Whatever you think about Facebook, there’s one thing that’s hard to dispute: Mark Zuckerberg isn’t afraid to mix things up and try new strategies, and that’s especially true when it comes to advertising. If you don’t follow the social network closely, it’s easy to miss the newest advertising tools and tips. Let’s take a quick look at six things you can do to get more out of your Facebook campaign right now.

1. Don’t Let Facebook Do Your Bidding

If you’re advertising a Facebook Page, Event, or App, and you don’t pay close attention, you might think you’re only option is to let Facebook optimize your ad on a CPM basis. But, as Facebook pro Andrea Vahl reminds us, if you read the small print, you’ll see that you can also select the advance pricing model, and that’s what all experienced Facebook advertisers should be doing. The advanced model allows you to not only set your own CPM bids, but also to switch over to CPC pricing. In other words, Facebook is giving you the option. Don’t let them do your bidding.

2. Promote Your App With Mobile App Install Ads

If you’ve got an app, and you’re advertising on Facebook, you should be taking advantage of Mobile App Install Ads via Sponsored Stories. Facebook is seeing great click-through rates on Sponsored Stories on mobile. According to Mashable, one marketing firm running Facebook campaigns for major brands is seeing mobile click-through rates for Sponsored Stories that are 12 times higher than their desktop rates — not to mention 45 percent less expensive. And if you can get those clicks on mobile, it only makes sense to get users to download your app. E-commerce pros know that when users downloads a retailer’s app, it usually leads to a lot more spending.

 3. Make Sure Your Testing is Rigorous

Everyone knows by now — or, at least, they should — that it’s important to test out different creatives to determine what’s most effective. But don’t stop with two versions of your creative. Just because one creative beats another in an A/B test doesn’t mean you’ve optimized your campaign. Caroline Melberg, founder of Small Business Mavericks, tells her clients to run four different ads for the same campaign. And don’t assume you’re done at that point. You’ve got to take the time to look over the data every day and then to test the best performing ad against a new set of creatives. Real optimizing takes real work, but it always pays off.

 4. Take Advantage of  Facebook’s New Ad Exchange, FBX

If you’re only running traditional Facebook campaigns, you’re missing out on one of the biggest developments in display advertising in years. Last September, Facebook invaded Google’s turf by launching its own ad exchange, known as FBX. In most ways, FBX operates like a traditional exchange with marketers bidding in real-time to serve impressions to individual users based on their online behavior. Early reports suggest that campaigns running on FBX are producing jaw-dropping ROIs.

Remember, though, if you want to use Facebook’s treasure trove of data, you’re out of luck. To take advantage of FBX, you have to come to the table with your own data and work with one of the handful handful of DSPs that Facebook has invited into FBX. Once you’ve found your vendor, a good first step it take your existing retargeting programs and extend them to FBX — the price alone is going to make your campaign more efficient.

5. Don’t Let the Limitations of FBX Slow You Down

Just because Facebook isn’t supplying the data, doesn’t mean you can’t target with precision. Sometimes FBX just requires a quick workaround. Take Geo-targeting for example: FBX doesn’t come with built-in geo-targeting options, but partner platforms can work around this by leveraging an individual’s last known geo-location. And, as long as your platform partner is at it, have it target by time of day and day of the week as well.

 6. Take FBX to the Extreme with Search Retargeting

Three months after Facebook launched FBX, it partnered with my company, Chango, to bring Search Retargeting to the exchange. That means that you can now target your impressions to Facebook users based on the searches they’ve made on Google, Bing, and Yahoo!. In other words, the intent signal that makes search marketing so insanely effective is now working its magic on Facebook. And since you’re targeting based on search terms, you don’t have to limit yourself to your existing site visitors. This is good old fashion prospecting we’re talking about.

Just follow these six tips and you’ll be on your way to a great Facebook campaign. But once you’re up and running, don’t relax for too long. It’s only a matter of time until Facebook changes things again.

About the Ben Plomion:

6 Ways to Make More Out of Your Facebook Ad Campaign is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

Through speaking engagements and such, I’ve sold a lot of copies of Youtility, and we’re headed toward the best-seller lists. But I could use a hand from you to make sure it does even better.

