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How to Recycle Content the 10 Best Ways

April 7, 2016 By 6 Comments
How to Recycle Content the 10 Best Ways

How to Recycle Content the 10 Best Ways

Since it’s almost Earth Day, it’s a good time to talk about recycling your content on social media. It’s also a very good time to prevent your brain from exploding. Recycling your content, as it turns out, is a very good way to prevent your brain from exploding. If you need other reasons to keep your brain from exploding, you might want to read: Content Curation: 5 Killer Reasons It’s Your New BFF.

splash on wall photo

Photo by Caden Crawford

Start with Your Blog

Your blog is like the torso of your efforts. Everything starts there. The “limbs” are the different social platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. You may be a starfish, with five arms, or an octopus with eight limbs. Or maybe you’re a mollusk, with only one leg. But I digress. Create your content on your blog, with plenty of nice, fat keywords.

Recycling Tip: Go back to your older blog posts and see which can be rewritten. A slightly different slant can give new life to an old post!

toast breakfast photo

Tweet Your Post

Not only should you tweet your blog post, but if you’ve done your homework and gotten some social capital, ask for people to retweet. “Please retweet!” you might say. And then pin that tweet to the top of your Twitter feed so anyone coming there can see it. If you don’t have social capital, this is an excellent post on Reciprocation from my bud Bridget Willard.

Recycling Tip: Retweet your own tweet later. That’s right. When the initial excitement of that tweet is over, retweet your own post again. You could use a different headline and a different image. Or not. Up to you. Guy Kawasaki repeats his posts, and here’s Guy’s strategy.

italy photo

Photo by tian2992

Pin on Pinterest

You do have a blog board on Pinterest, don’t you? If you don’t, make one right away! And then pin your blog post there. You might also want to join a group board so that you can pin your wonderful writing there, too. Here’s how to join a group board.

Recycling Tip: If your pin doesn’t get repinned the first time, pin it at a different time and delete the first pin. Make sure you’ve added your key words to the description. You could also add it to a different board, at a different time.

italy photo

Photo by Moyan_Brenn

Facebook

Facebook is a little trickier, unless you post a lot every day.

Recycling Tip: Use #TBT (Throwback Thursday) or ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) to repeat old posts. And add some different text, for heaven’s sake!

orbit photo

Email Marketing

Remember that blog post? Take pieces of it and put it into your email newsletter. Maybe use a different image, from further down in the post, and add a sentence or two.

orbit photo

Instagram

Instagram has been taking off the last couple of years, with more people using it.

Recycling Tip: Regram your own posts, and change up the hashtags. Of course, recycle the hashtags, too!

loch ness photo

Photo by Moyan_Brenn

Google Plus

There’s some disagreement as to whether Google Plus is still relevant. Many Social Media Managers think that it isn’t. Most agree that it’s a ghost town, and that posting there helps with SEO.

orbit photo

Photo by jenny downing

YouTube

Videos are one of the best ways to get attention from your audience. Short videos, in particular work very well on social.

Recycling Tip: Chop up your video and reuse it in different ways. You could take a one-minute video and create three or four shorter videos.

miami night photo

Photo by CityscapeGUY

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is often described as the “sleeping giant” of social media.

Recycling Tip: Share one of your favorite posts in a LinkedIn group at a different time.

 denali photo

Recycle Your Images

If you’ve created terrific images, you could recycle them. For instance, you could make a calendar from Instagram photos. Or Create magnets from Pinterest images.

Recycling Tip: Use this link, which friend Kittie Walker shared on Twitter (follow her on Twitter ~ @avidmode), to recycle your images from Instagram.

loch ness photo

Photo by E. D’Ascoli Photographies

How Do You Recycle?

Do you recycle? How?

kyoto photo

Photo by Moyan_Brenn

 

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Promote Your Book on Social Media: Extend Your Reach

April 16, 2015 By 8 Comments
Promote Your Book on Social Media: 6 Ways to Extend Your Reach

Promote Your Book on Social Media: 6 Ways to Extend Your Reach

Every author uses social media to extend their reach. If you get on Twitter, you’ll see all kinds of authors tweeting nonstop, begging you to buy their new book. On Facebook, you’ll see authors posting continuously about their fantasy novels. And on Pinterest there are boards and accounts stuffed to the gills with pins about books. So what’s an author to do? With some planning, you can go beyond the usual social media posts. In this series of blog posts, you’ll get ideas for how to use the social media platforms effectively. Look for more posts soon.

