How to Improve Your Pinterest Visibility and Engagement

Looking for simple ways to strengthen your Pinterest presence? Wondering how to enhance your Pinterest content? A few easy-to-implement changes can greatly increase the visibility, engagement, and sales generated by your pins. In this article, you’ll discover three ways to improve your Pinterest boards and pins. #1: Add Alt Text to Provide Optimized Pin Descriptions to Improve Search [...]

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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

February 07, 2017 at 12:00PM http://bit.ly/2jXym4R
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How to Build a Process for Growth Experiments

When you work inside a business, it can feel like all anyone talks about is growth. Revenue growth! Customer acquisition! Leads goals! Increase our traffic! The list goes on.

While the idea of “growth” -- and all of the hacks, tips, and tricks that go along with the term -- can often feel a bit buzzy and overwhelming, real growth actually is actually the result of well-established processes and an internal emphasis on experimentation and testing.

Brian Balfour, former VP of Product at HubSpot and a thought leader in the world of growth marketing, is an expert when it comes to building a process for experiments that enable growth overtime. While he emphasizes that there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution for growing your business, he does have some pro tips when it comes to actually building a process for growth experiments. And that's what will ultimately move the needle for your company.

We'll take you through the steps of a building a sustainable process for growth experiments based on Balfour's tips. Once you establish an experimentation process that works for your team, that buzzy growth term might seem attainable after all.

And once you get there, our new 2017 Marketing Experiments Calendar can help you build a backlog of ideas, design and prioritize your experiments, and record your results all in one place.

How to Build a Process for Growth Experiments

To grow, you have find ways to experiment. The problem with that is finding time to do that in the right way, especially when you also have multiple other tasks and ideas. That’s why building a sustainable process for recording your ideas and implementing them as experiments is essential. By figuring out these steps, you’ll enable your team to effectively write down ideas, prioritize experiments, and put them into practice.

But where do you begin?

1) Start with the scientific method.

Ah, yes. We’re back to Week 1 of any science class you've ever taken. As it turns out, you really do use some of that elementary school information in real life.

 

Source: Science Buddies

When it comes to building a process for experimentation, it comes down to following the scientific method. Create a way to brainstorm ideas, construct hypotheses from them, implement them, and prioritize your ending analysis and conclusions.

When experimenting for the sake of growth, building this process for your team isn’t a one-and-done deal. Instead, according to Balfour, a good process has to be:

1. "Scalable

2. Predictable

3. Repeatable"

In other words, it’s not enough to just say that the scientific method is your process. Instead, use the scientific method as template to structure your internal process. 

2) Always have a goal in mind.

Once you have your process down, the next step is to set goals, which might sound simple in theory. But the goals of any given experiment can't just be "growth" -- because growth along isn't measurable. Instead, every experiment you run should have an actionable and testable outcome, which means you have to start small.

Let’s break it down with an example:

• What's the overall goal? Revenue growth.
• How are you going to drive more revenue? By acquiring more leads.
• How will you do that? Increase the conversion rate of my lowest-converting lead generation campaign.
• What is your campaign-specific goal? Increase conversions on one landing page by >5% and find statistically significant results.
• How will you implement an experiment to meet that goal? A/B test the title of the lead generation offer.

You can see from th example that while increasing your revenue is an admirable high-level goal, it’s not actually actionable unless you break it down into actionable experiments. And tying a metric to your experiment -- in this case, increasing conversions by greater than 5% on one landing page -- is what makes it actionable.

If you have trouble setting actionable goals for your experiments, start with that high-level goal and work your way down an incremental path, until you have something that you can tie to a metric.

3) Encourage and enable brainstorming and hypothesis.

Building a culture of experimentation within your team requires the encouragement and motivation to always be brainstorming. That's why building a mechanism for tracking and recording those brainstorms is essential for any good growth experiment process.

Whether it’s an Excel sheet, Google Doc, Trello board, internal wiki page, or any other tool your team typically uses for internal documentation, make sure there’s room for any and all brainstorming.

Still, it’s not enough to just throw raw ideas into a document somewhere. Instead, you have to require your team to take those brainstorm ideas and turn them into actual hypotheses based on research.

Here’s an example of what this looks like in practice:

• Idea from brainstorm doc: Use a pop-up modal instead of a in-line CTA to increase conversions on our blog posts.
• Research: Our in-line CTAs are only converting at a rate below 1%. If we use a slide-in or pop-up CTA, we could make the CTA more visible to boost conversions.
• Hypothesis: By using pop-up modal CTAs, we will increase our conversions from a blog post to a landing page by >2%, with statistically significant results.

