5 Ways Businesses Are Using Visual Storytelling on Facebook

Are you looking for creative ways to use visual storytelling in your social media marketing?
Do you have a great story to tell, but you’re not sure how to share it?

Every company has a story to tell.

It could be anything from brand history to internal innovation to fun customer feedback. Unfortunately, few businesses share their stories effectively on Facebook.

In this article I’ll show you five imaginative ways brands are using pictures to tell compelling stories that generate engagement on Facebook.

Why Tell a Visual Story?

A picture is worth a thousand words. It’s a cliché for a reason. When you’re scrolling through the news feed, what catches your eye? Most updates are text, but Facebook users like pictures.

Posting images can help increase engagement and shares on Facebook. Photo posts account for 93% of the most engaging posts on Facebook. They can get 53% more likes, 104% more comments and 84% more click-throughs on links than text-based posts!

Are you using pictures to your advantage? Below are five examples of companies that are wowing their fans with visual stories.

#1: Use Clever Photo Collections

The American Express Facebook page strives to give a strong visual representation of the brand.

That can be a tall order for a service-based company. American Express rose to the challenge by taking photographs of related items, then sharing them with short updates that ask a question or evoke a certain feeling.

Recently, the freezing weather in the US has everyone talking. American Express shared this simple
 but hugely descriptive picture on their Facebook timeline.

American Express connects with fans through a simple image.

Not only does the picture convey winter and snow days, it also subtly includes an American Express card. To me, that picture said, “You’re probably having a snow day, but all you need is your American Express card in case you need to order pizza, download a movie or do some online shopping without braving the weather.”

The company used the same technique on December 23:

Interesting pictures and fun questions encourage Facebook engagement.

The post asked, “Guess whose holiday essentials these are?” It was a clever alternative to the in-your-face holiday posts that had been doing the rounds, and invited plenty of discussion and good-natured responses. Hey, doesn’t everyone need a credit card? Those reindeer vet bills sure do add up.

Tip: Photograph your product with everyday objects or in a live setting to tell a fun story or spark an emotional connection with your community. Take advantage of trends that are relevant to your audience to show how a customer could use your product.

#2: Create Stand-Alone Visual Campaigns

Sometimes a company’s marketing gimmick can take on a life of its own. Several years ago, UK-based insurance comparison site Compare The Market created a campaign around the idea that market sounds just a little bit like meerkat.

They introduced Aleksandr Orlov, a meerkat with a Russian accent and an aristocratic heritage. The campaign was a huge hit. Even though Compare The Market isn’t actually on Facebook, Aleksandr has his own page, with more than 800,000 likes!

The story of Aleksandr, his friends and his family (including the new baby, Oleg) is played out on this fun, interactive page, which drives traffic back to the company website with its clever use of storytelling and merchandising (a free meerkat toy with every purchase through the site).

Compare The Market uses Aleksandr Orlov, a meerkat, to share stories with its audience.

Tip: If you don’t have a mascot, why not tell the story behind your logo, choice of location or something else that makes your company unique? Marketing is not about B2B or B2C anymore, it’s about P2P (people to people).

Your fans want a human connection with your brand and your people. They want to peek behind the scenes and explore your culture, understand your mission and find out what inspires your innovation.

#3: Develop Community Around a Charity

Many businesses make a point of giving back to their community, but TOMS shoes goes much further. The company was founded on the charitable concept that for every pair of shoes they sold, they would donate a pair to children in poverty around the globe.

TOMS makes an impact on their fans by sharing pictures of those they’ve helped. It’s one thing to know a company has a strong charitable background, but seeing it helps fans appreciate the effect they’re having on the world.

TOMS gives their fans a connection to the people they (both the company and its fans) are helping all over the world.

Tip: Share your company’s passion with your fans. Every brand has a story about the inspiration behind the innovation or employees’ passion for company product(s). Use pictures to convey your brand’s core values.

#4: Incorporate Fan-Generated Content

The Starbucks’ Facebook page celebrates the most important people to the company: their customers. Starbucks posts Instagram photos from their fans to give a customer’s-eye view of the brand.

Not only is this a fun way to show customer appreciation, it’s a really clever way of generating fresh, relevant content that brings business and customers closer together.

Starbucks uses fan-generated content to show customers its appreciation.

When Starbucks shared the customer photo above, it generated a massive response with over 78,000 likes, 460 comments and 1,500 shares.

