4 Social Analytics Tips to Improve Your Social Media Marketing

Would you like to find out when your social media followers are most active?

Do you want to know which social network drives the most leads to your website?

There are many social media statistics you can track, but it’s important to track the data specific to your business’s use of social media.

Track the right metrics for your community and you’ll better understand how and when to share information, as well as what type of content drives the most traffic to your website.

In this article, you’ll learn how to track and measure four important social media metrics to help you improve your social media marketing.

#1: Determine the Best Times to Post Updates on Twitter and Facebook

Twitter

Because Twitter moves at such a rapid pace, tweets get buried quickly. Knowing when your followers are online plays a crucial part in your tweet’s visibility and success.

Luckily there are some great tools to analyze the activity of your followers.

Tweriod looks at the recent tweets of your followers and provides you with analytics and data that show when your followers are the most active.

Once you connect your Twitter account to Tweriod, it runs an analysis and summarizes the best hours of each day for you to reach your followers with your tweets. The report is delivered to you by email or a DM when the results are ready.


Tweriod results show the optimal times for you to tweet.
Besides recommending the best hours of each day to tweet, Tweriod also gives you an overall analysis you can review to get a sense of your community’s most active days.


Tweriod analytics show your followers' daily activity.
Tweriod also gives you the ability to synchronize this data with your Buffer account to automatically update your auto-scheduling hours.

Tweriod is free for accounts with up to 1000 followers and offers a monthly subscription if you have more followers or are interested in premium features.

Use the data from Tweriod to adjust the days and times you post on Twitter.

Facebook

With Story Bump, EdgeRank and the sheer volume of posts that roll through the general news feed, it’s getting difficult to make sure your fans see your page posts. To maximize the lifespan of your posts, you need to know when your fans are most likely to see them.

Facebook Insights offers a simple way to find out when your fans are most likely to be active on Facebook.

To find the best hours to share updates on your Facebook page, pull up the Insights dashboard, click on the Posts tab, and choose “When Your Fans Are Online.”


The Posts tab in Insights shows when your fans are most often online.

Here, Facebook shows you easy-to-read graphs of your fans’ diversity, including the average number of fans who saw your post in any given hour.


Insights has easily readable graphs.

That’s it. Now, you just have to post during your strong hours and highlight your most important posts during your peak exposure times.

#2: Find the Magic Number of Facebook Posts per Day

Many studies show the average brand should post about 1-2 times a day on Facebook. You need to know if that’s true for your page.

Find the magic number of posts to share on your page, and you’ll dramatically affect your engagement and community growth.

Facebook’s new Insights dashboard gives you information about your recent posts and the frequency of engagement. To view the information, click on “See All” from your page to reveal the Overview tab.


Access your Insights dashboard.
Now, export the Overview data into a spreadsheet file directly from the dashboard by selecting “Data Type: Post-Level Data.”


A view of the Facebook Insights dashboard Overview tab.
In the spreadsheet, group the posts by day and compare the average Lifetime Post Total Impressions and Lifetime Engaged Users columns.

For each day, look for the lower engagement numbers to discover which post count is decreasing the average metrics you measure.

That is your magic number of posts to share each day.

#3: Measure the Click-through Rate

If you’re active on social media, you’re likely to share a lot of content from your blog, website, YouTube channel or other media platforms.

When you share a link to your various platforms, your goal is to have people click on your link. The click-through rate (CTR) your links receive is most likely your primary metric for measuring success.

To measure your CTR, you need a URL shortener to track clicks.

Bitly is a free URL shortener with a set of tools to create shortened links, share your links and measure the CTR on your links.

You can shorten links from within the Bitly dashboard or use an extension for Firefox or Chrome to automatically shorten and share links straight from your browser.

After you’ve shortened a link with Bitly, click on it from the library at any time to get detailed information on its CTR, click sources, geographic distribution of clicks and more.


