Tips for Small Businesses Looking to Maximize Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter

Tips for Small Businesses Looking to Maximize Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter

A common mistake many companies make is treating Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter as the same. You create a social media blurb, log into your social media management tool, such as Hootsuite, and then blast out that same blurb or link or post or whatever through all of your social media networks. Huge mistake. Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks can be immensely useful, but you’ll only be able to maximize their value if you treat each of them separately and craft your messages to fit each one.
Each post needs to be optimized for each social media network. The audiences and behavioral patterns for every social network are distinct. Even if it’s the same person logging into Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin, that person will use each network differently. So if you want to reach this person, your best bet is to acknowledge these differences, and to then craft messages that will key into their wants and behaviors on each network.
We’re going to jump into the details for all three networks, but it’s important understand two things. First, preferences can vary from person-to-person and company-to-company. Second, social media platforms and user preferences are constantly evolving. We’re going to provide you with the most up-to-date and well-researched insights possible, but remember to experiment. You may uncover insights particular to your audience, or evolving platforms and expectations might offer you new opportunities.
  1. Facebook for small businesses
    Via Pixabay
    Facebook is often the first social media platform businesses turn to, and for good reason. With approximately 1.79 billion active monthly users (3rd qtr. 2016), Facebook is by far the largest single social media network in the world, and while growth has slowed, it’s shown no signs of stopping.
    Facebook also makes it easy for businesses and other organizations to set up “pages” that people can then like and follow. Many businesses set up pages, but fail to utilize them properly. First, it’s important to understand why most people are using Facebook. They aren’t looking to be sold something, they often aren’t looking for any particular information at all. Instead, they’re looking to be social, to interact with friends and family, and to catch up on what other people are doing.
    Your goal is to fit into this social experience. You don’t want to be the annoying business that talks about itself, and its products 24/7. Instead, try to build up relationships with your viewers, and when you do promote yourself, try to make it personal, or else offer a great deal. Talk about your employee of the month, for example, and why she’s such a great worker. Or offer your Facebook followers a free cup of coffee if they swing by your restaurant.
    With this general business Facebook strategy in mind, let’s dig into some more specific details.
Facebook user
via Pixabay

Practical Facebook Tips For Small Businesses:

  1. Post up High Quality Pictures: More so than Twitter or Linkedin, Facebook is quite picture heavy. Post up genuine, high quality photos of your staff, your products and other things. Of course, you have to be careful not to come across as spammy.
  2. Write longer, more in-depth posts: No, you’re not working on the next great American novel, but people will read longer posts on Facebook. One study found that posts of 80 words or more get 2X as much engagement.
  3. Engage during “social” times: As a social experience, most people Facebook outside of work. Try posting up your posts while people aren’t at work. After hours and on the weekends are great times to post to your profile or page.
  4. Use punctuation widely but prudently: Hashtags and question marks can lead to big jumps in interaction (according to one study, 60% and 23% respectively). Exclamation points can lead to increased engagement too, but don’t over do it or you’ll come off as spammy.

2. Maximizing Linkedin: Be Professional, Be Helpful, Be Informative

Linkedin for SMEs
By Nan Palmero
Linkedin is home to fewer users than Facebook, and yet for many businesses and individuals, it is emerging as perhaps the most important single social media network. Why? Because Linkedin offers a large number business opportunities and potential connections. When people log into Linkedin they’re usually in a business mindset, looking to improve their careers or find great opportunities, or to connect with other professionals. Linkedin now offers a lot of opportunities for businesses and professionals looking to promote themselves.
When using Linkedin, you should consider how you can add value to people, and specifically their industries and careers. You can and should post frequent status updates. Read a great article in an industry magazine? Tell your connections. Just get invited to speak at an upcoming conference? Let your audience know the details. You can promote new products and services too, but don’t over do it, make sure your posts are organic and diversified.
Linkedin also offers opportunities to publish articles or posts. This way, you can show off your industry knowledge to your connections. Writing articles is time consuming, and you’ll likely attract only a small number readers at first. Yet doing so offers you a great way to show off your skills and to build up industry recognized expertise.


