The more content you post, the better your results. FALSE.  Last night before I went to bed I checked Facebook and, sure enough, my friend “Veronica” had posted at least a dozen articles and links.  Then, this morning, I was doing my morning Facebook routine and there she was again…and again…and again. Chances are we’ve all had that Facebook friend that jams up your newsfeed.  I have been so inundated with her posts that I’ve stopped paying attention to them.  And the fact is, if “Veronica” was a business I would have un-liked her page. So what’s the best practice here?  1-2 times a day and then sit on your hands. You don’t want to be a “Veronica”. Social media is a great platform for selling your goods and services Actually, this is TRUE but if you treat it like your other channels you’re not going to be successful. Social media is all about attraction and is a great platform for establishing your bona fides to customers and prospects, and for developing trust and influence. This is where you sow the seeds for future business by being informative, expert, helpful, entertaining and, oh yes, just occasionally showcasing your business. To be successful on social media you need to use all of the available channels. Unless you have unlimited people, time and energy resources this is FALSE.  Focus on “fishing where the fish are” and chances are you’ll discover that Facebook is your biggest “ocean” with over 1.5 billion monthly users. Layer in Instagram’s 300 million monthly users, which is now making advertising available using the same API as Facebook, and you’ve pretty well covered most, if not all, of your social sphere. Facebook is for teens and young adults. Not so any more. That may have been true a decade ago but actually adults 55+ are the fastest growing demographic on Facebook.  While teen users declined by over 25% over the past 3 years, the 55+ sector’s growth has been an explosive 80.4% over the past 3 years.  

Social media usage by older Americans has grown significantly, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. The report reveals that 35% of US adults over the age of 65 are now using social media – that's an increase of 24% since 2010. Further, 77% of US adults aged 30-49 are using social media. This is great news for businesses as it means more and more of their prospects and customers are on social. With social media scheduling tool and software, it is much easier for marketers to plan their posts well ahead of time. This means they can visually plan, create and directly publish the scheduled content from one platform to all their social media profiles. And with less help, social media delivers messages and offers in uniquely engaging, tightly targeted, and cost-effective ways. But then businesses need to look at various social media growth apps like Kicksta and Growthoid review before they decide on something for their growth. Other highlights from the Report? Adults from higher income households are more likely to be social media users. 78% of US adults who earn more than $75,000 per year are social media users, compared to 56% of adults who make less than $30,000 per year. Gender does not make a difference in social media usage. 68% of US women are social media users, compared to 62% of men. Pew observes that this difference is statistically insignificant. Younger adults have the highest penetration of social media usage. 90% of US adults ages 18-29 now use social media, up from 12% in 2005. Growth of social media users of those ages 50-64 has largely remained flat. Slightly more than half of US adults in that age bracket are social media users, unchanged from two years ago. These statistics are particularly good news for small businesses whose marketing budgets tend to be tighter. Why? Traditional marketing media are "pay to play". In other words, you're going to pay $X for a mailing, newspaper add or radio or TV commercial irrespective of how many people see/hear it. Social, on the other hand, is "pay for performance". That means that if you don't get the desired action (i.e., click, inquire, file out a form, request a white paper, etc.) you don't pay a penny. Though this depends if you are paying for advertising on the platform or directly posting on the platform yourself and using a growth service like TokUpgrade (See this TokUpgrade review verdict for more information) to attract an audience. If your business uses its own social media account to post then the cost is the time spent taking any photographs and the time taken to post it. Many different platforms allow you to promote posts to users that aren't already subscribed to your posts. Again this is largely pay for performance; no engagement? No cost? All in all social media can provide many different opportunities for you to advertise to new audiences, generate new leads, and build a solid foundation [...]

Facebook is the clear winner at 67%. No surprise, considering that there are now over 1.6 billion people on the platform. Pinterest, however, is another powerful platform especially in the beauty, art, home, garden and food categories. Instagram, no doubt, will be nipping on Pinterest’s heels soon now that they started rolling out their advertising on September 9th of this year. Analysts at Kenshoo, a marketing software company, report that Instagram users are 2.5 times more likely to click on ads than other social platforms. This fact, coupled with Instagram’s integration with Facebook, make this a powerhouse combination. Ready to put Instagram to use for your business? Reach out to us at 888.609.9655 or email us at Sales@Engage121.com and one of our social media specialists will be in touch.

As we enter the third quarter, Engage121’s services have generated well over 2 million social media posts for our small business clients. Engage121 is actively managing 34,000 social media accounts for over 15,000 small businesses. 2,087,000 unique posts have been sent on behalf of these small businesses. What does all this mean? For our  small  businesses we have saved them over half a billion keystrokes (or thumbstrokes for the mobile crowd)  and approximately 209,000 hours!

Coming soon, Engage121 will be able to turn any promotion into an Instagram ad for no additional money. Facebook fully released Instagram advertising for Facebook Business pages on September 30th. To get ready for Engage121 to start creating Instagram ads on your behalf, you need to Go into the “settings” section of you page, and click on “Instagram Ads” in the left hand nav. Click “Add an Account” Choose to add an existing account by entering your Instagram username and password, or Create a new Instagram account for your business

Facebook Business Pages are considered a must for most owner-operator, small, or medium sized business.  They are as much a business card today as, well, a business card today!  What’s strange is that so many businesses are advertising their direct competitors, on their business page, and don't even realize it! How is this happening?  By enabling "similar page suggestions", these business pages are unintentionally promoting their competition to their fans. Here’s how you can keep your fans on your page longer and stop using your Facebook Business Page as a traffic stop to another Facebook Business’s Page. To turn off similar Page suggestions: Click Settings at the top of your Page From General, click Similar Page Suggestions Click to uncheck the box next to Include [Page name] when recommending similar Pages people might like on a Page timeline Click Save Changes P.S. - Take a few minutes on Facebook and “Like” some local businesses that you are familiar with (just make sure they aren’t in your industry or competitors)!  You may be surprised how many fans of these local businesses can turn into fans of yours.