This Bitly dashboard shows a CTR of 44 and other data on platforms and demographics.

This map shows where the clicks on a Bitly link originate.

On the Bitly stats dashboard, you get both aggregated and individual statistics about the links you share from Bitly. Aggregated stats show complete global activity on a link and individual stats show activity specific to your shares of the link.

There are other tools to measure your CTR, but Bitly’s analytics give you more detail than most, for free.


Bitly shows you click-through rates on every link you shorten.
Spend some time analyzing the data behind your Bitly links to find trends in CTRs and shares that will help you deliver content suited to the needs and interests of your community.

#4: Compare Lead Sources and Conversion Rates

Most brands’ social media strategies use more than one social media platform to drive traffic to their websites and generate new leads.

Although each platform has its place in your strategy, you won’t receive an equal ROI from each one. You’ll want to find out which platform generates the best ROI so you can put more effort into your marketing on that platform.

UTM Link Building and Google Analytics can help you track the leads and conversions from each social network. UTMs are tags you add to a URL that make it easy to track and monitor in Google Analytics.

Use the Google URL builder to create a measurable URL that Google Analytics can segregate into campaigns.


Google's URL Builder.

Google’s URL Builder page has some helpful hints on how to use each of the UTM parameters:

• Campaign Source. This helps Google Analytics identify the source of your traffic as a search engine, newsletter or other referrer.
• Campaign Medium. This specifies whether the link is used in an email, a CPC ad or another method of sharing.
• Campaign Name. This associates your URL with a specific product promotion or strategic campaign such as a spring sale or other promotion.

Build unique URLs for any landing page on each of the social networks used in your strategy. You’ll be able to differentiate among leads that come from your Twitter bio, your tweets or Facebook.

If this seems too complicated, you’ll want to get the help of someone with the appropriate technical skills.

To see which social network provides the most leads or conversions for a specific campaign, go to your Google Analytics dashboard and check out your campaigns.


Google Analytics Campaigns overview.

Set up your goals, then look under Traffic Sources > Campaigns to see which source and medium drives more leads to your various landing pages and the conversion rate from each of them. Eventually, you’ll see which source (social network) brings you more leads or more signups or sales (conversions).

Anytime you share an inbound link on social media, measure it with custom UTM parameters to get full ROI information on leads and conversions.

Summary

You can track many metrics on social media, but the metrics you choose to measure should reflect your business goals.

I recommend tracking these social media metrics because they give you the information you need to better market your business and products.

What do you think? What metrics do you track to measure the success of your social media efforts? Are there tools you have found to be helpful? Join the conversation below and let me hear your thoughts!


Author: Lior Degani
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/learn-about-your-community/

3 Strategies for Finding Customers With Social Media

Do you need a strategy to reach your ideal prospects with social media?

Are you overwhelmed by all the social media options?

If so, you’re not alone. Social media overwhelm is one of the biggest challenges businesses face.

In this article, I’m going to show you three social media strategies so you can focus your efforts on the channels that best align with your business objective and target audience.


The Simple Solution
Fortunately, there’s a simple solution for it: only focus on where your customers are.


Where are your customers on social media? Image source: iStockPhoto.

Once you find out where your customers are on social media, it becomes easier to come up with a strategy that will help you find your future customers.

Here are three strategies you should consider:

Strategy #1: Ask Your Customers

Asking is the low-hanging fruit that’s easy for small business owners to overlook. It’s such a simple thing to do and allows you to further cement the personal connection you have with your customers.

If you have a brick-and-mortar business, when your customers visit your location, ask whether they use social media. If you have another type of business, figure out the best time and place to ask your customers whether they use social media.

If they do use social media, ask them what channels they spend their time on. Is it Facebook? Pinterest? Maybe it’s LinkedIn.

Maybe they don’t even use social media. By asking, you’d know.

If your customers are using social media, take it a step further and ask them how they like to be engaged on those channels. This will give you invaluable insight into how you can best add value in a way they’ll find useful.

