Why I’m not complaining and I'm happy for social channels to have my data.

So here we are, in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica debacle, feeling data-defiled and as though we dropped the informational soap in social media prison, poised to delete our Facebook accounts. Honestly, get over it.

Facebook has done nothing you didn’t sign up for. The media are loving it and Zuckerburg is apologising left, right and centre in a year he was hoping to crack on and fix the unwieldy behemoth that his baby has become – it’s news. Giving our data away to Facebook and Facebook apps is something you and I signed up for. Did you not read the small print? Don’t worry, no one does.

We live in the information age. Arguably, with the possible exception of the industrial revolution, one of the most exciting times for the 'civilised' world. Facebook is an unavoidable part of the connectivity of the western world. It has over 2.13 billion monthly active users and Mr. Zuckerburg is worth about £50 billion. In the UK the highest number of users is 25 to 34-year-olds, with (in this age range alone) 5.2 million lasses and 5.5 million blokes using Facebook in any given month.

We’re addicted: posting; messaging; liking etc. boosts our social capital and decreases loneliness and isolation. Sure, we have those friends who are part of some digital underclass that aren’t on Facebook, but they don’t get invited to parties (events) and (let’s face it) we think they’re a bit weird unless they work as undercover cops or they’re in a religious cult that thinks “technology is evil” (which is also weird).

There’s a deep connection between Facebook and the reward centre of the human brain. It fuels our narcissistic streak (to whatever level) by giving us social affirmation, but it also keeps us in touch with friends, family, and colleagues. It lets us promote our causes, fight injustice, coordinate disaster efforts, reach our customers, remember birthdays, rekindle old friendships, share ideas, and connect with those who live far away. It’s also free and let’s face it - is the last thing we see at night and the first thing in the morning.

So here’s the thing. What about giving away our data in exchange for free connectivity? As someone who writes ad strategy, executes a metric f**k-tonne of social ads and has built numerous apps, this is a good thing. We are, essentially, the product. Get over it, that’s always how it has been. It’s the payoff and we sign up for it. How is this a revelation? Our data is what keeps Facebook free. People like myself use the information you give Facebook to create targeted advertising, and that’s the key word here, TARGETED. If you get random ads for things you’re not interested in that’s some marketing bod doing an awful job, not Facebook’s fault.

If someone exploits that data - they’re to blame, not Facebook. It’s the user who chooses to use Facebook Login to let all kind of sites use their data – LOADS of big companies from Apple to Android use this. Again, via the permissions we gave through agreeing to the terms and conditions we probably didn’t read.

Giving our data away is powerful. It makes information semantic so that it comes to us when (or before) we need it. It offers me deals on walking boots from Millets because there’s a sale on and they know I’ll be interested. It guides me to the information I’m interested in and chooses related videos for me to watch and local gigs I care about. It fuels my hobbies. It shows me other related communities and asks me if I’m interested. It brings me news I’m passionate about. It broadens my mind. It opens my horizons to new products and services. I want that. That’s a good thing, and important for the development of search and online marketing - if it works for business we'll fund it.

So don’t delete your Facebook profile. That’s just a knee-jerk reaction to the media and taking a pair of scissors to your nose. Sure, be pissed off with those who exploit our data against the rules, but our data helps us get what we need, without looking for it, and that’s something I want to be a part of. Facebook is free and useful. It's also learned from this and it'll evolve. Let’s blame the right people and get over it.

Crack on.

Quick tip to Increase Instagram Business Followers.

Here's a quick and cunning one. I tried this recently (for a client) and it works a treat.

To increase a following on Instagram you can export a list of customer phone numbers and contact info from your database or CRM (as a custom .CSV file) then import them as contacts into a Gmail account. Then, import those phone numbers and contact info from Gmail into a smartphone and log into your Instagram account. Then, make use of Instagram’s “follow all contacts” feature, which will go looking for any of them on Instagram and then you can select them and follow them.

This would, naturally, need to be done prior to any GDPR legislation taking effect - so do it soon.

Ya can thank me later.

Four Easy Creative Hacks to Boost Social Click-Through

A common social tactic is to publish on a blog, then publish that in social networks. The basic idea of this is, usually, provide good value content on a topic your audience cares about and they’ll click through to your website, which is invariably your point of contact or point of sale.

Around 60% of the social strategies I write have an end goal of ‘increasing sales via a website’. So before we start make sure your content is of value. Will they care? Is it useful? Is it topical and immediate? Is it new? Who’s it targeted at and at what point in the purchase process? Creating small up-front editorial calendars of upcoming events, special days, product launches, conferences and trade shows with hashtags etc. is fried gold. Having newsworthy content ready for sign off well in advance is where you need to be. Remember, don’t just write for the sake of it – a well-researched paper that’s bang-on for the audience will have a shit-tonne more long tail and get shared and reshared long after those 4, quickly dashed off, keyword-soggy, blog posts regurgitating old ideas.

The best places for editing links to content, from social, are LinkedIn and Facebook. Twitter, obviously, you can write whatever the hell you like. Facebook, in a desperate attempt to stop spammers, ‘fake news’ ™, scammers and click-bait, have (in the last few days) scrapped the ability to edit a link preview (its image, title and text) before we can share. This, I gotta say, makes running Facebook Pages a seriously bloody ugly experience. There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel. Right now, Facebook is allowing ‘some Pages’ and ‘Publishers’ to identify their website domains and so any link from that domain that’s posted to relevant Pages will be editable. If you nip to the ‘Publishing Tools’ tab at the top of the Page (when you’re on desktop devices) you’ll see a ‘Link Ownership’ section, if you’ve been blessed with this functionality by the SM gods. We should all be getting it over time, as Facebook does, but it will be policed.

So anyway, we’ve got our strong/valuable content and our SM platforms. How do we make people click through?

Create strong titles.

There are a few tricks here that I can testify work.

First off, power words.

Yeah, I know that sounds gimmicky but bear with me. The more emotional headlines stimulate click through and (very often) sharing. Yes, there’s a fine line. We are not, after all, the Daily Mail (we’ll, most of us aren’t). Words are cues and triggers. We can, however, try to use words that stimulate emotion in the reader and put some passion in the headline. If we stimulate curiosity, urgency (that FOMO factor), make people question things, feel safe, inspire them, or stir up emotions we have them. If there’s an emotional benefit to the headline there’s a significant increase in click through rate.

