That’s not all! It only looks to continue to rise in favor of Google and Facebook as a variety of stats this year are showing an even higher proportion of the share of growth in US ad revenues, achieving 95% between the two.

Facebook is now so powerful that it is creating micro e-commerce industries in emerging markets. Providing free internet access, where there is currently none. Taking over the world could be their mantra!

Content is shared at a rate that we almost can’t keep control of. Every couple of years that passes by we seem to create more data than in the entire previous history of the world – Forbes^[2]

Marketing services spending worldwide from 2015 (in billion U.S. dollars) to 2017 (Statista^[3])

As you can see spending continues to rise, so it will become even more important to invest your marketing budget in the right place.
But before we look deeper into social media marketing…

What Is Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing is using optimised content, to share with a targeted audience, in the most consistent and engaging way possible.

You can achieve this through paid advertising or organic posts directly from your social feeds.

Organic Posts

A little-known fact is that Facebook allows you to target your current audience organically via audience-optimization^[4].

So What Is Audience Optimization?

‘Audience Optimization is an organic targeting tool to help publishers reach and engage their audience on Facebook and better understand the interests of people clicking on their posts’

If your brand is Pepsi and you have 100,000’s of followers, but just want to post a job advert for ingredient buyers and you don’t want all your happy consumers to see this message, you can directly target those who are most likely to be interested in the opportunity.

With social media channels pushing for paid advertising, this is one way- On the most powerful of social media channels, you can optimise your posts and direct them to the correct audience for no cost; getting the best chance of an organic reach.

Don’t just run off and start posting sporadically all over social media. Start with the end in mind and make a plan!

Here’s a start…

How To Create A Winning Social Media Marketing Strategy?

Here are the seven steps^[5].

The best way to conduct your social media marketing strategy is through in-depth research and analysis of real people. It helps to map the market and understand the audience you wish to connect.
Having a social media audit helps too and here’s a how-to^[6]. It needs to follow a user journey and if done correctly will help to focus the social media marketing strategy.

A strategy should be focused on four pillars, and those pillars should be linked to your EVP or at the very least your company values.

Once you’ve identified the pillars, a content calendar can be created. This should be more around content themes than a day by day plan; which can be implemented later on.

Create content that is designed specifically to highlight the positive connectivity between your brand and your target audience.

It is not enough to just create a strategy around individual posts. What’s important, as I’ve already suggested, is to start with the end in mind.

Understand your key metrics and plan accordingly. Your user journey should guide you to where there may be gaps in your social media marketing strategy.

When you promote content; firstly it should reach to those people who will engage with it and secondly to those who will experience a paradigm shift; to be inspired and attracted to the positive message you have to share.

Finally, at every stage, you should look for optimum performance. The world moves at a rapid pace, and social media moves at ten times that speed, so it is important that any strategy has the flexibility to adjust minute by minute, hour by hour…

3 Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes

• Lack of research; no strategy
• No response OR bad response
• No dedicated social team

1. Lack Of Research No Strategy

Now I’m no Baseball fan, but I do understand team ethics! If you want the proof that creating a good strategy with the right research ever pays dividends, then look no further than the book or the film Moneyball^[7].

Through the analytical principles of sabermetrics^[8], a manager would pick those players who are most likely to work best together rather than the best set of individual players.

When my clients ask me ‘why we should have a social audit when we don’t have a presence’ or ‘we’re already doing a great job on social?’ I tell them: ‘Just because you’re not out there on social, it doesn’t mean people aren’t talking about you’ or ‘Are you sure this is the best you can be?’

I also tell my clients that they may have a great product and brand, but without a well-defined strategy based on real-time data and analysis, how can they expect to continue to play and win in the major leagues?

A well-executed strategy will ensure your social media marketing performs week in and week out, at its optimum level. It will also protect against failure, just at the point where you need it to perform best.

2. No Response OR Bad Response

Simply this can be explained in two ways…

No response =

Lack of the human touch. You may as well not bother. It’s not just a case of customer service; you need to be a real person with real views.

