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

    Understanding the 6 Facebook Post Types

    August 1, 2012 •

    There are six types of posts you can make to your Facebook page: Video, Photo, Link, Question, Event, and Text. This article outlines reasons why you would use them and best practices for each post type. 1. Video Videos are among the most compelling and popular formats for Facebook p...

  • Social Media

    7 Tips for Pinterest Pinning

    July 30, 2012 •

    Social sharing site Pinterest has grown to 12 million users and sparked a new surge in social marketing. Some online businesses are hoping to use Pinterest as a way to engage customers and make sales. As with any form of marketing there are some best practices that may make a business'...

  • Social Media

    10 Strategies for Effective Facebook Posts

    July 23, 2012 •

    There are 901 million Facebook users, and the average user creates 90 pieces of content each month, according to the company. Filtering through this mountain of content to get your message seen by Fans and their friends can be difficult. Here are 10 Facebook posting strategies that ca...

  • Social Media

    9 Ways to Increase Twitter Engagement

    July 17, 2012 •

    A new report from social commerce company Buddy Media offers insights on how businesses can use Twitter to heighten engagement and produce favorable results. It states that to more effectively leverage Twitter as a marketing channel, businesses need to know "when to Tweet, what to Tweet...

  • Social Media

    14 Pinterest-Like Sites for Product Promotion

    July 9, 2012 •

    Popular photography and video tagging site Pinterest and its many clones have sparked a product-photo sharing frenzy that may present a good marketing opportunity for retailers. Pinterest and similar sites allow users to “pin,” “fancy,” “tag,” and “tap” images and videos in a manner ve...

  • Social Media

    20 Top Brands on Socialcam

    July 9, 2012 •

    Socialcam is a free video-sharing platform for iOS and Android. Socialcam creates fast and easy clip sharing in the same way that Instagram makes mobile photos instantly sharable. Brands are using the platform to share their stories, as well as deliver engaging entertainment. Here are ...

  • Social Media

    ‘Promoted Stories’ Enables Wide Content Syndication

    July 5, 2012 •

    Syndicating blog posts, press releases or new product announcements can be time consuming, especially when you consider the number and types of channels available. Further, many small ecommerce merchants do not have the internal resources to effectively promote such content. They may po...

  • Social Media

    12 Resources for Custom Facebook Pages

    July 3, 2012 •

    Facebook has a whole lot of people to introduce your brand to. It also has a variety of third-party resources to create custom tabs and pages to present your brand. Here is a list of resources to create custom tabs and pages for your brand. Many of these resources offer social apps to...

  • Social Media

    Putting a Dollar Value on Fans, Friends, and Followers

    June 27, 2012 •

    According to studies from diverse research and analysis firms around the globe, a Facebook Fan is worth $136.38, a Twitter follower is worth $2.00, and a would-be friend on Pinterest is worth, perhaps, $5.00. Unfortunately, as concise and direct as these figures might seem when used a...

  • Social Media

    Writing Social Media Press Releases: 3 Tools to Help

    June 25, 2012 •

    More than 3,000 press releases are issued each day. However, unless you have a public relations firm following up — making phone calls or sending emails to journalists and bloggers — it's almost impossible to get your release read by the media. But there are three ways press releases ...

  • Social Media

    Moving Beyond Likes on Facebook

    June 25, 2012 •

    A new study seeks to better understand how businesses may use Facebook to go beyond just acquiring Likes, to engaging and communicating with customers in effective and measurable ways. The study comes from Internet analysis firm comScore and includes data from comScore's "Social Essent...

  • Social Media

    Installing Facebook’s New WordPress Plugin

    June 19, 2012 •

    Facebook has created a WordPress plugin that integrates the social network's functionality to a much deeper degree. It makes your WordPress site nearly an extension of Facebook itself. Once installed, each time you create a WordPress post, it automatically cross-posts to your Facebook T...

  • Social Media

    Measuring Social Media’s Impact on Revenue

    June 15, 2012 •

    You can explore the impact of social media on your site’s revenue using data that is already available to you. None of this data is perfect, and none of it is comprehensive. But when used together, the data can inform how and where you invest. Organic vs. Campaign-Driven Social Media ...

  • Social Media

    Facebook Adds Post Scheduler and Admin Roles

    June 13, 2012 •

    Facebook recently added two new administrative functions to Fan pages: the ability to (a) schedule posts, and (b) set management roles for page administrators. Scheduling Posts Facebook page administrators can now schedule posts for publication at a future date. This long anticipated...

  • Social Media

    Facebook Promoted Posts: Getting Started

    June 5, 2012 •

    Facebook just launched a new advertising format called Promoted Posts, which allows Page administrators to turn any Timeline post into an ad that appears at the top of Fans' news feeds. Promoted Posts increase the chance that more Fans will see it, and that more of their friends will to...