Here are some examples of power words:

Accurate Amazing Bargain Backlash Beware Bravery Caution Collapse Courage Defiant Delightful Devotion Exciting Eye-opener Faith Fearless Free	Fulfil Grateful Happy Heart Improvement Insidious Invasion Jaw-dropping Jeopardy Jubilant Lying Magic Mind-blowing Mistake Official Payback Remarkable	Scandalous Secure Sensational Spectacular Sexy Stunning Terror Time saving Thrilling Toxic Unique Uplifting Victim Victory Vulnerable Worry Wonderful

Think about what you’re trying to say, and then stimulate genuine feelings. There’s hundreds more words like this and some will actually come from the brands traits. Just think about it. If your directing middle-aged trans-gender people to an article about skin care on a website for a laser treatment clinic you’ll be engaging the audience with a different set of words and stimulating different desires and emotions than if you're pointing millennial engineering students to an article on coastal erosion on your website about specialist surveyor training. When you’re crafting strategy, list a few and include them in sample messaging (if appropriate).

Use good, and properly sized, images.

In our busy streams of daily social media fluff we need to stand out from the heard, but be on brand while we’re doing it. Keeping a common layout, font, theme, border or style helps - even if it’s just a specific filter used on all images.

Every platform has an optimal image size for links. Use it.

Facebook, for example, uses a few: A normal link on desktop: 470 x 246 pixels. A normal link on mobile: 560 x 292 pixels. A link on right hand side column: 254 x 133 pixels. Desktop ‘carousel’ images on links: 200 x 200 pixels. Mobile ‘carousel’ images on links: 240 x 460 pixels.

LinkedIn uses: A normal link: 1200 x 628 pixels.

Can you take an optimised slice of your Infographic out of the master at this size? Can you add a few words or choose something a bit more epic or cooler than what the embedded link has trawled from the website? Can you show something aspiration or humorous (if suitable)?

Add numbers to titles.

Titles with numbers in them show value and demonstrate knowledge of a topic and/or research. Statistically (no pun intended) they garner greater click through and say – up front – what the reader can expect. They make, if you will, a promise. ‘7 brilliant litter tray hacks for your stay at home kitty’ is a much better title than ‘DIY cat litter tray ideas.’

Answer, or ask, questions.

Asking questions the user is asking is a great way to demonstrate empathy and to be of value.

 

Some of this comes down to research. What does your audience want to know? A quick search on Quora or Yahoo Answers around your brand's industry can give you a wealth of potential blog topics and headlines. So, simple enough. Give these a try. Remember that emotional hook and dynamic language. Have a good image, created for the link if time permits. Answer the questions the audience is asking. If you have bullet points, give them numbers and flesh them out. Remember your overall brand style and keep it on track – this shouldn’t disrupt the brand persona or existing tone of voice.

If you start seeing click through results or have any more ideas, let me know.

This was originally published over on my LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhewitt/.

Obligatory Prediction for Digital Marketing in 2017

For the past 10 years I’ve blogged a prediction about the year to come. Mostly I’ve been right, if sometimes a little too optimistic, so this year I’m gonna calm the hell down and go with what I know f’sure:

Video, especially streaming, is going to be bigger than hip-hop. Get on board or get left behind. Even Twitter released an update this week that’ll let us broadcast live video from its iOS and Android app (presumably powered by Periscope) and have you seen Houseparty (because Generation Z’s on it like Donkey Kong)?

If you’re not streaming Q&As, live events, interviews or product demos then you’re not part of the conversation. Start thinking about this and how you can use it, now. The only obstacles are time (make it), knowledge (that’s what how-to’s on YouTube are for – go crack a book or phone a friend), resources (invest) and budget (find it). Trust me, in 2017 your competition’ll be streaming the b’jesus out of everything, so don’t get left behind.

Fake news is the buzzword right now, and the big boys will have to be seen to be doing something about (I hear ABC and Associated are getting involved) and if the likes of Snopes, FactCheck.org and Politifact start selling their data to Facebook then hopefully it’s pretty much all over for the spammers – though at lot of these stories have their roots in the likes of 4chan and Reddit. Is this censorship? Probably. Did the Russians fix the US election by creating bogus news articles? No idea, but it’s more than possible. The solutions aren't rocket science - hiring human editors, algorithmic checking of reliable sources for citation and crowdsourcing accuracy. Expect this to get a mention in parlement and congrass and it not to go away any time soon.

There’s a chargeable product for the newspapers here, if they’re quick. A paragraph of flavour then a pay wall to read content that's guaranteed-accurate. They’re going to have to do something, with a further growing trend away from both print and online banner advertising.

Everyone’s going to need to at least be seen to address fake news, and social channels (not just Facebook) are going to have to start taking more responsibility for what’s published (instead of concentrating on banning pictures of breast feeding mums) to pacify the users (their source of marketing data, in most cases).

Facebook is still gonna be the daddy. With the development of feature rich messaging bots, with more practical and useful applications, expect to see an easy WYSIWHG creator inherent to the platform soon. Streaming is, obviously, gonna be even bigger.

Social media advertising is growing at 20% a year and the Facebook ad platform is going to get the bulk of any business’s ad spend – with it stealing a massive $1 billion out of print advertising budgets for U.S. newspapers in 2016. It’s comfortably estimated that Google and Facebook will take more than 70% of all money spent on display advertising online in the UK by 2020. Watch out for more video advertising, obviously, and more targeting and ad varients rolled out over the next 12 months.

Other channels, like Snapchat and Instagram, will still be big for the audiences they attract, and will probably still continue to pirate features off each other and from other channels. Something original will come along, championed by an initially niche audience, but god knows if it'll last longer than a month, what it’ll be, or if it’ll be suitable for business – remember Ello and Pokemon Go? The big boys will probably steal the best functionality out of any new channel and make it obsolete fairly sharpish - we may even see the odd legal case tackling such things.

VR is going to hit the mainstream and hopefully garner more acceptance. I’m a big exponent of VR and run a PSVR rig myself at home. I’ve been active in virtual worlds for over 10 years. Augmented is probably where it’s at, however, and we can expect some heavy investment in this area over the next 12 months. Layering digital over the real world has a billion possibilities; it just needs to sell its value to the public at large. A virtual reality version of Google Earth is now available for free on the HTC Vive, and it’s a thing of beauty, but the general user doesn’t yet have access to the kit (mainly due to price point). When it moves to Android we'll see some serious traction.

The AR market will hopefully hit an inflection point in 2017, expect to see more Smartphone integration as standard,  and we’ll see more and more uses of VR for event and stunt marketing. Expect to be handed a headset in the street to demonstrate an idea or product, any day now.