We’ve produced thousands of hours of free content here, and I don’t ask for much. But I REALLY need you this week, please. Until Friday, you can take advantage of a collection of exclusive book-related bonuses, not available anywhere else. Plus, free shipping anywhere in the USA.

Special Pre-Order Offer Until May 24

If you pre-order Youtility this week at the special store I built you can get cool stuff like:

• The music video for Youtility (which could star YOU) – created by the amazing Chuck Kent
• The full, 60-minute video of the Youtility live presentation
• A video annotated Executive Summary of the book
• An ebook with the 21 Best Quotes From Youtility

And, if you buy a handful of copies or more, you’ll also get:

• A special live Q&A with me about the book
• A detailed ebook about the “Making Of” Youtility (how I wrote and marketed the book)

For very special, truly awesome people (like you?) who buy 9 or more copies on pre-order, you’ll receive:

• An interactive, online workbook and discussion guide – perfect for teams working on Youtility
• I’ll personally leave a voice mail for everyone to whom you give a copy of the book!

This is a very important week (and book) for me. It’s the best work I’ve ever done, and I know you’re going to love Youtility. Can I count on you to grab a few today?

For extra cuteness and emotional appeal, up top is a photo of my dog, Mr. Cheeto, with the very first copy of the book. You don’t want to disappoint Mr. Cheeto, do you?

Many, many, many thanks for your support.

~ Jay

p.s. – The way I have the store and book fulfillment set up, I can only ship to US addresses. If you’re located elsewhere, just drop me an email at jay@boun.cr and we’ll figure it out together. 

About the Jay Baer:

Smart Marketing is about Help not Hype is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

Jonah Berger, Wharton @j1berger

Jonah Berger, Marketing Professor at the Wharton School, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss his bestseller Contagious: Why Things Catch on, the science behind those viral marketing hits, and the importance of setting realistic and helpful goals with a viral marketing campaign.

Read on for some of the highlights and tweetable moments, or listen to the full podcast.

Please Support Our Sponsors

Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors for helping us make this happen. Please support them; we couldn’t do it without their help! This week:

• From ExactTarget, a free white paper called “3 Truths Every CMO Needs to Know About Social Media and the Customer Experience“
• From Expion, a case study about how H&R Block mobilized 90,000 tax professionals in social media using Expion to guide their activity.
• From Janrain, a free guide on how to improve conversion rates and data quality.
• And from Cision, a free content marketing kit to help you get the most of your brand storytelling.

Listen Now 

Click the play button to listen here:

Download the audio file:

http://socialpros.podbean.com/mf/web/qad79f/SocialProsEpisode67.mp3

The RSS feed is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/socialprospodcast

Find us on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/convince-convert-blog-social/id499844469

Tweetable Moments

“Companies don’t understand the science behind viral. They build it, hope it’ll be successful.” -@j1berger (tweet this)

Catching Fire

Why does something catch fire and become popular, while something else completely fizzles and fades into oblivion? How does social influence work? How does it shape everything, from the products we buy to the services that we use to the behaviors we engage in? All these questions will be answered in Jonah Berger’s new book Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

At the Wharton School at UPenn, Jonah did a six-month study of New York Times articles — over 7,000 pieces of content. They were following what made the most-emailed list and what got left in the dust. What seemed to make people want to share a piece of content? Not surprisingly, useful information was a huge driver of whether or not people shared the content. The most shared articles tended to be movie and restaurant reviews, tips for getting your kid into college, and what to do in a city if you only have 36 hours. “One reason people share is they want to pass along that useful content.”

As a professor, Jonah doesn’t just let his students learn about social media; they have to actually use it. Students who are not already on Twitter are to join it and build up a follower base, tracking who looks at their tweets, etc. They also have to try to make a viral video and get it distributed. Some are successful and get thousands of views, and some only get a few people to see their video. Understanding how something works, after all, isn’t just learning about it; it’s doing it.

So how are companies doing it wrong? Jonah says they’re focusing too much on online content without knowing how it works. “It’s really about understanding how that science works, and thinking about online as well as offline.” Putting together successful content is not about hitting a home run every time; it’s about getting your average up. “You’re not looking for 10 billion clients; you’re just looking for ten more clients.”