4) Figure out a way to prioritize what comes first.

Once you’ve enabled brainstorming and hypothesis-writing on your team, you’ll might find that you have more ideas than you know what to do with. That's not a bad thing -- remember that growth occurs because of many moving pieces. The more things you have to test, the more you’ll be able to grow over time.

That said, with hundreds of ideas being thrown around, you'll have to figure out a way to actually prioritize which experiments you put resources into first, and why. While there are many ways to do that, at HubSpot, we often use the PIE method - “Priority, Importance, Ease.”

We execute this method by compiling all of our ideas into one document and then rate, on a scale of 1-10, each project in the categories of Priority, Importance, and Ease. Then, we take the totals for each category, and divide those numbers by three. That gives us a PIE score to rank each individual project, and we can better determine which experiments or projects to work on first.

No matter what process you use to prioritize experiments, always remember to focus on the ideas that you think will have the biggest impact. That can help you prove the value of your experiments to your team and company, and drive that culture of experimentation forward.

5) Take time to design and implement effective experiments.

Now comes the fun, but most challenging part -- implementing your experiments.

Whether you’re performing an A/B test on a landing page, analyzing creative content on your social media ads, or looking at the full conversion path of your lead generation offers, take the time to fully think through the details of your experiment. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Test one thing at a time. The more variables you have in one experiment, the less meaningful your results will be. If you test one landing page design against a completely different landing page without any experiments in between, your results won’t tell you much about what actually worked in that experiment. Instead, if you test one variable at a time -- like the title, imagery, colors, fonts, and module placement -- you’ll be able to learn from each experiment which variable is actually causing a difference in results.

Source: HubSpot Academy

• Set up a way to measure your results before the experiment begins. Many of your experiments will require a tool to help you actually perform it. Whether you’re using a content management system or designing an experiment by hand, understand how you’re going to measure and assign meaning to your results before you get started.

• Set a time frame. How long will you let your experiment run before you call the results -- one day? Two weeks? Until the results become statistically significant? Setting a time frame will not only help make your experiments more accurate and consistent, but also, will help you track results without letting the experiment fall to the wayside. Once you’ve set a time frame, set a reminder for yourself to analyze the results on the day the experiment is complete.

• Learn from experience. Use the findings of your experiments to come up with new ideas for future ones. Your experiments don’t have to be a one-time engagement. Good growth is built on a culture of constant experimentation.

6) Always analyze your experiments.

When the timer goes off and your experiment is complete, it's critical that you actually analyze and record the results and use them in practice. But it's not as simple as learning if your hypothesis was correct or not. Instead, the analysis needs to answer the following questions:

1. Was my hypothesis correct or incorrect?
2. Are the results of my test statistically significant?
3. What do my results mean?
4. What could/should I have done differently in this experiment?
5. How can I use these results going forward?
6. What should my next experiment be to build on this finding?

Building a culture of experimentation isn't just about getting a “pass” or “fail” answer on an experiment. Instead, true analysis happens when you think about what the results say about your efforts, and how you can use what you learned to move forward with new experiments.

7) Share and systematize your learnings.

Before you repeat this process in your next experiment, it's critical to share the results of your experiment with your colleagues. Sharing information internally is a great way to both encourage transparency and generate feedback -- which can help you build upon a history of experimentation.

At HubSpot, we use an internal wiki where we post experiment results, in addition to all kinds of internal information for employees. It’s a great way to keep everyone in the loop on what’s going on, as well as get feedback from colleagues who might be interested in your findings.

You can also keep a running document of your experiments, so that the findings are easily accessible in one place. For example, you could create a document where you track all of your A/B tests from your landing pages or all of your tests on CTAs.

Build on What Others Have Done Before You

Now you know how to build a growth process that will be scalable, predictable, and repeatable. But if you’re like me, you probably want a document to use as a starting point,  and build from there.

Luckily, we've created a Growth Marketing Experiment Template based on this process that you can use and customize for your own internal process. Want your own free copy? Download these free Growth Marketing Experiments Templates now.

What does your experimentation process look like? Let us know in the comments.

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10 Meaningless, Overused, and Boring Phrases You Should Cut from Your Resume

Here's the good news: marketing and ad agencies are getting serious about hiring new talent.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, advertising, promotions, and marketing manager employment is expected to rise 9% by 2024 -- which is faster than the average for all occupations. 