Burger King recently created an anti-bullying campaign^[9], irrelevant of those who don’t like social responsibility in all its manifestations, delivered via global consumerism; here I argue it’s done well.

Why?

Because I think that this is a reflection of an employee’s views and experiences of bullying. So through their client, they are promoting a message that can support a shift in thinking.

OR

At the very least it’s a bunch of creative’s in a media company giving something back. Creating social value in the work they do. Because once upon a time they weren’t the cool creative person that everybody loves. They were a vulnerable young child in a school with very different rules of engagement!

Bad response =

I’ll just show you and let these posts do the talking!

Maybe if he had have stopped there he would have got away with his rude response!

But he isn’t giving up…

And just when you thought, surely he’s going to shut up now; clearly, he can’t!

So, in this case, I’d certainly say having the human voice has not been the best option in this case. However, if he’s targeted rude, aggressive customers who like to be spoken to in this way, then maybe he has a top strategy.

He’s just going to create a lot of enemies and cross a few lines in doing so. Not the company for me though.

3. No Dedicated Social Team

Every company has an enthusiastic employee who is willing to ‘have a go’ at social media. Whether it’s a grad or an apprentice or even the head of marketing who thinks they should have a go! But let’s face it; they are mostly like a child with a new puppy.

There comes the point where they lose interest in taking it for walks because in the cold, wind and the rain it becomes too much like hard work and other things take priority.

Social media marketing is not just for Christmas. It’s easy to have a go and have a bit of fun. But without a defined strategy and without a commitment to look after it and develop it; it will ultimately suffer.

Make sure you give the responsibility to somebody who understands the level of commitment that’s required. But also give them the level of support that is needed. Because nobody gets a success in isolation!

But seriously a dog is not just for Christmas, and I’ve loved and owned many pets. Social media doesn’t have feelings, so my comparison is pure to create and to understand rather than a true like for like…

Types Of Social Media Marketing:

Facebook – I’ve said it already from a paid marketing perspective; you can be as creative and dynamic as you want. The hard and fast rule is that Facebook has a stranglehold over social media marketing. It will take a lot more than you or I to change that. So don’t ignore it as part of your strategy, even if ultimately you don’t use it.

Instagram – If you’ve not hit 25 yet and you’re a female, there is a good chance you’re starting to share and engage with images on Instagram. This image sharing site is cool, easy to use and of course owned by the world leader- Facebook.

If you want to show the world your brand in images, I suggest you do it on Instagram.

Twitter – Don’t underestimate the power of Twitter. In the UK, Twitter has several Nurse friendly groups each with over 50,000 members.

Know your audience, know where they live and breathe and target them accordingly. Make no assumptions and be human, but with integrity and respect. Nobody wants to be bullied by another person or a brand!

Read More: 10 Best Tips For SEO Hacks To Get Higher Rank On Search Engines

Organisations only exist because there are consumers, without the human element; there is nothing.

Be original

Be bold

Be yourself… and that’s your social media marketing strategy!

The post The Ultimate Guide To Social Media Marketing appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

Why do you want to grow an audience?

To communicate a message around your EVP. To support recruitment activity. To gain a readership for your blog posts.

What’s your objective?

What are you trying to achieve?

Put a strategy in place. We advise all clients; don’t think about the social channels you want to grow an audience on, think about what it is you want to achieve and then define a strategy around it.

The selection of channels will come once you’ve got your strategy in place.

In my time in recruitment and working within social media I’ve met and engaged with some interesting seed investors and entrepreneurs, and although a strategy or a business plan is important to show credibility, it is the individual they buy into.

With this in mind always expect the strategy to be flexible and to change. It’s still important to have one, but social media moves at a rapid pace, and so must your strategy.

When I first got into recruitment, I met Mark Williams known as MRLinkedin, who did a session on Linkedin recruitment hacks. He gave me great insight into how to infiltrate LinkedIn to gain access to wider communities than I could via my own networks.

At that point, Linkedin didn’t open its platform to all of its communities at any cost, so this session was imperative in allowing me to create the communities I needed.

