Increase Social Media Productivity in 2015

We are living in the 21st century where there are dozens of social media platforms you can get involved in.

The biggest problem faced by nearly all the social media managers and teams out there?

We only have 24 hours a day and we are always looking for ways to increase our social media productivity.

But before we go deeper into this topic, I know many of you will agree (to a certain point) that social media is really a productivity killer.

Imagine your staffs are eye-ing the latest Facebook or Twitter feed, upvoting videos of cats on skateboards in Youtube or even posting selfies on Instagram as if they are some sort of pop-star.

Yes those happen all the time (worldwide) and like what Financial Post said here, “There’s always going to be the 5% who ruin it for the rest of us.”

1. Plan your social media marketing

One of the biggest challenges I personally face in social media is I need more time.

Just like a million others, 24 hours a day isn’t enough for me and I’m constantly finding for ways to double or triple my productivity.

How can planning helps you in social media marketing?

Planning helps organizations and businesses (including you) to chart a course for the achievement of their goals. The process begins by reviewing:

The ultimate goal
Ways to achieve such goals
Monitoring the levels of achievement

2. Rifle Approach vs Shotgun Approach

For those who are in the digital marketing sphere, you have probably heard about Jay Baer from Convince and Convert.

During the Social Fresh Conference, he highlighted the Shotgun Approach as possibly, the best method when it comes to social media engagements.

But wait!

What is the Rifle Approach?
How about the Shotgun Approach?
Above all, how do these help to increase social media productivity?

In the Rifle Approach, online marketers are commonly targeting just one platform for sales leads and traffic. While this technique is proven to be working very well, you are seriously limiting the reach.

In the Shotgun Approach, you are sharing about the same post but targeting multiple social media platforms. It makes a no-brainer that you are bound to reach to more people using multiple platforms.

Allow me to be extremely clear here; Both approaches work marvelously depending on niche and industry. If you’re having a hard time trying to consider which is the best method, the below are the summaries:

Advantages of the Rifle Approach

Ability to reach specific people with similar interests
Lesser cost involved
Takes lesser time to execute the marketing strategy
Easier for measuring and goal settings

Disadvantages of the Rifle Approach

You’re targeting a smaller range of people
Brand awareness is much lower

Advantages of the Shotgun Approach

Reach out to more people with slightly more effort
Increase the chances of going viral on various social media platforms
Higher chance to get a higher return of investment (ROI)

Disadvantages of the Shotgun Approach

More time and effort needed to achieve the goals
Social media planning is vital to ensure success
Marketing cost is higher than the Rifle Approach

3. Leverage the power of social media management tools for higher productivity

What is your favorite social media management tool for business?

In today’s world, we have all the tools to boost your social media marketing productivity but the question is, “Are you using them?”

According to Neil Patel, we spend approximately 3 hours a day on social media. I know for the fact that I spend around 5 hours a day (at least)!

So, how do you double your social media productivity and save more time?

By using social media management tool of course!

Most social media management tools work as an all-in-one dashboard for your online marketing. You are able to integrate various social platforms into one app and work from there.

Instead of going into each social platform manually to publish a post, you can do everything with just a couple of clicks.

In short, social media management tools help to:

Manage multiple social media accounts under one dashboard
A single posting could easily reach multiple social platforms
Replying and engaging with your followers without login into the native website
Ease all your digital marketing efforts

If you are still doing the old school social media marketing, I would highly suggest you to take a dive at these freemium tools below. These are some tools you can start for free today:

HootSuite
MavSocial
Sprout Social

4. Curating contents

How long does it takes you to curate a content? On average, I spend around 30 minutes hunting down the best contents to share on social media accounts – And this is just for one content.

Imagine how long it would take you to find 10, 20 or even 30 posts to share a day?

When it comes to curating content for social media needs, I would always suggest the following:

Feedly
Flipboard
PostPlanner (for Facebook only)

- Feedly

Want to make content curation easier for your social media productivity?

Feedly allows you to import various feeds into specific tabs and labels. It can range from your favorite blogger to the latest news on CNN.

As you can see above, Feedly makes it real easy for any online marketers to keep track of the latest news.

You also have the ability to share contents into your social platforms directly from Feedly.