Twitter is (and it pains me to say this) becoming less important. Sure, it’s brilliant for news and publishing, but compared to Facebook it’s not where people are going to be spending their marketing dollars. People are losing confidence in the platform and, unless they pull something unique and of value out of their wazoo soon, the audience and the advertisers are going to be a lot more wary in 2017. I’m already starting to think it has less strategic value for some of my clients, which is a shame as I’m a big fan myself.

We can probably pretty much forget about Google+, unless it’s for SEO support.

In recruiting for social managers and agency employees, the polymaths and generalists will start to get some credit. People are going to be looking for younger brand evangelists and those who can generate passionate content, over those with long-term experience in other sectors.

Every year, for the past six years, I’ve said that companies will start to see the genuine return on investment of social media. Honestly, so few have. So, I think social media ROI will still elude many companies and those companies will get further and further behind – sad but true.

So that’s it. I’m keeping it fairly realistic this year. Obviously there’s a lot of other factors going on in 2017, like Trump and Brexit, but they’re probably best left for another time…

All the best for the year to come, here’s wishing you and yours a very social holidays. J

A Timely and Respectful Reminder

I want to get something off my chest:

Last Friday thirty-eight people lost their lives when a gunman opened fire on tourists in Port El Kantaoui, in Tunisia, just north of Sousse. Over twenty-five British victims have now been confirmed killed in the attack, including 3 from Ireland.

Port El Kantaoui was/is a favourite holiday destination for my family. My parents even owned an apartment there for a while and were regular patrons (some 10 yrs running) of the El Hana Hannibal Palace Hotel. Tunisis is filled with warm, friendly and lovely people.

A national minute's silence will be held to remember victims of the Tunisian beach attack at 12:00 BST on Friday. No one wants your content or opinions or aggregated whatever during this time. All they want is your silence and respect. I humbly suggest - for the sake of courtesy and your companies social credibility - that no scheduled social media posts go out for any of your social channels 15 minutes prior and up to 30 minutes post this event.

This goes for all periods of national or international mourning, be it Armistice Day or whatever. Silence means silence. Thoughtless publishing and scheduling shows a distinct lack of respect, and no one likes it.

Thank you.

How Can we Use EdgeRank to Get Our Facebook Posts Seen?

EdgeRank is the algorithm that Facebook uses to decide whether or not posts from friends or business pages appear in our news feed. If you want to be seen by the average user it’s important to know how this works and what Facebook considers worthy content. This isn't as grey-hat as it sounds, it's just about producing good stuff.

EdgeRank takes several factors into consideration. They are:

Time

How recently was the content posted?

How long did the user spend on content published by this page previously?

Weight

What type of content is being posted. Different types of content have greater or lesser chances of being seen. Facebook looks at this akin to the amount of effort we put into a post. A standard simple comment has very little EdgeRank. A link has a bit more. An image or videos are far more likely to be seen.

Affinity

Has the user engaged with content from our brand before? Have they liked posts, shared articles, clicked through on links, and commented? Did the brand comment back or like their comment? All these factors add affinity.

With this in mind there are things we can do to boost our EdgeRank, however, they do require effort. Creativity is what’s going to differentiate your content. The effort that Facebook wants us to put in to guarantee our content is of good quality and relevance. Let’s take each of the above factors separately to show how, collectively, they can make a difference:

Timing is Important

Posting at prime times, when our audience is there to respond and see our content is critical. Think about when your audience is online. Will they be checking their mobile devices on the tube on the way to work? Will they be sitting back after dinner, around 6:15 and mulling over their feed? Will they take a look over their lunchtime coffee? Naturally every brand is different, but we commonly see an increase of 15 to 20 percent engagement at weekends. Insider knowledge of your brand and audience play a big part here – some testing may be necessary.

timing is important

People need to engage for longer so we have to post content that takes a while to digest. In short, well-written and engaging content is king. The inclusion of animated gifs or embedded video could be a bonus to add ‘stickiness’, but whatever it is it better be awesome. The longer people are engaged the greater it raises the chances of your posts being seen in the future. Strong opinion pieces. Well researched studies. Useful and helpful how-to’s. Whatever it is, it better be good.

Think Content Type

Post images. You’ll probably want to drive traffic via links, but posting good, amusing or entertaining, original images will give it a boost so that when you do post a link you’ve raised affinity (by people seeing them and liking them) and it will help to compensate. There’s plenty of good image banks out there if you can’t capture something new, give CompFight a look. It’s good to think of alternative ways to use images like using them to support quotes if it fits the brand. Behind-the-scenes imagery has the added benefit of allowing you to tag people which gives further exposure to peoples friends and peers. Get creative - try some of these.

If you have video available to you make sure, with Facebooks auto-play feature in mobile, that it’s going to grab people in the first six seconds. Can you repurpose slide presentations? Can you commission industry explainers? Can you showcase your HQ or cover charity events?

Build a Relationship

If you are posting links be sure to change the title, body text and image to offer a more enticing click-through opportunity.

building a 'special' relationship between interface and human

Small competitions and sweepstakes can gather great traction. When doing so it’s important to allow space for organic spread (so, run them over a week or more) to give people a chance to engage and to see posts their friends have engaged with. Pinning them the top of the Page for a week will also allow new visitors to engage more easily and will increase sign-up, as well as saying “Hey, we run competitions.”

Ask for opinions and invite commentary. Get your audience to share their own images and encourage engagement. Simple posts offering tips, then asking the audience if they have any further suggestions, can work well.

Boosting posts (by paying for them) to make sure the audience sees them, at least once or twice a month, can offer an added push.

Keeping an eye on our Pages Insights will show us the type of content our audience responds best too, and so what we can publish in the future that will get strong results.

There are a few other things to consider:

Pay for it

It’s also possible to pay-to-be-seen. Simple boosted posts are an excellent way to gather affinity by getting them under people’s noses. I’ve had single posts, boosted for only ten pounds, reach over 56,000 targeted people. This is a great one to combine with like and share competitions or simple give-aways. Consider the expenditure like a highly targeted branding exercise. Don’t forget, if people like a boosted post their friends and followers will be told they’ve done so by Facebook.

Use no Applications

Facebook doesn’t like content posted from applications, which includes the likes of external publishing tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social or whatever. This is to stop the Poker apps and Candy Crush clones of old from spamming our streams. Content must be scheduled via the Facebook platform, or posted immediately. Even auto-posting from other social channels, like Twitter, is a wasted effort. Yes, it’ll post, but experience has shown us that the chances of it being seen are drastically reduced.