Years later I have over 12,000 followers. However, the reality is that they are not a niche group of people who share my same interests and passions.

I have a massive network from my days as a global headhunter in the pharmaceutical sector in South America.

They still read and engage with a lot of my content, but are no longer the people I want to influence or be influenced by. So your communities and followers must evolve as your career does over time. This doesn’t mean they still can’t be a part of your community, but the likelihood of them being highly engaged is much less likely.

This here’s what happens when you have no plan. A cute dog gets more followers than you

That’s okay though because I’m happy for at this moment in time for Instagram to be a place where I share images with my friends and work colleagues. But the minute you want to utilize it for work purposes a defined strategy is imperative.

But don’t underestimate the power of your puppy friends use your family and co to help like, share and engage with your content. They love you and will like your stuff, and naturally, it will help with your algorithms.

So you don’t need to completely separate work and home, just make sure your audience is supportive.

THEN THE HOW!

What are those things we can do to grow and engage a following?

Buy them from China (other countries are available to sell followers!)

But do you want to become like this guy!?!

BEWARE! Your audience will smell you out like the TRUMP that you are.

But buying followers doesn’t always have to be bad, if it’s done in the right way and your followers are relevant and presented with great content/info/advice.

You can pay to promote your posts and your page to a well-defined audience. But make sure you save your best content that has the best chance of converting readers into followers.

Facebook is a great example of where this can give you a good return on your investment.

CERTIFIED ORGANIC

The organic route is best. It protects our communities from any nasties! We don’t want any dodgy chemicals in our Bananas.

Content is King/Queen dependant on your preference. Your content has to be of high quality, authentic and meaningful. But it also sometimes allowed to be short, funny, authentic and to the point.

Here Snickers suggests Jeremy may have behaved better if he had eaten some food before he decided to assault another member of the BBC crew.

Sometimes it’s just about bringing some personality to the table. This didn’t need a big budget and could be created quickly.

The results speak for themselves!

So what next?

Research your potential audience!

Learn where they hang out, what they are talking about, what they are sharing and what keeps them up at night!

Identify key influencers in that space to help build your following and amplify your message.

What’s their Banana!

Find out what it is that makes them tick. What gets their mouths watering?

Cute puppies are okay if you’re a dog grooming service, but otherwise, it needs to have more substance.

Several entrepreneurial teachers have left the profession and started writing and selling lesson plans. They are now worth millions. Teachers are busier and under more stress than ever. They created something that added immediate value to their network and became financially successful because of it.

What’s your niche and what’s your audiences Banana?

Keep your best blog posts for the biggest platforms!

Write a blog or get your employees to write blogs. Content with meaning, content that matters.

I write for several publishers who independently have their own large network of followers. It means a can perform on a larger stage to new audiences than that are available to me locally.

It’s not the channel that will provide you with the amplification of your posts but the audiences that read and engage with them.

Look to increase your audience size by performing on other peoples stages. This will dramatically increase your followers from new and diverse audiences.

#SunnySays does VIRAL better than anybody, and I love what she does here with the word VIRAL. I have to say though that ‘authenticity’ is far overused so much so that it’s no longer authentic.

What it means is that it comes from within. Shakespeare wasn’t the first person to write about Love or Tragedy, but he sure did do a good job at it. When trying to be authentic, let it come from the heart. Match those things that you’re saying to your real life experiences, and you can’t go far wrong.

The importance of influencers!

I recently went to a recruitment event in London. I spoke there several years before on ‘bringing executive search in-house’. This year I went to see Johnny Campbell talk passionately about ‘diversity’.

We also had a catch-up meeting just before he went on stage on how our partnership with ‘Social Talent’ was going and how it may evolve.

Later that evening I had drinks and catch up with my Dad on the Thames. I messaged on Linkedin what a great day it had been, and I had a really positive meet with @JohnnyCampbell, and my views hit 1500.

But the moment Johnny interacted with the post it exploded to over 10,000 views. I also received a lot more invites to connect from relevant people from Johnny’s network.