Linkedin art
By MarkoProto (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Practical Linkedin Tips For Small Businesses:

Make your titles short and to the point: Keep your titles to 70 characters or less, or the title will get cut off. Besides, people are going to be in “business mode” while on Linkedin. They’ll be glancing through posts and updates, looking for professional articles that add a lot of value.
Make link descriptions info and value packed: You get 250 characters to offer a link description for your post. Make sure you use these characters wisely. What will readers learn? Why should they read the post? How will it add value to readers, their careers, and their companies?
Sharing is caring- Want more engagement? Share links. Looking for comments? Try sharing images. How about shares? Include some videos. Further, if you’re writing posts make sure you slot in a good number of images, charts, and other visuals. At least two images/charts per 500 words is a good rule of thumb.
Publish regularly- You should publish status updates roughly once a day. By publishing twenty status updates a month, you’ll reach at least 60% of your audience, according to Linkedin. Further, if you want to become a thought leader, you should publish at least one article a week. By being consistent you can transform yourself into a genuine voice within your industry.
Publish during professional downtimes- Most people check Linkedin while they are at work. Problem is, people at work are often quite busy. So try publishing early in the morning (7:30 to 8:30AM), at lunch (12pm), or when people are winding down for the evening (5 to 6PM). Experiment as well. Sometimes odd hours, like Sunday afternoon, can pay off for your individual audience.

3. Maximizing Twitter: Be Punctual, To-the-Point, and Engaging

Twitter
Elisa Riva via Pixabay
Twitter has evolved into a sort of announcement and blasting platform. People don’t log into Twitter to read long posts, they visit the site on to get the latest happenings and juiciest tidbits. With Twitter you get only 140 characters to get your message across. You can also share links, and images (including ones with longer letters and articles), but by and large those 140 characters are what drives the Twitosphere.
Some businesses have been skipping Twitter because the platform itself is rumored to be “dying”. Huge mistake. Twitter isn’t dying, but it is evolving, and the way people use it is changing. It’s true, fewer “average citizens” are using Twitter, but the platform is still very popular for celebrities, politicians, and especially brands and companies.
As a constant interaction platform, Twitter now lags far Facebook. As a platform for announcements, Twitter is more popular than ever. Go read some articles on CNN or another news site and you’re sure to find embedded Tweets and other mentions of people and companies announcing this or that on Twitter.
Every medium-sized and larger company, and companies of all sizes working in niches, should have a Twitter account. Thought leaders tend to be active on Twitter, and often niche topics, like government software, or point-of-sales systems, or whatever, tend to be very active. By being active on Twitter you can start to network with thought-leaders in your own niche, which could be very valuable later on down the road.
Twitter
Via Pixabay

Practical Twitter Tips For Small Businesses:

Keep your Tweets short and to the point: When you’re writing Tweets, think of it as spending money on every word and every character. Obviously, you’d want to spend as little “money” as possible while producing the best results, right? That’s how it works with Twitter. You have very little space, so used it wisely and prudently.
Give shout outs- You can include other brands and companies’ Twitter handles in your Tweets, and you should. If you’re using stats from McKinsey Consulting, give them a shout out! You can and should also tag individual users via their handles. This increases the chances of them engaging with and retweeting you.
Don’t overdo hashtags- Hashtags (#) allows you to index keywords and topics, and can help you build an audience. Use them! But don’t use too many. Most of the time, it’s best to keep it to two or three hashtags. Also, don’t try to force trending hashtags, and if you’re operating in a niche, remember to prioritize that niche, not hashtags.
Pay close attention to your links: First, you should include links in quite a number of your Tweets. Second, you should put those links in the middle or even beginning of your Tweet, rather than the end. Third, use a URL shortener! This will shrink the size of your link, leaving you with more space to Tweet.
Pay attention to publishing times- As always, experimentation is good. As a general rule of thumb, publishing Monday-Thursday, 1-3PM will get the most clicks, while publishing between 4 and 5 PM on Fridays will get the most retweets.

Conclusion: Social Media is a Powerful Tool for Small Businesses

Every small business should have a social media presence. If you own a brick and mortar business, make sure you have an up-to-date Facebook page. If you’re a professional, say a consultant or accountant, make sure you are active on Linkedin. If branding is important, head to Twitter. Ideally, you should be active on multiple social media networks, but remember, you can’t treat them as the same!