In summing up. Good content posted at the right time with good imagery. Accept no substitute, because Facebook doesn’t and no ones going to see Jack or shit if you don't put some effort in - that's just how it is.

Why you Should Scrap Your Print Ads

I recently wrote and article on the Tank blog covering six things I think every business should be doing this year, and one of these was "Scrap Your Print Ads". I want to expand on this a bit.

I worked (indirectly) in print for many moons, mostly for the Northcliffe and Daily Mail group. In the late 90's/early '00s we were very much aware that things were changing. Online made viewer figures and click-through entirely measurable while our print ads relied on (some may say speculative) circulation figures. It's now the general belief that circulation figures don't mean Jack.

In addition, sales of physical newspapers and magazines are in a pitiful decline. People paying for print magazines (even specialist magazines like 'Portable Restroom Operator', 'Miniature Donkey Talk' or 'Fashion Doll Quarterly' - no, really) dropped by an average of 12% in the last half of 2014.

Who actually reads ads unless it's in a very specialist publication? - bless the printed version of The Chap for it's plethora of good outlets. Those people spending their marketing budgets want to see the numbers, and justifiably so. Yes, print ads may have some brand awareness potential, but not everyone can afford a full page in The Metro and it's unlikely for most that the entire readership of any publication gives a damn about what they have to offer so a lot of that circulation figure is just going to impact off the surface.

"Print is dead."

Now, I'm damning print ads here but I'm not doing the same for PR. PR works, I've seen it. Indeed, due to valuable links being so important for SEO it's now a vital part of creative online marketing. I work for a PR company - 100% out of choice - because good quality content and strong messaging is something worth sharing (you can't make butter with a tooth pick). Review and recommendation - genuine opinion - has still got a place in print and translates seamlessly to online. Numbers may be down in print, but print is just one part of the PR mix.

So what I'm saying here is ditch your print ads and move your budget into something measurable. Something more targeted that can offer capture potential and drive real punters to your widgets. Basically, invest the same money in social ads.

"We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy."

Social ads are extremely targetable, if done right. It niggles me when I get ads showing up for me in Facebook that are sloppily targeted or clearly too general, that's just lazy work by the person setting up the ads and there's no excuse for it. I believe in the power of the semantic web and keep my data as accurate as possible to get the best out of this - I see viewing targeted ads as a necessary part of any free service. Getting it wrong gives the format a bad name and people blame the platform.

Social ads can capture an audience. They're not a one hit wonder. They offer a direct link to a point of engagement/sale or to a company Page where you can develop a relationship with future customers and turn casual browsers into advocates.

In LinkedIn we can target specific industries or people in specific companies in specific roles. Twitter can push single tweets or profiles to locations, search results, or specific profile keywords. Facebook targeting is (virtually) limitless.

Ads are so targetable it's frankly a wee bit scary. The good lady wife asked me recently (having received a £50 of free ads thing from Facebook) could I target "Women who are getting married in 2015 who might want unusual or coloured wedding dresses".

Yes, yes we can - "Women > 21-55 > engaged > into Steampunk, Gothic Music, Emilie Autumn, Cosplay, blah, blah..." See what I mean? Simples.

"This is a newspaper story, what are they doing with it?"

They can also dovetail nicely with real-word activities like adverting, PR, or marketing efforts. Think a little outside the box here. Here's a couple of examples of (arguably cunning) things I've done for clients:

A branding goal: Imagine being a hosting company using LinkedIn ads as a one month branding exercise prior to your sales team rocking up at a trade show? Hell, they don't even have to click through, just display the ad and make sure the person has heard the company name before you make contact. The cost could be buttons. Better than standing there with everyone else, handing out flyers at the entrance.

Getting folks involved: We wanted people to vote online on a political campaign so, at almost the last minute, we targeted people in a certain geographic area and pushed them to a link to "Vote in the next hour or loose your chance to change Nottingham". We timed this as people were commuting home and between 6:30 and 8pm (prime times for after dinner surfers). Engaging local people at a local level. They clicked-through in droves.

Increasing a following: One of my clients had advertising hoardings at football games across the UK. They are a debt management company and wanted to do something targeted to back up the ads. We did a campaign in two stages - mimic the ads and wish followers of the home teams good luck on match day and to commiserate or cheer after the game. People at matches are logging in to Facebook to post pics etc., and bosh, the personal touch they can relate to a company they instantly form a relationship with. Better than an ad in the match day programme.

For the same expenditure your spending on print, divert it into social ads. They're a bargain. For Facebook we charge a one off set-up fee then 15% of any ongoing spend to tweak them - which seems to be about the going rate across the business. You only pay what you can afford - if you've only got £400 then that's what you spend and you get the same targeting as if you spent £5000.

Well worth a small test, right?

Setting Standards: A few Possible Ways to use Facebook Hashtags?

So Facebook now has hashtags.

I like them. No really, I do. They're great for passive outreach and sharing. They're awesome for research - you just follow the tag to riff on a topic. I am, however, starting to feel #spammed by the way some people are using them.

#rug #persianrugs #tiestheroomtogether

Sceptically, I do wonder what Facebook has further up their sleeve. They never do a damn thing without a financial reason, and rumours of them working on 'a reader' (thought I've been told it's not the RSS kind, and not a Google Reader replacement) have me curious as to how hashtags might fit into the equation for topical monitoring.

It's fair to say that uptake is slow amongst the average users, especially on personal accounts where security settings seem to make this all somewhat moot, but a lot of Facebook Page admins have charged into this with a degree of relish worthy of Heinz. So much so, many posts look ridiculous and there's a real chance of them alienating their community. I thought I'd throw my tuppence-worth in, for the record.

Don't use Them for Every Word

Stop it. Just, stop it. I've seen posts where almost every word had a hashtag in front of it, making the whole sentence just tags. It looks bloody stupid and your audience know they are being marketed to and that you no longer give a shit what your actually saying, just so long as someone sees it. It's not funny, or ironic, it's just bad practice. Bad Page admin, go to your box.

Keep Them Simple

It's not a game. You want to capitalize on others using your hashtag, so keep it as simple as possible.