Using customers’ own photos to tell a brand’s story is an inclusive strategy and clearly resonates well with other fans. This authentic word-of-mouth is priceless.

Tip: Your customers are your greatest asset; make them feel like a valued part of your story by sharing their images. Ask fans to use a specific hashtag when they share photos of your brand so you can find them easily.

#5: Share Your History

Positive nostalgia fosters true emotional connection. Reflecting on your brand’s history brings a whole new dimension to your marketing.

IBM has an illustrious history of innovation and the company capitalizes on that by sharing pictures from their archives on their Facebook page. Some of the company’s most liked and commented-on posts are those that show how much technology has changed and how IBM led those changes.

Fans love to see how things have changed over the years.

Showing how your brand started, the challenges you have overcome and celebrating some of your best achievements can make your followers proud to be associated with you and all the great work you have done over the years.

Tip: Don’t bury photos from your past in offline archives. Use them to show how far you’ve come and the moments you’re most proud of. Celebrate those moments with your community and ask them to share their own memories.

Share your stories.

Your brand has some great stories, so why not tell them? Don’t settle for long text updates that get glossed over in the news feed. Tell your story with pictures and rich media so your fans connect with you. Customers who feel more connected to a brand display greater loyalty and are more likely to advocate for your brand.

What do you think? How have you used pictures to share your company’s story? Do your fans respond more enthusiastically when you post pictures? Share your comments below.

Facebook Marketing Declines: How Business Should React

Do you use Facebook to promote your business?

Are you wondering how the recent Facebook algorithm changes will affect your marketing?

To learn what the future of Facebook means for your brand or business, I interview Mari Smith and Jay Baer for this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast.

More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, I interview Mari Smithand Jay Baer. Mari is the co-author ofFacebook Marketing: An Hour a Dayand considered to be the world’s leading expert on Facebook marketing and Jay is the author of Youtility: Why Smart Marketing Is About Help Not Hype. He’s also host of the Social Pros podcast.

Mari and Jay share how to be successful with Facebook’s new algorithm and what these changes mean for your Facebook strategy.

You’ll learn how to monitor your reach and engagement, and how to navigate paid versus earned media in your content strategy.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

Listen Now

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher or Blackberry.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

Facebook Marketing Declines

Recently, an article by AdAge referenced an official Facebook document that said, “We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time, as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site.”

AdAge‘s article references an official Facebook document, which urges marketers to buy ads.

In other words, Facebook says that they are going to show less of your Facebook updates to your fans and followers. If you want to get seen, you will have to pay to play.

This news has raised a lot of concern among marketers.

Previous changes to the Facebook news feed

Mari explains how up until a few months ago, the algorithm that governs what content goes into the news feed was called EdgeRank. The term used now is the Facebook news feed ranking algorithm.

The formula changed dramatically, with Facebook telling everyone that on any given day, a user can potentially see 1,500 possible stories. A story includes likes, comments, shares, videos and photos.

Once you click Like, Comment or Share, Facebook knows what type of content to show you. Most users are aware that the majority of content shown comes from friends.

This means that business pages struggle to get organic visibility.

On December 2, 2013, Facebook announced they will start to decline or diminish organic reach for pages because users predominantly want to see content from friends and brands that they enjoy interacting with. According to Inside Facebook, studies show more than 40% decreased organic reach on Facebook.

Listen to the show to find out what type of content Facebook will give less weight to.

Is Facebook trying to protect its fans from marketers? 

I recently heard Gary Vaynerchuk say that Facebook is trying to protect its fans from marketers. It seems that Facebook has realized that they need to provide a quality user experience, otherwise people won’t click on the ads.

Jay explains why Facebook doesn’t want to devolve into MySpace. They are now a public company, which needs to continue to generate tons of advertising money. One of the ways to do this is to squeeze the algorithm.

Listen to the show to find out how Facebook has used one of the oldest business playbooks in history to get you hooked.

Marketers see a decline in organic reach

In December, an article by Ignite Social Media showed that brands saw massive declines in organic reach that month.

Jay says that a large number of brands on Facebook have seen a decline in organic reach, but there are other brands that have not been impacted by the change at all.

There are some exceptions to the rule. On one of his podcasts, Jay recently interviewed the chief of police of Brimfield, Ohio, who said the department has over 75% engagement rates on its Facebook page.

The Brimfield, Ohio police department has very high engagement on its Facebook page.