The not-so-good news? The competition is fierce.

If you want to stand out in a crowded applicant pool, you need to make sure your resume is free from filler phrases, clichés, and things that make you sound unprofessional or unprepared. To help you out, we've compiled a list of 10 vague, overused, and downright boring phrases you should cut from your resume.

Are you guilty of using any of these on your resume?

10 Phrases You Should Cut from Your Resume

1) "I was responsible for ..."

The things you were responsible for at your last job don't actually say anything about your performance. For example, I was once "responsible" for watering a plant, but that plant is now dead.

Instead of presenting your experience like a checklist of completed tasks, focus on your accomplishments. What did you do at your last job that made a big impact? What did you particularly excel at? Agencies want to see what you achieved, not just what your day-to-day looked like.

2) "I have experience in ... "

Saying you "have experience" doing something is passive and vague, and can almost always be replaced by a more active word. Instead of saying you "have experience" working with a particular strategy, dig into the specifics of what you've accomplished, e.g.: "I A/B tested email nurturing campaigns to develop a workflow that converted prospects at 35%."

See? That sounds much better than, "I have experience with email nurturing campaigns."

3) "I assisted with ... "

Saying you assisted with something doesn't explain how exactly you contributed. Instead of saying you "assisted" with a project, get specific, and don't be afraid to own your accomplishments.

Even if you only worked on a small section of a successful project, explain how your contributions fit into the final product, e.g.: "Optimized landing pages as part of a global nurturing campaign."

4) "I'm proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint."

This phrase usually gets tacked onto the end of resumes in the "skills" section, but you're probably better off cutting it out entirely. 

Unless you're applying for a job that specifically asks for advanced experience with Microsoft Office, there's really no need to mention this. These days, it's pretty much a given that you have some level of proficiency with Microsoft Office. Including it as one of your skills not only comes across as outdated, it can also make it seem like you don't have any more relevant skills worth mentioning. 

5) "I ran social media."

"Social media" often gets thrown around on resumes without specifics -- which can make you sound like you don't really know what you're talking about.

Social media isn't a skill or a discipline, it's a tool that can be leveraged to accomplish business goals. Saying you "ran social media" or "worked in social media" is like saying you ran PowerPoint. What did you do with social media? How did you use it to accomplish a real business goal? 

6) "I have strong communication / writing skills."

Do you remember in middle school writing class when the teacher introduced the concept of show, don't tell? That still applies today. 

Show hiring managers you have strong writing and communication skills by creating a stellar resume and cover letter -- and triple check for spelling and grammar. Mistakes happen to the best of us, but they're easy to weed out of an important job application.

7) "I'm a motivated self-starter."

If you're an adult who can't get yourself motivated to be productive and work hard, then you probably shouldn't be applying for a demanding marketing job. Leave out this overused phrase, and instead highlight a time you went above and beyond on a project. 

8) "I'm goal-oriented / results-oriented."

Here's a fact: nobody hates accomplishing goals. If you want to prove you're particularly driven, give concrete examples of goals you've met -- or better yet, goals you've beaten. 

9) "I'm a marketing ninja / rock star."

Giving yourself a quirky title might seem like a cute, creative way to stand out in a sea of "digital marketing managers," but it can come across as more than a little obnoxious.

Even if the hiring manager doesn't personally mind the unconventional headline, it doesn't actually explain what you do. Don't take the risk: Describe yourself in a straightforward, professional way. 

10) "Disruptive / ground-breaking"

Marketers tend to love big, bold adjectives, but hyperbolic copy doesn't belong on your resume. Cut the clichéd descriptions and keep things direct and sincere. 

What phrases do you think people should stop using in their resumes? Let us know in the comments.

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8 Timeless Business Lessons From Bill Belichick

Editor's Note: This post was published in 2006. Stats were updated in 2016 to reflect Belichick's current coaching record -- and the CD and TiVo references were left for posterity.

Many of you who are football fans or are from New England probably know who Bill Belichick is. For the rest of you, he is the head coach of the New England Patriots. Since he joined the organization in 2000, the Patriots have won five Super Bowls.

As a student of business strategy, I find Belichick to be a fascinating character. His accomplishment of winning five Super Bowls is truly remarkable because the market (NFL) he competes in is "efficient" by design, and rebalances itself to increase efficiency in clever ways.

