Leveraging Social Advertising and Paid Search

Social advertising and paid search are both powerful digital marketing tools that can be leveraged to increase traffic as well as E-commerce sales. Individually, each advertising platform has its own merits, but how can marketers integrate their digital marketing initiatives to make all the elements work better together to achieve greater overall sales success?

Paid search and social advertising can be utilized to promote awareness and visibility of a brand or product. Although the average click-through rate is lower for social ads than paid search, social advertising allows you to promote original organic content in a way that is not possible with paid search.

Where there’s push, there’s pull

Pull marketing typically applies to situations in which users have stated a need, and push marketing applies when a need has not been specified. In a digital space, the lines between push and pull strategies are becoming increasingly blurred. Because of the advanced targeting options on social media, most notably on Facebook, the line between push and pull is hard to define. While paid search targeting is determined by keywords, social advertising allows for targeting by location, age, gender, marital status, and more. Although the ad is still being pushed to the user, this allows for some pull because businesses can craft and push messaging toward prequalified target audiences. Social advertising isn’t a “pure push” tactic because users are targeted based on specified interests; nor is it a “pure pull” tactic, because users are not actively seeking information.

Social advertising allows marketers to utilize the rich behavioral data available on Facebook and other social media platforms to reach a specific audience. Although still lower than the average paid search click-through rate, which recently hit an all-time high, Facebook has seen an impressive 148% increase in click-through rates year-over-year. This can be attributed to improved audience-targeting capabilities.

Your objective matters

Facebook ad click-through rates averaged 0.36% globally during the second quarter of 2014. With paid search, one can expect a click-through rate of about 2%; with a well-executed strategy, that rate could increase.

Social ads tend to perform better than paid search in terms of building awareness and hitting reach/frequency targets, but if easily-measured ROI is your only goal, paid search may be the better option.

A paid search campaign can capture impressions, but social advertising can help fill the gaps of your marketing campaign. With social advertising, you can reach consumers who may or may not be actively engaging with your brand or even considering your brand. In the 2013 State of Search Report, 55% of respondents expected social media spending to increase in 2014. Research shows while spending on both paid search and social advertising campaigns has increased year over year, growth in social advertising spending has been significantly higher: paid search spending saw an increase of 19%, versus an 81% increase in social advertising spending.

Synergy between search and social

Social advertising can also be used in tandem with paid search to create synergy of message across multiple channels. Using targeting to reinforce the tactics employed via other digital marketing vehicles can create a powerful and effective campaign.

Here are a few ways you can use social advertising and paid search in tandem:

• Research the behavior of your target audiences. You may find that a specific demographic searches for certain keywords more than others. To create synergy between paid search and social ads, use social ads to target that demographic. This creates a cohesive campaign that targets the correct demographics in paid search and social ads.
• Ad content can be repurposed between the two, allowing consumers to make a connection between them. Integrating ad messaging with targeting could help boost brand recall and perhaps even sales.
• Analyze conversations that take place around social media campaigns and then use those discoveries to find new keywords for paid search campaigns.

Paid search and social advertising are two very effective digital marketing tactics, and both can be implemented as components of an integrated, holistic campaign. It is important to understand the expectations and potential results of each and know how you’re going to measure success against each one. Once an overarching strategy is defined, you can make better use of unique social advertising features to reinforce what you’re doing via paid search and other vehicles and then leverage each to drive conversion as you define it.

How do you incorporate social advertising in your digital marketing campaigns? Let us know in the comments.

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Get Your E-mails Read: 4 Tips to Increase E-mail Marketing Conversions

Marketers consistently rate e-mail as the most effective online marketing tactic. The problem with it being the tactic of choice for most marketers is that it means that you have to compete with all the noise in your audience’s inbox.

So, how do you make sure most of your e-mails are read? And that, if and when, users do click through to your landing page they don’t bail?