So do not underestimate the power relevant influencers can have on growing your following. Don’t overdo this tactic and make sure it’s genuine otherwise you’ll miss the opportunity.

Learn more about this tactic here – Influencing the influencer

So do we always have to play to our niche to grow an engaged following?

NO! It doesn’t always have to be obvious.

Pepsi did it the wrong way, and Heineken did more than just bloody blow the doors off!
Open your world is…

Heineken has shown it can be more than a beer and a Rugby sponsor. It didn’t just play to its usual audience. It did something that mattered, and that made a difference to people’s lives.

You’ll get people across the world who have no interest in Beer, but they possibly know might be a future employee, because Heineken has shown themselves to be more than just a drink.

They have a conscience and want to make a positive difference 1 person at a time! Which is more than what we can say for the multimillion dollar advertising disaster that Pepsi tried and failed at.

But how do we measure our success?

This also needn’t be costly if you keep it simple.

All the social sites can give you some great free stats and insight into what’s working and what’s not.
Decide what your key metrics are and what you ultimately want to achieve, and they learn from it.

But how do I excite and inspire others to follow me?

If in doubt, go see what Derek Sivers has to say in his wonderful 3min Ted Talks. Because there lies the best description of what it is to grow a following. The only challenge is a Movement can take a journey of its own and is hard to control.

But if you can be brave, be creative, dynamic and ultimately be human and put yourself out there. Then a following you shall have because we all want to believe in somebody who believes in themselves.

That helps to give us the faith that we also can one day be as confident about ourselves as those that we follow

The post Top Ways To Build and Engage With Your Social Media Audience appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

So, first of all, let’s deal with what Twitter is:

Twitter^[1] (/’tw?t?r/) is an online news^[2], and social networking ^[3]service where users post and interact with messages, “tweets,” restricted to 140 characters ^[4].

Well, that’s wiki’s boring version, but the juicy stuff below gives you a better understanding of the power of Twitter today.

• In 2016, Twitter had more than 319 million monthly active users
• On the day of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Twitter proved to be the largest source of breaking news, with 40 million election-related tweets sent by 10 p.m. that day

So seriously Twitter has some oomph! But what is Twitter not?

Twitter is certainly not the place for people to advertise private parties. #susanalbumparty a massive PR disaster where they hadn’t given full consideration to the #hashtag they used. Or had they?

So What Is Twitter Actually For?

Well, when I was growing up, and Twitter first entered my radar; it seemed to me a place for the famous actors, musicians, wannabe celebrities to share what they were doing that day. Had tea with the queen or having a little splash in our 50m indoor private pool!

You know what we’re all getting up to in our spare time; NOT!

So it didn’t capture my imagination and wasn’t a place I’d waste much of my time.

But something happened to change that forever!

But first let’s take a foray into the past; 1997 I was 17 and sat at a house party with some friends. We had a great night, and as so many good evenings tend to end for me, I fell fast asleep on the sofa, like my Dad before me, and his Dad before him.

At some point during that evening, I was awoken by one of my friends to be told that Princess Diana had died in a horrific car accident. Now I’m no Royalist. However, it was big news and such a tragic end to the life of a popular public figure.

In disbelief, the first thing I did was turn on the TV to see what BBC had to say, and sure enough, there was a breaking news story that was unfolding.

So why take you back to that time in history? Because it was a time that when you wanted to find out a breaking news story, you either turned on the Radio or the TV.

Fast-forward to 2011

So in 2011 something happened, a definitive moment happened for Twitter, thousands took to the streets in Cairo.

There was an uprising where primarily the younger generation, as is often the case, took to the streets to positively influence change and Twitter helped bring the eyes of the world onto the situation within minutes of it happening.

It was so powerful that Twitter was blocked by the Egyptian government, yet Facebook wasn’t!

Why, because every moment of every second was being captured in images and sent around the world. It didn’t just capture the imagination and attention of those in Egypt, but it also gave rise to global support for the need for democracy in Egypt.