Every year, the teams that were top performers the prior year are penalized by getting lower relative draft picks than the teams that didn't perform as well. In addition, the NFL has a salary cap, so even if your team sells out every game, has massive endorsement deals, and humongous TV deals as a result of winning all those Super Bowls, there is a cap on spending that puts you at the same level as every other team.

I had a chance to listen to the Bill Belichick biography by David Halberstam over the weekend on CD and also happened to watch his interview on 60 minutes that I TiVo'd awhile back. Here are some of the highlights I pulled out of the two that are both relative to his management style and his competitive strategy formulation.

8 Timeless Business Lessons From Bill Belichick

Lesson #1: Skills and performance matter more than tenure. [Tweet this]

Belichick does not believe in "tenured" jobs for his players. They are constantly evaluating and ranking all their players. Senior people are not "entitled" to their job -- it’s a complete meritocracy.

Lesson #2: Focus on being better organized than the competition. [Tweet this]

Belichick believes that being better "organized" than the competition is the way to win.

Lesson #3: Always challenge the status quo. [Tweet this]

Belichick created a "modern, sophisticated" team that played by different rules and valued different skills/metrics than any other team. He exploited market inefficiencies much like a hedge fund would.

Lesson #4: Effective team management matters. Invest in it. [Tweet this]

After losing a particularly important playoff game to an injury-ridden Patriots team, Peyton Manning (MVP that year) commented that, "it doesn't seem to matter who they trot out there, it's their 'system' that wins them games." It seems that winning football games is more closely correlated with smart management than talented players.

Lesson #5: Don't let your ego get in the way. [Tweet this]

After having success, Belichick fought to keep the ego out. He feels like ego is a poison that kills teams.

Lesson #6: Team > individual. [Tweet this]

Belichick is all about the team first and individual second.

Lesson #7: Get to know your competition inside and out. [Tweet this]

Belichick's father was an assistant football coach at the Naval Academy. His main role there was to scout opponents. Belichick literally grew up looking at opponent film with his father. He became an expert at finding weaknesses in his opponents' offenses and defenses.

In particular, he became very good at identifying quarterbacks' weaknesses. For example, he would track metrics on accuracy throwing left, right, center, short, and long while standing still, while moving out of the pocket left, and moving out of the pocket right. Based on those metrics, he would design his defensive schemas.

Belichick won five Super Bowls because he was better at understanding his enemy than anyone else. Not sure if he ever read The Art of War, but he's Sun Tzu's modern day poster child.

Lesson #8: Use data to drive your decisions. [Tweet this]

From the book and the interview, it struck me that Belichick uses a sophisticated information technology platform to help unearth counter-intuitive insights about his business to create competitive differentiation.

What business lessons did we miss? Share them with us in the comments below.

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18 Productivity-Boosting Bots for Marketers

If it's not clear by now, allow us to be the first ones to tell you: Artificial Intelligence [AI] is here to stay. There have been some mixed responses to this phenomenon. Forrester reports that AI will eliminate 16% of U.S. jobs by 2025, which understandably freaks some people out. But that same report also says it will provide some job creation, so the news isn't all bad. In fact, we've found AI to be pretty helpful in certain situations, especially when it comes to boosting productivity.

Bots are becoming increasingly popular in this realm. Built to integrate with existing platforms -- usually those used for messaging -- many of them now automate tasks for which marketers have long lamented the time-consuming nature. Think: Scheduling and keeping projects on track.

We rounded up some of our favorite productivity-boosting bots and compiled them into a directory. Here's what we have, organized alphabetically, following some helpful information about how this all works.

A Bit About Bots

What Bots Do

A bot is a type of automated technology that’s programmed to execute certain tasks without human intervention. That is, it might be prompted by a human to perform an action, but it can carry it out on its own.

Bots are one form of AI, and many of them answer questions like a human being would. For the purposes of this post, we're covering the bots that work within platforms like Slack -- a real-time messaging platform that many companies use for internal communication -- and Facebook Messenger.

Slack

These bots are actually referred to as a type of app, in that they integrate with Slack to respond to commands and execute subsequent tasks. For example, the Giphy bot responds to keyword commands to pull up a carousel of animated GIF images that you can send to other Slack users, instead of making you search for them yourself:

Messenger

Here, Bots typically serve the purpose of answering questions or responding to customer service requests. With the HealthTap bot, for example, users can send a medical inquiry and receive an automated response that's likely to answer your question. Plus, if you need to, you can speak with a doctor after your questions been answered, as prompted by the bot:

In other words, bots like these were developed to carry out otherwise human tasks, to save you time from doing them yourself. We developed a directory of those that have been proven to be some of the most helpful to marketers.

