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

    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...

  • Social Media

    Designing a Facebook Marketing Campaign in 4 Steps

    December 4, 2012 •

    Marketing on Facebook involves four basic steps: Build, Connect, Engage and Influence, a process Facebook now refers to as the BCEI framework. This article outlines these four steps and explains how ecommerce merchants can use them to execute an effective Facebook marketing campaign. ...

  • Social Media

    6 Sites to Monitor Facebook Changes

    December 4, 2012 •

    Facebook is notorious for making changes to its platform. Often, such changes are made with little notice or fanfare, unless you know where to look. Staying abreast of such changes is important to any merchant who wishes to use Facebook marketing more effectively. In this article, I p...

  • Social Media

    Amazon and Pinterest Add Business Pages

    November 26, 2012 •

    Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ have their own versions of business pages. Now, Amazon and Pinterest do, too. Amazon Marketing Services Amazon has quietly launched what it refers to as Amazon ...

  • Social Media

    Top 10 Social Sharing Buttons for Your Website

    November 21, 2012 •

    One of the best ways to get traffic to your website is through the use of social sharing buttons. The problem, however, is that while many social sharing options exist, their features vary. Some offer fewer sharing options, some only work on WordPress, and some require more technical ex...

  • Social Media

    Pinterest Releases Business Accounts

    November 19, 2012 •

    Pinterest, the popular image and video sharing site, now allows for specific business accounts that have a separate set of terms and conditions and may eventually include promotional options not currently available on the platform. "Thousands of businesses have become part of our commu...

  • Social Media

    13 Facebook Marketing Apps Worth Your Attention

    November 14, 2012 •

    Facebook’s modifications to fan pages — most importantly the shift to Timeline — has reduced the use of specialized, third-party marketing apps. However, that does not mean these apps have ...

  • Social Media

    Facebook Simplifies Ad Creation Process

    November 6, 2012 •

    Facebook has simplified its ad campaign creation process. The changes address (a) the redesign of the user interface, (b) a concentrated focus on marketing goals and objectives, and (c) the ability to easily use different ad types. To create an ad using the revised system, follow thes...

  • Social Media

    9 Blogging Lessons for Ecommerce Merchants

    November 1, 2012 •

    Blogging is a combination of science and art. The science part requires that bloggers use the latest search-engine-optimization tactics. The art is to hone writing and editing skills. But it doesn't have to be as difficult as that may sound. As a longtime blogger and journalist, I've ...

  • Social Media

    LinkedIn Updates Member Profiles

    October 30, 2012 •

    LinkedIn recently launched a new version of its user profiles. It will be available to all members in the coming weeks. More than just a design change, the new profile increases your opportunity to make connections, tell your professional story, and engage with others in your network. ...

  • Social Media

    How to Set Up a YouTube Channel

    October 23, 2012 •

    A "Channel" is YouTube's equivalent of a Facebook page. You must create a YouTube Channel to upload videos, comment on videos, or create "playlists" — collections of different videos by topic. In this article I discuss how to set up a YouTube Channel, to help market your business. ...

  • Social Media

    YouTube’s Time Watched Algorithm Update

    October 19, 2012 •

    In the past, YouTube measured a video’s popularity based on the number of clicks it received. Last Friday the video search giant changed its algorithm — here's the blog post at YouTube — to take the time spent watching a video into account. As a result, ecommerce sites wanting to attrac...

  • Social Media

    Pinterest: Tap Shared Interests for Ecommerce Sales

    October 17, 2012 •

    How many times have you purchased a product just because one of your Facebook friends did? Likely, your answer is, "Not very often." As retailers, we make a mistake to think that people rely exclusively on their social graph — the network of friends on social networks. More often, they...

  • Social Media

    Is Pinterest the Best Social Platform for Ecommerce?

    October 16, 2012 •

    Pinterest may owe its popularity to human nature. Early this year, Monetate, the shopping-personalization firm, made headlines when it pronounced that Pinterest was reshaping social commerce and could be a leading source of social media traffic to online retail sites. And even if the M...

  • Social Media

    17 Social Media Cheat Sheets

    October 15, 2012 •

    These days, small businesses use a variety of social media sites in their marketing efforts. Cheat sheets are a helpful way to keep the functionality of each site straight. Here is a list of cheat sheets for the major social media sites. There are infographic tools to identify keyboard...

x