Social Media Tips for Bloggers and Business Owners

How to Gain Followers on Instagram: A Guide to Increasing Engagement and Avoiding IG Pitfalls

My account @squishdelish has 85,0000 followers, so I often get asked how to build an Instagram (IG) following and increase likes and comments on IG posts. To start, here are definitions for terms commonly used in association with gaining followers and increasing likes and comments:

Reach: Reach is the total number of unique accounts that see your post. Your reach is based on an Instagram algorithm and there are specific things you can do to extend or increase your reach. There are also things you should avoid so that the algorithm does not limit your reach.

Engagement and Engagement Number: YOUR engagement is a combination of your posting profile (how much, how often) and how many times you like, comment, tag, or follow other Instagram accounts. The number of likes, comments, tags, and follows your posts and account receives tells you how engaged other accounts are with you. Your engagement number, in its most basic form, is the number of likes and comments a post receives divided by the number of followers.

Get More Followers on Instagram and Increase Likes and Comments on IG Posts

There are four areas of focus that will boost followers on Instagram and increase your IG engagement and reach.

Focus Area One: Create Great Content.

Do your research: Creating good content starts with doing good research. Observe popular accounts in your topic area and take note of their design aesthetic, posting frequency, captioning, and hashtag use. Use that information as a springboard to carve out your own niche and add value to the subject area.
Post pictures and videos that reflect your personal style. Lighting is key and worth investing in if you don’t have access to natural light. Use Instagram features like the filter and edit functions to perfect the original. Other apps, like FaceTune, can help smooth imperfections and soften backgrounds. Avoid posting pictures that are blurry or off topic. Keep your videos between 14-20 seconds.
Caption carefully: To increase likes on IG, your captions should be fairly short, reflect your IG account personality, and use key words that match popular hashtags and have a high likelihood of appearing in the comments section. Instagram will extend your reach when key words are found in these three places: caption, hashtags, comments.
Post a viral video: This is a tongue in cheek way of saying pay attention to how social media and Instagram is changing. In the past year, Instagram has started to give greater exposure to videos and stories rather than photos. Savvy social media users know that to stay relevant, gain followers, and engage people, you must be open to change and resist getting stuck in one mode of communication.

Focus Area Two: Engage Strategically.

To increase likes on IG and gain followers you must engage with other IG accounts. Here are keys to engaging strategically:

Use three or more words to comment. Emojis are fun, but are not counted in the IG algorithm as “engagement.”
Engage with key accounts. Find popular accounts that you genuinely like and regularly like and comment on their posts.
Always reply. If someone leaves a comment under your post, reply with a few words to increase the chances they’ll comment again.
Post consistently. Post at least once every other day, preferably once a day. IG rewards accounts that post consistently by extending your reach and exposing your posts to more accounts.
Determine your engagement number. Aim to increase that number over a set amount of time by tracking your activity and documenting what works to increase engagement for your account.

Focus Area Three: Learn the Art of the Hashtag

Use hashtags correctly and you can increase your visibility and reach. Use hashtags incorrectly and you risk decreasing engagement and IG may limit your reach. Follow these rules for hashtags:

Use popular hashtags. Find popular hashtags that reflect your specific post and are not over-general.
Be sparing when using hashtags that have millions of posts. If a hashtag has 6 million posts, how will you stand out?
Avoid using too many hashtags at once or using the same hashtags repeatedly. The first can make you look desperate and reduce engagement. The second may result in Instagram reducing your reach.
Make a list of trending hashtags. Pull from that list, using a set of hashtags for one post and a different set for the next post.
Hashtags should contain text found in the caption. IG rewards accounts that have the same key words in the caption, hashtags and comments.
Create your own hashtag. I highly recommend creating at least two hashtags you use regularly that are specific to your account. Once you have built a community you can create your own hashtags and get them to trend. This is a great way to increase your visibility.

Focus Area Four: Use Instagram Analytics and Other Social Media Tools

Some regular accounts and all business accounts have a tool through IG called Instagram Analytics. This IG feature allows you to see your reach, the demographics of your followers, and the time and day your followers are active.