Social Media Stat of the Week: Every Facebook Fan is Worth $174.17

Everyone is always trying to put a dollar value on Facebook fans. The researchers over at Syncapse have put together a study for 2013 valuing the average Facebook fan at $174.17. Jeff brings to our attention this week an interview with Syncapse’s executive chief Michael Scissons published in a New York Times blog. The problem, of course, with this type of data is that it is limited and highly circumstantial. The value of Facebook to your business depends entirely on what kind of business you are, what kind of fans you have, what you sell, etc. These things, unfortunately for market researchers, are unquantifiable.

via Syncapse

The study finds that “fans” tend to be Super Consumers and brand advocates. Jeff points out, though, we can’t measure the worth of a Facebook fan without also measuring the worth of a “fan” of the brand who may not happen to “like” the brand on Facebook. After all, you can be a Super Consumer of Coca Cola and not be on Facebook at all. What is the difference, if any, between the value of a brand fan and the value of a Facebook fan of the same brand? “Therein,” Jeff says, “lies the delta of value that aggregating those folks on Facebook creates.”

We’ve said this on the show before: the action of liking a brand on Facebook is a trailing indicator of relationship, not a leading indicator of relationship.

Four Your Information

How did you get involved in social media?
Jonah was not even on Twitter until about 8 months ago, but he started using it for Contagious. “The book encouraged me to get more on social media and work more in that space, not just in studying it but in using it as well.”

What do you like best about social media?
“I think it’s good in that it allows us to connect with people that we wouldn’t often see and get news from our friends and updates about people that we don’t always keep in touch with, so in some ways it’s made us closer.” But it’s not all good; it’s also negatively affected our behavior. “It makes us expect things very quickly, it makes us always look for the next soundbite in someone else’s life, it makes us not pay attention to information all the time.”

Do you have a favorite social network?
No, “I think different ones are good for different things, depending on your purpose.”

If you could do a Skype call with any living person, who might that be and why?
Jonah would like to have a Skype call with famous soccer player Lionel Messi. “Looking at someone who’s been successful in a different industry than you can often help you think differently than you would otherwise.”

See you next week!

About the Jay Baer:

Contagion, Social Media, and Why Things Catch On is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

I’d like to let you in on a secret that most PR pros don’t think of: s

Google.

It’s completely under-appreciated as a PR tool.

Let me share a few specific details, so you can get your company or your clients more business online.

After all, when you do things that other PR pros don’t think of doing, or don’t know to do, it puts you that much further ahead of the game, right? It’s a win for you and for your clients.

1. Use Google to Identify Where You Can Submit Press Releases, Articles, and Guest Blog Posts

Every time you have a press release, have you ever thought about investing a few hours searching for places to manually post your news?

Simply doing a Google search for “submit press release” or “submit news” can bring up an amazing number of opportunities. Be sure to try a variety of different searches to see what comes up, including the name of your city, industry and/or product category.

For example, if you have a press release announcing a new housing community in Scottsdale, Arizona, you might try the following searches: “submit news scottsdale,” “submit your news az,” “submit news real estate,” “submit news new homes”, etc. You get the idea.

Note: Searches are not case sensitive but be sure and include the phrase in quotation marks. If you don’t, Google will bring up results for each word in the phrase, instead of ones exactly matching the phrase.

You can also try “submit article” variations, if you want to place an article or blog post. Be sure to Google “write for us,” “submit guest post” and other similar phrases.

Sort through the results to see what applies to your client and topic/industry. The searches may take a little time to sleuth the opportunities out, but the overall process is very simple.

2. Use Google’s “Search News” and “Blog Search” Features

When is the last time you looked at the black toolbar at the top of the Google search page? Many never even notice these links, because their primary need is for the general search tool in the center of the page.

This is a high value tab for public relations and should not be overlooked.

If you click the “NEWS” tab and do a search, such as “az new home sales”, it will automatically bring up the latest news stories on new home sales in Arizona.

You can even customize the search period – important if you want news from the last month, instead of the last 24 hours, for example.