Jay says that we’ve had it pretty good on Facebook for a long time and while it’s annoying that you now have to start to pay, he doesn’t think it should have come as a big surprise.

Listen to the show to discover why Jay believes that you can still be effective on Facebook for “free.”

Brand loyalty

Mari says you can have brand loyalty no matter what size your business is.

She has always admired Oreo’s marketing, which has 35 million Facebook fans. Oreo’s Talking About This number, which includes fans and non-fans at any given time, is 251,000 people.

Then if you look at Skittles on Facebook, they have 25 million fans, but only 56,000 are actually talking about this.

Skittles has over 25 million fans on Facebook.

Both brands are quirky, fun and post great content. It really comes down to the quality of the content and how much the fans are interacting.

This goes for any brand, no matter what size or budget.

Listen to the show to hear how you can build brand loyalty and various ways you can get traction.

The impact on small businesses

Mari explains how people have shared their unrest and frustration with these new changes. Some have even considered abandoning their Facebook business page and just use their profile page instead.

You’ll hear why Mari feels that this is unfortunate and why there are still so many advantages to having a business page. Not everybody across the platform is experiencing this decline.

Jay says the tricky part of it all is trying to figure out the cause. It’s hard to advise people right now, because even the professionals don’t really know. There are a lot of organizations that specialize in Facebook research, who are actually trying to crack the code to see what the new best practice is.

Listen to the show to find out why Jay believes that this is the year for Google+ pages for business.

How to tell if your business has seen a decline in organic reach

Mari advises you to look at your Facebook Page Insights, which are available on both desktop and mobile.

Mari loves the little scorecard feature. You can go into your Insights and look under the Posts tab, where every individual post will pop up. It will give you at a glance both negative and positive feedback.

You can see what kind of reach you got, the click-through rate and whether people hide your content as spam or unlike your page.

You can see in Post Reach who you have reached and who you have engaged.

You’ll discover some of the great stats you can get when you export data and what you need to look at that will determine whether your organic reach has gone down.

Listen to the show to find out why Mari is excited about Instagram for brands and businesses in 2014.

Do we have reason to be concerned? 

Jay doesn’t think the new changes are necessarily a reason to be concerned. He feels it’s the natural evolution of what was formerly an immature industry, which is now more mature. It’s becoming more about the media and less about the social.

There are tens of billions of dollars at stake. Somebody will take these dollars and turn social media into an advertising platform, more than it is already. All of these platforms are going to have both organic and paid opportunities and Jay thinks that the smart companies, including small businesses, will take advantage of both.

Smart companies will take advantage of both free and paid opportunities. Image source: iStockphoto

Jay says that it’s important to recognize that it’s not as if this doesn’t work anymore. It just doesn’t work as well as it once did.

You’ll hear why Jay is a firm believer that paid social will be a requirement for almost all businesses.

Mari explains that for a long time, she has put a lot more money into community building than advertising. She has developed a reputation for being someone who responds and now has a team whose sole job it is to respond to questions on her fan page.

Mari shares why Socialbakers is one of her favorite social media analytic tools for Facebook, and why community management is more important than ever.

Listen to the show to find out why both Mari and Jay strongly believe that you have to actively respond to customer questions.

Start to budget for social advertising

Mari says that you should start to budget for social advertising. You can budget as little as $5 per day to promote content that you put on your wall. You don’t necessarily have to buy ads down the right-hand side.

Mari has recently created a Facebook ads course with her good friend Dennis Yu, who believes that the news feed ads are where it’s at.

You need to create content that doesn’t look like a marketing message. Instead, make it look more like a conversation piece that people can engage with. You’ll hear what you can do to amplify the reach of this content.

Listen to the show to find out what you can do if you don’t have an advertising budget.

Examples of useful advertising

As Jay talks about in his book Youtility, the idea would be to advertise content instead of a company.

Jay says they have seen some good success with Facebook advertising of business-to-business content, such as ebooks and webinars. You have to be smart and aggressive about targeting.

One of the mistakes that people make when they advertise on Facebook is that they try to cast the net too wide. You need to use keywords and other targeting capabilities.

To help promote Social Media Marketing World, we use a service called Perfect Audience. It costs approximately $40 per week.

A sponsored story is a lot more economical for advertising events.

Listen to the show to find out why Jay thinks Facebook retargeting will become very popular.

Should we have something we call our own?

Jay says that without a doubt, you should have something you own, whether it’s content assets or community assets.

