Paul Chaney
Paul Chaney is a contributor for Practical Ecommerce, having written his first article in August 2005.
Paul is author of The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media (published by John Wiley & Sons), and The F-Commerce Handbook: 10 Secrets for Unlocking the Sales Potential of Facebook and The Social Commerce Handbook: 20 Secrets for Turning Social Media into Social Sales, both of which are published by McGraw-Hill.
Connect with Paul via email at pchaney@gmail.com.
-
Social Media
7 Ways Merchants Can Use Twitter’s New Custom Timelines
November 27, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Twitter recently introduced a new feature called custom timelines, which are similar to Twitter lists except that you create them using tweets of your own choosing. “Custom timelines are an entirely ...
-
Social Media
7 Ways to Make Holiday Sales More ‘Pinteresting’
November 20, 2013 • Paul Chaney
The holiday season is upon us and merchants are looking for innovative ways to market their products. Pinterest is one of those ways. Its emphasis on the use of visual imagery,
-
Social Media
Twitter Redesign: Photos and Vine Video
November 13, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Twitter recently made a substantial design change by showcasing previews of photos and the first frame of Vine videos in user timelines. Previously, users had to click a link to ...
-
Social Media
Facebook Updates Page Insights; Adds New Feature
October 28, 2013 • Paul Chaney
In response to user feedback, Facebook has redesigned Page Insights to make it more actionable, simpler to use, and easier to understand. The new version helps Page administrators create better ...
-
Social Media
5 Popular Web Clipping Software Platforms
October 23, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Web clipping platforms are a convenient way to save content for sharing social updates or when conducting research for blog posts. They are designed to store information such as text,
-
Social Media
Facebook Simplifies Ad Buying for Second Time
October 15, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Facebook continues to promote its advertising products, especially among small business users. One way is by simplifying the ad purchase process. The first attempt occurred in June of this year ...
-
Social Media
Using Hashtags for Ecommerce
October 8, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Hashtags are common nowadays. They are prominent on many social networks. You see them on television commercials and programs. Late night talk show host Jimmy Fallon even has a segment ...
-
Social Media
Social Listening: Benefits, Tools, Tips
October 2, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Social media has given people a megaphone through which to share ideas, advice, and opinions about brands they do business with and products they buy. Such sharing can wield powerful ...
-
Social Media
Facebook Increases Image Size of Ads
September 25, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Facebook revised some of its ad formats recently to make them more consistent across all devices — desktop and mobile — as well as to improve performance. Ads affected by ...
-
Social Media
Twitter’s Lead Generation Ad Format Captures User Data
September 18, 2013 • Paul Chaney
In May, Twitter announced the release of Lead Generation Cards, which are designed to help advertisers highlight specific offers, products, or services and capture user interest directly from within a ...
-
Social Media
Top 10 Social Media Marketing Application Providers
September 11, 2013 • Paul Chaney
I conducted a roundup of top social media marketing app providers nearly a year ago and much has changed since then. Many have added new features and apps, integrated with ...
-
Social Media
Facebook Promotions Change Likely to Benefit Smaller Merchants
September 6, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Facebook recently announced a change to its promotions policy that is likely to have a major impact on the way retailers run contests and sweepstakes on the social network. Promotions ...
-
Social Media
Using Owned, Paid, and Earned Media — on Facebook
August 21, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Social media has redefined the way retailers market products. Direct response advertising is still useful, but it is now accompanied by an ever-increasing emphasis on content creation and word-of-mouth, which ...
-
Social Media
10 Ways to Use Pinterest for your Ecommerce Business
August 14, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Social networking sites have become more visual. This is especially the case with Pinterest. The site, which consists of images and videos arranged in a bulletin board style layout, has become one of the largest social networks. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, which rely on content from ...
-
Social Media
Facebook Announces Updates to Algorithm; Advice for Merchants
August 8, 2013 • Paul Chaney
In a press event on August 6, Facebook revealed how it determines which content gets displayed in users' News Feeds and announced changes to its algorithm. The event was held in response to criticism from both the media and Facebook users about the lack of visibility surrounding how t...
-
Social Media
Facebook Launches New Version of Insights
August 6, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Facebook just launched a new version of Insights, its analytics engine. One new addition is comparative, scorecard-style reports that enable businesses to evaluate positive and negative metrics together. Also, some elements in Insights have been renamed and the overall structure has ...
