Step Up Your Social

In this episode of Step Up Your Social, we're delving into one of my favorite examples of content marketing on the entire internet. Traditional marketing highlights a product or feature that it thinks you'll care about.  Brand marketing tries to make you feel something about the advertiser. Content marketing looks to provide value as a way of getting into your feed or inbox and building trust over time. The Ad Professor is a master of creating content that's so good, I'm legitimately excited to see them hit my inbox. Is the whole thing an ad for their agency? Yup! Do I care? Nope! Because I know that there's value waiting for me in every single issue. Find links to their site, and a whole lot more at StepUpYourSocial.com.

Been hearing about Bluesky in the news and not sure what it is or if it matters for you and your brand? In this episode of Step Up Your Social, we dive into what it is, who it's for, tools to check out and a whole lot more. Tune in today. Find links, past episodes and more at StepUpYourSocial.com.

If your social media engagement is down, you're not alone! Social media is an amazing tool to reach new people. But never forget, social media is rented land. Keep posting to your social channels, but also use them to grow on real estate you own. This can include newsletters, blogs, digital communities, podcasts and more. In this episode of Step UP Your Social, we talk about why this matters, and how you can use lead gen (short for lead generation) tools to start to move your audience from rented land on social media to real estate you actually own.

So many brands works so hard on their social media posts and newsletters, but overlook crucial comms opportunities by outsourcing important messaging to bureaucrats. When someone places an order with you, or donates to your organization, or even just signs up for your newsletter, are they welcomed into the family and made to feel as special as they are? Or simply sent a brief “thanks”? Too many brands overlook such key moments in their audience journey. In today's episode of Step Up Your Social, we'll look at one massive failure, and a whole bunch of successes. Hopefully this episode will inspire you to revisit your own customer or donor journey and edit accordingly!

This is a short episode, adapted from an article I wrote 5 years, about the importance of engaging with positive comments on social media. It's as true today as it was the day I wrote it. So I wanted to share it with you, my podcast listeners. If someone goes out of their way to say something nice about you on social, and you can't be bothered to smash that like button, you should re-evaluate why you are on social in the first place!

A vanity url is a memorable url that will redirect to the page where you actually want to send people. They are easy (and inexpensive) to set-up, and can help your user easily find your brand's important content and sub-campaigns. In this episode of Step Up Your Social, we delve into what they are, how to set them up, when you should use them and more. We also cover Bit.ly links and talk about when those can and should be used in lieu of vanity urls. If you aren't using both of these tools in your digital toolkit, you're making things harder than they need to be for your audience. Tune in today and learn more.

If you use the internet, you've likely heard of WORDLE.  According to Buzzfeed, there have been nearly 2 million tweets mentioning “WORDLE” since November of 2021.  But here's the thing: this game, that so many people play and talk about, had only 90 users in November. Not 90 thousand… 90.  How did this viral phenomenon happen and what can we as digital marketers learn from it? A lot!

In Episode 13, we discussed why you should be blogging. Today let's talk about how you should approach writing content for your blog. In this episode, we cover a lot of best practices for blogging in 10 minutes or less including: The Goldilocks approach to finding good topic areasHow to make your content easy to skimHow to write for your audience, even if you're not a great writerThe ideal length of a blog post (hint: it's exactly how long it needs to be and not one word longer!)And the importance of writing for Google. Or Facebook. Or both. Tune in today and then get ready to step up your blogging!

What do you do at the end of your customer lifecycle? Do you go above and beyond to ensure that the customer who is moving on never forgets just how much they love you? Chewy is a pet supply company. They know their customers will have to cancel their auto-renewal products... eventually

One of my favorite podcasts, Reply All, just did a whole episode trying to track down something that wasn't showing up on Google. If they had remembered that Facebook, while it's first and foremost a social media channel, is also a search engine, they could have saved themselves a whole lot of time and energy. The Facebook search bar is more powerful than you probably realize. In this episode of Step Up Your Social, we'll walk through some of the power lurking right at your fingertips. Have any search bar tricks you like that we didn't cover? Or find any surprises utilizing any of the above? We want to hear them!  Drop us a line at stepupyoursocial.com or hit us up on social using #StepUpYourSocial.

In this episode I cover a bunch of free digital tools you should be using, but probably aren't. These free tools will help you step up your graphic design, your writing, your video storytelling and a whole lot more. You can stream all episodes of Step Up Your Social here, or at stepupyoursocial.com. Are there any free digital tools you use that I didn't cover? I'd love to hear about them. You can email me at suys@reverbalcommucations.com, hit me up on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn at Reverbal Communications or tweet at me using the hashtag #stepupyoursocial. Thanks for listening.

