Tandem Interactive Furthers their Trendy Online Marketing Solutions at the 2016 Pubcon SFIMA Masters Group Training Session

Team Tandem is always a major part of not only Pubcon, but also the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association (SFIMA), attending all events and lending our volunteer services in any way possible. Part of what makes Tandem so great is our commitment to evolving as the world of digital marketing inevitably transforms.

Yesterday, the 2016 Pubcon SFIMA Summit began with Masters Training Sessions that included four workshop tracks to choose from: SEO Organic Traffic Optimization with Tandem Interactive’s President Joe Laratro with Bill Hunt and Eric Enge, Social Media Campaigns with Jabez LeBret, Lisa Buyer and Melissa Fach, Paid Search with Brad Geddes and Frederick Vallaeys, and Social Media Advertising with Dennis Yu and Larry Kim.

The Social Media Campaigns track that I sat in covered social media 2016 for business, visual and videos on social, social on mobile, analytics for social, influence and hacks, optimization and planning essentials and tools, as well as covered best practices for each social media platform like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ (which was barely covered due to its un-popularity).

The following is a recap of what was covered in the Social Media Campaigns track at Pubcon SFIMA:

Lisa Buyer on Social Media in 2016:

“Mobile isn’t killing our desktop, it’s killing our free time.” – Rand Fishkin

• Mobile is not taking away from desktop search and time, it is just causing us to be on devices all day, rather than simply saving our time for desktop searches during the era where there were no smart phones and mobile apps.
• Video is going to be critical this year. Last year, we really saw it coming into the market, but this year video needs to be part of your strategy; doesn’t have to be big spend but definitely should be considered.
• ‘Moments’ on Facebook should be considered. Market for moments and experiences – experiences help define social identities
• Fastest growing demographic on snapchat is actually 25 and up. 
• More customers are turning to Facebook and Twitter to leave their comments, questions, and reviews on companies
• Facebook is becoming more and more focused on their search results
• Instagram is owned by Facebook and organic still works with it, you can optimize using keywords and hashtags.
• Live streaming mobile apps are big this year - Periscope, Facebook live.
• Lisa's PR secrets: being first whenever possible - breaking a story, watching industry news, competitors, be the source of that news to your following.

Jabez on User Generated Content (UGC):

• The number one reason to focus on UGC for social is that the users create the content for you – saves you time!
•  Z Gallerie example - on Instagram they asked people to share their personal photos of their furniture in their home, tag them, etc. and then Z Gallerie shares it. 
• Send a picture with your pet and say why you are excited to go to conference, how your animal likes your new couch, etc. 
• Find hashtags that your customers use
• Have people send in their own stories in relation to your industry
• Where in your industry are things happening frequently that you can share, have consumers engage in, and build your brand for you.
• Engage with your most active commenters, say thanks for the support and being an advocate

Melissa on User Generated Content (UGC):

• If someone comments you on social media, screen shot it and share it, you can also engage and ask questions in the comments in order to get more out of it. 
• Mentions.com will email you alerts for anytime you are mentioned on social media
• Repurpose everything, embed social comments in content, do the same in emails, link to articles
• Take things that people say and link to it in content, link to a relevant old piece of content like an old blog post that relates, old article, etc.
• search for "posts about____" on Facebook and you can see what people are saying about that topic and then target them.
• Quaker Oats "send us your recipe" contest - they receive 12,000 recipes that they can now use as content
• DO NOT WRITE ALL PARAGRAPHS
• Use lists, bullet points, multiple headlines with photos, etc. People are not taking the time anymore to read long-form content. 
• Long-form is okay, but it has to be broken down with headlines or photos. This is not only a benefit for your consumer, but also for Google, to make it easier for Google to crawl as well.