Just think of the implications for a minute. With a two-second search, you can:

1. Identify trending local or national news on your client’s industry, product, or service
2. See what has already been covered by reporters
3. Keep track of your client’s competitors to see who is getting coverage
4. Spot article opportunities to post an opinion or thought-leadership comment on behalf of your client

Here is another song on the same playlist - if you click on the “MORE” tab, you can scroll down and select “BLOG SEARCH”. Whatever you put in that search field will bring up search results only within blogs.

Be sure not to select “Blogger” – select “Blog Search” instead under the “Specialized Search” category towards the bottom of the page.

Why is this beneficial? To identify guest blog post opportunities in a certain industry or topic. 

Say we were still working on that new home builder client and wanted to find real estate blogs in Arizona or national real estate blogs covering Arizona real estate news. This is where to do it. It’s fantastic.

3. Use Google Alerts To Identify Clips, Comment Opportunities and Fresh News

This last tool is something more people know about: Google Alerts. It’s typically used so that you get an email every time news about your client hits the Internet.

Most set up alerts for the company name, stock symbol, executive names, brand or product names, etc. It allows them to capture a copy of the clip and monitor mentions. (Learn to set up Google Alerts here – it is also under the “More> Specialized Search” area.)

However, most PR pros don’t think to use alerts in another way: to identify news articles where they can post a client comment. When a news article hits that is relevant to your client and you aren’t taking part in it, posting a comment is a great way to join the conversation.

You can set up alerts to email you immediately when news goes live. This is important because you need to act VERY quickly when posting comments, so they aren’t lost in the buzz.

It also helps you identify specific reporters that should be on your media list. If they cover a topic relevant to your client, then they should be evaluated and potentially added to your list.

If your client has a blog post related to the news item you are commenting on, be sure and include a hyperlink back to that post, so readers can learn more about the same topic or continue the conversation. You can even create a custom post for the specific opportunity and topic BEFORE you post the comment if you can act fast enough to get it through your approval channels.

Unfortunately, Google Alerts are rumored to be removed from the Google lineup of products, but there are many other tools that offer similar functionality for free or at a low cost that you can consider if Google Alerts goes away.

I hope you find these ideas helpful. After all, who doesn’t want to provide their clients with better results, more coverage – all with less time invested? It’s a no-brainer that makes YOU look like a total rock star!

What search-related tips and tactics do you love to use?

About the Carrie Morgan:

3 Ways to Use Google to Be Better at PR is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

Social Media Controversies Addressed, Fresh Each Week

In this edition of The Baer Facts, I talk with Kyle Lacy of ExactTarget about whether brands should be taking the plunge into other emerging platforms, specifically SnapChat.

As an author, it scares the bejesus out of me, but it appears kids really don’t want to read. And as a parent, it spooks me, but it appears kids don’t want to use social networks that their parents also use. Thus, the rise of SnapChat, a darling of certain segments of the teen set – including my daughter – whereby you can message one or more friends (typically with a photo), which then expires within 10 seconds. Imagine you had to pick the recipients of every Instagram you posted, and that the photo self-destructed by the time you finish this sentence. That’s SnapChat. 

Taco Bell recently jumped on SnapChat, becoming one of the first major brands to do so. The inherently non-archival nature of SnapChat is both fascinating and problematic, and for most companies I’d consider a foray into SnapChat akin to other, now questionable digital dalliances like Empire Avenue and Second Life.

Just Because it Exists Doesn’t Mean You Have to be There

My least favorite question to get from clients or audiences is “what’s the hot new thing in social media?” My answer is always the same:

The hot new thing is doing today’s things better. (tweet this)

Just because a new social network – or even a new “trend” like real-time marketing – crops up, it doesn’t mean your company is required to test it and create a presence. Remember, unless you somehow add staff or outside assistance, each time you add a shiny new ornament to your social media participation tree,  you are taking effort away from your existing outposts. Being in more places in social media doesn’t always make you better, it just makes you broader.

The number one complaint I hear from customers, friends, and social media managers who join the Social Pros podcast is that they don’t have enough time. So if you’re in that scenario, you better have a damn good reason why you’re doing to divert precious resources to something new like SnapChat.

