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
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 ...
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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...
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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 ...
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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...
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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...
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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 "...
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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 ...
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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...
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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...
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Social Media
Facebook Promoted Post Generates Sales, Traffic
May 28, 2013 • Armando Roggio
Although recent studies demonstrate that social media sites like Facebook work best to augment other ecommerce marketing campaigns, anecdotal data from a small Facebook ad test demonstrated that the promotion could boost both direct traffic and sales. “In its most recent [Ecommerce Qua...
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Social Media
Don’t Focus on Social Media Traffic
May 24, 2013 • Armando Roggio
New data from a leading marketing optimization firm indicates that social media is not a significant traffic driver for online merchants, but traffic may not be the only indicator of success for social media marketing. Social media represented about 1.55 percent of traffic to ecommerce...
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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...
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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...
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Social Media
Using Vine Videos for your Ecommerce Business
May 8, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Vine is a new iOS app that allows users to record six-second, looping videos — called "vines" — on their iPhones, iPod Touches, or iPads. The videos can then be shared with followers on Twitter and Facebook. Users can shoot very short clips, then edit them together to create stop-motion...
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Social Media
Understanding YouTube’s Redesign of Channels
May 2, 2013 • Paul Chaney
YouTube recently announced major design changes to its channel interface. YouTube cited three reasons for the changes: Increase the number of channel subscribers; Ensure branding works across all devices — desktops, tablets, smartphones and television; Show more content to draw viewer...
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Social Media
Facebook Changes Layout of Mobile App
April 29, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Facebook recently changed the Pages layout in its Apple iOS mobile app. The reason for the change, according to Facebook, is that roughly 50 percent of Page visits come from mobile devices. A new Android version is coming soon, Facebook announced. "We've developed a new mobile Pages l...
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Social Media
10 Ideas for Facebook’s New Cover Images
April 23, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Facebook recently changed its policy on cover images for business pages. The 20 percent text overlay rule is still in effect, but other restrictions have been dismissed. The new guidelines provide much greater flexibility in what owners can do with their pages, stating, "All covers ar...
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Social Media
13 Inspiring Brands on Pinterest
April 22, 2013 • Sig Ueland
Pinterest is a place for inspiration. Successful brands use it not only to show off a product, but also to inspire people with the ideas, moods, and images behind the brand. Here is a list of brands that inspire on Pinterest. Their boards are filled with beautiful images and amazing d...
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Social Media
25 Tips for Successful Twitter Engagement
April 22, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Many ecommerce merchants use Twitter to connect with customers, build personal relationships, and influence conversations to meet business objectives. Merchants can learn what customers have to say about their brands and products, provide proactive customer service, and create promoti...
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Social Media
Using Twitter Hashtags for Ecommerce Marketing
April 17, 2013 • Paul Chaney
By some accounts, as many as 75 percent of Twitter users include hashtags in their tweets. While hashtags are popular, from a marketing perspective it helps to understand why and how to use them. This article outlines 10 ways merchants can use hashtags, along with guidelines for their u...
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Social Media
Facebook Changes Ads Manager to Improve Tracking
April 12, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Facebook recently made several changes to Ads Manager to make it easier for advertisers to track performance against goals and to better measure the return on investment. Ads Manager Changes Advertising goals highlighted. Ads Manager now shows the most relevant actions for your adver...
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Social Media
Buffer: Timesaving Social Sharing and Management Application
April 8, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Sharing content to social networks typically happens in one of two ways: by clicking a social sharing button found on many blogs and websites, or by using a social media management platform such as HootSuite. Buffer, a new social sharing application, combines both of these functions. ...
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Social Media
5 Social Marketplaces for Merchants and Shoppers
April 2, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Social marketplaces promote interaction between merchants and their customers, and enable product discovery in a social environment where shoppers can rely on the influence of friends to help them make informed shopping decisions. One successful social commerce model is bazaar-style ma...
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Social Media
4 Tools to Simplify the Blogging Process
March 27, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Bloggers can spend a lot of time selecting topics and researching and writing the posts. Here are four tools I use to speed up the research process. Used in the ...
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Social Media
Pinterest Adds Analytics Component
March 20, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Pinterest launched business pages a few months ago, which allow companies to create accounts specifically related to their websites. Last week, Pinterest took another step toward increasing the value it provides businesses by adding an analytics component. "Bloggers, businesses, and...
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Social Media
6 Alternatives to Google Reader
March 19, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Google announced last week that it is retiring Google Reader, its longstanding RSS feed reader application, citing a decrease in use. The announcement created a furor across the Internet. Deliberating Google’s ...
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Social Media
Facebook Changes News Feed; Implications for Merchants
March 14, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Facebook announced in a press conference last Thursday that it has drastically revamped the all-important News Feed, turning it into a “personalized newspaper” that emphasizes what friends are sharing.
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Social Media
Understanding Google+ Design Changes
March 11, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Google+ recently made several design changes. The most prominent is to the cover image, which is now much larger. Google+ also changed the "About" page, and a "Local" tab was added to the left-column menu. The About page now consists of separate "cards" — such as Story, Places, Work, an...
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Social Media
How to Use Google+ Hangouts; Benefits to Merchants
March 6, 2013 • Paul Chaney
Hangouts is a popular component in the Google+ platform. Hangouts enables live video chats with up to 10 people using Google+, your website, and mobile apps for Android and iPhone. With Hangouts you can: Host live, face-to-face conference calls with customers, suppliers, affiliates ...
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Social Media
Hashtag Your Products on Instagram
February 28, 2013 • Jason Lawrence
Instagram is a massive social network built around a beautifully designed — and addictive — mobile photography app. As of September 2012, Instagram reportedly had 11 million active users. It was famously bought by Facebook for $1 billion in April 2012. Instagram is creating new and exc...