Silverback Social

The Death of the Social Media Manager

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Source: mediabistro.com

Hootsuite Recently wrote a blog article declaring that the title of Social Media Manager is pretty much dead (read here).  Even the strongest social media advocates are waving the white flag.

Is it true?

My response on Twitter: “Title: yes.  Job function: Absolutely not.”

Now don’t be confused:  Hootsuite is only referring to the title of Social Media Manager as being “dead”.

Why?

  1.   The title is just too broad – At Silverback Social alone, we have six people alone that manage various different aspects of social media – from community management, to content strategists to brand strategists and beyond.  In today’s competitive market, if you’re a medium sized business to a corporate Fortune 500 company, you need to have more than one person working on your social media.  (Don’t want to deal with it?  Hire us.)
  2. Any social media manager worth their salt will hate being referred to as a social media manager.  It’s yesterday’s buzz-word job title.  A cliche if you will.  Set your company apart and look for a digital or social media marketing professional.  Or better  yet, take the point from above and look specifically for a community manager or digital content strategist.
  3. It’s an inaccurate description of what function this person fulfills – Today’s social media manager doesn’t, as the title would imply, manage social media for a company.  They talk, they engage, they solve problems, they identify new opportunities, they set the company’s voice and tone, they leverage culturally relevant events and news and strategize how their company can leverage this information, they plan campaigns  – this goes beyond the scope of simply operating Twitter and Facebook.

…And all of the above is exactly what makes that’s this job function so important.

So there you have it: while the social media manager title is disposable, the job function is certainly not.

What do you think?  Has the “Social Media Manager” title met it’s demise?  Tell us in the comments below!

Silverback Social

6 Steps to an Award Winning Google+ Page

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A Google+ Case Study: Silverback Social & The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

We’re thrilled to announce that our work on behalf of one of our premier client partners, The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, was featured in Google’s “Google+ Best Practices for Nonprofits” guide, found here.

Google+ is a unique social network that is owned by the largest and most used search engine in the world Google (searchengineland).  Because of this, it’s an absolute must to have a strong presence if you want SEO benefits. Luckily, it’s rather simple to gain a presence.

Here’s The Leukemia and Lymphoma Societies’ Google+ page before we started working on it:

Here’s  The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society page now:

 

 

Here are five steps to make your Google+ page better:

1. Custom Header Image: The first step for us was to brand The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society page by creating a custom header photo rather than using the default image.  The importance of a custom header is to give the user a snapshot of what the page is about without even having to read any of our posts or content. It also helps highlight the page’s legitimacy as The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

2. Post Constantly: In order to gain a following on Google+, it’s important to consistently post the right content. For The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, we post everyday, even on weekends, and sometimes twice a day. Frequent and consistent posts help spread our reach because our content will always be right in front of our audience, encouraging shares.

3. Post Relevant Content: The right content should be relevant to your brand or business. For LLS, we post content that is relevant to blood cancer. Here’s an example of a post we created for BCAM (blood cancer awareness month):

4.Diversify Your Posts: For the month of September, this was one of our most shared and +1’d posts.  The image makes it easy to process, and the content is relevant to the time and audience. Another thing to mention is that we like to diversify our content to keep our page fresh and unique.  So instead of posting captioned images all the time, we’ll throw in links to videos, articles, donation pages, etc.:

5.Tag Appropriate Content: Any posts on Google+ should be appropriately tagged and hashtagged:

 

Users, brands, and companies will get a notification anytime they are tagged in a post. When tagging +Loren Brill in the post above, we were looking to get her to see that she was tagged and then sharing it with her circles. The above post is hashtagged #LLS so that whenever a user happens to come across the hashtag, they’ll be able to see all of our posts. Proper hashtagging is especially important on Google+ now that you can search for #keywords on Google search (searchenginewatch).

6. Be Responsive: Just like other social platforms, it’s important to communicate and respond to followers’ comments and questions:

Consistent and timely engagement shows users that we’re listening and that our Google+ profile isn’t just for pushing our own content. This ensures that users remain followers rather than unfollowing due to lack to activity.

