Category

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.

  • Social Media

    25 Tips for Successful Twitter Engagement

    April 22, 2013 •

    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...

  • Social Media

    Using Twitter Hashtags for Ecommerce Marketing

    April 17, 2013 •

    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...

  • Social Media

    Facebook Changes Ads Manager to Improve Tracking

    April 12, 2013 •

    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...

  • Social Media

    Buffer: Timesaving Social Sharing and Management Application

    April 8, 2013 •

    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. ...

  • Social Media

    5 Social Marketplaces for Merchants and Shoppers

    April 2, 2013 •

    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...

  • Social Media

    4 Tools to Simplify the Blogging Process

    March 27, 2013 •

    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 ...

  • Social Media

    Pinterest Adds Analytics Component

    March 20, 2013 •

    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...

  • Social Media

    6 Alternatives to Google Reader

    March 19, 2013 •

    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 ...

  • Social Media

    Facebook Changes News Feed; Implications for Merchants

    March 14, 2013 •

    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.

  • Social Media

    Understanding Google+ Design Changes

    March 11, 2013 •

    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...

  • Social Media

    How to Use Google+ Hangouts; Benefits to Merchants

    March 6, 2013 •

    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 ...

  • Social Media

    Hashtag Your Products on Instagram

    February 28, 2013 •

    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...

  • Social Media

    6 Key Twitter Practices for Smaller Businesses

    February 26, 2013 •

    Many small business owners have told me they understand how Facebook is a good fit for business, but have difficulty drawing a similar conclusion when it comes to Twitter. According to a report from GlobalWebIndex, an analysis firm, Twitter increased its user base by more than 288 mil...

  • Social Media

    10 Blog Topics for Online Retailers

    February 22, 2013 •

    One of the best ways for an ecommerce site to rank highly in Google search results is through blogging. Most blog platforms are search engine friendly, and easy to use. But merchants sometimes struggle with what topics to write about. Here are 10 post types to spark writing ideas that...

  • Social Media

    Facebook Power Editor: Time-saving Ad Management Tool

    February 19, 2013 •

    Facebook’s Power Editor can help administrators manage multiple ad campaigns and Pages with greater efficiency. Facebook created it primarily for agencies with multiple client accounts. But Power Editor offers benefits ...

  • Social Media

    Search Result Domination with Social Media

    February 15, 2013 •

    Social media and organic search work hand in hand, but not in the way most people think. Building up a grand social media presence will not drive link authority back to your ecommerce site. The major social networks have long since stripped the link authority from their outbound links...

  • Social Media

    10 Google Chrome Social Media Apps

    February 14, 2013 •

    Google's Chrome Web Store offers many applications for that browser. These include apps for businesses — to help with accounting, invoicing, creating documents, setting appointments, logging phone calls, and performing other critical business functions. They also include sales and marke...

  • Social Media

    Facebook ‘Nearby’ Increases Mobile Search Capability

    February 12, 2013 •

    Facebook knows a lot about what its users like. Thanks to a recent upgrade of its mobile app, a feature called Nearby turns that information into meaningful search data that local businesses with a Facebook Page and physical location can turn to their advantage. Considering that more th...

  • Social Media

    Selling on Facebook Easier for Smaller Merchants

    February 8, 2013 •

    The merits of selling goods on Facebook are a topic of much debate. Several large retailers, including GameStop, Gap, jcpenney, and Nordstrom, experienced disappointing results and shut down their Facebook stores within months. But according to Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at For...

  • Social Media

    6 Twitter Marketing Lessons from the Super Bowl Blackout

    February 7, 2013 •

    Several large brands — including Oreo and Tide — took advantage of Super Bowl 47's blackout to quickly create Twitter ads. Oreo's ad reminded followers that "You can still dunk in the dark," while Tide declared "We can't get your blackout. But we can get your stains out." Other brands...

  • Social Media

    2 Ways to Create Facebook Ads

    February 5, 2013 •

    A number of changes have taken place at Facebook with regard to how businesses use the platform. I will be reporting on these over the next few weeks. In this article, I discuss changes made to Facebook Ads. Recently, Facebook revised its advertising platform to make it easier for bu...

  • Social Media

    Can New Myspace Help Ecommerce Businesses?

    February 2, 2013 •

    Myspace is one social network I thought I would never address again, especially in a business context. The site became the most popular social network in 2005 and surpassed Google as the most visited website in 2006. In later years, use of the site quickly declined due to the growing ...

  • Social Media

    10 Ways Merchants Can Use Google+

    January 30, 2013 •

    The continued growth of Google+, along with an increased understanding of the nature of the platform, has caused many companies to establish a presence there. Google has also positioned Google+ as a channel businesses can use. With that in mind, here are 10 ways you can take advantage...

  • Social Media

    Facebook Takes on Local Search

    January 17, 2013 •

    Consumers use the Internet to search for local businesses, events, and topics. Google is a major player in local search, but so is Bing, Yahoo!, Yelp, YellowPages.com, Foursquare, and other sites. Local search now has a new competitor: Facebook Graph Search. Launched this week, Facebo...

  • Social Media

    10 Tips for Syndicating Blog Content

    January 16, 2013 •

    Blogging is hard work. It takes much time to research a topic, write copy, and find useful images, videos, and infographics. But writing a post is only the first step. For ...

  • Social Media

    8 Instagram Photo-Sharing Alternatives

    January 8, 2013 •

    Photo-sharing site Instagram created a controversy recently when it proposed a change in its terms of service that would have allowed the company to incorporate user generated images in ads without users' permission. The company has since reconsidered its decision. Having written "10 W...

  • Social Media

    Using Instagram for your Ecommerce Business

    January 2, 2013 •

    Popular photo-sharing app Instagram — which Facebook acquired earlier this year — is now used by businesses. Of 100 leading brands, 54 have incorporated Instagram, according to Simply Measured, an analytics firm. Here is how you can start using Instagram to market your products and ser...

  • Social Media

    10 Ways to Encourage Customer Ratings and Reviews

    December 26, 2012 •

    According to Nielsen’s "Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages" report, which surveyed more than 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries, 92 percent of consumers said they trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising. From an ecommerce ...

  • Social Media

    5 Sites for Consumer Product Discovery

    December 18, 2012 •

    Social media has inspired a new kind of shopping that is based on peer-to-peer sharing of content on sites like Pinterest, Etsy, or Shopcade, and less known sites such as LoveIt or Wanelo. This consumer-driven trend is referred to as "discovery." For many consumers, shopping is as muc...

  • Social Media

    How to Create a Google+ Community

    December 11, 2012 •

    Google+ is growing. According to a Google executive, more than 500 million people have set up profiles, 235 million actively use Google+ functionality such as Hangouts (its video chat feature) and sharing links (via the +1 button), and 135 million use Google+ as a stand-alone social net...

Popular
Streaming Webcasts
Instant Video

Copyright © 2005 - 2026. Practical Ecommerce® is a registered trademark of Confluence Distribution, Inc.