Social Media
Our social media marketing coverage addresses management tools, educational courses, platform tips, social analytics, and strategies for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more. We’ve interviewed merchants who rely on social media traffic, and vendors who provide specialized services.
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Social Media
Does Social Media Impact Ecommerce Sales?
December 4, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Black Friday online sales hit a record of $1.2 billion, according to published reports. But only a very small percentage of those sales could be attributed to social media, says ...
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Social Media
Enforcing FTC Advertising Disclosures for Blogs, Social Media
December 3, 2013 • Carolyn Kmet
Earlier this year, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission updated its disclosure-of-advertising guidelines to include blogs and social media. If you are paying a monetary or product incentive to promote your ...
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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 ...
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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,
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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 ...
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Social Media
5 Holiday Social Media Tips for Ecommerce Merchants
November 7, 2013 • Armando Roggio
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media sites may play an important role in how 2013’s Christmas shoppers find and buy presents on the Internet and in store, potentially making ...
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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 ...
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Social Media
8 Facebook Post Types for Boosting Engagement
October 28, 2013 • Kunle Campbell
Certain types of Facebook posts tend to see higher engagement than others. Here are eight post types with examples to help you get higher engagement on Facebook.
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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,
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Social Media
5 Ways Twitter Is Like Radio Advertising
October 3, 2013 • Armando Roggio
From a marketer’s perspective, Twitter tweets and radio promotions have a number of similarities. Thinking about what these marketing tactics have in common can reveal insights about content creation, message ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Social Media
Does Pinterest Help with SEO?
September 20, 2013 • Jill Kocher Brown
The intersection of organic search and Pinterest is actually very small. Still, Pinterest does have a place in search engine optimization as a way to expand a site’s search result ...
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Social Media
25 Helpful Facebook Insights Definitions
September 19, 2013 • Kunle Campbell
Facebook Insights offers metrics to analyze your audience beyond age, gender, country, city, and language. You can discover what your audience likes about your page, where the visitors were before they came to your page, and otherwise monitor reach, virality, and more.
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Social Media
SEO: 5 Reasons Not to Ignore Google+
August 30, 2013 • Jill Kocher Brown
Two years ago when Google+ launched, I had high hopes for its value as a marketing platform to rival Facebook and Twitter. Read my enthusiastic missal, “Google+: The Beginning of ...
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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 ...
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Social Media
10 Brands on Vine
August 20, 2013 • Sig Ueland
Vine is Twitter’s video sharing app that allows users to record six-second looping videos on their iOS or Android smartphones. Many brands have embraced Vine as a fun tool to ...
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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 ...
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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...
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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 ...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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Social Media
7 Keys to Facebook’s ‘People Talking About This’
July 18, 2013 • Kunle Campbell
In "10 Ways to Improve EdgeRank on your Facebook Page," my previous post, I covered how Facebook sorts content in users’ News Feeds using its EdgeRank algorithm. This article is a follow-up and covers a metric that closely ties with EdgeRank: "People Talking About This," or PTAT.
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Social Media
4 Tips for Better Contest Forms
July 16, 2013 • Armando Roggio
Contest marketing is a good way to engage potential customers, increase your social media fan base, give folks positive things to say about your store, and collect data that can improve both your business’s bottom line and your customers' online experiences. Consider for a moment just ...