In an episode of Landing Page Optimization, AWeber Senior Business Development Manager Hunter Boyle shared some tips on making your e-mails stand out from the crowd and on getting your audience to stick around and complete your desired conversion action.

1. Be compelling

The key to getting sign ups and sales conversions doesn’t really lie in the technology; it’s in making sure what you put in your e-mails reflects your content and your brand, in general.

Nobody’s going to be excited if you’re sending dull repetitive e-mails, whether they’re newletters or promotions. Nowadays, it takes more than good valuable information to stand out – you have to have a compelling edge, so people will look forward to reading your e-mails.

You can take AppSumo’s lead on this. They’ve grown their list to 750,000 in just over two years by having people expect certain e-mails that have really excellent content, a personal angle, and some surprises in them.

They’re a product-driven e-mail list with sales and offers on different services and some SaaS products, but every now and then, they throw in a curve ball that has a free giveaway or some other surprise element.

People gravitate towards e-mails that don’t treat them as merely list names or data points. And this where AppSumo excels; they give back and listen to their audience, and it makes that connection stronger with the people on the other end.

2. Make it personal

It’s not necessarily bad to talk about yourself in e-mails.

If you do it right, you can talk about personal experience. In fact, e-mails that do well add that personal approach.

From a digital marketing standpoint, the personal approach to e-mails - the signatures, the P.S. letter in plain text- can perform extremely well. People like to see e-mails coming from a real person on the other end, so, your emails should …

• have a component of storytelling, testifying, or relating from personal experience, and
• be written in a more conversational tone.

On the other hand, you should NOT …

• use a do-not-reply-from e-mail address,
• write ‘Dear’ then the customer’s first name in brackets,

These are a couple of things that put a barrier between the sender and the recipient.

E-mails that people look forward to the most are the same as what people want to see from their social feeds - they’re from people that we know and trust. People want to connect, not just get e-mails about updates or lead gen or sales.

Sure, e-mail’s a little bit different because when people sign up for an e-mail list after they’ve purchased something, they have a goal in mind. They want to know about the next vacation deals from a travel website, for example. What a travel website will want to do is use a more casual tone, or use an editorial tone that fits with the brand.

Personalizing could be spicing up your e-mails a bit by injecting humor, or throwing in some animated GIFs. Give your audience something to be interested in, even if not every single e-mail is going to be relevant, whether it's interest in the offer, in tone of the copy, or in the graphics.

3. Set expectations and deliver on your promise

Maintaining the common thread is crucial to your entire e-mail marketing process. You have to match the message and the vehicle to the destination, whether it’s from the e-mail side to the landing page and the calls-to-action (CTA), or vice-versa (landing page into e-mail back to either another product pitch or free trial). You have to keep the user’s attention span by using urgency or a strong CTA.

If you’re sending people from an e-mail to a page that either doesn’t have a compelling offer, or doesn’t connect with the expectations set, you’re not going to get the sales, the trials, the leads, or whatever your intended conversion action is.

4. Optimize for mobile

In 2014, SeeWhy reported that 65% of email is opened on a smartphone first.

This year, Hunter says the mobile train will be moving at bullet train speed and will be way out of the station, so if your e-mails or landing pages are not set up for mobile, you really have to take a look at that.

Here are some things you should be doing to keep your e-mails mobile-friendly:

• Use a responsive template of some sort
• Make the font large and legible.
• Have a bit of extra white space and room for “fat finger” moments.
• Use image-appropriate links and CTA buttons that stand out.
• Use a single-column format.

Hunter cites his experience with Goldstar as an example of how you should NOT do e-mails on mobile. He got an e-mail for tickets of a show he was interested in, but when he clicked through, not only was the landing page unrelated to the show, but a horizontal window pops up asking him how likely he is to recommend Goldstar. He had to scroll 3 across his iPhone to get to the X button. On top of these, when he did manage to close the window, the page underneath asked him to download the Goldstar app. Image source

• Make links obvious (use some sort of design signifier, plus the CTA language, to let users know it’s a link).
• Find ways to break up thick paragraphs.
• Have CTAs stand a little bit more alone, so people can click on them without the uncertainty if this is where it’s supposed to be or if they have to pinch and zoom in to find the link.