There are other social media analytical tools like Socialrank.com and Iconosquare.com that you should also use to help with the following:

Post, like, and comment when your followers are most active. Use social media analytical tools to determine the days of the week and time of day your account receives the most looks, likes, and comments.
Engage with popular accounts and accounts who are high engagers. There are several tools you can use to create a list of accounts that you should engage with and follow.
Know your followers. Create posts that are targeted towards the demographics of your current followers. This will increase the number of likes you get and is a fast way to increase followers on Instagram.
Repeat Success. Examine your most popular posts and create similar content to increase the number of likes and follows on future IG posts. Keep in mind that a post may generate more likes and comments on days where you are more engaged.

Avoid Instagram’s Seven Deadly Sins

The following activities can limit IG reach, reduce IG engagement or even get you blocked by a user or kicked off of Instagram completely:

Posting more than twice a day. This seems counter-intuitive, but the IG algorithm starts to limit the number of people who see your individual posts if you post too many times to Instagram in a 24-hour period.
Not posting consistently. A gap of more than two days can really hurt your reach.
Over editing your photos. Use a light touch when editing so your pictures don’t look fake or photoshopped to death (Unless that’s your style!).
Not being genuine. Stay true to yourself. If you’re not funny, don’t attempt to be. Find a style that works for you and your account identity and stick with it.
Buying followers. Some people buy followers to boost their overall following. I highly discourage you from doing this. Anyone can see your follower data, so if you gain 25k in one day, it will be obvious that they were purchased. Also, your engagement number will go down, as the accounts you buy are not likely to engage with your posts.
Tagging large accounts or asking people to follow you. In general, avoid tagging accounts you do not know or that are not specifically addressed in your post. Tagging a large account just so that you will show up in their tagged pictures feed is a good way to get blocked by that account. Asking someone to follow you either in a comment or in a DM without any attempt at actually engagement is considered rude and not likely to yield any positive results.
Stealing Pictures and Mimicking Popular IG Accounts: If you use other people’s pictures, artwork, or logos they must be clearly credited. If you do not give proper credit, your account can be put on hold or shut down. If you use a similar name and logo to mimic a large account in hopes of gaining a following, you may also be shut down.

Use Caution for the Following

Posting advertisements and product reviews. If you post too many advertisements, you will see a decrease in your engagement.
Giveaways and contests. These can be fun, but as far as engaging people or adding followers, there is not much return on your investment.
Posting a grid of pictures or adding stickers or obvious filters. In general, these decrease engagement. That is unless, of course, that is YOUR thing! Which leads me to my final words:

Do not get too caught up in the numbers or rules. Some people have great success using cute cat stickers on every post, others are known for their crappy photography (Honestly!). The most important thing is to post and engage in a genuine way. This is after all “social” media and should be used as a fun opportunity to engage people with similar interests.

How to Use Quipist to Boost Blog Traffic

By Joanna Jana Laznicka

Blogging is a lot of like chess: you must think one move ahead, or risk being outwitted by the competition.

As an established and (I hope) well-respected blogger, I’m constantly forward thinking. I’m experimenting with, and strategizing ways of, increasing my sites’ page views and traffic. In a move to stay ahead of industry trends, I recently started toying with a new social media platform called Quipist. (If you’re unfamiliar with the site, fret not. I’ll fill you in a little later.)

Quipist immediately brought positive results: it led to increased traffic and page views.

And so, being the sharing type, I decided to reveal how others might use the site to their benefit.

Before signing up for Quipist, I did some Google sleuthing to see how it might benefit my blogging strategy.

There wasn’t much information available, given how new the platform was. This was a good thing: It meant most bloggers weren’t taking advantage of the social media platform. It also meant this was an opportunity to get ahead of a new trend.

I wanted to experiment to see if maybe – just maybe – Quipist was worth using on a regular basis.

First, here’s a breakdown of how the site works.

