Anita Kirkbride 
Live streaming has hit the social media world big time. Are you taking advantage of either of the new live streaming apps, Periscope and Meerkat? At first thought, live streaming for a small business may seem overwhelming but your very curious customers want to see what you’re up to…and now they want to do it live! It’s actually pretty simple to do with the new apps.
The world rejoiced when Twitter announced it was introducing a new comment retweet feature. For nearly nine years tweeps have longed for a way to add their own sentiments to a retweet in Twitter without resorting to third-party apps. Now we have it. When you click the retweet button, you are prompted to add your own thoughts in a compose window while the original post is embedded below your comments. You now have a full 140 characters to comment on something someone else has tweeted.
It is said that 2015 will be the “Year of Instagram” and I might just believe that. Instagram, the app for sharing video and pictures and most likely the reason we all know what a “selfie” is, has been around since 2010, but it is really just taking off now. There are tons of apps out there to help you make better use of Instagram and here are the five that I’m using currently as I work on building an Instagram strategy for my business.
Not only were many of the world’s biggest and brightest thought leaders from the social media and digital industries present (Guy Kawasaki, Mari Smith, CS Penn, Marcus Sheridan, Jay Baer, Chris Brogan, and so on, and so on), they were accessible, approachable and helpful. I attended sessions on Facebook Advertising, Instagram, Pinterest, marketing, blogging, SEO and more. I am rejuvenated and raring to go.
Did you know you *ARE* allowed to run contests directly on your Business Page now, without the use of an outside app? Did you also know the majority of the contests we see every day are breaking the rules and endangering their Page?
Like anything else, you can’t say you’re successful if you can’t measure that success. If you can’t remember exactly which campaigns you want to track and how they were worded, you’ll end up with three versions of each campaign, which will make your analysis more difficult in the end.
LinkedIn is the network I get the fewest questions about, so I tend to forget to write blog posts about it. On the second to last day of my 12 Days of Social Media, I thought it was high time I give you some of the best tips for making use of LinkedIn.
Some of the best Hootsuite features have come along in just the past few months. Here’s a breakdown of some of my favourite Hootsuite features.
Every social media presentation I give participants ask which network they should focus on first, and many assume it’s Facebook. Chances are, for most small businesses, Facebook is going to be the first stop on your social media strategy. Here are some of my top tips for marketing your business on Facebook.
I have come to understand that you only understand that which you have an express interest in understanding. Thus, I do not understand quantum physics, the legal aspects of a corporate takeover, or dog people (Cats rule, dogs drool. #SorryNotSorry). Similarly, many small business owners simply do not have the express interest in truly understanding the complexities of social media. Some simply want it to bring in the money and others just want someone else to handle it. This leads to a lot of misunderstanding about social media in general. Here are some of my favourite social media myths.