Your landing page has to continue the experience and be mobile-responsive as well. If you’re using an overlay, Lightbox, or pop-up window, turn it off for the destination pages that you’re pointing to. You wouldn’t want users to be clicking through your mobile-friendly e-mails only to be taken to a mobile unfriendly page where two seconds in, a window pops up asking them to sign up for e-mail.

Get people excited to read your e-mails once they pop in the inbox by making content engaging with the right editorial tone and by surprising your audience. Also, maintain the intent and match the visitor’s expectations all the way through from the e-mail to the landing page and any downstream experiences. And, if you’re not aboard the mobile train, it left the station a while ago, so you better catch up somehow.

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How to Create Awesome Blog Topics

 

It’s that time again – you’re stumped for awesome blog topics and you aren’t sure how to come up with any.

I know—I’m a writer over here. It’s as frustrating as the feeling that everything you touch turns into ice, right? Time to “let it go…” Sorry, I think I got carried away there.

In any case, you really CAN create some incredible topics that are sure to please every single one of your readers, and I’ve got some tips to help you. Let’s take a look at 17 different ways you can easily come up with some awesome blog topics for your business and readers!

Use the HubSpot Blog Topic Generator

You already know the area you want to write about, and you likely already have a few nouns and keywords at the ready. However, you might be stumped for creating great headlines and forming topics. HubSpot understands this, and we love them for it! In fact, they created an excellenttopic generator where you can put different nouns into a search field and have them generate headlines and topic ideas to help inspire you. You might not use what they come up with, but it can help get those creative juices’ flowing. It is important to remember that this is a computer generating the ideas, so use discretion and decide if it is a decent topic or headline.

Pick Evergreen Topics for Your Blogs

You can also come up with awesome blog topics by utilizing evergreen topics. Evergreen means that the topic will last for a long time instead of writing on trendy topics that only last for as long as the trend does. You can come up with some great evergreen topics that pertain to your business by researching your audience, asking what they want to read about, and searching Google for some great ideas.For example, if you write a blog about foot health, then you will want to write on things like how to treat plantar fasciitis or diabetic foot care. This is a great example of a topic that will remain popular long after trends fade away because people will always need to learn new ways to take care of their feet. You will notice that using evergreen topics will not only get more social shares and views, but also give your content more mileage and allow you to reuse parts of it throughout the year.

Always Create Excellent Headlines

When creating great blog topics, you have to make sure you also come up with awesome headlines. Headlines are what will make people click on a link or avoid it all together. Craft something that gives the audience a question while also giving a small answer. Consider staying away from click bait sounding headlines and craft something that doesn’t come across too sales-like, but as something that offers the reader real value. You might even notice that by crafting a great, powerful headline, you can come up with a few more topics, too! This has happened to me more than a few times, and it is wonderful.

Use “Trigger” Words to Pique Interest

Along with crafting a great headline, you should make sure you use “trigger” words. This is what can convince someone to click on the link, instead of passing it by. A few trigger words are things such as “awesome,” “top secrets,” “top tips,” “great,” “amazing,” “perfect,” and so on. I am going to use foot care as the example yet again. If you are writing about how to treat a common foot condition, you don’t want the headline to sound bland and boring. Instead, you can write a headline that says, “The Top Awesome Ways to Keep Your Feet Wonderfully Healthy” or something similar.

Keep a File of Ideas for the Future

This might not seem like a way to come up with new blog topics, but there have been several times where I have thought of several topics, only to forget them. When you begin brainstorming, you will find that it is easy to come up with a plethora of topic ideas. This means you need to write and file each idea away in order to remember it in the future. You can use something like Evernote, Dropbox, orGoogle Docs to create a file for ideas and resources. This will help significantly in the future when you begin to hit the inevitable topic idea brick wall.