We execute a similar strategy for all of our clients on Google+ and we are able to increase our “following” number at a steady rate.

To view the “Best Practices for Nonprofits” guide, follow the link here: http://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/finalgoogleplus-fornonprofits.pdf

Have we missed anything? What tips and tricks can you offer that you’ve seen work on Google+? Comment below.

 

 

 

 

How to Become Vine Famous: General Electric’s #GravityDay

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I love Vine. The very first day Vine was released, on January 24th of this year, I was immediately intrigued and created my first Vine. It was a short, six-second video of me tossing some balls of paper into a trashcan:

Now, more than seven months later, there are millions of users on Vine. Musicians, comedians, and even major companies and brands have all shared their creativity on the video-sharing app. Recently, General Electric hosted an online, social event called #GravityDay to honor Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery of gravity. For this event, GE encouraged Vine users to record a video of an apple falling into their hands (or sometimes onto their heads) and then dropping down off screen. Here’s an example:

As this event progressed, GE told Viners to use the hashtag #GravityDay. Within a few hours, hundreds of users were sharing their versions of the Apple Drop, and GE was revining (reposting to their Vine account) their favorite ones.

I, being an avid Vine user, noticed this hashtag trending within the Vine community and decided to record my own Apple Drop, with a little twist:

The result was astounding. General Electric revined my post and commented on my Vine: “That’s certainly a new way of looking at things. Happy #GravityDay!” I was thrilled that GE had decided my creation was worthy of being shared with their enormous following. Soon after, my Vine started getting revined and liked by other Vine users. Currently, my Apple Drop Vine has received 594 likes and been revined 55 times.

As if that weren’t enough, General Electric commented on my Vine again, asking for my permission to include my name and my Vine in their #GravityDay YouTube highlight video. I obviously told them I would love to be featured, and a few days later they released a compilation of all their favorite Apple Drop Vines, with my Vine included at around 0:52!

I had a lot of fun making my Vine and having it shared with so many people, but this experience also served as a prime example of the power of social. By engaging with an existing community and joining in on a conversation already taking place, I was able to have my voice heard. By producing fun, original content and sharing it appropriately, I was recognized by a major brand and noticed by hundreds. This is the power of social. And the best part: anyone can do it.

 

Are you on Vine? Who’s your favorite Vine artist? Tell us in the comments below!

Succeeding Because of Social; Learn from The Must-Try App Waze

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At first glance, the app Waze seems like any other GPS map showing traffic. So what has set it apart from the rest and made it the fastest growing traffic and navigation app? Nothing but its captivating use of social media.

Many companies struggle to get people engaging with their brand and have difficulties incorporating social into their business. Waze is now setting the example for businesses everywhere, by turning the mundane everyday task of traffic into a very social affair.

As a snapshot of the app’s success, Waze was awarded the “Best Overall App of the Year” at the Mobile World Congress and was bought by Google in June. We can all learn from Waze’s incredible success story; here are a few key points that help them succeed at keeping their users engaged (and in many cases addicted) to their app.

Community

Traffic is a pain. But it is a pain for everyone. Within the first 5 minutes of using Waze you learn that there is something comforting seeing hundreds or thousands of people (the app informs you exactly how many “wazers” are in your area) stuck in the same frustrating situation as you. The community established makes you feel a part of something bigger on your (sometimes lonely and lengthy) commute. To deepen the sense of community and tie in a social aspect to the app, Waze allows users to connect with their Facebook friends, letting you to see where your friends are on the road. The ability to “Map Chat” and share pictures with other wazers adds to the excitement of the social media connection in this app.

Contribution and Engagement

Unlike most traffic resources, Waze strongly encourages their users to actively report traffic, cops, and accidents. With each user having their own appearance and nickname, Waze does a great job at making every traffic report feel personal. By being the first one to alert others about an accident up ahead, you not only feel the instant gratification of helping others, but also get notified by Waze of how many people have “thanked” you for alerting them. And from the other end, it is a surprisingly refreshing feeling getting a traffic alert knowing that one of your many wazer friends has done a kind deed to help you out. Simply by making the delivery of traffic reports more social, Waze has added an emotional effect to the typically boring news.