You can also take the same approach if your business is online.

Most online businesses have an email list. Send your customer contacts an email and ask the same questions. It doesn’t have to be the subject of an entire email, necessarily; just a simple “P.S.” at the end of your weekly newsletter or part of a quarterly survey you send out should work wonders.

Ask you using a P.S. in your email.

Implementing this strategy can separate you and your business from your competitors, because so few businesses make the effort to ask. Asking removes any assumptions you may have about where your customers are hanging out online and shows them how much you care.

This is an easy way to get the important information you need to set up a successful social media strategy for your business.

Strategy #2: Use Google Alerts

I’m sure you’ve heard of Google Alerts, but are you using them?

If not, you’re missing a simple and free way to monitor what’s going on in your industry and find where your customers are online.

Google Alerts are updates you can set up in Google that allow you to keep track of a specific topic anytime it’s mentioned on the web.

For example, you can monitor if you or your business is mentioned across the web or keep track of industry news. When there’s a mention of your topic, you receive an email with a link to that search result.

How does this help you find your customers on social media?

Say you’re a small toy company that specializes in locally made wooden toys. You have an online presence but want to expand it and you think that social media might be an effective strategy. You’re unsure, though, which channels your target audience is using.

You could use Google Alerts to find this out.

You decide to enter “birthday gift ideas for kids” as a search query in Google Alerts. And the results show Pinterest boards and articles on “mommy blogs” that are relevant to your business.

When checking out the Pinterest board, you also find several other boards that are similar to your niche. Bingo! Pinterest may be one social channel you want to focus on.

Here’s how to set up your Google Alerts:

• Go to Google Alerts.
• Enter the term or phrase you want to monitor in the Search Query field.
• Choose the type of results you’d like to get in the Result Type field. (I recommend starting out with “Everything.” You can always change it once you see the type of results you’re getting.)
• Then choose how often you want to receive the results, how many results you want (I recommend “Only the best results”) and the email where you want to receive them.

Google Alerts require a little market research, but can get you the valuable information you need to find the social media strategy that works best for your business.

Strategy #3: Use the Search Function Within Social Channels

Sometimes you may want to take a deeper dive into researching your customers on a specific social media platform. Or you may love using a certain social platform and want to know whether your customers are there too. You can use the platform’s search functionality to quickly find out if your customers use the same one.

Each social channel has a search function that gives you the opportunity to instantly determine whether your customers are using it. And this can be as simple as entering the names of some of your customers in the search box on the social platform.

You can also search on things like your niche topic, relevant industry leaders, brands within your niche and any competitors you might have.

Using the search function is another simple and effective strategy that’s often overlooked, yet it will give you great insight into whether your customers are actively using that platform.

If you have a large customer base, consider pulling together a short list selection of the typical customers you want to reach on social media, and then search for them on a social media platform. This would give you information to work with.

Use the Google+ Communities Search:


Google+ Community search.

Or use the LinkedIn Search:


LinkedIn search.
Twitter’s Advanced Search is especially effective because not only can you search by all the attributes mentioned above, you can also search within a specific geographic region.


Twitter Advanced Search includes geographic locations.

Remember to stay up to date with changes on your favorite social platform. For example, there have been developments recently with Facebook Graph Search.

Conducting a little research on your customers using the search functions on the social platforms can help you determine where you should invest your social media marketing.

Finding Your Customers Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated

Use these simple, effective (and free!) ideas to find which social channels your customers are using.

As a business, if you’re not engaging with your customers on their terms, you’re missing a huge opportunity to add value and ultimately grow your business.

Focus your efforts on the few channels that align with your customers and business objectives and let your competitors be overwhelmed by thinking they need to be on every social media platform.

What do you think? Have you used any of these simple strategies to find out which social channels your customers are using? What other strategies have you used to find where your customers are online? Let me know in the comments below.