Take Inspiration from Other Blogs

While you don’t want to steal their information and exact headlines, gaining inspiration from others is a great way to come up with great blog topic ideas. You can take a look at what your competitors are blogging about, and follow industry leader blogs to get notifications about new posts. This will help you generate some great ideas for your own content and might even help with your social media posts! Again, only gain inspiration from others; never copy or steal what they are doing.

Create an Ideas Board When Brainstorming 

Sometimes people have trouble brainstorming by staring at a computer. However, if you make an ideas board, you might find brainstorming easier, especially if you are brainstorming with multiple people. In fact, find one or two people to brainstorm with to come up with some great topics. While you might be stumped for ideas, others might be able to come up with some great ideas that you hadn’t thought of. Don’t go brainstorming alone! Take along a pal or two and use an ideas board to keep things organized and in view the whole time.

Ask Your Audience What They Want to Read About

You might not realize it, but your audience is one of thegreatest resources you should be using for topic ideas. You can ask your readers what they want to see and even have them ask questions to be featured in a question and answer post. This will give you a resource filled with great topics to use for quite some time. In addition, you will be writing topics that are relevant to your client base, which is perfect!Use social media to ask people what they want to read and have them ask questions or state it in the comments. If you don’t have much interaction on social media right now, you can always send out surveys in emails and have a comment section on your website for people to ask questions or make suggestions.

Utilize Google Alerts for Great Resources and Ideas

Google has quite the amount of helpful tools for your blog and website, and one of these is called Google Alerts. You can set up an alert for a certain topic and have Google email you daily or weekly with new information. It will send you articles, which can be used as resources or inspiration, helping you generate on-the-spot topics, as well as relevant topics for your audience.

Look Over Your Blog to See What is Missing

Take some time to not only look for new topics and resources, but to look over your blog. You need to look for holes in your topics and see what areas you are overlooking. Take some time to write a list of everything you’ve already covered and how many times you covered them. This will show you which topics don’t need to be talked about as much, and which ones could be written about more. In addition, it will also be easier to see what you’re missing when you create this list. Try it out to see what you’re missing!

Do a “Highlight Reel” of Previous Blog Topics

A great way to generate a topic idea is to do a highlight reel of your previous, most popular, blog posts. This gives you the chance to show people your other posts that they might have missed while also giving you the opportunity to have a new topic for that day. You can do as many highlight reels as you’d like, but most people do one to two a year, with one being at the end of the year or beginning of a new one. This is a great chance to celebrate your successes, too!

Use Quora to Help Find Topic Ideas and Great Resources 

Quora is a great content resource that helps you research your chosen keywords for your website and blog. This gives you the chance to find resources and inspiration for your posts. It is a free service and all you need to do is sign up and begin asking your questions. You can put in a broad topic idea to see what leads you get, but using your desired keywords is the best method to find a wide variety of topic inspiration and resources. Head on over and take a look to see how much Quora can help you with generating amazing blog topics.

Write a News Article for a New Topic 

You can also come up with great blog topics by writing news content on current events. This content can be on news within your industry, or how various popular news stories can impact your customers. News content doesn’t have to be overwhelming and daunting, however! Just make sure you always state the facts first in your article, always research your topic, and make sure to use citations throughout your blog. This will help ensure people realize you know what you are talking about and that you are a trusted source for information. Again, remember you always need to research. If you find a news topic that is interesting, seek out at least five different, reliable resources that can help ensure you get the facts correct.

Repurpose Your Content to Create Fresh Content 

Repurposing content is yet another incredible way to come up with more topics for your blog. Content repurposing is something that many content marketers suggest for content and copywriting because it helps to delve into a topic further in-depth. It also gives your client base more information on a specific topic. You can repurpose content by rewriting one blog and posting the new rewrites on different sites like LinkedIn. You can also do things like repurpose your content into a YouTube series, podcasts, infographics, and other formats that will work incredible for your blogs and readers.