The Future of Work is the Freelancer

There is no doubt that being an entrepreneur is hard work, the hardest I’ve had to work in my whole career. Corporate life was, by comparison, easy. However the rewards have been plentiful, and entirely within my control and influence. I can’t imagine returning to the insecurity of a corporate role.

Yes, you read that right, the insecurity of a corporate role. Why do I say that? Because the regular paycheck that employees receive gives the illusion of security. When you realize that many states in the USA operate an “at will” employment relationship, you understand that this “security” is merely an illusion. You could walk into the office tomorrow and find yourself without a job for any reason; not a heinous mistake; not a poor performance review; simply because.

The reality is we are all insecure workers in the 21st Century workplace.

It’s reported that more than 40% of the workforce is likely to be an independent worker by 2020 it’s apparent that legislation will need to move quickly in order to keep up. In the book The Alliance, Reid Hoffman (Cofounder of LinkedIn), shares his vision for the future of work. He states that the days of the career for life are gone, instead it’s the concept of “tours of duty” where the nature of work is becoming more fluid, and where individuals with specific skills are hired to complete a specific project.

Work has come full circle

In many ways the freelance workforce is old news. Look back two-hundred years, before the industrial revolution that brought about the modern workplace, and you’d find a freelance economy where work was a 24x7 endeavor. In fact, the very word “freelance” is from medieval times when knights, who had not pledged loyalty to one family, were available to fight, whether in tournaments or in battle, for those willing to pay for their service—the ultimate Free-Lancers.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution people worked for themselves or in small family groups, and usually out of their home or nearby. The proverbial butcher, baker, and candlestick maker were the industries of their day. People's relationship with work was fluid, and integrated into their lifestyle. The Industrial revolution brought about automation which centralized production, brought the individual worker out of their weaving loft into the factories, and brought the farm workers to the burgeoning towns to seek a different type of employment, as the hired hands within the factories.

We're all 21st Century Freelancers
These times were not all idyllic and painless. There were riots, there was resistance, and there were even organized protests. “Luddites” were real people, textile workers, who saw the newfangled factories and massive looms as a threat to their existence and way of life. It's safe to say the stress-management industry we know today was not yet in existence.

The Luddite of today may not be smashing equipment with hammers or throwing clogs into the machinery, but their concerns are very real. Warnings of driverless cars and advances in artificial intelligence fuel a new fear, a fear of the unknown impact on how we interact as human beings.

The rapid acceleration of new technologies is having a direct impact on how and where work is done, and a transformational impact that far surpasses the impact of the Industrial Revolution. We’re now in the midst of the digital revolution, one that requires not just hired hands, but the hired minds and hired hearts that fuel creativity and innovation.

Fiverr.com, Upwork.com, and TaskRabbit.com are platforms connecting a global army of freelancers with opportunities that match their skills. Tapping into the flexible economy will allow companies to scale up and down rapidly in response to market and project needs. Tapping into the flexible economy allows each of us to augment our ‘day-job’ with part time, in the moment work that supplements our income or taps into our creative passions through our shopfronts on Etsy.com. It is also the launching point for many start-up service businesses, easing the transition for the founder from employee to solopreneur.

Make sure you pack your waterwings.

The 21st century workplace makes it much harder to be the big fish in a small pond. No longer are individual employees competing in a local market for the next opportunity, instead we’re all swimming in the Global Talent Pool.

When it comes to finding new sources of talent it seems that 21st Century companies are destined to play a never-ending game of global whack-a-mole. As fast as a new talent hot spot pops up, whether it’s a city or a country, other companies quickly follow—draining the pond and market of talent. Everyon then rushes off to anticipate and capture the next talent hot spot.

Transparency and opportunity on the Internet means we are now competing with an unseen colleague who may be thousands of miles, and many time zones, away. When you’re sleeping, they’re working.

Work is no longer the mythical 9-5 office-bound activity. In today’s world, work can happen anytime, anyplace, and with anyone. The lines between work-time and personal-time are blurred. It’s no longer a question of work-life balance and trying to fit everything else around a standard workday. Rather, the evolving expectation is how work and life are a braided system, blended, overlapping, and seamless.