Users can customize profiles in numerous ways. They can use real names or pseudonyms, and personalize accounts with bios and avatars. Privacy settings can be adjusted and friend lists can be hidden.
Users can contribute content in four ways: through text, links, video and images.
Users can interact in five ways: by sharing content, commenting on it, liking it, disliking it or declaring neutrality.
The more interaction a post receives, the higher it climbs Quipist’s feed.
This means that the more interaction a post receives, the more likely it is to lead to increased blog traffic.
Quipist’s social media aggregator saves bloggers time. It allows users to share Quipist posts to other social media sites. This works with all the major players, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumbler. (Quipist says it’s working to add other social media platforms.)
On the flip side, Quipstream feature allows users to read all their social media feeds on one screen. It lets users browse Facebok, LinkedIn, Tumbler, Instagram, Google+ and Reddit feeds on one feed. That saves time, too.
Need more incentive? Its proxy tool makes content go hyper viral. Instead of pulling people in to read content, it pushes content out to those who aren’t following you, but are interested in your topics. This is a gem for bloggers and crucial to luring new followers to blogs. (By the way, Quipist is currently giving proxy accounts for free to anyone who asks. This is a huge perk, since they’ll eventually start charging for such account upgrades.)

Have I piqued your interest yet? Here are my tips for using Quipist as part of a blogging strategy:

Get a proxy account (remember, they’re free) and start a niche in order to connect with fellow users. Meanwhile, follow proxies and accounts related to your blog’s niche.Think of proxies as themed niches. Look for your proxy tribes, and join them. You can have multiple proxies through subaccounts.

Increase your Quipist rank and become more visible. New users are unlimited how much, and how often, they can submit content. Take advantage of this perk while it lasts. It can help improve your Quipist rank, which is a point system that rewards users for submitting interesting content.Every time a user interacts with your post, it gives you points. The more points, the better.

Don’t overdo it with the self-promotions; it might get you banned. Quipist isn’t banning accounts yet, like any good social media platform, they’ll likely clamp down on spammers in time.Quality, diverse content gets you further with Quipist.

Be social and interactive. Reply to comments, react to posts and contribute to the dialogue of other users’ posts.

Lastly, it’s helpful to familiarize yourself with Quipist’s terms. Here’s a glossary:

Love The Q / Q-Love: Love Quipist and love the cause

Hug: What you send to someone when you don’t want to necessarily ‘like’ someone’s post, but yet you want to show them support with empathy.

Proxer: A Proxer is someone who is allowing a Proxy to act on their behalf on Quipist.

Proxy: A Proxy is someone with a Proxy account, and who has Proxers (proxy followers). When a Proxy makes certain choices on Quipist (such as making a Qpinion), those choices cascade onto their Proxer’s accounts as well. It is reversible by the Proxer for every single item, and may be revoked entirely by the Proxer at any time.

Proxy account: A proxy account allows someone to act as a proxy.

QPoints/Quift: A gift of points from Quipist; a surprise bonus points for something that you did that delights us

Qool: Cool

Qause: Cause

Queue Up: Sign Up / line up / join / participate

Quill: Once used to write quips

Quip: A witty remark

Quipstream: A Quipist’s timeline and incoming social media feed

Quip It / To quip: Write about it on Quipist

Quip In: When one signs into Quipist

Quip Up: When one signs up for Quipist

Quipist: A member of the Quipist community

Quippie: Groupie/follower

Quippier: Something that is more quip/witty than another quip

Quipping: Present participle of quip and what a Quipist does

Quit: Something a successful Quipist never does

Vet: To give proof/evidence, in the form of links, that something is true or false.

Vex: When something ‘controversial’ has been shared. For example, someone may post a video of an unknown person engaging in animal cruelty and you, of course do not want to like it, yet you want to show support against such cruelty or assist in identifying the perpetrator by spreading the word. This is one of many ways vexed can be used. We welcome feedback on this feature.

What’s your Q? – What are you passionate about?
Then, sit back and enjoy the extra little bit of traffic to your blog from Quipist. And who knows, maybe your content will go viral via Quipist.

Follow me on Quipist: https://www.quipist.com/profile/Joanna

Fake and Deceptive Use of Instagram: How to Spot False Influencers

By Annie Singer & Joanna Laznicka

Small and large businesses alike are turning to Instagram to promote their services and products. While Instagram can be used organically and has its own advertising platform, another common method of Instagram promotion is utilizing third party influencers.

If you glance through your Instagram timeline, you may see obvious influencer promotion such as a fitness model holding a diet supplement; or you may see paid reposts of content the brand originally published.