Share and Read Infographics while Brainstorming

When you begin brainstorming, you might find thatsearching for infographics from within your field might help get your thoughts going. You can share interesting ones you’ve found with your brainstorming team, and you can have them share ones they’ve found. You can even create your own based off of past blog posts as that might help think of new, amazing topics as well.

Write On Something You Want to Know More About

We all have things we’d like to know more about, and writing about it for a blog topic creates a great chance to learn while also teaching your client base. This gives you the chance to delve into the different research out there and learn more about different topics that interest you for your business. If it interests you, it is a great sign that it will interest your clients as well. Think of a question you have about a certain topic and begin your research. You will be able to come up with more questions and answers that allow you to write your post and inform your audience while also receiving answers to your questions.

Research More in Your Field to Find Great Topics

The best way to come up with some great topics while also staying at the top of your field is to research things constantly within your field. There are constant changes in the majority of fields, which gives you the chance to stay up-to-date and keep your clients in the know, as well. Head to your favorite industry related websites, your competitors, or simply go to Google to utilize the search engine to research. Isn’t it great that you get to knock out two things at once?

UNTIL NEXT TIME

Generating blog topics isn’t as difficult as we always seem to think it will be. You can easily come up with several topics to last throughout the year just by following the above steps. Again, remember to keep a file of all of the topics you come up with to make sure you will remember them and have access to them all year long. Which suggestions are you going to try first? Let me know in the comments!

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26 Tips for Improving Your Social Media Marketing

Does your social media need a boost?

Do you want to add something to your online marketing?

Trying new things can be fun and refreshing, for both you and your audience.

In this article I’ll share 26 ways, an A-Z guide, to improve your social media efforts.

Discover 26 tips for improving your social media marketing.

#1: Add Audio

If audio wasn’t part of your foray into social media, it may be time to embark on a new adventure.

Recording audio entails choosing your message, selecting a program that permits recording and editing, finding a microphone that fits your budget and needs and deciding where to host your finished product.

In some cases you may want to find an application or individual to transcribe the audio files for people who prefer reading.

#2: Beef Up Blogging

There are myriad ways to blog—long-form, short-form (microblogging), image-only and more.

Your regular blog is a good place to write longer-form posts when needed. To get the most out of your efforts, make sure your blog is mobile-friendly. You can test it with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

Social Media Examiner tested on Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

Instagram is the perfect platform to showcase shorter posts for a “less is more” approach.

No matter how or where you blog, choose the option that’s right for you and your schedule, then update consistently.

#3: Coax New Life Into Old Content

Evergreen content is your friend. Find your most popular posts and those that rank highly and update them as needed. Then reshare them across your social channels to draw new attention to those articles.

Stay up to date on social media changes via SME’s weekly article.

A good way to ensure you have the most up-to-date news is finding reliable sources of information in your industry. For example, check out what’s new with Cindy King’s weekly Social Media Examiner series, “This Week in Social Media.”

#4: Draw on Your Community

It can be difficult to keep up with customer questions, especially if it’s just you trying to answer. Why not let your community help?

GiffGaff encourages users to share information on their forum.

If appropriate for your business, consider creating a forum where more experienced users can assist new visitors.

#5: Encourage Customer Feedback

If you’d like to have more customer feedback on your product or service, give your customers a reason to help you out. Incentives can run the gamut here, and most are simple and straightforward.

The key is to offer customers something of value that fits into your business model. For example, discounts and a chance to win a prize usually serve as great motivators.

Brainstorm a number of offers for the year ahead. See what works and build future incentives around those successes.

#6: Find New Photo Editing Tools

Images are an important part of social media. It can be time-consuming to create or editoriginal images, but luckily you have many tools at your disposal.

Sites like PicMonkey and Canva let you make edits on your desktop, while apps likeSnapseed, Over and PicTapGo let you get the job done on the go.