Rewards

Along with the fuzzy feeling you get from helping out others, Waze has also set up an awards system to further motivate you to engage with the app. The system is all based on points; you earn points by reporting events around you or simply driving with the app open. Reaching higher levels grants you access to customization for your wazer and a shield, sword, or crown to show off your points to other users. By introducing this competitive feature, Waze keeps users engaging with the app and sharing their rank via Facebook and twitter (thus exponentially growing their amount of users).

Who knew that traffic could be so social? Businesses in every market can learn from Waze about how to incorporate social and use it to your advantage. Know any other companies that are ahead of the pack because of social? Share below.

Guns, Drugs, & Social Media

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Earlier this month, the NYPD arrested 19 people in the biggest gun bust in New York City’s history. Furthermore, Matthew Best, one of the people involved in the gun running, unknowingly aided the police in the bust by posting pictures and videos on the Internet. Best, a young man aspiring to be a rapper, shared pictures and videos of the guns and the money involved in the operation to his Instagram and YouTube accounts. The NYPD used these photos and video clips as evidence to convict Best and 19 others of gun smuggling.

 

Additionally, teenagers have recently been using an underground website called Silk Road to purchase drugs online. These kids then posted photos of the drugs on the Internet to brag to their friends. Police located and arrested the adolescents for possession after finding the drug photos on the teens’ personal social media websites.

These stories are two prime examples of how transparent our world is today. Many Internet users are convinced that, since their privacy settings are configured so only their friends can see what they share, their photos and videos and status updates are only seen by a handful of people. This is not true. It is crucial to understand that ANYTHING you put on the Internet, regardless of who you think is able to see it, can potentially be seen by ANYBODY.

We are living in a time in which everybody is documenting everything they do. New parents take hundreds of pictures and videos of their babies and share it on Facebook. “Foodies” take photos of their meals and share it on Instagram. Aunts and uncles film their nieces’ and nephews’ piano recitals on iPhones. These photos and videos are wonderful to share with friends and family, but the impact of these picture and video files goes much further than that. Many people don’t realize that they are slowly but surely creating a long-lasting archive of their entire lives; not just for our friends and family, but for EVERYONE.

Sending out a Tweet with an F-bomb or a tactless comment can seem harmless. Tweets are short, fleeting, and innumerable, which makes it easy for them to appear to “get lost in the noise.” Again, this is not so. It is absolutely imperative to understand that these so-called “harmless” Tweets are not getting lost “in the cloud.” They are being documented, aggregated, and archived. They do not go away. They still exist on the Internet, and are visible to many more people than you might think.

Another example: By posting a picture of yourself and a close friend, you may be using social media as a sort of online diary. You’re saving that personal memory in picture form and putting it in a place where you know you and your close friend can access it at anytime and look back on it fondly. While this might have been a fairly normal way to use social media in the past, this is not the case in 2013. Today, it’s important to think of your social media networks as public display of your personal identity. Whatever you post on your social media pages, consider it a digital representation of how you want others to see you.

The name of the game is transparency. Get comfortable with the fact that certain aspects of your life that were once private are now becoming more and more publicly accessible. My advice is to treat the social networks you use as a personal résumé for your life. Treat everything you share on the Internet as something you would be comfortable sharing with your grandmother, acquaintance, or next employer. If you’ve just finished writing a short story, share it on your social places and be proud of it. You might just get noticed by a newspaper that wants you to write a segment for their online column. If you’ve just done something illegal and want to brag about it, DO NOT share it on your social places. You might just end up in prison.

 

Do you think social media has become too public? Do you feel that there’s not enough privacy on social media? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

 

A Creative Use of Social Media: The Twitterview

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Everybody knows Twitter is a great way to communicate with other people who have similar interests. It’s incredibly easy to search for certain users, follow trends, and use hashtags to join in on topical conversations. One of the ways we use Twitter at Silverback Social is to initiate meaningful conversations.