You’ll hear Jay explain about paid, owned and earned media and why they’re so important to your business.

Jay’s friend Jeff Rohrs, who is the co-host of the Social Pros podcast, has a great new book called Audience. It’s all about how to build your own assets online and create ties with audiences that you can then use to build a successful business down the road.

Listen to the show to find out why you need to figure out what you own and make it worthy of attention.

Tactical steps marketers can take to get the most out of Facebook

If you’re a small business owner, then Mari advises you to use your personal profile in conjunction with a fan page.

You’ll discover what you need to do with your personal profile to blast through the 5,000-friend limit and be able to publish public content that people can sign up to see.

Mari has three opportunities to be seen in the news feed on any given day organically. She posts to friends, publicly on her profile and to her fan page.

Mari typically posts only once a day on her profile and her fan page—both of which are different content.

Facebook has been promoting Instagram because they want you to integrate and connect your Instagram account with your Facebook pages. You can also do this for fan pages too.

There are lots of different things to consider and integrate. You need to have a solid business plan in place and use social media as an amplifier.

Listen to the show to find out why Jay says that you have to play the algorithmic game to make sure your posts get maximum organic reach.

Other Show Mentions

Social Media Marketing World 2014 is our physical mega-conference, which is set to return to San Diego, California on March 26, 27 and 28.

The conference features more than 60 sessions in 4 major tracks, which include social tactics, social strategy, community management and content marketing.

Below is a sample of the visual marketing sessions we have planned.

• How Brands Use Pinterest to Turn Eyeballs Into Loyal Customers—Cynthia Sanchez with Michael Bepko (Whole Foods) and Azure Collier (Constant Contact)
• How to Create Original, Shareable, Traffic-Driving Visual Content—Donna Moritz
• How to Use Pinterest to Build Your Email List: Proven Techniques—Melanie Duncan
• Brands That Are Rockin’ It on Instagram: Tips From the Trenches—Sue Zimmerman
• How to Grow Your Pinterest Following the Smart Way—Cynthia Sanchez

Be sure to check it out.

Call in and leave your social media–related questions for us and we may include them in a future show.

Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:

• Connect with Mari Smith on her website, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
• Connect with Jay Baer on his website or on Convince & Convert.
• Listen to the Social Pros podcast.
• Read AdAge‘s article, Facebook Admits Organic Reach Is Falling Short, Urges Marketers to Buy Ads.
• Check out Facebook’s article, What Increased Content Sharing Means for Businesses.
• Read Facebook’s announcement on Helping You Find More News to Talk About.
• Take a look at Inside Facebook’s article, Studies Show More Than 40% Decreased Organic Reach on Facebook.
• Check out Ignite Social Media’s article, Facebook Brand Pages Suffer 44% Decline in Reach Since December 1.
• Read Jim Tobin’s book, Earn It, Don’t Buy It, which is all about the nature of organic reach versus paid.
• Listen to Social Pros podcast with the chief of police of Brimfield, Ohio to find out how they have increased their Facebook page engagement rate.
• Check out the Brimfield, Ohio Police Department’s Facebook page.
• Take a look at Oreo and Skittles on Facebook.
• Learn more about the new Facebook Page Insights.
• Head over to Socialbakers and check out Socially Devoted.
• Use a service like Perfect Audience for sponsored stories on Facebook.
• Read Jeff Rohrs‘ book, Audience.
• Email Emily at emily@socialmediaexaminer.com if you are interested in corporate sponsorships for Social Media Marketing World 2014.
• Learn more about Social Media Marketing World 2014.

Help Us Spread the Word!

Please let your Twitter followers know about this podcast. Simply click here now to post a tweet.

If you enjoyed this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast, please head over to iTunes, leave a rating, write a review and subscribe. And if you listen on Stitcher, please click here to rate and review this show.

Ways to subscribe to the Social Media Marketing podcast:

• Click here to subscribe via iTunes.
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• You can also subscribe via Stitcher and Blackberry.

What do you think? What are your thoughts on Facebook’s new pay-to-play approach? Please leave your comments below.

Image from iStockPhoto.

5 Facebook Marketing Hacks for Your Website

Is your website using Facebook to the fullest?

Are you wondering how you can get the most out of Facebook for your business?

To learn how to use Facebook to your advantage, this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast goes deep into the subject.

More About This Show

The Social Media Marketing podcast is a show from Social Media Examiner.

It’s designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

The show format is on-demand talk radio (also known as podcasting).