Say your a crafts author like the good lady wife - tags like #jewellery (you might even want to try #jewelry), #steampunk, #crafts (maybe), or something like #beading or #cooking are going to be tags other people are going to use as well - and so the outreach on them (and chance of them being seen by genuinely interested parties) is going to be better. This isn't Twitter, so hashtags shouldn't have more than 2 words in them. Something like #steampunk is great, and #steampunkcooking might have it's place (if others are also using it), but #steampunkcookingonanengineblock is very likely a hanging offence.

#beer #carlsburg #couplesdatinginalex

There's one possible exception to this. Getting everyone to remember one tag (like #ourevent2013, or whatever) is sometimes easier. I you're trying to get people to submit photographs from an event, for example, using one tag across Google Plus, Twitter, Instagram, and now on Facebook, will always be the right way to go.

Cap at 3 or 4 of Value

Once again, don't spam your audience. Personally I've found 3 hashtags just about right, especially if you're still object tagging, location tagging, and all the other tactics. There's nothing written in stone here, but if you do any more it starts looking really obvious. If necessary add them at the end of what you're saying, though personally I don't mind them being part of the sentence so long as it looks natural. Also, bear in mind that hashtags don't act as links through the mobile interface so this can get shoddy pretty quickly on smartphones if it's tagged to bits but not linking anywhere - I'm reliably told this will, however, be coming on line in the next few days.

Find What's Appropriate

Take a look at what's popular by taking a look at a hashtag you think might work, and see what others are using as well (around the same subject). Right now topics and communities are still finding out what works and experimenting. You can poke around a stream and get to the content of a topic by using the URL structure like https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/bacon, where #bacon is the hashtag for the stream you want to look at. If you search on a hashtag through search (just type in #wordofyourchoice) you now also get a list of similar tags that other people are using, which I presume they'll be rolling out more functionality on soon. Do a bit of research to get the most bang-for-your-buck, and for gods sake think about it properly and what it's look like on the Page (no one wants another #susanalbumparty).

Don't be Flighty

If you have a core topic, try and stick with one core tag (the most appropriate that fits what you do) based on that topic. Play with the others, great, but tags are generating 'communities' around topics, and other admins (I've found) are sharing my tagged content more when I mention core topics (because they are using these tags to source topical content for their pages). If you're a digital artist and have a Page about your work, be sure to always use #digitalart (or whatever your peers are using) no matter what else you're doing. Rocket science it ain't. I fully anticipate different communities developing their own crowdsourced hashtags of choice as people become more confident with their use.

#harmless  #campwaconda  #ohmygodwereallgonnadie

So there you go. Facebook hashtags are still in their infancy, and we don't know where Facebook is going to go with this - or how they'll cleverly monetize it. It would be great if we could set some standards and best practices that are good for our communities and outreach instead of just using these for spam. When, after all, does spam ever work?

Social Media Keyboard Shortcuts for Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc.

These lists of keyboard shortcuts (key combinations, like special moves in Tekken but not as much fun, that do stuff (allegedly) quicker than you can by clicking) are hidden around the Internet and I couldn’t find the useful ones all in one place when I needed them. So here they are, the big 4, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, & Google Plus, all in one place. Hope they’re of use to folks (other than my interns). I use some of them all the time, others you forget about because the interfaces are clean enough to let you do what you want quick enough by mouse.

Flawless Victory?!

Twitter Keyboard Shortcuts

Some of these can be a bugger to find via the ‘new’ interface, especially Lists and Direct Messages, so I find I use some of these a lot (when I’m actually in the interface, which I’m not much as I mostly use Hootsuite for Twitter, but hey).

List of Shortcuts = ?

Next Tweet = J

Previous Tweet = K

Search = /

Refresh Fresh Tweets List = .

Page Down = Space

Home = G+H

Connect = G+C

Activity = G+A

Mentions = G+R

Discover = G+D

Profile = G+P

Favorites = G+F

Lists = G+L

Messages = G+M 

Settings = G+S

Go to User = G+U

Favorite = F

Reply = R

Retweet = T

Direct Message = M

New Tweet = N

Close All Open Tweets = L

Open Tweet Details = Enter

On Facebook it can get a bit fiddly in places, with some stuff working in some browsers and not others, but here’s a list to give you the skinny. Facebook being fiddly and awkward? Who knew.

General Facebook Keyboard Shortcuts

Next Post in Newsfeed = J

Previous Post in Newsfeed = K

Like/Unlike Photos = L

Facebook Keyboard Shortcuts: on Mac OS

3 keys to do anything sucks, but at least they have the common decency to put 2 of the keys next to each other. I don’t use as lot of these, but quick access to ‘Account Settings’ has become a regular, and ‘New Message’ is an obvious one.

New Message = Ctrl + Alt + M

Help Centre = Ctrl + Alt + 0

Home Page = Ctrl + Alt + 1

Profile Page = Ctrl + Alt + 2

Friend Request = Ctrl + Alt + 3

Messages = Ctrl + Alt + 4

Notification Centre = Ctrl + Alt + 5

Account Settings = Ctrl + Alt + 6

Privacy Settings = Ctrl + Alt + 7

Official Facebook Page = Ctrl + Alt + 8

Service Agreement = Ctrl + Alt + 9

Facebook Keyboard Shortcuts: on a Windows OS

Basically, these are the same as those for Mac, just ditch the ‘Ctrl’. Just for extra bonus points, if you’re using Firefox on a Windows machine you’ll have to add ‘Shift’ into the mix, plus the stuff below. This is probably some modern day ‘Mr. Miyagi’ trick to turn the youth of today into a secret ninja army. Go Bill. If I had your money I’d try and develop super powers in people too. Anyway...

New Message = Alt + M

Help Centre = Alt + 0

Home Page = Alt + 1

Profile Page = Alt + 2

Friend Request = Alt + 3

Messages = Alt + 4

Notification Centre = Alt + 5

Account Settings = Alt + 6

Privacy Settings = Alt + 7

Official Facebook Page = Alt + 8

Service Agreement = Alt + 9

Youtube Keyboard Shortcuts

Dead simple.

Remember, be kind.

Play/Pause = Space

Rewind = ◀

Fast Forwards = ▶

Volume Up = ▲

Volume Down = ▼

Full Screen = F

Exit Full Screen = Esc

Mute = M

Finding a place in the video by percentage is just 1 = 10% to 9 = 90%.

Google Plus Keyboard Shortcuts

Now I use these quite a bit, especially for scrolling in the timeline, though the new layout confused the b’jesus out of me for a bit.

Key Board Shortcuts Menu = ?