Lisa Buyer on When to Post

• Analyze general best times and then best times for your particular business
• Use BufferApp to take into consideration time zones, least competitive times, worst times, network times through Facebook, etc., peak times for each network and your brand
• The worst time may actually be the best time to get through the clutter organically on social media.
• "Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are the best days to post" – Jabez
• "During the week, I see more retweets; but on the weekends, I see more clicks during off hours" – Melissa

Lisa Buyer: Social Data Tips

• Find your best content through Analytics and repurpose or re-share
• Find your best post types and use them more often
• Find your best writers based off of best content created and shown through Analytics, have them be point on content or specialty clients
• Third-party content analysis to create ideas or ‘better than them’ content
• Most mistakes on Facebook ads or promoted content are made around segmentation, you want to target well, rather than a large target audience. Spend very little, but get the most clicks out of it. 

Lisa Buyer: Facebook Tips

• When uploading a link or video - remove the link after the target pops up. This way, your entire post is clickable and delivers your target. Boosts CTR and you can edit the description to have a call to action instead - only under business profile.
• If you respond to 90% of Facebook messages within 5 minutes, you can receive a badge that marks your brand as "responds efficiently" 
• Facebook Notes is making a comeback and not a lot of businesses are taking advantage of it just yet. Repurpose blog posts into notes.
• Customize posts meta descriptions and titles
• Facebook posts should be custom, not auto-populated exact copy like from Twitter and Pinterest, even Instagram. Hashtags don’t work as well in Facebook and native posts through Facebook (not Hootsuite) perform better. 

Melissa Fach on Twitter: 

• Share industry news, even if it is not directly related to your business - aka share diabetes break through even if you are a heart surgeon.
•  Retweet brand mentions
•  Twitter update 2/10/2016 - when you open twitter after being away for a while, the Tweets you are most likely to care about will be at the top of your feed
• Twitter update 2/18/2016 80% customer service requests are happening on Twitter, brand new Twitter customer service tools - every brand should be checking Twitter daily to respond to customers
• You can now send a customer service feedback survey, or add a comment. 
•  Followerwonk breaks down your most influential followers

Lisa Buyer: Instagram

• 30 billion photos shared
• 300 million monthly active users in 2014
• 17 second videos
• Avoid posting irrelevant photos
• Avoid ignoring your followers
• You don’t have to post frequently, but make sure you are posting quality photos and visuals
• If you are not in retail, auto, travel, or finance, your industry has the potential to dominate Instagram right now
•  Instagram is great for brand awareness and being a part of a community
•  Build an Instagram plan: types of photos to share, who to target, specific hashtags determined
•  Interact with like-minded people and grow your circle

Lisa Buyer on Pinterest:

• Already 5 million costume pins for Halloween this year
• Renovations are popular when buying a new home
• People go on Pinterest for ideas and to get help completing a task
• 71% of Pinterest users are women
• However, 1/3 of new signups are now men
• There’s a tool that will tell you everything that has been shared off your website or blog
• Optimize the source URL and descriptions and captions
• Avoid pinning duplicate content
• Create boards around exact match keywords
• Make sure that you have ‘Pinable’ images on your website and blog
•  Keep track of Pinterest traffic in Google Analytics and make sure it is increasing

Jabez on LinkedIn

• Requests for help and comment - most popular LinkedIn content found by average number of likes per post
• LinkedIn will not give weight to identical content shared on its network, has to be unique and you can link back to original. 
• LinkedIn just does not have a good ROI, even for job postings, you can run a sponsored ad on Facebook and filter out the leads, as well as add a photo and get more from that job ad than LinkedIn.

Lisa Buyer: SnapChat

•  hire a snapchat influencer to take over your Snapchat account and take it to levels fast that starting from the bottom won’t
•  Ex. guy who Snapchatted for Disney, Stride Gum, and others-      
•  Figure out how your industry can be useful on Snapchat and start dominating it.

 "Snapchat is going to be huge!" - Jabez LeBret

Lisa Buyer: Avoiding PR Disasters with a Social Media Policy

• be real during a tragedy
• stop automated posts
• be respectful and make room in the newsfeed for tragedy posts by respectful news sources
• confirm sources before sharing news

If you were unable to attend the 2016 Pubcon SFIMA Summit Masters Group Training, Tandem Interactive will be giving you exclusive, live-tweeting coverage via @TandemTweets.