The Website is the Torso

Picture your website as the torso of your online efforts, with the arms and legs as different platforms. Your website should be the first thing you work on. If you don’t have a website, where will you drive traffic? Yes, it’s great that you’re on Amazon selling, but it’s best to have a website because you own the content. You can discuss all kinds of things in blog posts, and you can take snippets of it to tweet or post in different places. You can also go back into the archives and recycle some of that lovely content. There are no gray areas, as there are on social media sites, about who owns your content.

Search Engine Optimization

If those aren’t enough reasons, the biggest one is search engine optimization. When someone looks for you on Google, your name should appear. In this excellent article in Huffington Post, Annik Lafarge discusses many more reasons to have your own website.

Hire Help if You’re Not Technical

Do not let the lack of a website stop you. You can find a developer to help you with a simple website. Attend a WordCamp in your area (San Francisco Word Camp is the mother ship, by the way) to meet developers and others with WordPress sites. I recommend WordPress because there is such generosity in the community. You can watch video (recorded or live streaming) if you can’t make it in person. But getting there in person is well worth the effort.

Branding Across Social Media Platforms

Make sure you have high-quality images of you and your book and that your branding is consistent. Your readers should not be confused about where they are–and they should know that you’re an author. Caterina Rando, my business coach, recommends having a picture of yourself holding a book right up against your face. Ensure that colors are consistent. For instance, Caterina uses rich reds, oranges and yellows in all her marketing materials. Your readers should know exactly what you do. For instance, Jack Canfield’s site is very clear. If you have a tagline, use the same one everywhere from your website through all your social media platforms.

Cross Promote

Once your website is dialed in (and I won’t go into details here, but there should be a few blog posts, at the least), you can use social media more effectively. Your tweets can send people back to your website. You can point to Twitter from Facebook, to Pinterest from Twitter, and from Google Plus to your website.

For instance, if you want people to come to a Tweetchat (a subject I’ll cover in an upcoming post), tell people on your Google Plus account, on Twitter, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, in your email marketing, etc. Promotion takes more work than you might think, so allow lots of time.

Add Badges to Your Website

Add Badges to Your Website

Can’t Wait to Get Started?

If you can’t wait to start on your social media, here are some posts to read and videos to watch:

Questions?

If you have questions that you’d like me to cover in upcoming posts, please leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to address it.

 

 

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How to Promote Your Blog Like a Pro!

March 26, 2015 By 6 Comments
How to Promote Your Blog Like a Pro

How to Promote Your Blog Like a Pro

If you’ve just started blogging, or even if you’ve been blogging for a while, you might not realize how many ways there are to promote your own post. These ideas are divided into beginning and advanced ideas. If you’re more advanced in the ways of social media promotion, you can skip to the more “Pro” ideas.

Pinterest

Pinning your blog post (you did create a board for your own blog posts, right?) is something everyone can do, and is a fairly simple way to get more traffic to a post. You could have your own blog board, where you pin all your posts. If you need a beginner’s guide, you might read my Top Ten Tasks for Pinterest.

Invite Others to Your Group Blog Board on Pinterest

Invite Others to Your Group Blog Board on Pinterest

Pro

  • Repin that post, especially if the first time you pinned it, it didn’t get any repins. Delete the old post and pin it again.
  • Create a group board for your blog posts, like the example below, and invite lots of people to pin. You can invite anyone who follows your board. You could invite other bloggers who aren’t on Pinterest, too, and they might be motivated to be on Pinterest more often.
  • Repin the blog post using a different picture and onto a different board. For instance, my post about Introverts and Social Media could be repinned on a Social Media board, my blog board, my Pinterest board, etc. But I’d space them out, time wise.

Facebook

Post your wonderful writing on Facebook, with a good call to action and a big picture or two.

Schedule Your Facebook Post When Your Fans Are Online

Schedule Your Facebook Post When Your Fans Are Online

To find your Facebook analytics, go to your business page==>Insights (at the top of the page). Examine when your fans are online and use the native Facebook scheduler. For instance, my analytics show that most of my fans are online at 8:30 am pst. Another good time would be around 2:00 pm.

Screen Shot 2015-03-25 at 11.11.23 PM

Note: my top three posts above were all boosted.

Pro

  • Promote your post for as little as $5 per post. You can choose who sees it and get more eyes on your post that way. Most people can afford $20/month for promotion.
  • Tag people who might be interested in seeing your words of wisdom (but do this carefully–nobody likes to be tagged too many times).
  • To see what your post will look like, schedule it 10 minutes or more in the future, so you can edit it if you need to.
  • Check your business page’s analytics to see when the best time is to post.
Can You Schedule Like a Pro?