Next Post = J

Previous Post = K

Open/Close Current Post = O

Next Comment on Current Post = N

Previous Comment on Current Post = P

Comment on Current Post = R

Load Fresh Posts = L

Search = /

Send Feedback = @

List of Pages = ◀ (then ‘Enter’ to open the page)

Page Content = ▶

Also try, for shits and giggles if you're bored, try this in chat:

/ponies - OMG!, a small horse runs through chat... also try /ponystream
/pitchforks - an angry mob, AKA Frankenstein charges across chat.
/bikeshed - will swap out the background color for everyone in the chat.
/shydino - a small coy dinosaur lumbers in.

So there y’go. Hope that’s of use to someone :)

Why you Should Consider Adding Google Plus Comments

Sharing is important. Interaction is our business. Commentary is a big part of this.

As such I've always rather liked the concept of Disqus (though it never really seemed to catch on) and the likes of JetPack that extended the experience and attempted to tie commentary and the social world together.

Recently, since Facebook produced Facebook Comments (all be it a bit fiddly to set-up - here's a decent FB Comments Wordpress plugin if you need it), the landscape of commentary has become irrevocably skewed towards social integration. For community management, this is great news.

Yesterday, somewhat inevitably, Google+ flopped out Google+ Comments.

Put simply, when folks comment on your content it's also shared on Google Plus. This works both ways, and if a visitor shares your stuff on G+ it'll also appear on your content, and if a dialogue then ensues it's there on G+ and your site/blog for all to see. Pretty simple, right?

This is a piece of cake to turn on in Blogger - in fact, next time you log in you'll probably be promoted to do so - and flawlessly connects your blog (or website) to the wider Google+ platform.

While it's not official, there's already a Google+ Comments plugin for Wordpress that seems to do the job for this - I've no doubt there'll be more to follow.

So why do you want this?

Cos this is some serious gourmet shit.

Social Signals - essentially, the human component in modern SEO. The more shares, +1's, and activity within Google Plus, the more Google is likely to favour you in it's 'organic' search results. Every comment now has the potential to be a share in G+. Every share in G+ is a social signal, and (if you're all set-up properly) a boost to your AuthorRank as well.

The jury is still out on just HOW effective this will be, but with Google doing more and more to integrate G+ and the likes of AurthorRank into the SEO mix, this can't be ignored. Getting closer to giving us a self contained web experience within the G+ walled garden, Google Plus Comments is just yet another string to SEO's bow in the pursuit of preferential rankings.

Add it today. It's early days, but it seriously can't hurt.

3 Tools for Creative Social Media Images

A picture paints a thousand words, if you believe Frederick R. Barnard or Telly Savalas, and images certainly help boost EdgeRank in Facebook, stand out in G+ (which has a few built in tools of it's own), and make for something to populate the profile with (over on the left of your main page) in Twitter.

There's a tonne of photo manipulation tools out there that link to your profile, from Instergram to Hipstermatic, and all the tools like them that FourSquare and the others have crow-barred into their mobile interfaces - which are fun to play with though really social media channels (or channel supports) in their own right. This is not what I want to highlight. What I want to share is a few tools for making custom images, because sometimes you need something a bit special and it's these that get the likes and get passed around. Yes, it takes some effort, but effort is invariably rewarded with community support. What we're looking for, to be blunt, is the more 'pinable' kind of stuff without needing the skills to do all this in Photoshop.

ReciteThis

Ok, I love this tool. I use it a lot for more fan based channels where I want to highlight quotes or whatever, but sometimes for clients too. If you need a simple sign or graphic, this is fried gold.

here's one I made earlier

As with all these tools it's not the tool but how you use it that counts. Think about how to get the best out of this and make sure it's of value.

Let's say you're my good lady wife, with a new Steampunk cooking book coming out this year. How about using it for seeding recipe ideas or quoting Victorian literature about food? Say you're an accountancy firm like my buddies over at Sedulo (who rock all over social by the way). How about picking out a 2013 Budget quote that's going to affect business? Posting topical quotes, inspiring messages, home-made haiku, tips, hints, whatever suits the channel or brand and will be fun for the community, will help spread the good word and show you care enough to make something just for them.

PicMonkey

I've got some deep admiration for this as an online app. It's apps like this that really give you an insight into where the web is heading in the future, when tools like this will be in the cloud instead of locally on your machine. PicMonkey, even the free version, does pretty much everything (and does it very stylishly) that you need to edit imagery for your communities. Stickers, textures, adding text (with a decent font bank), some decent touch-up tools, etc. The 'Themes' area has some nice groups of tools to help you make a start. You can see a features list on the site. You can also edit screen grabs and stuff with the Chome add-on. Nice.

The opportunities are fairly obvious, but I find I use it mostly for making easy collages of images and for adding text.

Animated GIFs

When I make a GIF (on the Mac) I use GIF Brewery, which goes for a song at £2.99 in the app store. It's pretty no-frills, but it lets you crop and save presets and that's really all you need.

Animated GIFs are pretty hot right now, and have been getting a resurgence since the advent of Tumblr. I've always had a massive soft spot for them and used to do them the old fashioned way with stills in Fireworks. They work great in G+, and for blogging obviously, but Facebook and Pinterest (while they recognise them) don't animate them. Google Image search also has an animated image search now, so it's a nice little nod for SEO moving forwards. I also like them (if subtle) for Twitter profile images, where appropriate.

Animated images give a special kind of impact, offer a slice of life, attract the eye, get passed around, and often use imagery taken out of context to make a point or (with text) to highlight a message. Choosing what clips you use, and where and how you use them, is the difficult and creative part. Big corps. are now using them for movie trailer previews, the possibilities are a lot of fun.

a special kind of impact

I'm told that GIF Animator is good on the PC, and Gickr and GIFSoup (which also has a big collection of pre-made stuff) are a couple of the better ones on-line - but to be honest I've not tried them. For smartphones there's GifBoom for the iPhone and Android, which let's you do the necessary live and for free - I've tried this but couldn't really find a use for it at the time. If you find anything good let me know, I'd love to add them if you've got recommendations.

So there you go. Something a bit different. Social channels are catering for images and the web is getting more visual. Making something unique, putting into the web (and not regurgitating the same old drok) is where the shares are. Go make something cool.