#7: Generate Buzz With Infographics

People have come to love and rely on infographics for explaining information clearly and concisely.

Whether you create one yourself or hire a graphic designer, be sure to include your company’s name and URL. That way your work is attributed to your business as it moves across the socialsphere. For example, this infographic from InfographicLabs.com.

When bloggers use the infographic, What Infographics Are, the image links back to the creators.

Ask those who share your infographic to link the image back to your site so you’ll enjoy more traffic as well. When you share your infographic on your own site, make sure to include some explanatory text that deep links to previous relevant articles you’ve published.

#8: Harness the Power of SlideShare

Businesses have had a long love affair with slide decks. But what happens after you’re done with them? The presentation you and your team slaved over for weeks doesn’t have to retire to a folder on your hard drive. Upload it to SlideShare!

Once uploaded, you can embed your SlideShare in an article on your blog, share it at a conference or email the link to prospects.

For example, this wonderfully creative Sketchnotes slideshare presentation was created by Anne McColl on an iPad with the Brushes app, during sessions at SME’s Social Media Marketing World 2014 #smmw14.

#9: Install the Pin It Button

If you want people to share your images, it’s essential to make it easy for them. By installing the Pin It button, users who like images in your post can share them on Pinterest and spread your visual content in a matter of seconds.

The Pin It button makes it easy for users to share your visual content.

#10: Join in the Customer Experience

There’s a very wise saying: “You can’t really understand another person’s experience until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.”

Have you tried actually using your product or service yourself? Have you dealt with customer service as a customer?

When you look at your business from an outsider’s perspective, you’ll have a better understanding of your customers’ experience and gain important insights into what matters to them. Then you can decide what to do to meet their needs.

#11: Keep Learning

If you’re like most marketers, in the past few years you’ve had to extend your reach into unfamiliar marketing terrain. Social media requires constant learning and mastering new skills.

As you find new ways to engage your audience, you’ll likely need to learn something new. Venture into audio, video, photography, image editing and focused content marketing to take your social media marketing to new levels.

#12: Learn from Millennials

Millennials are digital natives. They’ve grown up in an online world where content is easy to access and is available 24/7.

Given their proficiency online, they’ve come to expect certain features on the websites they frequent—clear navigation, fast response times and mobile-friendly options are all important.

Screenshot taken from infographic, Inside the Millennial Mind, created by CEB’s Iconoculture Consumer Insights: cebglobal.com/millennials.

In addition, compared to their parents and grandparents, Millennials are typically more willing to share personal information and opinions with businesses they engage with online.

Become familiar with these digital natives’ expectations and behaviors, and build them into your updates, customer service and social media tactics.

#13: Maximize Impact with Visuals

Text and links are important parts of communicating online—they give context and drive traffic. Of course, they can’t work alone. Visual content, especially photos, has quite an impact on audiences. Done well, images allow you to tell your story simply and quickly.

Check out Exposure for a new take on how you can share your visual storytelling.

Sites like Tumblr and Exposure both focus on images. Exposure in particular is a beautiful way to microblog while highlighting your pictures.

#14: Nurture Content Sharing

Whether your social media marketing department is comprised of a single person or a staff of 10, you don’t have to figure out meaningful company content on your own—ask for help from other departments. Who knows the current projects and goals better than the people who work with them daily?

For example, customer service can share success stories or ways they meet customers’ needs. Sales can tell you what was particularly hot this season. Product development can give you updates on new releases.

Tap into those resources as much as possible. Not only will you make your job easier, you’ll be sure to share the most important information.

#15: Offer Added Value

Want to keep your business top of mind and meet customers’ needs? You can do both—and become a trusted resource—by offering added value.

Weight Watchers provides free Helpouts to serve their target customers.

For example, offer free webinars, downloadable ebooks, free consultations or discounts to demonstrate the benefits of your products and services, while giving customers immediate assistance with something they’ve already identified an interest in.