We started our own Twitterview series centered around the hashtag #SSTwitterview. Our goal is to interview individuals who are “doing” social, who are entrepreneurs and thought leaders. We don’t actively look for people with a lot of followers; instead we look for people who provide value to followers on a consistent basis. If you provide good content to your audience we are interested in learning from you. We hope to help businesses large and small understand certain strategies, platforms and trends within the social media and digital ecosystems. The Twitterviews are personalized for every person we interview. We typically end them by asking interviewees a personal question centered around their personal life, and sending them a personal “Thank You” through Vine or Instagram. Keeping the interview short, fun, and informative is the recipe to a great Twitterview.

On Wednesday we conducted a Twitterview with Chris Horton of SyneCore Tech, an integrated digital marketing agency based out of Minnesota. Chris is a Content Creator and Digital Strategist at SyneCore Tech, and he graciously took some time to answer a few questions we had about social media, content marketing, business objectives, and more.

The answers Chris provided were incredible. Even while using only 140 characters, Chris responded to each of our questions with valuable, pertinent information that painted a vivid picture of his thoughts and opinions.

SyneCore Tech even jumped in on the discussion from their company’s Twitter handle!

This Twitterview was a major success for both sides. Chris was able to amplify his reach on Twitter and share some seriously useful knowledge, and we at Silverback learned a ton from SyneCore Tech and gained a number of new followers who were listening in on our conversation. Plus, SyneCore Tech made an AWESOME Instagram video recap of the whole experience!

Having a #social party over at @synecoretech as our own Chris Horton rocks out his first #twitterview...cue the Rocky music!

A big THANK YOU to Chris Horton at SyneCore Tech for partying with us during our Twitterview. Check out their blog here.

Silverback Social

3 Free/Cheap Social Media Tools You Should Be Using

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As an online reputation and social media manager, I’m always looking for cheap/free social media tools to help create content and keep track of my social platforms. I recently came across three different tools that are sure to help any social media professional make their life easier. They are Animoto, Infogr.am, and Followerwonk.

Animoto

Animoto is a social media tool that lets you create truly engaging video content.

Here’s an example of the type of content you can create:

This was done with the “plus” version (which cost us a paltry $30/year) and let’s us create videos up to 10 minutes in length, choose from up to 44 different styles, access to over 300 music tracks, and the ability to download the video. There is also a “lite” version that is free, but video length is only 30 seconds and you can only choose from a limited number of styles.

The best part of this tool is that it’s SO easy to use. You can include images, text, and even other video into your Animoto clip. It’s a simple matter of uploading and rearranging the order you want the content to come up.

My one sticking point with this tool is there isn’t enough customization.  Although the “pro” version lets you create unbranded (no Animoto logo at the end) videos up to 20 minutes with multiple songs, users should be able to do more, like change colors and how the video unfolds from one piece of content to the next.

Despite limited customization, this is an incredible tool for brands to take advantage of.

Infogr.am

Infographics are some of the most engaging pieces of content you can create for your brand. They offer a wealth of information, while being easy to digest. To create truly stunning infographics, you’re going to need a designer, but sometimes you won’t have the skills or the cash to make one. That’s where Infogr.am comes into play.

Here’s an infographic we made for the Westchester Digital Summit using this free tool:

Aside from being free, what’s cool about this social media tool is there are a ton of different chart types you can use, as well as multiple infographic styles. Chart types range from simple bar graphs to pictorials and financial charts, and you can even upload Excel data. You can also add text, images, and video to your infographics.

Infogr.am also has a “pro” option that costs $18/month (or $180/year), however I only recommend it if you plan on distributing the infographic onto a website, email, ebook, etc. This is because you won’t be able to download/embed your infographic otherwise. The pro version also comes with 4 other design themes, allows password protection for infographics you create, and the ability to privately share the infographic with a non-public URL.

As great of a free tool as Infogr.am is, it really falls flat with its “pro” features. It lacks any true customization – you can’t change the colors of the infographic template, and the charts themselves lack dynamism. Sure you can change the colors of the charts, but paying users should be able to adjust the size of different aspects of the charts (for example, changing the width of the bars on the bar graph).