Image from iStockPhoto.
Tags: email strategy, facebook graph search, google alerts, google+ community search, linkedin search, rick mulready, social media, social media channel, social media engagement, social media platform, social media strategy, social media survey, twitter advanced search


author: Rick Mulready
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/3-strategies-for-finding-customers-with-social-media/

How to Use Google+ to Expand Your Business Influence

Are you looking to tap into the power of Google+?

Is your business leveraging all that Google+ has to offer?

Have you created a personal profile or business page on Google+, but want more influence?

Why Google+?

According to GlobalWebIndex, Google+ now has 359 million active users, which puts it ahead of Twitter’s 200 million active users. With that jump in numbers, it’s clear that now is the time to use Google+ to promote your brand.

Here’s an updated guide on all of the things you need to take advantage of Google+ to gain more exposure for your content and your business.

#1: Claim Authorship With Your Personal Google+ Profile

Google uses Authorship to create a visual tie between you and the content you publish. The enhanced search result listings help readers identify your content at a glance and help you build authority and influence.

There are two ways you can claim your Google+ Authorship.

You can either register an email from the domain that you contribute to (you@socialmediaexaminer.com, for example) or you can link your content with your Google+ profile. If you contribute to multiple blogs, I suggest the latter.

Here’s how:

• First, in the author bio of each of your blog posts, include a link to your Google+ profile with a ?rel=author tag attached to the end of it. It should look like this: https://plus.google.com/118321989430962111396?rel=author
• Next, go to the Contributor to section on the About tab of your Google+ profile and add a link to your author page for each blog that you contribute to.

Add contributor links on Google+ personal profiles.

When you’ve claimed your Authorship, your Google+ profile photo will automatically show up next to each of your posts in search results.

An example of how content looks in search results with Google+ Authorship.

As an added bonus, you can look under the Labs section of Google Webmaster Tools to see analytics for all of the posts that are linked to you via Google+ Authorship, including posts that aren’t published on your own website. This is especially helpful for writers who contribute to multiple blogs.

Viewing analytics for all your Google+ Authorship-claimed posts in Google Webmaster Tools.

Google has hinted that they are working on a system to rank content based on the influence of the author and it’s presumable that one of the ways they will do this is through the use of Google+ Authorship.

Claiming your Google+ Authorship will enhance your visibility in search results, create more authority for your content and provide valuable insights into which content receives the most attention from readers.

#2: Make a Direct Connection Between Your Business Website and Your Google+ Page

The Google+ badge allows you to link your Google+ page to your website. Using the badge will help you increase your Google+ audience from your website and from within search results.

Install a Google+ badge on your website to let readers follow you on Google+ without leaving your site.


Social Media Examiner’s Google+ badge in the sidebar.

When you add the Google+ badge for pages to your site, an active Follow widget will show up next to your listing in search results.


Google+ page display in search results.

You can also use the Direct Connect option to link your Google+ page to your website without using the official Follow badge or button. This is simply one line of code that is added to the <em>head</em> element of your website. This code can be found further down on the Google+ badge page.

Much like Authorship for Google+ profiles, this piece of Direct Connect code will help establish your blog as a publisher by tying it to your Google+ page with a rel=“publisher” tag.



Direct Connect your Google+ page to your website.

Once you connect your website to your Google+ page, the latest status update (and timestamp) will show up in search results. Ensure the best first impression to visitors who may come across your Google+ page in search results and keep your page posts up to date.

Use the connection between your website and your Google+ page to increase your followers and establish your business as a source of quality, authoritative content.

#3: Start Using Hashtags

Hashtags are a useful tactic to get added exposure to users beyond your followers and Google+ has recognized them for a long time.

But now they are prominently displayed next to every update.

Hashtags on Google+ updates.

If you don’t voluntarily place hashtags in your updates, Google+ will sometimes suggest hashtags for you. Be sure that what it chooses is in line with the topic of your update.