That’s not to say you should never embrace something new. After all, at one point Facebook was the new kid on the block. And Youtube. And Twitter. And Pinterest. And Instagram. But I’m not typically an advocate of beating your customers to the punch in terms of social venue adoption. WHEN you KNOW your customers are using a new channel, start thinking about how to become a valued member of that community. 

But, there are circumstances where that advice may be overly cautious, and Taco Bell might be the exception that proves the rule. They have a history of digital experimentation, so they may very well have a labor budget for trying new things (I should get them on Social Pros and ask). Their customer base skews younger, matching up with the current user profile for SnapChat. And they evidently jumped on SnapChat to help reintroduce the Beefy Crunchy Burrito. The insta-promotion potential here is pretty interesting. Imagine getting a SnapChat message from TacoBell while you’re in the restaurant, but you only have 10 seconds to get to the register to redeem your coupon.

Innovative? Or a waste of company resources? I’m not really sure on this one. What do you think?

About the Jay Baer:

When is Social Media Experimentation a Waste of Company Resources is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

Image by Eric Schwartzman

Editor’s Note: A version of this post originally appeared on Social Media Explorer.

I’d like to walk you through a social media strategy concept known as the homeland-embassy approach.

It’s an idea shared first by Steve Rubel, though I’m not sure he meant to take it as far and as literal as I’m going to here, but the basic gist is that your website is your homeland and your social networking accounts are your embassies.

Before we delve into the nitty-gritty of the homeland-embassy strategy idea and what it suggest strategically about how you execute, lets take a minute to acknowledge the importance of proximity or where the online social engagement transpires.

Is it okay for a company or brand to engage on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin but be antisocial on their own website? Or do they need to socialize their homeland as well?

Michael Dell spoke about the issue of proximity in an article in Forbes back in 2006:

The first step was to add blogs and message boards in the hope that irate customers will talk to the company rather than gripe to the whole Internet. “If we don’t do that at Dell.com, it’s going to be on CNET or somewhere,” Michael Dell says. “I’d rather have that conversation in my living room than in somebody else’s.”

Dell saw the advantage to controlling the venue where the conversation occurred but not so he could censor it. He knew that by hosting the conversation on his own site, whether the discourse was positive or negative, and allocated staff to respond, he was able to sell against those conversations.

He could use that content to draw in more traffic, and more traffic meant more sales. He also built trust by willingly debating his critics in public. He realized economies of scale by organically transferring organizational intelligence to the web where it could be found through search and shared through social media, ultimately deflecting costly inbound call center queries.

The importance of proximity is huge. We don’t have that advantage on a social network. We may get to use Facebook for free, but our competitors can buy ads against our conversations. We can’t even buy out the ads that appear alongside our posts. The option just doesn’t exist.

When we engage prospects and customers, we need to be mindful that it’s always going to be easier for competitors to siphon away our traffic on Facebook than from our own site, where we control the layout and the conversation opportunities.

On your own website, you lure new visitors with content. As long as the content intersects with their interests, you can present click-through options in the sidebar that generate leads, capture email registrations and drive sales. On your own website, you are in control of the user experience. That’s why your website is your sovereign nation. It’s your homeland.

Your Facebook Page, on the other hand, or your Twitter feed, are more like embassies. When a country has an embassy in a foreign country, diplomatic immunity aside, it must abide by the local laws of the host nation. Facebook and Twitter are also sovereign nations. You’ll find the laws of those lands in their Terms of Service. Violate them and they can export you anytime.

If your host country is hostile to your foreign policy, you’ll need extra security support at that embassy. Just as embassies get hijacked, Facebook Pages get brandjacked. You need a plan for what do in the event of an unforeseen crisis, and you’ll need to staff your embassies with people who understand the local customs of the social networks you decide to settle in.

In most embassies, the majority of employees are local hires. They guide Foreign Service Officers through the local laws and customs of that culture. We need to do the same thing on social media. We must appoint representatives who understand the way things get done there as well.