  • Social Media

    Ecommerce Marketing on Google+

    June 5, 2012 •

    As Google rolls more features and functions into Google+, marketing on the new and fast growing social media network is increasingly important. Last week, Google announced the launch of Google+ Local, which provides users with recommendations and information about local businesses incl...

  • Social Media

    Who is Using Twitter and Why?

    June 4, 2012 •

    Mobile adoption may be driving a surge in Twitter use, according to a major research firm. A report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project released May 31, 2012 said, “Twitter usage is highly correlated with the use of mobile technologies, especially smartphones.” This find...

  • Social Media

    3 Ways to Integrate Tweets on Your Ecommerce Site

    May 29, 2012 •

    Twitter offers several ways to integrate tweets into a retailer's website. Showing tweets increases the number of followers. It also keeps the website updated with new content. And it serves increase the community around the retailer's brand. With that in mind, here are three of the m...

  • Social Media

    18 Tools to Develop Your Brand on Facebook

    May 24, 2012 •

    If you’re look for a place to develop your brand, Facebook is the spot. With over 500 million daily active users, it’s a great platform on which to engage followers and promote yourself. It’s also an ideal environment to monitor how successful you are at engaging and promoting. Here is...

  • Social Media

    Using Facebook’s Insights Analytics to Expand Your Audience

    May 22, 2012 •

    This article takes a closer look at ways merchants can utilize Facebook's administrative console and Insights analytics platform for marketing purposes. These newly revised sections contain information that can help merchants gain a deeper understanding into (a) who is visiting their ...

  • Social Media

    How to Install Social Sharing Buttons from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest

    May 17, 2012 •

    All major social networks provide merchants with the capability to incorporate social sharing buttons that allow visitors to share content. The process of embedding these buttons is simple, can be done in a matter of minutes, and requires only a basic understanding of HTML. Below are ...

  • Social Media

    8 Social Shopping Sites for Ecommerce Merchants

    May 8, 2012 •

    Today's social shopping sites are the online equivalent of old-fashioned swap meets and flea markets. They bring thousands of buyers and sellers together in a social environment where shoppers can rely on friends to help them shop and connect with merchants. These social marketplaces ...

  • Social Media

    20 Most-Shared Marketing Videos

    May 7, 2012 •

    Online viewers share compelling content. A marketing video that makes an impact can go viral, whether the video is funny, sad, inspiring, or cheaply produced. Here is a list of the most-shared marketing videos, based on the amount of times content is shared on Facebook, Twitter and in ...

  • Social Media

    Using Twitter to Promote Your Ecommerce Products

    May 2, 2012 •

    Twitter is a largely untapped promotional channel for ecommerce merchants. According to social commerce company ArgyleSocial, only 26 percent of retailers include calls to action such as "visit a website" or "purchase a product" in their tweets — here's ArgyleSocial's infographic. In a...

  • Social Media

    Survey Says: Pinterest-like Sites Drive Sales

    May 1, 2012 •

    Some 32 percent of respondents to a March survey reported making a purchase after seeing a product on Pinterest or a similar picture and video sharing social media website. Bizrate Insights, which sells customer feedback and ratings solutions to online retailers, surveyed 3,741 online ...

  • Social Media

    3 Examples of Contest Marketing

    April 30, 2012 •

    Contest marketing seeks to give shoppers a positive retailer-related experience, create an affinity for the products a retailer sells, and collect information about shoppers that may help with future sales-oriented marketing campaigns. The idea of giving away hundreds of dollars worth ...

  • Social Media

    10 Marketing Examples of Facebook Photo Albums

    April 23, 2012 •

    There are many ways for ecommerce merchants to use Facebook's photo gallery. My article last week — "Facebook Photo Albums: Maximize the Marketing Value" — outlined a number of them. Here are 10 examples of ecommerce merchants and small businesses that are taking advantage of Facebook...

  • Social Media

    Facebook Photo Albums: Maximize the Marketing Value

    April 17, 2012 •

    In last week's article, "Using Facebook's New App Icons to Promote Your Business," I discussed how to modify Facebook Page app icons, which are located just beneath the cover image. The first icon that appears in the row of four is "Photos." It cannot be moved from this first position...

  • Social Media

    23 Twitter Chats for Small Businesses

    April 16, 2012 •

    One of the best ways to harness Twitter is by participating in chats, scheduled hashtag discussions that focus on specific topics. Small businesses can utilize chats to develop a social media plan, discuss brand strategy, and take advantage of free legal advice. Here is a list of chats...

  • Social Media

    Using Facebook’s New App Icons to Promote Your Business

    April 9, 2012 •

    Now that Facebook has transferred commercial Fan pages to the new Timeline format, links to custom tabs — now called "apps" — reside in a row below the cover image. These were previously located in the left-hand column, with small icons. No matter how many apps you have, only four appea...

Popular
Streaming Webcasts
Instant Video

Copyright © 2005 - 2025. Practical Ecommerce® is a registered trademark of Confluence Distribution, Inc.