How to Identify Your Brand Evangelists

In social media, brand evangelists are worth their own weight in gold. These are the fine folks who are behind your product or service enough to pro-actively tell the rest of the world about it with little provocation and with maximum gusto. These are the folks who 'share', 'plus', 'like', 'comment', contribute, and are truly passionate about spreading what you do out there in the world.

identifying those who'll spread your message

As a percentage of your overall community it's difficult to say how many you will have, but you will have them (to varying degrees). Initially they will probably be staff or family members, but if you keep a community active and engaged you'll soon start to see more - from experience I'd say it's probably around 1 in 300. Without going to the trouble of paying for software to identify these people for you (you'll want to be considering this when a social channel goes over around 5000ish, as that seems to be the 'confusion tipping point' (for me anyway)) just create a decentralized (Google Docs) spreadsheet of any individual comments, the name of the person doing the commenting, and the name of the forum, blog, review site (like Yelp or Review Centre), or social media channels (Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) where the comment appears. Comments tend to stand out better then simple button clicks ('likes', yada, yada) or shares, and commentary is a stronger mark of evangelism. If you find an individual (or firm) chatting about you across multiple channels they're definitely what you're looking for, but people can be passionate in just one channel too (especially social) so that's not a dominating indicator. What they are saying, and the frequency they are saying it, are usually the big clue.

NB: Just a quick note, a Brand Evangelist is not necessarily an Influencer. Influencers are the peeps with the big networks and followings, but they may not give a pair of fettered dingos kidneys about you or your brand. If you can get a Brand Evangelist who IS an Influencer then that's great, but for this exercise they're two different things - as a casual observer I like to use the Klout tracker Chrome extension for Twitter to keep an eye on Influencers who might be passing stuff to their followers, and I run down my list of recent engagements in the 'connect tab' to see if anyone stands out. I'm not a massive fan of the likes of Klout, Trackr, or Peer Index as (if the truth be known) I don't honestly trust the accuracy of their figures - but they are a handy first indicator.

Fostering NEW Evangelists

creating people who'll sing your praises

To make new evangelists in social media you need to find new opportunities to make conversations. This means going out there and talking, giving things away, soliciting reviews, all the usual stuff. Reach out and partner up with suppliers, people who share similar ethics (like green recycling policies, or those who are involved in the same charity work as you, etc.). Be the 'real deal' and join conversations about things you or your brand are interesting in - don't just flog your widgets. You need to help people, talk to people, and give them practical solutions. Try using social to run simple competitions, even just for small fun prizes - basically, stimulate people to talk about you.

The obvious method is to just push the boat out a bit and to give good service - for example, my break light went out and I was passing the dealership I bought my car from so I popped in for a bulb. They insisted on fitting it for me, and not charging me for the bulb. I'll be an evangelist for Smart of Derby now forever. It cost them 10 minutes, a bulb, and a smile, and now they have my good will across my entire network of friends, fans, and followers.

Tools You Can Use

If communities get too unwieldy for manual comment collation, or you want to examine trends by individuals in 'likes', 'shares' etc., you're going to have cough up some pennies. Tools can be well worth it as part of a short-term out reach campaign, or for larger communities over longer periods. There's plenty out there for Influencers, but not that many for Brand Evangelists (i.e. filtering out the Kool Aid drinkers in specific communities).

ViralHeat is pretty simple, probably the best for this, and has a 14 day free trial then only $9.99 a month. There's also Twesier, which has has a Pro package that let's you sort your friends and followers by popularity, influence, activity levels, etc. with 7 days free trial and then £9.99 a month.

What To Do With Evangelists

Once you know who these people are it's time to get creative. How about inviting them to events or to come and take a look behind the scenes? How about sending them new products or asking them about new services? How about just sending them a bottle of wine when they've just a special occasion, and saying congratulations? How about giving them some money off codes to spread around amongst their friends. There's lots of options, and they all foster sign-up, inbound links, good will, word-of-mouth, and eventually sales. It's really down to what suits the brand personality and to what suits your wallet.

Hope that's of use, and if you know any more tools for specifically identifying a Brand Evangelist (over influencers) please let me know, I'd love to add them.

The Pros, Cons, and Alternatives to Buying Friends, Fans, and Followers

There are services out there who will sell you YouTube 'views', 'likes' and 'subscribes', Vimeo plays, Tumblr likes, Facebook follows and 'likes', Twitter followers, Instagram followers, even SoundCloud plays, in fact pretty much anything you need to boost the ranks of your social channels if numbers are all you care about.

Whether I think this is right or not - I often have to explain the benefits and the downfalls of this for clients because, put simply, most of them ask. Most people see these services and think "Why shouldn't I throw fifty quid at this to get the ball rolling and get the Pages hopping - can you do this for us Nik?" Let's assume community growth is part of the strategy, here's the impartial answer I give them:

The Pros

Having a healthy number of followers boosts credibility, meaning others are (psychologically) more likely to sign-up and join the community, watch the video, eat the Soylent Green, whatever, because they believe it is of value because of the perception of worth indicated by the 'likes', 'plays', 'friends', 'followers', etc.

It's probably cheaper than social ads.

The Cons

Most of these services are compleatly untargeted and/or fake accounts, even if they claim to be otherwise. As a consequence people don't care about the Page or account they are following, and their interaction stops here. If you could get blood out of a stone Mount Everest would be covered in black pudding factories, it's not, and it's the same thing trying to squeeze interaction out of bought friends, fans, and followers.

Friends might not be as reliable as you think...

There is an ongoing drop off to followers and subscribers that will continue indefinitely. A percentage of these accounts are real people, and eventually these real people will realize you are clogging up their stream with news and stuff they don't care about (probably because your chatting away in a different language or not about Justin Bieber). Eventually they will unsubscribe, and user numbers will start to fall almost immediately - this is especially true with Twitter where many of these are opt-in-bulk-follow-back arrangements.

Channels, notably Facebook, are cracking down on this. Back in August they announced a new automated system to weed out fake accounts and followers, and said they'd penalise numbers accordingly. There's not much point paying for followers if they are going to be removed automatically. If they take this further and penalise EdgeRank, for example, you're in a world of pain. Technically it's against most sites terms and conditions, so you also run the risk for getting your whole profile wiped - which I doubt makes for shits and giggles.

The Alternatives

So I'm going to look at this simply. How would I spend that £50 (or less) to get better results?

