can. If your business in serious stuff, a smile might not be appropriate. If you work for a clown college, then go for it.
• No crossed arms. You probably aren’t in the WWE and negative body language is a bad thing.
• Don’t change the photos every day. Or that frequently. Once or twice a year is good enough. Remember, we want consistency.

Your social media profile photo is one of the first impressions, and recurring brand points, of your professional image. Use it to your benefit. Or detriment.

The choice is yours.

Thanks for checking this post out. If you found it useful and still have questions, challenges, or obstacles to your social media or marketing success story you would like to discuss, feel free to reach out at any time! 

Video is where content is at these days and Facebook continues to be where the people are in social media. We recently ran a one-week experiment on Facebook video. Here are those results.

Methods We Used for Facebook Video

Admittedly, the “Question of the Day” format we used in this test was inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk, and his decision to dump his Question of the Day. It was a good choice to create some interest in what was being said behind the auto-play functionality of Facebook.

All of the videos were filmed on my Galaxy S6 Edge instead of our higher dollar camera equipment. This was done to reinforce our encouragement that anyone can create video content. Also, we were testing results of posting from the mobile device against posting from the desktop.

Also, true to my “one-take-Jake” tradition, we didn’t edit any of these videos. I also aimed to keep them at a minute or less (only broke that barrier once!), not repeat filming locations, and bring value through the questions and the backstories. We also tested organic reach versus paid reach and found some interesting information.

Technical Results of the Facebook Video Study

In a high-level view, the results look outstanding. 44{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70} of people who saw our videos in their newsfeeds and the organic reach of the video posts was outstanding compared to our, and probably your, “normal” Facebook posts.

The two items here that jump out are the escalating reach, even in the non-paid posts, and the fact that the paid posts only cost $5.93 for hundreds of views.

As you may know, Facebook counts a view as when one individual has viewed more than 3 seconds of the video. When we look at the viewing time of each of the seven videos in the study, we see that the average viewing time was 12.85 seconds or 29{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70} of the average video.

Deep Look Results of the Facebook Video Study

In your Facebook Insights, you can click each individual post and see a ton of information on fan interaction, or inaction. By looking at each of these posts, we learned that while the organic reach was great and the views were more than expected, our most desired fan action – link clicks – wasn’t that great. Several of the posts didn’t include links at all and those that did were to evergreen content here on the TRG site.

(Aside – While the clicks weren’t that great we did pick up new fans, and most importantly, a new prospect to do business with.)

We also see, as is the norm for videos like these, that very few viewers made it all the way to the end of their viewing. A 29{1ccf3f7051f621f207bf0b5abe66fecd9fcbebd6ccca57cd81eaf6422f6a0a70} view length isn’t great and tells us that these types of raw one-take videos shouldn’t be a featured form of content, but a complimentary form of content.

Conclusions of the Facebook Video Study

First, posting seven videos in seven days is not nearly enough of a sample to arrive at scientific confirmations. To use a popular term in baseball, it’s a small sample size. Knowing our fan base the way we do and Facebook the way we do, it’s a good start and enough to have some takeaways to share with you:

• Get your point across in the first few seconds of the video. If the viewers are going to fall off after the first third of your content, then you have to hook them early. This is something we practice in our full-on edited videos and is a mental cue we will have to remember in these mobile phone videos.
• The organic reach, at this moment of typing and posting, blows every other type of Facebook post out of the water. We’ll always advise caution to keep a mix of content – optimized photos, videos, graphics, text, etc. – posting from your page but you should really be trying organic uploads of video if you aren’t already. 
• Facebook ads for video views are, again at this moment of typing and posting, extremely affordable. See the spreadsheet above and realize we spent less than $6.00 for more than 700 highly targeted views. Good luck doing that with your newspaper ads.
• When filming a video with your mobile device, you have the power to shake up the backgrounds, looks, even the subjects in the videos. That video camera in your pocket right now is probably the most powerful video camera you own. Put it to work for your business, organization, or nonprofit and get great social media content too!
• While you should be creating a video to post to Facebook, you shouldn’t forget YouTube. That being said, the people who see your Facebook videos are people who have already connected with you. For most of us, the people who find us on YouTube are ones that are searching and finding you or that you have blasted links out to through other social media channels. It’s the old reactive versus proactive model all over again.
• The world, at least its online audiences, are quickly moving to a video-consumption-first world. That’s why Facebook is battling YouTube as hard as they are right now. You’ve got to be prepared. You already have the tools. Now you just need to take the time to put them to work for you.