The US has embassies all over the world, and some in nations where they may not look favorably on all of our foreign policy decision. Still, if there are social, economic or political reasons for us to be there, we’re there. The same is true of social networks. There may be companies that create products and service that others think are irresponsible. But that doesn’t mean they’re not represented on social networks. After all, there’s always going to be more traffic on Facebook and Twitter than there is on your own website, and that’s important to even the most despised organizations.

The most popular page on most US Embassy websites is the “Visas” page. If you’re issued a Visa and you visit the US, you’re going to spend money, and you may have good memories to take that experience back home and share with others. That’s good for the US.  Marketers issue Visas on social networks all the time as well. We do it by posting links to Facebook and Twitter that transit visitors to our destination website.

The last thing you need to know to execute a homeland-embassy social media strategy is that it’s critical to actually embed the activity occurring in the embassies on your homeland. By doing so, you’re using social media to advocate on your behalf to all direct visitors to your homeland.

What’s the value of a few thousands Facebook friends or Twitter followers? Not much if they’re not visible beside the conversation opportunities on your website. One simple link from your homeland to your embassy doesn’t suffice. You need to learn to make your social networking activity visible on your own website.

Integrate your Facebook Page into your website with a like box along the lead generation button. Got an impressive following on Twitter or your Linkedin company page? Embed tweet buttons and Linkedin buttons and use follower count bubbles as social proof that you’ve got advocates. If you upload images and videos, embed a Flickr Gallery and a YouTube Channel Widget so the content is available on your homeland as well.

You don’t have to be a techie to master embed codes. If you want help, I made a self-paced, online course called Social Media for Business that walks you step-by-step through the process of executing the homeland-embassy strategy.

Social Media for Business is actually the first of six online social media courses that make up my Online Social Media Bootcamp. The others are Social Media Monitoring, SEO Training, Facebook Training, Twitter Training and Linkedin Training. If you’re interested in all six, they’re sold as a discount bundle here. If you’re interested in a group license to accelerate enterprise wide digital literacy, you can get bulk pricing here.

What do you think about the homeland-embassy strategy concept? Is it something you think would work for your organization? Are you doing something similar already? Or are you pushing the envelope even further with another approach?

About the Eric Schwartzman:

How to Integrate Social Media into Your Website with a Homeland Embassy Strategy is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

But with a new series of 10 inherently useful Vines, Lowe’s demonstrates that six seconds is plenty of time to create Youtility.

“We try to provide content that has as much value, relevancy and utility as possible.” – Brad Walters, Lowe’s Director of Social Media and Emerging Platforms

This is precisely on point, and it’s gratifying to see a large retailer like Lowe’s eschewing the use of social media as the world’s shortest product circular, and instead finding ways to connect customers to beneficial information. According to Walters, the entire series of Vines were shot on an iPhone in a single day at agency BBDO’s offices in New York City. The agency worked with fashion photographer and emerging Vine genius Meagan Cignoli to storyboard and create the content. Several of the executions make robust use of the stop motion aspect of Vine, with almost a claymation vibe, including this one (good tip!) on paint tray liners:

The paint tray liner Vine is also noteworthy in that it doesn’t advocate for a purchase, and in fact actually recommends to the viewer an alternative so that they don’t have to buy a product from the company. Now THAT’s taking the long-term view of helpfulness and customer acquisition.

“We provide them with useful content, and they reward us by continuing to be loyal Lowe’s customers.” – Brad Walters, Lowe’s Director of Social Media and Emerging Platforms

While this Vine program is indeed terrific, it’s part of a broader Lowe’s initiative around Youtility. The Vines themselves were an offshoot of a prior, ongoing Facebook effort by the brand called Shareable Solutions, whereby they post helpful tips via a single photograph. Several of the Vines repurposed from the Shareable Solutions program, and according to Walters, the active Lowe’s Facebook community encouraged the company to try the Vine platform.

This example, of crafting an ersatz watering can out of a milk jug, generated an astonishing 16,500+ engagements on Facebook, including nearly 3,000 shares.

Be a Digital Dandelion

This notion of repackaging and repurposing your successful content is critical, as companies of all sizes are attempting to create more and more information assets to trigger loyalty through Youtility. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You just need to “reimagine” the wheel, as Ann Handley of MarketingProfs often says. In this case, Lowe’s found something that worked in one place, and tweaked it for a different online venue. Smart.