Did you know that Feedly is one of the go-to tools for Tony Restell (founder of Social-Hire.com), who manages over 92 social media accounts!

- Flipboard

If you have a smartphone, you would know about Flipboard. It is an awesome tool especially when you love magazine-style reading.

With Flipboard, you can save the article or share it around at any time just by the flick of your finger.

Forget about Google search when you can easily curate anything directly from your palms.

- PostPlanner

I came across a fair share of Facebook tool but trust me when I say that PostPlanner is awesome.

For one, they are basically practicing the Rifle Approach rule (refer above if you had missed it) but it is working extremely well for them!

How can PostPlanner helps you to be more productive in social media?

PostPlanner is a Facebook app and it helps you to queue and schedule content (on a free account). On a paid account which starts at $29 per month, you have instant access to over 10,000 pre-written questions, images and links.

People using PostPlanner for one reason only – which is to be involved in a viral situation.

5. Analyzing your social media strategy

You may have done your social media planning, choosing the right approach, using social media tools and curating content for online marketing.

Is there any other way to increase social media productivity?

Yes – and the last part is all about analytics.

The ultimate goals are to save time and make every effort taken counts. The only way to judge them is to have proper analytics.

Here’s something you need to know about it.

It takes time, and it takes a lot of time.

However, the information you get from analyzing your marketing efforts will (in a long run) multiple your productivity.

Why?

Because you know exactly what works and what doesn’t.

Several common social media analytics used by experts are:

Number of engagements (clicks, comments, likes and shares)
Geographical factors
Demographics
Best time to update a post

How do you increase social media productivity?

As a recap, these are 5 actionable tips to boost productivity on social media and you can easily start using them right now!

Google Panda 4.1 Updates

Over the weekend, there was a tremendous amount of chatter within the SEO community, including discussion forums, social media and other channels. There were rumors that Google was pushing out a new algorithm, maybe the eagerly anticipated Penguin refresh which is expected really soon or maybe something else?

Google told us just now that the Panda 4.1 release is still rolling out and that may be what SEOs and Webmasters are noticing.

Google launched Panda 4.1 on September 25, 2014 and told us it would be a “slow rollout” that would go into the following week. No one really expected the rollout to continue into this week but it has and the fluctuations and ranking changes you are seeing are likely related to that.

If you saw a huge drop in Google traffic, it may or may not be related to Panda 4.1. Google is constantly making changes and although you may notice a drop on the Panda 4.1 release date, you may have been impacted by other algorithms, user interface changes or manual actions. In addition, you might not notice a change on September 25th but notice one over this past weekend, which could also be related to Panda 4.1.

Google has confirmed with us that Panda 4.1 is still rolling out.

Email Marketing Tips

Email marketing is a great way to reach your customers where they are without spending a lot of money. But it’s a big responsibility, too—people don’t give their email addresses to just anyone. Thinking about starting a company newsletter? Here are some tips to keep in mind.

Make it easy to subscribe

Post a signup form on your homepage, blog, Facebook page, and wherever else your customers and fans are already active. You might want to collect names and birthdays (for a special offer or gift) or invite readers to join groups, but don’t go crazy with the required fields. A too-long subscribe form might scare people off.

Tell subscribers what to expect

Whether you plan to send company updates, letters from the president, e-commerce sales, daily deals, or weekly tips, it’s important to tell your readers what to expect and how often to expect it. Give them as much information as possible on your signup form, so they can decide whether they want to be on the list or not.

Send a welcome email

It’s always smart to remind people why they’re on your list and reassure them that good things are in store. You might even send new subscribers a special offer or exclusive content, as your way of thanking them for their loyalty.

Design your newsletter to fit your brand

 Your email campaigns should match your brand’s look and feel. If you’re using a template, you might want to customize it to include your company’s colors and logo in the header. If your emails are consistent with the rest of your company’s content, then readers will feel more familiar from the start.

Make it Scannable

Your subscribers are busy people who get a lot of email, so it’s safe to assume you don’t have their undivided attention. Instead of one long block, break up your content into short paragraphs. Include subheadings and images to guide readers through your email and make it easier to scan, and add a teaser to the top of your newsletter to tell subscribers what’s in store. If you’re sending a long article, consider inserting a “read more” link so people can get to the rest when it’s convenient for them. Your subject line should be to-the-point and easy to digest, too. You might even want to a/b test subject lines to see which ones perform best.

