Social media for business in 2014

One of the biggest changes in the past year in social media has been advertising. Now there will be video ads on Facebook, ads and sponsored tweets on Twitter and sponsored posts on Instagram. Many apps, like ESPN, have added small banner ads across their pages.

People, especially the 18-35 demographic, are using their cell phones more and computers less. Ads are showing up everywhere in the mobile realm.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram are leading the pack for social media right now. Of course, that can change almost overnight with social media. Because of the nature of the beast, things happen in an instant.

To keep your business on the cutting edge of the social media revolution, you need to be active. Whether or not you advertise on social media sites is up to you, but you should get involved in some way if you are going to keep up with your competitors.

What will happen in the coming months? No one really knows. Little apps or sites that no one uses now, might just be the biggest thing since Facebook. Social media users are fickle.

Check your Klout.com score. See how you stack up against your competition. Get analytics for your website and see if your clients are coming from social media sites and whether they are using computers or phones to reach you. Look at your website on a mobile phone and see if it looks the same as on your computer.

Let’s say goodbye to 2013 and welcome faster, more sleek apps, social media and mobile sites in the coming year.

Making the most of trending topics

If you have a Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Vine or other social media page to help grow your business, you should take note of what is trending. Try to connect something from the topics to your business. Many times social media is trending. Everyone who has a social media account can relate to that.

Other times there are sports figures, politicians, criminals, natural disasters or other current events trending. Anniversaries of big news stories often make the list.

What are trending topics? These are the most popular topics on social media right now. They change, usually many times per day. But the big stories always are on the list. Search engines also list trending topics so you can find them on Bing or Google.

By using the hashtag (#) and a trending topic on Twitter, your term becomes searchable. So, if wild fires are trending and you put #wildfires in your post, people who search for that hashtag will find your information. You need to stick to the topic for this to be effective. You can send good wishes to people who are in danger of losing their homes from the wildfires. If you have a product, say smoke detectors, that have a natural connection with the trending topic it works best. You can use that to your advantage and help funnel traffic to your social media pages and your website.

Make sure it is a natural fit. If you check trending topics every day, you will find something every now and then that works with your business. You cannot force the issue. It can backfire and result in people making negative comments.

Keep posting on your social media pages. Make it a daily habit. You will find that you gain new followers, likes and connections.

Swinging out on Vine

At first I was apprehensive. Isn’t that the way with every new social media? I want to try it, but it’s different. Along with most people, I am not so good with change. And social media is constantly changing!

So, what is Vine, anyway? Think of Instagram with a 6-second video. In fact that’s what Twitter is calling it and they are the company who released it. It’s a video sharing app, but here’s the fun part… the videos are only a few seconds long and they are a continuous loop. 

Here's a link to a Vine video.

All you have to do to take the video is hold your finger down. Let go, reposition things, hold your finger again. You can take a continuous video, or start and stop several times. It is user-friendly, which makes it more fun and bound to be a huge hit.

How can you grow your business with Vine? I don’t mean to put down consumers, especially since we are all consumers, but the majority of people have the attention span of a gnat these days. A 6-second video is just what is needed to get a quick point across to the consumer.

Do you have an amazing product? Show it! Take one second from far away, get a little closer for a second or two, keep moving forward and adding to the video until you are close to the product. There’s your video.

Do you clean houses? Show a messy room for a second, a person dusting for a second, vacuuming for a second, etc. In the end, you show the clean room.

Have a clothing store? Show someone trying on clothes. Make it like a time lapse series. A person wearing one outfit, then another and another. There is your video.

Teaching your dog to sit? Same thing. Show it!

Once you create your video, you can share it on Vine, Twitter and/or Facebook. You can “like” and make comments on other people’s videos as well.

They are organized by hashtag (#), which categorizes the videos. Be sure to add a description and hashtag when posting your videos.

There is a bit of bad news for anyone without an iphone or ipod touch. It is not available for other formats just yet.

Instagram, the inauguration and growing your business

While those of us in Baltimore are still celebrating last night’s Ravens win, the rest of the country is getting watching the inauguration and enjoying MLK Day. According to CNN, this will be the biggest event in the history of Instagram. Never before have so many people been able to use their cell phones to send messages out to the while world.