-
Social Media
How to Target Facebook Ads to your Audience
August 5, 2013 • Paul Chaney
One of the benefits of advertising on Facebook is its ability to target ads. Options include location, age, gender, interests, broad-range categories, and connections. This article outlines the different options in terms of their applicability and usefulness. Location Location incl...
-
Social Media
LinkedIn Launches Sponsored Update Advertising Program
July 31, 2013 • Paul Chaney
LinkedIn's new Sponsored Updates is a form of advertising that resembles Facebook Page Sponsored Posts. Sponsored Updates are paid Company Page status updates that, according to LinkedIn, appear in members' home page news feeds along with organic posts. Sponsored Updates can be seen o...
-
Social Media
Create a Social Hub for your Ecommerce Site
July 24, 2013 • Paul Chaney
The number of social networks in which merchants participate is on the rise. In addition to the big three — Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn — we now have Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and many others. Keeping up with all these from a merchant perspective is difficult enough, b...
-
Social Media
6 Tools to Monitor Social Media Conversations
July 11, 2013 • Paul Chaney
It is common for consumers to seek recommendations and advice from their peers on social networks, forums, or rating and review sites when considering a purchase. Whether or not you choose to proactively engage in social media, it is important to pay attention because what people say ...
-
Social Media
Podcasting: Getting Started
July 3, 2013 • Paul Chaney
One form of marketing communication that gets overlooked is podcasting. Podcasts offer several benefits, not the least of which is portability. You can listen to podcasts on the go via mobile devices and, unlike video, podcasts can run in the background while you participate in other a...
-
Social Media
8 Twitter Hashtag Tracking Tools
June 27, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Twitter hashtags are a way to organize tweets into topical groups. Tools are available that make it easy to follow hashtag-related conversations, start hashtag chats, and analyze data around their ...
-
Social Media
11 Twitter Pointers for Ecommerce Merchants
June 20, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Twitter is encouraging small businesses to use its service and has created a section on its website and a Twitter channel for that purpose. There are good reasons for ecommerce merchants to use Twitter. It's a place to share real-time information about the products you sell, engage wi...
-
Social Media
How to Use Klout for Business
June 12, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Klout is a popular influence measurement platform that ranks people based on their prominence in social media. Klout defines influence as the ability to drive an action related to someone's comments, likes, tweets and retweets. People use Klout to understand how influential they are a...
-
Social Media
How to Set Up a LinkedIn Company Page
June 10, 2013 • Paul Chaney
A LinkedIn Company Page serves as a hub where members can learn more about your company and its products and services. This is the primary way for a company to have a presence in LinkedIn. Three basic steps are involved in setting up a Company Page: Create a company profile; Add a "...
-
Social Media
Using Twitter Lists to Manage Followers
June 5, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Twitter recently lifted the limits on its lists feature. Users can now create up to 1,000 lists that each contains up to 5,000 accounts. Previously the cap was set at 20 with no more than 500 accounts in each list. Though it's unlikely that smaller ecommerce merchants would ever need ...
-
Social Media
10 Reasons to Consider Tumblr for Ecommerce Blogging
June 3, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Tumblr is a fast growing social blogging platform suited to the creation of short form, multimedia content. It became so popular that Yahoo! just acquired the company for $1.1 billion. Tumblr started six years ago as a place for creators to showcase their work and it retains that eth...
-
Social Media
Pinterest Introduces ‘Rich Pins’ for Products
May 29, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Pinterest recently introduced a new feature called "Rich Pins" that should be especially helpful to merchants. It allows companies to include key information such as pricing, product availability, and where to buy to pinned items. The information can be updated daily. Rich Pins are also...
-
Social Media
Google’s Purchase Path Tool Helps Merchants View All Marketing Channels
May 22, 2013 • Paul Chaney
The path customers take before making a purchase has become more complex due to social media. Very often, they perform extensive online research that includes reading ratings and reviews, seeking advice on social networks from friends, watching product videos, and looking at competing p...
-
Social Media
Instagram’s ‘Photos of You’ New Sharing Feature
May 15, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Popular photo-sharing app Instagram recently introduced a new sharing feature called "Photos of You," which allows users to tag other user accounts in pictures they take. For example, if a user snaps a photo of a group of friends, he or she can tag each person in the image, similar to...
Data Suggest Solid 2024 Holiday Sales
Holiday 2024 Marketing Campaigns from Top Brands
Perplexity Shopping Tests Ecommerce SMBs
Action Steps for Bing’s AI SEO Guidelines
9 Books to Strengthen Cybersecurity
How to Audit HTML Headings on Any Page
Drive More ROI from Meta and Google Ads