If you don’t plan on downloading the infographic, I highly suggest sticking with the free version because you’ll still be able to share the graphic onto your social places (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest). There simply aren’t enough options available for paying users to be worth the money, but it is certainly very robust for a free tool.

Followerwonk

Followerwonk is a Twitter analytics tool created by Moz (formerly SEOMoz).  Moz is known for its great SEO tools and is an industry leader in Internet marketing. Followerwonk is one of the most robust Twitter analytics tools on the market today. From the free version alone, you can search twitter bios (i.e., highest Social Authority, journalists, SEO, CEOs, most followers etc.), compare users, and analyze a user’s followers or the people a user is following.

Through the “analyze followers” function alone, you can get a world map of your users by region, active hours of your followers or those you’re following, Social Authority score of followers, gender of followers, keywords used by followers, frequency of @mentions used by followers, % of retweets by followers, % of retweets with URLs of followers, language, total tweets of followers…the list goes on.

For Silverback Social’s twitter, our followers are most active at around 5:00 pm ET.

Breakdown of Silverback Social’s followers via Social Authority. We use this graph to determine who to tweet at and who to follow.

This breakdown of keywords tells us what type of content we should be broadcasting to our followers.

I regularly use this social media tool to manage the social content Silverback Social produces on Twitter so we can tailor our content to get the highest engagement possible. I also use it to analyze our followers’ accounts to see whom else we can engage with in our field.  In terms of finding new engagement opportunities, Followerwonk really makes it easy to pick and choose the right accounts to follow instead of bloating our following number with low quality accounts (i.e., low # of tweets, low social authority).

The search query we used was “social media” and Followerwonk gave us a list of Twitter accounts related to the query.

The PRO version comes chock full of other features. There’s too many for me to write all of them here, but here’s a screen of what else they offer for paying members:

The only downside to Followerwonk is that it comes at a fairly pricy $99/month. However, they do offer a free 30-day trial, which is more than enough time to decide if this tool is good for your needs.  Also, you must be comfortable with looking at graphs and numbers to use the tool to its fullest potential. There is no single way to use it because everyone has different goals and everyone weighs metrics differently according to their goals. If you are serious about utilizing Twitter for your business, I can’t recommend this tool enough.

Have you used any of the tools above? What are your thoughts on them? What tools do YOU recommend?

 

christopherdessi

Social Media Nirvana Equals Gary Vaynerchuk, Vayner Media, Silverback Social & Panera Cinnamon Buns

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Silverback enjoying Gary’s Buns

If you know anything about Silverback Social, you know that we’re all  huge fans of Gary Vaynerchuk. Our love affair with Gary started when I first saw Gary speak in 2008 at the Web 2.0 conference.  I took that love, and parlayed it into an epic introduction of the entrepreneurial minds when I introduced Gary to Mike Lazerow (my boss at the time) at Buddy Media.  I even dedicated a chapter of my book Your World is Exploding to Gary.

My team here at Silverback all have a similar love for Gary Vaynerchuk  because he keynoted our event we produce: Westchester Digital Summit.  He’s also returning to keynote the second Westchester Digital Summit next year.

 

Gary Keynotes the Westchester Digital Summit.

So we pay attention to what Gary is doing, and we enjoy supporting everything that he does.  In short, Gary is the man. He has a way about him that transcends social media.  But maybe that’s the point. He’s so good at social media because he’s such a good dude and he’s an amazing businessman.  Gary preaches basic human tenants in social media. He encourages brands to grasp onto the human side of their brand, and to push themselves to connect with their customers at this human level.  He preaches this, but he also practices it.

Let me explain:

This morning Gary Tweeted the following:

“If u live in NYC – what are u craving right now in this rainy weather”To which one of our star employees Josh Fenster while manning our Twitter account at Silverback Social spotted and Tweeted back:

“Cinnamon buns”

 

We forgot about this brief tweet exchange, until about 4 hours later we received a box of warm, sweet, and delicious Panera Cinnamon buns!

