If you want to stand out from the social media crowd, here are 3 creative things you can do:
Make good use of visual media. The people viewing your social media posts are going to process images and video SO much faster than text, so it’s important to include this visual media in your content. By visual media, I don’t just mean illustrated quotes (although they’re great, effective examples). Video is HUGE right now (I probably don’t even have to tell you that). Graphs, charts, memes, infographics, templates and comic strips are also all great examples of visual media you can create as part of your social media campaigns.
What can you do on your website, in your social media profiles and with email marketing to improve your online presence before the end of the year? Here are three ideas, in no particular order:
Sally Hogshead created The Fascination Project to overcome the daily flood of negative messages that we need to “fix” ourselves. When we don’t feel confident, we play small, and everyone loses. Instead of those negative messages, I want to show you how extraordinary you are. Sally has extended me the opportunity (along with other Fascination Advocates) to once again show 100 of my friends and followers what makes them fascinating.
You read that right. I am giving 100 people the gift of confidence, optimism, and just a sprinkle of sparkle. In less than 5 minutes, you can learn who you are, at your best. It’s as easy as 1-2-3 to claim your FREE assessment:
Displaying gratitude on social media is one effective way for your small business to draw its online audience closer and establish loyalty among its web community. Here are 4 easy ways you can do that:
On Periscope, you can thank your active viewers for their hearts and other interaction during a broadcast. After the broadcast, fullScope.tv is a great tool that reveals your top engagers in terms of hearts & comments. You can compose a tweet to them, something to the effect of, “Thanks for the Periscope love,” or, “Thanks for the hearts and comments on my broadcast!”
I was invited to share 5 things I love for a Periscope challenge. So I chose WordPress plugins, since WordPress is my web design tool of choice. It’s user-friendly, by which I mean end-user friendly, not just designer-friendly. Call me crazy, but I just don’t like the idea of a small business professional being completely dependent on their web designer for even the most minor changes. I prefer to empower them to have a hand in maintaining their website if they so choose.
Jetpack for Stats
My two favorite components of Jetpack are Publicize and Site Stats. Publicize is for another time and place/post. When it comes to the usefulness of Site Stats, let’s face it…you may have Google Analytics installed, but as a small business professional, do you ever actually log in and check out your stats there? Probably not. With Site Stats, your stats are RIGHT THERE when you log in to WordPress, showing your site traffic, traffic sources and most popular posts. WOOT!
Wordfence for Security
Wordfence has a LOT of components, but once it’s set up, it pretty much runs itself. This security plugin provides enterprise-class WordPress security for free (there is a paid version starting at $39/year, but the free version is pretty darned robust), protecting your website from hacks and malware. When my website was hacked and harboring malware (you read that right…a web designer’s site was hacked), a certain malware removal/security service wanted upwards of $500 to repair the damage and reverse the situation. I installed Wordfence for FREE and was able to handle it all myself…successfully. DOUBLE WOOT!!
Yoast for SEO
It may be cliché, but I chose it anyway. Yoast is simple and streamlined but still effective in helping small businesses boost the search engine value of each page and post on their website. I’ve taught clients to use it and it’s probably the #1 SEO plugin currently available. With that being said, I have had some theme-compatibility issues with Yoast, so my second choice (and the one I use, actually, as someone with Yoast theme conflicts) is All-in-One SEO Pack.
BackupBuddy for Backups
I love love LOVE BackupBuddy [that’s an affiliate link right there]. It’s like zipping up your entire household into a teeny package, moving it miles and miles away and then POOF! all your ‘stuff’ is automagically placed right where it belongs. It’s also a super easy backup tool you can use for regularly backing up your WordPress site (you DO regularly backup your site, don’t you?!?). For less than $7/month, it’s totally worth the peace of mind you’ll receive.
Juicer for Social Media Aggregation
Why have a Facebook feed widget, a Twitter feed widget, an Instagram feed widget….and so on…when you can pull all your feeds into a single page with Juicer? That’s right, aggregate and embed your social media posts on your site (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Pinterest and many more) as a single beautiful feed. The free version lets you aggregate from 2 sources. If you want/need 3-5 source accounts, it’s just $19/month.
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Stuff I Like: Mighty Deals
Mighty Deals offers amazing and exclusive deals for web professionals and small biz do-it-yourselfers. [Click the image to visit.]
Yep, that’s an affiliate link. But this is also the provider I personally use for fonts, graphics, web tools and more.
Check out more Stuff I Like here.