Send people content they Want

Email newsletter services offer features like groups and segmentation to help you make your content relevant to the people reading it. If you’re sending different emails for different groups (for example, a nonprofit might send separate emails to volunteers, donors, and the board of directors), then you can ask people to check a box to join a particular group on your signup form. Segmentation allows you to target certain subscribers on your list without assigning them to group. If your store is having a sale, then you could send a campaign only to people near a particular zip code, because subscribers who live in other parts of the world don’t need to know about it. You can also segment by activity, email clients, e-commerce data, and more. Sending relevant content will keep your readers engaged, and engaged readers look forward to your newsletter and share it with friends.

Keep a publishing calendar

 A regular newsletter is a commitment. If you go several months without sending anything, then your subscribers will forget about you, and they’ll be more likely to delete the next email, or worse, mark it as spam. Make time to plan, write, design, and send your newsletters regularly.

Edit - Even editors need editors

When you’re working on your publishing calendar, leave plenty of time for the editing and revision process. Once you send a campaign, it goes straight to the inbox, and you can’t go back and update it. Newsletters contain meaningful content, and sloppy ones reflect poorly on the companies who send them. Grammar and style are just as important for email as they are for websites and blogs.

Test the Mailer

Different email clients and mobile devices display emails differently. Send test emails to colleagues, or use a testing program to make sure your emails are going to look good on screens big and small. Testing reveals design mistakes before it’s too late, and testing programs can predict whether or not a campaign will get caught in a spam filter. You could even set up accounts with a few different email services for easy testing. Avoid sending one big image as a campaign, and cover your bases with a plain-text option for every email.

Think about mobile

If a campaign doesn’t show up on mobile devices, it’s not going to perform very well. Everything you send should be mobile-friendly. Check out ReturnPath’s “Email in Motion” infographic for some data that might affect the way you design your emails. One of the highlights: According to the study, 63 percent of Americans and 41 percent of Europeans would either close or delete an email that’s not optimized for mobile. Might be time to start using a responsive template.

Know your spam rules

A lot of innocent people send spam because they didn’t know any better. Read up on the CAN-SPAM act to avoid any trouble. Put simply, you’re allowed to send bulk email only to people who specifically asked to be on your mailing list. If you collected email addresses for a lunch giveaway or an event invitation, then you don’t have permission to send marketing emails unless you made that clear at signup. Include an obvious unsubscribe link in every email, and don’t forget to remind subscribers how they got on your list in the first place.

Make it shareable

 Send content that people want to share, and make it easy for them to do it. Sure, subscribers can forward your campaign to friends, but that’s a lot to ask. Include a public link to the web version of your campaign so people can read it outside of their email programs, and consider adding Twitter and Facebook links to your newsletter, so readers can share your content where they’re already active. When their friends start sharing and subscribing, you’ll know it’s working.

Keep an eye on your stats

Most email newsletter services offer free reports that contain helpful information. Learn how to read and understand your reports, so you can use the stats to improve your campaigns going forward. Pay attention to your open and click rates, and identify any patterns that make those numbers go up or down. If a campaign receives a high number of unsubscribes, then try something different the next time.

Be friendly

Feel free to use a casual tone in your email newsletters. Since most emails come directly from one person, people expect human voices in their inboxes. There’s a good chance your subscribers are already in a informal frame of mind when they’re checking their email, so an overly formal or stodgy voice might seem out of place. Plus, they’ve given you their email address, so you’re already on a first-name basis. If you collect first names on your signup form, you can dynamically include them in your email greetings.

Only send email if you have something to say

This one seems obvious, but too many companies start email newsletters with no plan and nothing to say. Email is simply a way to publish content—the content itself has to come first. Before starting a newsletter, make sure it’s a sustainable commitment that will help you achieve your business goals. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your subscribers’ time and your own time. Ask yourself: What’s the goal for this kind of communication? What do we have to say? How will we measure success? Send thoughtful newsletters, and keep the focus on your company’s message.