The world was changing dramatically, and Twitter was right in there at the heart of what was happening and whether they knew it or not this was the beginning of their journey to becoming a global live and interactive breaking news channel.

So whenever I hear of a breaking news story I now always check Twitter first, not to get the accurate account, as that will unfold in the hours and days that follow. But to get the most up-to-date content and images, from people who are actually at the event, which helps to build and inform my thinking around a specific event or story.

So How Should We Use Twitter?

First things first, you might want to think about creating your social strategy 7 Steps to a great social media marketing plan. That will help inform you if Twitter is even the best place to build or engage a community. Once completed and your happy that this is the place to be, then move on to the next step.

• Do you have a photo/image that’s on brand and mobile optimized? Always think mobile first, because the reality is in this day and age the majority of your traffic will be viewing it on their mobile. Feel free to provide a small amount of text embedded in the image to explain what it is you do.
• Can people easily understand what it is you do? Don’t bamboozle them with science. You have 160 characters first to explain clearly what you do. Feel free to include a couple of #hashtags, but no more than three and don’t mess with the natural flow of what you’re trying to say to fit them in.
• Would you follow me? You want to encourage somebody ‘of relevance’ to follow you back!

Although I don’t believe Starbucks statement as I don’t buy their coffee or believe in their reason for being. They have got it right. You know they sell coffee from the name, and they try to give themselves a bit of personality through their statement.

Now from a personal perspective, I’ve added some key information into my large image to help people understand what I do ‘Social Media Recruitment and Engagement.’ I’ve also added a #Hashtag #SocialLight so people can easily come and find my blogs and literature.

My statement allows people to get a view of my personality. It will either make you think, ‘hey I like that guy’ or ‘what an idiot.’ This is fine! Because all I’m focused on is creating a community of highly engaged people, who feel they connect with me in some way and who will ultimately value what I have to say. It’s those people that I’ll want to be engaging and communicate with.

So How Prolific Do You Need To Be On Twitter?

Well, it may surprise you when I say you should be tweeting upwards of 3 tweets per day and possibly as many times as ten if you are at an event or have a specific subject or hashtag that you are promoting.

3-10 time per day? That’s 21-760 per week!

Yes, that’s correct. If you imagine the motorways these days have digital billboards showing a variety of changing images and promotions.

Although this is partly to do with cost and getting as much out of the billboards as possible, it’s also due to the volume of traffic.

Thousands upon thousands of vehicles pass by these boards every day, and if you can add an image and put up a message for 1min, you’d only capture a small proportion of the potential audience. Well, the same can be said of Twitter. If you only post once a day, you’re missing out on huge amounts of potential traffic.

So What Should Those Posts Look Like?

Well, you want a good mix of shares original content and useful information. If you intend to also post career opportunities, make sure it is proportional to the rest of your content. I’d say 1 in 10 posts will make sure you’re not turning your audience off.

Make sure you create a Twitter list. All successful company profiles and influencers have them and use them!

So what is a Twitter list, it is a list of profiles that you create on Twitter that you can go back to at any time to like, share and engage with those user profiles. It saves you time when focusing your daily activity around sharing good content from reputable sources. It also means you are less reactive around your activity and more proactive.

What Tools Should I Be Using?

Here are five tools to get you going. But in all honesty, there are more tools and tech to help you than you could ever imagine and it will all depend on how you’re using Twitter and at what stage you’re with your social media marketing^[5] strategy. Which I assume you’ve already created!

• Hashtracking
  Hashtracking^[6] is a cool tool to help keep all the data around how a specific #hashtag is doing. Important to use if you have your #hashtag that you’re using to help promote a specific event or product.
• Hashtagify
  Find the best hashtags^[7] to use and analyze them and help organically boost your specific promoted content.
• Ritetag
  Lets you test your hashtag to see how much engagement it’s getting. Ritetag^[8] will also present you alternative options and let you know if your #hashtag will perform better over time or have an immediate impact.
• Tweetchat
  Tweetchat^[9] is Like a chat room. A place to build audiences and to engage with them.
• Twitter advanced search
• Twitter advanced search^[10] is Free and easy to use. A traditional way, of searching for what you want; on the site that you want it.