#4: Express Yourself With Bigger, Better Cover Photos

If you’ve visited your profile or page recently, you’ve likely gotten the message that Google+ cover photos are now bigger. Take advantage of this great visual branding opportunity and upload an impressive design that is 2120 pixels wide by 1192 pixels high.

Social Media Examiner’s cover photo.

You can use your cover photo to showcase your new products, express your brand’s image, share your physical location, show what your average customer looks like and advertise your next major event. With a good photographer or graphics team, the possibilities are endless.

#5: Use Google+ as Your Business Page

Boost followers and exposure on Google+ for your business page instead of your personal profile when you interact with others on Google+ as your page. To make the switch from your personal profile to your page, click the dropdown arrow next to your picture at the top right of your Google+ screen; your page will be listed under your active profile. Simply click on your page and you’re ready to go.

Select your Google+ page to use it throughout the network.

Now, you should see the photo for your page at the top of your Google+ display.

Similar to how you can use your Facebook Page to like and comment on other Facebook Pages, you can use your Google+ page to +1 and comment on other Google+ pages.

A Google+ page’s comment on another Google+ page.

Use your Google+ page when you interact with people in Google+ communities and to interact with the people (personal profiles) who are following your page and people who share public updates, regardless of whether they are following you.

Find the most active Google+ pages, public personal profiles and communities to start interacting with and you will gain more exposure for your Google+ page and your business.

#6: Host Google+ Hangouts

If your business isn’t ready to invest in webinar or online meeting software, Google+ hangouts can be a great, free alternative. While you can only have 10 participants actively on video, you can stream the video to an unlimited number of viewers using YouTube, making it much like a webinar.

Google+ hangout with multiple panelists.

You can use Google+ hangouts for a variety of things including interviews, panel discussions, live webinars (with screen-sharing), private meetings and just about anything else you can think of. Best of all, you can keep the recordings to add to your YouTube channel, boosting your video content.

Head over to the Google+ hangouts page to see all of the live hangouts happening right now. You might find some open invite hangouts that you can jump into to get to know your audience better or you can create an open hangout party in hopes that some members of your Google+ audience are online and want to chat.

#7: Join and Create Communities

Google+ has a large variety of communities to choose from, similar to the selection you might find on Facebook or LinkedIn. If you can’t find the right community for your business, you can create it using your personal profile or your page.

A selection of Google+ communities formed around social media.

Like many other social network groups, Google+ communities attract spam but Google+ has the best spam management system in terms of catching spam and holding it for approval by the moderator instead of making it public. Moderators can also quickly remove and ban users who repeatedly spam.

Google+ community spam notice.

If you want to circumvent spam in your own conversations, create your community as private and invite people of your own choosing. Alternatively, you can set your community as public and moderate all requests to join the community.

#8: Get Local

Google+ has replaced Google Places and customers who are on Google+ leave reviews on your local Google+ places page regardless of whether you are active there.

Why Is Google+ so important for local businesses?

First of all, search results now show the reviews, additional details and photos on your Google+ local places page.

Google+ places page in search results.

Next, Google+ local users receive prompts to review your business if they search for it on Google.

Suggestions for places to review on Google+ from a user’s search history.

Last but not least, Google+ is looking to become an even bigger resource for local through their mobile app for iOS and Android.

The main screen of the Google+ local app.

If you don’t have a Google+ local places page or haven’t claimed yours yet, you can start by going to Create a Page, select Local Business or Place and enter your phone number. Google+ will connect you with your page if it already exists or prompt you to create one.

Your Turn

From claiming Authorship to participating in communities, these Google+ features can do a lot to help you establish authority, increase visibility and grow an audience.

What do you think? Have you used any of these features? What Google+ features do you find most beneficial for your business? Please share in the comments!


author: Kristi Hines
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/google-plus-for-business/

5 Ways Marketers Can Keep Updated on Facebook Changes

Are you struggling to keep up to date with the latest Facebook changes?