#16: Participate in Conversations

If you want to connect with prospects, you have to engage with them. And to do that effectively, you need to know where they’re engaging most frequently on social media.

When you know where your prospects hang out, start connecting with them. If they’re onTwitter, add them to a Twitter list. Add Google+ users to a circle. Reach out to leads on LinkedIn. Read and listen to their content, and comment when you have something to add.


#17: Question Social Ads

Organic reach has experienced a nosedive, especially in the past year. Businesses now have to pay to play. It’s time to assess where to spend your precious ad dollars.

Facebook ads have dominated the scene for a long time, but they aren’t the only game in town these days.

Instagram lets businesses promote posts with sponsored updates.

Don’t dismiss options like Instagram, LinkedIn and SlideShare.

You’ll want to consider a number of factors—potential reach, pros and cons of platforms, price differences, etc. Do your homework to determine the best placement for your social ads.

#18: Ramp Up Online Reviews

Reviews significantly influence consumers’ decisions about whom they want to do business with. Are your customers telling others about their experience with your business?

Explore review sites and online listing platforms that are relevant to your business(e.g., TripAdvisor or Yelp) and ask your customers to leave feedback on those sites. Be sure to respond—your response tone and enthusiasm say just as much about you as the reviews.

#19: Share on Instagram

Sharing brand photos and videos on Instagram is a powerful way to capture people’s attention. By using tactics like showcasing products and services, featuring clear calls to action and including popular (and relevant) hashtags, you can quickly improve your presence on Instagram.

#20: Tap Into Snapchat

Snapchat, the photo/chat messaging app where photos disappear and chat messages can be cleared or saved, provides an exciting environment for businesses to engage with users, raise awareness and share a story or business announcement.

Is your businesses on Snapchat?

#21: Use Vine

Vine’s short looping videos have won the attention of businesses and fit the bill for a cost-effective and innovative way to promote products and services. To get your own creative juices flowing, check out how other businesses have been using Vine.

#22: Visit Your Social Media Strategy

No matter how long your business has been on social media, it’s always prudent to review your goals, assess your success and make any needed changes. Pulling back from one platform and switching it up on another may be just the thing you need to freshen up your presence and become more effective.

#23: Wrap Your Head Around Twitter

Who should you follow on Twitter? Is it better to favorite or retweet? Should you include a hashtag and/or a URL? If you’re not sure, Twitter has suggestions for businesses and a helpful glossary of terms.

Get to know the basics of Twitter.

I suggest learning more about Twitter cards. Consider the benefits of including photos and albums, live video, product details, lead generation and landing page information to your tweets.

#24: eXperiment

Why pour money and resources into campaigns that aren’t effective? A/B testing (or split testing) is the best way to find out what’s working and what’s not.

You can use Google Analytics to run a test to discover which social media tactics are working best. Then you can run further tests on your most popular platform to see whether images, links or text affect click-throughs and comments. For example, are your Facebook ads doing the best they can?

#25: Yield Results With Geolocation Offers

Many people share their location with retailers. Knowing where your customers are can help you reach users with timely targeted mobile messages.

Marketing Land has an excellent article explaining how customers are using geolocation to find bargains while shopping, find the best place to eat nearby and more.

#26: Zero in on YouTube

Creating brand awareness with quality videos posted on YouTube has been a go-to social marketing tactic for a number of years.

Go the distance with a branded YouTube business channel.

Marketers should keep in mind, though, that YouTube is more than a platform for sharing video footage. It’s just as important to develop a channel that is in keeping with your brand identity (e.g., using consistent imagery, thumbnails, colors and graphics within your video and your channel page design).

As you’re designing your look, be sure to review and adhere to YouTube’s cover specs.


Conclusion

Social media marketing has come a long way. There are many new avenues to explore and places where businesses can stand out.

What do you think? How will you spice up your social media marketing in 2015? Do you have a few ideas to share? Please leave your comments and thoughts below.

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