The future of work will center on the fluid workforce, the gig economy, and the freelancer. As such we all need to embrace the insecure workplace, and change our mindset from “I’m an employee” to “I’m a freelancer who is currently retained by this company.”

Google's Mobile-Friendly Test API

Google Mobile-Friendly Test API
Google Introducing the Mobile-Friendly Test API

Tuesday, January 31, 2017 at Webmaster Central Blog Google Introduced the Mobile-Friendly Test API. As You already know that from last year, Google is pushing to promote and reward mobile-friendly websites continues today with the news that it’s opening up its mobile-friendly test tool to developers via an application programming interface (API).

Google first launched the tool back in 2014 as an easy way to help businesses, bloggers, and developers figure out whether their website fit Google’s “mobile friendly” criteria. These include whether the site avoids software such as Flash, uses text that can be easily read on a small screen, and has content that adapts to suit a screen without requiring the user to “scroll” horizontally or zoom. With the mobile-friendly test tool, all you need to do is plug your web address into the search box, and Google will tell you if it passes the Google’s “mobile friendly” criteria.

Google’s John Mueller Wrote,
"With so many users on mobile devices, having a mobile-friendly web is important to us all. The Mobile-Friendly Test is a great way to check individual pages manually. We're happy to announce that this test is now available via API as well. 
The Mobile-Friendly Test API lets you test URLs using automated tools. For example, you could use it to monitor important pages in your website in order to prevent accidental regressions in templates that you use. The API method runs all tests, and returns the same information - including a list of the blocked URLs - as the manual test. The documentation includes simple samples to help get you started quickly.  
We hope this API makes it easier to check your pages for mobile-friendliness and to get any such issues resolved faster. We'd love to hear how you use the API -- leave us a comment here, and feel free to link to any code or implementation that you've set up! As always, if you have any questions, feel free to drop by our webmaster help forum."
The testing tool is a useful way to manually check whether a specific Website or URL plays nice with mobile phones, but by introducing an API, Google is enabling webmasters and developers to integrate the tool with automated software. So, for example, this could be used to automatically track specific pages on a website to avert accidental changes that make a page not-so-suitable for small screens.

The API launch fits in with Google’s broader push to treat websites that have been built with mobile users in mind more favorably. Last year, the search giant revealed it would begin ranking “mobile-friendly” sites even higher in their organic search results, though it had been labeling sites as mobile-friendly for some time already. And back in November, Google announced it would “eventually” switch to using the mobile versions of websites, rather than desktop versions, in search result rankings.


Information and advice about Google Phantom 5, the SEO update of 07/02/17

At the beginning of February 2017, particularly on the 7th, Google made an important update of its algorithm, with big impacts for some sites. In the absence of official announcement, the world SEO talks about the update "Phantom 5" whose characteristics are as follows.

We have already seen several unofficial updates of the Google algo that seem to touch the quality assessment (in addition to Panda): they are grouped in the "Phantom family".

After Phantom 2 in May 2015, Phantom 3 in November 2015 and the 4 in June 2016, here is Phantom 5 in February 2017!

For now I am getting closer to the conclusions of other specialists (eg Glen Gabbe or SearchMetrics ). As with other "Phantom" updates, it seems that Google's algo is getting better and better at estimating the user's satisfaction level.

Here are the ideas of Search Metrics:

  • Phantom focuses on "quality of content (which requires a complex evaluation)
  • The algo works URL by URL: its impact is at the level of individual pages, or directories, but not entire sites
  • Deployment may take several weeks.
  • The big brands are often among the winners (or the losers!), Probably because it concerns a lot the marks requests
  • Sites are often "impacted" by several algorithms or updates, and sometimes as both winners and losers
  • The big changes are often related to trademarks or long head tags ( head keywords )
  • User-related criteria appear to play a role in quality assessment. In particular, the intention of the user is a major aspect.

I suggest you re-read what I explained in 2011: the behavior of the user is monitored by Google , in particular the Internet user who comes from the SERP .