Well, let’s get started and go #hashtag crazy!

STOP!

Let’s not make a right #Hashtag of it!

Because in 2014 DiGiorno Pizza did exactly that.

They used a #hashtag that was being widely used by victims of domestic violence, without first checking the origins of the #hashtag.

Even though the poor community manager, probably a poor grad, with little experience in this area, apologized it has not gone the right way. It’s 2017, and the #hashtag is still being misused by trolls, and people like me continue to use it as an example of what not to do.

It just won’t go away! A school boy error.

So What’s The Best Way To Use #Hashtags And @?

Here is a great example of where employees at an event are using a popular #hashtag with a selfie image. Its a great idea encouraging employees to show themselves having fun.

Okay, so you’re probably thinking these are some pretty recognizable people, and we don’t have a Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence or Kevin Spacey ready to jump in on one of our selfies. And wasn’t this the most successful tweet of all time?

Yes, you’re right. But employees of any company can do it in their little way. Look at these handsome chaps below giving their spin on it.

So using a #hashtag can be to let your company know you are having a great time at work. But it can also be used as a specific promotional tool for an event and product. Audi spotted an opportunity from a brand evangelist, and it turned out to be pretty successful.

Sometimes it’s just spotting the opportunity. But the only way you’ll do that is by listening to your community and engaging them as often as you can.

So Who’s Doing The Best Out There?

It’s a personal choice, and you can find plenty of great examples of companies offering great twitter feeds.

One of my favorites is Innocent drinks. Why? Not because I drink their drinks and eat their food, but mainly because I believe and respect what they are saying about themselves and the wider world. The complete opposite of how I feel about Starbucks.

While everybody wonders why there is such a gender pay gap at the BBC, Innocent is celebrating ‘good stuff happening in the world alert,’ that the new ‘Doctor Who’ is a woman.

My only question would be ‘is the 13th doctor getting paid proportionally the same as the previous 12?’

But seriously they’re messaging is simple ‘hello we make healthy drinks and give 10% of our profits to charity’ and they have motivational fruit! What more could you ask for in a company?

You certainly know what you’re getting from innocent. And that for me is a great big smile

See More: How To Grow A Targeted Twitter Following

And Finally, Don’t Forget To Be An Individual!

Tesco encourages it, and over 2500 employees stand together on being themselves. My only advice to Tesco is stand proud and have a link on your careers page that goes to this site because its these things in a capitalist society that brings the right type of attention from consumers and potential employees to the business.

The post Know How To Use Twitter And What’s The Best Way To Use #Hashtags appeared first on Proven SEO Blog.

So you spot the popular kid at the school across the yard. He knows everybody, he’s on the running team, and he’s the captain of the football team.

Every teacher thinks he’s an all-star and most students want to be him, or be with him, even if they secretly pretend they despise him.

The thing is you know that just by being his friend or by being associated with him in any way; it’s going to boost your visibility and credibility.

Star status by association, all you’ve got to do is incentivize him to allow you into his circle.

Stop! Don’t Make The Same Mistake As Everybody Else.

Everybody’s keen to tell him how great he is and how everything he does is special (I know it’s enough to make you feel sick). So hold back on showing another compliment up his…

See, the thing is, you can feel reassured that one day he’ll probably be unmarried, overweight and alone from being too self-absorbed and obsessed.

You’ll be able to check him out on Facebook and agree to yourself that maybe being the biggest influencer wasn’t such a personal desire at school.

But you’re still here and desperate at this stage in your life to maximize this opportunity to increase your visibility and status.

So What Can You Do To Influence The Influencer?

You challenge them!

Yes, challenge them.

Why? Because they are attention adrenaline junkies, and by challenging them you’ll spark their interest, and motivate them to engage with you.

So How Do We Do It?

Well, you don’t just smack them across the face with the back of your glove and say ‘Sir, I challenge you to a duel!’ Although that sounds like it could be fun.

