Susan Does Social

There was a space for an entrepreneur to offer quality and business acumen in social media to other entrepreneurs and small businesses. SDS took it. A Passion for the Written Word There are thousands out there. We're the people who notice a Q without a U, a misplaced apostrophe, and a false word ("conversate"). We strive for meticulosity. We are logophiles and linguaphiles, and we often suffer from infobesity . In the modern business world, we find our niche in the conversation of the day--social media. This passion for the written word is the beginning of the SDS story, but the inception was forced by a frustration with dishonesty and a love of the hustle. A Frustration with the Status Quo Too many are paying too much for too little. This truth is apparent to every business owner who has hired a social media agency and received a smattering of disconnected posts that amount to nothing. However, this is not the way it should be. A social media professional, at h...

In 60 seconds, there are 3.3 million Facebook posts, 448,800 tweets, 65,972 Instagram photos uploaded. In 60 seconds. Every hour. Every day. Amid all the noise, how do you ensure your blogposts, your Facebook videos and your Instagram Stories are read and shared by the right audiences? Two elements are essential: list building and storytelling. Article Highlights ·        AI makes list building easier ·        Storytelling is a trend in 2018 ·        Business leaders must participate in their stories Software makes list building easier As social media continues to climb in popularity and profitability, more tools emerge to manage and accelerate it. These tools make list building easier. You can find influencers, join in at-the-minute conversations, and follow new users daily to become part of their conversations. How many users varies with the network, but it’...

After extensive changes that make marketing through Facebook even more difficul t , Instagram marketing and posting (which is also owned by Facebook) is becoming easier. If you use Buffer , Hootsuite , Soci , or any other social media management tool, you #instalife just got easier. Now, instead of posting from your phone to Instagram, you simply schedule and the post becomes live at the preset time, like all other social networks. How does this help you tell your story? We all, as business owners and entrepreneurs, have a story to tell. Instagram allows us to tell it visually, and to reach audiences unavailable on other social networks. With every post, we create a visual storyboard that reaches an increasingly attention-starved world. When you can project your message, your story in seconds, you magnify your reach. How do you tell your story on Instagram? Clarity in your profile, an Instagram aesthetic, tagging and distilled images are the key. My favorite Instagram examp...

Facebook has changed its strategy when working with businesses to protect users--what's a business owner to do? The reality of it is, for most businesses who have been using Facebook to authentically engage with their audiences, the strategy need not change in major ways. Facebook is still accepting posts from businesses, and they're still all about posting beautiful, relevant content for users. Google's similar strategy This change is similar to the Google changes that have been made over the past decade with tags and SEO. At the beginning, SEO was a game in which coders would generate hundreds of tags and place them behind the page to create a search presence. The content that the user saw did not necessarily relate to these tags, and the content didn't have to be good; it was basically the wrapping to deliver the tags to the web. As Google grew more sophisticated, so did the content strategy. Businesses actually had to write content engaging to the reader and...

In the same way that a more effective workout yields better results in less time (think HIIT vs. easy elliptical), a more effective social media process yields better results in less time. 2018 may be the year you pare back and use your social media tools more effectively.    Social media is a tempting drain of resources, time and energy if used incorrectly. Small business owners and entrepreneurs can be sucked into endless webinars, Facebook groups and chats about perfecting their social media strategy and getting the most likes and clicks. But, the bottom line is, are you doing what is essential for your business? This year as you move forward in social media and content marketing, keep these three simple tenets in mind.  You don't need to be everywhere to be heard.  Better to brand well and be social on one or two key platforms than have a diluted presence on many. How do you decide which platforms you should be on? Find your users, and go where they ar...

The answer, hands down, is Google My Business. Getting Found Online (excerpt from an article by @teamarchlea) One last way to differentiate the two services is what comes up when you type in your business name on Google. "If you only have Google+ set up, only your social network will show up, with your posts and number of followers associated with it. However, if you have Google my Business set up, you’ll have access to those additional business details on the side of the listings, from a full citation (Name, Address, Phone Number) to your business hours, to your website URL. Google my Business provides a far more detailed and comprehensive look into your business as a listing." Read the full article here . So, what does this look like IRL?  One builds your business, directly on the Google search page, where 60-85% of your traffic is coming from, while the other puts posts in the wasteland that is Google+. And, now that Google My Business has posts for a...

"Content can no longer be a commodity, churned out in a word factory. We need handcrafted artisan content. It takes longer to create, but you don’t have to make as much of it, either.   Focus your resources on a few  pillar pieces  that deliver real value. Content that inspires readers to spend time on the page, explore further, and share with others will beat commodity content every day of the week." from @toprank Yes! I am so ready for the rise of artisanal content.  Yesterday, I was speaking with a new and exciting company, and I told him that my job is to amplify your message, to promote your passion. But this isn't done with an interchangeable set of words, search terms and keywords that I use for every other client. Each brand should have a unique voice, building their presence in the community. We have so much today that is commodity--voice, presence and passion will make the difference in 2018.  Here's the rub. Much like artisanal bread or...