If your site (or your client's site) is too big, it may be difficult to evaluate which pages have quality issues. I suggest you "roughen the ground" by identifying pages that have relatively obvious problems.

This is a crawler that generates an SEO audit report understandable by all, with full explanations and all necessary appendices.

Internet Marketing News of The Week

Google’s mobile interstitial demotion updates when page recrawled

If your site has mobile interstitials or popups on it, you will need to wait for Google to recrawl each individual page before the demotion will be removed.

You can submit individual pages or individual pages and the links in Google’s Fetch and Submit tool in Search Console, if you want to get a jump start on the recrawl.

We try to launch all our algorithms globally now: Google

Google used to launch specific algorithms in different regions. Like with Panda, when it launched, it launched in English regions only at first. Then it was pushed to other language afterwards.

Gary Illyes from Google said now, when Google launches new algorithms, they try hard to make sure it is a global launch. He said on Twitter, 'nowadays we're working hard launching everywhere at once.

Google’s algorithms can ignore rel canonical when URLs contain different content

Google’s John Mueller explained if you are canonicalizing one url to another, but the content is different on both pages, then Google’s algorithms might think you made a mistake by using rel canonical. And if that happens, then Google may simply index the url that’s being canonicalized anyway.

DuckDuckGo: 10 billion private searches & counting

Privacy focused search engine DuckDuckGo] surpassed a cumulative count of 10 billion anonymous searches served, with over 4 billion in 2016!

People are actively seeking out ways to reduce their digital footprint online. For example, a Pew Research study reported '40% think that their search engine provider shouldn’t retain information about their activity.

Google's Gary Ilyes: use nofollow when linking to bad sites
Google's Gary Illyes said this morning on Twitter that it makes sense to use the nofollow link attribute when you link to bad sites.

So when linking out to bad sites, and your gut makes you feel bad about it, use the nofollow [attribute].

Google' John Mueller: don't build links from Google Sheets

Someone asked Google's John Mueller if they can use Google Sheets to build links. Basically, make a public Google Sheets page, post a ton of links on it and get Google to index the page.

Of course, John Mueller was like - why are you wasting your time with that?

the mobile first index will take some time: Google

In a Google webmaster hangout, Google’s John Mueller said that Google will release the mobile-first index later this year.

I don’t know about Q1 but it is differently not like next week where we will be switching [the mobile first index] on.

No need to change canonicals from desktop for mobile first indexing

If you are updating any canonicals, you do not need to update all desktop/mobile canonicals on your site to make the mobile version be the primary URL.

Sites do not have to make changes to their canonical links; we’ll continue to use these links as guides to serve the appropriate results to a user searching on desktop or mobile.

Google’s penalty for intrusive interstitials on mobile websites now live

Google’s John Mueller and Google’s Gary Illyes both confirmed that Google started to roll out the penalty for mobile websites that use intrusive interstitials.

The new penalty does not impact desktop searches. It seems that some websites lost 10 positions after the release of the new penalty. Some examples can be found here.

How search engines see entities and what you have to do about it: New Google Patent

Recently, Google was granted a patent with the name "Question answering using entity references in unstructured data". The patent is long and full of technical lingo but if offers some insights into how Google finds relevant information on your web pages.

What are entities?

According to the patent, an entity is "a thing or concept that is singular, unique, well-defined and distinguishable. For example, an entity may be a person, place, item, idea, abstract concept, concrete element, other suitable thing, or any combination thereof." In other words, an entity is something that people search for on Google. The patent explains how Google might find information on the pages that are not organized in a pre-defined manner, i.e. regular web pages that can have any kind of layout and code design.

How do you have to adjust your web pages?

Google's algorithms try to find the connections between the different pages and the topics that they find. There are some things that you can do to make sure that Google finds the right "entities" on your pages:


  • Make sure that your pages are relevant to a topic
  • The structured markup code of your web site is important
  • The structure of your web pages is important


The patent does not contain new information. It just confirms that Google is able to see your website as a whole and that they are able to put your website into a greater context with other websites.

Even without dedicated structured data code, your website visitors and search engines should be able to recognize the structure of your website. The easier it is to find the structure of your website, the better.