Are you conducting activities that are against Facebook’s policies?

It isn’t easy to keep up with all of Facebook’s updates.

Here are 5 ways marketers can stay up to date on Facebook updates and policy changes.

#1: Follow Facebook’s Business Pages for regular updates

Just like businesses keep their Facebook Pages updated with the latest announcements from their company, Facebook also keeps their Pages updated to inform their users about the latest changes and announcements.

In particular, Facebook for Business, Facebook for Privacy and the Facebook blog often post updates when there is a change to their guidelines.

Facebook for Business takes you step by step to create a business Page that is effective but also follows their guidelines.

Facebook for Business Page to learn how to reach the right audience.


The Facebook and Privacy Page post an update every time they revise a guideline or policy.

In addition, they post tips every week to make sure people are informed about some of the changes that they made previously. Following this Page will allow you to stay up to date when there is a new announcement and also stay informed about older policies.



Here's an example of a Facebook and Privacy update.


Finally, you can find updates on the Facebook blog.

You can add the Facebook blog to your RSS feed so you receive a notification every time there is a new post. This can help you gather real-time information to make sure your presence online is always relevant.



Facebook blog where you can find out what's happening behind the scenes at Facebook.


#2: Follow the Facebook Tag on TechCrunch

Technology journalists jump at the news of a Facebook update. One of the best ways that we as marketers can stay updated on this topic is to follow technology journalists or even the Facebook tag on websites like TechCrunch or Mashable.

To find the tag, scroll to the bottom of an article and you will see at least one tag on the article.

To find all Facebook articles on TechCrunch, you can go here.  This will allow you to quickly and easily find all of the latest updates to Facebook in one place


The Facebook tag on TechCrunch.


#3: Set a Google Alert for Facebook Updates

A hack to get Facebook updates as soon as they happen is to set up a Google Alert with the term “Facebook Privacy.” That will send an email right to your inbox with any articles that are written about updates to Facebook guidelines or new privacy rules. And you can be sure that there will be a ton of articles written whenever Facebook updates anything.

Once you create your Google Alert, type in “Facebook Privacy” as your search query.

You can choose what type of results you want, whether its news, blog articles, videos, discussions, books or everything. You can choose the frequency you wish to receive these updates and the number of updates you would like. Finally, you can insert your email address to let them know where you want the results delivered.


Facebook Privacy Google Alert setup.

After that is set up, you will receive emails that look like the image below. They will separate your information by the type of result, allowing you to be instantly notified when there is something important to know about Facebook.


Facebook Privacy Google Alert Preview


#4: Follow New Posts on AllFacebook

AllFacebook is the unofficial Facebook blog that can be a great resource for anything new that is posted about Facebook. They consistently update their website with new information on Facebook, whether it be news about their guidelines and privacy issues or just general updates that marketers should know about.

In addition, they host an annual conference called the AllFacebook Marketing Conference in San Francisco where attendees can learn even more about marketing with Facebook.

The AllFacebook blog.


AllFacebook Marketing Conference coming in June 2013.


#5: Follow Social Media and Tech Experts

In addition to the blog articles you can read and conferences you can attend to learn more about Facebook updates, there are many thought leaders who can be great resources to learn everything you need to know to market on Facebook.

People like Mari Smith, Andrea Vahl and Pete Cashmore are great resources to follow on Twitter and stay updated on Facebook news.

When there is something that marketers need to know, you can be sure they will be discussing it and sharing their knowledge on the subject.

You can also read Social Media Examiner’s This Week in Social Media articles published every Saturday to stay current on the latest Facebook updates and other social media news.

Review Facebook Updates and Policy Changes Regularly

By staying up to date on any announcements and blog posts that are written on Facebook marketing, you will be able to create relevant and effective campaigns on Facebook and take advantage of all that Facebook has to offer.