We’re also in the suburbs of New York City (about 35 minutes north of the city). So this means that Gary and his team at Vayner Media had to find a place near our offices, see if they had yummy cinnamon buns and then order them for us.

WOW.

The power of social media to spread joy.  What a novel idea …and we love him for it …and we’ll love him forever for it.  We are Gary brand advocates.  All because he sent us Cinnamon buns.

So when you’re thinking of cool social media ideas for your brand.  Start here – “what can I do for my clients”….”how can I help”….”how can I say thank you”

Gary recently posted a video about how he got out of a taxi early so he could pay it forward to someone standing on the side of the street. The result was magic.

Thank you Gary Vaynerchuk for practicing what you preach. We can’t wait to see you live  at the Westchester Digital Summit May 15th at the Ritz Carlton here in White Plains, NewYork.  Until then, we’ll leave you with some parting social media love:

 

 

 

Silverback Social

Will Story Bump Turn Facebook Into a Public Forum?

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Story Bump

Earlier this week, Facebook announced the introduction of an entirely new algorithm known as “Story Bump.”

To give you a brief overview, Facebook has done away with “EdgeRank” – an algorithm based heavily on the timing of a post – and is now embracing the method of ‘story bump’: bumping stories that you don’t see in your newsfeed during a browsing session to the top of your newsfeed so that you can see those first during your next browsing session.

It may also be affected by the amount of likes, comments and shares that a specific post gets.  Meaning that the more interaction a post gets, the more likely it is to rise to the top of your newsfeed.

If you’ve ever used an internet forum or message board before, you’ll notice that Facebook’s concept of ‘story bump‘ is very similar to the process of ‘bumping’ a post on a forum.  A post on a message board gets ‘bumped’ each time a person interacts with said post.  Each interaction makes the post rise back up to the top of the message board.  You can imagine that very compelling, popular and controversial posts are often commented on the most, therefore they are constantly being ‘bumped’ and remain at the top of the message board.  Here are a few examples:

forum bump bumped 2

So, is the ‘forum’ concept Facebook’s future? It’s possible, but we don’t know for sure.  If nothing else, examining the forum concept gives us a few guidelines on how to make the most of the Facebook algorithm change.  Here are 3 tips:

1) Make sure your content is compelling

First things first: The more informative, educational and compelling your content, the more likely it will be interacted with making it more likely to be bumped to the top.

2) Start Segmenting your Facebook Content

Content is extremely segmented in an Internet forum. As an example, let’s take this bodybuilding forum:

bb forum

 

You can see that you have one board dedicated to ‘supplements’ which houses all conversations about supplements, so on and so forth which each board.

Did you know that you can do this with Facebook? (I know – I just blew your mind…).  Facebook recently introduced ‘Facebook Post Targeting’ which allows you to segment your content on Facebook (you can access it by clicking the ‘GPS Signal’).

Facebook post targeting

 

You can target ‘men’ or ‘women’ or target by relationship status, education level, etc.  So rather than just a blanket Facebook post about your brand, you can segment your post to the people who will find it the most interesting.  By putting your content in front of the right audience, you’ll grow your audience exponentially and create brand advocates because you’re sharing information that they want.

3) Shares, Likes and Comments have never been more important

With EdgeRank, it hardly mattered how many people liked, shared or commented on your Facebook post.  Now the entire Facebook algorithm is based on it, so make sure that your including a “social call to action” in at least 50% of your posts.  By a “social call to action”, I mean invite them to interact with your Facebook post: say “tell us”, “please share”, etc.  You might worry that this will dilute your post if you’re asking users to take these actions – trust me – people won’t take an action unless you tell them what action to take.  Used sparingly, these methods are extremely effective.

While I can’t say with certainty that the future of Facebook is a ‘forum style’ platform, it does seem like it’s headed to that direction.

 

Do you see similarities in Facebook and Internet messages or forums that you’ve used before?  Please, share with us!

Facebook’s Story Bump: Get Creative or Drift into Obscurity

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story bump algorithm

A new Facebook ‘Story Bump’ algorithm system released Tuesday has — in essence — given brand advertisers an ultimatum: increase engagement by producing interesting, creative content or drift into obscurity!

