Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies, 4th Edition book cover

Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies, 4th Edition

Authors:
Jan Zimmerman ,
Deborah Ng
Published: April 21, 2017
Buy on Amazon

Overview

Marketing your business through social media isn't an option these daysit's absolutely imperative. In this new edition of the bestselling Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies, you'll get comprehensive, expert guidance on how to use the latest social media platforms to promote your business, reach customers, and thrive in the global marketplace. Social media continues to evolve at breakneck speed, and with the help of this guide, you'll discover how to devise and maintain a successful social media strategy, use the latest tactics for reaching your customers, and utilize data to make adjustments to future campaigns and activities.
Marketing your business through social media isn't an option these daysit's absolutely imperative. In this new edition of the bestselling Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies, you'll get comprehensive, expert guidance on how to use the latest social media platforms to promote your business, reach customers, and thrive
in the global marketplace. Social media continues to evolve at breakneck speed, and with the help of this guide, you'll discover how to devise and maintain a successful social media strategy, use the latest tactics for reaching your customers, and utilize data to make adjustments to future campaigns and activities.
Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies Cheat Sheet

The number of outlets for social media marketing is staggering. Blogs are just the beginning. Now you can choose from social networks (such as Facebook and Twitter), social bookmarks sites (such as Mix), social pinning sites (such as Pinterest), social curating sites (such as Tumblr), social media sharing sites (such as YouTube), and even social resume sites (such as LinkedIn). [caption id="attachment_277548" align="alignnone" width="556"] © Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock.com[/caption]

About The Authors

Ric Shreves has been building websites since 1995 and creating digital marketing campaigns for almost as long. He is a former columnist for ComputerWorld magazine and has built websites for some of the world's largest brands, including BASF, Colgate-Palmolive, and Tesco. Michelle Krasniak is a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant who specializes in content marketing. She has been writing professionally for over 15 years and has a passion for helping businesses of all sizes develop content to maximize their social media presence.

Ric Shreves has been building websites since 1995 and creating digital marketing campaigns for almost as long. He is a former columnist for ComputerWorld magazine and has built websites for some of the world's largest brands, including BASF, Colgate-Palmolive, and Tesco. Michelle Krasniak is a freelance copywriter and marketing consultant who specializes in content marketing. She has been writing professionally for over 15 years and has a passion for helping businesses of all sizes develop content to maximize their social media presence.

Articles From The Book

26 results

Marketing Articles

How to Use Snapchat’s Lenses, Filters, and Geofilters for your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Snapchat allows snappers to use different lenses and filters to add whimsy and personality to snaps. Lenses can illustrate a mood, show holiday spirit, or add life and color to an image. Filters can display causes, show attendance at events, and promote a business.

Lenses

A lens adds special effects to your face, such as cat ears or a Santa hat. You set the lens in place before taking your selfie snap:
  1. In the main Snap screen, just before taking your selfie snap, press the middle of the screen (not the camera button).You’ll see a series of bubbles containing pictures. Each bubble contains a lens.
  2. Select the lens you’d like to use.
  3. You may have to drag the image around to position the filter to fit a face or head.For example, you might need to raise your eyebrows — or in the case of the vomiting rainbow, open your mouth. Follow instructions and adjust your position as needed.
  4. Take your snap and share as you normally would.

Filters

Unlike lenses, filters are added after you take your snap. For example, you can add the temperature, or a holiday garland to frame your snaps, or use a special geofilter to add your location.

Many filters are available for a limited amount of time. If you love a certain filter, make sure to snap a screenshot or save it to your Memories. You might not be able to find it again later!

To use a filter, do the following:
  1. Make sure location services is enabled on your smartphone.You can’t use filters without it.
  2. Take your snap as usual.
  3. Swipe right or left to see the different filters.
  4. Select the filter you’d like to use.
  5. Tap Send To to share as usual.

To jazz up your snaps, try using both a lens and a filter. But be careful about over embellishing. You don’t want your snap to look so busy that it loses its essence.

Geofilters

In the past, people could create on demand geofilters for special events, such as weddings and milestone parties, with the caveat that no business-related logos or branding could be used. However, Snapchat now offers brands the capability to create their own branded on-demand geofilters. Unlike the geofilters used for weddings and parties, businesses must disclose that they are behind the on-demand geofilter they created. The benefit of an on-demand geofilter is that everyone in your community can use them to commemorate an event. For example, if 1,000 people use your geofilter during your event, your branding might be seen by tens of thousands of people, if not more. Geofilters are a form of advertising that will reach Snapchat’s demographic. Businesses must follow Terms of Use when creating geofilters. For example, brands can use logos or other branded content but can't use emails, phone numbers, personal information, or images of people. Also, it should go without saying that brands can’t use illegal drugs or illegal activities in geofilters.