Influencer marketing can be a great way to expand branding and awareness efforts, as well as directly drive measurable actions such as website visits, email subscriptions, or product purchases. However because becoming an influencer can seem lucrative to some (getting paid to take selfies? Yes please!) and growing a genuine following takes time and knowledge, some users seek to become influencers through dishonest means.

This article can be used by individuals and organizations as a guide to distinguish between genuine influencers and those who have purchased followers and engagement, saving your advertising dollars and outreach time.

Tactic One: Examine Patterns of Instagram Use

The vast majority of false influencer accounts can be identified by looking at patterns of use.

For example, we recently took a look at a colleague’s Instagram account who clouts themselves as an influencer. They have around 10,000 followers, almost every new post has over 2,000 likes and dozens of comments, and they do a lot of sponsored Instagram posts. It just looked fishy: two thousand likes on mundane and unremarkable images obviously taken from a smartphone.

Patterns in Post Likes

Knowing that engagement rates regularly range from 1-6%, this colleague’s Instagram account seemed to be unnatural or somehow inflated. Upon taking a closer look we discovered that only two months prior, images had only been receiving 200-300 engagements (the total number of likes and comments). We spotted the exact date where engagement increased to 2000 engagements per photo. While this is not technically impossible, we also noted that the number of followers had not increased during this time.

Patterns in Commenting Volume and Quality

In addition to looking at the number of post likes, we were able to examine patterns in commenting to further confirm our suspicions that the account was grown unnaturally.

Dozens of comments can be a sign of positive engagement, but it’s easy to spot fake comments. Comments that consist of single words, only emojis, or requests to follow back or visit the commenter’s page are usually fake.

These comments are typically made by “bots”, which track specific hashtags and automatically leave comments on every post utilizing the tag.

Patterns in Following Accounts

If you have looked at liking and commenting engagements and still aren’t sure whether an influencer’s following is genuine or not, you can also look at patterns in the followers of your “influencer”.

The easiest metric to look at is the number of followers: did this person gain thousands of followers overnight? Natural growth will usually be gradual, often with a handful of small spikes (because they posted something viral or were promoted by another account). Using a tool like Social Blade, you can see a recent history of the account’s follower count.

Visit the influencer’s follower page, and click through to a dozen or so accounts at random.

Your influencer may be a fake if they are followed by a seemingly disproportionate number of accounts who:

Have 10k+ followers
Don’t have a profile image
Have never posted, or have only posted once or twice
Utilize a foreign language (keep in mind the location and language of the influencer)
Have Kik accounts as their URL

Risks of Using Fake Instagram Influencers

The number one reason to thoroughly vet your influencers prior to working out an agreement is obvious: you don’t want to waste your digital marketing budget.

For instance, we can only imagine that dozens of brands lost money by paying our colleague to do sponsored Instagram posts. They paid for fake bot engagements, and received minimal visibility from real people. These brands could have better utilize their budgets to contract with influencers with smaller numbers of real followers and engagements, than with this bigger influencer who has inauthentically inflated their Instagram account.

However, there are other risks you are taking by working with false influencers.

In addition to money, brands are wasting the time seeking out these false influencers, communicating with with them, signing contracts, and dealing with invoices and payments. There is also an opportunity cost: you are wasting what could have been gained by working with a true influencer.

Your brand is also at risk when you hire a false influencer. Many false influencers gain followers by like or comment-spamming, enticing users to click through to their profile. Consumers are smart and know when they are being spammed, so when they click through and realize the deception they form a negative perception not only of the influencer, but also of the brands they work with.

Influencer marketing can take your brand to the next level, or give your brand a bad name while wasting your time and digital marketing budget. Taking the time to vet your influencers minimizes the risks and maximizes your likelihood of success.

Co-Authors
	Annie Singer - Annie began her career in marketing as a link builder, but quickly familiarized herself with a broader inbound marketing skillset. While she is largely self-taught, she has a rich background including agency, enterprise, and freelance experience, and has formal education in psychology and marketing research. Annie now works in digital growth and entrepreneurship, specializing in science-based practices and business ethics
	Joanna Laznicka - Joanna began an online marketing and public relations firm before graduating high school in 1993. Ten years later, Joanna became a WordPress enthusiast and has since mastered the back-end complexities of the content management system. Today, Joanna provides complete website analysis from functionality to marketing while continuing her research and dedication to the wild, wild web.