But, the Lowe’s initiative around helpful content is even broader, as they’ve produced hundreds of how-tos on Youtube, including a new Springtime series of “3 Tips in 30 Seconds” videos that are somewhat like elongated Vines, with voiceover:

Facebook. Vine. YouTube. For Lowe’s, it all works together as parts of a master plan to win hearts and minds by teaching more and promoting less. What other companies are embracing Youtility on Vine, or elsewhere?

About the Jay Baer:

How You Make a Customer Smarter in 6 Seconds is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

Scott Gulbransen, H&R Block @sdgully

Scott Gulbransen, Director of Social Business Strategy at H&R Block, joins the Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss the structure of social that allowed 90,000 H&R tax professionals to mobilize in unison earlier this year, driving engagement at a local level, and dealing with federal regulations as a financial services company in social media.

Read on for some of the highlights and tweetable moments, or listen to the full podcast.

Please Support Our Sponsors

Huge thanks to our amazing sponsors for helping us make this happen. Please support them; we couldn’t do it without their help! This week:

• From ExactTarget, a free white paper called “3 Truths Every CMO Needs to Know About Social Media and the Customer Experience“
• From Expion, a case study about how H&R Block mobilized 90,000 tax professionals in social media using Expion to guide their activity.
• From Janrain, a free guide on how to improve conversion rates and data quality.
• And from Cision, a free content marketing kit to help you get the most of your brand storytelling.

Listen Now 

Click the play button to listen here:

Download the audio file:

http://socialpros.podbean.com/mf/web/ihqyti/SocialProsEpisode66.mp3

The RSS feed is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/socialprospodcast

Find us on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/convince-convert-blog-social/id499844469

Tweetable Moments

“We did not just want to control social; we wanted to have it permeate the organization.” -@sdgully (tweet this)

“Our vision for the future is that our people are our brand.” -@sdgully (tweet this)

The Social Advocator

H&R Block faces a unique set of challenges with mobilizing its 10,000+ offices across the country (and now the world) on social media: most of its workforce is seasonal. Most of its employees are only on the books for 90-120 days, but corporate can’t just cut those seasonal professionals out of the social scene because, as Scott says, “Our people are our brand.”

via H&R Block

The first step they took was to give each local office its own social presence with a Facebook page and a Twitter account. After all, who else can communicate with their clients on a local level? The Cleveland office, for example, knows more about what’s happening in Cleveland than anyone handling the corporate H&R Block accounts. “They’re getting much higher engagement at the local level than they would at a branded H&R Block page.”

To get the individual tax professionals active in the social sphere, H&R Block has developed a tool with Expion called the Social Advocator. This lets corporate push approved content out to the local and regional offices. As a financial services company, there are certain things they can’t do according to federal regulations.

Creating approved content that H&R Block tax professionals can personalize and send out to their own networks empowers those individuals to engage with their customers in the social sphere and using their own voice, while also complying to federal regulations.

This setup allowed the body of professionals at H&R Block to mobilize in the grassroots “I Am H&R Block” campaign earlier this year. In response to a disparaging campaign by TurboTax, thousands of H&R Block employees took to social media proclaiming their pride in their identities as seasonal tax professionals. This creative mix of traditional and social media was actually the focus of a “Holy Social!” segment on the Social Pros podcast a few months ago. Scott says people were even coming into the H&R Block retail stores offering words of support, letting their local tax professionals know that they believed in them.

The social team at H&R Block doesn’t just “check out” when tax season is over, either; India and Australia’s tax seasons are just beginning, so Scott’s team is still in full gear supporting the expansion of H&R Block’s brand worldwide.