With the constant changes to Facebook policies, it can be a scary task to market on Facebook. However, don’t hesitate as Facebook is a great way to generate leads for your business and show off your company or brand.

What do you think? What other ways have you stayed up to date with new Facebook policies?

author:Rachel Sprung
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-ways-marketers-can-keep-updated-on-facebook-changes/

8 Ways to Discover Valuable Social Media Content

Do you struggle to find good content to post on LinkedIn, Twitter or your Facebook page?

Would you like to find reliable sources of content your fans and followers love?

This article contains eight tips to help you quickly find great content.

Why Share Other People’s Content?
It’s all about becoming a valuable resource.  When you can dig up great articles your audience is interested in–regardless of the source–you’ll become more respected and your content will be widely shared.

And when you have some of your own content to share, people will be more likely to help spread the word.

Here’s where to find valuable content:

#1: Watch Large News Sites

Depending on your industry, you may find topical and interesting articles on large news sites such as USA Today, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. If you have a news site or magazine for your niche that provides industry news, make sure you have that bookmarked as part of your content.

The Huffington Post has a lot of different categories to draw your content from.

Dive into the different categories and subcategories available on the Huffington Post to watch for content.

#2: Watch News Aggregators

If you want to make content sourcing a little easier, use a news aggregator website or tool. Certain sites do a great job of bringing in the latest news and sorting it by industry or niche all in one place.

Stuff To Tweet has some of the most popular posts on different sites including CNN, YouTube and more. Yes, it does mention tweeting, but these articles are good for Facebook, too.

View some of the popular posts on several sites at once.

Popurls is another similar site that has a few more sites listed. You can also customize the results if you sign up for an account.

Alltop is another news aggregator where you can customize your results. The topics are organized by topic alphabetically and by site.

Find topics listed alphabetically or by site.

Inbound also uses categories to help organize their content. They tend to be more online-related topics.

Inbound also uses categories.

If you like receiving an email with aggregated news, SmartBrief may be a good fit for you. They include a variety of industries and send you an email with the popular news.

SmartBrief sends the news stories to your email address.

#3: Pay Attention to Popular Posts

You can also see things that are trending and popular on some of the other social media sites and share them to Facebook.

LinkedIn today has some great features such as Trending in Your Network, which is a natural filter if you are connected to a lot of people in your niche.

LinkedIn today has generally trending articles and also Trending in Your Network.

You can also see what’s trending on Twitter even if you don’t have a Twitter account. Just go to any Twitter account and look on the left side to see the hot topics.

See the trending topics on Twitter from any Twitter account.

Notice that you can switch the trends by clicking the Change link and selecting a certain region to get more localized results. Are these trending topics always the best things to share on Facebook? Maybe not, but they can be relevant.

You may be better off just using Twitter Search and plug in some of your niche keywords to find some good articles to share on Facebook.

You can narrow your scope to see what is trending on Twitter in your region.

#4: Have Go-to Sources to Share

Many times you know which other Facebook Pages consistently have good content and valuable posts. They may be in your industry or they may be a complement to your business so your audience will also be interested in their content.

There are a few different ways to watch their Facebook posts. One is to like their Page as your Page and then watch your Page news feed. This makes it easy to share their posts when you see them in your news feed.

Another way to easily monitor other Pages is to create an Interest List of all of the Pages on your personal profile and periodically monitor that feed.

You can make this Interest List public so other people can follow it, or you can make it private so only you know who is on it.

Mari Smith made a public list of Facebook Experts and it’s followed by almost 30,000 people!


Use an Interest List to generate a separate feed of your go-to sources for content.

When you have the Interest List on your personal profile, sharing it to your Facebook Page is not hard. Just select the Share button and then switch the selection to On your Page. Then make sure the right Page is selected and the post will be shared by your Page.

Easily share content from your Facebook Interest Lists to your Page.