How To Use NFC for Social Media

By Shaifali Gupta

Social Media has changed the world! So, has Near Field Communications (NFC). NFC, a short range wireless technology, in simple words, connects 2 points up to 10cms apart. These two points can be either two electronic devices, one electronic device and a tag or one electronic device and a contactless reader. When these two points are brought into close proximity, sharing of data can take place.

Social Media is all about sharing. Beyond connections and friendships it has brought about a change in how we search for products or services and the way we shop. NFC has followed us at home, at the office, in the shops or when we are on the move. Ranging from mobile phones, healthcare sector, retail, transit systems, payment modes and access control, it is becoming omnipresent. Now, with the charm of social media and the NFC ensuring interoperability between myriads of devices marketers, companies and retailers can achieve an entirely new level of success.

NFC technology is set out to benefit the world of marketing and consumerism. On one hand it will help retailers and marketers to provide product information comprehensively, on the other hand, it is going to ease the task of consumers to decide and shop.

Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), indicated that in 2008, the number of things connected to the internet exceeded the number of people on Earth. This is to reach 50 billion by 2020.

Just imagine the gigantic size of data generated by all these interconnections and things. These things are not just smartphones and tablets, they are also tags, sensors, chips etc. Today, NFC enabled devices provide personalized gateways to the Internet of Things (IoT), and along with the power of social media, bridges the gap between the physical and digital/virtual world.

NFC’s capabilities are demonstrated with a single tap. Just with this one touch, it presents a challenging and opportunity-based realm of minimizing physical contact between digital and physical world.

Popular NFC Deployed Use Cases

NFC can be used in three modes, Card Emulation, Peer to Peer and Reader/Writer mode.

Reader/writer mode allows for two-way communication between various NFC-enabled devices and NFC tags. Peer-to-Peer allows for connectivity between two electronic devices (i.e. mobile phones). Card Emulation mode allows for the information contained in any number of physical cards (loyalty, credit, identification) to be uploaded onto the mobile phone and then emulated by a NFC-enabled phone.

Real Time Information on Public Transit Schedules:

The card emulation mode of NFC deployment finds one of its use cases in public transit schedules. Public transport stations are equipped with NFC-tags, these tags when tapped with NFC-enabled device pass on the information about public transport’s (bus, trams, trains etc.) schedules and delays if any. They can also have information of interest both to public transport operators as well as travelers. This can range from discounted travel offers to information about emergency calling, taxi operators, weather-reports etc.

This use case has been widely deployed in Europe, United States and Japan. It has helped improve traveler’s experience.

Food Ordering Systems:

A restaurant in the Netherlands has their menu on a NFC-enabled tablet. When this tablet is tapped to a tag on each table, the table number and the customer’s order from the menu reduces the wait time and this ensures quick food delivery. The customers have to no longer wait for waiters to take their order.

Business Cards:

A person with his NFC-enabled phone when taps a NFC-tagged business card, can receive all the information on the business card on his phone. This NFC tag can be re-programmed to change the data on it. With more and more NFC phones coming in the market, gone are the days when a professional carries hundreds of business cards or sometimes has no business cards at all (because he forgot!).

Car Unlocking Systems:

NFC finds application in contactless door lock and ignition module. This NFC module is mounted inside the door handle as well as inside the cabin.This door handle when tapped with an NFC-enabled smartphone, the phone acts as a key. Tapping on the module in the car’s center console, the cabin, will allow the driver to turn on the engine. This NFC module will be used in vehicles from one of the leading European car maker.

Now, there is no fret to secure car keys in your trouser pocket or people do not need to panic when they often forget where their car keys are. Just secure the phone!

Public Transport Ticketing Service:

NFC enabled public transport ticketing service can be seen in Caen la Mer region of France. Travelers download a mobile ticketing app on their Cityzi NFC-enabled phones, and via a payment card linked to this app they make purchase of ticket(s). Once they are on the tram/train, tapping their phones on the ticketing machines (NFC readers), they can use the pre-bought tickets for traveling. They are also able to receive information on the number of tickets used/remaining, purchase history as well as timetables.