Social Media Stat of the Week: 665 million daily Facebook users

Facebook’s quarterly earnings were released last week, revealing that 30% of their revenue is now coming from mobile use. Even more interesting on the mobile side is that in the U.S. and Canada, about 71% of the daily users are active mobile users. Facebook has grown the top line of users but remained steady at 71% mobile usage. Perhaps this is more of a statement about how people consume data than it is a comment on Facebook’s brilliance in mobile technology. After all, their mobile app is not particularly earth-shattering at the moment.

via Facebook Newsroom

The struggle with discussing “mobile” technology is that we are not always literally mobile when we use it. Sometimes we are on the go, but sometimes we’re perusing Facebook on our phones from the couch in our living rooms. Talking about mobile as some kind of monolithic thing is difficult because it has so many applications. How does a company target “mobile users” if that demographic is so heterogeneous? Geotagging might be a lucrative place for Facebook to concentrate its mobile advertising efforts.

Holy Social!

Many television shows are harnessing the Twitter hashtag to foster social engagement with their content, but Fuse is doing the opposite: they’ve created a nightly TV show called the Trending 10 that uses social engagement to dictate the content of the show. Every day they find the top 10 trending topics in music for the day and create a music news show based on that.

This is a cool idea, but we should be careful about where it leads. News needs fact-checkers and curators. “Hopefully we can find that happy medium,” Jeff says, “between the human-curated and -created content and that which is automated.”

Four Your Information

How did you get involved in social media?
Scott is an early adopter. Back when he was working in PR at Intuit, he joined Facebook and Twitter for his own personal use, and before he knew it, Intuit was saying, “From a brand perspective, we should start using this to communicate.” And the rest was history.

What do you like best about social media?
A lot of times, brands can get disconnected from who they’re trying to serve. But with social, “we can interact with real time our customers and understand how they feel and what they’re doing, and then use that for business insights.” Social helps Scott understand what his customers need from him.

What do you like least about social?
The social perspective can sometimes become too insular from the business perspective. We need to keep listening, not just to the “thought leaders,” but also to the people who are implementing real strategies on a daily basis.

If you could do a Skype call with any living person, who might that be and why?
“I know I’m breaking the rule here, but I would love to do a Skype call with the leaders of the eight largest nations in the country, and actually talk to them about why it seems to me that our governments continue to be a little detached from the daily life of their citizens.” That gets back to what he loves most about social: that you’re dealing with real people, and not through any filters.

See you next week!

About the Jay Baer:

How H&R Block Activated 90,000 Seasonal Tax Pros in Social Media is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

As noted in one of the images, “the early bird gets the shot,” and with their Instagram Annual Report, the Calgary Zoo did just that. This is arguably a first on Instagram and companies and brands should be inspired by their creative approach. Instead of relying on capturing attention in Instagram’s busy photo stream, having each photo contain important information made their Instagram profile page a destination.

Inspired by the Calgary Zoo, companies and brand should be asking themselves – how can we use Instagram for visual storytelling in a new, yet effective way?

About the Jessica Gioglio:

The Calgary Zoo Shares its Annual Report on Instagram is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy

Although social media continues to thread its way into the fiber of more and more organizations, my experience is that many small to mid-sized companies are still lagging behind when it comes to the development and implementation of their social media strategies.

A recent study by the Altimeter Group might suggest otherwise, stating that “most companies feel they have fairly coherent social strategies”, but given the advanced nature of the sample i.e. social strategists, large organizations, etc. my sense is that the findings may not represent the experiences of the majority of companies that are using social media.

As an aside, I tried to find some research to support my theory and came across a Mashable post referencing “new research finds that 72% of businesses that use social media do not have a clear set of goals or a clear strategy for their social media platforms”. Sadly, there was no link to the original study so the jury is still out.

If you fall into the group that could benefit from some social media and content strategy guidance, check out these great Convince & Convert posts:

• 10 Content Marketing Must-Do’s for Brands
• How to Know if You’re Spread Too Thin in Social Media
• 6 Mistakes Your Clients Are Probably Making in Social Media
• Is Your Social Network a Puppy or a Dog?
• Targeted Content: The Holy Grail of Content Marketing

As far as the infographic below – It was inspired by Jay Baer’s “tool-agnostic” take on how to develop a social media strategy.

What are your thoughts about this strategic approach? Does your organization have a social media strategy in place? If so, how does it differ from the one represented in this infographic? The comments are yours.

About the Mark Smiciklas:

Create Tools Agnostic Social Media Strategy in 8 Steps [Infographic] is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy