Creating a Content Calendar for your Social Media

Creating a Content Calendar for your Social Media

Creating a Content Calendar for your Social Media

Keeping your audience engaged, and with relevant content, is one the most important facets of your social media strategy. But how do you find good content and not only that; how do you organise it and deliver it you your audience without repeating yourself, your message, or tying yourself in a knot of dis-organisation. The answer is simple – use a content calendar!

First step – Your Messaging

Well first, and the most important point, is to know the messaging you want delivered to your audience (this is relevant later on when we talk about sourcing your content). Just below this, in importance, is not becoming repetitive with your messaging and your content. I can’t stress how valuable this is, repetition shows a lack of imagination and your audience will take that personally.

Your messaging can be simple, and really needs to speak to your target audience. I’ll look at messaging in a separate post!

Then comes your content calendar

The best way to tackle this is to design a monthly content calendar. This is a simple excel sheet with each week (Week Beginning  7th November) on the left horizontal line and the post days (Mon, Wed, Fri)  on the vertical. A monthly content calendar allows you plainly see the pattern of your content, it doesn’t have to be too descriptive, and sometimes a simple word will suffice ie: Call to Action or Strategy. Doing this prior to the start of each month will actually make your content work easier as you know exactly what content (and its associated messaging) to look for. If you are planning content for more than one social media platform be sure to separate them on the spreadsheet (look for nuances in the different messaging each audience needs for each platform.)

Once this monthly calendar is done you work week to week on your content (due to current affairs/news and important announcements which may be pertinent to your brand.) The weekly content schedule is in a separate excel document using the ideas and trigger words from the monthly content calendar. Based on your previous knowledge of the activity of your audience (if on Facebook check your Insights) you make a decision on the times on each day for each post to be scheduled. If you are determining content for more than one social media platform again be sure to keep them separated but on the same excel document.

Where do you find content to share?

So now you have two beautiful excel sheets, your monthly content calendar is filled with awesome content ideas and trigger words like: Call to Action, Ted Talk, #ShareaSelfie, #ICYMI which is In Case You Missed It, always great for an important article. Also #ThrowBackThursday (#TBT), Engaging piece on travel or Photo Montage. However your weekly content schedule is empty; so where do you go to find your content? As mentioned earlier you need to have a clear idea on the messaging you want your audience to receive. So where do you look? The simple answer is: everywhere and on the same token the complex answer is: everywhere. The internet is jam packed full of content which can make it a minefield to navigate so follow the KISS rule: Keep It Simple Stupid.

Know who the experts are in your chosen industry, make sure you follow them and like their page, share content from their social media platform and be sure to tag them when you do it as it increases your reach and brings your brand to THEIR attention. Identify the influencers in your field, which are different from experts, and do the same. Video content is always great so check out Ted Talks for something relevant for your industry. Google, though huge, is a great content source, especially if you use the “news” function of the search engine to find the most updated news on the subject you’re writing about.  Source great bloggers and share their content, start your own blog and share your own content. Content can literally come from anywhere, including Live feeds such as the Facebook video tool, just be sure to keep it simple, engaging and relevant to your brand.

Over to you

How do you plan your content? Will you use a content plan to help you in the coming year?

If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
Writing a blog? Remember, one idea is always enough.

Writing a blog? Remember, one idea is always enough.

Writing a blog? Remember, one idea is always enough.

This idea is not the end it’s only the beginning.

You’ve probably heard this before but have you heard it in the context of blog writing? You might be tempted to cram all your ideas into one blog, to amaze you reader with your knowledge but in reality a much simpler approach is best. Just stick with one idea per blog – develop it and discuss the detail.

Here’s why.

Firstly, you have ample opportunity to blog so there is no great rush or need to cram as many ideas as you can into one piece. In fact keeping to a simple and concise writing approach will give your reader the impression you’re confident and an expert on the topic you’re writing about.

Another reason to keep it simple is to ensure the blog content you’re providing is meaningful and useful to your readers. By sticking with one idea you can explore it in greater detail, analyse it and offer your expert opinion. People will respect your knowledge; appreciate your advice in turn building a level of trust around your blog that will keep readers coming back for more. Regular readers become an opportunity to build new leads and new business.

Most blogs on average are 400 words, but you don’t have to stick to that word count. Long enough to provide detail but short enough to keep a reader’s attention. When it comes to the web people have short attention spans opting to read the first few sentences, skim the rest looking for the detail they’re after. With this in mind sticking to one idea makes a lot of sense. Create an opening paragraph that grabs attention, brings the idea to the fore and encourages the reader to read the detail.

If you just can’t stick to one idea instead opt to draw the article out over a series of blogs. A series will provide a reason to come back for the next blog, allow you to delve further in the detail and fully explore the overall content. Remember to keep a consistent flow throughout and link the blogs together.

Over to you!

I’d like to hear about your blog experiences by commenting below.

If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!

 

Why your LinkedIn profile picture matters

Why your LinkedIn profile picture matters

Why your LinkedIn profile picture matters

Are you on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the perfect platform for networking online. You can meet new business connections, link up with people in complimentary industries and share knowledge with those inside your own. You can also ask questions, get head hunted, look for jobs and even hire staff.

So how you represent yourself on LinkedIn is crucial to your professional success on this platform.

The most visual representation of you and your brand is your profile picture. Get it right and you will make important connections that will help you and your business. Get it wrong (or fail to have a photo at all) and you will have trouble connecting with other users.

Make your profile picture count

Here are my tips for making sure your profile picture delivers for you:

  1. Have a photo – you would be surprised at just how many people don’t even put a photo up. When someone requests to connect with me, the first thing I do is look for a profile picture. If there isn’t one there, I am often reluctant, though I won’t always rule out, to accept the connection request.
  2. Don’t use a personal photo. This includes holiday snaps, family photos or other images that would normally be used for other platforms like Facebook. You’re not on holidays, or out drinking with your friends; you’re on LinkedIn to make professional connections and generate leads for your business.
  3. Invest in a professional photo shoot. Make the investment and take the time to have a professional photographer take your photo. A good photographer will have the skill and knowledge to put you at ease and make you look your best while understanding the needs of your image. They’re also often quite skilled at photoshop!
  4. Make sure you photo conveys your brand and the image you want to project. This will depend very much on your industry, target audience and client base. Some will be more relaxed than others but DO NOT use a personal photo (see point 1).
  5. Pay attention to the background. If you go for an outdoor photo (like I have) then be aware of what’s behind you.

Over to you

Are there any other tips you would give to someone choosing the picture for their LinkedIn profile? When was the last time you updated your profile picture?

If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
Social media content: How do you keep it flowing?

Social media content: How do you keep it flowing?

Social media content: How do you keep it flowing?

What do I say? (a.k.a I need help with content!)

If there is one theme from businesses I hear time and time again when it comes to social media is “Yes I do know I need to use it but I don’t know what to say”. They have a Facebook page, and maybe a Twitter account, and happily follow others. But when it comes to posting their own content, there’s a huge blank.

Is this you? Have you set up a Facebook page or Twitter account, updated it every day (and sometimes more than once!) then after a month or so you couldn’t think of what else to put up on your page? Perhaps you set up a LinkedIn profile, added everyone you know, posted some really interesting content, then lost motivation?

I can assure you – you’re not alone.

The 80 / 20 rule

If there is one thing you take away from this article, is that you do not need to write every piece of content from scratch. In fact, it’s better if you don’t; that way if you are curating interesting content that your audience engages with, then you’ll be seen as a trusted source.

Ideally, your content should consist of 80 per cent ‘value’ based or educational content. This can be either curated (ie, sourced elsewhere with appropriate attribution) or created yourself. The remainder 20 per cent can be slightly more ‘salesy’ but still be respectful of your audience.

Think curation and creation!

So how do you consistently come up with interesting and engaging content without spending hours trawling through the internet and coming up with nothing? Here are my top 5 tips:

  1. Identify leaders in your industry and share what they say. Sign up for their email newsletters and when a great article arrives in you inbox, share it with your fans!
  2. When reading online newspapers and other news sites, if you come across an article you think might interest you followers, save it in a word document so you can use it later
  3. Look at what you are doing in your work place right now. Is there an interesting project you are working on? A client who you could profile?
  4. Have you made a mistake and learned a lesson in your workplace that you think your fans could benefit from? Hindsight is a wonderful thing (especially in business) and another business could learn from you.
  5. Ask you fans, followers & clients what they would like to hear. Your fans are a rich source of information, so ask them lots of questions!

Over to you!

Are there other places you find inspiration?

If you want help getting more out of your social media marketing, please download our free step by step guide today!
Social Media Nibble E08: Getting started with your own Facebook chatbot

Social Media Nibble E08: Getting started with your own Facebook chatbot

Social Media Nibble E08: Getting started with your own Facebook chatbot

Paula O.: Hello and welcome to Social Media Nibbles. I’m Paula O’Sullivan, social media strategist and Head Possum at Possum Digital. In this episode, I get to totally geek out with our very special guest Elly Hurley from Nudge Marketing. Elly is the co-founder of Nudge Marketing, Australia’s number one authority in Messenger marketing and chatbots. She’s a self-confessed geek, and a highly sought after digital marketing strategist who has invested in some of the brightest marketing and business minds in the world.

Paula O.: As a fellow business owner, she understands what it’s like, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. And I am super excited that she is here with us today to talk about all things chatbots, welcome Elly.

Elly Hurley: Thanks Paula, it’s great to be here with you.

Paula O.: So, tell us a little bit about yourself. Who you are, what you do, and how you help other businesses.

Elly Hurley: Sure, no problems. I think you’ve covered it really nicely in the intro. Thank you for that. I am a marketing strategist and I specialize in chatbots, Messenger Marketing and conversational messaging. And we help business owners get more leads, and then guide them through their customer journey.

Elly Hurley: So, what we try to do is use as little integration as possible. So, try and keep it on one platform as we possibly can, which saves them tech headaches, time, money, and it also reduces their stress levels, because they want to be concentrating on what they do best, and this is a tool that allows them to be able to do that.

Paula O.: Yeah, great. So, all things chatbot is what we’re going to talk about today. But really, let’s actually define what that means for our audience. So, could you in your words, explain what you mean by Messenger or Facebook Messenger Marketing? And specifically, what is a chatbot?

Elly Hurley: Okay, cool. We’ve got two things here. Facebook Messenger Marketing is the platform, and it gives us the ability to have conversations with our customers when and where they want. Now, the great thing about Messenger Marketing, is it’s permission based marketing. What that means, is the customer or person must interact with you before you can start sending them messages out. So, there’s no spam, or there’s no people just getting a whole ton of stuff in their messenger account that they haven’t already asked for, which it makes open rates and stuff like that really, really good.

Elly Hurley: So, Messenger is the platform. And then what the chatbot is, it’s the software that you use to automate the conversations that you have with people on that platform. A chatbot’s broken down into two pieces. You’ve got the conversation side of it. So, that’s your messaging and the types of stuff that you’re going to send out to your customers or subscribers. And the second part of it is their growth tools.

Elly Hurley: The great thing about these, is this is how you drive traffic into your chatbot, and you drive it to specific conversations. So, it’s really cool because you can segment and tag and put people into buckets so you’re not just blasting everybody with the same stuff all the time.

Paula O.: Okay, so I guess a lot of businesses out there will have some kind of email list, and a bit of email marketing that they do. What you’ve described is I guess a similar process, but a different platform. So, what benefit then will small and medium businesses experience or have if they still go ahead with the email marketing because we know that’s really, really important. But also, if they do engage with Messenger Marketing, why should they do that above and beyond what they’ve got in their existing infrastructure or their existing marketing?

Elly Hurley: Okay. I think the primary reason is that Facebook Messenger is a really hot platform at the moment. There’s 1.3 billion users using it on a daily basis. There’s over 80 billion messages that are being sent between businesses and their consumers every single month, which is a heap of messages that people are sending out. What that means for small businesses, I think probably the biggest difference is the content gets read, and it gets seen.

Elly Hurley: People open Messenger, most people are getting notifications on their phone still. So, you send a Possum Digital Messenger out to your customer base, and it actually pops up and says, “Hey, I’ve got a message from Paula.” And they read it. People can’t ignore their pop ups.

Elly Hurley: So, notifications are a great thing. It just means that they’re getting into people’s inboxes and their content’s getting seen and read. Whereas with email, I’m not sure what your email looks like these days, but I’m hopeless now, and I’ve got so many unread email sitting in my email account, but I have no unread emails in Messenger.

Paula O.: Okay. So, I guess one of the potential fears or barriers that I’ve heard when I talk to some of my clients is okay, so a chatbot is automatic. Don’t people actually want to talk to a person, or to a human? What would you say to something like that?

Elly Hurley: Yeah, look, I totally get that. Whilst I agree there is still definitely room in the customer journey for that interaction, for personal interaction, a chatbot’s a great way to do the initial interaction where you can pre-qualify people. What we’ve got to remember is that we’re not there 24/7. However, our chatbot is. And if you actually start to look at the times that people are interacting with chatbots, we’ve built several dozen of them now. The amount of interaction that’s happening late at night or very early in the morning, or at times outside business hours is huge.

Elly Hurley: So, a chatbot really is just a digital assistant that works 24/7, 365 days a year. They never argue with you, they never get grumpy with your customers because you’ve pre-programed them, and they don’t ask for pay rises. It’s the best assistant you could ever want.

Paula O.: That’s amazing. I hear you can also give it a little bit of a personality is that correct?

Elly Hurley: Oh, look, 100%. It’s something that we are really really strong on here. Because I think you’ve probably met Pixie already. We’ve gone to the stage where we’ve actually animated Pixie to bring her to life just a little bit more, obviously, we’re in this field. But yeah, what we do recommend is that the chatbot does have the personality of the business brand, or the individual that’s building it. What we don’t recommend is that people actually pretend that it’s them talking to their customers, because they’ll end up with egg on their face.

Paula O.: Okay, I guess kind of what you’re saying is, businesses that use a chatbot should be upfront and transparent that somebody is actually talking to a bot?

Elly Hurley: 100%. Our first message says, “Hi, I’m Pixie, Nudge Marketing’s chatbot, great to see you here today.” And then it leads them through. That way, it gets to a point where they can say, “Okay, fine, I’ve got the information I need for now. But I really want to speak to someone.” So, then they can push a button to say, speak to a human or book a call, and then they go into our calendar, and we end up having a call with them.

Elly Hurley: Even that side of it is automated. And it gives the customer the opportunity to choose when they’re ready to speak to you.

Paula O.: Okay. So, you’ve just identified one particular example of a function that a chatbot could do. So, booking in a time to see you. What are some real life examples that you could talk through for our listeners around what a chatbot could do?

Elly Hurley: Okay. I’ll use a couple of real life examples because I think that’s probably easier. We’ve got a guy here in Sydney that has a service based business, it’s actually Ultimate Paintball. So, they play paintball games. They used to have about six to 10 different questions that they got on a daily basis. They could sometimes get eight or 10 calls a day, which isn’t a huge amount. But if it’s you are the only person answering the phone, it takes a hell of a lot of time to answer those questions.

Elly Hurley: We’ve set a chatbot up that actually answers those questions, it’s on their website. And what it’s done is, it has reduced the calls they’re getting to one, maybe two every two or three days. It shortened the sales cycle, because people are getting the answers they need straightaway, and people are now booking in. So, their conversions have actually increased on that end. So, it saved them time, reduced the amount of customer service presale questions that they’re getting, and it’s also increased their return on investment. So, he’s absolutely stoked with that.

Elly Hurley: That’s one option. Customer service is a really big one. Another one is lead generation. It’s a really simple tool to use for lead gen. Because if you think about the traditional method of lead generation where you have, say, a post on social media somewhere, or your blog, or something like that, then you have to send them to a landing page where they have to fill in their name and email. Then it goes to a thank you page. Then hopefully, they go and get the email and find the thing that you’ve sent them.

Elly Hurley: With a chatbot, it’s still a link at the front end, so it’s still a post on Facebook, but it takes them straight into Messenger. You deliver the lead magnet to them there and then in Messenger. So, there’s no mucking around going to email, and then you can ask them to confirm their email if you want to. And all they have to do is push a button. They’re not entering anything.

Elly Hurley: That’s the second way. So, customer service, lead generation and content consumption is something we’ve also found to be really really beneficial. People that have got blogs, yourself maybe with a podcast, sending that out it’s increasing people’s content consumption, which is awesome. They can also be used for sales now in a lot of different industries. We can use them here for sales, even in Australia, if you’ve got a Stripe account attached to it.

Paula O.: How fantastic. If you’re a small business and you’ve got a Stripe account, you can make direct sales through the Messenger platform?

Elly Hurley: The whole lot can be done in Messenger. So, you started the customer journey in Messenger and you finish it in Messenger, including the tracking shipping advice or anything like that. And then as an add on, which really helps and has increased people’s review rates, is you ask them, are they happy with the service? Not happy with the service? “Yes, I’m happy.” “Great, could you leave me a review?” “No, not overly happy.” “Oops, what did we do wrong? How can we fix it?” Then you turn them into a happy customer, and get an even better review.

Paula O.: Wow, that’s fantastic. So, businesses really should be getting on to this if they haven’t already.

Elly Hurley: 100%.

Paula O.: Let’s cover off, how can … So, a business that’s listening to this podcast, they’re hooked, they’re really interested in what you had to say. So, how can they actually get started with their own chatbot?

Elly Hurley: Okay. There’s a couple of ways you can do it. We use and recommend our software called ManyChat. That’s M-A-N-Y-C-H-A-T. I know we’ve spoken about that before.

Paula O.: That’s right, yeah.

Elly Hurley: They actually have a free entry level into their software. So, someone could go in and actually set their account up now. All they need is a Facebook business page, a personal profile, so they can sign into ManyChat. Then they just attach ManyChat to their Facebook page, and off they go. Now, they could fumble through I guess, and do that by themselves. It is something that could be self-taught. Or they can find someone that I guess like us, that know what they’re doing, and we can show them the best way for them to set it up and move forward with it.

Elly Hurley: I think one of the mistakes people make is that they don’t actually plan out and strategize how they’re going to use the chatbot as part of their overall business growth strategy. That’s where we see most businesses fall down when they use this.

Paula O.: Of course. So, let’s actually talk about … That’s a really good segue into what are the best practices in using a chatbot, and what are some of the things to avoid so you don’t get into trouble with Facebook?

Elly Hurley: Cool. Okay, yeah. We’ll start with best practice. It’s a conversational platform. So, if you think about the way that you have conversations with your friends and family when you’re using messenger, most of the time, it tends to be fairly short and sweet. So, you’ll send a quick message and they’ll reply and it bounces backwards and forwards. It’s a bit like a tennis game.

Elly Hurley: What we have seen people do wrong is that they have just tried to say, copy an email that they’ve sent out previously and dumped that into messenger and send that out. Yeah, it is, it’s not real good. And the problem with that is, my philosophy is if the message doesn’t fit into a phone screen, it’s too long. If it does fit into a phone screen that’s still too long, it should be probably about a third of the phone screen so they can interact, and then keep on going.

Elly Hurley: So, what you’re wanting to do is actually ask the customer questions. All the way through, you’re doing something. Like with Pixie, for example, with our welcome message, we get yeses from people in our three texts, in the very first three text blocks that we have in our messaging. As we all know, we’re sales psychology and stuff like that. If you can get three yeses from people, you’re well on your way to then getting them to agree to do the next thing, which could you download our free thing or sign up for a webinar?

Elly Hurley: So, that’s the biggest thing I would say as in best practice. And Just don’t be salesy and spammy. It’s not a sales platform from the point of view that you can just bang up sales messages constantly. That leads me into the thing that most people do wrong, and that’s in relation to the 20 … It’s called the Facebook 24 plus one rule. Yes, yes.

Paula O.: Yes. Lots of businesses have been caught up in this, haven’t they?

Elly Hurley: Yeah, they have. Basically, what it means, going back to what I said from the very beginning, because it’s permission based marketing, what Facebook have decided to do is they’ve kept a really tight threshold on it, which I think is fantastic for businesses or the businesses that use this correctly. Because it means we stand out from those that don’t.

Elly Hurley: You can’t send promotional information to somebody that hasn’t had an interaction with your chatbot within the last 24 hours. They do give you one opportunity to do that, which is the plus one rule, however, I go to people, “Look, it’s not worth it. Because if you make a mistake and you have already sent something out that’s promotional, then you’re going to get pinged and potentially, Facebook are starting to crack down on this, and you may end up getting your account shut down. So it’s just not worth it.”

Paula O.: So, what would Facebook look at as an example of a promotional message?

Elly Hurley: Okay, so if you hadn’t sent anything out to your subscriber list for say a week, we’ll just use that as a time. And then you send out a message and say, “Hey, I’ve got a 50% off sale on all our T shirts this week. Would you like to see it? Yes or No?” That’s promotional. Because what you’re doing is trying to entice them into getting a coupon.

Elly Hurley: So, what you need to do to get around that is the very first message that you put in your broadcast is, “Hey, been a while since I’ve been in touch. Are you more interested in T-shirts or jeans?” So, you’re still asking them a question, but you’re not actually trying to sell them anything or offer them something that’s related to a sale. But as soon as they click one of those two buttons, they’ve interacted with your chatbot, and the 24 hours is reset.

Elly Hurley: So, the second method is very cool. You’re interested in T-shirts, we’re offering a 25% coupon at the moment, would you like the discount voucher?

Paula O.: Nice. You’re actually not only engaging people in a meaningful way first, you’re actually giving people what they want.

Elly Hurley: Yeah.

Paula O.: How cool is that? So, really, this is a platform that is user focused. And if you use it correctly, it’s a way to put your customers at the centre of your business.

Elly Hurley: 100%. It’s all about the customer journey and the conversation. The great thing about it is, is that you literally can take them from one end of the customer journey all the way through to the other end if you want to. There is the opportunity to integrate with other software, but I think that’s a conversation for another day.

Paula O.: I think so too, I think so too. Now, I think we should leave it there just because we’ve covered off so much information already. Now, thank you so much for your time today Elly. Where can our listeners find out more about you and about Nudge Marketing?

Elly Hurley: I think the easiest place is actually our website. So, just nudgemarketing.com. We’re currently running a bit of an online training at the moment that we’re running. There’s a link in there. They can sign up for that if they wanted to. There’s also a couple of demos or different chatbots on the website that they can run through to see how they actually work.

Elly Hurley: The only other place is perhaps our Facebook group called Chatbot Chatter. So, if there’s people that are specifically interested in chatbots and how they can maybe start to use them, it’s a really active little group. We give away lots of tips and tricks and all that sort of stuff in there. Completely free to join. So, come and join us over at Chatbot Chatter.

Paula O.: Make sure you go and join Elly in her group Chatbot Chatter, and thank you all for listening. So, if you liked what you heard in this podcast, please subscribe and share with your friends, and make sure to visit our website possumdigital.com.au where you can listen to more podcast episodes just like this one and read our latest blogs.

Using a Facebook page template

Using a Facebook page template

Using a Facebook page template

Do you own or manage a Facebook page? The during last week, you would have received an email from Facebook letting you know that they are changing the template of pages. Don’t worry, this is not spam, it is definitely legitimate. But as always, if you don’t want to click on the link in the email, you can go directly to the platform.

So what is changing?

Essentially it is the template of your page that is being changed, and the email lets you know what the current template is, and what template it will move to. You can do nothing and the change will happen on August 23, or you can change it yourself before then.

What is a Facebook page template?

Facebook has created a ‘plug and play’ solution to make pages more flexible in the form of templates. You will most likely have the default template, but you can change this at any time.

Each page template comes with a set of tabs, which can be switched on or off, and moved around so that the order is useful for you. The tabs appear on the left hand side of your Facebook page.

The templates help you get the most out of your page depending on the type of business or organisation you have.

What if I want to have a different template?

That’s easy – you can change this yourself in the setting of your page:

  1. Go to your page and click the ‘settings’ tab
  2. Click ‘edit page’ in the left-hand column
  3. Below the ‘template’ option, click edit to change
  4. You can then choose what template you want to use and also change the order of the page tabs

Facebook page template

And once you have selected the template you like, then you can go ahead and use the tabs that will work for you. These are also accessed in the ‘template’ section of settings.

Facebook page template

Over to you

Have you experimented with Facebook templates?