As photo sharing programs grow in popularity, you too can take advantage of this media to share photos of your business. Millions of people are out there waiting to see your images. Make them interesting and engaging and you will surely succeed.

How do you accomplish that? One way is to add a comment that is a call to action. Pose a question that you hope will elicit responses. Put a photo of a product you sell and ask people about it. Try to make your photos interesting and not just a picture of an item with a plain background. Have someone hold it, shoot it from a bit of an angle, do something to make the photo come to life.

Blurry photos are never good. No matter what filters you add or what program you use, it will still be blurry. Take a little time to get it right.

A funny or amusing photo will often get people to comment or share the picture. Adorable animal photos are extremely popular as are funny baby pictures. Photo bombing pictures, where a person or animal seems to have popped up out of nowhere taking over the photo, are always a favorite.

If you are well-versed in Photoshop, it can make all the difference in the world. Using filters, special effects and cropping will enhance the picture. Effective use of Photoshop to add a humorous element to the photo will add a little magic to your image.

So on this inauguration day, think about ways you can engage and entertain your own audience with the passion that this day holds for Americans.

Social media year in review

This has been the most spectacular year for those of us involved in social media. The entire industry has grown in leaps and bounds. More entrepreneurs and companies are using it to help grow their businesses. Athletes, musicians and individuals are so involved in social media that they use it multiple times every day.

Here are some of the highlights of 2012:

• Facebook stock goes public. Mark Zuckerberg gets even richer.
• Facebook buys Instagram for a big pile of money.
• Obama is called the “cool” president, has impromptu visit on Reddit and crashes the system.
• Infographics are on the rise, using pictures and words to get a message to huge numbers of people.
• Twitter had a record number of tweets during Super Storm Sandy.
• Angry Cat and other fun memes flood social media.
• Pinterest becomes 6^th most popular social media.
• Finding lost kids is enhanced with social media. Since it is incredibly fast, it gets the word out almost immediately.
• Gangnam Style goes viral. Do you know how to do that dance?
• Find lost pets, rehoming pets. Gets the word out faster and to more people than traditional methods.
• The new MySpace – it’s bigger, better than ever and making a comeback.
• Instagram changes policy, people get angry, Instagram changes it back in a matter of a couple days.
• School shooting in Newtown, CN has social media ablaze with outrage, gun control opinions, tributes and an outpouring of emotions.

No one wants to read text these days. That’s why this list is a list, in bullet form. Infographics are snowballing in popularity because the graphics make it simpler than a paragraph of words, to get the information to the masses. People all over the world want instantaneous information and they do not want to spend a lot of time reading it.

The best thing that happened in 2012 with social media is that people now take this method of communication seriously – more now, than ever before. So, here’s to the end of 2012 and to watching social media grow even bigger than anyone ever imagined in 2013!

Instagram chief bends to pressure

The people have spoken. After the deluge of people bombarding instagram over their recently announced policies to take ownership of all photos beginning Janaury 2013, they have scrapped the idea.

Instagram CEO, Kevin Systrom wrote, “The concerns we heard about from you the most focused on advertising, and what our changes might mean for you and your photos.”

While claiming that people misunderstood his intentions, Systrom continued, “Because of the feedback we have heard from you, we are reverting this advertising section to the original version that has been in effect since we launched the service in October 2010.”

Once again, this is proof of how powerful social media is. In just a matter of a couple days, the photo sharing app changed its plan. The announcement was made, people were appalled and began deleting the app or simply stopped using it.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, purchased the popular Instagram in 2012 for about a billion dollars in stock and cash. With over 100,000 million users, he could not afford for everyone to switch to another way to share photos.

Twitter is ramping up its photo sharing feature. It is now more flexible and user-friendly to compete with other apps. People can post pictures directly from the Twitter app. I often use this photo sharing feature when I am posting on Twitter.

When using a photo app to grow your business, there are so many options. During the past two days, I tried a number of other apps, but didn’t find anything that I liked as much as Instagram.