As of August 2013, the typical Facebook frequenter sports an average of over 141 friends, with a large chunk of the company’s primary demographic (18-24 year old’s) boasting a significantly higher accumulation (510 per user).

Facebook and its double friend request mechanism allows for an influx of content, prompting interaction and engagement among its users. On any given day, the average user’s News Feed attracts 1,500 possible stories.

Upon filtration, however, a mere 20% of the aforementioned 1,500 stories actually reach the eyes of the user.

Fast forward to Tuesday afternoon..

THE NEWS

Facebook, the world’s largest social networking platform announced that it’s altering the way it deciphers the posts you come across when you log in. The most recent photos, integrated links, videos and status updates, will be available — as usual — but now old, engaging posts that might have been overlooked the last time you checked your Facebook, will be bumped to the top of your feed.

“Our main goal is really to make the best personalized newspaper for our users,” said Facebook News Feed engineering manager Lars Backstrom on Tuesday. And the way to execute this sentiment is by putting the “best stories at the top where you’re most likely able to engage with them“.

They are calling this new algorithm, “Story Bump”.

 

HOW IT WORKS

Facebook has come along way since its inaugural days where the tech company distributed content (statuses, videos, images) on user feeds through the use of dials. Today, a systematic algorithm does the heavy lifting, highlighting the stories it assumes account holders will find most interesting on any given day.

Via Mashable:

“The process assigns each new story a score, placing the highest scoring stories at the top of the feed.

Scores are determined using a number of factors, such as the relationship you have with the user who posted it, the number of comments, the number of shares, and the number of likes that the story has accumulated.”

Very Reddit-esque..

 

WHY IT SHOULD MATTER TO YOU

After a recent test conducted by Facebook on Story Bump, it was reported that the dynamic News Feed resulted in an 8% increase in likes, comments and shares on the organic stories testers saw from Pages.

And if your organization is invested in advertisements, an 8% increase in engagement can prove to be extremely substantial to potential reach.

Whether a small brand with a fast growing following or an industry leader with millions of brand advocates worldwide, to sustain upward progress and ensure an ROI on your daily social media output, the focus must be on creation of shareable, scalable, engaging and compelling content.

For dull brands that lack innovation within the social media ecosystem, their message will continuously be replaced (on news feeds) by content more interesting and engaging.

 

KEEP YOUR BRAND CONTENT ON TOP BY:

  1. Educating – Empower your audience by providing shareable, uplifting resources. These include weekly tips, productive/industry-relative quotes, a link to current events that align with your company’s objective etc. Your fan base will recognize your brand as a source of information and will willingly visit your page for updates and share posts with their connections.

  1. Creating An Emotional Attachment – Brand loyalty is built when a unique relationship is cultivated between your brand and members of your target audience. When consistent with your company objective, infusing emotion into your culture ensures your target audience that selling isn’t necessarily a top priority.  Showcasing your company culture and embracing the community your industry inhibits creates this attachment and builds brand equity.LLS emotional attachment

  1. Prompting Fan Engagement – Allow fans to showcase their creativity through Fill in the blanks, Photo Captions Contests and answering thought-provoking Questions ensures continuous engagement on your posts! Remember, question-based posts get 100% more comments than standard text-based posts and shorter posts get 23% more interaction than posts that exceed 250 characters. So keep ‘em short and inquiring! lls engagement

  1. Using Images !! –  Dress up compelling, informative text with a compelling graphic! It’s by far the most engaging format of content on Facebook today, even receiving more likes, shares and comments than its counterpart, video. Photos eat up more space in your readers’ News Feeds and they are easier and quicker to produce than video.

By consistently integrating these simple steps into your day-to-day Facebook posting, you’ll reap the benefits of the Story Bump algorithm designed to reward user creativity…

 

… and in the process, avoid drifting into obscurity.

What’s your opinion on Facebook’s new algorithm, “story bump”? Will it affect your current Facebook strategy?