Directory of 18 Productivity-Boosting Bots for Marketers

1) Crashlytics

Free | Slack | Additional Integrations

A self-described "powerful and lightweight crash reporting system," Crashlytics is designed to help users save the time they would normally spend figuring out where crashes come from, and what causes them -- down to the exact line of code where a crash originates. It can serve as a stand-alone app on iOS or Android, but we love that its bot can integrate with Slack, to send these reports and crash updates in real-time.

2) Dbot

Free | Slack

Source: Botlist

Dbot was made for seamless security, and automatically monitors Slack conversations -- quietly, in the background -- for instances when users need to be warned about malicious content. That usually comes down to two functions:

1. Scanning files shared within these conversations.
2. Scaning URLs and IP addresses within these conversations.

Typically, many users would have to visit multiple sources to verify the safety of both things. Dbot makes it easier, by performing security checks from a platform you might already be using -- when you ask it to, and when it discovers something potentially malicious in existing conversations.

3) Driftbot

$0 - $50 | Slack | Other Integrations

Source: Drift

Drift, a real-time messaging app for connecting marketers with customers and website visitors, is a master of integrating with other platforms -- because "we don’t want to change the way you work — we just want to be a part of it." That's why its bot was designed to work with many of the other tools you might use to manage or reach contacts, like Shopify for retail, or in your HubSpot software. In the video below, Drift Product Manager Matt Bilotti explains how it works with the latter.

4) Growthbot

Free | Slack | Messenger

Meet GrowthBot, your personal sales and marketing research assistant. Integrating with both Slack and Messenger, this chatbot also connects with both Google Analytics and your HubSpot software to help you find the information you need in realtime -- traffic data, company information, or even prospecting. Plus, if you need it to do so, it'll tell you a joke. Have a look:

5) Jarvis

Free | Messenger

As much as I love to write about time management and productivity, I'll admit it -- I still occasionally fall victim to checking Facebook throughout the work day. But it's not just that. As marketers, many of us do our work within Facebook, anyway, to update social media pages or work on campaigns. That's why Jarvis is so helpful. It's a personal assistant bot that can set and send you reminders within Facebook. Like so many other bots, it integrates with a platform that many of us are already using, to help us get more done and make life a little easier.

6) Kayak

Free | Slack | Messenger

Source: Kayak

Finding a great deal on airfare is something that's enjoyed by many, but mastered by few. That's why there are sites out there like Kayak -- a one-stop-shop that scans across dozens of airlines to find the best price for a flight. Now, with the Kayak chatbot, it can be used for the same purpose on Slack and Messenger. It's like having your very own travel agent, but without the fee.

7) Leo

Free | Slack

Source: Kayak

Employee satisfaction is no laughing matter. A scant 32% of people are actually engaged at work, and there are ongoing efforts to improve and measure those numbers. One of them is Leo, a bot designed to help employers survey employee satisfaction, without asking them to stray from tools that they're already using. Questions and response choices can be customized, ranging from a star-rating system to user-specified text. Plus, like most bots, it does its job in real-time, helping employers "spot trends before they become problems."

8) Lyft

Free | Slack

Attention, Slack users -- wouldn't it be nice if you could use Slack to request a ride from, say, a on-demand car service app like Lyft? Without reaching for your phone and opening the app, that is. Now, you can, with a simple "/lyft" command. After you connect your Lyft account to Slack, you can use the bot to get an ETA, request pickup, and more -- right from a platform you're already using.

9) MarketSpace

Free to install | Fee per company followed | Slack

Source: MarketSpace on Medium

This app was created to help marketers follow the companies they care about the most. Whether they're existing customers, prospects, or just brands that pique your interest, MarketSpace alerts you when these companies secure funding, make important new hires, or launch products. Plus, it's got a bot to send you these alerts through Slack.

10) Meekan

Free | Slack | Other Integrations

Source: MarketSpace on Medium

Sometimes, it seems like scheduling a meeting can take more time than the appointment itself. That's why apps like Meekan are so helpful. It syncs with everyone's calendars to find a time when all parties are available. Plus, since it's a bot, you know what that means -- Meekan integrates with your existing programs to help you get this task done, without opening a separate app. But its capabilities aren't limited to meetings; It's automated to let users reschedule existing meetings, and can also help you search for flights.