Step Up Your Social as a podcast exists to share quick, actionable tips to help you take your digital marketing to the next level. In this episode, we explore at 7 times the airlines blew it on social media, and talk about what we can learn from their collective mistakes so ensure that their fails become our best practices.

There are three primary reasons you should be blogging to grow your brand: 1) It's great for your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) 2) It positions you as an expert in your field 3) It creates endless bridges between your social media and your website In this episode of #StepUpYourSocial, we dig into all three of these reasons, as well as how to approach creating content, the difference between timely and evergreen content... and a whole lot more! Tune in today right here or wherever you listen to podcasts.

A supporter spotlight is an opportunity for you to shine a light on one of your supporters and talk about how great they are. It can be a blog or a Facebook post, a short video on Instagram or whatever else makes sense for your brand. The primary thing is that you are shouting someone important to your brand. And support spotlights are win-win-win. In this ep, we'll cover the what, the how and the why. Tune in today.

Instagram Stories just keep getting more popular. Over 500 million people now use them every single day! And their functionality keeps growing as well. In this episode of #StepUpYourSocial, we cover ten tips, tricks, hacks and strategies that you should be using to take your Instagram Story game to the next level. Are there any tricks or hacks you like that we didn't cover? We want to hear them! Hit us up on our website (stepupyoursocial.com), on Instagram (@jlemonsk) or on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn (we're Reverbal Communications) or share online them using the hashtag #stepupyoursocial. In the meantime, keep telling your story!

Don't you wish you had a magic wand you could use to see what your competitors were doing well, so that you could grow your own business accordingly? Facebook has a free feature, available to all Facebook Brand pages, that might as well be a magic wand. Yet so few brands are taking advantage of this simple, powerful and important feature. So let's dig into Facebook's “Pages To Watch.” Afterward, we'll cover some other helpful and free tools you should be using to keep tabs on your competitors across the internet.

Warren Buffet is a better writer than you for one simple reason: he knows his audience and he writes directly for them. Are you doing the same? Don't write your content for "the world," rather write it for an individual. Don't try to make yourself *sound* smart. Try to make your reader *feel* smart. This episode covers some takeaways from Social Media Marketing World 2019 and pulls from a great presentation given by Ann Handley, the author of Everybody Writes.

Social media can be an overwhelming place, especially when you feel like you don't speak the language. TIL, FWIW, IMHO... it can be hard to even know where to start. In this episode, we do a deep dive into a bunch of social media acronyms you should know. Any we missed? Tweet them at us (@ReverbalC) using #StepUpYourSocial. In the meantime, HTH (Hope This Helps!).

There are 5 keywords that, when used in a post on Facebook, automatically limit your post's reach. Facebook has labeled the tactic in question as "Engagement Bait." While Engagement Bait first started being penalized in the Facebook algorithm over a year ago, Facebook just recently began applying their penalties to video content, as well as to text. In this episode, we cover the what, the why and the how of Engagement Bait, as well as some tips for avoiding it.

You start a new Facebook brand page. It's only natural to invite everyone you know to like the page. The problem is, you're actually hurting your page's future growth when you invite people who like you — but don't care about your brand — to like your Facebook brand page. In this episode: • We dive into the Facebook algorithm • Talk about the difference between "good" and "bad" likes • Cover helpful tips to grow your page with the right audience • The importance of using a brand page for your page (as opposed to a personal account) • And a whole lot more

Are you leaving low hanging fruit on the table? Are you missing opportunities to encourage your current customers, fans or audience to start conversations with you online, thus promoting your brand to their own networks in the process. In this episode, we cover two inter-related topics: the importance of displaying your handles *everywhere* your audience is and the vital role that engagement plays in creating and managing a beneficial social media program. Never forget — social media is not a tool to speak TO the people. It's a tool to speak WITH the people. The goal is to have conversations and to build relationships.

If you run ads on Facebook without first building quality audiences, it's like you're standing in the street, throwing expensive flyers in the air, and hoping for the best. Facebook offers you the opportunity to microtarget based on tons of different factors. In this episode, we talk about the importance of microtargeting, as well as provide an overview of the three different Facebook advertising audience types: custom, lookalike and saved.

"Stories" are the Facebook response to Snapchat — fun, quirky bits of content that disappear after 24 hours. Instagram Stories alone has over 400 million daily active users — more than twice as many as Snapchat. In this episode of Step Up Your Social, we cover the what, the when and the how of Stories along with a bunch of tips, tricks and fun things you should try.

Twitter lists are an amazing listening tool, whether or not your brand is active on Twitter.

Do you know the difference between crossposting across your various social media channels and autoposting? You should! One of these is fine — the other is definitely not. #StepUpYourSocial is a flash podcast series, providing quick, actionable tips to help your master your social media. Get ready to Step Up Your Social!