Access Control:

The Clarion Hotel Stockholm and 4 other companies including Assa Abloy joined hands to improve guest experience in hospitality industry. They replaced hotel room keys with NFC-enabled mobile phones. The guests were able to check-in and check-out with their mobile phones and their hotel room key was directly sent to their phones even before they arrived at the hotel. This pilot was very pleasantly accepted by the guests. It showed a positive attitude towards mobile keys. Guests felt by bypassing the reception at the hotel, they not only saved time but also felt as if they were living in their own apartment. After this successful first pilot, this has been adopted by many big hotel chains like Mariott.

NFC-Social Media Combo Use Cases

How about use cases of the combination of social media and NFC? Are people readily using them? Is it getting widespread attention? How the combo helps in social media engagement? Let’s take a look at few already deployed use cases for this combo.

Social Life

A pub in Sweden allows people to share their check-in information to their friends in the same place. This is only possible when these people want their friends to know about them by tapping their NFC-enabled phone to a location tag.
The same has been done in Berlin, Germany where NFC-tags are located at several locations throughout the city. People can share their location just with a simple tap. What quicker, easier and simpler way than just a tap to let your check-in information be shared in your circle.

Physical products

The Museum of London has installed NFC tags near artefacts and several locations in the museum. Visitors with their NFC-enabled phones can learn more about these artefacts just with a simple tap. The properties of these physical products are made available to the visitors just with one simple action enriching their museum experience. The boundary between the physical world, data and real people is almost made invisible by NFC.
Many retailers now put NFC tags on their individual products where with one simple tap the customer can retrieve all the manufacturer provided information about the product.

Places

NFC enables marketers, restaurant & hotel owners to do free and quick advertising. Facebook NFC Check-ins are possible with NFC-enabled devices. People go out to eat and while paying or at the table, they can just tap their phone over the NFC-tagged menu or a button, and they can relay their check-in information. For customers it didn’t take any additional action, just a tap. For hotel owners it is instant marketing.
NFC in restaurants also helps customers read restaurant reviews and ratings using their NFC-enabled phones. More than 1500 restaurants in more than 130 French towns have provided such tags to their customers. With a single tap, this information is flashed on their phones.
McDonald’s was one of the first to provide NFC-supported mobile coupons to its registered members. Customers were able to redeem these coupons at the restaurant sites.
Imagine, people go to the movie theatre and while buying popcorns or tickets, can just tap to tell their friends about the movie they are about to watch! All with just one NFC tap.

The Future of Social Media-NFC combo

Envision a world where with a single tap, content and knowledge of a book is directly transferred to your brain. How much time it would save to have more fun! NFC, no doubt presents itself as a creative and interesting marketing tool to the marketers. It makes the line between the real people, data and digital world thin and subtle.

In one of the forecasts reports by Gartner, they predicted that NFC’s use for will increase from 2% of global mobile transaction volume in 2013 to 5% in 2017. 2016 will be the year that will witness growth since the penetration of NFC mobile phones and contactless readers will be deeper.

NFC technology is set out to benefit the world of marketing and consumerism. On one hand it will help retailers and marketers to provide product information comprehensively, on the other hand is going to ease the task of consumers to decide and shop.

But why NFC hasn’t been picked up like a favorite? How is the Social Media-NFC combo’s future looking? The things to be thought are various. The price, viability, trust & security etc. are some of the most concerning issues. Some more thinking points:

When retailers put tags on products, how many tags they would have to own to put one on each product? How many individual movie tags for example would be used in the theatre?
What is the cost and handling of these tags like? Is it the best solution to provide information about their products?
How about the possibility of connecting this to Social Media, where buyers can like/tweet/+1/click a picture of the product with NFC-tags and share it directly in their social network.
How many retailers are accepting NFC mobile payment without an inch of doubt? It’s noted that wherever money or payment is involved, things tend to get slower. The issue of transaction security is at the core.
The creation of a new social media currency i.e. the payments done via NFC being posted on social network looks very exciting but is not accepted with open arms till now. Look around, how is the growth percentage? The use of Google Wallet since it’s initial release in 2011 till this date, of course is gaining volume but how slow, is surprising given the possibilities that lie ahead with NFC.