You can find public lists that other people have created by going to Facebook Add List (this is the same URL you use to create your own list). They first show you some of the lists that your friends have created or may be on and then they sort the popular lists by topic.


Find other lists to follow or create your own list.

#5: Use Google Reader and Google Alerts

If you have several (or even several hundred) blogs you enjoy reading that provide great content, use Google Reader to access them all from one place. You can easily see the latest posts or just click on the particular blog in the left sidebar to see some of their latest posts.

Google Reader gives you a dashboard for all of your best content sources so you can see which ones have new posts rather than checking on each individual site. You can sign up here.

Use Google Reader as a dashboard for all of your content sources.

Google Alerts are another great way to monitor the web for fresh content. Google Alerts use the latest relevant Google results and send them as an aggregated set of stories to your email address.

You can use keywords related to your niche and have a set of fresh posts brought to your email inbox every day.

You can sign up here for Google Alerts. If you find that your keywords aren’t bringing the right content in, you can always delete the alert by clicking “Manage your alerts” in the lower-left corner.

Having your company name as an alert is also useful to watch for any new mentions of your company on the web.


Try adding a few Google Alerts to bring fresh content into your email inbox.

#6: Look for Funny Posts

People are typically on social media to have fun and be social. Even if you’re a more serious brand, don’t forget to lighten up every once in a while with a humorous post. Humor can be difficult and you always run the risk of offending someone, so be careful.

George Takei posts a lot of humor (but not all posts are appropriate for a business Page).

Sometimes you can create your own funny posts using sites like Quickmeme or Someecards.

Or you can find sites that post a lot of funny content such as Know Your Meme or Cheezburger.

Just make sure you know the rules of the sites and understand how you can share their content so you don’t have any problems with copyrights.

#7: Create Your Own Images

Images are still getting a lot of engagement on Facebook. They continue to get a lot of comments, likes and shares even if they don’t have the same reach as a text post.

Images take up more space in the news feed and 0are generally more interesting than a plain text post.

But what if you don’t have many pictures to share? You can find images to illustrate a point at sites like iStockphoto or 123RF (you can’t just find images on Google and upload them to Facebook).

If you would like to find free images, you can use the Creative Commons area on Flickr or stock.xchng (make sure you read the guidelines on giving proper attribution).

You can also use Compfight to help you search for photos that you can use. You can use the Commercial hotlink to see which ones are for business use (again, make sure you read about proper attribution).


Use Compfight to find images you can use.

If you want to add your own text to the photo to illustrate a point or add some special effects to make the picture more interesting, use an online editing tool like PicMonkey or iPiccy.

Special quotes are popular things to share on Facebook, but you can use these tools to turn the quote into something more visual. Of course if you’re well-versed in something like Photoshop, creating an image to use is a breeze.

You may also have an occasion to take a screenshot and edit it. This technique works really well if you’re teaching something about websites or computers.

Social Media Examiner frequently have “Hot Tip Tuesday” which shares a hot tip from one of the social sites.


Use a screenshot tool to create a picture that helps your audience do something.

Use a screenshot tool such as Jing or Snagit to help you easily create and edit screenshots.

#8: Monitor Your Stats

Finally, make sure you watch what works with your audience.

Dive into your Facebook Insights and sort the posts you have by Engaged Users. The Engaged Users stats include the number of unique users who have clicked on your posts, which can include people clicking on the photo or link, liking the post, commenting or sharing your post.

Notice what types of posts your audience responds to and post more of those.


Sort your posts by Engaged Users to see what interests your audience.

Hopefully this gives you a running start to find more awesome content that your audience will love.

Once you get some of your favorite content creators in place, don’t forget to continue to monitor the web for new sources of great content. And make sure you work in plenty of your own original content!

What about you? Where are you finding your best content to share on Facebook? Let us know in the comments below.

Author:Andrea Vahl
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/8-ways-to-discover-valuable-social-media-content/