Can You Schedule Like a Pro?

Twitter

Of course you’ll want to tweet about your newest creation. And you can schedule it one or more times. Guy Kawasaki retweets his posts about four times a day, but you may want to wait days between posts! Of course, use a scheduler like HootSuite to get the word out.

Pro

  • Pin your tweet to the top of your Twitter feed. Upload a picture (tweets with images are much more likely to be retweeted), as in the image below.
  • Repeat your tweet, but use a different picture and headline.
  • Ask for a retweet (again, don’t ask very often unless you’ve been giving to others as well). Tag others who might be interested.
  • If you mention others in your blog post, call them out in your tweet.
Pin Your Tweet to the Top of Your Twitter Feed

Pin Your Tweet to the Top of Your Twitter Feed

LinkedIn

Post your wonderful writing after you’ve created it on your blog. You can upload a picture, too.

Pro

Get Syndicated!

If you’re a regular blogger, you might consider getting syndicated. My blog posts are syndicated at Business 2 Community. There are lots of reasons to be syndicated; here are a few.

Are You a Blogger?

Try a few of these ideas and let me know how they work for you!

 

 

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Is it Time to Quit Facebook?

April 1, 2014 By 51 Comments
Is it time to quit Facebook?

Is it time to quit Facebook?

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of rumblings about how bad Facebook is for brand advertising. I’d always heard grumbling, but this was something different. The grumbling has now turned into action: my social media manager (“SMM”) friends have been leaving Facebook to spend time elsewhere. Some of them have told their clients not to waste their money.

Behind the Scenes with SMMs

Then, a couple of days ago in one of the SMM groups I’m in, someone posted Eat24’s goodbye letter to Facebook. It was hilarious (and by the way, @Eat24 rocks on Twitter, so go follow them there!). It also made me think. Yes, we all know that Facebook is a business. Yes, we all realize that at some point we’d probably have to pay to play. But is it worth the cost? And what about for personal use? If we can’t see our friends’ posts because of an algorithm change, should we just ditch Facebook and head over to Google Plus or Twitter or Instagram?

Facebook’s Response

In response to Eat24’s goodbye letter, Facebook rep Brandon McCormick posted a defense (not really a defense in my opinion but that’s another post), and the story was picked up by Huffington Post.

Transparency

I don’t have all the answers to what’s happening with Facebook, but I can tell you that my reach has dramatically decreased. I have 959 fans on my page, and of those, very few see my posts any more. There has been a big change since January of 2014. Of my SMM friends who are bailing, they’re not all managers for tiny brands–some of them are rewriting strategy for huge brands, too, and drastically cutting back on their Facebook use.

Reactions to the Change in Reach

Eggs in One Basket

Eggs in One Basket

Some of my SMM friends have decided to post more, some have quit Facebook, and some have decided to spend money on promoted posts. Personally, I’ve posted a bit less now–just once daily, and hardly ever twice a day. But I’m not taking all my eggs out of the Facebook basket just yet. I don’t think this story is over, since just about everyone is on Facebook–including my friends, your friends, and your customers if you’re managing Facebook pages.

What’s the Bottom Line?

If you’re willing to spend a few dollars on Facebook to ensure that people see your posts, it’s still a good value. Consider a small fee, like a dollar a day. If your business has no budget, then spend your time somewhere else. But Facebook is still a behemoth with a massive audience, and there’s nothing else like it. Agree? Disagree? Please leave me a comment!

 

 

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Baby Boomers and Social Media

October 31, 2013 By 13 Comments
Baby Boomers and Social Media

Baby Boomers and Social Media

If you’re a baby boomer, you already know a lot about how to be social. For instance, would I have to ask you twice what the “magic words” are? Would you know what elements make a good letter? Could you go on a picnic and just be at the picnic, without having to whip out an electronic device? There you go! Each one of these instances is a good reason why you, as a Boomer, is a perfect candidate for social media. Here’s a funny article about the differences between baby boomers and Gen Y.

Insecurity

Let me backtrack a bit by saying that I meet Baby Boomers all the time who feel insecure about social media. I think it doesn’t have to be that way. They think they have nothing to say, and yet they have more experience than younger people, and have been through all kinds of economic downturns, changes in employment, divorce, and much more. So of course you as a Boomer have something to say. The issue may be that you feel insecure around younger people who have grown up with Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and YouTube. And if you’re a Boomer connected on social media, I like Brian Solis’ “Gen C” label.