The Facebook videos in the QotD experiment are embedded below if you are interested. If there is anything we can do to answer your questions, help you overcome a marketing struggle, or listen to your complaints, feel free to reach out at any time! 

Thanks for the time, for watching the videos, and for checking our math above!

Recently, Twitter changed the way retweets are presented. Since the beginning of the platform, we were limited to 140 characters in any tweet – original or retweet. That has now changed and is messing up the lives or twitterers on a daily basis.

Now when you retweet someone on the native platfom – desktop or mobile – you have the option of just blasting the original message out to your followers or adding up to 140 characters of your comments or content. The original tweet then appears either as an attachment or a link, depending where you are reading it, instead of being shown within a message.

This is just a test tweet testing the internal retweeting function on Twitter. If this had been a real tweet… https://t.co/tVjR7EAp2N

— Gus Wagner (@WagnerGus) June 10, 2015

The Problem With New Retweeting

The problem this change has created is when someone retweets with the native Twitter.com, there is no longer a notification to the original twitterer (OT) someone has retweeted their content. In the previous function, and in third-party platforms like Hootsuite, the OT gets a ping that someone has mentioned him/her/them. Then the OT can be polite and send gratitude for the RT or determine if there is any further action to be taken. Check out the screencast video I made highlighting this issue.

The Solution to the Problem with New Retweeting

People, businesses, organizations, and nonprofits who tweet as an important part of their living know the drawbacks of using the native Twitter.com functions. Even the mobile app itself lends to it not being very helpful for professional use. This is why we use third-party platforms like Hootsuite (Full disclosure: I am a #HootAmb) to manage and monitor our social media actions. A huge part of monitoring our activity is mentions. If there are no mentions in the new retweeting function then, honestly, money is being left on the table. The solution is to use a program like Hootsuite, Buffer, even Tweetdeck to control all of your social media actions, even retweets.

Still need help conquering Twitter? Here are a couple more posts of ours which you may find helpful.

How To Succeed At Twitter

How to Set Up Your Twitter Correctly From Day One

How to Live Tweet Events

Need more help? Email me at Gus@RocketGroupLLC.com, tweet me (where I will catch up the fastest) @RocketGroup, send up a flare, whatever, let’s talk.

Critics are claiming the sky is falling again for marketing on Facebook. Let’s look at what you should be doing to launch your success story.

The latest bunch of Facebook algorithm and profile setting changes, at this writing, have given preeminent power to personal relationships between users and their connections. Users, if they take the time, can now select who and what they want to see at the top of their newsfeed in addition to the algorithm giving more weight to pages and people the user actually interacts with.

This, again, just proves our Thumbstoppable theory.

Just like snowflakes, no two personal Facebook timelines are the same. The content on the Facebook page for your business, organization, or nonprofit is in competition with the friends, family, sports, or music of your fans. Everything they Like, including your posts, is in competition for their eyeballs when they scroll their newsfeed.

Your content must always educate, inform, or entertain them more than everything else they see as they scroll their phones, tablets, and screens with their thumbs. If your stuff doesn’t stop their thumb, you have failed with that piece of content. If it does stop their thumb, then they scroll back up and click your post to see what’s up and you have succeeded.

Think about it: most of us use Facebook exactly the same way. Think about what stops your thumb and put those tactics to work for you.

Remember this, Facebook makes money when their billion-plus monthly users spend more time on the platform. You make more money (if that is your goal) when your fans spend more time on the platform and more time on your content.

Things to think about:

• Educate, inform, or entertain with every post you make.
• Use links in your posts to drive the audience back to your website so you can build a closer relationship with them.
• Something isn’t working? Try different tactics: post from a mobile device, post multiple photos, post at different times of the day.
• Use hashtags. While they will never be as popular on Facebook as on Twitter and Instagram, they still work and you don’t lose reach by using them. Insert relevant industry or geographic hashtags to connect with others using and clicking those tags.
• Post photos. If you haven’t figured out that people want to see what you are talking about and posts with pics stand out in the newsfeed then Facebook management might not be the place for you.
• Post video. The reach and interaction of video which is uploaded organically to Facebook blows YouTube out of the water. Plus, you can tag yourself in the video (if you are in the video) which is a legitimate way to get your business in front of the thumbs of your personal connections.
• Use your Insights. Facebook gives you all the power in the world to know who your audience is and what they are doing with your posts. Use it to your benefit to find the best times to post if nothing else. (Hint: it is most often in the evening hours.)
• Study who interacts. If people who are more likely to do business with you interact with you in the evening, plan your business-focused content for the evening. If it is your Christmas card list fans who like your stuff during the day then focus on lighter material during those hours.
• Live locally. This is critical for those of you who depend on driving people through actual doors to do business with you. Make and promote content that focuses on local opportunities, landmarks, and activities so your neighborly street cred builds.
• Focus on what works. Maybe your audience is unique and responds to text only updates at midnight. If your Insights say that is working then keep at it. If you see no one responds to your $1000 professional product photos but they dig your cell phone pics, well, it’s easy to see what works.

When your content is stopping thumbs and driving clicks and clients to you, then you will know your it is succeeding for you!

The thing to remember in all of this is that social media changes on an almost daily basis. Stay on top of those changes and how they can impact your business (Folllow and Fan The Rocket Group, obviously) and be prepared to roll with the changes.

Thanks for the time and if we can ever help you regarding your business, organization, or nonprofit, then email me at Gus@RocketGroupLLC.com, tweet me (where I will catch up the fastest) @RocketGroup, send up a flare, whatever, let’s talk.

Despite what you may have heard, thought, or been told, professionals in social media don’t just play online all day.

I thought I would run through a step-by-step analysis of procedures and planning for a typical day managing client social activities. This list is A) not time-based because the amount of time varies from day to day, B) not going to reveal the client or the area in which they practice…just know they have a total audience of 5,000+ and are dealing with important topics of the day, C) not set in stone or in order of action as flexibility is a key attribute of a successful social media professional.

What’s In It For Me: Learn the steps taken every day by social media pros, like TRG, to reach and impact audiences to further the success of your content mission.

Also, a truly good social media professional is almost always connected through their mobile device and working and monitoring the situation no matter where they are. (Usually closest to a power outlet.)

Review Social Interactions for Opportunities

Some say the first thing you should not do in the morning is to check your email, so I try not to. What I actually do is check my Hootsuite control panel for social media responses, retweets, favorites, Likes, Shares, etc. Then I set out to see who the folks were who interacted with the content from the previous day, night, or last scan of activity. Gratitude is shown to those who share our messages, especially if that sharing generated many web clicks, and connections are made with any new voices who are singing our song. If a new connection has really outstanding content of their own and it ties into our mission, we will then share or interact with something relevant of theirs to be good social media neighbors.

Scan, Review, Edit, Pause, and/or Create Paid Campaigns

Most days of the year we have paid campaigns going, especially on Facebook and Twitter, to promote important content to targeted audiences or put the account in front of more potential fans. One of the first things I do each morning is check those campaigns to make sure they are still delivering, what they have delivered in followers and clicks, and make any adjustments which need to be made. This could include increasing or decreasing budget, adding new messages or images, or changing targets and goals.

Check Stats from the Hours/Day/Week/Month Before

To be successful in social media, you have to know what the audience is interacting with. We normally check our Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, and Google Analytics on a daily basis. If something is catching a bunch of attention, clicks, and Shares, I can make decisions to promote those posts or create additional content with similar themes immediately. If you aren’t checking your stats frequently, you are really talking in a dark room with no idea if anyone else is in there with you. We are also able to see quickly if traffic is rising, falling, or maintaining compared to other time periods or topics.

Review New Fans and Followers for Leads and Spammers

Another daily task, and a critical one, is to check your social connections for new fans and followers. There may be a $1 million dollar lead who just Liked you on Facebook or there may be a dozen spammers who followed you on Twitter. You need to reach out to the legit new connections then block and report the spammers. 

A few of the internet’s favorite things. We need to stop one of the three…you choose! #SMM pic.twitter.com/GotBRdgU1G

— Gus Wagner (@RocketGroup) May 23, 2015

Check the Headlines of the Day for Content Ideas or Consultations

Between social media, blogs, aggregators, and even (still) traditional media, there is no shortage of news and information out there for you to share with your audience or get content ideas from. For this client we have several sources which we scour every morning for ideas to educate, inform, and entertain their audience. Scheduling tweets of the hard news items throughout the day, create long form content based on (and referencing) others content, and recapping the events of the previous or current day for Facebook – where hard news doesn’t play as well – are just a few of the immediate actions we take every morning.

Know why there is some much “what not to do” #Marketing content online? Because you/we all keep making mistakes. pic.twitter.com/G2HF0NPDbB

— Gus Wagner (@RocketGroup) June 3, 2015

Read Your Own Timelines for Content to Share

While you are building thousands of followers and fans, you also need to be following and Liking influencers, media, and decision makers in your own industry. Reviewing your own timelines and newsfeeds for breaking or relevant content is an important step to take every day. That means every day of the week and every day of the year. News, like Greed ®, never sleeps. 

Schedule and/or Review Planned and Scheduled Content

One of the beauties of a tool like Hootsuite is the power to schedule tweets. This client is working with an audience that is highly active from 7 AM to after 10 PM every day so we schedule evergreen content posts to go out throughout the day. Facebook is a different creature and will punish content published through a third-party tool so we use the internal schedule tool to publish at our peak times. Two rules to play by with scheduled posts: 1) be aware if some local/national/international news story breaks and check your scheduled items to pause or reschedule their publishing so you don’t look foolish in a time of tragedy and 2) don’t “just set it and forget it” as you will have to make sure your post was published, what the interaction is, and correct any errors you will, er, might make in the content or links.

See What the Other Guys (and Gals) Are Doing

Chances are you have competition, just as this client of ours does. Whether you are competing against other businesses, organizations, or nonprofits for revenue, awareness, or real estate, you’ll have to be aware of what they are doing. Our strategy here is to not follow or Like the loyal opposition on social media but to have lists, links, and tools in place to monitor their content and efforts. We check them out on a daily basis to see what they are up to, what their point of view is on common issues, and to stake out themes they are totally missing. You should too.

Make New Friends

Another growth strategy we employ is to check hashtags, conversations, and even lists of suggested accounts to connect with by the social media platforms to follow and Like similar and legit voices in the areas our client is concerned with. Going out and connecting with new “friends” on a regular basis is a great way to find supporting and new points of view and to grow connections which will help your own content find new audiences. Be sure to clean up the lists of your followers for dormant, dead, or spam accounts with a tool like CrowdFire.

Review Content Calendar

Just like most of us wouldn’t leave on a long trip without a map of some sort, you shouldn’t manage your daily social media activity without a plan. These are normally referred to as content calendars and can be as simple as a list of what actions you will take each day of the week to detailed Excel sheets for listing topics, titles, dates, and results (like this one). Either step, big or small, will get you headed in a better direction than you are currently going with your social media.

Prepare Social Media & Blog Posts

You’ll notice that we haven’t talked much about actual content creation. I will now but you need to see how much work we put into this effort before any words or pictures are created. By keeping your ears on for what the audience is actually interested in (versus pushing out what you want to talk about), investing time and resources into growing an effective audience for your efforts, and being interactive and responsive to the content of others, you will have a much greater success story for when you publish your own content. Preparing blog posts, whitepapers, and infographics for the client website is a dedicated and concentrated effort which runs parallel to the social audience observation and creation. Each blog post, unless it is very specific to current events, can ideally be used dozens of times for social media content. Crafting your content in smaller lengths, unique voices, or in digestible bits (like this one) can help you to have an “evergreen” article which will benefit you, and your audiences, for weeks, months, or even years.

Acquire, Create, and Edit Specific and Interesting Images for Web and Social Use

Words are only half the picture when it comes to social media content, pictures are the rest of the pictures. Images, graphics, and video will help you to stand out in a world of text on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Inserting those images into your blog posts will enable your audience to share your messages in other platforms like Pinterest as well. You can take your own photos, buy stock photos, create graphics in a tool like Canva, and create short- or long-form videos (with a company like ours!) which will help your content to have even more impact on your audience. Most importantly, social media posts with accompanying images or video have interaction rates dozens of times higher than boring old text by itself.

So there you have it, a dozen steps to take on a daily basis if you want to truly have a social media success story of your own. Perhaps you can focus on some more than others or skip a step or two but, in our experience, you won’t be as successful in moving audience action, gaining greater awareness, or improving your bottom line if you do.

If you don’t follow a plan like this, you may as well just be playing on the internet all day.

What do you think? Email me at Gus@RocketGroupLLC.com, tweet me (where I will catch up the fastest) @RocketGroup, send up a flare, whatever, let’s talk.