11) Mya

Currently in Private Beta | Custom Integrations Available

Source: MarketSpace on Medium

Finding the best talent for your team is never an easy task. In fact, 84% of HR professionals report a noticeable shortage of the right skills from job applicants. In other words, it's one area where all of us could use as much help as we can get. Enter Mya, "your recruiting AI," which is programmed for users to engage and qualify prospective employees by asking applicants the right questions -- so you don't have to.

12) Nikabot

Free for first 30 days | $4.99 per Tracked User Each Month | Slack

People tend to favor jobs with a high degree of autonomy. But when teams become busy, keeping track of what everyone is working on can be a challenge. Apps like Nikabot exist to address that very problem, by automatically pinging employees each day to ask what they're working on, then synthesizing that data into a single report for review. What do you have to do? Integrate the app, let Nikabot go to work, and read the report when it's done. Yup -- that's it.

Source: Nikabot on Vimeo

13) Nurtz

$0.02 per word | Slack

Source: Nurtz

Even the most experienced writers need their work to be proofread -- after all, that's why we have editors. But interrupting an editor every time you need, say, an email to be looked over for typos isn't exactly an efficient process. And that's why there's Nurtz, the proofreading bot. Just paste the text you need to be proofread into your Slack conversation with Nurtz, and it'll send back your typo-free copy. It's worth noting, however, that there are humans behind the bots who do a lot of the proofreading, so results from Nurtz take a little longer to return than many of the other bots we've listed here.

14) Simple Poll

Free | Slack

The marketer's workplace is full of important decisions, and multiple options to go with them. What's the best title for this blog post? What's the best choice for our next seasonal promotion? Where should we get lunch today? Enter SimplePoll -- the friendly bot that lets you pose these questions and answers to your colleagues within Slack, and allows them to select their choices with the simple click of a button.

Source: Simple Poll

15) Standup Bot

$20 - $40 per Month | Slack

If you work in an office setting, chances are, you're familiar with the "Monday Morning Standup" -- the weekly check-in meeting in which everyone fills the team in on their projects, questions, and concerns. Now, with apps like Standup Bot, you can do just that, but virtually. Similar to Nikabot, this bot is programmed to collect this information from employees and compile it into one report, making it especially helpful for teams that work remotely.

Source: Simple Poll

16) Tettra

Free for 15 Days | $5 per User, per Month | Slack

Source: Tettra

These days, many companies have an internal wiki -- a place where employees can share knowledge, how-tos, and other helpful information with colleagues. The problem is that, with enough of it, this information can become overwhelming, and it might be tricky for everyone to find what they're looking for. Tettra was designed to avoid that, and to help users contribute and find information right from Slack. Find entries with the "/tettra find [search]" command. Add them with the "/tettra new [title]" command. Yes, it is that easy.

17) Todoist

$0 - $28.99 per Year | Slack | Other Integrations

Source: Todoist

Scheduling meetings with others is one thing. Scheduling time for yourself? Well, that's a separate issue entirely. There are apps like Todoist for that very reason -- they use "smart scheduling" to automatically suggest times to work on projects and due dates for them based on your habits, task urgency, or upcoming tasks. But how does it know? It's able to observe what you tend to do at a given time of day, or day of the week. Its bot can integrate with platforms you're already using -- like Slack -- and helps you manage your own schedule, by finding the most optimal times for you to get things done.

18) Tomatobot

Free | Slack

Source: Slack API

Studies say that the most productive employees take 17-minute breaks for every 52 minutes of work they put in. But there's a problem -- how many of us actually remember to take these breaks? I can say that I, for one, struggle with that. Luckily, there are apps like Tomatobot that set timers for this very purpose. Once you start work with the command "/startwork", you'll receive a message from the bot (via Slack) to let you know when it's time to take a break. It also allows users to record their distractions and what they've been working on during these breaks, to help you review certain patterns and improve the way you work.

There's a Bot for That

Once upon a time, we used to go around stating in unison, "There's an app for that." And while that proclamation still holds true, it seems that there's a new productivity boss in town -- and it belongs to AI.

The market for bots is already quite crowded -- just look at how many are listed in Slack's full directory. We're eager to see how bots continue to aid in the productivity of marketers, and will keep you posted on what we observe.