While Pinterest is a nice app, without the photo editing options Instagram has, it has a different focus. Pinterest is more about sharing photos you see on websites and less about promoting your own photos.

Since I am one of the multitude of Instagram users, I am thrilled that they will be changing their proposed plans. And I feel good about using the app again.

Instagram’s latest policy may cause them to go extinct

After all of the great times we’ve had with Instagram, the latest news might be the end of the popular app. Starting mid-January, Instagram, which was recently purchased by Facebook, has the rights to use any photos posted on the app. They can even use the photos for the purposes of advertising their product or selling photos without even giving any credit to the person who took the photo. What’s up with that? 

This is a perfect example of how social media can create change in a company. People have about a month to start bombarding Instagram with angry messages about how they want their photos to belong to them and not to be used or sold without compensation. 

Recent updates have given more options to the Instagram app. They added another photo style and changed the look of the program. This is supposed to make it more attractive to users. But the idea of the program selling photos without compensating or even acknowledging their users seems a bit unfair. There are plenty of other companies, like Hipstimatic, will be happy to have new users switch to their product.

I noticed that a few of my Facebook friends posted that they closed their Instagram accounts today. National Geographic has suspended posting photos as of this evening. I have a friend who is a photographer for them and he makes crazy money on each photo. Knowing that Instragram can use photos for free that after they pay tons of money to their photographers is going to keep them from posting anything. Their pictures were honestly the most amazing things I’ve seen on Instagram [not including family stuff].

This situation is quite a big deal in the realm of social media. A lot of people promote their businesses by using this app, but are not going to give Instagram free access to photos they pay to use themselves.

You have until January 16, 2013 to quit using the app or accept the fact that your photos are no longer your own. There are other, not as popular photo apps, that can be used instead. Whether Instagram changes their policy may depend on complaints and whether or not people jump ship and stop using this app.

Twitter to make changes

What makes Instagram better than Twitter? Nothing soon! Twitter is going to add Instragram-like photo editing features to the mobile page putting it in direct competition with the well-known photo app. So, how does this help Twitter? It gives people more incentive to stay on the site longer.

Any time you stay on a site or app, they benefit. Advertisers have a better chance to grab your business. And, at the same time, they are taking business away from other mobile apps.

All of these apps are trying to one-up each other. Guess who benefits? We do, as consumers. The apps are becoming more sophisticated and provide new options, as people get more attached to them. Many apps come in and out of popularity, but Twitter has had staying power.

Right now, many people including Twitter VIPs, actors and athletes, are taking a photo with their phone, manipulating it in Instagram and then posting it to social media. By giving users the option to edit the photo right in the Twitter app, it saves a step. In the settings section, users can set up their Twitter page to post everything on both Facebook and Twitter. That saves social media people like me, precious time and effort. Removing the need for Instagram would make things even easier.

I’ve been a huge fan of Twitter from the first time I used it because of the 140 character limit. While some people see that as a negative, I love it. I feel like you should be able to sum up anything with 140 characters. It eliminates the fluff and reduces your message to the real facts.

Too bad social media can’t change the weather

While the weather can change social media, it’s too bad it can’t be the other way around. Of course, Hurricane Sandy is trending and so is FEMA while the wind whips around my house and knocks branches off the trees. Just as I typed this, a big gust of wind hit and my dog went flying upstairs to hide.

In Baltimore, we’re bracing for heavy-duty winds from now until about 2 a.m. I can only hope my power holds out through the worst of it. My neighborhood has above ground lines so we lose power quite often during bad storms.

Social media is obviously abuzz over this storm. Not only are people posting about power outages, weather updates, but crazy photos of Godzilla walking in New York Harbor and the State of Liberty with a ominous looking, swirling cloud have been Photoshopped. Don’t believe everything you see, people!

Some of us, who are considered technically savvy people, look at every photo with a little bit of skepticism. We’ve manipulated photos enough to look the way we want them that we are naturally looking for shadows that don’t all go in the same direction or other signs of photo altering.

Knowing that people are home from work, and surfing cyberspace to wait out the storm, gives some of us the opportunity to reach people who don’t always see what we post. And, it’s nice to know that I can look on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Google+ and see that my friends are “hunkered down” as Baltimore’s mayor told us to do. I’m sure all of social media is working with higher than normal traffic.