In this episode, you’ll discover 5 Facebook hacks you can employ on your website to help drive more traffic and exposure.

Share your feedback, read the show notes and get the links mentioned in this episode below!

Listen Now

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, Stitcher or Blackberry.

Here are some of the things you’ll discover in this show:

Facebook Marketing Hacks

#1: Use the Correct-Size Images on Your Website

You have probably noticed on Facebook that some posts have large images at the top, and underneath there is a URL, the website name and a small description.

If you have content on your website that you want seen in the news feed, then you can alter the size of the image, which will lead to more exposure and click-throughs to your website.

Here’s an example of a shared link with a small image in the Facebook news feed.

Here’s an example of how a large image appears in the Facebook news feed.

Facebook queries all of the actual images that are on your website and will choose to display the image with the largest dimensions. Facebook only allows users to select three images.

To see how this works, check out my friend Jon Loomer’s guide on Facebook Link Thumbnail Image Dimensions.

The aspect ratio of your image is the critical factor. The aspect ratio is 1.91:1. This calculates out to about 1200 pixels wide by 627 pixels deep. The ideal size is 400 pixels wide by 209 pixels deep.

You need to make sure that at least one of your images inside the article is larger than all of the others. It should be in the 1.91:1 aspect ratio.

Listen to the show to find out what happens when an image is deeper than it is wide and how it can appear in the Facebook news feed.

#2: Implement Facebook Open Graph Tags

Facebook has its own language called Open Graph. This allows you to tell Facebook certain kinds of attributes, which include the image it should use as a default on a page, where it should pull text from and what the description should be. This kind of information helps your content appear more appropriately in the news feed.

You can discover all of the data behind Open Graph and find everything you need to know about how it works. It’s a great guide even for the non-techie.

To learn more about Open Graph, check out the Get Started tutorial.

If you are on WordPress, Open Graph is easy to implement with a plugin called WP Open Graph. It allows you to set data on a macro-level and on a post-by-post basis. It’s a great way to control what shows up when people share your articles on Facebook.

The best way to keep your shared content up to date on Facebook is to use Facebook’s Debugger. It’s a great tool to stop Facebook from pulling in information that’s no longer relevant.

Listen to the show to find out how the Debugger tool works, and how it will help you with your Open Graph.

#3: Add a Facebook Share Button to Your Website

When you add a Facebook Share button to your website, you need to make sure that you use the code from Facebook or the WordPress plugin, which was developed by Facebook.

It doesn’t matter if your website is WordPress or not, you can visit here and paste in the URL you want to share and choose the different layouts for your button.

There are many different Share buttons to choose from.

You’ll discover the best Share button to use for social proof on your website.

If you use WordPress, it’s easy to use their default plugin. This plugin allows you to do the same as the Facebook one, but it does everything automatically for you.

When it comes to the placement of the Share button on your website, many people like to put it at the top of a blog post. This way, users can see how many people have shared the article, which incites them to read it too. Others like to put the button at the bottom of the post.

You can also use a plugin like Digg Digg, which allows the Share buttons to float down the side of the article as people scroll through.

Listen to the show to learn why I’m a big fan of having a Share button at the top andthe bottom of an article.

#4: Leverage Google Analytics

Although a lot of you may already have Google Analytics installed on your website, you may not know that you can use Google Analytics to analyze your traffic that comes from Facebook.

When you log into Google Analytics, you need to click on Acquisition. Underneath Acquisition is a category called Social. When you click on Social, it will show you all traffic that comes from all of the different social channels.

You can view your social traffic sources with Google Analytics.

You can click on a social network—Facebook, for example—and it will show you which URLs Facebook drives the most traffic to. You can narrow it down to a specific day or over a certain time period.

You’ll discover how to see the traffic source for your sales pages and why this is great for comparative analysis.

Listen to the show to hear how you can use Google Analytics to see if there are any increases or decreases in traffic trends from Facebook.

#5: Use the Facebook Like Box for Pages to Grow Your Facebook Fan Base

If you have a website that has a lot of traffic, then it’s important to put up a Facebook Like box for pages.

When someone visits your site and they are already logged into Facebook, they will see their friends who are already fans of your page. They can become a fan with the click of a button without leaving your website.

The Facebook Like box on Social Media Examiner.

It’s a great way to grow a healthy following for your Facebook page, just with the traffic that comes to your website.

Listen to the show to find out why this type of button works better than a Like Us on Facebook one.