What are some bots that boost your productivity? Let us know in the comments.

http://bit.ly/2lfrZvy

How to Use Facebook Page Engagement Custom Audiences

Want more ways to retarget people on Facebook? Have you heard about Facebook’s latest custom audience features? Facebook’s newest custom audiences let you target people based on their engagement with your Facebook page. In this article, you’ll discover how to build six new custom audiences based on Facebook page engagement. Find the Facebook Page Engagement [...]

This post How to Use Facebook Page Engagement Custom Audiences first appeared on .
- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

February 06, 2017 at 12:00PM http://bit.ly/2kcPYui
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34 Stats to Help You Plan Your Social Media Strategy on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & More

Back in October, I wrote a piece on Medium that covered the numbers behind some of today's top social media networks. 

From usage numbers to engagement statistics, it was incredible to see just how impactful networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become. For example, not only is Facebook home to 1.23 billion daily active users on average, but those users come from all over the world -- with 85.2% residing outside of the U.S. and Canada. That's a crazy level of connectivity.

As I put together the post, it became obvious just how fast these networks were growing -- and I thought a lot about how hard is it to keep up with all of these changes, especially for marketers. To make things a little easier to wrap your head around, I put together a simplified list of some standout statistics for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instragram, and Pinterest. Check them out below if you're looking for some guidance for your social media strategy this year. 

34 Stats to Help You Plan Your Social Media Strategy on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & More

Facebook

• Organic reach of Facebook Page post is 2%.
• The average post reach of total audience is 10.71%.
• Facebook Page videos generate 16% more engagement per post than images.
• Videos secured the most reach, at 12.17% of total audience, followed by photos (11.53%), links (9.32%) and status updates (5.09%).
• Ideal length of a status update: 40 characters.
• 0.80% median viral reach per fan for post with hashtags, 1.30% for post without hashtags.
• Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those without images. 

Twitter

• Tweets with images receive 18% more clickthroughs, 89% more Likes, and 150% more retweets.
• 60% of consumers expect brands to respond to their query within the hour, but the average is 1 hour 24 minutes.
• Ideal tweet length: 100 characters.
• Clickthrough rate is highest on Wednesdays.
• Tweet that doesn’t include a # or @ mention will generate 23% more clicks. When the tweet is focused on driving an app install, for going a # or @ mention increases clicks by 11%. But according to Quicksprout, tweets with hashtags get 2X more engagement -- clicks, retweets, favorites, and replies.    

LinkedIn

• B2B buyers are turning to LinkedIn for content that will help them move forward in the buyer's journey -- and 57% are doing so on a mobile device.
• LinkedIn is home to 467 million members in more than 200 countries, meaning it's a great place for global brands to distribute content. 
• LinkedIn has studied its own platform and found that including images in posts increases the comment rate by 98%.
• Updates containing links can have up to 45% higher follower engagement than updates without links.
• 16–25 words is the ideal message length for B2B, 21–25 for B2C.
• 20 posts per month can help you reach 60% of your unique audience.

Instagram

• On average, people miss 70% of their feeds.
• 1.1% average engagement rate of all posts (4.2% in 2014; 2.2% in 2015).
• Images with a single dominant color generate 17% more Likes than images with multiple dominant colors. Images with a high amount of negative space generate 29% more Likes than those with minimal negative space. Images featuring blue as the dominant color generate 24% more Likes than images that are predominantly red.
• Photos showing faces get 38% more Likes than photos not showing faces.
• Photos see more engagement than videos on Instagram.
• The red heart is the most frequently shared emoji on Instagram, which is shared 79% more than the next most popular symbol, a smiling face with heart eyes.
• 50% of captions and comments on Instagram contain at least one emoji.
• The most common posting frequency for brands on Instagram is 11–20 times per month.
• Instagram audiences are more engaged on Mondays and Thursdays at 2 a.m., 8–9 a.m., and 5 p.m.

Pinterest

• Product Pins with prices get 36% more likes than those without.
• 67% of Pinners consult Pins on their mobile devices while shopping in stores.
• Don’t be shy to ask : A call-to-action Pin description can increase engagement by 80%.
• 83% of users would rather follow a brand than a celebrity.
• Active Pinners have a 9% higher average income than non-users.
• Users who Pin 15 to 30 times a day get the best results.
• 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 1 p.m. are the best time to post, and Saturday is the best day.

What networks are you most interested in investing in this year? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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