By Alyssa Aldrich

Social media is a powerful tool. When used right, it can be effective in connecting very amazing people to other amazing people, businesses and organizations from around the world. People should use social media to heighten their existence, reflect their interesting projects and aspirations, to share something they find truly amazing, to inspire others. In a perfect world, social media would be used primarily as a source for inspiration. Unfortunately, however, although it has great potential to be an awesome window to the world, it is often cluttered with gossip, non-interesting, and non-inspiring garbage.

Below are a few things to consider and avoid doing when using social media.

Don’t Be Ignorant

• Using profanity and vulgarity in social media can make you appear aggressive or unintelligent. To present your thoughts in that manor can cause people to not take you seriously. (more…)

By Dawn Berryman

It’s a visual culture. We all know that. And, we’re a culture that thrives on instant gratification. How often do you find yourself scrolling down through your Facebook feed on your mobile phone? How fast are you scrolling? Are you reading all the status updates and text? Or, are you just stopping to read when something catches your eye? How often is that something an intriguing picture?

This is prime example number one of why you need to be using images in your marketing strategy. People love photos and they grab attention.

You also want to show off your goods. What better way than to show rather than tell? A picture is worth a thousand words right? When you’re struggling to come up with the perfect product description to make sure everyone really realizes what a must-have it is you might just be able to rely on a great photo. (more…)

By Mandy Fricke

Search engine optimization (SEO) is definitely a part of the conversation you have with your web team, but is SEO something you’ve ever thought about for your Facebook business page? Is your social media team SEO savvy? These are things to think about, because Facebook SEO can definitely have a positive impact on your Facebook page performance.

Here are some helpful tips that can help you get the most out of your Facebook business page:

1. Use keywords.

Keyword optimization is just as important on your Facebook page as it is on your main web content, and it’s probably the single most impactful thing you can tweak on your Facebook profile. Remember that your About, Company Description, and Mission sections are all indexable and should be appropriately, accurately and insightfully filled out. Having your keywords in your company description is particularly important. Also give consideration to your actual page name when creating your Facebook page. If you have some flexibility with the name, there may be an SEO opportunity in the name of your page. (more…)

By Holly Resiem Hanna

A few months ago, I started creating text only updates on my Facebook Fan Page. Meaning that I would add the text for my update in the status box, and then I’d put the link to the article within the first comment. The reason I did this was because Edgerank, had drastically decreased the number of individuals that were seeing and interacting on my Facebook posts.

If you’re not familiar with Edgerank, it’s Facebook’s new algorithm which automatically determines which posts you see, and which ones you don’t. According to Brian Solis, Facebook is trying to help ensure that you see the “best content” and that the spammy content is filtered down.

However, the caveat to this is that anyone can PAY to have their updates and posts ranked higher, thus being seen by more people. (more…)

By Amanda Jacobs

Social media has become a valuable tool for businesses and entrepreneurs alike, as they promote interaction and networking on a regular basis. At the same time, they can lead to spending hours per day doing nothing but scouring the web aimlessly.

If you are a busy professional, but still want to take advantage of the power of social media, there are some simple steps you can take to stay connected without spending a lot of time every day.

Here’s a recipe for managing your social media profiles in just 20 minutes per day. (more…)