The real-world acceptance and market adoption is far slower than the benefits promised by NFC. But there is no doubt, NFC-Social Media is a powerful tool for shifting to a whole new era of marketing and promotions. Despite the slow progress and the slower acceptance, future may entail, Social Media and Marketing made easy, effective and quick with NFC.

Why Your Organization Needs a Social Media Marketing Spreadsheet

By Joanna Jana Laznicka

I have a friend who recently was assigned to manage the social media accounts for an organizations they volunteers for. They are new to such a role and I wanted to give them some pointers on where to start. I believe anyone who takes on the task of social media management needs to make a Social Media Marketing Spreadsheet.

In this article I will discuss what a Social Media Marketing Spreadsheet is, how to start and use it. The following tips can help any business owner, organization or newbie social media manager to be properly get organized and see success with their social media efforts unfold.

What is a Social Media Marketing Spreadsheet?

A Social Media Marketing Spreadsheet is basically an inventory of your organizations social media accounts and passwords, what is the current state of the accounts, where the accounts need improvement and making sure the branding message is consistent across all social media platforms. Also it contains the best keywords, best hashtags to use along with other items like the top influences in the specific niche the organization is targeting.

I completely 100% believe before anyone from an organizations signs up for social media accounts or starts updating old accounts and posting to the accounts this kind of spreadsheet needs to be in place.

To start make a spreadsheet either in Microsoft Excel or Google Spread Sheet. I prefer using Google Spread Sheets. Reason I prefer Google Spread Sheet of Microsoft Excel is because I can easily share it with others using it as a collaboration tool with other staff, consultants or volunteers and also use it to document for upper management real time social media milestones or where we need more attention.

As well Google Spread Sheets can be opened up from anywhere which makes it easy to work from any computer if that is a personal computer or a public computer such as one in a business center, library or office. One of the best feature is it is stored in Google Drive which is cloud it will not get lost if your computer gets corrupted such as getting a virus, a hard drive goes bad or your laptop gets stolen.

To start the Social Media Marketing Spread Sheet you will make seven sheets with specific columns.

1- Social Media Accounts. This is where you will list all the accounts, username, passwords and emails associated to that social media account if you need to retrieve a password and todays date with current amount of followers. I would start by adding the most popular social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Stumblupon, Google+ and so on.

2- Keywords. On this sheet you will list all the keywords and how often they are search monthly. You will find the keyword search volume by using tools like Google Adwords Keyword Planner or Hittail
3- #Hashtags – You will list popular hashtags your competitors and others in the same niche use in the first column and the second column you will list your hashtag analytics. A good tool to determine the popularity of a hashtag is hashtagify.me or hashtags.org
4- Social Media Bios – Here you will cut and paste the current bios published on each of the social media accounts and see if they are uniformed, portray the same message consistently, use keywords or need to be rewritten to serve better results

5- Draft Posts – The title is pretty self-explanatory. It is always nice to have several drafts posts put aside for the days you have writers block.

6- Social Media Influencers – This is where you list people / social media accounts who are influential to your same niche and frequently repost other people’s social media posts. Establishing a relationship with them would be a good thing if you can get them to repost your posts even better.

7- To-do List – a basic list of to-do that you noticed while putting this Social Media Marketing Spreadsheet together. It could be as simple as to updated profile photo, or deleting social media posts that are not consistent to the brand messaging, to contacting to narrowing down who has the password for a specific account

I setup a blank Social Media Marketing Spreadsheet here you can view and download it for your own use.

Note the social media spread sheet will grow by time but for now this is going to help keep everything organized, keep your messaging and branding consistent. I also find that people / organizations think their social media is in order until they get a spreadsheet going like this and start noticing that they might have:

disorganizations of usernames and the passwords
ghost accounts basically social media accounts a past employee started that have gone stagnant and need to hunt down the passwords to take control of it
inconstant branding and messaging
missing exposure by focusing too much on one social media platform versus diversifying – it is truly amazing how much traffic Stumblupon and Pinterest can bring to a site but yet most people overlook using them as a traffic driver

Once the social media spreadsheet is populated you will be on an organized path to social media posting postings success.

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