You propose an opinion or a way of thinking that either is an adaptation of their thinking or that it questions or challenges the way they currently do things.

So just to be clear, you’re not recreating the wheel here, you’re just asking could it be made from a better material, or even suggesting what that may be.

You want to create a race across hurdles that you know the influencer can jump, but they’re just high enough to make them work for it.

You’re setting them a challenge that can make them feel good about themselves without actually going up to them and saying ‘you’re soooo great’ and looking like all the other wannabes.

So What Is the Point of All This?

You get the influencer engaged in meaningful dialogue; they gain a positive experience, feel challenged and can solve a problem.

You, on the other hand, have shown yourself to be unlike the rest. You have shown that you have status and are willing and able to play in the big league.

You’ve also started to get a whole lot of people looking at you to see what you’re going to do next.

This is the beginning of becoming the influencer, yourself!

How Do You Come Up With This Master Plan?

You research! Pick the key influencers in your sector/industry.

These Three Tools That Can Help You Identify Them

1.Followerwonk

Followerwonk^[1] A great tool from Rand Fishkin^[2] that will help you find compare and analyze relevant Twitter accounts.

2. Klout
A free tool that will give you a ‘Klout Score,’ the better the score, the more influential the person. What’s your Klout^[3] score?

3 .Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo^[4] has some limited free features. Otherwise, it is a paid tool, which offers more than just a place to find key influencers.

It can inform you on what’s being shared, what’s trending, back links and some additional extra features.

Here’s three more that can transform your community management and engagement taking it to the next level:

But be prepared for the price tag that comes with them! Only the real marketers need apply…
1. Sprout Social

Social media management tool^[5] created to help businesses grow their social media presence.
Really good brand monitoring, social analytics, reporting capabilities and follower management and best of all you can try it for a month without the need for card details.

2. Synthesio
Synthesio^[6] is a machinery that takes conversations from the social web and converts them into information that can fuel smart, data-driven decision making across your business.

It has user-friendly modules, easy to set up, use and optimize. It’s a great tool for real-time listening, monitoring and reporting. Free trial available.

3. Crimson Hexagon
Social media analytics^[7] platform that helps brands uncover insights from social data that drives strategy.

We’re talking a top product with serious social listening and influencer identification tools.

Really good analytics and monitoring capabilities that are far superior to that of the cheaper options available.

Free trial available.

Whatever you use, it’s important to track what information, ideas, and original content your influencers are sharing; you can then start to build a picture of what they are discussing and of their view point. It’s with this; you can start to build your challenge.

Think About These Three Things!

1.What’s their opinion on specific key industry subjects?

You can then use these opinions and viewpoints to drive the creation and implementation of your challenge.

2.Are they a champion for a specific cause or body?

Not only will this give you additional content and information they’re sharing, but it will also guide you to the things that matter to them.

It will also provide you with additional platforms for you to join, communicate and engage with these key influencers.

3.Where do they spend most of their time online and via which channels do they share original comments and views?

They may have good followings across a variety of social media channels. But where is their voice and where are they sharing their views?

It is important to target them in the place they are most likely to engage and respond to you.

It’s with these three answers that you’ll be able to structure your engagement strategy.

Don’t just think that the bigger the influencer the better the opportunity.

We are now seeing a trend that micro influencers in specialist niche areas with a small hardcore following can be more valuable than the stage talking, Theatre filling, public speakers.

Ultimately you want to achieve a nice mix and maybe just targeting three influencers to start with to test your knowledge and research and to see what level of engagement you get, is a good place to start.

The important thing to remember is that this is not a one shot approach.

It begins with research and then starts with challenges, which will create engagement, which you then need to convert to meaningful dialogue.

Once you have their attention, it’s important to stay engaged and committed to the conversation and to continue to challenge and engage with the influencer and their community.

See More: Influencer Marketing: Top 7 Reasons Why It’s the Future

Remember, This Is Important:

You don’t need to win the challenge; you just need to keep up with the competition.

That will be a big win in itself, and from there forwards you’ll be building your communities and waiting for others to come and challenge you.

Get em, kid!

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