This Week’s Social Media Questions

Question #1: John, whose wife is interested in starting a new lifestyle-type business online, asks, “In regards to a strategy for launching this new idea, my thoughts would be that she would start with Facebook and then Twitter, based on the fact that there is already foot traffic. Once she achieves a certain level on these two channels, then she would have an official announcement or launch of her new website. Is this a good strategy? If not, does it make more sense to launch all three simultaneously? In regards to Twitter and Facebook, what specific strategy could you give us for how to get valuable content for Twitter?”

I think it’s more important for you to launch something that you own first and then launch a community. You should start with a website, then a social channel. The reason is because you rent open ground with a social channel and there are no assurances that your content will be seen. To acquire fans, you need to have a hub or destination for them to go to.

You’ll hear how the team at Social Media Examiner uses Twitter and Facebook to find interesting articles to share with our audience.

Check out our Getting Started With Social Media: Resource Guide, which contains a number of resources to help bring you up to speed.

Question #2: Adam, the owner of Fresh Idea Websites that helps a lot of small businesses build WordPress websites and also provides social media community management, asks, “What tools do you find are the most helpful for managing multiple business pages for different brands, and why do you like those tools?”

Fresh Idea Websites.

At Social Media Examiner, we have two primary pages. One for Social Media Examinerand one for My Kids’ Adventures. To manage Facebook, we use the built-in tools.

We like to use Facebook’s tools to schedule posts because in the past, Facebook has penalized people who use third-party tools. For the most part, Facebook is a very manual process. I’m not in a position like you are with many different clients to manage, so there isn’t really a tool I can recommend.

If you want to check out some of the tools that are out there, you can visit our Tools category.

You’ll discover why we use SocialOomph and HootSuite to schedule tweets ahead of time.

Question #3: Amanda Skidmore is marketing director for a startup company calledCEU Central, an online education website where health professionals can take the continuing education courses they need to renew their professional license.

Amanda is currently trying to develop a marketing plan and asks, “Do we need a separate Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc., for each of our divisions, since the professionals we serve have such vastly different interests?”

CEU Central.

Unfortunately there is no simple answer to this.

It really comes down to resources. In an ideal world, you should have separate social channels for each of the primary audiences that you are trying to reach. If you have different products with different audiences, then it does make sense to begin to develop different communities. Having said that, it can become a management nightmare.

I would encourage anyone who has gone through this to let Amanda know what your thoughts are in the comment section below.

Question #4: Greg Elwell, host of the Expert Interviews podcast, asks, “How can you have two instances of a blog on a single WordPress site? For example, on Social Media Examiner you’ve got your home page, which is where all of your blog articles are and then you have a Podcast menu item, which contains all of your podcasts. Is there a simple way to do this in WordPress, where you can have separate instances or pages and RSS feeds configured on a single WordPress website?”

Expert Interviews podcast.

All you have to do is create a separate category inside of WordPress. We have a category called Podcasts, where every podcast is tagged with that particular category. So when you go to www.socialmediaexaminer.com/podcast it will only show you the blog posts that are tagged “podcast.” All we did was create a forwarding URL that takes users to www.socialmediaexaminer.com/category/podcast-episodes.

You can create any category you want. These categories can have their own RSS feed. In the end, it’s how you can create what appears to be a customized subsection of your website.

You’ll hear why we hired a developer to create a special code for the podcast category.

Question #5: Lucy from Lucy’s Web Designs creates websites for clients and teaches them how to keep them up to date.

Lucy asks, “On one of your podcasts, you said to put content where the client is. I’m just wondering how that affects SEO, as I have heard you are not supposed to duplicate content on websites. For instance, if I were to put a blog post onto Google+ and then onto Tumblr and Facebook, how would that work given the fact that it’s already residing on my blog or my client’s blog?”

Lucy’s Web Designs.

I know that some people copy and paste their entire article onto social platforms, and I’m not necessarily an advocate of that. When I talk about sharing content across social networks, I’m not talking about republishing or redistributing your content, I’m actually talking about linking back to your content.

The idea is to drive as much traffic back to your website as possible. You can take a portion of your content, such as the first couple of paragraphs, and put it on the different social networks and have a Click Here to Read More option.

You’ll hear the disadvantages of when you publish your content elsewhere and why Google will penalize you.

Question #6: Mike Haldas, co-founder of AppBurst, develops content-driven applications for businesses and events. Mike shares his concern for competitors’ ability to use tools to research and find social media connections on every major platform.