Take some time to familiarize yourself with Snapchat's rules regarding on-demand geofilters at its Submissions Guidelines page.

To create an on-demand geofilter for your brand, you have to use Snapchat’s website — not the app. You have to pay to create an on-demand geofilter. Filters start at $5 but prices can go much, much higher (think $400+), depending on how much space your geofilter will encompass and how much time you want it to be available. Take these steps to upload an on-demand geofilter:
  1. Go to Snapchat’s on-demand link and click Create Now.
  2. Log into your Snapchat account.
  3. Download a template.Your design team much create the geofilter according to Snapchat’s specifications. Images should be 1080 px by 1920 px and saved as a PNG file.
  4. To upload your geofilter to Snapchat, click Choose File.
  5. Select the date range in which people can use your on-demand geofilter.For example, if you are marketing for a convention, you want to select dates coinciding with that event.
  6. Select the location in which your geofilter will be used.
  7. Confirm your geofilter, and select whether it’s for personal or business use.
  8. Add payment information.
Snapchat will review your on-demand geofilter to ensure that it follows their submission guidelines. You can check on orders at the Snapchat website’s My Orders page. Snapchat will also send you an email confirmation.

Marketing Articles

How to Select Social Networks by Vertical Industry Sector

Whether you’re marketing B2B (business-to-business) or B2C (business-to-consumer), you can find dozens of industry- or interest-specific social networks. Search online for communities in your industry. As long as the social network is large enough to support your time investment and continues to attract new users, you should enjoy enough of payback to make your effort worthwhile. Vertical industry sites, other than shopping, are particularly appealing for B2B marketers. If you use some adroit maneuvering, you can intersect with the sales cycle, reaching the appropriate decision-maker with the right message. For the retail community, the growth of social shopping sites is a new avenue to reach consumers who want to spend after they see what everyone else is buying. Users flock to these sites for the latest product reviews, real-time deals, and news about the hottest items. Track results so that you can decide which sites work best for you. If a site doesn’t produce leads or sales after a few months, find another.

If you want to promote your products or services to more than one online community, customize your profiles and messages accordingly. For instance, a sporting goods store might promote camping gear on a social network for backpackers and running gear on one for joggers.

The list of vertical market social networks seems endless and ever changing. This table provides a sample of some of these networks just to give you an idea of the range. This list does not include blogs, bookmarking sites, or news aggregators.

As always, include a link to your primary website and use some of your preferred search terms in your postings and profiles. If these sites have blogs or accept photos, video, or music, you can syndicate that type of content to many sites simultaneously.

Marketing Articles

How to Monitor Your Social Mobile Impact

Mobile analytics is a bit different than web-based analytics. Because almost every social media service has a mobile application, it’s helpful to compare the effectiveness of social media in mobile versus web-based environments. You can most easily compare these platforms by segmenting social visitors. In Google Analytics, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Acquisition→ Social→ Network Referrals.
  2. Select Source from the Secondary Dimension drop-down list below the line graph. A list appears displaying social source referral URLs that may or may not include an m. to identify it as a mobile address.

You might want to set up a separate conversion funnel for social mobile users so you can track mobile results independently.

Facebook uses the internal redirects l.facebook.com and lm.facebook.com to distinguish access via http versus https protocol. Subdomain identifier l.facebook corresponds to web-based Facebook access, and lm.facebook corresponds to mobile-based access.

Like with all analytics, which elements you decide to measure and compare depend on your goals and objectives. Are you measuring the success of your own mobile site, the use of your social media pages on mobile devices, the number of visitors from social mobile pages to your primary website, or the level of foot traffic to a brick-and-mortar store? Standard site parameters, such as amount of social mobile traffic, click-through rate (CTR), number of impressions, number of page views, visit duration, and number of new versus repeat visitors still apply, of course.

Watch for variations between mobile visitors and web visitors to your social media sites on conversion rates, newsletter subscriptions, and brand recall.

Naturally, you should watch for metrics specific to mobile use, such as the following:
  • Mobile phone versus tablet.
  • Use by operating system (iOS versus Android, primarily). You can see these details in Google Analytics by choosing Audience →   Mobile →   Devices. (This approach doesn’t necessarily distinguish mobile social networks from other mobile users.)
  • Mobile payment methods, codes, and coupons.
  • Click-throughs from a social mobile site to your regular, tablet, or mobile site.
  • Click-to-call rate versus clicks to your primary, mobile, or tablet-specific site.
  • Behavioral differences between users of your social media pages on the web versus on a mobile platform.
Here are some third-party resources for mobile analytics.

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