The Magic Words

Most Boomers know how to use the words “please” and “thank you,” and they know when. Believe me, (please), when I tell you that saying “thank you” is very important. In a world of ingratitude, your thank you means so very much. Maybe good manners can be taught at a later age, but since you probably already have good manners, you have an edge on social media, so that isn’t an issue.

Writing a Letter

Another skill that many Boomers have is the ability to write a letter–a skill that can be transferred to writing email, a blog, crafting a few Facebook posts, or tweeting. Seriously. The ability to write in one form can easily be transferred to another. So you have the edge there, too.

Going on a Picnic

Going on a picnic without checking a phone is easy for a boomer

Going on a picnic without checking a phone is easy for a boomer

Now this one might sound a little strange to you. But the ability to just talk without checking an electronic device is getting more and more rare. The other day, with some of my friends, I realized that no one had checked in, tweeted, posted, or made a video for a couple of hours. Weird, right?! And how wonderful to just have a conversation without thinking it might end up being posted on someone’s wall.

Drive Your Online Conversations Offline

It’s great to meet people online, but there is really no substitute for meeting people face to face and having an actual conversation. And that is where baby boomers really shine. Having grown up without cell phones, tablets, and laptops, boomers know how to talk! Because if you really needed to talk to someone, you’d go over to their house and knock on their door. Who does that any more? So take those conversations offline where you’re really comfortable.

Social Media is Just Tools

Really. Social media is bits and bytes, but in the end, it’s just a tool. You can meet and talk to a lot of people (sometimes all at once) using social media. But if you think of social media as something like a telephone or another appliance to be learned, maybe the intimidation factor will go away. Because as a Boomer you already have the tools you need. Don’t you?

 

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Hashtag Wins and #Fails

October 29, 2013 By 15 Comments
Hashtag Wins and #Fails

Hashtag Wins and #Fails

Recently, someone asked about hashtag etiquette. How do you use hashtags, and if you’re using them to do a search on Twitter, how do you know they’re legit? What’s the difference between a search done with a hashtag or without a hashtag? Would you use hashtags differently on Facebook than on Twitter?

What Is a Hashtag?

If you haven’t used a hashtag before, simply add a pound sign (#) before a word. On some platforms, that word now becomes searchable. It’s a great way to organize an idea. For example, #SanFrancisco, like so, is now a searchable term. You can click on it and you’ll see other tweets and posts (depending upon which platform you’re using). If you’re new (or even if you’re not), Mashable has an excellent Beginner’s Guide to Hashtags ~ recommended reading. That said, a hashtag can make a search easier.

Hashtags on Facebook

Let me say that I’m not a huge fan of hashtags on Facebook. Most people seem to overuse them and just annoy everyone. When Facebook allowed users to employ hashtags in June of 2013, they opened up a Pandora’s Box, in my opinion. People go crazy with them and they don’t mean anything. Most of the social media managers I know don’t use them and find them annoying in the forums where I’ve heard discussions. If you overuse hashtags on Facebook, you even run the risk of being hidden. And the last thing you want to do is be unfriended on Facebook.

Hashtags on Twitter

Hashtags on Twitter are a whole other ball of wax. Hashtags originated on Twitter, so they make sense on Twitter. You can use them to organize a search, to make a sarcastic remark, and more. Personally, I use Twitter for the occasional joking remark, and using hashtags in this way sometimes separates the newbies from more advanced tweeters. This use of hashtags is more for entertainment or to set the tone of a tweet.

Hashtags are useful in organizing Tweetchats, which are discussions about a certain topic, usually about an hour long, held on Twitter. For instance, #KidneyChats is on Mondays evenings and #POCChat on Monday mornings, are a couple I recommend. Used in this way, a hashtag lets you see what the other participants in a chat are discussing. And by the way, if you click on the embedded tweet, above, you can see some of the top tweets about #KidneyChat.

As a brand, a hashtag can be quite useful to add authority. Many brands have their own hashtags. They may also start a tweetchat using a hashtag to get people talking about a specific topic.

And in case you didn’t know, hashtags weren’t always a part of the Twitter lexicon. The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article on how hashtags came to be.

Other Supported Platforms

Hashtags are used on Pinterest as a way of searching, just as they are on Twitter. On Instagram, certain hashtags are used specifically to describe photos. Google+ lets you search from Google to Facebook or Twitter using a hashtag, too.

How Do You Use Hashtags?

Do you like them? Find them irritating? Think they’re too nerdy? Let me know in the comments! Thanks!

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