I can at least see that my friends and family members are okay, when they are posting status updates and photos or forwarding someone else’s photos. Surfing and reading, that’s really a relaxing thing to do while you are “hunkering down.”

Cross your fingers, offer a good thought and let’s keep spirits up during Mother Nature’s latest attack on us. She seems really pissed today.

Photo sharing fun

Have you purchased anything that needs to be assembled lately? If so, you might have noticed that many things do not have words in their instructions. It’s all symbols and drawing. Maybe it is because the products are sold all over the world, but I wonder if it is not something else. It seems that today, sharing drawings, photos and videos is becoming just as important as sharing the written word.
 

Choosing a way to share your photos has become a competitive industry. There are many from which to choose: Hipstamatic, Pinterest, Instagram or a host of other apps that allow people to share their smart phone photos with the world. They are all easy to use, for the most part.

Original photo on left, edited version on right.

 Hipstamatic wants people to find that artist within themselves. Pinterest seems to concentrate on style and fashion. Instagram became popular as a way to share food photos. Millions of people are using them, deciding which one(s) to use is a dilemma. It seems like just when I get used to using something, it falls out of favor and another has come to take its place. At the same time, I do not want to neglect the people I have already made a connection with. I end up dividing my time and photos among various photo sharing options.

Most of the photo sharing apps will allow the user to edit, crop and change the lighting. Many can make the photo look old-timey, artsy or have some special effect that makes a poor quality photo appear like the photographer did it on purpose (always good for my sad photography skills). Photos can be imported from the phone’s camera roll or taken through the app, manipulated and then exported to other social media sites. It is a way for people to share photos of every aspect of their lives, which seems to be important these days. 

Original photo on left, edited version on right.

And, 300 words in, I get to the point. You can drive prospective clients to your website, blog or other page with your amazing photos. Allow people to get to know your brand. Use descriptions with hashtags making your photos searchable. Follow people who are in your target audience. They just might follow back. You can add text to the actual photo in some apps. Add your website. Give the people a way to find your business.

People are making money using these apps by funneling business to their more serious website, Facebook page, Twitter page, Google+ or blog.

Take some photos and give it a try. Who doesn’t like taking pictures? I took about 20 photos while walking my dog the other way to give a new app a try (see above). It is a fun way to get your message to the masses and grow your business.

Instagram for fun and profit

While I’ve been an avid user of many social media sites, I only recently started using Instagram. As a rival to Pinterest, businesses can take advantage of this very visual medium to spread the word of their brand. Unlike Pinterest, users can edit their photos.

Last night I went to a happy hour event to say goodbye to a friend who is moving out of town. It just so happened there was a big rally for the Ravens going on at the same time. I snapped a photo of a car – Ravens purple – on display.  Not bad, right?

Because a picture is worth a thousand words, take advantage and start posting. Whether you have photos of people, movie stars, athletes, food pics, crafting projects, flowers or whatever – you can spread a message visually. Use this free service to grow your business. Think of all the images that define who you are and what you do. Then go take some pictures.

Just about everyone has a camera on his/her phone. With Instagram, you can add a little flair to your pics and make them look old-timey or change the warmth of the photo. Essentially, you can make fairly awful pictures look pretty good – or at least make them look artsy!

Instagram started gaining popularity as a business tool with chefs showing off their delicious food. If you have ever taken a photo of food, it generally looks terrible – unless you have professional equipment and great lighting. Using the various tools on Instagram, you can make your dinner plate look much more appetizing.

Just like with Twitter and Pinterest, you can add hashtags to keywords in your descriptions. You should use descriptions of the photos when using Instagram for business purposes to help people find you when they search keywords or terms.

Wordpress and other websites have Instagram widgets that can add up to 20 photos onto your web page. This keeps your site ever-changing as you regularly update photos. We all know how much people love to see new content. It gives your clients a reason to keep checking back with your site or your Instagram page.

Since I just started using Instagram, I don’t have much on my page yet. But you can find me under the name snakecharmed.