• Targeted Facebook social ads (or Promoted Posts if you've got something good to say). At least this 50 quids worth of targeted accounts will care about what you do and you might actually get some shares or sales out of it. How about some LinkedIn ads to target companies that need your services? If you need a bit more money signed of for this, how about creating your own and ploughing anything you make on blogs AdSence back into your social marketing? If you go for tight local targeting that £50 will be much better spent.
• Contests, sweepstakes, giveaways. I've always liked WildFire apps for this, they keep everything under correct terms and conditions and they're cheap as chips.
• Fan-specific (you gotta be a 'liker') coupons and discounts (see WildFire apps again)
• A reveal page. If they don't click 'like', they don't get the good stuff. Here's a simple how to.
• Do some outreach. Here's a trick I use for Hootsuite to find Twitter peeps. The rest is chatting in groups on LinkedIn and being happy to answer some questions on the likes of at Quora, Yahoo Answers, and commenting on blogs and Tumblr etc. It'll cost you nothing but time.
• Posting awesome content - take some time to create some white-paper quality stuff, and to spread it around creatively. With a bit more time build an Editorial Calendar and some user personas, and get your colleagues in sync to produce some serious stuff that people will actually want to read.
• Using viral apps like Questions and Offers. It's all there in Facebook's interface, ready to rock.
• Asking f/f/f's to tell their buddies (which is free, but you gottta give them a reason to do so).
• Embed video everywhere. Videos on YouTube are great for long tail search, but embedding Facebook vids in your blog content is a greater reason for people to click-through to your community.
• Check your literature and website. Are your social channels EVERYWHERE? Have people got the URL and links in front of them so that they can easily find your Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter, G+, Flickr, whatever?

I could add a lot more alternatives, but I'm starting to bore myself. Weighing up the pros and cons seems to have obvious results. Personal biased aside, that's a lot you can do with just a tiny bit more effort that will be a lot more effective than paying for numbers. There's no substitute for effort, and that's where you should place your £50. If you don't want the hassle yourself, imagine that money is going towards an hours work and to someones wages within your company, it's often a lot easier to justify to the powers-that-be.

How to Support SEO With Social Media and Content Marketing

I've worked, on and off, in SEO for over 16 years. It's far from my speciality these days, but I do work for an agency where the core business product is search and I'm often asked what social can do to help. Here's a few suggestions I give the folks in the SEO department when they ask.

NB: Tweeting used to help in getting content indexed. Re-tweets helped it to get indexed quicker. Alas, since Google stopped paying for the full fire hose of Twitters data this no longer appears so (especially if you only get small numbers of RT's). It's still worth doing, but don't hold your breath.

Link Bait

If you create shareable content it'll get passed around, and (more importantly) linked to. Putting the time in to creating video, infographics, audio, a bit of creative meme riding, finding and crafting the right images - content like this is fried gold if you want people to organically link to your posts or site. There's no substitute for the well researched and nicely presented content that pushes your audiences buttons. Embedding that into blog post and into other services promotes sharing and linking.

Link bait

Linking to Channels

For SEO, forget fancy embed codes from the likes of Facebook on your main site (yes, this goes against all the best community building practice, I know. Saying this feels like playing Tie-Fighter after a month of playing X-Wing, just dirty). The Facebook embed code, even if it does promote sign-up by showing your friends who already like a Page, slows a site down so much it's like watching stoned turtles stampede through peanut butter. Go with direct links, above the fold, and a clear 'trawlable' line of access to the social channels. Also, tag them. Putting alt text in place that says the likes of "Follow [blah] on Twitter" is another way to get the brand name in there, and is great accessibility practice.

Get on G+, and Develop Your AuthorRank

Google Plus is getting better. No, really. Not only is it getting more and more usable but Google is making it valuable for search rankings. Posting your blog content here, and actively going about redistributing it by promoting +1's and developing a community is 'where it's at.' How you do that is a whole book in it'self, but starting now with basic set-up and posting is a positive way forwards. Google Plus also seems to promote rapid indexing and trawling, with any 'shares' and '1+s' meaning it's trawled and indexed even quicker.

In the next few years AuthorRank has the potential to become the backbone of credibility. Get your G+ profile linked to your blog content. Now. Start building your reputation. Now. For more on this check my 'Why You Can't Ignore AuthorRank' post from back in January. AuthorRank is like PageRank for individuals, and it's all about 'social signals'. Once you've got your profile linked to your blog you can start to generate credit for the content you create - the 'scoring criteria' runs on factors like 'likes', 'shares', 'retweets', 'comments', '+1s' and the influence of the folks (your followers) doing the sharing. Get this sorted now, you'll thank me for it in 2014. Rel=Author tags are important, and the more you write on a given subject and the more 'love' it gets, the more Auntie Google will pimp your stuff.

Pinterest

In general, Pinterest seems to be good for inbound links. General good practices on Pinterest (adding prices, linking across platforms, filling out the whole profile, fresh content, linking to individual products, categorising boards, adding keywords to descriptions, etc.) seem to be a real boon, and we've got clients that pick up PageRank from being connected to their higher PageRank Pinterest accounts. Every little helps, right?

Write Some Original Quality Content

Not average run-of-the-mill content. Good original content, just like the link bait above. 2-3 fresh posts a week and Google will love you for it - though bigger brands will need to do this a lot more often (probably as much as 2-3 times a daily). Create posts people want to share and link to. Share what you know - remember, you're not giving away information your spreading your knowledge and enhancing your credibility. One blog post that gets shared is worth the time it takes to write 6 blog posts that just sit there gathering social dust. People like to share good useful information from sources they trust that's helped them or they believe will help other people. Often this will be about those common interests and the answer questions they didn't even know they needed an answer to - go take a look at Quora or Yahoo Answers and have a search to see what folks want to know. If it's new, funny, topical, or bordering on the obscure, people love it. Think about working in those compelling (and actionable) calls-to-action and tantalising headlines, and don't cram articles with keywords (those days are gone). Keep your content relevant and accurate, and grow your credibility as an authority. Stimulate debate. Be awesome. Rock your peers. Get writing, but make sure it's decent stuff.

Promote Sharing

If sharing is good for content distribution and you want to up your 'social signals', make sure it's easy for the reader to share (yeah, I know, the theory's hardly rocket science). There's a few good services for this that add all the relevant (the key word here is 'relevant', no one wants to wade through a bazillion icons) social shearing features - try AddThis, ShareThis, or Lockerz - they all do the same thing in different ways.

Also, just as a point, if you spend a few pennies to promote your social posts and get them under the nose of folks who will share it, well that's just good 'white hat' tactics ;)

sharing is good

All this is just scratching the surface. If you want to boost your SEO through distributing content via social media this is a good start. How you get people to do that is another story, but putting the back-bone in place so that they can is an excellent start. Quality and access, that's all it takes.