AppBurst.

Mike asks, “Let’s say that I’m a company that’s really good at connecting with my customer base through social media platforms and I build up a large following. Isn’t that kind of risky, because in a way, I just exposed part of my customer base or leads to any competitor that knows how to watch and track this? Does this concern ever come up in your circles, and what do you think about it?”

I don’t think this is a huge concern. For example, we have 230,000 email subscribers and 210,000 Facebook fans. There isn’t necessarily a correlation between the Facebook fans and the email subscribers. I’ve learned over the years that different people want to consume content in different ways.

For example, a lot of our email newsletter subscribers are now probably following us on Facebook instead, because they don’t want to get our emails anymore. In addition, there are people who discover us on Facebook who have no idea that we have an email newsletter list.

More importantly, there’s no way for me to know who all of our fans are on Facebook very easily, let alone our competitors.

Facebook likes to keep this information private. I believe only LinkedIn groups allow the administrator to download this type of information.

You’ll find out why it’s more important to grow a following on these social networks and how you can use this to move people into your lead funnel.

Call in and leave your social media–related questions for us and we may include them in a future show.

Listen to the show to learn more and let us know how this works for you.

Other Show Mentions

My Kids’ Adventures

I want to bring you up to speed on My Kids’ Adventures. This is a project I have been working on for the last 5½ months.

Watch this video to get a feel for the vision for My Kids’ Adventures.

The reason why I started this website was because as a busy parent, I felt like I wasn’t spending enough time with my kids. At the end of the workday, I didn’t have enough creative juices to think of something fun and exciting to do with them.

So I brought together a lot of creative minds, and at present we publish fun and adventure-themed activities three times a week.

Some of the articles include:

• How to Create a Backyard Treasure Hunt, Minecraft Style
• How to Have an Outdoor Photo Scavenger Hunt
• How to Make Slime
• How to Create Glow-in-the-Dark Bowling in Your Home

Since our launch in mid-July last year, we have had more than 142,000 unique visitors to the site and the video above has been viewed 9,300 times. These figures are awesome.

I’m trying to make a huge impact in the world and I could use your help. The first thing that you can do is to head over to My Kids’ Adventures and take advantage of all of the great free resources.

There is also a Resource Guide where you will find activities in every category you can imagine.

The other way you can help with My Kids’ Adventures is to apply to become a writer. If you are really creative and do fun stuff with your kids, we would love to hear from you.

If you can help us get the word out, visit here.

Social Media Marketing World 2014

Social Media Marketing World 2014 is our physical mega-conference, which is set to return to San Diego, California on March 26, 27 and 28.

The conference features more than 60 sessions in four major tracks: social tactics, social strategy, community management and content marketing.

The excitement for this conference is building like nothing we’ve experienced before.

The average temperature in San Diego is 72°, so why not bring your family and make a vacation out of your business trip? There are some awesome attractions in San Diego, including the world-famous San Diego Zoo, the Safari Park, SeaWorld and LegoLand.

Check it out and make sure you click on the Travel section to see all that San Diego has to offer.

Key takeaways mentioned in this episode:

• Read Jon Loomer’s guide on Facebook Link Thumbnail Image Dimensions.
• Learn more about Open Graph.
• Use WP Open Graph plugin for WordPress sites.
• Try Facebook’s Debugger to keep your content up to date on Facebook.
• Install Facebook’s Share button on your website.
• Use WordPress’s Facebook social plugins on your website or Digg Digg’s Floating Share Bar.
• Leverage Google Analytics.
• Install the Facebook Like Box for Pages plugin for your website.
• Check out the Getting Started With Social Media: Resource Guide.
• Head over to Fresh Idea Websites, CEU Central, the Expert Interviews podcast, Lucy’s Web Designs and AppBurst.
• Use SocialOomph and HootSuite to schedule tweets.
• Learn more about Social Media Marketing World 2014.
• Contact Emily at emily@socialmediaexaminer.com if you are interested in corporate sponsorships for Social Media Marketing World 2014.

Help Us Spread the Word!

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If you enjoyed this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast, please head over to iTunes, leave a rating, write a review and subscribe. And if you listen on Stitcher, please click here to rate and review this show.

Ways to subscribe to the Social Media Marketing podcast:

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What do you think? What are your thoughts on these 5 Facebook marketing hacks for your website? Please leave your comments below.